“O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?”

Canto XII, lines 95–96 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Original

O gente umana, per volar sù nata, | perché a poco vento così cadi?

l'Angelo dell'umiltà: XII, 95-96
Variant: O gente umana, per volar sù nata,
perché a poco vento così cadi?

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?" by Dante Alighieri?
Dante Alighieri photo
Dante Alighieri 105
Italian poet 1265–1321

Related quotes

Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo
James Macpherson photo
Edmund Gosse photo

“Canst thou not wait for Love one flying hour
O heart of little faith?”

Edmund Gosse (1849–1928) Poet, author, and critic

Sonnet, "Dejection and Delay" Bartlet's Quotations 1919 http://www.bartleby.com/100/pages/page814.html

Andrei Tarkovsky photo
James Macpherson photo

“Whither hast thou fled, O wind?”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

said the king of Morven. "Dost thou rustle in the chambers of the south? pursuest thou the shower in other lands? Why dost thou not come to my sails? to the blue face of my seas?"
"Lathmon"
The Poems of Ossian

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

St. 2
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (1816)
Context: Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
Ask why the sunlight not for ever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,
Why fear and dream and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this earth
Such gloom, why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?

Felicia Hemans photo
James Macpherson photo
Robert Seymour Bridges photo

“Why hast thou nothing in thy face?
Thou idol of the human race,
Thou tyrant of the human heart,
The flower of lovely youth that art.”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

Eros http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2933.html, st. 1 (1899).
Poetry

John Hoole photo

“Ah! why so rare does cruel Love inspire
Two tender bosoms with a mutual fire?
Say, whence, perfidious, dost thou pleasure find
To sow dissension in the human mind?”

John Hoole (1727–1803) British translator

Book II, line 1
Translations, Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto (1773)

Related topics