Bagnacaval does well in not begetting,

And ill does Castrocaro, and Conio worse, In taking trouble to beget such Counts. Will do well the Pagani, when their Devil Shall have departed; but not therefore Will testimony of them e'er remain.

O Ugolin de' Fantoli, secure

pure

Thy name is, since no longer is awaited
One who, degenerating, can obscure it!
But go now, Tuscan, for it now delights me
Το weep far better than it does to speak,
So much has our discourse my mind distressed."
We were aware that those beloved souls

Heard us depart; therefore, by keeping silent,
They made us of our pathway confident.
When we became alone by going onward,

Thunder, when it doth cleave the air, appeared A voice, that counter to us came, exclaiming : "Shall slay me whosoever findeth me!"

And fled as the reverberation dies

If suddenly the cloud asunder bursts. As soon as hearing had a truce from this, Behold another, with so great a crash,

That it resembled thunderings following fast:

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"I am Aglaurus, who became a stone!"

And then, to press myself close to the Poet, I backward, and not forward, took a step. Already on all sides the air was quiet;

But

And said he to me: "That was the hard curb

That ought to hold a man within his bounds;
you take in the bait so that the hook

Of the old Adversary draws you to him,

And hence availeth little curb or call.

The heavens are calling you, and wheel around you,
Displaying to you their eternal beauties,

And still your eye is looking on the ground;
Whence He, who all discerns, chastises you."

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CANTO XV.

As

S much as 'twixt the close of the third hour

And dawn of day appeareth of that sphere
Which aye in fashion of a child is playing,
So much it now appeared, towards the night,
Was of his course remaining to the sun;
There it was evening, and 't was midnight here;

And the rays smote the middle of our faces,

Because by us the mount was so encircled,

That straight towards the west we now were going;

When I perceived my forehead overpowered

Beneath the splendor far more than at first,
And stupor were to me the things unknown;

Whereat towards the summit of my brow

I raised my hands, and made myself the visor
Which the excessive glare diminishes.

As when from off the water, or a mirror,

The sunbeam leaps unto the opposite side,
Ascending upward in the selfsame measure

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That it descends, and deviates as far

From falling of a stone in line direct,

(As demonstrate experiment and art,)

So it appeared to me that by a light

Refracted there before me I was smitten;

On which account my sight was swift to flee.
"What is that, Father sweet, from which I cannot
So fully screen my sight that it avail me,"
Said I, "and seems towards us to be moving?"

"Marvel thou not, if dazzle thee as yet

The family of heaven," he answered me;

"An angel 't is, who comes to invite us upward.

Soon will it be, that to behold these things

Shall not be grievous, but delightful to thee
As much as nature fashioned thee to feel."
When we had reached the Angel benedight,

With joyful voice he said: "Here enter in
To stairway far less steep than are the others."
We mounting were, already thence departed,

And "Beati misericordes" was

Behind us sung, "Rejoice, thou that o'ercomest!"

My master and myself, we two alone

Were going upward, and I thought, in going,
Some profit to acquire from words of his ;

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And I to him directed me, thus asking:

"What did the spirit of Romagna mean,

Mentioning interdict and partnership?"
Whence he to me: "Of his own greatest failing
He knows the harm; and therefore wonder not
If he reprove us, that we less may rue it.
Because are thither pointed your desires

Where by companionship each share is lessened,
Envy doth ply the bellows to your sighs.

But if the love of the supernal sphere

Should upwardly direct your aspiration,

There would not be that fear within your breast;
For there, as much the more as one says Our,

So much the more of good each one possesses,
And more of charity in that cloister burns."

"I am more hungering to be satisfied,”

I said, "than if I had before been silent,
And more of doubt within my mind I gather.

How can it be, that boon distributed

The more possessors can more wealthy make
Therein, than if by few it be possessed?"

And he to me: "Because thou fixest still

Thy mind entirely upon earthly things,
Thou pluckest darkness from the very light.

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