(2) Therefore the pen skips, and I write it not, Since our imagination for such folds, Much more our speech, is of a tint too glaring. "O holy sister mine, who us implorest With such devotion, by thine ardent love Thou dost unbind me from that beautiful sphere!" Thereafter, having stopped, the blessed fire Unto my Lady did direct its breath, Which spake in fashion as I here have said. And she: "O light eterne of the great man To whom our Lord delivered up the keys He carried down of this miraculous joy, This one examine on points light and grave, As good beseemeth thee, about the Faith By means of which thou on the sea didst walk. If he love well, and hope well, and believe, From thee 'tis hid not; for thou hast thy sight There where depicted everything is seen. But since this kingdom has made citizens By means of the true Faith, to glorify it 'Tis well he have the chance to speak thereof." As baccalaureate arms himself, and speaks not Until the master doth propose the question, To argue it, and not to terminate it,

(3) And close to me approached, even as before, The very same who had entreated me, Attent to listen in their countenance. I, who their inclination twice had seen, Began: "O souls secure in the possession, Whene'er it may be, of a state of peace, Neither unripe nor ripened have remained My members upon earth, but here are with me With their own blood and their articulations. I go up here to be no longer blind; A Lady is above, who wins this grace, Whereby the mortal through your world I bring. But as your greatest longing satisfied May soon become, so that the Heaven may house you Which full of love is, and most amply spreads, Tell me, that I again in books may write it, Who are you, and what is that multitude Which goes upon its way behind your backs?" Not otherwise with wonder is bewildered The mountaineer, and staring round is dumb, When rough and rustic to the town he goes, Than every shade became in its appearance; But when they of their stupor were disburdened, Which in high hearts is quickly quieted,

(2) For there where earth and heaven obedient were, The woman only, and but just created, Could not endure to stay 'neath any veil; Underneath which had she devoutly stayed, I sooner should have tasted those delights Ineffable, and for a longer time. While 'mid such manifold first-fruits I walked Of the eternal pleasure all enrapt, And still solicitous of more delights, In front of us like an enkindled fire Became the air beneath the verdant boughs, And the sweet sound as singing now was heard. O Virgins sacrosanct! if ever hunger, Vigils, or cold for you I have endured, The occasion spurs me their reward to claim! Now Helicon must needs pour forth for me, And with her choir Urania must assist me, To put in verse things difficult to think. A little farther on, seven trees of gold In semblance the long space still intervening Between ourselves and them did counterfeit; But when I had approached so near to them The common object, which the sense deceives, Lost not by distance any of its marks,

(1) AND truly an we will lustily conform our love and our living, inasmuch as in us is, by grace and by counsel, unto the love and the living of Mary, no doubt but He shall answer on the same manner now for us ghostly each day, privily in the hearts of all those that either say or think against us. I say not but that evermore some men shall say or think somewhat against us, the whiles we live in the travail of this life, as they did against Mary. But I say, an we will give no more heed to their saying nor to their thinking, nor no more cease of our ghostly privy work for their words and their thoughts, than she did—I say, then, that our Lord shall answer them in spirit, if it shall be well with them that so say and so think, that they shall within few days have shame of their words and their thoughts.

(4) But since I see thee in thine intellect Converted into stone and stained with sin, So that the light of my discourse doth daze thee, I will too, if not written, at least painted, Thou bear it back within thee, for the reason That cinct with palm the pilgrim's staff is borne." And I: "As by a signet is the wax Which does not change the figure stamped upon it, My brain is now imprinted by yourself. But wherefore so beyond my power of sight Soars your desirable discourse, that aye The more I strive, so much the more I lose it?" "That thou mayst recognize," she said, "the school Which thou hast followed, and mayst see how far Its doctrine follows after my discourse, And mayst behold your path from the divine Distant as far as separated is From earth the heaven that highest hastens on." Whence her I answered: "I do not remember That ever I estranged myself from you, Nor have I conscience of it that reproves me." "And if thou art not able to remember," Smiling she answered, "recollect thee now That thou this very day hast drunk of Lethe;

