To speak thus is adapted to your mind,

Since only through the sense it apprehendeth
What then it worthy makes of intellect.
On this account the Scripture condescends

Unto your faculties, and feet and hands
To God attributes, and means something else;

And Holy Church under an aspect human
Gabriel and Michael represent to you,
And him who made Tobias whole again.
That which Timæus argues of the soul

Doth not resemble that which here is seen,
Because it seems that as he speaks he thinks.
He says the soul unto its star returns,

Believing it to have been severed thence
Whenever nature gave it as a form
Perhaps his doctrine is of other guise

Than the words sound, and possibly may be
With meaning that is not to be derided.
If he doth mean that to these wheels return

The honour of their influence and the blame,
Perhaps his bow doth hit upon some truth.
This principle ill understood once warped

The whole world nearly, till it went astray
Invoking Jove and Mercury and Mars.
The other doubt which doth disquiet thee
Less venom has, for its malevolence
Could never lead thee otherwhere from me.
That as unjust our justice should appear
In eyes of mortals, is an argument
Of faith, and not of sin heretical.

But still, that your perception may be able
To thoroughly penetrate this verity,
As thou desirest, I will satisfy thee.

If it be violence when he who suffers

Co-operates not with him who uses force,

These souls were not on that account excused;

For will is never quenched unless it will,

But operates as nature doth in fire,

If violence a thousand times distort it.
Hence, if it yieldeth more or less, it seconds

The force; and these have done so, having power
Of turning back unto the holy place.

If their will had been perfect, like to that
Which Lawrence fast upon his gridiron held,
And Mutius made severe to his own hand,

It would have urged them back along the road
Whence they were dragged, as soon as they were free;
But such a solid will is all too rare.

And by these words, if thou hast gathered them
As thou shouldst do, the argument is refuted
That would have still annoyed thee many times.

But now another passage runs across

Before thine eyes, and such that by thyself

Thou couldst not thread it ere thou wouldst be weary.

I have for certain put into thy mind

That soul beatified could never lie,
For it is ever near the primal Truth,

And then thou from Piccarda might'st have heard
Costanza kept affection for the veil,

So that she seemeth here to contradict me.
Many times, brother, has it come to pass,

That, to escape from peril, with reluctance
That has been done it was not right to do,
E'en as Alcmæon (who, being by his father
Thereto entreated, his own mother slew)
Not to lose pity pitiless became.

That force with will commingles, and they cause
That the offences cannot be excused.

At this point I desire thee to remember

Will absolute consenteth not to evil;

But in so far consenteth as it fears,
If it refrain, to fall into more harm.
Hence when Piccarda uses this expression,
She meaneth the will absolute, and I

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That issued from the fount whence springs all truth;
This put to rest my wishes one and all.

"O love of the first lover, O divine,"

Said I forthwith, "whose speech inundates me

And warms me so, it more and more revives me,

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My own affection is not so profound

As to suffice in rendering grace for grace ;
Let Him, who sees and can, thereto respond.

Well I perceive that never sated is

Our intellect unless the Truth illume it,
Beyond which nothing true expands itself.

It rests therein, as wild beast in his lair,

When it attains it; and it can attain it;
If not, then each desire would frustrate be.

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Therefore springs up, in fashion of a shoot,

Doubt at the foot of truth; and this is nature,
Which to the top from height to height impels us.

This doth invite me, this assurance give me

With reverence, Lady, to inquire of you
Another truth, which is obscure to me.

I wish to know if man can satisfy you

For broken vows with other good deeds, so That in your balance they will not be light." Beatrice gazed upon me with her eyes

Full of the sparks of love, and so divine, That, overcome my power, I turned my And almost lost myself with eyes downcast.

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5

CANTO V.

"IF in the heat of love I flame upon thee

Beyond the measure that on earth is seen, So that the valour of thine eyes I vanquish, Marvel thou not thereat; for this proceeds

From perfect sight, which as it apprehends To the good apprehended moves its feet. Well I perceive how is already shining

Into thine intellect the eternal light, That only seen enkindles always love; And if some other thing your love seduce,

'Tis nothing but a vestige of the same,

Ill understood, which there is shining througe.

