It were a breaking of God’s high decree,
Was slacken’d on its way. She straight began:
If Lethe should be past, and such food tasted
“When my desire invited thee to love
Without the cost of some repentant tear.”
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The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory The good, which sets a bound to our aspirings,
As were the limbs, that in their beauteous frame
What bar of thwarting foss or linked chain
Enclos’d me, and are scatter’d now in dust.
Did meet thee, that thou so should’st quit the hope If sweetest thing thus fail’d thee with my death,
Of further progress, or what bait of ease
What, afterward, of mortal should thy wish
Or promise of allurement led thee on
Have tempted? When thou first hadst felt the dart
Elsewhere, that thou elsewhere should’st rather wait?”
Of perishable things, in my departing
A bitter sigh I drew, then scarce found voice
For better realms, thy wing thou should’st have prun’d To answer, hardly to these sounds my lips
To follow me, and never stoop’d again
Gave utterance, wailing: “Thy fair looks with drawn, To ‘bide a second blow for a slight girl,
Things present, with deceitful pleasures, turn’d
Or other gaud as transient and as vain.
My steps aside.” She answering spake: “Hadst thou
The new and inexperienc’d bird awaits,
Been silent, or denied what thou avow’st,
Twice it may be, or thrice, the fowler’s aim;
Thou hadst not hid thy sin the more: such eye
But in the sight of one, whose plumes are full,
Observes it. But whene’er the sinner’s cheek
In vain the net is spread, the arrow wing’d.”
Breaks forth into the precious-streaming tears
I stood, as children silent and asham’d
Of self-accusing, in our court the wheel
Stand, list’ning, with their eyes upon the earth,
Of justice doth run counter to the edge.
Acknowledging their fault and self-condemn’d.
Howe’er that thou may’st profit by thy shame
And she resum’d: “If, but to hear thus pains thee, For errors past, and that henceforth more strength
Raise thou thy beard, and lo! what sight shall do!”
May arm thee, when thou hear’st the Siren-voice,
With less reluctance yields a sturdy holm,
Lay thou aside the motive to this grief,
Rent from its fibers by a blast, that blows
And lend attentive ear, while I unfold
From off the pole, or from Iarbas’ land,
How opposite a way my buried flesh
Than I at her behest my visage rais’d:
Should have impell’d thee. Never didst thou spy
And thus the face denoting by the beard,
In art or nature aught so passing sweet,
I mark’d the secret sting her words convey’d.
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The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory No sooner lifted I mine aspect up,
So sweetly, “Tu asperges me,” that I
Than downward sunk that vision I beheld
May not remember, much less tell the sound.
Of goodly creatures vanish; and mine eyes
The beauteous dame, her arms expanding, clasp’d
Yet unassur’d and wavering, bent their light
My temples, and immerg’d me, where ‘t was fit
On Beatrice. Towards the animal,
The wave should drench me: and thence raising up,
Who joins two natures in one form, she turn’d,
Within the fourfold dance of lovely nymphs
And, even under shadow of her veil,
Presented me so lav’d, and with their arm
And parted by the verdant rill, that flow’d
They each did cover me. “Here are we nymphs,
Between, in loveliness appear’d as much
And in the heav’n are stars. Or ever earth
Her former self surpassing, as on earth
Was visited of Beatrice, we
All others she surpass’d. Remorseful goads
Appointed for her handmaids, tended on her.
Shot sudden through me. Each thing else, the more
We to her eyes will lead thee; but the light
Its love had late beguil’d me, now the more
Of gladness that is in them, well to scan,
I Was loathsome. On my heart so keenly smote
Those yonder three, of deeper ken than ours,
The bitter consciousness, that on the ground
Thy sight shall quicken.” Thus began their song;
O’erpower’d I fell: and what my state was then,
And then they led me to the Gryphon’s breast,
She knows who was the cause. When now my strength
While, turn’d toward us, Beatrice stood.
Flow’d back, returning outward from the heart,
“Spare not thy vision. We have stationed thee
The lady, whom alone I first had seen,
Before the emeralds, whence love erewhile
I found above me. “Loose me not,” she cried:
Hath drawn his weapons on thee. “As they spake,
“Loose not thy hold;” and lo! had dragg’d me high
A thousand fervent wishes riveted
As to my neck into the stream, while she,
Mine eyes upon her beaming eyes, that stood
Still as she drew me after, swept along,
Still fix’d toward the Gryphon motionless.
Swift as a shuttle, bounding o’er the wave.
As the sun strikes a mirror, even thus
The blessed shore approaching then was heard
Within those orbs the twofold being, shone,
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The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory For ever varying, in one figure now
CANTO XXXII
Reflected, now in other. Reader! muse
How wond’rous in my sight it seem’d to mark
Mine eyes with such an eager coveting,
A thing, albeit steadfast in itself,
Were bent to rid them of their ten years’ thirst,
Yet in its imag’d semblance mutable.