(4) Thou know'st it; since, for her, to thee not bitter Was death in Utica, where thou didst leave The vesture, that will shine so, the great day. By us the eternal edicts are not broken; Since this one lives, and Minos binds not me; But of that circle I, where are the chaste Eyes of thy Marcia, who in looks still prays thee, O holy breast, to hold her as thine own; For her love, then, incline thyself to us. Permit us through thy sevenfold realm to go; I will take back this grace from thee to her, If to be mentioned there below thou deignest." "Marcia so pleasing was unto mine eyes While I was on the other side," then said he, "That every grace she wished of me I granted; Now that she dwells beyond the evil river, She can no longer move me, by that law Which, when I issued forth from there, was made. But if a Lady of Heaven do move and rule thee, As thou dost say, no flattery is needful; Let it suffice thee that for her thou ask me. Go, then, and see thou gird this one about With a smooth rush, and that thou wash his face, So that thou cleanse away all stain therefrom,

(1) "Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, Humble and high beyond all other creature, The limit fixed of the eternal counsel, Thou art the one who such nobility To human nature gave, that its Creator Did not disdain to make himself its creature. Within thy womb rekindled was the love, By heat of which in the eternal peace After such wise this flower has germinated. Here unto us thou art a noonday torch Of charity, and below there among mortals Thou art the living fountain-head of hope. Lady, thou art so great, and so prevailing, That he who wishes grace, nor runs to thee, His aspirations without wings would fly. Not only thy benignity gives succour To him who asketh it, but oftentimes Forerunneth of its own accord the asking. In thee compassion is, in thee is pity, In thee magnificence; in thee unites Whate'er of goodness is in any creature. Now doth this man, who from the lowest depth Of the universe as far as here has seen One after one the spiritual lives,

(34) Thou art as reason, we like the tongue; 'Tis reason that teaches the tongue to speak. Thou art as joy, and we are laughing; Our every motion every moment testifies, So the revolution of the millstone, so violent, O Thou who art above our conceptions and descriptions, Dust be on our heads, and upon our similitudes of Thee! Yet Thy slaves never cease devising images of Thee; They cry to Thee always, "My life is Thy footstool!" Like that shepherd who cried," O Lord!

(1) I salute thee, the holy soul! O beloved one! and this for me is more appropriate than for most. Hail! O truly beloved! And to the truly Loveable and Desired, very beloved! Why should it be a marvel, if Christ speaks truly, and the unjust banish His disciples from their cities, themselves bringing upon themselves their due, and the accursed severing themselves, and departing from the holy. Truly things seen are manifest images of things unseen. For, neither in the ages which are approaching, will Almighty God be Cause of the just separations from Himself, but they by having separated themselves entirely from Almighty God; even as we observe the others, becoming here already with Almighty God, since being lovers of truth, they depart from the proclivities of things material, and love peace in a complete freedom from all things evil, and a Divine love of all things good; and start their purification, even from the present life, by living, in the midst of mankind, the life which is to come, in a manner suitable to angels, with complete cessation of passion, and deification and goodness, and the other good attributes. As for you then, I would never be so crazy as to imagine that you feel any suffering; but I am persuaded that you ate sensible of the bodily sufferings merely to appraise them. But, as for those who are unjustly treating you, and fancying to imprison, not correctly, the sun of the Gospel, whilst fairly blaming them, I pray that by separating themselves from those things which they are bringing upon themselves they may be turned to the good, and may draw you to themselves, and may participate in the light. But for ourselves, the contrary will not deprive us of the all-luminous ray of John, who are even now about to read the record, and the renewal of this, thy true theology: but shortly after (for I will say it, even though it be rash), about to be united to you yourself. For, I am altogether trustworthy, from having learned, and reading the things made foreknown to you by God, that you will both be liberated from your imprisonment in Patmos, and will return to the Asiatic coast, and will perform there imitations of the good God, and will transmit them to those after you.

