(16) Or dost thou suppose that we are mad? If we did not see thee, we would be silent. Thou boastest now (by the Flatterers) of a golden Time; but they are most of them Wolves of Babel; when the Day breaks, then they will be known. Or should I not tell thee this, thou proud Whore? Behold, when thou with Adam and Eve wentest out of Paradise into the Spirit of this World, then thou wast as a God in the Spirit of this World; thou Slightest seek all Mysteries, and use them for thy Ornament. If thou hadst always gone cloathed in Silk and Purple, [or Scarlet,] yet thou hadst not [thereby] offended God; but thou hadst gone [in them] to the Honour of the great God in his Deeds of Wonder. Why hast thou forsaken the Love, and art become a Murderer? Was not Covetousness thy Sin, in that thou affordest not thy Members so much as thyself? Thou desirest to be only fine thyself alone. Thy Way only i should be holy. Wherefore was the Fratricide between Abel and Cain? The self-honouring Pride brought it about, so that Cain envied Abel's Uprightness, for the Sake of which he was so much beloved of God. Why was not Cain also humble and pious?

(4) Mine eyes he loosed, and said: "Direct the nerve Of vision now along that ancient foam, There yonder where that smoke is most intense." Even as the frogs before the hostile serpent Across the water scatter all abroad, Until each one is huddled in the earth. More than a thousand ruined souls I saw, Thus fleeing from before one who on foot Was passing o'er the Styx with soles unwet. From off his face he fanned that unctuous air, Waving his left hand oft in front of him, And only with that anguish seemed he weary. Well I perceived one sent from Heaven was he, And to the Master turned; and he made sign That I should quiet stand, and bow before him. Ah! how disdainful he appeared to me! He reached the gate, and with a little rod He opened it, for there was no resistance. "O banished out of Heaven, people despised!" Thus he began upon the horrid threshold; "Whence is this arrogance within you couched? Wherefore recalcitrate against that will, From which the end can never be cut off, And which has many times increased your pain?

(42) O thou blind Mind, with thy Might and Stateliness, full of Wickedness and devilish fierce Wrath, [wilt thou know where thou art after that thy Body perishes?] Thou art even with all the Devils, in the Abyss of Hell, if thou dost not turn, and by earnest unfained Sorrow and Repentance for thy Abominations, enter into the angelical Footsteps, that the Saviour and Treader upon the Serpent of fierce Wrath, Wickedness, Lying, and Deceit, may meet thee, and embrace thee in his Arms, and [that thou] mayest be new-born in him, and be yielded up into the Bosom of the chaste Virgin, and become an Angel; or else thou art in the eternal Death, in the eternal Darkness, and canst not in all Eternity reach the Kingdom of God any more.

(40) Do not behold thyself, thou blind Mind, and consider thyself, where is thy angelical Form in thee? Why art thou so angry, stern, [fierce, froward,] and malicious? Wherefore dost thou elevate thyself still in thy Wickedness, in Pride, in Might [or Authority,] and Pomp, and boasteth thyself for a brave and potent Beast? What is it that thou dost? Wherefore hast thou High and Low. let the Spirit of this World into thee, which seduces thee (as it lists) into High-mindedness, into [proud] Stoutness, into P Potency and Pomp, into Covetousness and Lying, into Falshood and Treachery, as also into Sickness and Corruption, [or Frailty?]

(44) How could He say, 'O temperate or O meek one!' Or, 'O courageous one, or O wise one?' How could there be temperate, gentle, or liberal men If there were no cursed Satan to tempt them astray? Rustam and Hamza would be all the same as cowards; Wisdom and knowledge serve to guide the wanderers; To pamper the house of your body fleeting as water, Do you think it right to ruin both worlds? I know you are pure of guile and ripe, The ills of fortune and all troubles soever

(17) Wilt thou say, the Devil beguiled him? Yes indeed, and he beguiles thee too, so that thou enviest the Comeliness and Beauty of others. Has God made thee a Degree higher? Art thou not a Child of Eve? Pray tell me the Truth, Art thou not the Antichrist, which under a Cloak [of being counted the Minister and Servant of God] ridest upon the Devil's Horse? Methinks I see thee. Hearken! When thou wentest out of Paradise into this World, why didst thou not continue in one [only] Love? Why didst thou not rejoice in thy Neighbour? Why didst thou not love the Members of thy Body? Why dost thou not adorn thy Brother with thy Ornament? Didst thou not see him plainly? Was not the Earth thy own? Thou mightest have made what thou wouldst of it. Who did hinder thee in it? Why didst thou not eat with thy Brother? Thou mightest have had fully enough; there would never have been any Want. If thy Humility towards thy Brother had continued, then his also had continued towards thee. And then what a fine Habitation and Dwelling had there been upon Earth? What need had there been for thee to have coined Silver and Gold, if Unity had continued? Thou mightest have made thy Ornaments of it well enough; if thou hadst adorned thy Brother and Sister, then they would have adorned thee again with their ready serviceable Love. Dost thou think it had been of thy Brother, and to the Honour of the great God?

