From the Italian by Charles Eliot Norton
SO gentle and so gracious doth appear
  My lady when she giveth her salute,
  That every tongue becometh, trembling, mute;
Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare.
Although she hears her praises, she doth go
  ...

From the Italian by Lord Byron
From the “Divina Commedia: Inferno”
  AND then I turned unto their side my eyes,
And said,—“Francesca, thy sad destinies
Have made me sorrow till the tears arise.
  But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs,
By what and...

From the Persian by William R. Alger

TO heaven approached a Sufi Saint,
  From groping in the darkness late,
And, tapping timidly and faint,
  Besought admission at God’s gate.

Said God, “Who seeks to enter here?”
  “’T is I, dear Friend,” the...

Translated by Henry Francis Cary
Selections from “The Divine Comedy”
Hell: Canto III.
“THROUGH me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:...

Translated by Henry Francis Cary
Selections from “The Divine Comedy”
Purgatory: Canto VI.
                            WHEN I was freed
From all those spirits, who prayed for others’ prayers
To hasten on their state of blessedness;
Straight I began: “O...

Translated by Henry Francis Cary
Selections from “The Divine Comedy”
Purgatory: Canto XI.
“O THOU Almighty Father! who dost make
The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confined,
But that, with love intenser, there thou view’st
Thy primal effluence;...

Translated by Henry Francis Cary
Selections from “The Divine Comedy”
Purgatory: Canto XVI.
                            “YE, who live,
Do so each cause refer to heaven above,
E’en as its motion, of necessity,
Drew with it all that moves. If this were...

Translated by Henry Francis Cary
Selections from “The Divine Comedy”
Purgatory: Canto XXVII.
NOW was the sun so stationed, as when first
His early radiance quivers on the heights,
Where streamed his Maker’s blood; while Libra hangs
Above Hesperian...

Translated by Henry Francis Cary
Selections from “The Divine Comedy”
Paradise: Canto VII.
                    WHAT I have heard,
Is plain, thou say’st: but wherefore God this way
For our redemption chose, eludes my search.
  “Brother! no eye of man...

Translated by Henry Francis Cary
Selections from “The Divine Comedy”
Paradise: Canto XIV.
  AND lo! forthwith there rose up round about
A lustre, over that already there;
Of equal clearness, like the brightening up
Of the horizon. As at evening hour...