(4) Christians, be ye more serious in your movements; Be ye not like a feather at each wind, And think not every water washes you. Ye have the Old and the New Testament, And the Pastor of the Church who guideth you Let this suffice you unto your salvation. If evil appetite cry aught else to you, Be ye as men, and not as silly sheep, So that the Jew among you may not mock you. Be ye not as the lamb that doth abandon Its mother's milk, and frolicsome and simple Combats at its own pleasure with itself." Thus Beatrice to me even as I write it; Then all desireful turned herself again To that part where the world is most alive. Her silence and her change of countenance Silence imposed upon my eager mind, That had already in advance new questions; And as an arrow that upon the mark Strikes ere the bowstring quiet hath become, So did we speed into the second realm. My Lady there so joyful I beheld, As into the brightness of that heaven she entered, More luminous thereat the planet grew;

(13) Yet it is not possible to hold, conjointly, qualities thoroughly opposed, nor that a man who has had a certain fellowship with the One should have divided lives, if he clings to the firm participation in the One; but he must be resistless and resolute, as regards all separations from the uniform. This it is which the teaching of the symbols reverently and enigmatically intimates, by stripping the proselyte, as it were, of his former life, and discarding to the very utmost the habits within that life, makes him stand naked and barefoot, looking away towards the west, whilst he spurns, by the aversion of his hands, the participations in the gloomy baseness, and breathes out, as it were, the habit of dissimilarity which he had acquired, and professes the entire renunciation of everything contrary to the Divine likeness. When the man has thus become invincible and separate from evil, it turns him towards the east, declaring clearly that his position and recovery will be purely in the Divine Light, in the complete separation from baseness; and receiving his sacred promises of entire consort with the One, since he has become uniform through love of the truth. Yet it is pretty evident, as I think, to those versed in Hierarchical matters, that things intellectual acquire the unchangeableness of the Godlike habit, by continuous and persistent struggles towards one, and by the entire destruction and annihilation of things contrary. For it is necessary that a man should not only depart from every kind of baseness, but he must be also bravely obdurate and ever fearless against the baneful submission to it. Nor must he, at any time, become remiss in his sacred love of the truth, but with all his power persistently and perpetually be elevated towards it, always religiously pursuing his upward course, to the more perfect mysteries of the Godhead.

(3) 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.

(2) "Marvel thou not," she said to me, "because I smile at this thy puerile conceit, Since on the truth it trusts not yet its foot, But turns thee, as 'tis wont, on emptiness. True substances are these which thou beholdest, Here relegate for breaking of some vow. Therefore speak with them, listen and believe; For the true light, which giveth peace to them, Permits them not to turn from it their feet." And I unto the shade that seemed most wishful To speak directed me, and I began, As one whom too great eagerness bewilders: "O well-created spirit, who in the rays Of life eternal dost the sweetness taste Which being untasted ne'er is comprehended, 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,

(4) And the more people thitherward aspire, More are there to love well, and more they love there, And, as a mirror, one reflects the other. And if my reasoning appease thee not, Thou shalt see Beatrice; and she will fully Take from thee this and every other longing. Endeavour, then, that soon may be extinct, As are the two already, the five wounds That close themselves again by being painful." Even as I wished to say, "Thou dost appease me," I saw that I had reached another circle, So that my eager eyes made me keep silence. There it appeared to me that in a vision Ecstatic on a sudden I was rapt, And in a temple many persons saw; And at the door a woman, with the sweet Behaviour of a mother, saying: "Son, Why in this manner hast thou dealt with us? Lo, sorrowing, thy father and myself Were seeking for thee;"—and as here she ceased, That which appeared at first had disappeared. Then I beheld another with those waters Adown her cheeks which grief distils whenever From great disdain of others it is born,

(4) But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire I had remained, did not his aspect change, Neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side. "And if," continuing his first discourse, "They have that art," he said, "not learned aright, That more tormenteth me, than doth this bed. But fifty times shall not rekindled be The countenance of the Lady who reigns here, Ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art; And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return, Say why that people is so pitiless Against my race in each one of its laws?" Whence I to him: "The slaughter and great carnage Which have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause Such orisons in our temple to be made." After his head he with a sigh had shaken, "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.

