Page images
PDF
EPUB

But when to ill it turns, and, with more care
Or lesser than it ought, runs after good,
'Gainst the Creator works his own creation.
Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be
The seed within yourselves of every virtue,
And every act that merits punishment.
Now inasmuch as never from the welfare

Of its own subject can love turn its sight,
From their own hatred all things are secure ;
And since we cannot think of any being

Standing alone, nor from the First divided,
Of hating Him is all desire cut off.
Hence if, discriminating, I judge well,

The evil that one loves is of one's neighbour,
And this is born in three modes in your clay.
There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour,

Hope to excel, and therefore only long
That from his greatness he may be cast down ;
There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown
Fear they may lose because another rises,
Thence are so sad that the reverse they love;
And there are those whom injury seems to chafe,
So that it makes them greedy for revenge,
And such must needs shape out another's harm.
This threefold love is wept for down below;

Now of the other will I have thee hear,
That runneth after good with measure faulty.

Each one confusedly a good conceives

Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it;
Therefore to overtake it each one strives.

If languid love to look on this attract you,
Or in attaining unto it, this cornice,
After just penitence, torments you for it.

There's other good that does not make man happy ;
'Tis not felicity, 'tis not the good
Essence, of every good the fruit and root.

The love that yields itself too much to this
Above us is lamented in three circles;
But how tripartite it may be described,

I say not, that thou seek it for thyself."

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

CANTO XVIII.

AN end had put unto his reasoning

The lofty Teacher, and attent was looking
Into my face, if I appeared content;

And I, whom a new thirst still goaded on,

Without was mute, and said within: "Perchance
The too much questioning I make annoys him."

But that true Father, who had comprehended
The timid wish, that opened not itself,
By speaking gave me hardihood to speak.
Whence I: "My sight is, Master, vivified
So in thy light, that clearly I discern
Whate'er thy speech importeth or describes.
Therefore I thee entreat, sweet Father dear,

66

To teach me love, to which thou dost refer
Every good action and its contrary."
Direct," he said, "towards me the keen eyes
Of intellect, and clear will be to thee
The error of the blind, who would be leaders.
The soul, which is created apt to love,

Is mobile unto everything that pleases,
Soon as by pleasure she is waked to action.
Your apprehension from some real thing

An image draws, and in yourselves displays it,
So that it makes the soul turn unto it.
And if, when turned, towards it she incline,
Love is that inclination; it is nature,
Which is by pleasure bound in you anew.
Then even as the fire doth upward move

By its own form, which to ascend is born,
Where longest in its matter it endures,
So comes the captive soul into desire,

Which is a motion spiritual, and ne'er rests
Until she doth enjoy the thing beloved.
Now may apparent be to thee how hidden
The truth is from those people, who aver
All love is in itself a laudable thing;
Because its matter may perchance appear
Aye to be good; but yet not each impression
Is good, albeit good may be the wax.

[blocks in formation]

66

'Thy words, and my sequacious intellect,"

I answered him, "have love revealed to me;
But that has made me more impregned with doubt;

For if love from without be offered us,

And with another foot the soul go not,

If right or wrong she go, 'tis not her merit." And he to me: "What reason seeth here,

Myself can tell thee; beyond that await For Beatrice, since 'tis a work of faith. Every substantial form, that segregate

From matter is, and with it is united,
Specific power has in itself collected,
Which without act is not perceptible,

Nor shows itself except by its effect,
As life does in a plant by the green leaves.
But still, whence cometh the intelligence
Of the first notions, man is ignorant,
And the affection for the first allurements,
Which are in you as instinct in the bee

To make its honey; and this first desire
Merit of praise or blame containeth not.
Now, that to this all others may be gathered,

Innate within you is the power that counsels, And it should keep the threshold of assent. This is the principle, from which is taken.

Occasion of desert in you, according

As good and guilty loves it takes and winnows. Those who, in reasoning, to the bottom went,

Were of this innate liberty aware,

Therefore bequeathed they Ethics to the world.
Supposing, then, that from necessity

Springs every love that is within you kindled,
Within yourselves the power is to restrain it.

