Search -
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno.
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri Inferno Author:Dante Alighieri Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CANTO XV. Now bears us onward one of the hard margins, And so the brooklet's mist o'ershadows it, From fire it saves the water and the dikes. Even as th... more »e Flemings, 'twixt Cadsand and Bruges, Fearing the flood that tow'rds them hurls itself, 5 Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight; And as the Paduans along the Brenta, To guard their villas and their villages, Or ever Chiarentana feel the heat; In such similitude had those been made, in Albeit not so lofty nor so thick, Whoever he might be, the master made them. Now were we from the forest so remote, I could not have discovered where it was, Even if backward I had turned myself, 15 When we a company of souls encountered, Who came beside the dike, and every one Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont To eye each other under a new moon, And so towards us sharpened they their brows 20 As an old tailor at the needle's eye. Thus scrutinized by such a family, By some one I was recognized, who seized My garment's hem, and cried out, "What a marvel!" And I, when he stretched forth his arm to me, 25 On his baked aspect fastened so mine eyes, That the scorched countenance prevented not His recognition by my intellect; And bowing down my face unto his own, I made reply, "Are you here, Ser Brunetto?" 30 And he: "May 't not displease thee, O my son, If a brief space with thee Brunetto Latini Backward return and let the trail go on." I said to him: "With all my power I ask it; And if you wish me to sit down with you, 35 I will, if he please, for I go with him." "O son," he said, "whoever of this herd A moment stops, lies then a hundred years, Nor fans himself when smiteth him the fire. Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will come, 40 And afterward w...« less