Grateful 'twill be to me, if thou content me

Both with thy name and with your destiny." Whereat she promptly and with laughing eyes: "Our charity doth never shut the doors

Against a just desire, except as one

Who wills that all her court be like herself.

I was a virgin sister in the world;

And if thy mind doth contemplate me well,

The being more fair will not conceal me from thee,

But thou shalt recognise I am Piccarda,

Who, stationed here among these other blessed,
Myself am blessed in the slowest sphere.

All our affections, that alone inflamed

Are in the pleasure of the Holy Ghost,
Rejoice at being of his order formed;
And this allotment, which appears so low,

Therefore is given us, because our vows
Have been neglected and in some part void."
Whence I to her: "In your miraculous aspects

There shines I know not what of the divine,
Which doth transform you from our first conceptions.
Therefore I was not swift in my remembrance;
But what thou tellest me now aids me so,
That the refiguring is easier to me.

But tell me, ye who in this place are happy,

Are you desirous of a higher place,

To see more or to make yourselves more friends?"

First with those other shades she smiled a little;
Thereafter answered me so full of gladness,
She seemed to burn in the first fire of love:

"Brother, our will is quieted by virtue

Of charity, that makes us wish alone

For what we have, nor gives us thirst for more.

If to be more exalted we aspired,

Discordant would our aspirations be

Unto the will of Him who here secludes us; Which thou shalt see finds no place in these circles, If being in charity is needful here,

And if thou lookest well into its nature;

Nay, 'tis essential to this blest existence

To keep itself within the will divine,
Whereby our very wishes are made one;

So that, as we are station above station

Throughout this realm, to all the realm 'tis pleasing,
As to the King, who makes his will our will.

And his will is our peace; this is the sea
To which is moving onward whatsoever
It doth create, and all that nature makes."
Then it was clear to me how everywhere

In heaven is Paradise, although the grace
Of good supreme there rain not in one measure.
But as it comes to pass, if one food sates,

And for another still remains the longing,
We ask for this, and that decline with thanks,
E'en thus did I, with gesture and with word,

To learn from her what was the web wherein
She did not ply the shuttle to the end.

"A perfect life and merit high in-heaven

A lady o'er us," said she, "by whose rule
Down in your world they vest and veil themselves,
That until death they may both watch and sleep
Beside that Spouse who every vow accepts
Which charity conformeth to his pleasure.

To follow her, in girlhood from the world

I fled, and in her habit shut myself,

And pledged me to the pathway of her sect.

Then men accustomed unto evil more

Than unto good, from the sweet cloister tore me;
God knows what afterward my life became.

This other splendour, which to thee reveals
Itself on my right side, and is enkindled
With all the illumination of our sphere,
What of myself I say applies to her;

A nun was she, and likewise from her head
Was ta'en the shadow of the sacred wimple.
But when she too was to the world returned
Against her wishes and against good usage,
Of the heart's veil she never was divested.
Of great Costanza this is the effulgence,

Who from the second wind of Suabia
Brought forth the third and latest puissance."
Thus unto me she spake, and then began
"Ave Maria" singing, and in singing

Vanished, as through deep water something heavy.

My sight, that followed her as long a time
As it was possible, when it had lost her
Turned round unto the mark of more desire,

And wholly unto Beatrice reverted;

But she such lightnings flashed into mine eyes,
That at the first my sight endured it not;
And this in questioning more backward made me,

130

CANTO IV.

BETWEEN two viands, equally removed

And tempting, a free man would die of hunger
Ere either he could bring unto his teeth.
So would a lamb between the ravenings

Of two fierce wolves stand fearing both alike;
And so would stand a dog between two does.
Hence, if I held my peace, myself I blame not,
Impelled in equal measure by my doubts,
Since it must be so, nor do I commend.
I held my peace; but my desire was painted
Upon my face, and questioning with that
More fervent far than by articulate speech.
Beatrice did as Daniel had done

Relieving Nebuchadnezzar from the wrath
Which rendered him unjustly merciless,
And said: "Well see I how attracteth thee
One and the other wish, so that thy care
Binds itself so that forth it does not breathe.
Thou arguest, if good will be permanent,

