O Ugolin de’ Fantoli, secure
Thy name is, since no longer is awaitedOne who, degenerating, can obscure it!
But go now, Tuscan, for it now delights meTo weep far better than it does to speak,So much has our discourse my mind distressed.”
We were aware that those beloved soulsHeard us depart; therefore, by keeping silent,They made us of our pathway confident.
When we became alone by going onward,Thunder, when it doth cleave the air, appearedA voice, that counter to us came, exclaiming:
“Shall slay me whosoever findeth me!”And fled as the reverberation diesIf suddenly the cloud asunder bursts.
As soon as hearing had a truce from this,Behold another, with so great a crash,That it resembled thunderings following fast:
“I am Aglaurus, who became a stone!”And then, to press myself close to the Poet,I backward, and not forward, took a step.
Already on all sides the air was quiet;And said he to me: “That was the hard curbThat ought to hold a man within his bounds;
But you take in the bait so that the hookOf the old Adversary draws you to him,And hence availeth little curb or call.
The heavens are calling you, and wheel around you,Displaying to you their eternal beauties,And still your eye is looking on the ground;
Whence He, who all discerns, chastises you.”
Purgatorio: Canto XV
As much as ’twixt the close of the third hourAnd dawn of day appeareth of that sphereWhich aye in fashion of a child is playing,
So much it now appeared, towards the night,Was of his course remaining to the sun;There it was evening, and ’twas midnight here;
And the rays smote the middle of our faces,Because by us the mount was so encircled,That straight towards the west we now were going
When I perceived my forehead overpoweredBeneath the splendour far more than at first,And stupor were to me the things unknown,
Whereat towards the summit of my browI raised my hands, and made myself the visorWhich the excessive glare diminishes.
As when from off the water, or a mirror,The sunbeam leaps unto the opposite side,Ascending upward in the selfsame measure
That it descends, and deviates as farFrom falling of a stone in line direct,(As demonstrate experiment and art,)
So it appeared to me that by a lightRefracted there before me I was smitten;On which account my sight was swift to flee.
“What is that, Father sweet, from which I cannotSo fully screen my sight that it avail me,”Said I, “and seems towards us to be moving?”
“Marvel thou not, if dazzle thee as yetThe family of heaven,” he answered me;“An angel ’tis, who comes to invite us upward.
Soon will it be, that to behold these thingsShall not be grievous, but delightful to theeAs much as nature fashioned thee to feel.”
When we had reached the Angel benedight,With joyful voice he said: “Here enter inTo stairway far less steep than are the others.”
We mounting were, already thence departed,And “Beati misericordes” wasBehind us sung, “Rejoice, thou that o’ercomest!”
My Master and myself, we two aloneWere going upward, and I thought, in going,Some profit to acquire from words of his;
And I to him directed me, thus asking:“What did the spirit of Romagna mean,Mentioning interdict and partnership?”
Whence he to me: “Of his own greatest failingHe knows the harm; and therefore wonder notIf he reprove us, that we less may rue it.
Because are thither pointed your desiresWhere by companionship each share is lessened,Envy doth ply the bellows to your sighs.
But if the love of the supernal sphereShould upwardly direct your aspiration,There would not be that fear within your breast;
For there, as much the more as one says ‘Our,’So much the more of good each one possesses,And more of charity in that cloister burns.”
“I am more hungering to be satisfied,”I said, “than if I had before been silent,And more of doubt within my mind I gather.
How can it be, that boon distributedThe more possessors can more wealthy makeTherein, than if by few it be possessed?”
And he to me: “Because thou fixest stillThy mind entirely upon earthly things,Thou pluckest darkness from the very light.