Part 58

A shield unto the whore and the strange beast.

Purgatorio: Canto XXXIII

“Deus venerunt gentes,” alternating Now three, now four, melodious psalmody The maidens in the midst of tears began;

And Beatrice, compassionate and sighing, Listened to them with such a countenance, That scarce more changed was Mary at the cross.

But when the other virgins place had given For her to speak, uprisen to her feet With colour as of fire, she made response:

“‘Modicum, et non videbitis me; Et iterum,’ my sisters predilect, ‘Modicum, et vos videbitis me.’”

Then all the seven in front of her she placed; And after her, by beckoning only, moved Me and the lady and the sage who stayed.

So she moved onward; and I do not think That her tenth step was placed upon the ground, When with her eyes upon mine eyes she smote,

And with a tranquil aspect, “Come more quickly,” To me she said, “that, if I speak with thee, To listen to me thou mayst be well placed.”

As soon as I was with her as I should be, She said to me: “Why, brother, dost thou not Venture to question now, in coming with me?”

As unto those who are too reverential, Speaking in presence of superiors, Who drag no living utterance to their teeth,

It me befell, that without perfect sound Began I: “My necessity, Madonna, You know, and that which thereunto is good.”

And she to me: “Of fear and bashfulness Henceforward I will have thee strip thyself, So that thou speak no more as one who dreams.

Know that the vessel which the serpent broke Was, and is not; but let him who is guilty Think that God’s vengeance does not fear a sop.

Without an heir shall not for ever be The Eagle that left his plumes upon the car, Whence it became a monster, then a prey;

For verily I see, and hence narrate it, The stars already near to bring the time, From every hindrance safe, and every bar,

Within which a Five-hundred, Ten, and Five, One sent from God, shall slay the thievish woman And that same giant who is sinning with her.

And peradventure my dark utterance, Like Themis and the Sphinx, may less persuade thee, Since, in their mode, it clouds the intellect;

But soon the facts shall be the Naiades Who shall this difficult enigma solve, Without destruction of the flocks and harvests.

Note thou; and even as by me are uttered These words, so teach them unto those who live That life which is a running unto death;

And bear in mind, whene’er thou writest them, Not to conceal what thou hast seen the plant, That twice already has been pillaged here.

Whoever pillages or shatters it, With blasphemy of deed offendeth God, Who made it holy for his use alone.

For biting that, in pain and in desire Five thousand years and more the first-born soul Craved Him, who punished in himself the bite.

Thy genius slumbers, if it deem it not For special reason so pre-eminent In height, and so inverted in its summit.

And if thy vain imaginings had not been Water of Elsa round about thy mind, And Pyramus to the mulberry, their pleasure,

Thou by so many circumstances only The justice of the interdict of God Morally in the tree wouldst recognize.

But since I see thee in thine intellect Converted into stone and stained with sin, So that the light of my discourse doth daze thee,

I will too, if not written, at least painted, Thou bear it back within thee, for the reason That cinct with palm the pilgrim’s staff is borne.”