SS

" Thy words, and my sequacious intellect,"

I answered him, “have love revealed to me;

But that has made me more impregned with doubt ;
For if love from without be offered us,

And with another foot the soul go not,

If right or wrong she go, 'tis not her merit."
And he to me : “What reason seeth here,

Myself can tell thee ; beyond that await

For Beatrice, since 'tis a work of faith.
Every substantial form, that segregate

From matter is, and with it is united,

Specific power has in itself collected,
Which without act is not perceptible,

Nor shows itself except by its effect,

As life does in a plant by the green leaves.
But still, whence cometh the intelligence

Of the first notions, man is ignorant,

And the affection for the first allurements,
Which are in you as instinct in the bee

To make its honey; and this first desire

Merit of praise or blame containeth not.
Now, that to this all others may be gathered,

Innate within you is the power that couộsels,

And it should keep the threshold of assent.
This is the principle, from which is taken

Occasion of desert in you, according

As good and guilty loves it takes and winnows.
Those who, in reasoning, to the bottom went,

Were of this innate liberty aware,

Therefore bequeathed they Ethics to the world.
Supposing, then, that from necessity

Springs every love that is within you kindled,

Within yourselves the power is to restrain it.
The noble virtue Beatrice understands

By the free will ; and therefore see that thou

Bear it in mind, if she should speak of it.”
The moon, belated almost unto midnight,

Now made the stars appear to us more rare,

Formed like a bucket, that is all ablaze,
And counter to the heavens ran through those paths

Which the sun sets aflame, when he of Rome

Sees it 'twixt Sardes and Corsicans go down;
And that patrician shade, for whom is named

Pietola more than any Mantuan town,
Had laid aside the burden of my lading ;

1

Whence I, who reason manifest and plain

In answer to my questions had received,

Stood like a man in drowsy reverie. Bill taken from me was this drowsiness

Suddenly by a people, that behind

Our backs already had come round to us And as, of old, Ismenus and Asopus

Beside them saw at night the rush and throng,

If but the Thebans were in need of Bacchus, So they along that circle curve their step,

From what I saw of those approaching us,

Who by good-will and righteous love are ridden. Full soon they were upon us, because running

Moved onward all that mighty multitude,

And two in the advance cried out, lamenting, “ Mary in haste unto the mountain ran,

And Cæsar, that he might subdue Ilerda,

Thrust at Marseilles, and then ran into Spain.” Quick ! quick! so that the time may not be lost

By little love !" forthwith the others cried,

“For ardour in well-doing freshens grace !" "O folk, in whom an eager fervour now

Supplies perhaps delay and negligence,

Put by you in well-doing, through lukewarmness, This one who lives, and truly I lie not,

Would fain go up, if but the sun relight us;

So tell us where the passage nearest is." These were the words of him who was my Guide ;

And some one of those spirits said : “Come on

Behind us, and the opening shalt thou find; So full of longing are we to move onward,

That stay we cannot ; therefore pardon us,

If thou for churlishness our justice take. I was San Zeno's-Abbot at Verona,

Under the empire of good Barbarossa,

Of whom still sorrowing Milan holds discourse; And he has one foot in the grave already,

Who shall erelong lament that monastery,

And sorry be of having there had power, Because his son, in his whole body sick,

And worse in mind, and who was evil-born,

He put into the place of its true pastor.”
If more he said, or silent was, I know not,

He had already passed so far beyond us ;
But this I heard, and to retain it pleased me.

And he who was in every need my succour

Said : “ Turn thee hitherward ; see two of them

Come fastening upon slothfulness their teeth."
In rear of all they shouted : “Sooner were

The people dead to whom the sea was openedl,

Than their inheritors the Jordan saw;
And those who the fatigue did not endure

Unto the issue, with Anchises' son,

Themselves to life withouten glory offered.”
Then when from us so separated were

Those shades, that they no longer could be seen,

Within me a new thought did entrance find,
Whence others many and diverse were born ;

And so I lapsed from one into another,

That in a reverie mine eyes I closed,
And meditation into dream transmuted.

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CANTO XIX.

