The power of vision that your world receives,
As eye into the ocean, penetrates;
Which, though it see the bottom near the shore,

Upon the deep perceives it not; and yet
'Tis there, but it is hidden by the depth.
There is no light but comes from the serene
That never is o'ercast, nay, it is darkness
Or shadow of the flesh, or else its poison.
Amply to thee is opened now the cavern
Which has concealed from thee the living justice
Of which thou mad'st such frequent questioning.
For saidst thou: Born a man is on the shore

60

65

Of Indus, and is none who there can speak
Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write;
And all his inclinations and his actions

Are good, so far as human reason sees,
Without a sin in life or in discourse:
He dieth unbaptized and without faith;
Where is this justice that condemneth him?
Where is his fault, if he do not believe?'
Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit
In judgment at a thousand miles away,
With the short vision of a single span ?

70

75

80

Truly to him who with me subtilizes,

If so the Scripture were not over you,

For doubting there were marvellous occasion.

85

O animals terrene, O stolid minds,

The primal will, that in itself is good,

Ne'er from itself, the Good Supreme, has moved

So much is just as is accordant with it;

No good created draws it to itself,
But it, by raying forth, occasions that."

90

Even as above her nest goes circling round
The stork when she has fed her little ones,
And he who has been fed looks up at her,
So lifted I my brows, and even such

Became the blessed image, which its wings.
Was moving, by so many counsels urged.
Circling around it sang, and said: “As are

95

My notes to thee, who dost not comprehend them, Such is the eternal judgment to you mortals." Those lucent splendors of the Holy Spirit

Grew quiet then, but still within the standard
That made the Romans reverend to the world.
It recommenced: "Unto this kingdom never
Ascended one who had not faith in Christ,
Before or since he to the tree was nailed.
But look thou, many crying are, Christ, Christ!'
Who at the judgment shall be far less near

100

To him than some shall be who knew not Christ. Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn,

When the two companies shall be divided,
The one forever rich, the other poor.
What to your kings may not the Persians say,
When they that volume opened shall behold
In which are written down all their dispraises?
There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert,

That which erelong shall set the pen in motion, For which the realm of Prague shall be deserted. There shall be seen the woe that on the Seine

He brings by falsifying of the coin,

Who by the blow of a wild boar shall die. There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst, Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad

105

115

120

That they within their boundaries cannot rest
Be seen the luxury and effeminate life

Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian,
Who valor never knew and never wished;

Be seen the Cripple of Jerusalem,

His goodness represented by an I,
While the reverse an M shall represent;
Be seen the avarice and poltroonery

Of him who guards the Island of the Fire,
Wherein Anchises finished his long life;
And to declare how pitiful he is

Shall be his record in contracted letters

125

130

Which shall make note of much in little space. 135 And shall appear to each one the foul deeds

Of uncle and of brother who a nation

So famous have dishonored, and two crowns.
And he of Portugal and he of Norway

Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too,
Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice.

O happy Hungary, if she let herself

Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy, If with the hills that gird her she be armed! And each one may believe that now, as hansel Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta Lament and rage because of their own beast, Who from the others' flank departeth not."

140

145

CANTO XX

WHEN he who all the world illuminates
Out of our hemisphere so far descends
That on all sides the daylight is consumed,
The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled,
Doth suddenly reveal itself again

By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.
And came into my mind this act of heaven,
When the ensign of the world and of its leaders
Had silent in the blessed beak become;

Because those living luminaries all,

By far more luminous, did songs begin
Lapsing and falling from my memory.

O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee,
How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear,
That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!
After the precious and pellucid crystals,

With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld,
Silence imposed on the angelic bells,

I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river

That clear descendeth down from rock to rock,
Showing the affluence of its mountain-top.
And as the sound upon the cithern's neck
Taketh its form, and as upon the vent
Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it,
Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting,

That murmuring of the eagle mounted up
Along its neck, as if it had been hollow.

ΙΟ

15

20

25

There it became a voice, and issued thence
From out its beak, in such a form of words
As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.
"The part in me which sees and bears the sun

In mortal eagles," it began to me,

"Now fixedly must needs be looked upon;

30

For of the fires of which I make my figure,
Those whence the eye doth sparkle in my head 35
Of all their orders the supremest are.

He who is shining in the midst as pupil
Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit,

Who bore the ark from city unto city; Now knoweth he the merit of his song,

In so far as effect of his own counsel, By the reward which is commensurate. Of five, that make a circle for my brow,

He that approacheth nearest to my beak Did the poor widow for her son console; Now knoweth he how dearly it doth cost

Not following Christ, by the experience Of this sweet life and of its opposite. He who comes next in the circumference

Of which I speak, upon its highest arc,
Did death postpone by penitence sincere;
Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment
Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer
Maketh below to-morrow of to-day.

The next who follows, with the laws and me,
Under the good intent that bore bad fruit
Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor;

Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced

From his good action is not harmful to him,

40

45

50

55