The while I fix'd my eyes on the green leaves,
Intently looking with the gaze of one
Who the small song-birds of their life bereaves,
My more than father said to me: " My son,
Now let us hasten on; for it is meet
To profit by the day, ere it is done. "
I quickly turn'd me then; and not less fleet
My footsteps were, that I might draw anear
The wise, whose words made the long journey sweet.
In mingled wail and singing did I hear:
" My lips shall praise thee, Lord; " the holy strain
Delight and sorrow to my soul did bear.
" What sound is this, arising from the plain, "
I said, " my gentle father? " He replied:
" Those Shades fulfil their duty mid their pain. "
As when the thoughtful pilgrim hath espied
One who is all unknown, he doth not stay,
But looks toward him and then turns aside;
Thus, following us more quickly on the way,
Joining and passing us, that band devout
Gazed upon us, but yet no word did say.
Their hollow eyes with dusky gloom were fraught:
Their cheeks were pallid; and their frames so lean,
Moulding the skin the bones might well be sought.
Less meagre Erisicthon's frame, I ween,
When, to the last extreme of hunger led,
Most fierce his famish'd sufferings had been.
I thought within myself, and thus I said:
" Behold Jerusalem's citizens, when one,
A Jewish mother, on her infant fed. "
Their eyes seem'd rings from whence the gems were gone;
And those who Omo on man's brow descry,
In theirs, in sooth, the M might well have known.
Who would believe that in this fruit could lie
Such strong dominion by its sweet perfume,
Or in the crystal stream, unknowing why?
I marvell'd much concerning this their doom;
Because the reason yet I did not learn
Of their sad leanness and their meagre gloom.
When lo! the sunken eyes toward me turn
Of one among those shadowy forms, who said,
With a loud voice: " What grace to me is borne? "
Remembrance of that Shade from me had fled;
But yet his voice brought back unto mine ear
The thought which from my doubting eye was hid.
This spark lit up, in vivid hues and clear,
The memory of the sorely changid brow;
Then did Foresi to my gaze appear.
" Ah! look not in such wonder on me now,
All dimm'd and pallid as with fell disease, "
He said, " nor at the leanness of my woe;
But truly tell me of thyself, and these
Who go with thee; nor let thy speech be stay'd,
The ardent longing of my soul to ease. "
" Thy face, o'er which in death such tears I shed
Of old, now makes me grieve with no less woe,
Because I see it here so marr'd, " I said.
First tell, I pray thee, why thy bones thus grow
Unto their covering; hardly may he speak,
Whose eager mind some wish'd-for thing would know. "
He said: " In God's own counsel ye must seek
The virtue to the tree and fountain given,
From whence ye see me now so lean and weak.
Each one who, weeping, sings, is punish'd even
For gluttony; and therefore thus he grieves,
In thirst and hunger purified for heaven.
To every soul impatient longing cleaves,
From the sweet odour of the fruit, and from
The dash of waters, showering on the leaves.
Not once alone our footsteps hither come,
Our pains renewing: yet it is not pain,
But a sweet comfort sent us from our home.
The tree by that same hill we would attain,
Which erst led Christ with joyful lips to say,
" Eloi ," when there flow'd from every vein,
His saving blood. " " Foresi, from the day, "
I said, " when thou hast gone to better life,
Five years not yet have wholly pass'd away.
If near the ending of thine earthly strife
The strength for sin hath fail'd thee, ere the hour
Which led thee back to God with holy grief,
How to ascend on high hadst thou the power?
Low on the island shore I thee had sought,
Where lapse of time doth time mis-spent restore. "
And he to me: " So soon I here was brought,
To drink the cup wherein sweet wormwood lies,
By my own Nella's love, with weeping fraught.
I by her prayers devout, and mournful sighs,
From out the land that is with longing rife
Was drawn; and through each zone had strength to rise.
So much more dear to God is my sweet wife,
Whom erst, while yet I lived, I loved so well,
As there are few like her in her true life.
For the Sardinian land, of which they tell
Such tales, hath citizens more chaste than they
Of the Barbagia where she still doth dwell.
My gentle brother, what then can I say?
Before my inward vision doth appear
A future time, not distant from this day,
Which shall the Church's fulmination bear,
Against the dames of Florence, who go forth,
And on their swelling breasts no covering wear.
Upon what heathen race, on all the earth,
Was it e'er needful, edicts to impose,
That from or Man or Heaven have had their birth,
To clothe them? When each shameless woman knows
What Heaven's swift circling orbit bears along,
For loudest wail her lips she may unclose.
And if my foresight do not lead me wrong,
This sorrow cometh, ere the beard shall grow
Of him who now is soothed by nursery song.
But hide not from me what I fain would know;
Not only I, thou seest, but all our band
Gaze where upon the ground no sunbeams glow. "
Then I to him: " If thou wouldst call to mind
What thou hast seen with me, and I with thee,
Sad were the memory of thy native land.
I from this life, by him who goes with me,
Was led, the evening before yesternight,
When she, the sister of this orb we see,
Shone in the fullest circle of her light; "
(And to the Sun I pointed:) " through the land
Of everlasting death he led aright
My mortal footsteps. Thence did I ascend,
Guided by him, and circling round the hill
Which makes you once again to duty bend.
To lead me he hath promisid, until
I rise where Beatrice doth dwell on high;
Without him must I there my quest fulfil.
And this is Virgil, who thus spake, " (and I
Towards him pointed) " and this other Shade
Is he for whose ascent unto the sky
Your kingdom, to its base, the earthquake's might obey'd. "