Verily oftentimes do things appear

Which give fallacious matter to our doubts,
Instead of the true causes which are hidden !

Thy question shows me thy belief to be

That I was niggard in the other life,

It may be from the circle where I was; Therefore know thou, that avarice was removed Too far from me; and this extravagance Thousands of lunar periods have punished.

And were it not that I my thoughts uplifted,

When I the passage heard where thou exclaimest,
As if indignant, unto human nature,

'To what impellest thou not, O cursed hunger
Of gold, the appetite of mortal men ?'
Revolving I should feel the dismal joustings.

Then I perceived the hands could spread too wide
Their wings in spending, and repented me
As well of that as of my other sins;
How many with shorn hair shall rise again

Because of ignorance, which from this sin
Cuts off repentance living and in death!
And know that the transgression which rebuts
By direct opposition any sin

Together with it here its verdure dries. Therefore if I have been among that folk

Which mourns its avarice, to purify me, For its opposite has this befallen me.” "Now when thou sangest the relentless weapons Of the twofold affliction of Jocasta," The singer of the Songs Bucolic said, "From that which Clio there with thee preludes,

It does not seem that yet had made thee faithful That faith without which no good works suffice. If this be so, what candles or what sun

Scattered thy darkness so that thou didst trim
Thy sails behind the Fisherman thereafter?"
And he to him: "Thou first directedst me

Towards Parnassus, in its grots to drink,
And first concerning God didst me enlighten.

Thou didst as he who walketh in the night,

Who bears his light behind, which helps him not,
But wary makes the persons after him,

When thou didst say: 'The age renews itself,
Justice returns, and man's primeval time,
And a new progeny descends from heaven.'

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Through thee I Poet was, through thee a Christian;

But that thou better see what I design,

To colour it will I extend my hand. Already was the world in every part

Pregnant with the true creed, disseminated By messengers of the eternal kingdom; And thy assertion, spoken of above,

With the new preachers was in unison; Whence I to visit them the custom took. Then they became so holy in my sight,

That, when Domitian persecuted them,

Not without tears of mine were their laments;
And all the while that I on earth remained,

Them I befriended, and their upright customs
Made me disparage all the other sects.

And ere I led the Greeks unto the rivers
Of Thebes, in poetry, I was baptized,
But out of fear was covertly a Christian,

For a long time professing paganism;

And this lukewarmness caused me the fourth circle
To circuit round more than four centuries.
Thou, therefore, who hast raised the covering

That hid from me whatever good I speak of,
While in ascending we have time to spare,
Tell me, in what place is our friend Terentius,
Cæcilius, Plautus, Varro, if thou knowest;
Tell me if they are damned, and in what alley."
"These, Persius and myself, and others many,"

Replied my Leader, "with that Grecian are
Whom more than all the rest the Muses suckled,

In the first circle of the prison blind;

Ofttimes we of the mountain hold discourse
Which has our nurses ever with itself.

Euripides is with us, Antiphon,

Simonides, Agatho, and many other

Greeks who of old their brows with laurel decked.

There some of thine own people may be seen,

Antigone, Deiphile and Argia,

And there Ismene mournful as of old.

There she is seen who pointed out Langìa;

There is Tiresias' daughter, and there Thetis,
And there Deidamia with her sisters."

Silent already were the poets both,

Attent once more in looking round about,

From the ascent and from the walls released;

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And four handmaidens of the day already

Were left behind, and at the pole the fifth
Was pointing upward still its burning horn,
What time my Guide: “I think that tow'rds the edge
Our dexter shoulders it behoves us turn,
Circling the mount as we are wont to do."
Thus in that region custom was our ensign;

And we resumed our way with less suspicion
For the assenting of that worthy soul
They in advance went on, and I alone

Behind them, and I listened to their speech,
Which gave me lessons in the art of song.
But soon their sweet discourses interrupted

A tree which midway in the road we found,
With apples sweet and grateful to the smell.
And even as a fir-tree tapers upward

From bough to bough, so downwardly did that ;
I think in order that no one might climb it.
On that side where our pathway was enclosed
Fell from the lofty rock a limpid water,
And spread itself abroad upon the leaves.
The Poets twain unto the tree drew near,

And from among the foliage a voice
Cried: “Of this food ye shall have scarcity.”
Then said: "More thoughtful Mary was of making

The marriage feast complete and honourable,
Than of her mouth which now for you responds;
And for their drink the ancient Roman women

With water were content; and Daniel Disparaged food, and understanding won. The primal age was beautiful as gold ;

Acorns it made with hunger savorous, And nectar every rivulet with thirst. Honey and locusts were the aliments

That fed the Baptist in the wilderness ; Whence he is glorious, and so magnified As by the Evangel is revealed to you."

