Which, though it see the bottom near the shore,

Upon the deep perceives it not, and yet 'Tis there, but it is hidden by the depth. There is no light but comes from the serene

That never is o'ercast, nay, it is darkness Or shadow of the flesh, or else its poison. Amply to thee is opened now the cavern

Which has concealed from thee the living justice Of which thou mad st such frequent questioning. For saidst thou: 'Born a man is on the shore

Of Indus, and is none who there can speak

Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write ;
And all his inclinations and his actions

Are good, so far as human reason sees,
Without a sin in life or in discourse :

He dieth unbaptised and without faith;

Where is this justice that condemneth him?
Where is his fault, if he do not believe?'

Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit
In judgment at a thousand miles away,
With the short vision of a single span ?

Truly to him who with me subtilizes,

If so the Scripture were not over you,

For doubting there were marvellous occasion.

O animals terrene, O stolid minds,

The primal will, that in itself is good,

Ne'er from itself, the Good Supreme, has moved.
So much is just as is accordant with it ;
No good created draws it to itself,

But it, by raying forth, occasions that."
Even as above her nest goes circling round

The stork when she has fed her little ones,
And he who has been fed looks up at her,

So lifted I my brows, and even such

Became the blessed image, which its wings
Was moving, by so many counsels urged.

Circling around it sang, and said: “As are

My notes to thee, who dost not comprehend them,
Such is the eternal judgment to you mortals."
Those lucent splendours of the Holy Spirit

Grew quiet then, but still within the standard
That made the Romans reverend to the world.

It recommenced: "Unto this kingdom never
Ascended one who had not faith in Christ,
Before or since he to the tree was nailed.

But look thou, many crying are, 'Christ, Christ!'

Who at the judgment shall be far less near
To him than some shall be who knew not Christ.
Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn,

When the two companies shall be divided,
The one for ever rich, the other poor.
What to your kings may not the Persians say,

When they that volume opened shall behold In which are written down all their dispraises? There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert,

That which ere long shall set the pen in motion, For which the realm of Prague shall be deserted. There shall be seen the woe that on the Seine

He brings by falsifying of the coin,

Who by the blow of a wild boar shall die.
There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst,

Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad
That they within their boundaries cannot rest;

Be seen the luxury and effeminate life

Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian,

Who valour never knew and never wished;

Be seen the Cripple of Jerusalem,

His goodness represented by an I,

While the reverse an M shall represent;

Be seen the avarice and poltroonery

Of him who guards the Island of the Fire,
Wherein Anchises finished his long life;

And to declare how pitiful he is

Shall be his record in contracted letters
Which shall make note of much in little space.

And shall appear to each one the foul deeds

Of uncle and of brother who a nation

So famous have dishonoured, and two crowns.

And he of Portugal and he of Norway

Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too,
Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice.

O happy Hungary, if she let herself

Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy, If with the hills that gird her she be armed! And each one may believe that now, as hansel

Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta

Lament and rage because of their own beast, Who from the others' flank departeth not."

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CANTO XX.

WHEN he who all the world illuminates

Out of our hemisphere so far descends
That on all sides the daylight is consumed,
The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled,
Doth suddenly reveal itself again

By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.
And came into my mind this act of heaven,

When the ensign of the world and of its leaders
Had silent in the blessed beak become;

Because those living luminaries all,

By far more luminous, did songs begin
Lapsing and falling from my memory.

O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee,
How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear,
That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!
After the precious and pellucid crystals,

With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld,
Silence imposed on the angelic bells,

I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river

That clear descendeth down from rock to rock,
Showing the affluence of its mountain-top.
And as the sound upon the cithern's neck
Taketh its form, and as upon the vent
Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it,
Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting,
That murmuring of the eagle mounted up
Along its neck, as if it had been hollow.
There it became a voice, and issued thence

From out its beak, in such a form of words
As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.
"The part in me which sees and bears the sun
In mortal eagles," it began to me,

"Now fixedly must needs be looked upon; For of the fires of which I make my figure,

Those whence the eye doth sparkle in my head
Of all their orders the supremest are.

He who is shining in the midst as pupil
Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit,
Who bore the ark from city unto city;

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Now knoweth he the merit of his song,

In so far as effect of his own counsel, By the reward which is commensurate. Of five, that make a circle for my brow,

He that approacheth nearest to my beak Did the poor widow for her son console; Now knoweth he how dearly it doth cost

Not following Christ, by the experience Of this sweet life and of its opposite. He who comes next in the circumference

Of which I speak, upon its highest arc,
Did death postpone by penitence sincere ;
Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment

Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer
Maketh below to-morrow of to-day.
The next who follows, with the laws and me,

Under the good intent that bore bad fruit
Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor;
Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced

From his good action is not harmful to him, Although the world thereby may be destroyed. And he, whom in the downward arc thou seest,

Guglielmo was, whom the same land déplores
That weepeth Charles and Frederick yet alive;
Now knoweth he how heaven enamoured is

With a just king; and in the outward show
Of his effulgence he reveals it still.

Who would believe, down in the errant world,
That e'er the Trojan Ripheus in this round
Could be the fifth one of the holy lights?
Now knoweth he enough of what the world

Has not the power to see of grace divine,
Although his sight may not discern the bottom."

Like as a lark that in the air expatiates,

First singing and then silent with content Of the last sweetness that doth satisfy her, Such seemed to me the image of the imprint Of the eternal pleasure, by whose will Doth everything become the thing it is.

And notwithstanding to my doubt I was

As glass is to the colour that invests it,
To wait the time in silence it endured not,

But forth from out my mouth, "What things are these?"
Extorted with the force of its own weight;

Whereat I saw great joy of coruscation.

Thereafterward with eye still more enkindled

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The blessed standard made to me reply,
To keep me not in wonderment suspended :
'I see that thou believest in these things

Because I say them, but thou seest not how ;
So that, although believed in, they are hidden.
Thou doest as he doth who a thing by name
Well apprehendeth, but its quiddity

Cannot perceive, unless another show it.
Regnum cælorum suffereth violence

From fervent love, and from that living hope
That overcometh the Divine volition;
Not in the guise that man o'ercometh man,

But conquers it because it will be conquered,
And conquered conquers by benignity.
The first life of the eyebrow and the fifth

Cause thee astonishment, because with them
Thou seest the region of the angels painted.
They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest,
Gentiles. but Christians in the steadtast faith
Of feet that were to suffer and had suffered.
For one from Hell, where no one e'er turns back
Unto good will, returned unto his bones,
And that of living hope was the reward,―
Of living hope, that placed its efficacy

In prayers to God made to resuscitate him,
So that 'twere possible to move his will.
The glorious soul concerning which I speak,

Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay,
Believed in Him who had the power to aid it;

And, in believing, kindled to such fire

Of genuine love, that at the second death
Worthy it was to come unto this joy.

The other one, through grace, that from so deep
A fountain wells that never hath the eye
Of any creature reached its primal wave,

Set all his love below on righteousness;

Wherefore from grace to grace did God unclose
His eye to our redemption yet to be,

Whence he believed therein, and suffered not

From that day forth the stench of paganism, And he reproved therefor the folk perverse. Those Maidens three, whom at the right-hand wheel Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptism More than a thousand years before baptizing,