The robe and veil they wear; to that intent,
That e'en till death they may keep watch, or sleep,
With their great bridegroom, who accepts each vow,
Which to his gracious pleasure love conforms.
I from the world, to follow her, when young
Escaped; and, in her vesture mantling me,
Made promise of the way her sect enjoins.
Thereafter men, for ill than good more apt,
Forth snatch'd me from the pleasant cloister's pale.
God knows how, after that, my life was framed.
This other splendid shape, which thou behold'st
At my right side, burning with all the light
Of this our orb, what of myself I tell
May to herself apply. From her, like me
A sister, with like violence were torn

The saintly folds, that shaded her fair brows.
E'en when she to the world again was brought
In spite of her own will and better wont,
Yet not for that the bosom's inward veil
Did she renounce. This is the luminary
Of mighty Constance 2, who from that loud blast,

1 God knows.] Rodolfo da Tossignano, Hist. Seraph. Relig. P. i. p. 138, as cited by Lombardi, relates the following legend of Piccarda: "Her brother Corso, inflamed with rage against his virgin sister, having joined with him Farinata, an infamous assassin, and twelve other abandoned ruffians, entered the monastery by a ladder, and carried away his sister forcibly to his own house; and then tearing off her religious habit, compelled her to go in a secular garment to her nuptials. Before the spouse of Christ came together with her new husband, she knelt down before a crucifix and recommended her virginity to Christ. Soon after her whole body was smitten with leprosy, so as to strike grief and horror into the beholders; and thus in a few days, through the divine disposal, she passed with a palm of virginity to the Lord." Perhaps, adds the worthy Franciscan, our Poet not being able to certify himself entirely of this occurrence, has chosen to pass it over discreetly, by making Piccarda say

God knows how, after that, my life was framed.

5 Constance.] Daughter of Ruggieri, king of Sicily, who being taken by force out of a monastery where she had professed, was married to the Emperor Henry VI. and by him was mother to Frederick II. She was fifty years old or more at the time, and "because it was not credited that she could have a child at that age, she was delivered in a pavilion, and it was given out that any lady, who pleased, was at liberty to see her. Many came, and saw her; and the suspicion ceased." Ricordano Malaspina in Muratori, Rer. It. Script. t. viii. p. 939.; and G. Villani, in the same words, Hist. lib. v. c. 16.

The French translator abovementioned speaks of her having poisoned her husband. The death of Henry VI. is recorded.

Which blew the second' over Suabia's realm,
That power produced, which was the third and last."
She ceased from further talk, and then began
"Ave Maria" singing; and with that song
Vanish'd, as heavy substance through deep wave.
Mine eye, that, far as it was capable,

Pursued her, when in dimness she was lost,
Turn'd to the mark where greater want impell'd,
And bent on Beatrice all its gaze.

But she, as lightning, beam'd upon my looks;
So that the sight sustain'd it not at first.
Whence I to question her became less prompt.

CANTO IV.

ARGUMENT.

While they still continue in the moon, Beatrice removes certain doubts which Dante had conceived respecting the place assigned to the blessed, and respecting the will absolute or conditional. He inquires whether it is possible to make satisfaction for a vow broken.

BETWEEN two kinds of food2, both equally
Remote and tempting, first a man might die
Of hunger, ere he one could freely chuse.
E'en so would stand a lamb between the maw
Of two fierce wolves, in dread of both alike:
E'en so between two deer3 a dog would stand.
Wherefore, if I was silent, fault nor praise
I to myself impute; by equal doubts
Held in suspense; since of necessity

in the Chronicon Sicilia, by an anonymous writer, (Muratori, t. x.) but not a word of his having been poisoned by Constance; and Ricordano Malaspina even mentions her decease as happening before that of her husband, Henry V., for so this author, with some others, terms him.

1 The second.] Henry VI. son of Frederick I. was the second emperor of the house of Suabia; and his son Frederick II. "the third and last."

2 Between two kinds of food.] "Si aliqua dico sunt penitus æqualia, non magis movetur homo ad unum quam ad aliud; sicut famelicus, si habet cibum æqualiter appetibilem in diversis partibus, et secundum æqualem distantiam, non magis movetur ad unum quam ad alterum." Thomas Aquinas, Summ. Theolog. ima iide Partis. Questio. xiii. Art. vi.

3 Between two deer.]

Tigris ut, auditis, diversâ valle duorum,
Extimulata fame, mugitibus armentorum,
Nescit utrò potius ruat, et ruere ardet utroque.

Ovid. Metam. lib. v. 166.

It happen'd. Silent was I, yet desire
Was painted in my looks; and thus I spake
My wish more earnestly than language could.

As Daniel', when the haughty king he freed
From ire, that spurr'd him on to deeds unjust
And violent; so did Beatrice then.

"Well I discern," she thus her words address'd, "How thou art drawn by each of these desires2; So that thy anxious thought is in itself Bound up and stifled, nor breathes freely forth. Thou arguest: if the good intent remain ; What reason that another's violence

Should stint the measure of my fair desert?

