Lipogrammatical translation

Down To What’s Low, Canto 1

Just halfway through my own trip in our living

Provisional, short world, I found that I

Had lost my path in dark woods, unforgiving.

It is so hard a thing that I must sigh

If I would say how brutal was that wood,

To think on which will always horrify.

If anything, it’s only dying could

Outdo that acrid wood’s malignity.

But I will turn from horror, towards that good

Which also on that pathway, luckily,

I found, though I can’t say what hid all truth

Away in total blank stupidity.

I cannot work out how it was, in sooth,

That in that  gloom awaking, full of stupor,

I’d lost that saving road I took in youth.

I got at last to what you’d call a croup or

Boundary of that dark and dismal hollow,

A bank of rocks which from a mountain do pour,

To that bluff’s scapula my look did follow

Upwards still that guiding morning glow,

Bright from that star so holy to Apollo.

Thus did that anxious horror, which had so

Brought churning with it, all that awful night,

To my soul’s pool, diminish, calm its flow.

And as a man who pants hard, still in sight

Of billows which, almost, brought him to sink,

From land looks back on that main, full of fright,

So did my spirit, panicking, still think

On that grim pass no mortal human can

Go out of without passing living’s brink. 

At last my body pausing for a span

Until invigoration from that stop

Could now allow it motion, though no plan

Could show it how to go, with constant prop

On foot in back and downwards, sought to gain,

By climbing always upwards, that mount’s top.  

And lo! A cougar stood stock still, though plain

Its quick and light agility.  No turning

Could pass it by.  Upon its skin a rain

Of spots, which I, that bright and airy morning

(As sun and star-companions Loving God 

Had first spun, still did spin) saw as adorning

That cat, a sign of succor I might laud,

During that blissful dawn, but not so bright

That I did not start shaking, on that road,

At what was now arising in my sight:

A lion, drawn up high, intimidating,

So much that air and I, both full of fright,

About how it its stomach might start sating,

Must stop — for what? A wolf, and I was pavid,

So skinny was it, though anticipating

It would sup soon on anything, for avid

It was for food: though lank it was full too:

That wolf so ruinous to man was gravid!

And I was too — with fright! I could not do

What I was hoping for — to climb that hill.

Alas, I found no pathway round nor through.

And as a man who’d got just what his will

Saw as most worth wishing of all things,

Now gasps on losing it, a poignant thrill

Of brutal pain, transfixing with its stings

From that wolf, did I sob at, and I shrank

Darkwards, away from Sol’s loud blazonings.

Back did I go, back to that lowland dank;

Abruptly in my sight shows up a man,

Who, dumb so long, I thought would sound as blank,

As our surround was. Straight to him I ran,

Still crying “Pity!” to him, “Man or shadow

Of a man!”  “Not a man, but Mantuan,  

By birth” was his account, “Born Sub Julio,

But it was good Augustus, though his gods

Did not say truth nor know your Christian Trio,

Who was my king.  My song got many nods,

All praising it as Roman history,

From Trojan loss to gain, against all odds, 

From burning Ilion to victory.

But why do you avoid that joyous mountain,

As though to climb you’d no ability?” 

“Now art thou Virgil? That riparian fountain,”

All blushingly I said, within his sight,

“Of words that all who follow find a sound in

Which our own songs would sing with.  If I might,

I’ll say how much I honor you, what study

I sanctify with loving to your light.

But now look on that animal so bloody,

To you I turn for aid, to you I’m flying.

O horror!” “You must go this path, though muddy,”

Did Virgil say, to try to hush my crying,

“If you would from this dark wood find a way.

For past that wolf can no amount of trying

Attain that goal; whoso will try will pay

With his annihilation; hungrily,

Voraciously that wolf puts him away.

Marrying many animals bodily,

It looks to go on doing so, until

A Grayhound, coming with finality,

Shall bring its pain to culmination, kill

That awful wolf, who did not pity show.  

That hound, consuming not, such is its will,

Things of this world, but only what would go

With wisdom — loving all morality —

In fabrics of Franciscan monks will know

His nation.  Savior of low Italy,

That hound: our land for which Camilla, dying

A maid, and Nisus, and his loving ally

And Turnus, all lay down for good.  Now plying

Its way through any town that it might harry,

That wolf cannot avoid damnation, buying,

Through vicious rivalry, its day to tarry,

So soon to finish. So I think it right

That I conduct you, and that you stay wary.

As onwards through this aways-lasting night

You go, with sounds of always-lasting sorrow

Imploring total dying, not this blight.

But going through, I’ll bring you tomorrow

To souls who though in pain stay happy with it,

Hoping to pay back soon what sin did borrow

And climb salvation’s mount to that first orbit,

To which I must not go. But if you will

You’ll find at that hill’s top a worthy spirit,

Which I am not, as I did not fulfill

Writs laid down by that all-causing King,

Combatting what was law. His codicil

About my task thus says: I may not bring

A pilgrim to his city.  Though his might’s

Ubiquitous, from that city starts its ring

Circling all worlds.  O, happy, any sights

Of Him; most so, who in that city strong

Find bright salvation in its million lights.” 

And I to him: “I pray, by your high song — 

And by that God you did not know, I pray—

That you will as conductor, for as long

As you can do so, bring us on that way

Of pain, at last to portals which saints hallow,

And far from this soil’s sorrow.” With no stay

On did Virgil go, downwards did I follow.