Of a fourth light, that now with us I saw.
And Beatrice: "The first living soul',
That ever the first virtue framed, admires
Within these rays his Maker." Like the leaf,
That bows its lithe top till the blast is blown;
By its own virtue rear'd, then stands aloof:
So I, the whilst she said, awe-stricken bow'd.
Then eagerness to speak embolden'd me;
And I began: "O fruit! that wast alone
Mature, when first engender'd; ancient father!
That doubly seest in every wedded bride
Thy daughter, by affinity and blood;
Devoutly as I may, I pray thee hold
Converse with me: my will thou seest: and I,
More speedily to hear thee, tell it not."
It chanceth oft some animal bewrays,
Through the sleek covering2 of his furry coat,
The fondness, that stirs in him, and conforms
His outside seeming to the cheer within:
And in like guise was Adam's spirit moved
To joyous mood, that through the covering shone,
Transparent, when to pleasure me it spake :
"No need thy will be told, which I untold
Better discern, than thou whatever thing
Thou hold'st most certain: for that will I see
In Him, who is truth's mirror; and Himself,
Parhelion unto all things, and nought else, [God
To Him. This wouldst thou hear how long since,
Placed me in that high garden, from whose bounds
She led me up this ladder, steep and long;
What space endured my season of delight;
Whence truly sprang the wrath that banish'd me;
And what the language, which I spake and framed.

1 The first living soul.] Adam.

2 Covering.] Lombardi's explanation of this passage is somewhat ludicrous. By "un animal coverto," he understands, not an animal in its natural covering of fur or hair, but one drest up with clothes, as a dog, for instance, "so clad for sport;" un cane per trastullo coperto."

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Chaucer describes, as one of the tokens of pleasure in a dog," the smoothing down of his hairs."

It came and crept to me as low,

Right as it had me yknow,

Held down his head, and joyned his eares

And laid all smooth downe his heares.

The Dreame of Chaucer, or Book of the Duchesse,

Ed. 1602, fol. 229.

3 Parhelion.] Who enlightens and comprehends all things; but is himself enlightened and comprehended by none.

M M

Not that I tasted1 of the tree, my son,
Was in itself the cause of that exile,
But only my transgressing of the mark

Assign'd me. There, whence2 at thy lady's hest
The Mantuan moved him, still was I debarr'd
This council, till the sun had made complete,
Four thousand and three hundred rounds and twice,
His annual journey; and, through every light
In his broad pathway, saw I him return,
Thousand save seventy times, the whilst I dwelt
Upon the earth. The language I did use
Was worn away, or ever Nimrod's race
Their unaccomplishable work began.

For nought, that man inclines to, e'er was lasting;
Left by his reason free, and variable

As is the sky that sways him. That he speaks,
Is nature's prompting: whether thus, or thus,
She leaves to you, as ye do most affect it.
Ere I descended into hell's abyss,

E15 was the name on earth of the Chief Good,
Whose joy enfolds me: Eli then 't was call'd.

1 Not that I tasted.] So Frezzi:

per colpa fù l' uom messo in bando,
Non solamente per gustar del pomo
Ma perch' e' trapassò di Dio il comando.
Il Quadrir. lib. iv. cap. 1.

2 Whence.] That is, from Limbo. See Hell, Canto ii. 53. Adam says that 5232 years elapsed from his creation to the time of his deliverance, which followed the death of Christ.

3 The language.] Hac forma locutionis locutus est Adam, hac forma locuti sunt omnes posteri ejus usque ad ædificationem turris Babel. De Vulg. Eloq. lib. i. cap. vi. "This form of speech Adam used; this, all his posterity until the building of the tower of Babel."

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4 For nought.] There is a similar passage in the De Vulg. Eloq. lib. i. cap. ix. Since, therefore, all our language, except that which was created together with the first man by God, has been repaired according to our own will and pleasure, after that confusion, which was nothing else than a forgetfulness of the former; and since man is a being most unstable and variable, our language can neither be lasting nor continuous; but, like other things which belong to us, as customs and dress, must be varied by distances of places and times."

5 El.] Some read Un, "One," instead of El: but the latter of these readings is confirmed by a passage from Dante's Treatise de Vulg. Eloq. lib. i. cap. iv. "Quod prius vox primi loquentis sonaverit, viro sanæ mentis in promptu esse non dubito ipsum fuisse quod Deus est, videlicet El." St. Isidore in the Origines, lib. vii. cap. i. had said, "Primum apud Hebræos dei nomen El dicitur."

