"Now who art thou, that cleavest through our smoke,
And art discoursing of us even as though
Thou didst by calends still divide the time?"
After this manner by a voice was spoken;

Whereon my Master said: "Do thou reply,
And ask if on this side the way go upward."
And I: "O creature that dost cleanse thyself

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,
Hearing shall keep us joined instead thereof."
Thereon began I: "With that swathing band

Which death unwindeth am I going upward,
And hither came I through the infernal anguish.

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,
At which has each one now unbent his bow.

For mounting upward, thou art going right."

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Thus he made answer, and subjoined: "I pray thee
Το pray for me when thou shalt be above."

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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
Inly with doubt, unless I rid me of it.

By thy opinion, which makes certain to me,

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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,
The world is blind, and sooth thou comest from it!

Ye who are living every cause refer

Still upward to the heavens, as if all things
They of necessity moved with themselves.

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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,
Light has been given you for good and evil,
And free volition; which, if some fatigue

In the first battles with the heavens it suffers,
Afterwards conquers all, if well 'tis nurtured.

To greater force and to a better nature,

Though free, ye subject are, and that creates
The mind in you the heavens have not in charge.
Hence, if the present world doth go astray,

In you the cause is, be it sought in you;
And I therein will now be thy true spy.
Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it
Before it is, like to a little girl

Weeping and laughing in her childish sport,
Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows,

Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker,
Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure.
Of trivial good at first it tastes the savour;
Is cheated by it, and runs after it,
If guide or rein turn not aside its love.
Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place,

Behoved a king to have, who at the least
Of the true city should discern the tower.
The laws exist, but who sets hand to them?

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,
Feeds upon that, and farther seeketh not.
Clearly canst thou perceive that evil guidance

The cause is that has made the world depraved,
And not that nature is corrupt in you.

Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed was

Two suns to have, which one road and the other,
Of God and of the world, made manifest.

One has the other quenched, and to the crosier
The sword is joined, and ill beseemeth it
That by main force one with the other go,
Because, being joined, one feareth not the other;
If thou believe not, think upon the grain,
For by its seed each herb is recognized.

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,
From speaking with the good, or drawing near them.
True, three old men are left, in whom upbraids

The ancient age the new, and late they deem it
That God restore them to the better life :

Currado da Palazzo, and good Gherardo,

And Guido da Castel, who better named is,
In fashion of the French, the simple Lombard :
Say thou henceforward that the Church of Rome,
Confounding in itself two governments,

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Falls in the mire, and soils itself and burden."
"O Marco mine," I said, " thou reasonest well;
And now discern I why the sons of Levi
Have been excluded from the heritage.
But what Gherardo is it, who, as sample

Of a lost race, thou sayest has remained
In reprobation of the barbarous age?"

"Either thy speech deceives me, or it tempts me,"

He answered me; "for speaking Tuscan to me,
It seems of good Gherardo naught thou knowest.

By other surname do I know him not,

Unless I take it from his daughter Gaia.
May God be with you, for I come no farther.
Behold the dawn, that through the smoke rays out,
Already whitening; and I must depart-
Yonder the Angel is-ere he appear."

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
Not otherwise than through its membrane mole,

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
The sun at first, that was already setting.

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Thus, to the faithful footsteps of my Master
Mating mine own, I issued from that cloud
To rays already dead on the low shores.

O thou, Imagination, that dost steal us

So from without sometimes, that man perceives not,
Although around may sound a thousand trumpets,
Who moveth thee, if sense impel thee not?

Moves thee a light, which in the heaven takes form,
By self, or by a will that downward guides it.

Of her impiety, who changed her form

Into the bird that most delights in singing,
In my imagining appeared the trace;
And hereupon my mind was so withdrawn

Within itself, that from without there came
Nothing that then might be received by it.
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,

And made my wish so full of eagerness

To look and see who was it that was speaking,
It never rests till meeting face to face;
But as before the sun, which quells the sight,
And in its own excess its figure veils,
Even so my power was insufficient here.

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"This is a spirit divine, who in the way

Of going up directs us without asking,
And who with his own light himself conceals.
He does with us as man doth with himself;

For he who sees the need, and waits the asking,
Malignly leans already tow'rds denial.

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 I, as soon as the first step I reached,
Near me perceived a motion as of wings,

And fanning in the face, and saying, “Beati
Pacifici, who are without ill anger."
Already over us were so uplifted

The latest sunbeams, which the night pursues,
That upon many sides the stars appeared.
"O manhood mine, why dost thou vanish so?"
I said within myself; for I perceived
The vigour of my legs was put in truce.
We at the point were where no more ascends
The stairway upward, and were motionless,
Even as a ship, which at the shore arrives;
And I gave heed a little, if I might hear

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

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In what it should have done, is here restored;
Here plied again the ill-belated oar;

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,

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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,
Or by too much, or by too little vigour.

While in the first it well directed is,

And in the second moderates itself,

It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure;