Part 29

“O Marco mine,” I said, “thou reasonest well; And now discern I why the sons of Levi Have been excluded from the heritage.

But what Gherardo is it, who, as sample Of a lost race, thou sayest has remained In reprobation of the barbarous age?”

“Either thy speech deceives me, or it tempts me,” He answered me; “for speaking Tuscan to me, It seems of good Gherardo naught thou knowest.

By other surname do I know him not, Unless I take it from his daughter Gaia. May God be with you, for I come no farther.

Behold the dawn, that through the smoke rays out, Already whitening; and I must depart— Yonder the Angel is—ere he appear.”

Thus did he speak, and would no farther hear me.

Purgatorio: Canto XVII

Remember, Reader, if e’er in the Alps A mist o’ertook thee, through which thou couldst see Not otherwise than through its membrane mole,

How, when the vapours humid and condensed Begin to dissipate themselves, the sphere Of the sun feebly enters in among them,

And thy imagination will be swift In coming to perceive how I re-saw The sun at first, that was already setting.

Thus, to the faithful footsteps of my Master Mating mine own, I issued from that cloud To rays already dead on the low shores.

O thou, Imagination, that dost steal us So from without sometimes, that man perceives not, Although around may sound a thousand trumpets,

Who moveth thee, if sense impel thee not? Moves thee a light, which in the heaven takes form, By self, or by a will that downward guides it.

Of her impiety, who changed her form Into the bird that most delights in singing, In my imagining appeared the trace;

And hereupon my mind was so withdrawn Within itself, that from without there came Nothing that then might be received by it.

Then reigned within my lofty fantasy One crucified, disdainful and ferocious In countenance, and even thus was dying.

Around him were the great Ahasuerus, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, Who was in word and action so entire.

And even as this image burst asunder Of its own self, in fashion of a bubble In which the water it was made of fails,

There rose up in my vision a young maiden Bitterly weeping, and she said: “O queen, Why hast thou wished in anger to be naught?

Thou’st slain thyself, Lavinia not to lose; Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns, Mother, at thine ere at another’s ruin.”

As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed, And broken quivers ere it dieth wholly,

So this imagining of mine fell down As soon as the effulgence smote my face, Greater by far than what is in our wont.

I turned me round to see where I might be, When said a voice, “Here is the passage up;” Which from all other purposes removed me,

And made my wish so full of eagerness To look and see who was it that was speaking, It never rests till meeting face to face;

But as before the sun, which quells the sight, And in its own excess its figure veils, Even so my power was insufficient here.

“This is a spirit divine, who in the way Of going up directs us without asking, And who with his own light himself conceals.

He does with us as man doth with himself; For he who sees the need, and waits the asking, Malignly leans already tow’rds denial.

Accord we now our feet to such inviting, Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark; For then we could not till the day return.”