白话《神曲》译文考 - 5 - inferno Canto 5
Canto 5
From the First Circle I descended,
down to the second,
which encloses less space,
but greater stinging pain and much more grief.
Horrifying Minos is there.
He snarls at the entrance, scrutinizing sinners,
judges then dams with a twist of his tail.
That is, when the evil soul comes to stand before him and confesses everything,
he, an expert in Sin, decides the place allotted it in Hell.
He winds his tail around his body,
as many times as levels through which the sinning soul must fall.
The crowd before him, and one by one, each in turn,
come forward to hear the damning judgment.
He speak, they listen. How to hold below.
Oh, you who come Tapanes own domicile?
Cried Minos when he saw me,
pausing in performance of his official duties.
Take care how you enter and whom you trust,
and do not be fooled by this wide gateway.
My guide replied.
Why do you make such noise?
Do not hinder him on his destined path,
for this is willed.
Where power and will combine, nothing else concerns you.
Now I began to hear the sounds of pain and misery.
I came upon a place where no light shone,
which bellowed like a tempest beaten sea when warring winds attack.
This hurricane of hell drives unceasing,
sweeping the souls along, spinning them in twisting torment.
As devastation faces them,
a senior wraps of chilling screams and tearful howls,
vain, blaspheming against divine power.
Condemned to this torment eternally I realized was sinners of the flesh,
those who enslaved their reason to their lust.
As when winter comes,
starlings winging higher swept along in densely crowded flocks by the blast up and down here
now there, so the evil shades in that gala blown
without a hope of comfort, rest, or love,
and just as cranes strung out in ordered lines,
go uttering their plaintive call in flight.
So I saw the wailing shadows pass me,
suspended on that turmoil.
I asked then,
Who are these people, master,
so punished by the black air?
He answered me like this,
The first of those whose story you should hear was Empress over many different lands,
and so addicted to a luxurious vice that she legalized every form of lust,
so preventing her from being censored.
She is Semiramis,
whom as we read was wife to Ninus and his successor.
She held the land where now the Sultan rules.
That other one killed herself over love,
breaking her faith to secure his ashes,
then luscious Cleopatra and Helen,
the cause of so many years of sorrow.
Great Achilles who lost his life in the struggle with love.
There is Paris, Tristram.
A thousand souls and more he showed to me,
naming each one and pointing out the shades whom love had severed from this life of ours.
When I heard my wise mental name those knights and ancient ladies,
such pity took me the confusion overwhelmed my sense.
Poet, I began,
I would like to speak with a couple who fly together
there so lightly on the Gale.
He said to me,
You should see, when they're closer to us,
if you implore them by that love of theirs,
the force which drives them,
they will come to you.
The winds changed course.
They were blown towards us.
I raised my voice to them,
Come, weary souls, talk with us unless it's forbidden.
Just as doves with wings held high and stiff plane through the air
drawn to their sweet nest by desire.
These detached from Dido’s flock
and swept our way through the malignant air,
such was the strength of my tender summons.
Oh gracious, benign living creature to brave the loathsome dark and visitors,
where he our friend who stained the earth with blood with monarch of the universe.
We would pray that he might grant you peace
since our dreadful plight rise due to piteous,
whatever pleases you to hear or speak,
we will hear and speak about with you now.
While the wind is presently abated.
The town where I was born is on the coast,
where the Po, with all its attendant streams,
descends to find its rest.
Love, swiftly learned when the heart is gentle, fired my body.
That fair form of which I am deprived now.
It still offends me how it happened.
Love which exempts from loving none that's loved so strongly,
entered me through pleasing him that.
Look, even now it does not leave me.
Love let us both on to a single death.
And Caina's deaths await our assassin.
I had the story of those injured souls,
and by my head and held it bowed until the poet asked me,
what are you thinking?
I said,
what gentle thoughts would strong desire brought them to the agony of this state?
Turning back to them, I said.
Francesca, your suffering makes me weep with pity,
but tell me, at the time of those sweets sighs,
how was love announced?
What sign brought you to the first staring of dubious desire?
And she said then,
There is no greater pain in misery than to recall a time of happiness.
He who guides you knows this.
If you want to know the root of our love,
I will tell you, but as I weep,
one day, for our amusement,
we began to read the tale of Launcelot, Captive of Love.
We were alone and without suspicion,
but as we read, our eyes would lift to meet.
And the color drained from both our faces.
Just one part, was the cause of our ruined?
The words were he who loved so tenderly bent to kiss the smile,
for which he had died.
Then this man, now part of me forever,
trembled, and all quivering, kiss my mouth.
The book was Galahad to us.
The role of those between most played by the author.
And while this soul spoke, the other wept.
I swooned like a dying man from pity.
And fell, as a body falls void of life.
