(89) And when they saw it they feared and trembled at its presence, and desired to return to their folds.

(107) And his father Lamech was afraid of him and fled, and came to his father Methuselah.

(4) O thou who turnest back after having smitten him, and hast accomplished the overthrow

(7) And Shem took his garment and arose, he and Japheth, and they placed the garment on their shoulders and went backward and covered the shame of their father, and their faces were backward.'

[My soul went slack] and I fled and I was very disturbed. And [I] turned to myself and saw the light that [surrounded] me and the Good that was in me, and I became Divine. And the all-glorious one, Youel, contacted me again and empowered me. She said:

(1) Turn away then front to front, on entering the Meskat

(5) "O my dear Guide, who more than seven times Hast rendered me security, and drawn me From imminent peril that before me stood, Do not desert me," said I, "thus undone; And if the going farther be denied us, Let us retrace our steps together swiftly." And that Lord, who had led me thitherward, Said unto me: "Fear not; because our passage None can take from us, it by Such is given. But here await me, and thy weary spirit Comfort and nourish with a better hope; For in this nether world I will not leave thee." So onward goes and there abandons me My Father sweet, and I remain in doubt, For No and Yes within my head contend. I could not hear what he proposed to them; But with them there he did not linger long, Ere each within in rivalry ran back. They closed the portals, those our adversaries, On my Lord's breast, who had remained without And turned to me with footsteps far between.

(2) Upon this journey, whence thou givest him vaunt, Things did he hear, which the occasion were Both of his victory and the papal mantle. Thither went afterwards the Chosen Vessel, To bring back comfort thence unto that Faith, Which of salvation's way is the beginning. But I, why thither come, or who concedes it? I not Aeneas am, I am not Paul, Nor I, nor others, think me worthy of it. Therefore, if I resign myself to come, I fear the coming may be ill-advised; Thou'rt wise, and knowest better than I speak." And as he is, who unwills what he willed, And by new thoughts doth his intention change, So that from his design he quite withdraws, Such I became, upon that dark hillside, Because, in thinking, I consumed the emprise, Which was so very prompt in the beginning. "If I have well thy language understood," Replied that shade of the Magnanimous, "Thy soul attainted is with cowardice, Which many times a man encumbers so, It turns him back from honoured enterprise, As false sight doth a beast, when he is shy.

(89) And they all feared and trembled because of Him, and they cried to that sheep with them [which was amongst them]: "We are not able to stand before our Lord or to behold Him."