Purgatory, Canto XXIX

Singing like unto an enamoured lady

She, with the ending of her words, continued:

"Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata."

And even as Nymphs, that wandered all alone

Among the sylvan shadows, sedulous

One to avoid and one to see the sun,

She then against the stream moved onward, going

Along the bank, and I abreast of her,

Her little steps with little steps attending.

Between her steps and mine were not a hundred,

When equally the margins gave a turn,

In such a way, that to the East I faced.

Nor even thus our way continued far

Before the lady wholly turned herself

Unto me, saying, "Brother, look and listen!"

And lo! a sudden lustre ran across

On every side athwart the spacious forest,

Such that it made me doubt if it were lightning.

But since the lightning ceases as it comes,

And that continuing brightened more and more,

Within my thought I said, "What thing is this?"

And a delicious melody there ran

Along the luminous air, whence holy zeal

Made me rebuke the hardihood of Eve;

For there where earth and heaven obedient were,

The woman only, and but just created,

Could not endure to stay 'neath any veil;

Underneath which had she devoutly stayed,

I sooner should have tasted those delights

Ineffable, and for a longer time.

While 'mid such manifold first-fruits I walked

Of the eternal pleasure all enrapt,

And still solicitous of more delights,

In front of us like an enkindled fire

Became the air beneath the verdant boughs,

And the sweet sound as singing now was heard.

O Virgins sacrosanct! if ever hunger,

Vigils, or cold for you I have endured,

The occasion spurs me their reward to claim!

Now Helicon must needs pour forth for me,

And with her choir Urania must assist me,

To put in verse things difficult to think.

A little farther on, seven trees of gold

In semblance the long space still intervening

Between ourselves and them did counterfeit;

But when I had approached so near to them

The common object, which the sense deceives,

Lost not by distance any of its marks,

The faculty that lends discourse to reason

Did apprehend that they were candlesticks,

And in the voices of the song "Hosanna!"

Above them flamed the harness beautiful,

Far brighter than the moon in the serene

Of midnight, at the middle of her month.

I turned me round, with admiration filled,

To good Virgilius, and he answered me

With visage no less full of wonderment.

Then back I turned my face to those high things,

Which moved themselves towards us so sedately,

They had been distanced by new-wedded brides.

The lady chid me: "Why dost thou burn only

So with affection for the living lights,

And dost not look at what comes after them?"

Then saw I people, as behind their leaders,

Coming behind them, garmented in white,

And such a whiteness never was on earth.

The water on my left flank was resplendent,

And back to me reflected my left side,

E'en as a mirror, if I looked therein.

When I upon my margin had such post

That nothing but the stream divided us,

Better to see I gave my steps repose;

And I beheld the flamelets onward go,

Leaving behind themselves the air depicted,

And they of trailing pennons had the semblance,

So that it overhead remained distinct

With sevenfold lists, all of them of the colours

Whence the sun's bow is made, and Delia's girdle.

These standards to the rearward longer were

Than was my sight; and, as it seemed to me,

Ten paces were the outermost apart.

Under so fair a heaven as I describe

The four and twenty Elders, two by two,

Came on incoronate with flower-de-luce.

They all of them were singing: "Blessed thou

Among the daughters of Adam art, and blessed

For evermore shall be thy loveliness."

After the flowers and other tender grasses

In front of me upon the other margin

Were disencumbered of that race elect,

Even as in heaven star followeth after star,

There came close after them four animals,

Incoronate each one with verdant leaf.

Plumed with six wings was every one of them,

The plumage full of eyes; the eyes of Argus

If they were living would be such as these.

Reader! to trace their forms no more I waste

My rhymes; for other spendings press me so,

That I in this cannot be prodigal.

But read Ezekiel, who depicteth them

As he beheld them from the region cold

Coming with cloud, with whirlwind, and with fire;

And such as thou shalt find them in his pages,

Such were they here; saving that in their plumage

John is with me, and differeth from him.

The interval between these four contained

A chariot triumphal on two wheels,

Which by a Griffin's neck came drawn along;

And upward he extended both his wings

Between the middle list and three and three,

So that he injured none by cleaving it.

So high they rose that they were lost to sight;

His limbs were gold, so far as he was bird,

And white the others with vermilion mingled.

Not only Rome with no such splendid car

E'er gladdened Africanus, or Augustus,

But poor to it that of the Sun would be,--

That of the Sun, which swerving was burnt up

At the importunate orison of Earth,

When Jove was so mysteriously just.

Three maidens at the right wheel in a circle

Came onward dancing; one so very red

That in the fire she hardly had been noted.

The second was as if her flesh and bones

Had all been fashioned out of emerald;

The third appeared as snow but newly fallen.

And now they seemed conducted by the white,

Now by the red, and from the song of her

The others took their step, or slow or swift.

Upon the left hand four made holiday

Vested in purple, following the measure

Of one of them with three eyes m her head.

In rear of all the group here treated of

Two old men I beheld, unlike in habit,

But like in gait, each dignified and grave.

One showed himself as one of the disciples

Of that supreme Hippocrates, whom nature

Made for the animals she holds most dear;

Contrary care the other manifested,

With sword so shining and so sharp, it caused

Terror to me on this side of the river.

Thereafter four I saw of humble aspect,

And behind all an aged man alone

Walking in sleep with countenance acute.

And like the foremost company these seven

Were habited; yet of the flower-de-luce

No garland round about the head they wore,

But of the rose, and other flowers vermilion;

At little distance would the sight have sworn

That all were in a flame above their brows.

And when the car was opposite to me

Thunder was heard; and all that folk august

Seemed to have further progress interdicted,

There with the vanward ensigns standing still.