| |
| “THE HEATHEN, 1 Lord! are come:” responsive thus, | |
| The trinal now, and now the virgin band | |
| Quaternion, their sweet psalmody began, | |
| Weeping; and Beatrice listen’d, sad | |
| And sighing, to the song, in such a mood, | 5 |
| That Mary, as she stood beside the Cross, | |
| Was scarce more changed. But when they gave her place | |
| To speak, then, risen upright on her feet, | |
| She, with a colour glowing bright as fire, | |
| Did answer: “Yet a little while, 2 and ye | 10 |
| Shall see me not; and, my beloved sisters! | |
| Again a little while, and ye shall see me.” | |
| Before her then she marshal’d all the seven; | |
| And, beckoning only, motion’d me, the dame, | |
| And that remaining sage, 3 to follow her. | 15 |
| So on she pass’d; and had not set, I ween, | |
| Her tenth step to the ground, when, with mine eyes | |
| Her eyes encountered; and, with visage mild, | |
| “So mend thy pace,” she cried, “that if my words | |
| Address thee, thou mayst still be aptly placed | 20 |
| To hear them.” Soon as duly to her side | |
| I now had hasten’d: “Brother!” she began, | |
| “Why makest thou no attempt at questioning, | |
| As thus we walk together?” Like to those | |
| Who, speaking with too reverent an awe | 25 |
| Before their betters, draw not forth the voice | |
| Alive unto their lips, befell me then | |
| That I in sounds imperfect thus began: | |
| “Lady! what I have need of, that thou know’st; | |
| And what will suit my need.” She answering thus: | 30 |
| “Of fearfulness and shame, I will that thou | |
| Henceforth do rid thee; that thou speak no more, | |
| As one who dreams. Thus far be taught of me: | |
| The vessel which thou saw’st the serpent break, | |
| Was, and is not: 4 let him, who hath the blame, | 35 |
| Hope not to scare God’s vengeance with a sop. 5 | |
| Without an heir forever shall not be | |
| That eagle, 6 he, who left the chariot plumed, | |
| Which monster made it first and next a prey. | |
| Plainly I view, and therefore speak, the stars | 40 |
| E’en now approaching, whose conjunction, free | |
| From all impediment and bar, brings on | |
| A season, in the which, one sent from God, | |
| (Five hundred, five, and ten, do mark him out,) | |
| That foul one, and the accomplice of her guilt, | 45 |
| The giant, both, shall slay. And if perchance | |
| My saying, dark as Themis or as Sphinx, | |
| Fail to persuade thee, (since like them it foils | |
| The intellect with blindness), yet ere long | |
| Events shall be the Naiads, that will solve | 50 |
| This knotty riddle; and no damage light | |
| On flock or field. Take heed; and as these words | |
| By me are utter’d, teach them even so | |
| To those who live that life, which is a race | |
| To death: and when thou writest them, keep in mind | 55 |
| Not to conceal how thou hast seen the plant, | |
| That twice 7 hath now been spoil’d. This whoso robs, | |
| This whoso plucks, with blasphemy of deed | |
| Sins against God, who for His use alone | |
| Creating hallow’d it. For taste of this, | 60 |
| In pain and in desire, five thousand years | |
| And upward, the first soul did yearn for him | |
| Who punish’d in himself the fatal gust. | |
| “Thy reason slumbers, if it deem this height, | |
| And summit thus inverted, of the plant, | 65 |
| Without due cause: and were not vainer thoughts, | |
| As Elsa’s numbing waters, 8 to thy soul, | |
| And their fond pleasures had not dyed it dark | |
| As Pyramus the mulberry; thou hadst seen, | |
| In such momentous circumstance alone, | 70 |
| God’s equal justice morally implied | |
| In the forbidden tree. But since I mark thee, | |
| In understanding, harden’d into stone, | |
| And, to that hardness, spotted too and stain’d, | |
| So that thine eye is dazzled at my word; | 75 |
| I will, that, if not written, yet at least | |
| Painted thou take it in thee, for the cause, | |
| That one brings home his staff inwreathed with palm.” | |
| I thus: “As wax by seal, that changeth not | |
| Its impress, now is stamp’d my brain by thee. | 80 |
| But wherefore soars thy wish’d-for speech so high | |
| Beyond my sight, that loses it the more, | |
| The more it strains to reach it?”—“To the end | |
| That thou mayst know,” she answer’d straight, “the school, | |
| That thou hast follow’d; and how far behind, | 85 |
| When following my discourse, its learning halts: | |
| And mayst behold your art, from the divine | |
| As distant, as the disagreement is | |
| ’Twixt earth and Heaven’s most high and rapturous orb.” | |
| “I not remember,” I replied, “that e’er | 90 |
| I was estranged from thee; nor for such fault | |
| Doth conscience chide me.” Smiling she return’d: | |
| “If thou canst not remember, call to mind | |
| How lately thou hast drunk of Lethe’s wave; | |
| And, sure as smoke doth indicate a flame, | 95 |
| In that forgetfulness itself conclude | |
| Blame from thy alienated will incurr’d. | |
| From henceforth, verily, my words shall be | |
| As naked, as will suit them to appear | |
| In thy unpractised view.” More sparkling now, | 100 |
| And with retarded course, the sun possess’d | |
| The circle of mid-day, that varies still | |
| As the aspect varies of each several clime; | |
| When, as one, sent in vaward of a troop | |
| For escort, pauses, if perchance he spy | 105 |
| Vestige of somewhat strange and rare; so paused | |
| The sevenfold band, arriving at the verge | |
| Of a dun umbrage hoar, such as is seen, | |
| Beneath green leaves and gloomy branches, oft | |
| To overbrow a bleak and alpine cliff. | 110 |
| And, where they stood, before them, as it seem’d, | |
| I, Tigris and Euphrates both, beheld | |
| Forth from one fountain issue; and, like friends, | |
| Linger at parting. “O enlightening beam! | |
| O glory of our kind! beseech thee say | 115 |
| What water this, which, from one source derived, | |
| Itself removes to distance from itself?” | |
| To such entreaty answer thus was made: | |
| “Entreat Matilda, that she teach thee this.” | |
| And here, as one who clears himself of blame | 120 |
| Imputed, the fair dame return’d: “Of me | |
| He this and more hath learnt; and I am safe | |
| That Lethe’s water hath not hid it from him.” | |
| And Beatrice: “Some more pressing care, | |
| That oft the memory ’reaves, perchance hath made | 125 |
| His mind’s eye dark. But lo, where Eunoe flows! | |
| Lead thither; and, as thou art wont, revive | |
| His fainting virtue.” As a courteous spirit, | |
| That proffers no excuses, but as soon | |
| As he hath token of another’s will, | 130 |
| Makes it his own; when she had ta’en me, thus | |
| The lovely maiden moved her on, and call’d | |
| To Statius, with an air most lady-like: | |
| “Come thou with him.” Were further space allow’d, | |
| Then, Reader! might I sing, though but in part, | 135 |
| That beverage, with whose sweetness I had ne’er | |
| Been sated. But, since all the leaves are full, | |
| Appointed for this second strain, mine art | |
| With warning bridle checks me. I return’d | |
| From the most holy wave, regenerate, | 140 |
| E’en as new plants renew’d with foliage new, | |
| Pure and made apt for mounting to the stars. | |
