Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the comic story-teller, Boccaccio, and the poet, Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when he was almost nine years old and she was some months younger. In fact, Beatrice married another man, Simone di' Bardi, and died when Dante was 25, so their relationship existed almost entirely in Dante's imagination, but she nonetheless plays an extremely important role in his poetry. Dante attributed all the heavenly virtues to her soul and imagined, in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy, that she was his guardian angel who alternately berated and encouraged him on his search for salvation.
Politics as well as love deeply influenced Dante's literary and emotional life. Renaissance Florence was a thriving, but not a peaceful city: different opposing factions continually struggled for dominance there. The Guelfs and the Ghibellines were the two major factions, and in fact that division was important in all of Italy and other countries as well. The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor were political rivals for much of this time period, and in general the Guelfs were in favor of the Pope, while the Ghibellines supported Imperial power. By 1289 in the battle of Campaldino the Ghibellines largely disappeared from Florence. Peace, however, did not insue. Instead, the Guelf party divided between the Whites and the Blacks (Dante was a White Guelf). The Whites were more opposed to Papal power than the Blacks, and tended to favor the emperor, so in fact the preoccupations of the White Guelfs were much like those of the defeated Ghibellines. In this divisive atmosphere Dante rose to a position of leadership. in 1302, while he was in Rome on a diplomatic mission to the Pope, the Blacks in Florence seized power with the help of the French (and pro-Pope) Charles of Valois. The Blacks exiled Dante, confiscating his goods and condemning him to be burned if he should return to Florence.
Dante never returned to Florence. He wandered from city to city, depending on noble patrons there. Between 1302 and 1304 some attempts were made by the exiled Whites to retrieve their position in Florence, but none of these succeeded and Dante contented himself with hoping for the appearance of a new powerful Holy Roman Emperor who would unite the country and banish strife. Henry VII was elected Emperor in 1308, and indeed laid seige to Florence in 1312, but was defeated, and he died a year later, destroying Dante's hopes. Dante passed from court to court, writing passionate political and moral epistles and finishing his Divine Comedy, which contains the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. He finally died in Ravenna in 1321.
“We were men once, though we've become trees”
“Özgürlüğü arıyor o, özgürlüğün değeriniuğrunda can verenler bilir en iyi.”
“Qui viva la pietà, quand'è ben morta.در اينجا ترحم وقتي زنده است كه كاملا مرده باشد.”
“If the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.”
“those cries rose from among the twisted rootsthrough which the spirits of the damned were slinkingto hide from us. Therefore my Master said:'If you break off a twig, what you will learnwill drive what you are thinking from your head.'Puzzled, I raised my hand a bit and slowlybroke off a branchlet from an enormous thorn:and the great trunk of it cried: 'Why do you break me?'And after blood had darkened all the bowlof the wound, it cried again: 'Why do you tear me?Is there no pity left in any soul?Men we were, and now we are changed to sticks;well might your hand have been more mercifulwere we no more than souls of lice and ticks.'As a green branch with one end all aflamewill hiss and sputter sap out of the otheras the air escapes- so from that trunk there camewords and blood together, gout by gout.Startled, I dropped the branch that I was holdingand stood transfixed by fear,...”
“There are souls beneath that water. Fixed in slimethey speak their piece, end it, and start again:'Sullen were we in the air made sweet by the Sun;in the glory of his shining our hearts poureda bitter smoke. Sullen were we begun;sullen we lie forever in this ditch.'This litany they gargle in their throatsas if they sand, but lacked the words and pitch.”
“hablando cosas que callar es bueno,tal como era el hablarlas allí mismo.”
“Ningún dolor más grandeque el de acordarse del tiempo dichosoen la desgracia”
“Be as a tower, that, firmly set,Shakes not its top for any blast that blows!”
“Through me the way into the suffering city,Through me the way into eternal pain,Through me the way that runs among the lost.”
“Mă-ntorsei, deci, de la pârâul sfântca nou, asemeni plantei tinerelecând nouă crește-n noul său vestmânt,curat și gata să mă urc la stele.”
“It may be that what we call modern is nothing, but what is not worthy of remaining to become old.”
“In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria dinanzi a la quale poco si potrebbe leggere, si trova una rubrica la quale dice: INCIPIT VITA NOVA”
“Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,And evidence of those that are not seen...”
“But in the divine nature Persons three,And in one person the divine and human.”
“Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
“As at those words did I myself become;And all my love was so absorbed in Him,That in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed.”
“Other response, he said, I make thee not,Except the doing; for the modest askingOught to be followed by the deed in silence.”
“I cannot well repeat how there I entered,”
“Ahora es preciso que desheches la pereza; que no se alcanza la fama reclinado en blanda pluma ni al abrigo de colchas; y el que consume su vida sin gloria, deja en pos de sí el mismo rastro que el humo en el aire o la espuima en el agua. Ea, pues, levántate; domina la fatiga con el alma, que vence todos los obstáculos mientras no se envilece con la pesadez del cuerpo.”
