| |
| MINE eyes with such an eager coveting | |
| Were bent to rid them of their ten years’ thirst, 1 | |
| Not other sense was waking: and e’en they | |
| Were fenced on either side from heed of aught; | |
| So tangled, in its custom’d toils, that smile | 5 |
| Of saintly brightness drew me to itself: | |
| When forcibly, toward the left, my sight | |
| The sacred virgins turn’d; for from their lips | |
| I heard the warning sounds: “Too fix’d a gaze!” | |
| A while my vision labour’d; as when late | 10 |
| Upon the o’erstrained eyes the sun hath smote: | |
| But soon, to lesser object, as the view | |
| Was now recover’d, (lesser in respect | |
| To that excess of sensible, whence late | |
| I had perforce been sunder’d), on their right | 15 |
| I mark’d that glorious army wheel, and turn, | |
| Against the sun and sevenfold lights, their front. | |
| As when, their bucklers for protection raised, | |
| A well-ranged troop, with portly banners curl’d, | |
| Wheel circling, ere the whole can change their ground; | 20 |
| E’en thus the goodly regiment of Heaven | |
| Proceeding, all did pass us, ere the car | |
| Had sloped his beam. Attendant at the wheels | |
| The damsels turn’d; and on the Gryphon moved | |
| The sacred burden, with a pace so smooth, | 25 |
| No feather on him trembled. The fair dame, | |
| Who through the wave had drawn me, companied | |
| By Statius and myself, pursued the wheel, | |
| Whose orbit, rolling, mark’d a lesser arch. | |
| Through the high wood, now void, (the more her blame, | 30 |
| Who by the serpent was beguiled), I pass’d, | |
| With step in cadence to the harmony | |
| Angelic. Onward had we moved, as far, | |
| Perchance, as arrow at three several flights | |
| Full wing’d had sped, when from her station down | 35 |
| Descended Beatrice. With one voice | |
| All murmur’d “Adam”; circling next a plant | |
| Despoil’d of flowers and leaf, on every bough, | |
| Its tresses, spreading more as more they rose, | |
| Were such, as ’midst their forest wilds, for height, | 40 |
| The Indians might have gazed at. “Blessed thou, | |
| Gryphon! 2 whose beak hath never pluck’d that tree | |
| Pleasant to taste: for hence the appetite | |
| Was warp’d to evil.” Round the stately trunk | |
| Thus shouted forth the rest, to whom return’d | 45 |
| The animal twice-gender’d: “Yea! for so | |
| The generation of the just are saved.” | |
| And turning to the chariot-pole, to foot | |
| He drew it of the widow’d branch, and bound | |
| There, left unto the stock whereon it grew. | 50 |
| As when large floods of radiance from above | |
| Stream, with that radiance mingled, which ascends | |
| Next after setting of the scaly sign, | |
| Our plants then burgeon, and each wears anew | |
| His wonted colours, ere the sun have yoked | 55 |
| Beneath another star his flamy steeds; | |
| Thus putting forth a hue more faint than rose, | |
| And deeper than the violet, was renew’d | |
| The plant, erewhile in all its branches bare. | |
| Unearthly was the hymn, which then arose. | 60 |
| I understood it not, nor to the end | |
| Endured the harmony. Had I the skill | |
| To pencil forth how closed the unpitying eyes | |
| Slumbering, when Syrinx warbled, (eyes that paid | |
| So dearly for their watching), then, like painter, | 65 |
| That with a model paints, I might design | |
| The manner of my falling into sleep. | |
| But feign who will the slumber cunningly, | |
| I pass it by to when I waked; and tell, | |
| How suddenly a flash of splendour rent | 70 |
| The curtain of my sleep, and one cries out, | |
| “Arise; what dost thou?” As the chosen three, | |
| On Tabor’s mount, admitted to behold | |
| The blossoming of that fair tree, 3 whose fruit | |
| Is coveted of Angels, and doth make | 75 |
| Perpetual feast in Heaven; to themselves | |
| Returning, at the word whence deeper sleeps 4 | |
| Were broken, they their tribe diminish’d saw; | |
| Both Moses and Elias gone, and changed | |
| The stole their Master wore; thus to myself | 80 |
