| |
| NOW we had left the Angel, who had turn’d | |
| To the sixth circle our ascending step; | |
| One gash from off my forehead razed; while they, | |
| Whose wishes tend to justice, shouted forth, | |
| “Blessed!” 1 and ended with “I thirst”; and I, | 5 |
| More nimble than along the other straits, | |
| So journey’d, that, without the sense of toil, | |
| I follow’d upwards the swift-footed shades; | |
| When Virgil thus began: “Let its pure flame | |
| From virtue flow, and love can never fail | 10 |
| To warm another’s bosom, so the light | |
| Shine manifestly forth. Hence, from that hour, | |
| When, ’mongst us in the purlieus of the deep, | |
| Came down the spirit of Aquinum’s bard, | |
| Who told of thine affection, my good will | 15 |
| Hath been for thee of quality as strong | |
| As ever link’d itself to one not seen. | |
| Therefore these stairs will now seem short to me. | |
| But tell me: and, if too secure, I loose | |
| The rein with a friend’s license, as a friend | 20 |
| Forgive me, and speak now as with a friend: | |
| How chanced it covetous desire could find | |
| Place in that bosom, ’midst such ample store | |
| Of wisdom, as thy zeal had treasured there?” | |
| First somewhat moved to laughter by his words, | 25 |
| Statius replied: “Each syllable of thine | |
| Is a dear pledge of love. Things oft appear, | |
| That minister false matter to our doubts, | |
| When their true causes are removed from sight. | |
| Thy question doth assure me, thou believest | 30 |
| I was on earth a covetous man; perhaps | |
| Because thou found’st me in that circle placed. | |
| Know then I was too wide of avarice: | |
| And e’en for that excess, thousands of moons | |
| Have wax’d and waned upon my sufferings. | 35 |
| And were it not that I with heedful care | |
| Noted, where thou exclaim’st, as if in ire, | |
| With human nature, ‘Why, thou cursed thirst | |
| Of gold! dost not with juster measure guide | |
| The appetite of mortals?’ I had met | 40 |
| The fierce encounter of the voluble rock. | |
| Then was I ware that, with too ample wing, | |
| The hands may haste to lavishment; and turn’d, | |
| As from my other evil, so from this, | |
| In penitence. How many from their grave | 45 |
| Shall with shorn locks 2 arise, who living, ay, | |
| And at life’s last extreme, of this offence, | |
| Through ignorance, did not repent! And know, | |
| The fault, which lies direct from any sin | |
| In level opposition, here, with that, | 50 |
| Wastes its green rankness on one common heap. | |
| Therefore, if I have been with those, who wail | |
| Their avarice, to cleanse me; through reverse | |
| Of their transgression, such hath been my lot.” | |
| To whom the sovran of the pastoral song: | 55 |
| “While thou didst sing that cruel warfare waged | |
| By the twin sorrow of Jocasta’s womb 3 | |
| From thy discourse with Clio there, it seems | |
| As faith had not been thine; without the which, | |
| Good deeds suffice not. And if so, what sun | 60 |
| Rose on thee, or what candle pierced the dark, | |
| That thou didst after see to hoise the sail, | |
| And follow where the fisherman had led?” | |
| He answering thus: “By thee conducted first, | |
| I enter’d the Parnassian grots, and quaff’d | 65 |
| Of the clear spring: illumined first by thee, | |
| Open’d mine eyes to God. Thou didst, as one | |
| Who, journeying through the darkness, bears a light | |
| Behind, that profits not himself, but makes | |
| His followers wise, when thou exclaimed’st, ‘Lo! | 70 |
| A renovated world, Justice return’d, | |
| Times of primeval innocence restored, | |
| And a new race descended from above.’ | |
| Poet and Christian both to thee I owed. | |
| That thou mayst mark more clearly what I trace, | 75 |
