Journey with Dante

The day was now departing; the dark air released the living beings of the earth from work and weariness; and I myself alone prepared to undergo the battle both of the journeying and of the pity, which memory, mistaking not, shall show. O Muses, o high genius, help me now; o memory that set down what I saw, here shall your excellence reveal itself! I started: “Poet, you who are my guide, see if the force in me is strong enough before you let me face that rugged pass. You say that he who fathered Sylvius, while he was still corruptible, had journeyed into the deathless world with his live body. For, if the Enemy of every evil was courteous to him, considering all he would cause and who and what he was, that does not seem incomprehensible, since in the empyrean heaven he was chosen to father honored Rome and her empire; and if the truth be told, Rome and her realm were destined to become the sacred place, the seat of the successor of great Peter. ...

Arabic Letter Sad 1.  Sad: By the Qur'an, Full of Admonition: (This is the Truth). 2.  But the Unbelievers (are steeped) in self-glory and Separatism. 3.  How many generations before them did We destroy? In the end they cried (for mercy)- when there was no longer time for being saved! 4.  So they wonder that a Warner has come to them from among themselves! and the Unbelievers say, "This is a sorcerer telling lies! 5.  "Has he made the gods (all) into one Allah. Truly this is a wonderful thing!" 6.  And the leader among them go away (impatiently), (saying), "Walk ye away, and remain constant to your gods! For this is truly a thing designed (against you)! 7.  "We never heard (the like) of this among the people of these latter days: this is nothing but a made-up tale!" 8.  "What! has the Message been sent to him - (Of all persons) among us?"...but they are in doubt concerning My (Own) Message! Nay, they have not yet tast...

A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. 1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. 5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. 6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts ; you teach  me wisdom in the inmost place. 7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. 10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. ...

Dante (1265- 1321) When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray. Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was, that savage forest, dense and difficult, which even in recall renews my fear: so bitter—death is hardly more severe! But to retell the good discovered there, I’ll also tell the other things I saw. I cannot clearly say how I had entered the wood; I was so full of sleep just at the point where I abandoned the true path. But when I’d reached the bottom of a hill— it rose along the boundary of the valley that had harassed my heart with so much fear— I looked on high and saw its shoulders clothed already by the rays of that same planet which serves to lead men straight along all roads. At this my fear was somewhat quieted; for through the night of sorrow I had spent, the lake within my heart felt terror present. And just as he who, with exhausted breath, havi...

OF THE LADY PIETRA DEGLI SCROVIGNI by: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) O the dim light and the large circle of shade I have clomb, and to the whitening of the hills, There where we see no color in the grass. Natheless my longing loses not its green, It has so taken root in the hard stone Which talks and hears as though it were a lady. Utterly frozen is this youthful lady, Even as the snow that lies within the shade; For she is no more moved than is the stone By the sweet season which makes warm the hills And alters from afresh from white to green Covering their sides again with flowers and grass. When on her hair she sets a crown of grass The thought has no more room for other lady, Because she weaves the yellow with the green So well that Love sits down there in the shade,-- Love who has shut me in among low hills Faster than between walls of granite-stone. She is more bright than is a precious stone; The wound she gives may not be healed with grass: I therefore have fled...