(1) LO, ghostly friend! to such wretchedness as thou here mayest see be we fallen for sin: and therefore what wonder is it, though we be blindly and lightly deceived in understanding of ghostly words and of ghostly working, and specially those the which know not yet the powers of their souls and the manners of their working?

(2) Rejoicing in their flamelets seemed the heaven. O thou septentrional and widowed site, Because thou art deprived of seeing these! When from regarding them I had withdrawn, Turning a little to the other pole, There where the Wain had disappeared already, I saw beside me an old man alone, Worthy of so much reverence in his look, That more owes not to father any son. A long beard and with white hair intermingled He wore, in semblance like unto the tresses, Of which a double list fell on his breast. The rays of the four consecrated stars Did so adorn his countenance with light, That him I saw as were the sun before him. "Who are you? ye who, counter the blind river, Have fled away from the eternal prison?" Moving those venerable plumes, he said: "Who guided you? or who has been your lamp In issuing forth out of the night profound, That ever black makes the infernal valley? The laws of the abyss, are they thus broken? Or is there changed in heaven some council new, That being damned ye come unto my crags?"

(82) I only said, "Is it right? " and He forsook me. Why dost Thou flee from the cries of us on earth? Why pourest Thou sorrow on the heart of the sorrowful? O Thou who, as each new morn dawns from the east, Art seen uprising anew, like a bright fountain! What excuse makest Thou for Thy witcheries? O Thou whose lips are sweeter than sugar, Thou that ever renewest the life of this old world, Hear the cry of this lifeless body and heart! But, for God's sake, leave off telling of the Rose;

(64) But thou mad World, what shall the Spirit say [of thee?] art thou not my Brother? The Essences of my Spirit stir thee, go forth out of thy Beast, and then I go with my Companions into the Garden of Roses, into the Lily of God. Why keepest thou back, and sufferest thyself to be held by the Devil? Is he not thy Enemy, he does but hunt after thy Pearl; and if he gets it, then thy Spirit becomes a Worm and Beast in its Figure. Why sufferest thou thy angelical Image to be taken away, for temporal Pleasure Sake? Thy Pleasure is only in the corruptible Beast. But what does that avail the Soul? If thou dost not go out from it, thou wilt get eternal Woe and Sorrow by it.

(6) What is it, then? Why, why dost thou delay? Why is such baseness bedded in thy heart? Daring and hardihood why hast thou not, Seeing that three such Ladies benedight Are caring for thee in the court of Heaven, And so much good my speech doth promise thee?" Even as the flowerets, by nocturnal chill, Bowed down and closed, when the sun whitens them, Uplift themselves all open on their stems; Such I became with my exhausted strength, And such good courage to my heart there coursed, That I began, like an intrepid person: "O she compassionate, who succoured me, And courteous thou, who hast obeyed so soon The words of truth which she addressed to thee! Thou hast my heart so with desire disposed To the adventure, with these words of thine, That to my first intent I have returned. Now go, for one sole will is in us both, Thou Leader, and thou Lord, and Master thou." Thus said I to him; and when he had moved, I entered on the deep and savage way.

(1) "Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!" Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began; And that benignant Sage, who all things knew, Said, to encourage me: "Let not thy fear Harm thee; for any power that he may have Shall not prevent thy going down this crag." Then he turned round unto that bloated lip, And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf; Consume within thyself with thine own rage. Not causeless is this journey to the abyss; Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought Vengeance upon the proud adultery." Even as the sails inflated by the wind Involved together fall when snaps the mast, So fell the cruel monster to the earth. Thus we descended into the fourth chasm, Gaining still farther on the dolesome shore Which all the woe of the universe insacks. Justice of God, ah! who heaps up so many New toils and sufferings as I beheld? And why doth our transgression waste us so? As doth the billow there upon Charybdis, That breaks itself on that which it encounters, So here the folk must dance their roundelay.

(3) But as I should have burned and baked myself, My terror overmastered my good will, Which made me greedy of embracing them. Then I began: "Sorrow and not disdain Did your condition fix within me so, That tardily it wholly is stripped off, As soon as this my Lord said unto me Words, on account of which I thought within me That people such as you are were approaching. I of your city am; and evermore Your labours and your honourable names I with affection have retraced and heard. I leave the gall, and go for the sweet fruits Promised to me by the veracious Leader; But to the centre first I needs must plunge." "So may the soul for a long while conduct Those limbs of thine," did he make answer then, "And so may thy renown shine after thee, Valour and courtesy, say if they dwell Within our city, as they used to do, Or if they wholly have gone out of it; For Guglielmo Borsier, who is in torment With us of late, and goes there with his comrades, Doth greatly mortify us with his words."

