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Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri Books

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The New Life

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Vita Nuova

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“Amor, ch'al cor gentile ratto s'apprende prese costui de la bella persona che mi fu tolta; e 'l modo ancor m'offende. Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona, Mi prese del costui piacer sì forte, Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona..." "Love, which quickly arrests the gentle heart, Seized him with my beautiful form That was taken from me, in a manner which still grieves me. Love, which pardons no beloved from loving, took me so strongly with delight in him That, as you see, it still abandons me not...”

LovePoetryItalianItalyMedieval Literature
Book:Inferno
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“И я, с главою, ужасом стесненной: "Чей это крик? — едва спросить посмел. — Какой толпы, страданьем побежденной?" И вождь в ответ: "То горестный удел Тех жалких душ, что прожили, не зная Ни славы, ни позора смертных дел. И с ними ангелов дурная стая, Что, не восстав, была и не верна Всевышнему, средину соблюдая. Их свергло небо, не терпя пятна; И пропасть Ада их не принимает, Иначе возгордилась бы вина". (Песнь третья, "Ад")”

SoulSinHellдушагрехад
Book:The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
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“Many a time the thought returns to me: What sad conditions Love on me bestows! And moved by Pity I say frequently: 'Can there be anyone who my state knows?' For Love takes hold of me so suddenly My vital spirits I am near to lose. One only of them all survives in me, Staying to speak of you, as Love allows. To aid me then my forces I renew And pallid, all my courage drained long since, I come to you to remedy my plight; But if I raise my eyes to look at you So vast a tremor in my heart begins My beating pulses put my soul to flight.”

LoveSoulSufferingDivine LovePlatonic LoveItalian PoetryPulsesEarthly LoveVital Spirit
Book:La Vita Nuova
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“So long have I been subject to Love's sway And grown accustomed to his mastery That where at first his rule seemed harsh to me Sweet is his presence in my heart today. Thus when all fortitude he takes away, So that my frail spirits seem to flee, Then I am lost in sweetness utterly And pallid looks my fainting soul display. Love marshals then against me all his might;Routed, my spirits wander, murmuring, And to my lady bring Petition for new solace in my plight. Thus by her merest glance I am unmanned, And pride so humbled, none could understand.”

LoveSoulMasterySweetnessDivine LoveSolaceFaintingItalian PoetryEarthly LoveCanzone
Book:La Vita Nuova
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“Here sighs and cries and shrieks of lamentation echoed throughout the starless air of Hell; at first these sounds resounding made me weep: tongues confused, a language strained in anguish with cadences of anger, shrill outcries and raucous groans that joined with sounds of hands, raising a whirling storm that turns itself forever through that air of endless black, like grains of sand swirling when a whirlwind blows. And I, in the midst of all this circling horror, began, "Teacher, what are these sounds I hear? What souls are these so overwhelmed by grief?" And he to me: "This wretched state of being is the fate of those sad souls who lived a life but lived it with no blame and with no praise. They are mixed with that repulsive choir of angels neither faithful nor unfaithful to their God, who undecided stood but for themselves. Heaven, to keep its beauty, cast them out, but even Hell itself would not receive them, for fear the damned might glory over them." And I. "Master, what torments do they suffer that force them to lament so bitterly?" He answered: "I will tell you in few words: these wretches have no hope of truly dying, and this blind life they lead is so abject it makes them envy every other fate. The world will not record their having been there; Heaven's mercy and its justice turn from them. Let's not discuss them; look and pass them by...”

InspiringCheerful
Author:Dante Alighieri
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“For certain he hath seen all perfectness For certain he hath seen all perfectness. Who among other ladies hath seen mine: They that go with her humbly should combine To thank their God for such peculiar grace. So perfect is the beauty of her face That it begets in no wise any sign Of envy, but draws round her a clear line Of love, and blessed faith, and gentleness. Merely the sight of her inakes all things bow: Not she herself alone is holier Than all: but hers, through her, are raised above. From all her acts such lovely graces flow That truly one may never think of her Without a passion of exceeding love.”

LoveFaithGraceBlessedGentleness
Author:Dante Alighieri
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“Through me is the way into the doleful city; through me the way into the eternal pain; through me the way among the people lost. Justice moved my High Maker; Divine Power made me, Wisdom Supreme, and Primal Love. Before me were no things created, but eternal; and eternal I endure: leave all hope, ye that enter.”

HellClassic
Book:The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri - Scholar's Choice Edition
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“There he died; and as thou seest me, saw I the three fall one by one, between the fifth day and the sixth: whence I betook me, already blind, to groping over each, and for three days called them, after they were dead; then fasting had more power than grief.”

GriefHellHungerStarvationFastingInfernoDouble MeaningCannibal CountCanto XxxiiiUgolino
Book:The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
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“No greater grief than to remember days Of joy, when misery is at hand. That kens Thy learn’d instructor. Yet so eagerly 120 If thou art bent to know the primal root, From whence our love gat being, I will do As one, who weeps and tells his tale. One day, For our delight we read of Lancelot, 4 How him love thrall’d. Alone we were, and no 125 Suspicion near us. Oft-times by that reading Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue Fled from our alter’d cheek. But at one point Alone we fell. When of that smile we read, The wished smile so raptorously kiss’d 130 By one so deep in love, then he, who ne’er From me shall separate, at once my lips All trembling kiss’d. The book and writer both Were love’s purveyors. In its leaves that day We read no more.”

