Part 36

From him already we departed were, And made endeavour to o’ercome the road As much as was permitted to our power,

When I perceived, like something that is falling, The mountain tremble, whence a chill seized on me, As seizes him who to his death is going.

Certes so violently shook not Delos, Before Latona made her nest therein To give birth to the two eyes of the heaven.

Then upon all sides there began a cry, Such that the Master drew himself towards me, Saying, “Fear not, while I am guiding thee.”

“Gloria in excelsis Deo,” all Were saying, from what near I comprehended, Where it was possible to hear the cry.

We paused immovable and in suspense, Even as the shepherds who first heard that song, Until the trembling ceased, and it was finished.

Then we resumed again our holy path, Watching the shades that lay upon the ground, Already turned to their accustomed plaint.

No ignorance ever with so great a strife Had rendered me importunate to know, If erreth not in this my memory,

As meditating then I seemed to have; Nor out of haste to question did I dare, Nor of myself I there could aught perceive;

So I went onward timorous and thoughtful.

Purgatorio: Canto XXI

The natural thirst, that ne’er is satisfied Excepting with the water for whose grace The woman of Samaria besought,

Put me in travail, and haste goaded me Along the encumbered path behind my Leader And I was pitying that righteous vengeance;

And lo! in the same manner as Luke writeth That Christ appeared to two upon the way From the sepulchral cave already risen,

A shade appeared to us, and came behind us, Down gazing on the prostrate multitude, Nor were we ware of it, until it spake,

Saying, “My brothers, may God give you peace!” We turned us suddenly, and Virgilius rendered To him the countersign thereto conforming.

Thereon began he: “In the blessed council, Thee may the court veracious place in peace, That me doth banish in eternal exile!”

“How,” said he, and the while we went with speed, “If ye are shades whom God deigns not on high, Who up his stairs so far has guided you?”

And said my Teacher: “If thou note the marks Which this one bears, and which the Angel traces Well shalt thou see he with the good must reign.

But because she who spinneth day and night For him had not yet drawn the distaff off, Which Clotho lays for each one and compacts,

His soul, which is thy sister and my own, In coming upwards could not come alone, By reason that it sees not in our fashion.

Whence I was drawn from out the ample throat Of Hell to be his guide, and I shall guide him As far on as my school has power to lead.

But tell us, if thou knowest, why such a shudder Erewhile the mountain gave, and why together All seemed to cry, as far as its moist feet?”

In asking he so hit the very eye Of my desire, that merely with the hope My thirst became the less unsatisfied.

“Naught is there,” he began, “that without order May the religion of the mountain feel, Nor aught that may be foreign to its custom.

Free is it here from every permutation; What from itself heaven in itself receiveth Can be of this the cause, and naught beside;

Because that neither rain, nor hail, nor snow, Nor dew, nor hoar-frost any higher falls Than the short, little stairway of three steps.

Dense clouds do not appear, nor rarefied, Nor coruscation, nor the daughter of Thaumas, That often upon earth her region shifts;