there the causes of his victory.
“And later to the third great Heaven was caught
The last Apostle, and thence returning brought
The proofs of our salvation. But, for me,
I am not Æneas, nay, nor Paul, to see
Unspeakable things that depths or heights can show,
And if this road for no sure end I go
What folly is mine? But any words are weak.
Thy wisdom further than the things I speak
Can search the event that would be.”
Here I stayed
My steps amid the darkness, and the Shade
That led me heard and turned, magnanimous,
And saw me drained of purpose halting thus,
And answered, “If thy coward-born thoughts be clear,
And all thy once intent, infirmed of fear,
Broken, then art thou as scared beasts that shy
From shadows, surely that they know not why
Nor wherefore… Hearken, to confound thy fear,
The things which first I heard, and brought me here.…
One came where, in the Outer Place, I dwell,
Suspense from hope of Heaven or fear of Hell,
Radiant in light that native round her clung,
And cast her eyes our hopeless Shades among
(Eyes with no earthly like but heaven’s own blue),
And called me to her in such voice as few
In that grim place had heard, so low, so clear,
So toned and cadenced from the Utmost Sphere,
The Unattainable Heaven from which she came.
‘O Mantuan Spirit,’ she said, ‘whose lasting fame
Continues on the earth ye left, and still
With Time shall stand, an earthly friend to me,
—My friend, not fortune’s—climbs a path so ill
That all the night-bred fears he hastes to flee
Were kindly to the thing he nears. The tale
Moved through the peace of Heaven, and swift I sped
Downward, to aid my friend in love’s avail,
With scanty time therefore, that half I dread
Too late I came. But thou shalt haste, and go
With golden wisdom of thy speech, that so
For me be consolation. Thou shalt say,
“I come from Beatricë.” Downward far,
From Heaven to Heaven I sank, from star to star,
To find thee, and to point his rescuing way.
Fain would I to my place of light return;
Love moved me from it, and gave me power to learn
Thy speech. When next before my Lord I stand
I very oft shall praise thee.’
Here she ceased,
And I gave answer to that dear command,
‘Lady, alone through whom the whole race of those
The smallest Heaven the moon’s short orbits hold
Excels in its creation, not thy least,
Thy lightest wish in this dark realm were told
Vainly. But show me why the Heavens unclose
To loose thee from them, and thyself content
Couldst thus continue in such strange descent
From that most Spacious Place for which ye burn,
And while ye further left, would fain return.’
“‘That which thou wouldst,’ she said, ‘I briefly tell.
There is no fear nor any hurt in Hell,
Except that it be powerful. God in me
Is gracious, that the piteous sights I see
I share not, nor myself can shrink to feel
The flame of all this burning. One there is
In height among the Holiest placed, and she
—Mercy her name—among God’s mysteries
Dwells in the midst, and hath the power to see
His judgments, and to break them. This sharp woe
I tell thee, when she saw, she called, that so
Leaned Lucia toward her while she spake—and said,
“One that is faithful to thy name is sped,
Except that now ye aid him.” She thereat,
—Lucia, to all men’s wrongs inimical—
Left her High Place, and crossed to where I sat
In speech with Rachel (of the first of all
God saved). “O Beatrice, Praise of God,”
—So said she to me—“sitt’st thou here so slow
To aid him, once on earth that loved thee so
That all he left to serve thee? Hear’st thou not
The anguish of his plaint? and dost not see,
By that dark stream that never seeks a sea,
The death that threats him?”
None, as thus she said,
None ever was swift on earth his good to chase,
None ever on earth was swift to leave
