Like Phaethon (one who still makes fathers wary →
of sons) when he had heard insinuations,
and he, to be assured, came to Clymene,
4 such was I and such was I seen to be
by Beatrice and by the holy lamp
that—earlier—had shifted place for me.
7 Therefore my lady said to me: “Display
the flame of your desire, that it may
be seen well-stamped with your internal seal,
10 not that we need to know what you’d reveal,
but that you learn the way that would disclose
your thirst, and you be quenched by what we pour.”
13 “O my dear root, who, since you rise so high,
can see the Point in which all times are present—
for just as earthly minds are able to
16 see that two obtuse angles cannot be
contained in a triangle, you can see
contingent things before they come to be—
19 while I was in the company of Virgil,
both on the mountain that heals souls and when
descending to the dead world, what I heard
22 about my future life were grievous words—
although, against the blows of chance I feel →
myself as firmly planted as a cube.
25 Thus my desire would be appeased if I
might know what fortune is approaching me:
the arrow one foresees arrives more gently.”
28 So did I speak to the same living light
that spoke to me before; as Beatrice
had wished, what was my wish was now confessed.
31 Not with the maze of words that used to snare →
the fools upon this earth before the Lamb
of God who takes away our sins was slain,
34 but with words plain and unambiguous,
that loving father, hidden, yet revealed
by his own smile, replied: “Contingency, →
37 while not extending past the book in which
your world of matter has been writ, is yet
in the Eternal Vision all depicted
40 (but this does not imply necessity,
just as a ship that sails downstream is not
determined by the eye that watches it).
43 And from that Vision—just as from an organ
the ear receives a gentle harmony—
what time prepares for you appears to me.
46 Hippolytus was forced to leave his Athens →
because of his stepmother, faithless, fierce;
and so must you depart from Florence: this →
49 is willed already, sought for, soon to be
accomplished by the one who plans and plots
where—every day—Christ is both sold and bought.
52 The blame, as usual, will be cried out →
against the injured party; but just vengeance
will serve as witness to the truth that wields it.
55 You shall leave everything you love most dearly:
this is the arrow that the bow of exile
shoots first. You are to know the bitter taste
58 of others’ bread, how salt it is, and know
how hard a path it is for one who goes
descending and ascending others’ stairs.
61 And what will be most hard for you to bear →
will be the scheming, senseless company
that is to share your fall into this valley;
64 against you they will be insane, completely
ungrateful and profane; and yet, soon after,
not you but they will have their brows bloodred.
67 Of their insensate acts, the proof will be
in the effects; and thus, your honor will
be best kept if your party is your self.
70 Your first refuge and your first inn shall be →
the courtesy of the great Lombard, he
who on the ladder bears the sacred bird; →
73 and so benign will be his care for you
that, with you two, in giving and in asking,
that shall be first which is, with others, last.
76 You shall—beside him—see one who, at birth, →
had so received the seal of this strong star
that what he does will be remarkable.
79 People have yet to notice him because
he is a boy—for nine years and no more
have these spheres wheeled around him—but before
82 the Gascon gulls the noble Henry, some →
sparks will have marked the virtue of the Lombard:
hard labor and his disregard for silver.
88 Put trust in him and in his benefits:
his gifts will bring much metamorphosis—
rich men and beggars will exchange their states.
91 What I tell you about him you will bear
inscribed within your mind—but hide it there”;
and he told things beyond belief even →
94 for those who will yet see them. Then he added:
“Son, these are glosses of what you had heard;
these are the snares that hide beneath brief years.
97 Yet I’d not have you envying your neighbors;
your life will long outlast the punishment
that is to fall upon their treacheries.”
100 After that holy soul had, with his silence,
showed he was freed from putting in the woof
across the web whose warp I set for him,
103 I like a man who, doubting, craves for counsel
from one who sees and rightly wills and loves,
replied to him: “I clearly see, my father,
106 how time is hurrying toward me in order
to deal me such a blow as would be most
grievous for him who is not set for it;
109 thus, it is right to arm myself with foresight,
that if I lose the place most dear, I may
not lose the rest through what my poems say.
112 Down in the world of endless bitterness,
and on the mountain from whose lovely peak
I was drawn upward by my lady’s eyes,
115 and afterward, from light to light in Heaven,
I learned that which, if I retell it, must
for many have a taste too sharp, too harsh;
118 yet if I am a timid friend of truth,
I fear that I may lose my life among
those who will call this present, ancient times.”
121 The light in which there smiled the treasure I →
had found within it, first began to dazzle,
as would a golden mirror in the sun,
124 then it replied: “A conscience that is dark—
either through its or through another’s shame—
indeed will find that what you speak is harsh.
127 Nevertheless, all falsehood set aside,
let all that you have seen be manifest,
and let them scratch wherever it may itch.
130 For if, at the first taste, your words molest,
they will, when they have been digested, end
as living nourishment. As does the wind,
133 so shall your outcry do—the wind that sends
its roughest blows against the highest peaks;
that is no little cause for claiming honor.
136 Therefore, within these spheres, upon the mountain,
and in the dismal valley, you were shown
only those souls that unto fame are known—
139 because the mind of one who hears will not
put doubt to rest, put trust in you, if given
examples with their roots unknown and hidden,