The Divine Comedy of Dante Aligheri
Translated by Charles Eliot Norton
To
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
E come sare’ io sense lui corso?
It is a happiness for me to connect this volume with the memory of my
friend and master from youth. I was but a beginner in the study of the
Divine Comedy when I first had his incomparable aid in the
understanding of it. During the last year of his life he read the
proofs of this volume, to what great advantage to my work may readily
be conceived.
When, in the early summer of this year, the printing of the Purgatory
began, though illness made it an exertion to him, he continued this act
of friendship, and did not cease till, at the fifth canto, he laid down
the pencil forever from his dear and honored hand.
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,
1 _October_, 1891
The text followed in this translation is, in general, that of Witte. In
a few cases I have preferred the readings which the more recent
researches of the Rev. Dr. Edward Moore, of Oxford, seem to have
established as correct.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
AIDS TO THE STUDY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY
CANTO I.
Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill which he begins to
ascend; he is hindered by three beasts; he turns back and is met by
Virgil, who proposes to guide him into the eternal world.