Free The Portable Dante by Dante Alighieri Page A

as long as world there is,
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my friend, who is no friend of Fortune’s, strays on a desert slope; so many obstacles have crossed his path, his fright has turned him back
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I fear he may have gone so far astray, from what report has come to me in Heaven, that I may have started to his aid too late.
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Now go, and with your elegance of speech, with whatever may be needed for his freedom, give him your help, and thereby bring me solace.
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I am Beatrice, who urges you to go; I come from the place I am longing to return to; love moved me, as it moves me now to speak.
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When I return to stand before my Lord, often I shall sing your praises to Him. ’ And then she spoke no more. And I began,
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’O Lady of Grace, through whom alone mankind may go beyond all worldly things contained within the sphere that makes the smallest round,
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your plea fills me with happy eagerness— to have obeyed already would still seem late! You needed only to express your wish.
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But tell me how you dared to make this journey all the way down to this point of spacelessness, away from your spacious home that calls you back. ’
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’Because your question searches for deep meaning, I shall explain in simple words, ’ she said, ’just why I have no fear of coming here.
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A man must stand in fear of just those things that truly have the power to do us harm, of nothing else, for nothing else is fearsome.
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God gave me such a nature through His Grace, the torments you must bear cannot affect me, nor are the fires of Hell a threat to me.
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A gracious lady sits in Heaven grieving for what happened to the one I send you to, and her compassion breaks Heaven’s stern decree.
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She called Lucia and making her request, she said, “Your faithful one is now in need of you, and to you I now commend his soul. ”
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Lucia, the enemy of cruelty, hastened to make her way to where I was, sitting by the side of ancient Rachel,
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and said to me: “Beatrice, God’s true praise, will you not help the one whose love was such it made him leave the vulgar crowd for you?
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Do you not hear the pity of his weeping, do you not see what death it is that threatens him along that river the sea shall never conquer?”
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There never was a wordly person living more anxious to promote his selfish gains than I was at the sound of words like these—
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to leave my holy seat and come down here and place my trust in you, in your noble speech that honors you and all those who have heard it!’
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When she had finished reasoning, she turned her shining eyes away, and there were tears. How eager then I was to come to you!
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And I have come to you just as she wished, and I have freed you from the beast that stood blocking the quick way up the mount of bliss.
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    94. The lady is the Virgin Mary.
    102. In the Dantean Paradise Rachel is seated by Beatrice.
So what is wrong? Why, why do you delay? Why are you such a coward in your heart, why aren’t you bold and free of all your fear,
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when three such gracious ladies, who are blessed, watch out for you up there in Heaven’s court, and my words, too, bring promise of such good?”
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As little flowers from the frosty night are closed and limp, and when the sun shines down on them, they rise to open on their stem,
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my wilted strength began to bloom within me, and such warm courage flowed into my heart that I spoke like a man set free of fear.
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“O she, compassionate, who moved to help me! And you, all kindness, in obeying quick those words of truth she brought with her for you—
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you and the words you spoke have moved my heart with such desire to continue onward that now I have returned to my first purpose.
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Let us start, for both our wills, joined now, are one. You are my guide, you are my lord and teacher. ” These were my words to him and, when he moved,
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I entered on that deep and rugged road.
CANTO III
    A
S THE TWO POETS
enter the vestibule that leads to Hell itself, Dante sees the inscription