(3) I was as one who still retains the feeling Of a forgotten vision, and endeavours In vain to bring it back into his mind, When I this invitation heard, deserving Of so much gratitude, it never fades Out of the book that chronicles the past. If at this moment sounded all the tongues That Polyhymnia and her sisters made Most lubrical with their delicious milk, To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth It would not reach, singing the holy smile And how the holy aspect it illumed. And therefore, representing Paradise, The sacred poem must perforce leap over, Even as a man who finds his way cut off; But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme, And of the mortal shoulder laden with it, Should blame it not, if under this it tremble. It is no passage for a little boat This which goes cleaving the audacious prow, Nor for a pilot who would spare himself. "Why doth my face so much enamour thee, That to the garden fair thou turnest not, Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?

(1) Now was alone rejoicing in its word That soul beatified, and I was tasting My own, the bitter tempering with the sweet, And the Lady who to God was leading me Said: "Change thy thought; consider that I am Near unto Him who every wrong disburdens." Unto the loving accents of my comfort I turned me round, and then what love I saw Within those holy eyes I here relinquish; Not only that my language I distrust, But that my mind cannot return so far Above itself, unless another guide it. Thus much upon that point can I repeat, That, her again beholding, my affection From every other longing was released. While the eternal pleasure, which direct Rayed upon Beatrice, from her fair face Contented me with its reflected aspect, Conquering me with the radiance of a smile, She said to me, "Turn thee about and listen; Not in mine eyes alone is Paradise." Even as sometimes here do we behold The affection in the look, if it be such That all the soul is wrapt away by it,

(77) But behold! it is not I that have made way for this, but thy desire and highly raised lofty lust has moved the Deity to reveal to thee the desire of thy heart, in the highest simplicity in the greatest depth, that it may be a witness against thee, and a denunciation of the earnest severe day of God.

(6) So from the lights that there to me appeared Upgathered through the cross a melody, Which rapt me, not distinguishing the hymn. Well was I ware it was of lofty laud, Because there came to me, "Arise and conquer!" As unto him who hears and comprehends not. So much enamoured I became therewith, That until then there was not anything That e'er had fettered me with such sweet bonds. Perhaps my word appears somewhat too bold, Postponing the delight of those fair eyes, Into which gazing my desire has rest; But who bethinks him that the living seals Of every beauty grow in power ascending, And that I there had not turned round to those, Can me excuse, if I myself accuse To excuse myself, and see that I speak truly: For here the holy joy is not disclosed, Because ascending it becomes more pure.

(1) Absorbed in his delight, that contemplator Assumed the willing office of a teacher, And gave beginning to these holy words: "The wound that Mary closed up and anointed, She at her feet who is so beautiful, She is the one who opened it and pierced it. Within that order which the third seats make Is seated Rachel, lower than the other, With Beatrice, in manner as thou seest. Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and her who was Ancestress of the Singer, who for dole Of the misdeed said, 'Miserere mei,' Canst thou behold from seat to seat descending Down in gradation, as with each one's name I through the Rose go down from leaf to leaf. And downward from the seventh row, even as Above the same, succeed the Hebrew women, Dividing all the tresses of the flower; Because, according to the view which Faith In Christ had taken, these are the partition By which the sacred stairways are divided. Upon this side, where perfect is the flower With each one of its petals, seated are Those who believed in Christ who was to come.