"Now who art thou, that cleavest through our smoke, Whereon my Master said: "Do thou reply, To return beautiful to Him who made thee, Thou shalt hear marvels if thou follow me." "Thee will I follow far as is allowed me," He answered; "and if smoke prevent our seeing, Which death unwindeth am I going upward, And if God in his grace has me infolded, So that he wills that I behold his court By method wholly out of modern usage, Conceal not from me who ere death thou wast, But tell it me, and tell me if I go Right for the pass, and be thy words our escort." "Lombard was I, and I was Marco called; The world I knew, and loved that excellence, For mounting upward, thou art going right." 25 30 35 40 45 Thus he made answer, and subjoined: "I pray thee 50 And I to him: "My faith I pledge to thee First it was simple, and is now made double To do what thou dost ask me; but am bursting By thy opinion, which makes certain to me, 55 Here and elsewhere, that which I couple with it. The world forsooth is utterly deserted By every virtue, as thou tellest me, And with iniquity is big and covered; But I beseech thee point me out the cause, That I may see it, and to others show it; For one in the heavens, and here below one puts it." A sigh profound, that grief forced into Ai! He first sent forth, and then began he: "Brother, Ye who are living every cause refer Still upward to the heavens, as if all things 60 65 If this were so, in you would be destroyed Free will, nor any justice would there be In having joy for good, or grief for evil. The heavens your movements do initiate, I say not all; but granting that I say it, In the first battles with the heavens it suffers, To greater force and to a better nature, Though free, ye subject are, and that creates In you the cause is, be it sought in you; Weeping and laughing in her childish sport, Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker, Behoved a king to have, who at the least No one; because the shepherd who precedes Can ruminate, but cleaveth not the hoof; Wherefore the people that perceives its guide Strike only at the good for which it hankers, The cause is that has made the world depraved, Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed was Two suns to have, which one road and the other, One has the other quenched, and to the crosier In the land laved by Po and Adige, Valour and courtesy used to be found, Before that Frederick had his controversy; Now in security can pass that way Whoever will abstain, through sense of shame, The ancient age the new, and late they deem it Currado da Palazzo, and good Gherardo, And Guido da Castel, who better named is, 66 Falls in the mire, and soils itself and burden." Of a lost race, thou sayest has remained "Either thy speech deceives me, or it tempts me," He answered me; "for speaking Tuscan to me, By other surname do I know him not, Unless I take it from his daughter Gaia. Thus did he speak, and would no farther hear me. CANTO XVII. REMEMBER, Reader, if e'er in the Alps A mist o'ertook thee, through which thou couldst see How, when the vapours humid and condensed Begin to dissipate themselves, the sphere Of the sun feebly enters in among them, And thy imagination will be swift In coming to perceive how I re-saw 5 Thus, to the faithful footsteps of my Master O thou, Imagination, that dost steal us So from without sometimes, that man perceives not, Moves thee a light, which in the heaven takes form, Of her impiety, who changed her form Into the bird that most delights in singing, Within itself, that from without there came One crucified, disdainful and ferocious Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, 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, Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns, As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed, So this imagining of mine fell down As soon as the effulgence smote my face, I turned me round to see where I might be, When said a voice, "Here is the passage up;" And made my wish so full of eagerness To look and see who was it that was speaking, 1Ο 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 "This is a spirit divine, who in the way Of going up directs us without asking, For he who sees the need, and waits the asking, Accord we now our feet to such inviting, Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark; For then we could not till the day return.” Thus my Conductor said; and I and he Together turned our footsteps to a stairway; And fanning in the face, and saying, “Beati The latest sunbeams, which the night pursues, Aught whatsoever in the circle new; Then to my Master turned me round and said: "Say, my sweet Father, what delinquency Is purged here in the circle where we are? Although our feet may pause, pause not thy speech." And he to me: "The love of good, remiss 85 In what it should have done, is here restored; But still more openly to understand, Turn unto me thy mind, and thou shalt gather Some profitable fruit from our delay. Neither Creator nor a creature ever, 66 Son," he began, was destitute of love Natural or spiritual; and thou knowest it. The natural was ever without error; But err the other may by evil object, While in the first it well directed is, And in the second moderates itself, It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure; |