Dante Alighieri

“ Gazing around as one who sees new sights.
From every side the sun darted his beams,
And with his arrowy radiance from mid heav’n
Had chas’d the Capricorn, when that strange tribe
Lifting their eyes towards us: “If ye know,
Declare what path will Lead us to the mount.”
Them Virgil answer’d. “Ye suppose perchance
Us well acquainted with this place: but here,
We, as yourselves, are strangers. Not long erst
We came, before you but a little space,
By other road so rough and hard, that now
The’ ascent will seem to us as play.” ”

“ Thou didst presume of men and gods to sing.
If other cause thou deem’dst for which I smil’d,
Leave it as not the true one; and believe
Those words, thou spak’st of him, indeed the cause.”
Now down he bent t’ embrace my teacher’s feet;
But he forbade him: “Brother! do it not:
Thou art a shadow, and behold’st a shade.”
He rising answer’d thus: “Now hast thou prov’d
The force and ardour of the love I bear thee,
When I forget we are but things of air,
And as a substance treat an empty shade.” ”

“ With one elsewhere declar’d, each strength’ning other.
The world indeed is even so forlorn
Of all good as thou speak’st it and so swarms
With every evil. Yet, beseech thee, point
The cause out to me, that myself may see,
And unto others show it: for in heaven
One places it, and one on earth below.”
Then heaving forth a deep and audible sigh,
“Brother!” he thus began, “the world is blind;
And thou in truth com’st from it. Ye, who live,
Do so each cause refer to heav’n above,
E’en as its motion of necessity
Drew with it all that moves. ”

“ Than I at her behest my visage rais’d:
And thus the face denoting by the beard,
I mark’d the secret sting her words convey’d.
No sooner lifted I mine aspect up,
Than downward sunk that vision I beheld
Of goodly creatures vanish; and mine eyes
Yet unassur’d and wavering, bent their light
On Beatrice. Towards the animal,
Who joins two natures in one form, she turn’d,
And, even under shadow of her veil,
And parted by the verdant rill, that flow’d
Between, in loveliness appear’d as much
Her former self surpassing, as on earth
All others she surpass’d. ”

“ Nor thou
Marvel, if before me no shadow fall,
More than that in the sky element
One ray obstructs not other. To endure
Torments of heat and cold extreme, like frames
That virtue hath dispos’d, which how it works
Wills not to us should be reveal’d. Insane
Who hopes, our reason may that space explore,
Which holds three persons in one substance knit.
Seek not the wherefore, race of human kind ”

“ How much we now had circled of the mount,
And of his course yet more the sun had spent,
When he, who with still wakeful caution went,
Admonish’d: “Raise thou up thy head: for know
Time is not now for slow suspense. Behold
That way an angel hasting towards us! Lo!
Where duly the sixth handmaid doth return
From service on the day. Wear thou in look
And gesture seemly grace of reverent awe,
That gladly he may forward us aloft.
Consider that this day ne’er dawns again.” ”

“ Hence hath it semblance, and is shadow call’d,
With each sense even to the sight endued:
Hence speech is ours, hence laughter, tears, and sighs
Which thou mayst oft have witness’d on the mount
Th’ obedient shadow fails not to present
Whatever varying passion moves within us. ”

“ For that thy sire and thou have suffer’d thus,
Through greediness of yonder realms detain’d,
The garden of the empire to run waste.
Come see the Capulets and Montagues,
The Philippeschi and Monaldi! man
Who car’st for nought! those sunk in grief, and these
With dire suspicion rack’d. Come, cruel one!
Come and behold the’ oppression of the nobles,
And mark their injuries: and thou mayst see.
What safety Santafiore can supply.
Come and behold thy Rome, who calls on thee,
Desolate widow! day and night with moans:
“My Caesar, why dost thou desert my side?” ”

“ My Florence! thou mayst well remain unmov’d
At this digression, which affects not thee:
Thanks to thy people, who so wisely speed.
Many have justice in their heart, that long
Waiteth for counsel to direct the bow,
Or ere it dart unto its aim: but shine
Have it on their lip’s edge. Many refuse
To bear the common burdens: readier thine
Answer uneall’d, and cry, “Behold I stoop!”
Make thyself glad, for thou hast reason now,
Thou wealthy! thou at peace! thou wisdom-fraught! ”

“ What savage women hath the world e’er seen,
What Saracens, for whom there needed scourge
Of spiritual or other discipline,
To force them walk with cov’ring on their limbs!
But did they see, the shameless ones, that Heav’n
Wafts on swift wing toward them, while I speak,
Their mouths were op’d for howling: they shall taste
Of Borrow (unless foresight cheat me here)
Or ere the cheek of him be cloth’d with down
Who is now rock’d with lullaby asleep.
Ah! now, my brother, hide thyself no more,
Thou seest how not I alone but all
Gaze, where thou veil’st the intercepted sun. ”

