Dante on a dream of a golden eagle carrying him to the fire in Canto IX of “Purgatorio”

In the hour when the swallow sings, greeting the dawn, and her song is mournful, as if she remembered some former grief,.

And our mind, freed
from thoughts and having cast off its perishable coverings,
is at times, as it were, prophetically clear-sighted,

I dreamed that above me a stern eagle
hung, clad in golden colour,
with wings outspread and ready to plunge,

And that I was in the place where Ganymede,
having left his own, was wondrously exalted
and caught up into the council beyond the clouds.

I thought: "Perhaps he is accustomed
to strike only here, where he overtook me,
and otherwise is indifferent to his prey."

Meanwhile, wheeling in circles and overshadowing the earth,
he descended like a thunderbolt
and soared with me up to the very fire.

And there I burned together with him;
and the phantom blaze scorched me
with such force that my dream was shattered.

Literal translation

Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy. Purgatorio, Canto IX

Illustration: Gustave Doré