| Returning, over me beheld I stand | |
| The piteous one, 5 who, cross the stream, had brought | |
| My steps. “And where,” all doubting, I exclaim’d, | |
| “Is Beatrice?”—“See her,” she replied, | |
| “Beneath the fresh leaf, seated on its root. | 85 |
| Behold the associate choir that circles her. | |
| The others, with a melody more sweet | |
| And more profound, journeying to higher realms, | |
| Upon the Gryphon tend.” If there her words | |
| Were closed, I know not; but mine eyes had now | 90 |
| Ta’en view of her, by whom all other thoughts | |
| Were barr’d admittance. On the very ground | |
| Alone she sat, as she had there been left | |
| A guard upon the wain, which I beheld | |
| Bound to the twyform beast. The seven nymphs | 95 |
| Did make themselves a cloister round about her; | |
| And, in their hands, upheld those lights 6 secure | |
| From blast septentrion and the gusty south. | |
| “A little while thou shalt be forester here; | |
| And citizen shalt be, forever with me, | 100 |
| Of that true Rome, 7 wherein Christ dwells a Roman, | |
| To profit the misguided world, keep now | |
| Thine eyes upon the car; and what thou seest, | |
| Take heed thou write, returning to that place.” 8 | |
| Thus Beatrice: at whose feet inclined | 105 |
| Devout, at her behest, my thought and eyes | |
| I, as she bade, directed. Never fire, | |
| With so swift motion, forth a stormy cloud | |
| Leap’d downward from the welkin’s farthest bound, | |
| As I beheld the bird of Jove, 9 descend | 110 |
| Down through the tree; and, as he rush’d, the rind | |
| Disparting crush beneath him; buds much more, | |
| And leaflets. On the car, with all his might | |
| He struck; whence, staggering, like a ship it reel’d, | |
| At random driven, to starboard now, o’ercome, | 115 |
| And now to larboard, by the vaulting waves. | |
| Next, springing up into the chariot’s womb, | |
| A fox 10 I saw, with hunger seeming pined | |
| Of all good food. But, for his ugly sins | |
| The saintly maid rebuking him, away | 120 |
| Scampering he turn’d, fast as his hide-bound corpse | |
| Would bear him. Next, from whence before he came, | |
| I saw the eagle dart into the hull | |
| O’ the car, and leave it with his feathers lined: 11 | |
| And then a voice, like that which issues forth | 125 |
| From heart with sorrow rived, did issue forth | |
| From Heaven, and “O poor bark of mine!” it cried, | |
| “How badly art thou freighted.” Then it seem’d | |
| That the earth open’d, between either wheel; | |
| And I beheld a dragon 12 issue thence, | 130 |
| That through the chariot fix’d his forked train; | |
| And like a wasp, that draggeth back the sting, | |
| So drawing forth his baleful train, he dragg’d | |
| Part of the bottom forth; and went his way, | |
| Exulting. What remain’d, as lively turf | 135 |
| With green herb, so did clothe itself with plumes, 13 | |
| Which haply had, with purpose chaste and kind, | |
| Been offer’d; and therewith were clothed the wheels, | |
| Both one and other, and the beam, so quickly, | |
| A sigh were not breathed sooner. Thus transform’d, | 140 |
| The holy structure, through its several parts, | |
| Did put forth heads; 14 three on the beam, and one | |
| On every side: the first like oxen horn’d; | |
| But with a single horn upon their front, | |
| The four. Like monster, sight hath never seen. | 145 |
| O’er it 15 methought there sat, secure as rock | |
| On mountain’s lofty top, a shameless whore, | |
| Whose ken roved loosely round her. At her side, | |
| As ’t were that none might bear her off, I saw | |
| A giant stand; and ever and anon | 150 |
| They mingled kisses. But, her lustful eyes | |
| Chancing on me to wander, that fell minion | |
| Scourged her from head to foot all o’er; then full | |
| Of jealousy, and fierce with rage, unloosed | |
| The monster, and dragg’d on, 16 so far across | 155 |
| The forest, that from me its shades alone | |
| Shielded the harlot and the new-form’d brute. | |