The noble virtue Beatrice understands

By the free will; and therefore see that thou
Bear it in mind, if she should speak of it."
The moon, belated almost unto midnight,

Now made the stars appear to us more rare,
Formed like a bucket, that is all ablaze,

And counter to the heavens ran through those paths
Which the sun sets aflame, when he of Rome
Sees it 'twixt Sardes and Corsicans go down ;
And that patrician shade, for whom is named
Pietola more than any Mantuan town,
Had laid aside the burden of my lading;

[blocks in formation]

Whence I, who reason manifest and plain
In answer to my questions had received,
Stood like a man in drowsy reverie.
But taken from me was this drowsiness

Suddenly by a people, that behind
Our backs already had come round to us.
And as, of old, Ismenus and Asopus

Beside them saw at night the rush and throng,
If but the Thebans were in need of Bacchus,

So they along that circle curve their step,

From what I saw of those approaching us,
Who by good-will and righteous love are ridden.
Full soon they were upon us, because running

66

Moved onward all that mighty multitude, And two in the advance cried out, lamenting, Mary in haste unto the mountain ran,

And Cæsar, that he might subdue Ilerda, Thrust at Marseilles, and then ran into Spain." Quick! quick! so that the time may not be lost By little love!" forthwith the others cried, "For ardour in well-doing freshens grace !" "O folk, in whom an eager fervour now

Supplies perhaps delay and negligence,

Put by you in well-doing, through lukewarmness,
This one who lives, and truly I lie not,

Would fain go up, if but the sun relight us;
So tell us where the passage nearest is."
These were the words of him who was my Guide;
And some one of those spirits said: “Come on
Behind us, and the opening shalt thou find;

So full of longing are we to move onward,

That stay we cannot; therefore pardon us,
If thou for churlishness our justice take.

I was San Zeno's Abbot at Verona,

Under the empire of good Barbarossa,

Of whom still sorrowing Milan holds discourse ; And he has one foot in the grave already,

Who shall erelong lament that monastery,
And sorry be of having there had power,
Because his son, in his whole body sick,

And worse in mind, and who was evil-born,
He put into the place of its true pastor."
If more he said, or silent was, I know not,

He had already passed so far beyond us;
But this I heard, and to retain it pleased me.

85

90

95

100

105

ΙΙΟ

115

120

125

And he who was in every need my succour

Said: "Turn thee hitherward; see two of them
Come fastening upon slothfulness their teeth."
In rear of all they shouted: "Sooner were

The people dead to whom the sea was opened,
Than their inheritors the Jordan saw ;
And those who the fatigue did not endure
Unto the issue, with Anchises' son,
Themselves to life withouten glory offered."

139

135

Then when from us so separated were

Those shades, that they no longer could be seen,

140

Within me a new thought did entrance find,

Whence others many and diverse were born;
And so I lapsed from one into another,
That in a reverie mine eyes I closed,

And meditation into dream transmuted.

CANTO XIX.

IT was the hour when the diurnal heat

No more can warm the coldness of the moon,
Vanquished by earth, or peradventure Saturn,

When geomancers their Fortuna Major

See in the orient before the dawn

Rise by a path that long remains not dim, There came to me in dreams a stammering woman, Squint in her eyes, and in her feet distorted, With hands dissevered, and of sallow hue.

I looked at her; and as the sun restores

The frigid members, which the night benumbs,
Even thus my gaze did render voluble

Her tongue, and made her all erect thereafter
In little while, and the lost countenance
As love desires it so in her did colour.

When in this wise she had her speech unloosed,
She 'gan to sing so, that with difficulty
Could I have turned my thoughts away from her.
"I am," she sang, "I am the Siren sweet
Who mariners amid the main unman,
So full am I of pleasantness to hear.
I drew Ulysses from his wandering way
Unto my song, and he who dwells with me
Seldom departs, so wholly I content him."

20

15

10

5

145

« PreviousContinue »