LoveSinHellLoversInfernoDanteDivine ComedyLancelotFrancesca
Book:The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
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“​Per me si va ne la città dolente, Per me si va ne l'etterno dolore, Per me si va tra la perduta gente. Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore: Fecemi la divina potestate La somma sapienza e'l primo amore Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create se non etterne, e io etterno duro. Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'intrate.”

HellComedyDivineInfernoDanteThirdDivinaCantoCommediaAlighieriIiiTerzo
Book:The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
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“«Ты разве умер?»* – с уст моих слетело. И он в ответ: «Мне ведать не дано, Как здравствует мое земное тело. Здесь, в Толомее, так заведено, Что часто души, раньше, чем сразила Их Атропос , уже летят на дно. И чтоб тебе еще приятней было Снять у меня стеклянный полог с глаз, Знай, что, едва предательство свершила, Как я, душа, вселяется тотчас Ей в тело бес, и в нем он остается, Доколе срок для плоти не угас. * Данте был удивлен, встретив в Аду Альбериго, который весной 1300 г. был еще жив. (121-132, песнь тридцать третья, Ад)”

SoulSinHellдушагрехад
Book:The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
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“And he began, "What chance or destiny has brought you here before your final day? And who is he who leads your pilgrimage?" "Up there in life beneath the quiet stars I lost my way," I answered, "in a valley, before I'd reached the fullness of my age. I turned my shoulders on it yesterday: this soul appeared as I was falling back, and by the road through Hell he leads me home." "Follow your star and you will never fail to find your glorious port," he said to me”

LifeHellPilgrimage
Author:Dante Alighieri
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“Because the sacred fire that lights all nature liveliest of all in its own image glows. All these prerogatives the human creature possesses, and if one of them should fail, he must diminish from his noble stature. Sin only can disenfranchise him, and veil his likeness to the Highest Good; whereby the light in him is lessened and grows pale. Ne'er can he win back dignities so high till the void made by guilt be all filled in with just amends paid for by illicit joy. Now, when your nature as a whole did sin in its first root, it lost these great awards, and lost the Eden of its origin; nor might they be recovered afterwards by any means, as if thou search thou'lt see, except by crossing one of these two fords; either must God, of his sole courtesy, remit, or man must pay with all that's his, the debt of sin in its entirety. Within the Eternal Counsel's deep abyss rivet thine eye, and with a heed as good as thou canst give me, do thou follow this. Man from his finite assets never could make satisfaction; ne'er could he abase him so low, obey thereafter all he would, as he'd by disobedience sought to raise him; and for this cause man might not pay his due himself, nor from the debtor's roll erase him. Needs then must God, by his own ways, renew man's proper life, and reinstate him so; his ways I say - by one, or both of two. And since the doer's actions ever show more gracious as the style of them makes plain the goodness of the heart from which they flow, that most high Goodness which is God was fain - even God, whose impress Heaven and earth display - by all His ways to lift you up again; nor, between final night and primal day, was e'er proceeding so majestical and high, nor shall not be, by either way; for God's self-giving, which made possible that man should raise himself, showed more largesse than if by naked power He'd cancelled all; and every other means would have been less than justice, if it had not pleased God's Son to be humiliate in fleshliness.”

SinRepentanceAtonement
Book:Paradise
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“Noi leggeveamo un giorno per diletto Di Lancialotto, come amor lo strinse; Soli eravamo e senza alcun sospetto Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso; Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse. Quando leggemmo il disiato riso Esser baciato da cotanto amante, Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso, La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante. Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse: Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante." ""We were reading one day, to pass the time, of Lancelot, how love had seized him. We were alone, and without any suspicion And time and time again our eyes would meet over that literature, and our faces paled, and yet one point alone won us. When we had read how the desired smile was kissed by so true a lover, This one, who never shall be parted from me, kissed my mouth, all a-tremble. Gallehault was the book and he who wrote it That day we read no further.”

ItalianItalyInfernoL Inferno
Author:Dante Alighieri
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“¿Por qué te enamora mi faz de tal suerte que no te vuelves hacia el hermoso jardín que florece bajo los rayos de Cristo? Allí están la rosa en que el Verbo divino encarnó; y allí están los lirios por cuyo aroma se descubre el buen camino.”

LiteratureItalyClassic LiteratureFlorenceDanteDivina ComediaItalian TuscanLate Middle Ages
Book:The Divine Comedy, Volume III: Paradiso, Part 2: Commentary
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“Se mai continga che 'l poema sacro al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra, sì che m'ha fatto per molti anni macro, vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra del bello ovile ov'io dormi' agnello, nimico ai lupi che li danno guerra; con altra voce omai, con altro vello ritornerò poeta, e in sul fonte del mio battesmo prenderò 'l cappello”

PoetryItaly
Book:The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
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