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CANTO XXIII.

THE while among the verdant leaves mine eyes
I riveted, as he is wont to do

Who wastes his life pursuing little birds,

Come now; because the time that is ordained us
More usefully should be apportioned out."

I turned my face and no less soon my steps
Unto the Sages, who were speaking so
They made the going of no cost to me;
And lo! were heard a song and a lament,
"Labia mea, Domine," in fashion

Such that delight and dolence it brought forth. "O my sweet Father, what is this I hear?"

Began I; and he answered: "Shades that go
Perhaps the knot unloosing of their debt."
In the same way that thoughtful pilgrims do,

Who, unknown people on the road o'ertaking,
Turn themselves round to them, and do not stop,

Even thus, behind us with a swifter motion

Coming and passing onward, gazed upon us
A crowd of spirits silent and devout.
Each in his eyes was dark and cavernous,

Pallid in face, and so emaciate

That from the bones the skin did shape itself.

I do not think that so to merest rind

Could Erisichthon have been withered up
By famine, when most fear he had of it.
Thinking within myself I said: "Behold,

This is the folk who lost Jerusalem,
When Mary made a prey of her own son."
Their sockets were like rings without the gems;
Whoever in the face of men reads omo
Might well in these have recognised the m.
Who would believe the odour of an apple,

Begetting longing, could consume them so,
And that of water, without knowing how?
I still was wondering what so famished them,
For the occasion not yet manifest

Of their emaciation and sad squalor ;

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And lo! from out the hollow of his head

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His eyes a shade turned on me, and looked keenly;
Then cried aloud: "What grace to me is this?"

Never should I have known him by his look ;

But in his voice was evident to me

This spark within me wholly re-enkindled
My recognition of his altered face,

And I recalled the features of Forese.

That which his aspect had suppressed within it.

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"Ah, do not look at this dry leprosy,"

Entreated he, "which doth my skin discolour,
Nor at default of flesh that I may have;
But tell me truth of thee, and who are those

Two souls, that yonder make for thee an escort;
Do not delay in speaking unto me."
"That face of thine, which dead I once bewept,

Gives me for weeping now no lesser grief,"
I answered him, "beholding it so changed!
But tell me, for God's sake, what thus denudes you?
Make me not speak while I am marvelling,
For ill speaks he who's full of other longings."
And he to me: "From the eternal council

Falls power into the water and the tree
Behind us left, whereby I grow so thin.
All of this people who lamenting sing,

For following beyond measure appetite
In hunger and thirst are here re-sanctified.
Desire to eat and drink enkindles in us

The scent that issues from the apple-tree,

And from the spray that sprinkles o'er the verdure;
And not a single time alone, this ground
Encircling, is renewed our pain,-

I say our pain, and ought to say our solace,—
For the same wish doth lead us to the tree

Which led the Christ rejoicing to say Eli,
When with his veins he liberated us."

And I to him: "Forese, from that day

When for a better life thou changedst worlds,
Up to this time five years have not rolled round.

If sooner were the power exhausted in thee

Of sinning more, than thee the hour surprised Of that good sorrow which to God reweds us, How hast thou come up hitherward already?

I thought to find thee down there underneath,
Where time for time doth restitution make."
And he to me: "Thus speedily has led me

To drink of the sweet wormwood of these torments,
My Nella with her overflowing tears;

She with her prayers devout and with her sighs

Has drawn me from the coast where one awaits,
And from the other circles set me free.

So much more dear and pleasing is to God

My little widow, whom so much I loved,
As in good works she is the more alone;