(1) Already was the Angel left behind us, The Angel who to the sixth round had turned us, Having erased one mark from off my face; And those who have in justice their desire Had said to us, "Beati," in their voices, With "sitio," and without more ended it. And I, more light than through the other passes, Went onward so, that without any labour I followed upward the swift-footed spirits; When thus Virgilius began: "The love Kindled by virtue aye another kindles, Provided outwardly its flame appear. Hence from the hour that Juvenal descended Among us into the infernal Limbo, Who made apparent to me thy affection, My kindliness towards thee was as great As ever bound one to an unseen person, So that these stairs will now seem short to me. But tell me, and forgive me as a friend, If too great confidence let loose the rein, And as a friend now hold discourse with me; How was it possible within thy breast For avarice to find place, 'mid so much wisdom As thou wast filled with by thy diligence?"

(2) Then reigned within my lofty fantasy One crucified, disdainful and ferocious In countenance, and even thus was dying. Around him were the great Ahasuerus, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, Who was in word and action so entire. And even as this image burst asunder Of its own self, in fashion of a bubble In which the water it was made of fails, There rose up in my vision a young maiden Bitterly weeping, and she said: "O queen, Why hast thou wished in anger to be naught? Thou'st slain thyself, Lavinia not to lose; Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns, Mother, at thine ere at another's ruin." As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed, And broken quivers ere it dieth wholly, So this imagining of mine fell down As soon as the effulgence smote my face, Greater by far than what is in our wont. I turned me round to see where I might be, When said a voice, "Here is the passage up;" Which from all other purposes removed me,

(38) Besides, I hear a great Howling and Lamentation, that all thy Servants cry Woe over thee, because thou plaguest them; and moreover, thou hast shed my noble Seed, and not sown it, but [thou hast sown] thy wild [Seed] for [the promoting of] thy great Devouring and Pomp. Behold, I have spewed thee out towards Babel in the Press of my fierce Wrath, and there I will press thee; and I will plant my Lily-Branch in my Garden of Roses, which brings me forth Fruit, after which my Soul lusts, of which my sick Adam shall eat, that he may be strong, and may go into Paradise. Of the Thrusting Adam and Eve out of the Paradise of the Garden in Eden.

(1) Ill strives the will against a better will; Therefore, to pleasure him, against my pleasure I drew the sponge not saturate from the water. Onward I moved, and onward moved my Leader, Through vacant places, skirting still the rock, As on a wall close to the battlements; For they that through their eyes pour drop by drop The malady which all the world pervades, On the other side too near the verge approach. Accursed mayst thou be, thou old she-wolf, That more than all the other beasts hast prey, Because of hunger infinitely hollow! O heaven, in whose gyrations some appear To think conditions here below are changed, When will he come through whom she shall depart? Onward we went with footsteps slow and scarce, And I attentive to the shades I heard Piteously weeping and bemoaning them; And I by peradventure heard "Sweet Mary!" Uttered in front of us amid the weeping Even as a woman does who is in child-birth; And in continuance: "How poor thou wast Is manifested by that hostelry Where thou didst lay thy sacred burden down."

(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) Already now the air was growing dark, But not so that between his eyes and mine It did not show what it before locked up. Tow'rds me he moved, and I tow'rds him did move; Noble Judge Nino! how it me delighted, When I beheld thee not among the damned! No greeting fair was left unsaid between us; Then asked he: "How long is it since thou camest O'er the far waters to the mountain's foot?" "Oh!" said I to him, "through the dismal places I came this morn; and am in the first life, Albeit the other, going thus, I gain." And on the instant my reply was heard, He and Sordello both shrank back from me, Like people who are suddenly bewildered. One to Virgilius, and the other turned To one who sat there, crying, "Up, Currado! Come and behold what God in grace has willed!" Then, turned to me: "By that especial grace Thou owest unto Him, who so conceals His own first wherefore, that it has no ford, When thou shalt be beyond the waters wide, Tell my Giovanna that she pray for me, Where answer to the innocent is made.

(65) Or what shall my noble Warrior Christ say to it? Have not I [says Christ] broken thy wild Beast? Am I not entered into the Death? I have cut off from thy Soul the four Elements, and the Wickedness [or Malice] of the Devil, and have inoculated thy Soul into my Virtue [or Power,] that thy Body might spring and grow again out of my Body, out of the holy Element before God; and I have bound myself to thee by my Spirit. Have I not made a Covenant with thee, that thou shouldst be mine? Have I not given thee my Body for Food, and my Blood for Drink? Have I not given thee my Spirit for a Conductor, and allotted thee my Kingdom for thy own? Why dost thou despise me, and go away from me? Thou runnest after the Wolves and the Dogs, and howlest with them, and thou seekest only after Anger, and how thou mayest bite [and devour;] thou swallowest nothing but Fierceness [into thee.] What shall I say? I have in my Suffering and Death (by my Regeneration) generated no such Beast, and therefore I will not have it, except it be again born anew in me, to an angelical Image, and then it shall be with me.