But when to ill it turns, and, with more care Of its own subject can love turn its sight, And since we cannot think of any being Standing alone, nor from the First divided, The evil that one loves is of one's neighbour, Thence are so sad that the reverse they love; Now of the other will I have thee hear, Each one confusedly a good conceives Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it; If languid love to look on this attract you, There's other good that does not make man happy ; Essence, of every good the fruit and root. CANTO XVIII. AN end had put unto his reasoning The lofty Teacher, and attent was looking And I, whom a new thirst still goaded on, Without was mute, and said within: "Perchance To teach me love, to which thou dost refer Of intellect, and clear will be to thee The error of the blind, who would be leaders. The soul, which is created apt to love, Is mobile unto everything that pleases, An image draws, and in yourselves displays it Which is a motion spiritual, and ne'er rests The truth is from those people, who aver Aye to be good; but yet not each impression "Thy words, and my sequacious intellect," I answered him, "have love revealed to me; For if love from without be offered us, And with another foot the soul go not, If right or wrong she go, 'tis not her merit." And he to me: "What reason seeth here, Myself can tell thee; beyond that await For Beatrice, since 'tis a work of faith. Every substantial form, that segregate From matter is, and with it is united, Nor shows itself except by its effect, Of the first notions, man is ignorant, To make its honey; and this first desire Innate within you is the power that counsels, And it should keep the threshold of assent. This is the principle, from which is taken Occasion of desert in you, according As good and guilty loves it takes and winnows. Those who, in reasoning, to the bottom went, Were of this innate liberty aware, Therefore bequeathed they Ethics to the world. Supposing, then, that from necessity Springs every love that is within you kindled, Within yourselves the power is to restrain it. The noble virtue Beatrice understands By the free will; and therefore see that thou Now made the stars appear to us more rare, And counter to the heavens ran through those paths And that patrician shade, for whom is named 40 45 50 55 60 65 20 75 80 Whence I, who reason manifest and plain In answer to my questions had received, Suddenly by a people, that behind Beside them saw at night the rush and throng, From what I saw of those approaching us, Moved onward all that mighty multitude, And two in the advance cried out, lamenting, Mary in haste unto the mountain ran, And Cæsar, that he might subdue Ilerda, Thrust at Marseilles, and then ran into Spain." Quick! quick! so that the time may not be lost By little love!" forthwith the others cried, "For ardour in well-doing freshens grace!" "O folk, in whom an eager fervour now Supplies perhaps delay and negligence, Put by you in well-doing, through lukewarmness, This one who lives, and truly I lie not, Would fain go up, if but the sun relight us; These were the words of him who was my Guide; And some one of those spirits said: "Come on That stay we cannot; therefore pardon us, So full of longing are we to move onward, I was San Zeno's Abbot at Verona, Under the empire of good Barbarossa, Of whom still sorrowing Milan holds discourse; And he has one foot in the grave already, Who shall erelong lament that monastery, And worse in mind, and who was evil-born, But this I heard, and to retain it pleased me. 85 go 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 And he who was in every need my succour Said: "Turn thee hitherward; see two of them The people dead to whom the sea was opened, And those who the fatigue did not endure Those shades, that they no longer could be seen, Whence others many and diverse were born; And so I lapsed from one into another, And meditation into dream transmuted. 130 135 140 145 CANTO XIX. IT was the hour when the diurnal heat No more can warm the coldness of the moon, Vanquished by earth, or peradventure Saturn, When geomancers their Fortuna Major See in the orient before the dawn Rise by a path that long remains not dim, There came to me in dreams a stammering woman, Squint in her eyes, and in her feet distorted, With hands dissevered, and of sallow hue. I looked at her; and as the sun restores The frigid members, which the night benumbs, Her tongue, and made her all erect thereafter When in this wise she had her speech unloosed, Could I have turned my thoughts away from her. "I am," she sang, "I am the Siren sweet I drew Ulysses from his wandering way |