It was the hour when the diurnal heat

No more can warm the coldness of the moon,

Vanquished by earth, or peradventure Saturn,
When geomancers their Fortuna Major

See in the orient before the dawn

Rise by a path that long remains not dim,
There came to me in dreams a stammering woman,

Squint in her eyes, and in her feet distorted,

With hands dissevered, and of sallow hue.
I looked at her; and as the sun restores

The frigid members, which the night benumbs,

Even thus my gaze did render voluble
Her tongue, and made her all erect thereafter

In little while, and the lost countenance

As love desires it so in her did colour.
When in this wise she had her speech unloosed,

She 'gan to sing so, that with difficulty

Could I have turned my thoughts away from her. “I am,” she sang, “ I am the Siren sweet

Who mariners amid the main unman

So full am I of pleasantness to hear.
I drew Ulysses from his wandering way

Unto my song, and he who dwells with me
Seldom departs, so wholly I content him."

Her mouth was not yet closed again, before

Appeared a Lady saintly and alert

Close at my side to put her to confusion. "Virgilius, ( Virgilius ! who is this?"

Sternly she said ; and he was drawing near

With eyes still fixed upon that modest one. She seized the other and in front laid open,

Rending her garments, and her belly showed me ;

This waked me with the stench that issued from it. I turned mine eyes, and good Virgilius said :

“At least thrice have I called thee; rise and come ;

Find we the opening by which thou mayst enter." I rose ; and full already of high day

Were all the circles of the Sacred Mountain,

And with the new sun at our back we went. Following behind him, I my forehead bore

Like unto one who has it laden with thought,

Who makes himself the half arch of a bridge, When I heard say, “ Come, here the passage is,"

Spoken in a manner gentle and benign,

Such as we hear not in this mortal region. With open wings, which of a swan appeared,

Upward he turned us who thus spake to us,

Between the two walls of the solid granite. He moved his pinions afterwards and fanned us,

Affirming those qui lugent to be blessed,

For they shall have their souls with comfort filled. “What aileth thee, that aye to earth thou gazest ?"

To me my Guide began to say, we both

Somewhat beyond the Angel having mounted. And I : “With such misgiving makes me go

A vision new, which bends me to itself,

So that I cannot from the thought withdraw me.” “ Didst thou behold,” he said, “that old enchantress,

Who sole above us henceforth is lamented ?

Didst thou behold how man is freed from her? Suffice it thee, and smite earth with thy heels,

Thine eyes lift upward to the lure, that whirls

The Eternal King with revolutions vast.” Even as the hawk, that first his feet surveys,

Then turns him to the call and stretches forward,

Through the desire of food that draws him thither,
Such I became, and such, as far as cleaves

The rock to give a way to him who mounts,
Went on to where the circling doth begin.

On the fifth circle when I had come forth,

People I saw upon it who were weeping,

Stretched prone upon the ground, all downward turned. • rúhæsit pavimento anima mea,"

I heard them say with sighings so profound,

That hardly could the words be understood. - () ye elect of God, whose sufferings

Justice and Hope both render less sever:

Direct ye us towards the high ascents.” “ If ye are come secure from this prostration,

And wish to find the way most speedily,

Let your right hands be evermore outside." Thus did the Poet ask, and thus was answered

By them somewhat in front of us; whence I

In what was spoken divined the rest concealed, And unto my Lord's eyes mine eyes I turned;

Whence he assented with a cheerful sign

To what the sight of my desire implored. When of myself I could dispose at will, Above that creature did I draw myself

, Whose words before had caused me to take note, Saying: “O Spirit, in whom weeping ripens

That without which to God we cannot turn,

Suspend awhile for me thy greater care.
Who wast thou, and why are your backs turned upwards,

Tell me, and if thou wouldst that I procure thee

Anything there whence living I departed.” And he to me: “Wherefore our backs the heaven

Turns to itself, know shalt thou; but beforehar:

Scias quod ego fui successor Petri. Between Siestri and Chiaveri descends

A river beautiful, and of its name

The title of my blood its summit makes. A month and little more essayed I how

Weighs the great cloak on him from mire who keeps it,

For all the other burdens seem a feather. Tardy, ah woe is me! was my conversion ;

But when the Roman Shepherd I was made,

Then I discovered life to be a lie.
I saw that there the heart was not at rest,

Nor farther in that life could one ascend;

Whereby the love of this was kindled in me.
Until that time a wretched soul and parted ·

From God was I, and wholly avaricious;
Now, as thou seest, I here am punished for its