Tatiana Gerasimenok reads a fragment from “The Divine Comedy “ (1307–1321) by Dante Alighieri,
in the English translation by Allen Mandelbaum.
Illustrations in the video:
"La mappa dell’Inferno" by Sandro Botticelli (c. 1480)
"The Inferno, Canto 34" by Gustave Doré (1861)
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Inferno, Canto 34:
“Before I free myself from this abyss,
master,” I said when I had stood up straight,
“tell me enough to see I don’t mistake:
Where is the ice? And how is he so placed
head downward? Tell me, too, how has the sun
in so few hours gone from night to morning?”
And he to me: “You still believe you are
north of the center, where I grasped the hair
of the damned worm who pierces through the world.
And you were there as long as I descended;
but when I turned, that’s when you passed the point
to which, from every part, all weights are drawn.
And now you stand beneath the hemisphere
opposing that which cloaks the great dry lands
and underneath whose zenith died the Man
whose birth and life were sinless in this world.
Your feet are placed upon a little sphere
that forms the other face of the Judecca.
Here it is morning when it’s evening there;
and he whose hair has served us as a ladder
is still fixed, even as he was before.
This was the side on which he fell from Heaven;
for fear of him, the land that once loomed here
made of the sea a veil and rose into
our hemisphere; and that land which appears
upon this side—perhaps to flee from him—
left here this hollow space and hurried upward.”
There is a place below, the limit of
that cave, its farthest point from Beelzebub,
a place one cannot see: it is discovered
by ear—there is a sounding stream that flows
along the hollow of a rock eroded
by winding waters, and the slope is easy.
My guide and I came on that hidden road
to make our way back into the bright world;
and with no care for any rest, we climbed—
he first, I following—until I saw,
through a round opening, some of those things
of beauty Heaven bears. It was from there
that we emerged, to see—once more—the stars.
Inferno, Canto XXXIV:
Prima ch’io de l’abisso mi divella,
maestro mio», diss’ io quando fui dritto,
«a trarmi d’erro un poco mi favella:
ov’ è la ghiaccia? e questi com’ è fitto
sì sottosopra? e come, in sì poc’ ora,
da sera a mane ha fatto il sol tragitto?».
Ed elli a me: «Tu imagini ancora
d’esser di là dal centro, ov’ io mi presi
al pel del vermo reo che ’l mondo fóra.
Di là fosti cotanto quant’ io scesi;
quand’ io mi volsi, tu passasti ’l punto
al qual si traggon d’ogne parte i pesi.
E se’ or sotto l’emisperio giunto
ch’è contraposto a quel che la gran secca
coverchia, e sotto ’l cui colmo consunto
fu l’uom che nacque e visse sanza pecca;
tu haï i piedi in su picciola spera
che l’altra faccia fa de la Giudecca.
Qui è da man, quando di là è sera;
e questi, che ne fé scala col pelo,
fitto è ancora sì come prim’ era.
e la terra, che pria di qua si sporse,
per paura di lui fé del mar velo,
e venne a l’emisperio nostro; e forse
per fuggir lui lasciò qui loco vòto
quella ch’appar di qua, e sù ricorse».
Luogo è là giù da Belzebù remoto
tanto quanto la tomba si distende,
che non per vista, ma per suono è noto
d’un ruscelletto che quivi discende
per la buca d’un sasso, ch’elli ha roso,
col corso ch’elli avvolge, e poco pende.
Lo duca e io per quel cammino ascoso
intrammo a ritornar nel chiaro mondo;
e sanza cura aver d’alcun riposo,
salimmo sù, el primo e io secondo,
tanto ch’i’ vidi de le cose belle
che porta ’l ciel, per un pertugio tondo.
E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.