"Thy words, and my sequacious intellect," I answered him, "have love revealed to me ; 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, Nor shows itself except by its effect, To make its honey; and this first desire Innate within you is the power that counsels, 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. Therefore bequeathed they Ethics to the world. 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 Now made the stars appear to us more rare, Whence I, who reason manifest and plain In answer to my questions had received, Suddenly by a people, that behind Beside them saw at night the rush and throng, So they along that circle curve their step, From what I saw of those approaching us, 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 full of longing are we to move onward, That stay we cannot; therefore pardon us, 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 worse in mind, and who was evil-born, If more he said, or silent was, I know not, And he who was in every need my succour Said: “Turn thee hitherward; see two of them The people dead to whom the sea was opened, Unto the issue, with Anchises' son, 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 meditation into dream transmuted. 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, Her tongue, and made her all erect thereafter When in this wise she had her speech unloosed, Could I have turned my thoughts away from her. "I am," she sang, "I am the Siren sweet I drew Ulysses from his wandering way 110 135 140 149 13 Her mouth was not yet closed again, before Close at my side to put her to confusion. "Virgilius, O Virgilius! who is this?" Sternly she said; and he was drawing near Rending her garments, and her belly showed me ; I turned mine eyes, and good Virgilius said: "At least thrice have I called thee; rise and come; 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," With Spoken in a manner gentle and benign, Such as we hear not in this mortal region. 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?" 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 Even as the hawk, that first his feet surveys, Then turns him to the call and stretches forward, Such I became, and such, as far as cleaves The rock to give a way to him who mounts, 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. Auhæsit pavimento anima mea,” I heard them say with sighings so profound, That hardly could the words be understood. "O ye elect of God, whose sufferings Justice and Hope both render less sever: By them somewhat in front of us; whence I Whence he assented with a cheerful sign 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, Who wast thou, and why are your backs turned upwards, And he to me : 66 'Wherefore our backs the heaven Turns to itself, know shalt thou; but beforehand 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, Tardy, ah woe is me! was my conversion; I saw that there the heart was not at rest, From God was I, and wholly avaricious; |