“ The wretch appear’d amid all these to say:
“Grant vengeance, sire! for, woe beshrew this heart
My son is murder’d.” He replying seem’d;
“Wait now till I return.” And she, as one
Made hasty by her grief; “O sire, if thou
Dost not return?”—“Where I am, who then is,
May right thee.”—“What to thee is other’s good,
If thou neglect thy own?”—“Now comfort thee,”
At length he answers. “It beseemeth well
My duty be perform’d, ere I move hence:
So justice wills; and pity bids me stay.” ”

“ Than every beast beside, yet is not fill’d!
So bottomless thy maw!—Ye spheres of heaven!
To whom there are, as seems, who attribute
All change in mortal state, when is the day
Of his appearing, for whom fate reserves
To chase her hence?—With wary steps and slow
We pass’d; and I attentive to the shades,
Whom piteously I heard lament and wail;
And, ’midst the wailing, one before us heard
Cry out “O blessed Virgin!” as a dame
In the sharp pangs of childbed; and “How poor
Thou wast,” it added, “witness that low roof
Where thou didst lay thy sacred burden down. ”

“ And forms an individual soul, that lives,
And feels, and bends reflective on itself.
And that thou less mayst marvel at the word,
Mark the sun’s heat, how that to wine doth change,
Mix’d with the moisture filter’d through the vine.
“When Lachesis hath spun the thread, the soul
Takes with her both the human and divine,
Memory, intelligence, and will, in act
Far keener than before, the other powers
Inactive all and mute. No pause allow’d,
In wond’rous sort self-moving, to one strand
Of those, where the departed roam, she falls,
Here learns her destin’d path. ”

“ Address thee, thou mayst still be aptly plac’d
To hear them.” Soon as duly to her side
I now had hasten’d: “Brother!” she began,
“Why mak’st thou no attempt at questioning,
As thus we walk together?” Like to those
Who, speaking with too reverent an awe
Before their betters, draw not forth the voice
Alive unto their lips, befell me shell
That I in sounds imperfect thus began:
“Lady! what I have need of, that thou know’st,
And what will suit my need.” She answering thus:
“Of fearfulness and shame, I will, that thou
Henceforth do rid thee: that thou speak no more,
As one who dreams. ”

“ Then he: “My brother, of what use to mount,
When to my suffering would not let me pass
The bird of God, who at the portal sits?
Behooves so long that heav’n first bear me round
Without its limits, as in life it bore,
Because I to the end repentant Sighs
Delay’d, if prayer do not aid me first,
That riseth up from heart which lives in grace.
What other kind avails, not heard in heaven?”
Before me now the Poet up the mount
Ascending, cried: “Haste thee, for see the sun
Has touch’d the point meridian, and the night
Now covers with her foot Marocco’s shore.” ”

“ E’en thus I shook me, soon as from my face
The slumber parted, turning deadly pale,
Like one ice-struck with dread. Solo at my side
My comfort stood: and the bright sun was now
More than two hours aloft: and to the sea
My looks were turn’d. “Fear not,” my master cried,
“Assur’d we are at happy point. Thy strength
Shrink not, but rise dilated. Thou art come
To Purgatory now. Lo! there the cliff
That circling bounds it! Lo! ”

“ Exclaim’d, “that thou hast slack’d thy pace? or how
Imports it thee, what thing is whisper’d here?
Come after me, and to their babblings leave
The crowd. Be as a tower, that, firmly set,
Shakes not its top for any blast that blows!
He, in whose bosom thought on thought shoots out,
Still of his aim is wide, in that the one
Sicklies and wastes to nought the other’s strength.” ”

“ And show’d the belly to me, whence a smell,
Exhaling loathsome, wak’d me. Round I turn’d
Mine eyes, and thus the teacher: “At the least
Three times my voice hath call’d thee. Rise, begone.
Let us the opening find where thou mayst pass.”
I straightway rose. Now day, pour’d down from high,
Fill’d all the circuits of the sacred mount;
And, as we journey’d, on our shoulder smote
The early ray. I follow’d, stooping low
My forehead, as a man, o’ercharg’d with thought,
Who bends him to the likeness of an arch,
That midway spans the flood ”

“ Far as the stream of Verde, where, with lights
Extinguish’d, he remov’d them from their bed.
Yet by their curse we are not so destroy’d,
But that the eternal love may turn, while hope
Retains her verdant blossoms. True it is,
That such one as in contumacy dies
Against the holy church, though he repent,
Must wander thirty-fold for all the time
In his presumption past; if such decree
Be not by prayers of good men shorter made
Look therefore if thou canst advance my bliss ”

