Thereafter with his arms he clasped my neck; He kissed my face, and said: "Disdainful soul, Goodness is none, that decks his memory; Reveal itself, thou shalt be satisfied; Such a desire 't is meet thou shouldst enjoy." A little after that, I saw such havoc Made of him by the people of the mire, That still I praise and thank my God for it. They all were shouting, "At Philippo Argenti!" And that exasperate spirit Florentine Turned round upon himself with his own teeth. We left him there, and more of him I tell not; 45 50 55 60 65 And the good Master said: "Even now, my son, With the grave citizens, with the great throng." And I "Its mosques already, Master, clearly : Within there in the valley I discern Vermilion, as if issuing from the fire They were." And he to me: "The fire eternal That circumvallate that disconsolate city; We came unto a place where loud the pilot More than a thousand at the gates I saw Out of the Heavens rained down, who angrily Were saying, "Who is this that without death And my sagacious Master made a sign A little then they quelled their great disdain, Let him return alone by his mad road; Try, if he can; for thou shalt here remain, Who hast escorted him through such dark regions." Think, Reader, if I was discomforted "O At utterance of the accursed words; For never to return here I believed. my dear Guide, who more than seven times Do not desert me," said I, "thus undone; And if the going farther be denied us, Said unto me: "Fear not; because our passage But here await me, and thy weary spirit Comfort and nourish with a better hope; For in this nether world I will not leave thee.” So onward goes and there abandons me My Father sweet, and I remain in doubt, I could not hear what he proposed to them; But with them there he did not linger long, 95 100 105 110 They closed the portals, those our adversaries, On my Lord's breast, who had remained without His eyes cast down, his forehead shorn had he Of all its boldness, and he said, with sighs, And unto me: "Thou, because I am angry, For once they used it at less secret gate, And now this side of it descends the steep, Passing across the circles without escort, One by whose means the city shall be opened." 115 120 125 130 CANTO IX. THAT hue which cowardice brought out on me, Through the black air, and through the heavy fog. "Still it behoveth us to win the fight," Began he; "Else. Such offered us herself... O how I long that some one here arrive!" Well I perceived, as soon as the beginning He covered up with what came afterward, That they were words quite different from the first; But none the less his saying gave me fear, Because I carried out the broken phrase, Perhaps to a worse meaning than he had. "Into this bottom of the doleful conch Doth any e'er descend from the first grade, 5 15 |