That Providence, which here distributeth
Season and service, in the blessed choirHad silence upon every side imposed.
When I heard say: “If I my colour change,Marvel not at it; for while I am speakingThou shalt behold all these their colour change.
He who usurps upon the earth my place,My place, my place, which vacant has becomeBefore the presence of the Son of God,
Has of my cemetery made a sewerOf blood and stench, whereby the Perverse One,Who fell from here, below there is appeased!”
With the same colour which, through sun adverse,Painteth the clouds at evening or at morn,Beheld I then the whole of heaven suffused.
And as a modest woman, who abidesSure of herself, and at another’s failing,From listening only, timorous becomes,
Even thus did Beatrice change countenance;And I believe in heaven was such eclipse,When suffered the supreme Omnipotence;