"And if," continuing his first discourse, "They have that art," he said, "not learned aright, But fifty times shall not rekindled be The countenance of the Lady who reigns here, Against my race in each one of its laws?" After his head he with a sigh had shaken, 66 "There I was not alone," he said, nor surely Without a cause had with the others moved. But there I was alone, where every one Consented to the laying waste of Florence, He who defended her with open face." "Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose," I him entreated, "solve for me that knot, Which has entangled my conceptions here. It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly, Beforehand whatsoe'er time brings with it, And in the present have another mode." "We see, like those who have imperfect sight, The things," he said, "that distant are from us; Our intellect, and if none brings it to us, Said: "Now, then, you will tell that fallen one, Tell him I did it because I was thinking And now my Master was recalling me, Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit That he would tell me who was with him there. He said: "With more than a thousand here I lie; Within here is the second Frederick, And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not." Thereon he hid himself; and I towards The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me. He moved along; and afterward, thus going, He said to me, "Why art thou so bewildered?" And I in his inquiry satisfied him. "Let memory preserve what thou hast heard Against thyself," that Sage commanded me, "And now attend here;" and he raised his finger. "When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold, We left the wall, and went towards the middle, CANTO XI. UPON the margin of a lofty bank Which great rocks broken in a circle made, We came upon a still more cruel throng; And there, by reason of the horrible Excess of stench the deep abyss throws out, We drew ourselves aside behind the cover Of a great tomb, whereon I saw a writing, Which said: "Pope Anastasius I hold, Whom out of the right way Photinus drew." "Slow it behoveth our descent to be, So that the sense be first a little used To the sad blast, and then we shall not heed it." "Some compensation find, that the time pass not My son, upon the inside of these rocks," Began he then to say, are three small circles, From grade to grade, like those which thou art leaving. They all are full of spirits maledict; But that hereafter sight alone suffice thee, Hear how and wherefore they are in constraint. Of every malice that wins hate in Heaven, Injury is the end; and all such end Either by force or fraud afflicteth others. BC But because fraud is man's peculiar vice, More it displeases God; and so stand lowest All the first circle of the Violent is ; But since force may be used against three persons, A death by violence, and painful wounds, Are to our neighbour given; and in his substance Whence homicides, and he who smites unjustly, Man may lay violent hands upon himself And his own goods; and therefore in the second Whoever of your world deprives himself, Who games, and dissipates his property, And weepeth there, where he should jocund be. Violence can be done the Deity, In heart denying and blaspheming Him, And by disdaining Nature and her bounty. And for this reason doth the smallest round Seal with its signet Sodom and Cahors, And who, disdaining God, speaks from the heart. Fraud, wherewithal is every conscience stung, A man may practise upon him who trusts, And him who doth no confidence imburse. This latter mode, it would appear, dissevers Only the bond of love which Nature makes; Wherefore within the second circle nestle Hypocrisy, flattery, and who deals in magic, Falsification, theft, and simony, Panders, and barrators, and the like filth. Which Nature makes, and what is after added, But tell me, those within the fat lagoon, Whom the wind drives, and whom the rain doth beat, Wherefore are they inside of the red city Not punished, if God has them in his wrath, And unto me he said: "Why wanders so Thine intellect from that which it is wont ? Or, sooth, thy mind where is it elsewhere looking? Hast thou no recollection of those words With which thine Ethics thoroughly discusses The dispositions three, that Heaven abides not,-Incontinence, and Malice, and insane Bestiality? and how Incontinence Less God offendeth, and less blame attracts? If thou regardest this conclusion well, And to thy mind recallest who they are "O Sun, that healest all distempered vision, Thou dost content me so, when thou resolvest, That doubting pleases me no less than knowing! Once more a little backward turn thee," said I, "There where thou sayest that usury offends Noteth, not only in one place alone, And if thy Physics carefully thou notest, That this your art as far as possible Follows, as the disciple doth the master; So that your art is, as it were, God's grandchild. From these two, if thou bringest to thy mind Genesis at the beginning, it behoves Mankind to gain their life and to advance ; And since the usurer takes another way, Nature herself and in her follower Disdains he, for elsewhere he puts his hope. For quivering are the Fishes on the horizon, CANTO XII. THE place where to descend the bank we came Smote, on this side of Trent, the Adige, And on the border of the broken chasm And when he us beheld, he bit himself, My Sage towards him shouted: "Peradventure Thou think'st that here may be the Duke of Athens, And he, the wary, cried: "Run to the passage: Of stones, which oftentimes did move themselves By that brute anger which just now I quenched. Before His coming who the mighty spoil |