“Open your mind to what I shall disclose, and hold it fast within you; he who hears, but does not hold what he has heard, learns nothing.”
“Great fire can follow a small spark: there may be better voices after me to pray to Cyrrha's god for aid - that he may answer.”
“Midway along the journey of our lifeI woke to find myself in a dark wood,for I had wandered off from the straight path.How hard it is to tell what it was like,this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn(the thought of it brings back all my old fears),a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer.But if I would show the good that came of itI must talk about things other than the good.”
“Et la faccia del sol noscere ombrata....”
“Come, quando i vapori umidi e spessiA diradar cominciansi, la speraDel sol debilemente entra per essi....”
“O Virgins, sacrosanct, if I have ever, for your sake, suffered vigils,cold,, and hunger, great need makes me entreat my recompense.”
“Precum prin aer pe-aripi nemișcate,iau două turturele-alături sborde-acelaș dor spre cuibul drag purtate,așa și ei, dintr-al Didonei corveneau prin noaptea ce-o frământă vântul;atât cu ruga-nvinsei vrerea lor.”
“There is a gentle thought that often springsto life in me, because it speaks of you.”
“There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.”
“In each fire there is a spirit; Each one is wrapped in what is burning him.”
“Lying in a featherbed will not bring you fame, nor staying beneath the quilt, and he who uses up his life without achieving fame leaves no more vestige of himself on earth than smoke in the air or foam upon the water.”
“You shall find out how salt is the taste of another man's bread, and how hard is the way up and down another man's stairs.”
“So that the Universe felt love,by which, as somebelieve,the world has many times been turned to chaos.And at that moment this ancient rock,here and elsewhere, fell broken into pieces.”
“Love, which absolves no one beloved from loving,seized me so strongly with his charm that,as you see, it has not left me yet.Love brought us to one death.”
“Și ca și-acel ce nu mai vrea ce-a vrut,schimbând prin noul gând pe cele-avute,așa că lasă totul ce-a-nceput,așa și eu sub poala coastei mutegândind îmi mistuii întreaga vrerece-ntâi, spre-a-ncepe, atât mi-a fost de iute.-De-ți prind din vorbe bine-a ta durere-răspunse umbra cea mărinimoasă-ți-e sufletul curpins de-acea scădere,ce-abate-ades de ținta sa frumoasăpe om, astfel (oprind) ca năzărireanălucii lui pe-o bestie fricoasă.”
“Gonindu-ne-o prin cetăți închisedin loc în loc, va-mpinge-o-n Iad de veci,de unde-ntâi invidia ne-o trimise.Spre-a ta scăpare cred și judec decisă-ți fiu conducător, și te voi scoatede-aici, făcând prin loc etern să treci,s-auzi cum urlă desperate gloate,să vezi și-antice duhuri osândite,ce-a doua moarte-a lor și-o strigă toate.”
“Virgil, ești tu? Fântâna ești, al căriitorent - îi zisei cu rușine-acum-bogat pornit-a fluviul cuvântării?tu marea faclă-n veci pe-al artei drum!deci fie-mi de-ajutor iubirea vieși studiul lung în dulcele-ți volum.Părinte-mi ești, maestru-mi ești tu mie,tu singur ești acel ce-a dat o viațăfrumosului meu stil ce-mi e mândrie.”
“Dianzi, ne l’alba che procede al giorno,quando l’anima tua dentro dormia”
“A rapid bolt will rend the clouds apart,and every single White be seared by wounds.I tell you this. I want it all to hurt.”
“Thy soul is by vile fear assailed, which oft so overcasts a man, that he recoils from noblest resolution, like a beast at some false semblance in the twilight gloom.”
“But the stars that marked our starting fall away.We must go deeper into greater pain,for it is not permitted that we stay.”
“I am the way into the city of woe,I am the way into eternal pain,I am the way to go among the lost.Justice caused my high architect to move,Divine omnipotence created me,The highest wisdom, and the primal love.Before me there were no created thingsBut those that last forever—as do I.Abandon all hope you who enter here.”
“Che sanza speme vivemo in disio.That without hope we live in desire.”
“Now had the sun to that horizon reach'd,That covers, with the most exalted pointOf its meridian circle, Salem's walls;And night, that opposite to him her orbRounds, from the stream of Ganges issued forth,Holding the scales, that from her hands are droptWhen she reigns highest: so that where I was,Aurora's white and vermeil - tinctured cheekTo orange turn'd as she in age increased.”
“This mountain is so formed that it is always wearisome when one begins the ascent, but becomes easier the higher one climbs.”
“Mentre che la speranza ha fior del verde”
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vitami ritrovai per una selva oscurache' la diritta via era smarrita.”
“Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.”
“إن الفن الإنساني يتبع ما استطاع الطبيعة كما يتبع طالب العلم أستاذهفالفن هو لله كمثل حفيد.”
“Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.”