No other sense was waking: and e’en they
Full of amaze, and joyous, while my soul
Were fenc’d on either side from heed of aught;
Fed on the viand, whereof still desire
So tangled in its custom’d toils that smile
Grows with satiety, the other three
Of saintly brightness drew me to itself,
With gesture, that declar’d a loftier line,
When forcibly toward the left my sight
Advanc’d: to their own carol on they came
The sacred virgins turn’d; for from their lips
Dancing in festive ring angelical.
I heard the warning sounds: “Too fix’d a gaze!”
“Turn, Beatrice!” was their song: “O turn
Awhile my vision labor’d; as when late
Thy saintly sight on this thy faithful one,
Upon the’ o’erstrained eyes the sun hath smote:
Who to behold thee many a wearisome pace
But soon to lesser object, as the view
Hath measur’d. Gracious at our pray’r vouchsafe
Was now recover’d (lesser in respect
Unveil to him thy cheeks: that he may mark
To that excess of sensible, whence late
Thy second beauty, now conceal’d.” O splendour!
I had perforce been sunder’d) on their right
O sacred light eternal! who is he
I mark’d that glorious army wheel, and t
urn,
So pale with musing in Pierian shades,
Against the sun and sev’nfold lights, their front.
Or with that fount so lavishly imbued,
As when, their bucklers for protection rais’d,
Whose spirit should not fail him in th’ essay
A well-rang’d troop, with portly banners curl’d,
To represent thee such as thou didst seem,
Wheel circling, ere the whole can change their ground: When under cope of the still-chiming heaven
E’en thus the goodly regiment of heav’n
Thou gav’st to open air thy charms reveal’d.
Proceeding, all did pass us, ere the car
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The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory Had slop’d his beam. Attendant at the wheels
And turning to the chariot-pole, to foot
The damsels turn’d; and on the Gryphon mov’d
He drew it of the widow’d branch, and bound
The sacred burden, with a pace so smooth,
There left unto the stock whereon it grew.
No feather on him trembled. The fair dame
As when large floods of radiance from above
Who through the wave had drawn me, companied
Stream, with that radiance mingled, which ascends
By Statius and myself, pursued the wheel,
Next after setting of the scaly sign,
Whose orbit, rolling, mark’d a lesser arch.
Our plants then burgeon, and each wears anew
Through the high wood, now void (the more her blame, His wonted colours, ere the sun have yok’d
Who by the serpent was beguil’d) I past
Beneath another star his flamy steeds;
With step in cadence to the harmony
Thus putting forth a hue, more faint than rose,
Angelic. Onward had we mov’d, as far
And deeper than the violet, was renew’d
Perchance as arrow at three several flights
The plant, erewhile in all its branches bare.
Full wing’d had sped, when from her station down
Unearthly was the hymn, which then arose.
Descended Beatrice. With one voice
I understood it not, nor to the end
All murmur’d “Adam,” circling next a plant
Endur’d the harmony. Had I the skill
Despoil’d of flowers and leaf on every bough.
To pencil forth, how clos’d th’ unpitying eyes
Its tresses, spreading more as more they rose,
Slumb’ring, when Syrinx warbled, (eyes that paid
Were such, as ‘midst their forest wilds for height
So dearly for their watching,) then like painter,
The Indians might have gaz’d at. “Blessed thou!
That with a model paints, I might design
Gryphon, whose beak hath never pluck’d that tree
The manner of my falling into sleep.
Pleasant to taste: for hence the appetite
But feign who will the slumber cunningly;
Was warp’d to evil.” Round the stately trunk
I pass it by to when I wak’d, and tell
Thus shouted forth the rest, to whom return’d
How suddenly a flash of splendour rent
The animal twice-gender’d: “Yea: for so
The curtain of my sleep, and one cries out:
The generation of the just are sav’d.”
“Arise, what dost thou?” As the chosen three,
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The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory On Tabor’s mount, admitted to behold
From blast septentrion and the gusty south.
The blossoming of that fair tree, whose fruit
“A little while thou shalt be forester here:
Is coveted of angels, and doth make
And citizen shalt be forever with me,
Perpetual feast in heaven, to themselves
Of that true Rome, wherein Christ dwells a Roman
Returning at the word, whence deeper sleeps
To profit the misguided world, keep now
Were broken, that they their tribe diminish’d saw,
Thine eyes upon the car; and what thou seest,
Both Moses and Elias gone, and chang’d
Take heed thou write, returning to that place.”