"Cause too thou find'st for doubt, in that it seems,
That spirits to the stars, as Plato3 deem'd,
Return. These are the questions which thy will
Urge equally; and therefore I, the first,

Of that will treat which hath the more of gall5.
Of seraphim he who is most enskied,
Moses and Samuel, and either John,

Chuse which thou wilt, nor even Mary's self,
Have not in any other heaven their seats,

1 Daniel.] See Daniel, ii. Beatrice did for Dante what Daniel did for Nebuchadnezzar, when he freed the king from the uncertainty respecting his dream, which had enraged him against the Chaldeans. Lombardi conjectures that "Fe sì Beatrice" should be read, instead of "Fessi Beatrice;" and his conjecture has since been confirmed by the Monte Casino MS.

2 By each of these desires.] His desire to have each of the doubts, which Beatrice mentions, resolved.

3 Plato.] Ξυστήσας δὲ κ.τ.λ. Plato, Timæus, v. ix. p. 326. Edit. Bip. "The Creator, when he had framed the universe, distributed to the stars an equal number of souls, appointing to each soul its several star."

4 Of that.] Plato's opinion.

5 Which hath the more of gall.] Which is the more dangerous.

6 Of Seraphim.] "He amongst the Seraphim who is most nearly united with God, Moses, Samuel, and both the Johns, the Baptist and the Evangelist, dwell not in any other heaven than do those spirits whom thou hast just beheld; nor does even the blessed Virgin herself dwell in any other: nor is their existence either longer or shorter than that of these spirits." She first resolves his doubt whether souls do not return to their own stars, as he had read in the Timæus of Plato. Angels, then, and beatified spirits, she declares, dwell all and eternally together, only partaking more or less of the divine glory, in the empyrean; although, in condescension to human understanding, they appear to have different spheres allotted to them.

Than have those spirits which so late thou saw'st;
Nor more or fewer years exist; but all
Make the first circle1 beauteous, diversly
Partaking of sweet life, as more or less
Afflation of eternal bliss pervades them.
Here were they shown thee, not that fate assigns
This for their sphere, but for a sign to thee
Of that celestial farthest from the height.
Thus needs, that ye may apprehend, we speak :
Since from things sensible alone ye learn
That, which, digested rightly, after turns
To intellectual. For no other cause
The scripture, condescending graciously
To your perception, hands and feet2 to God
Attributes, nor so means: and holy church
Doth represent with human countenance
Gabriel, and Michäel, and him who made
Tobias whole3. Unlike what here thou seest,
The judgment of Timæus1, who affirms
Each soul restored to its particular star;
Believing it to have been taken thence,
When nature gave it to inform her mold:
Yet to appearance his intention is

:

Not what his words declare and so to shun
Derision, haply thus he hath disguised
His true opinion. If his meaning be,

1 The first circle.] The empyrean.
2 Hands and feet.] Thus Milton:--

What surmounts the reach

Of human sense, I shall delineate so,

By likening spiritual to corporeal forms,
As shall express them best.

P. L. b. v. 575.

These passages, rightly considered, may tend to remove the scruples of some, who are offended by any attempts at representing the Deity in pictures.

Raphael, the sociable spirit, that deign'd

To travel with Tobias, and secured

His marriage with the seven times wedded maid.

Ibid. 223.

4 Timæus.] In the Convito, p. 92, our author again refers to the Timæus of Plato, on the subject of the mundane system; but it is in order to give the preference to the opinion respecting it held by Aristotle.

5 His true opinion.] In like manner, our learned Stillingfleet has professed himself "somewhat inclinable to think that Plato knew more of the lapse of mankind than he would openly discover, and for that end disguised it after his usual manner in that hypothesis of pre-existence." Origines Sacræ, b. iii. c. iii. § 15.

That to the influencing of these orbs revert
The honour and the blame in human acts,
Perchance he doth not wholly miss the truth.
This principle, not understood aright,
Erewhile perverted well nigh all the world;
So that it fell to fabled names of Jove,
And Mercury, and Mars. That other doubt,
Which moves thee, is less harmful; for it brings
No peril of removing thee from me.

"That, to the eye of man', our justice seems Unjust, is argument for faith, and not

For heretic declension. But, to the end

This truth2 may stand more clearly in your view, I will content thee even to thy wish.

66

If violence be, when that which suffers, nought Consents to that which forceth, not for this

These spirits stood exculpate. For the will,
That wills not, still survives unquench'd, and doth,
As nature doth in fire, though violence
Wrest it a thousand times; for, if it yield
Or more or less, so far it follows force.

And thus did these, when they had power to seek
The hallow'd place again. In them, had will
Been perfect, such as once upon the bars
Held Laurence3 firm, or wrought in Scævola1
To his own hand remorseless; to the path, [back,
Whence they were drawn, their steps had hasten'd
When liberty return'd: but in too few,

Resolve, so stedfast, dwells. And by these words
If duly weigh'd, that argument is void,

Which oft might have perplex'd thee still. But now
Another question thwarts thee, which, to solve,
Might try thy patience without better aid.
I have, no doubt, instill'd into thy mind,
That blessed spirit may not lie; since near

1 That, to the eye of man.] "That the ways of divine justice are often inscrutable to man, ought rather to be a motive to faith than an inducement to heresy." Such appears to me the most satisfactory explanation of the passage.

2 This truth.] That it is no impeachment of God's justice, if merit be lessened through compulsion of others, without any failure of good intention on the part of the meritorious. After all, Beatrice ends by admitting that there was a defect in the will, which hindered Constance and the others from seizing the first opportunity, that offered itself to them, of returning to the monastic life.

3 Laurence.] Who suffered martyrdom in the third century. 4 Scævola.] See Liv. Hist. D. 1. lib. ii. 12.