Thereafterward proceeded forth his words
With voice so much transmuted from itself,The very countenance was not more changed.
“The spouse of Christ has never nurtured beenOn blood of mine, of Linus and of Cletus,To be made use of in acquest of gold;
But in acquest of this delightful lifeSixtus and Pius, Urban and Calixtus,After much lamentation, shed their blood.
Our purpose was not, that on the right handOf our successors should in part be seatedThe Christian folk, in part upon the other;
Nor that the keys which were to me confidedShould e’er become the escutcheon on a banner,That should wage war on those who are baptized;
Nor I be made the figure of a sealTo privileges venal and mendacious,Whereat I often redden and flash with fire.
In garb of shepherds the rapacious wolvesAre seen from here above o’er all the pastures!O wrath of God, why dost thou slumber still?
To drink our blood the Caorsines and GasconsAre making ready. O thou good beginning,Unto how vile an end must thou needs fall!
But the high Providence, that with ScipioAt Rome the glory of the world defended,Will speedily bring aid, as I conceive;
And thou, my son, who by thy mortal weightShalt down return again, open thy mouth;What I conceal not, do not thou conceal.”
As with its frozen vapours downward fallsIn flakes our atmosphere, what time the hornOf the celestial Goat doth touch the sun,
Upward in such array saw I the etherBecome, and flaked with the triumphant vapours,Which there together with us had remained.
My sight was following up their semblances,And followed till the medium, by excess,The passing farther onward took from it;
Whereat the Lady, who beheld me freedFrom gazing upward, said to me: “Cast downThy sight, and see how far thou art turned round.”
Since the first time that I had downward looked,I saw that I had moved through the whole arcWhich the first climate makes from midst to end;
So that I saw the mad track of UlyssesPast Gades, and this side, well nigh the shoreWhereon became Europa a sweet burden.
And of this threshing-floor the site to meWere more unveiled, but the sun was proceedingUnder my feet, a sign and more removed.
My mind enamoured, which is dallyingAt all times with my Lady, to bring backTo her mine eyes was more than ever ardent.
And if or Art or Nature has made baitTo catch the eyes and so possess the mind,In human flesh or in its portraiture,
All joined together would appear as noughtTo the divine delight which shone upon meWhen to her smiling face I turned me round.
The virtue that her look endowed me withFrom the fair nest of Leda tore me forth,And up into the swiftest heaven impelled me.
Its parts exceeding full of life and loftyAre all so uniform, I cannot sayWhich Beatrice selected for my place.
But she, who was aware of my desire,Began, the while she smiled so joyouslyThat God seemed in her countenance to rejoice:
“The nature of that motion, which keeps quietThe centre and all the rest about it moves,From hence begins as from its starting point.
And in this heaven there is no other WhereThan in the Mind Divine, wherein is kindledThe love that turns it, and the power it rains.
Within a circle light and love embrace it,Even as this doth the others, and that precinctHe who encircles it alone controls.
Its motion is not by another meted,But all the others measured are by this,As ten is by the half and by the fifth.
And in what manner time in such a potMay have its roots, and in the rest its leaves,Now unto thee can manifest be made.
O Covetousness, that mortals dost ingulfBeneath thee so, that no one hath the powerOf drawing back his eyes from out thy waves!
Full fairly blossoms in mankind the will;But the uninterrupted rain convertsInto abortive wildings the true plums.