The stole their master wore: thus to myself
Thus Beatrice: at whose feet inclin’d
Returning, over me beheld I stand
Devout, at her behest, my thought and eyes,
The piteous one, who cross the stream had brought
I, as she bade, directed. Never fire,
My steps. “And where,” all doubting, I exclaim’d,
With so swift motion, forth a stormy cloud
“Is Beatrice?”—”See her,” she replied,
Leap’d downward from the welkin’s farthest bound,
“Beneath the fresh leaf seated on its root.
As I beheld the bird of Jove descending
Behold th’ associate choir that circles her.
Pounce on the tree, and, as he rush’d, the rind,
The others, with a melody more sweet
Disparting crush beneath him, buds much more
And more profound, journeying to higher realms,
And leaflets. On the car with all his might
Upon the Gryphon tend.” If there her words
He struck, whence, staggering like a ship, it reel’d, Were clos’d, I know not; but mine eyes had now
At random driv’n, to starboard now, o’ercome,
Ta’en view of her, by whom all other thoughts
And now to larboard, by the vaulting waves.
Were barr’d admittance. On the very ground
Next springing up into the chariot’s womb
Alone she sat, as she had there been left
A fox I saw, with hunger seeming pin’d
A guard upon the wain, which I beheld
Of all good food. But, for his ugly sins
Bound to the twyform beast. The seven nymphs
The saintly maid rebuking him, away
Did make themselves a cloister round about her,
Scamp’ring he turn’d, fast as his hide-bound corpse And in their hands upheld those lights secure
Would bear him. Next, from whence before he came,
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The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory I saw the eagle dart into the hull
Whose ken rov’d loosely round her. At her side,
O’ th’ car, and leave it with his feathers lin’d;
As ‘t were that none might bear her off, I saw
And then a voice, like that which issues forth
A giant stand; and ever, and anon
From heart with sorrow riv’d, did issue forth
They mingled kisses. But, her lustful eyes
From heav’n, and, “O poor bark of mine!” it cried,
Chancing on me to wander, that fell minion
“How badly art thou freighted!” Then, it seem’d,
Scourg’d her from head to foot all o’er; then full
That the earth open’d between either wheel,
Of jealousy, and fierce with rage, unloos’d
And I beheld a dragon issue thence,
The monster, and dragg’d on, so far across
That through the chariot fix’d his forked train;
The forest, that from me its shades alone
And like a wasp that draggeth back the sting,
Shielded the harlot and the new-form’d brute.
So drawing forth his baleful train, he dragg’d
Part of the bottom forth, and went his way
CANTO XXXIII
Exulting. What remain’d, as lively turf
“The heathen, Lord! are come!”responsive thus,
With green herb, so did clothe itself with plumes,
The trinal now, and now the virg
in band
Which haply had with purpose chaste and kind
Quaternion, their sweet psalmody began,
Been offer’d; and therewith were cloth’d the wheels, Weeping; and Beatrice listen’d, sad
Both one and other, and the beam, so quickly
And sighing, to the song’, in such a mood,
A sigh were not breath’d sooner. Thus transform’d,
That Mary, as she stood beside the cross,
The holy structure, through its several parts,
Was scarce more chang’d. But when they gave her place Did put forth heads, three on the beam, and one
To speak, then, risen upright on her feet,
On every side; the first like oxen horn’d,
She, with a colour glowing bright as fire,
But with a single horn upon their front
Did answer: “Yet a little while, and ye
The four. Like monster sight hath never seen.
Shall see me not; and, my beloved sisters,
O’er it methought there sat, secure as rock
Again a little while, and ye shall see me.”
On mountain’s lofty top, a shameless whore,
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The Divine Comedy of Dante - Purgatory Before her then she marshall’d all the seven,
That eagle, he, who left the chariot plum’d,
And, beck’ning only motion’d me, the dame,
Which monster made it first and next a prey.
And that remaining sage, to follow her.
Plainly I view, and therefore speak, the stars
So on she pass’d; and had not set, I ween,
E’en now approaching, whose conjunction, free
Her tenth step to the ground, when with mine eyes
From all impediment and bar, brings on
Her eyes encounter’d; and, with visage mild,
A season, in the which, one sent from God,
“So mend thy pace,” she cried, “that if my words
(Five hundred, five, and ten, do mark him out)
Address thee, thou mayst still be aptly plac’d
That foul one, and th’ accomplice of her guilt,
To hear them.” Soon as duly to her side
The giant, both shall slay. And if perchance
I now had hasten’d: “Brother!” she began,
My saying, dark as Themis or as Sphinx,
“Why mak’st thou no attempt at questioning,
Fail to persuade thee, (since like them it foils
As thus we walk together?” Like to those
The intellect with blindness) yet ere long
Who, speaking with too reverent an awe
Events shall be the Naiads, that will solve