The violence of others, for what reason
Doth it decrease the measure of my merit?
Again for doubting furnish thee occasion

Souls seeming to return unto the stars,
According to the sentiment of Plato.
These are the questions which upon thy wish
Are thrusting equally; and therefore first
Will I treat that which hath the most of gall.
He of the Seraphim most absorbed in God,
Moses, and Samuel, and whichever John
Thou mayst select, I say, and even Mary,
Have not in any other heaven their seats,

Than have those spirits that just appeared to thee,
Nor of existence more or fewer years;

But all make beautiful the primal circle,

And have sweet life in different degrees,
By feeling more or less the eternal breath.

They showed themselves here, not because allotted
This sphere has been to them, but to give sign
Of the celestial which is least exalted.

39

To speak thus is adapted to your mind,
Since only through the sense it apprehendeth
What then it worthy makes of intellect.
On this account the Scripture condescends

Unto your faculties, and feet and hands
To God attributes, and means something else;
And Holy Church under an aspect human
Gabriel and Michael represent to you,
And him who made Tobias whole again.
That which Timæus argues of the soul

Doth not resemble that which here is seen,
Because it seems that as he speaks he thinks.
He says the soul unto its star returns,

Believing it to have been severed thence
Whenever nature gave it as a form
Perhaps his doctrine is of other guise

Than the words sound, and possibly may be
With meaning that is not to be derided.
If he doth mean that to these wheels return

The honour of their influence and the blame,
Perhaps his bow doth hit upon some truth.
This principle ill understood once warped

The whole world nearly, till it went astray
Invoking Jove and Mercury and Mars.
The other doubt which doth disquiet thee
Less venom has, for its malevolence
Could never lead thee otherwhere from me.
That as unjust our justice should appear
In eyes of mortals, is an argument
Of faith, and not of sin heretical.

But still, that your perception may be able
To thoroughly penetrate this verity,
As thou desirest, I will satisfy thee.

If it be violence when he who suffers

Co-operates not with him who uses force,

These souls were not on that account excused;

For will is never quenched unless it will,

But operates as nature doth in fire,

If violence a thousand times distort it.
Hence, if it yieldeth more or less, it seconds

The force; and these have done so, having power
Of turning back unto the holy place.

If their will had been perfect, like to that

Which Lawrence fast upon his gridiron held,
And Mutius made severe to his own hand,

55

65

73

It would have urged them back along the road
Whence they were dragged, as soon as they were free;
But such a solid will is all too rare.

And by these words, if thou hast gathered them
As thou shouldst do, the argument is refuted
That would have still annoyed thee many times.

But now another passage runs across

Before thine eyes, and such that by thyself

Thou couldst not thread it ere thou wouldst be weary

I have for certain put into thy mind

That soul beatified could never lie,
For it is ever near the primal Truth,

And then thou from Piccarda might'st have heard
Costanza kept affection for the veil,

So that she seemeth here to contradict me.
Many times, brother, has it come to pass,

That, to escape from peril, with reluctance That has been done it was not right to do, E'en as Alcmæon (who, being by his father Thereto entreated, his own mother slew) Not to lose pity pitiless became.

At this point I desire thee to remember

That force with will commingles, and they cause
That the offences cannot be excused.

Will absolute consenteth not to evil;

But in so far consenteth as it fears,
If it refrain, to fall into more harm.
Hence when Piccarda uses this expression,
She meaneth the will absolute, and I

110

That issued from the fount whence springs all truth;
This put to rest my wishes one and all.

"O love of the first lover, O divine,"

Said I forthwith, "whose speech inundates me

And warms me so, it more and more revives me,

120

My own affection is not so profound

As to suffice in rendering grace for grace;
Let Him, who sees and can, thereto respond.

Well I perceive that never sated is

Our intellect unless the Truth illume it,
Beyond which nothing true expands itself.

It rests therein, as wild beast in his lair,

When it attains it; and it can attain it;
If not, then each desire would frustrate be.

เช