Thou fain wouldst know if with another service
For broken vow can such return be made

As to secure the soul from further claim."

This Canto thus did Beatrice begin;

And, as a man who breaks not off his speech,
Continued thus her holy argument :

"The greatest gift that in his largess God

Creating made, and unto his own goodness

Nearest conformed, and that which he doth prize

Most highly, is the freedom of the will,

Wherewith the creatures of intelligence Both all and only were and are endowed. Now wilt thou see, if thence thou reasonest, The high worth of a vow, if it be made

So that when thou consentest God consents:

For, closing between God and man the compact,
A sacrifice is of this treasure made,

Such as I say, and made by its own act.
What can be rendered then as compensation?

Think'st thou to make good use of what thou'st offered,
With gains ill gotten thou wouldst do good deed.

Now art thou certain of the greater point;

But because Holy Church in this dispenses,

Which seems against the truth which I have shown thee,

Behoves thee still to sit awhile at table,

Because the solid food which thou hast taken
Requireth further aid for thy digestion.

Open thy mind to that which I reveal,

And fix it there within; for 'tis not knowledge,
The having heard without retaining it.
In the essence of this sacrifice two things

Convene together; and the one is that
Of which 'tis made, the other is the agreement.
This last for evermore is cancelled not

Unless complied with, and concerning this
With such precision has above been spoken.
Therefore it was enjoined upon the Hebrews

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To offer still, though sometimes what was offered
Might be commuted, as thou ought'st to know.
The other, which is known to thee as matter,

May well indeed be such that one errs not
If it for other matter be exchanged.
But let none shift the burden on his shoulder
At his arbitrament, without the turning
Both of the white and of the yellow key;
And every permutation deem as foolish,

If in the substitute the thing relinquished,
As the four is in six, be not contained.
Therefore whatever thing has so great weight

In value that it drags down every balance,
Cannot be satisfied with other spending.

Let mortals never take a vow in jest ;

Be faithful and not blind in doing that,
As Jephthah was in his first offering,

Whom more beseemed to say, 'I have done wrong,
Than to do worse by keeping; and as foolish
Thou the great leader of the Greeks wilt find,

Whence wept Iphigenia her fair face,

And made for her both wise and simple weep,
Who heard such kind of worship spoken of.'

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Christians, be ye more serious in your movements;
Be ye not like a feather at each wind,
And think not every water washes you.
Ye have the Old and the New Testament,

And the Pastor of the Church who guideth you
Let this suffice you unto your salvation.

If evil appetite cry aught else to you,

Be ye as men, and not as silly sheep,

So that the Jew among you may not mock you.

Be ye not as the lamb that doth abandon

Its mother's milk, and frolicsome and simple
Combats at its own pleasure with itself."
Thus Beatrice to me even as I write it;

Then all desireful turned herself again
To that part where the world is most alive.
Her silence and her change of countenance
Silence imposed upon my eager mind,
That had already in advance new questions;
And as an arrow that upon the mark

Strikes ere the bowstring quiet hath become,
So did we speed into the second realm.

My Lady there so joyful I beheld,

As into the brightness of that heaven she entered,
More luminous thereat the planet grew;

And if the star itself was changed and smiled,
What became I, who by my nature am
Exceeding mutable in every guise!

As, in a fish-pond which is pure and tranquil,

The fishes draw to that which from without

Comes in such fashion that their food they deem it;

So I beheld more than a thousand splendours

Drawing towards us, and in each was heard:
"Lo, this is she who shall increase our love."

And as each one was coming unto us,

Full of beatitude the shade was seen,

By the effulgence clear that issued from it.

Think, Reader, if what here is just beginning

No farther should proceed, how thou wouldst have
An agonizing need of knowing more;

And of thyself thou'lt see how I from these

Was in desire of hearing their conditions,
As they unto mine eyes were manifest.
"O thou well-born, unto whom Grace concedes
To see the thrones of the eternal triumph,
Or ever yet the warfare be abandoned