| My hand shall stretch forth to inform the lines | |
| With livelier colouring. Soon o’er all the world, | |
| By messengers from Heaven, the true belief | |
| Teem’d now prolific; and that word of thine, | |
| Accordant, to the new instructors chimed. | 80 |
| Induced by which agreement, I was wont | |
| Resort to them; and soon their sanctity | |
| So won upon me, that, Domitian’s rage | |
| Pursuing them, I mix’d my tears with theirs; | |
| And, while on earth I stay’d, still succor’d them; | 85 |
| And their most righteous customs made me scorn | |
| All sects besides. Before I led the Greeks, | |
| In tuneful fiction, to the streams of Thebes, | |
| I was baptized; but secretly, through fear, | |
| Remain’d a Christian, and conform’d long time | 90 |
| To Pagan rites. Four centuries and more, | |
| I, for that lukewarmness, was fain to pace | |
| Round the fourth circle. Thou then, who hast raised | |
| The covering which did hide such blessing from me, | |
| Whilst much of this ascent is yet to climb, | 95 |
| Say, if thou know, where our old Terence bides, | |
| Cæcilius, Plautus, Varro: if condemn’d | |
| They dwell, and in what province of the deep.” | |
| “These,” said my guide, “with Persius and myself, | |
| And others many more, are with that Greek, 4 | 100 |
| Of mortals, the most cherish’d by the Nine, | |
| In the first ward 5 of darkness. There, oft-times, | |
| We of that mount hold converse, on whose top | |
| For aye our nurses live. We have the bard | |
| Of Pella, 6 and the Teian, 77 Agatho, | 105 |
| Simonides, and many a Grecian else | |
| Ingarlanded with laurel. Of thy train, | |
| Antigone is there, Deiphile, | |
| Argia, and as sorrowful as erst | |
| Ismene, and who show’d Langia’s wave: 8 | 110 |
| Deidamia with her sisters there, | |
| And blind Tiresias’ daughter, 9 and the bride | |
| Sea-born of Peleus.” 10 Either poet now | |
| Was silent; and no longer by the ascent | |
| Or the steep walls obstructed, round them cast | 115 |
| Inquiring eyes. Four handmaids of the day | |
| Had finish’d now their office, and the fifth | |
| Was at the chariot-beam, directing still | |
| Its flamy point aloof; when thus my guide: | |
| “Methinks, it well behoves us to the brink | 120 |
| Bend the right shoulder, circuiting the mount, | |
| As we have ever used.” So custom there | |
| Was usher to the road; the which we chose | |
| Less doubtful, as that worthy shade 11 complied. | |
| They on before me went: I sole pursued, | 125 |
| Listening their speech, that to my thoughts convey’d | |
| Mysterious lessons of sweet poesy. | |
| But soon they ceased; for midway of the road | |
| A tree we found, with goodly fruitage hung, | |
| And pleasant to the smell: and as a fir, | 130 |
| Upward from bough to bough, less ample spreads; | |
| So downward this less ample spread; that none, | |
| Methinks, aloft may climb. Upon the side, | |
| That closed our path, a liquid crystal fell | |
| From the steep rock, and through the sprays above | 135 |
| Stream’d showering. With associate step the bards | |
| Drew near the plant; and, from amidst the leaves, | |
| A voice was heard: “Ye shall be chary of me;” | |
| And after added: “Mary took more thought | |
| For joy and honour of the nuptial feast, | 140 |
| Than for herself, who answers now for you. | |
| The women of old Rome were satisfied | |
| With water for their beverage. Daniel 12 fed | |
| On pulse, and wisdom gain’d. The primal age | |
| Was beautiful as gold: and hunger then | 145 |
| Made acorns tasteful; thirst, each rivulet | |
| Run nectar. Honey and locusts were the food, | |
| Whereon the Baptist in the wilderness | |
| Fed, and that eminence of glory reach’d | |
| And greatness, which the Evangelist records.” | 150 |
