When Dante wrote the poem we call 糖心传媒淭he Divine Comedy,糖心传媒� he called it simply the 糖心传媒淐ommedia糖心传媒�: a story, beginning in sorrow and ending in joy, of one man糖心传媒檚 journey from hell, through purgatory, to paradise. It糖心传媒檚 a good story. But while many of us are eager to harrow the halls of hell, with its gossipy tales of human suffering, few of us make it to heaven, where we are instructed in the theological intricacies of free will, gravity and the soul. No one said the journey was going to be easy.

But if the 糖心传媒淧aradiso糖心传媒� is low on human interest (its inhabitants neither want nor regret anything), it contains some of the most exhilarating poetry even written. Recently, the poet Robert Pinsky offered us an English 糖心传媒淚nferno糖心传媒�; W. S. Merwin translated the 糖心传媒淧urgatorio.糖心传媒� Robert and Jean Hollander have made the whole journey: their 糖心传媒淧aradiso糖心传媒� completes their verse translation of the entire 糖心传媒淐ommedia.糖心传媒�

Robert Hollander is one of the pre-eminent Dante scholars of our time. Each canto comes trailing notes of generous length elucidating the political, theological and cosmological aspects of Dante糖心传媒檚 allegory. In addition, the translators refer to 73 commentaries compiled over the centuries and available at the Dartmouth Dante Project (dante.dartmouth.edu). But the 糖心传媒淐ommedia糖心传媒� is above all else a poem, and the Hollander translation obscures this fact 糖心传媒� not because its scholarly apparatus is vast, but because the translation only fitfully succeeds as English poetry.

If you haven糖心传媒檛 yet read the Divine Comedy糖心传媒攜ou know who you are糖心传媒攏ow is the time, because Robert and Jean Hollander have just completed a beautiful translation of the astonishing fourteenth-century poem. The Hollanders糖心传媒� Inferno was published in 2000, their Purgatorio in 2003. Now their Paradiso (Doubleday; $40) is out. It is more idiomatic than any other English version I know. At the same time, it is lofty, the more so for being plain. Jean Hollander, a poet, was in charge of the verse; Robert Hollander, her husband, oversaw its accuracy. The notes are by Robert, who is a Dante scholar and a professor emeritus at Princeton, where he taught the Divine Comedy for forty-two years.