Marvel not at it; for while I am speaking

Thou shalt behold all these their color change. He who usurps upon the earth my place, My place, my place, which vacant has become Before the presence of the Son of God, Has of my cemetery made a sewer

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Of blood and stench, whereby the Perverse One, Who fell from here, below there is appeased!" With the same color which, through sun adverse, Painteth the clouds at evening or at morn, Beheld I then the whole of heaven suffused.

And as a modest woman, who abides

Sure of herself, and at another's failing, From listening only, timorous becomes, Even thus did Beatrice change countenance; And I believe in heaven was such eclipse, When suffered the supreme Omnipotence; Thereafterward proceeded forth his words

With voice so much transmuted from itself, The very countenance was not more changed. "The spouse of Christ has never nurtured been On blood of mine, of Linus and of Cletus, To be made use of in acquest of gold;

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But in acquest of this delightful life
Sixtus and Pius, Urban and Calixtus,
After much lamentation, shed their blood.
Our purpose was not, that on the right hand
Of our successors should in part be seated
The Christian folk, in part upon the other;
Nor that the keys which were to me confided
Should e'er become the escutcheon on a banner, 50
That should wage war on those who are baptized;
Nor I be made the figure of a seal

To privileges venal and mendacious, Whereat I often redden and flash with fire. In garb of shepherds the rapacious wolves

Are seen from here above o'er all the pastures!
O wrath of God, why dost thou slumber still?
To drink our blood the Caorsines and Gascons
Are making ready. O thou good beginning,
Unto how vile an end must thou needs fall!
But the high Providence, that with Scipio

At Rome the glory of the world defended,
Will speedily bring aid, as I conceive;
And thou, my son, who by thy mortal weight

Shalt down return again, open thy mouth;
What I conceal not, do not thou conceal."
As with its frozen vapors downward falls

In flakes our atmosphere, what time the horn Of the celestial Goat doth touch the sun, Upward in such array saw I the ether

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Become, and flaked with the triumphant vapors, Which there together with us had remained. My sight was following up their semblances, And followed till the medium, by excess, The passing farther onward took from it; Whereat the Lady, who beheld me freed From gazing upward, said to me: "Cast down Thy sight, and see how far thou art turned round." Since the first time that I had downward looked,

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I saw that I had moved through the whole arc 80 Which the first climate makes from midst to end; So that I saw the mad track of Ulysses

Past Gades, and this side, well nigh the shore Whereon became Europa a sweet burden. And of this threshing-floor the site to me

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Were more unveiled, but the sun was proceeding Under my feet, a sign and more removed. My mind enamored, which is dallying

At all times with my Lady, to bring back

To her mine eyes was more than ever ardent. 90 And if or Art or Nature has made bait

To catch the eyes and so possess the mind,
In human flesh or in its portraiture,
All joined together would appear as naught

To the divine delight which shone upon me When to her smiling face I turned me round. The virtue that her look endowed me with

From the fair nest of Leda tore me forth,
And up into the swiftest heaven impelled me.
Its parts exceeding full of life and lofty
Are all so uniform, I cannot say
Which Beatrice selected for my place.
But she, who was aware of my desire,

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Began, the while she smiled so joyously That God seemed in her countenance to rejoice: "The nature of that motion, which keeps quiet 106 The centre, and all the rest about it moves, From hence begins as from its starting point. And in this heaven there is no other Where

Than in the Mind Divine, wherein is kindled 110 The love that turns it, and the power it rains. Within a circle light and love embrace it, Even as this doth the others, and that precinct He who encircles it alone controls.

Its motion is not by another meted,

But all the others measured are by this, As ten is by the half and by the fifth. And in what manner time in such a pot

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May have its roots, and in the rest its leaves,
Now unto thee can manifest be made.
O covetousness, that mortals dost ingulf

Beneath thee so, that no one hath the power Of drawing back his eyes from out thy waves! Full fairly blossoms in mankind the will;

But the uninterrupted rain converts Into abortive wildings the true plums. Fidelity and innocence are found

Only in children; afterwards they both

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Take flight or e'er the cheeks with down are covered.

One, while he prattles still, observes the fasts, 130 Who, when his tongue is loosed, forthwith de

vours

Whatever food under whatever moon;
Another, while he prattles, loves and listens
Unto his mother, who when speech is perfect
Forthwith desires to see her in her grave.
Even thus is swarthy made the skin so white
In its first aspect of the daughter fair

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Of him who brings the morn, and leaves the night. Thou, that it may not be a marvel to thee,

Think that on earth there is no one who governs ;

Whence goes astray the human family.

Ere January be unwintered wholly

By the centesimal on earth neglected,
Shall these supernal circles roar so loud

The tempest that has been so long awaited

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Shall whirl the poops about where are the prows; So that the fleet shall run its course direct, And the true fruit shall follow on the flower."

CANTO XXVIII.

After the truth against the present life
Of miserable mortals was unfolded
By her who doth imparadise my mind,
As in a looking-glass a taper's flame

He sees who from behind is lighted by it,
Before he has it in his sight or thought,
And turns him round to see if so the glass
Tell him the truth, and sees that it accords
Therewith as doth a music with its metre,
In similar wise my memory recollecteth

That I did, looking into those fair eyes,

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Of which Love made the springes to ensnare me. And as I turned me round, and mine were touched By that which is apparent in that volume, Whenever on its gyre we gaze intent,

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A point beheld I, that was raying out
Light so acute, the sight which it enkindles
Must close perforce before such great acuteness.
And whatsoever star seems smallest here
Would seem to be a moon, if placed beside it
As one star with another star is placed.
Perhaps at such a distance as appears

A halo cincturing the light that paints it,
When densest is the vapor that sustains it,
Thus distant round the point a circle of fire
So swiftly whirled, that it would have surpassed
Whatever motion soonest girds the world;

And this was by another circumcinct,

That by a third, the third then by a fourth,

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By a fifth the fourth, and then by a sixth the

fifth;

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