3 

Remember, reader, if you've ever been
caught in the mountains by a mist through which
you only saw as moles see through their skin,

 6 

how, when the thick, damp vapors once begin
to thin, the sun's sphere passes feebly through them,
then your imagination will be quick

 9

to reach the point where it can see how I
first came to see the sun again-when it
was almost at the point at which it sets.

12

So, my steps matched my master's trusty steps;
out of that cloud I came, reaching the rays
that, on the shores below, by now were spent.

15

O fantasy, you that at times would snatch
us so from outward things-we notice nothing
although a thousand trumpets sound around us-

18

who moves you when the senses do not spur you?
A light that finds its form in Heaven moves you-
directly or led downward by God's will.

21

Within my fantasy I saw impressed
the savagery of one who then, transformed,
became the bird that most delights in song;

24

at this, my mind withdrew to the within,
to what imagining might bring; no thing
that came from the without could enter in.

27

Then into my deep fantasy there rained
one who was crucified; and as he died,
he showed his savagery and his disdain.

30

Around him were great Ahasuerus and
Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai,
whose saying and whose doing were so upright.

33

And when this image shattered of itself,
just like a bubble that has lost the water
beneath which it was formed, there then rose up

36

in my envisioning a girl who wept
most bitterly and said: "O queen, why did
you, in your wrath, desire to be no more?

39

So as to keep Lavinia, you killed
yourself; now you have lost me! I am she,
mother, who mourns your fall before another's."

42

Even as sleep is shattered when new light
strikes suddenly against closed eyes and, once
it's shattered, gleams before it dies completely,

45

so my imagination fell away
as soon as light-more powerful than light
we are accustomed to-beat on my eyes.

48

I looked about to see where I might be;
but when a voice said: "Here one can ascend,"
then I abandoned every other intent.

51

That voice made my will keen to see the one
who'd spoken-with the eagerness that cannot
be still until it faces what it wants.

54

But even as the sun, become too strong,
defeats our vision, veiling its own form,
so there my power of sight was overcome.

57

"This spirit is divine; and though unasked,
he would conduct us to the upward path;
he hides himself with that same light he sheds.

60

He does with us as men do with themselves;
for he who sees a need but waits to be
asked is already set on cruel refusal.

63

Now let our steps accept his invitation,
and let us try to climb before dark falls-
then, until day returns, we'll have to halt."

66

So said my guide; and toward a stairway, he
and I, together, turned; and just as soon
as I was at the first step, I sensed something

69

much like the motion of a wing, and wind
that beat against my face, and words: "Beati
pacifici, those free of evil anger!"

72

Above us now the final rays before;
the fall of night were raised to such a height
that we could see the stars on every side.

75

"O why, my strength, do you so melt away?"
I said within myself, because I felt
the force within my legs compelled to halt.

78

We'd reached a point at which the upward stairs
no longer climbed, and we were halted there
just like a ship when it has touched the shore.