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 Within yourselves the you kindled, 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, And counter to the heavens ran through those paths go down ; Sees it 'twixt Sardes and Corsicans Had laid aside the burden of my lading; In answer to my questions had received, But taken from me was this drowsiness Suddenly by a people, that behind Our backs already had come round to us. 70 75 80 85 90 And as, of old, Ismenus and Asopus Beside them saw at night the rush and throng, 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 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 ardor in well-doing freshens grace!” “O folk, in whom an eager fervor 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.” And some one of those spirits said: “Come on So full of longing are we to move onward, 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 worse in mind, and who was evil-born, Said: "Turn thee hitherward; see two of them The people dead to whom the sea was opened, Themselves to life withouten glory offered." 115 120 125 130 135 Then when from us so separated were Those shades, that they no longer could be seen, 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. 140 145 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, Her tongue, and made her all erect thereafter In little while, and the lost countenance 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. 5 10 15 |