Grateful 'twill be to me, if thou content me Both with thy name and with your destiny." Whereat she promptly and with laughing eyes: "Our charity doth never shut the doors Against a just desire, except as one Who wills that all her court be like herself. I was a virgin sister in the world; And if thy mind doth contemplate me well, The being more fair will not conceal me from thee, But thou shalt recognise I am Piccarda, Who, stationed here among these other blessed, Myself am blessed in the slowest sphere. All our affections, that alone inflamed Are in the pleasure of the Holy Ghost, Rejoice at being of his order formed; And this allotment, which appears so low, Therefore is given us, because our vows Whence I to her: "In your miraculous aspects There shines I know not what of the divine, Which doth transform you from our first conceptions. 60 Therefore I was not swift in my remembrance; But tell me, ye who in this place are happy, To see more or to make yourselves more friends?" First with those other shades she smiled a little ; "Brother, our will is quieted by virtue Of charity, that makes us wish alone For what we have, nor gives us thirst for more. If to be more exalted we aspired, Discordant would our aspirations be Unto the will of Him who here secludes us; Nay, 'tis essential to this blest existence To keep itself within the will divine, So that, as we are station above station Throughout this realm, to all the realm 'tis pleasing, 80 And his will is our peace; this is the sea To which is moving onward whatsoever In heaven is Paradise, although the grace And for another still remains the longing, To learn from her what was the web wherein "A perfect life and merit high in-heaven A lady o'er us," said she, "by whose rule That until death they may both watch and sleep To follow her, in girlhood from the world And pledged me to the pathway of her sect. Than unto good, from the sweet cloister tore me ; This other splendour, which to thee reveals Itself on my right side, and is enkindled With all the illumination of our sphere, What of myself I say applies to her; A nun was she, and likewise from her head Was ta'en the shadow of the sacred wimple. But when she too was to the world returned Against her wishes and against good usage, Who from the second wind of Suabia Vanished, as through deep water something heavy. My sight, that followed her as long a time And wholly unto Beatrice reverted; But she such lightnings flashed into mine eyes, CANTO IV. BETWEEN two viands, equally removed And tempting, a free man would die of hunger Of two fierce wolves stand fearing both alike; Impelled in equal measure by my doubts, Relieving Nebuchadnezzar from the wrath. The violence of others, for what reason Souls seeming to return unto the stars, Have not in any other heaven their seats, Than have those spirits that just appeared to thee, But all make beautiful the primal circle, And have sweet life in different degrees, This sphere has been to them, but to give sign To speak thus is adapted to your mind, Since only through the sense it apprehendeth Unto your faculties, and feet and hands Doth not resemble that which here is seen, He says the soul unto its star returns, Believing it to have been severed thence Than the words sound, and possibly may be The honour of their influence and the blame, The whole world nearly, till it went astray If it be violence when he who suffers Co-operates not with him who uses force, These souls were not on that account excused; For will is never quenched unless it will, If violence a thousand times distort it. The force; and these have done so, having power If their will had been perfect, like to that It would have urged them back along the road And by these words, if thou hast gathered them But now another passage runs across Before thine eyes, and such that by thyself Thou couldst not thread it ere thou wouldst be weary. I have for certain put into thy mind That soul beatified could never lie, And then thou from Piccarda might'st have heard So that she seemeth here to contradict me. That, to escape from peril, with reluctance That has been done it was not right to do, E'en as Alcmæon (who, being by his father Thereto entreated, his own mother slew) Not to lose pity pitiless became. At this point I desire thee to remember That force with will commingles, and they cause Will absolute consenteth not to evil; But in so far consenteth as it fears, The other, so that both of us speak truth." Such was the flowing of the holy river That issued from the fount whence springs all truth; "O love of the first lover, O divine," Said I forthwith, "whose speech inundates me And warms me so, it more and more revives me, 120 My own affection is not so profound As to suffice in rendering grace for grace; Well I perceive that never sated is Our intellect unless the Truth illume it, It rests therein, as wild beast in his lair, When it attains it; and it can attain it; 125 |