“ Go therefore on, and listen as thou go’st.”
“O spirit! who go’st on to blessedness
With the same limbs, that clad thee at thy birth.”
Shouting they came, “a little rest thy step.
Look if thou any one amongst our tribe
Hast e’er beheld, that tidings of him there
Thou mayst report. Ah, wherefore go’st thou on?
Ah wherefore tarriest thou not? We all
By violence died, and to our latest hour
Were sinners, but then warn’d by light from heav’n,
So that, repenting and forgiving, we
Did issue out of life at peace with God,
Who with desire to see him fills our heart.” ”

“ Of the clear spring; illumin’d first by thee
Open’d mine eyes to God. Thou didst, as one,
Who, journeying through the darkness, hears a light
Behind, that profits not himself, but makes
His followers wise, when thou exclaimedst, ‘Lo!
A renovated world! Justice return’d!
Times of primeval innocence restor’d!
And a new race descended from above!’
Poet and Christian both to thee I owed.
That thou mayst mark more clearly what I trace,
My hand shall stretch forth to inform the lines
With livelier colouring. ”

“ There is who so much fears the loss of power,
Fame, favour, glory (should his fellow mount
Above him) , and so sickens at the thought,
He loves their opposite: and there is he,
Whom wrong or insult seems to gall and shame
That he doth thirst for vengeance, and such needs
Must doat on other’s evil. ”

“ The vessel, which thou saw’st the serpent break,
Was and is not: let him, who hath the blame,
Hope not to scare God’s vengeance with a sop.
Without an heir for ever shall not be
That eagle, he, who left the chariot plum’d,
Which monster made it first and next a prey.
Plainly I view, and therefore speak, the stars
E’en now approaching, whose conjunction, free
From all impediment and bar, brings on
A season, in the which, one sent from God,
(Five hundred, five, and ten, do mark him out)
That foul one, and th’ accomplice of her guilt,
The giant, both shall slay. ”

“ Yet moving seem’d not, they so slow approach’d.
I thus my guide address’d: “Upraise thine eyes,
Lo that way some, of whom thou may’st obtain
Counsel, if of thyself thou find’st it not!”
Straightway he look’d, and with free speech replied:
“Let us tend thither: they but softly come.
And thou be firm in hope, my son belov’d.”
Now was that people distant far in space
A thousand paces behind ours, as much
As at a throw the nervous arm could fling,
When all drew backward on the messy crags
Of the steep bank, and firmly stood unmov’d
As one who walks in doubt might stand to look. ”

“ Appear’d before me, down whose visage cours’d
Those waters, that grief forces out from one
By deep resentment stung, who seem’d to say:
“If thou, Pisistratus, be lord indeed
Over this city, nam’d with such debate
Of adverse gods, and whence each science sparkles,
Avenge thee of those arms, whose bold embrace
Hath clasp’d our daughter; “and to fuel, meseem’d,
Benign and meek, with visage undisturb’d,
Her sovran spake: “How shall we those requite,
Who wish us evil, if we thus condemn
The man that loves us?” ”

“ I, when I heard his saying, was as one
Laid in the grave. My hands together clasp’d,
And upward stretching, on the fire I look’d,
And busy fancy conjur’d up the forms
Erewhile beheld alive consum’d in flames.
Th’ escorting spirits turn’d with gentle looks
Toward me, and the Mantuan spake: “My son,
Here torment thou mayst feel, but canst not death.
Remember thee, remember thee, if I
Safe e’en on Geryon brought thee: now I come
More near to God, wilt thou not trust me now? ”

“ But when he bade me quit him, and proceed
(For “here,” said he, “behooves with sail and oars
Each man, as best he may, push on his bark”) ,
Upright, as one dispos’d for speed, I rais’d
My body, still in thought submissive bow’d.
I now my leader’s track not loth pursued;
And each had shown how light we far’d along
When thus he warn’d me: “Bend thine eyesight down:
For thou to ease the way shall find it good
To ruminate the bed beneath thy feet.” ”

“ Is lessen’d, envy bloweth up the sighs of men.
No fear of that might touch ye, if the love
Of higher sphere exalted your desire.
For there, by how much more they call it ours,
So much propriety of each in good
Increases more, and heighten’d charity
Wraps that fair cloister in a brighter flame.”
“Now lack I satisfaction more,” said I,
“Than if thou hadst been silent at the first,
And doubt more gathers on my lab’ring thought.
How can it chance, that good distributed,
The many, that possess it, makes more rich,
Than if ’twere shar’d by few?” ”

“ And to one ladder both address’d our steps;
And the first stair approaching, I perceiv’d
Near me as ’twere the waving of a wing,
That fann’d my face and whisper’d: “Blessed they
The peacemakers: they know not evil wrath.”
Now to such height above our heads were rais’d
The last beams, follow’d close by hooded night,
That many a star on all sides through the gloom
Shone out. “Why partest from me, O my strength?” ”