And so beseemeth: for, in mortals, use1
Is as the leaf upon the bough: that goes,
And other comes instead. Upon the mount
Most high above the waters, all my life?,
Both innocent and guilty, did but reach
From the first hour, to that which cometh next
(As the sun changes quarter) to the sixth."

m

CANTO XXVII.

ARGUMENT.

Saint Peter bitterly rebukes the covetousness of his successors in the apostolic see, while all the heavenly host sympathize in his indignation: they then vanish upwards. Beatrice bids Dante again cast his view below. Afterwards they are borne into the ninth heaven, of which she shows him the nature and properties; blaming the perverseness of man, who places his will on low and perishable things.

THEN "Glory to the Father, to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit," rang aloud
Throughout all Paradise; that with the song
My spirit reel'd, so passing sweet the strain.
And what I saw was equal ecstacy:

One universal smile3 it seem'd of all things;
Joy past compare; gladness unutterable;
Imperishable life of peace and love;
Exhaustless riches, and unmeasured bliss.

Before mine eyes stood the four torches1 lit:
And that, which first had come, began to wax
In brightness; and, in semblance, such became,
As Jove might be, if he and Mars were birds,
And interchanged their plumes. Silence ensued,

1 Use.] From Horace, Ars Poet. 62.

2 All my life.] "I remained in the terrestrial Paradise only to the seventh hour." In the Historia Scolastica of Petrus Comestor, it is said of our first parents: "Quidam tradunt eos fuisse in Paradiso septem horas." f. 9. ed. Par. 1513, 4to.

3 One universal smile.]

Ivi ogni cosa intorno m'assembrava
Un' allegrezza di giocondo riso.

Frezzi, Il Quadrir. lib. iv. cap. ii. all things smiled.

Milton, P. L. b. viii. 265.

4 Four torches.] St. Peter, St. James, St. John, and Adam. 5 That.] St. Peter, who looked as the planet Jupiter would, if it assumed the sanguine appearance of Mars.

Through the blest quire; by Him, who here appoints
Vicissitude of ministry, enjoin'd;

When thus I heard: "Wonder not, if my hue
Be changed; for, while I speak, these shalt thou see
All in like manner change with me. My place
He1 who usurps on earth, (my place, ay, mine,
Which in the presence of the son of God
Is void) the same hath made my cemetery
A common sewer of puddle and of blood:
The more below his triumph, who from hence
Malignant fell." Such colour2, as the sun,
At eve or morning, paints an adverse cloud,
Then saw I sprinkled over all the sky.
And as the unblemish'd dame, who, in herself
Secure of censure, yet at bare report

Of other's failing, shrinks with maiden fear;
So Beatrice, in her semblance, changed:

And such eclipse in heaven, methinks, was seen,
When the Most Holy suffer'd. Then the words
Proceeded, with voice, alter'd from itself

So clean, the semblance did not alter more. "Not to this end was Christ's spouse with my blood, With that of Linus, and of Cletus3, fed;

That she might serve for purchase of base gold: But for the purchase of this happy life,

Did Sextus, Pius, and Callixtus bleed,

And Urban; they, whose doom was not without
Much weeping seal'd. No purpose was of ours,
That on the right hand of our successors,
Part of the Christian people should be set,
And part upon their left; nor that the keys,

Which were vouchsafed me, should for ensign serve
Unto the banners, that do levy war

On the baptized; nor I, for sigil-mark,

1 He.] Boniface VIII.

2 Such colour.]

Qui color infectis adversi solis ab ictu Nubibus esse solet; aut purpureæ Aurora. Ovid. Met. lib. iii. 184. 3 Of Linus, and of Cletus.] Bishops of Rome in the first century.

+ Did Sextus, Pius, and Callixtus bleed,

And Urban.] The former two, bishops of the same see, in the second; and the others, in the fourth century.

5 No purpose was of ours.] "We did not intend that our successors should take any part in the political divisions among Christians; or that my figure (the seal of St. Peter) should serve as a mark to authorise iniquitous grants and privileges."

Set upon sold and lying privileges:

Which makes me oft to bicker and turn red.
In shepherd's clothing, greedy wolves1 below
Range wide o'er all the pastures.
Arm of God!
Why longer sleep'st thou? Cahorsines and Gascons 2
Prepare to quaff our blood. O good beginning!
To what a vile conclusion must thou stoop.
But the high providence, which did defend,
Through Scipio, the world's empery for Rome,
Will not delay its succour and thou, son3,
Who through thy mortal weight shalt yet again
Return below, open thy lips, nor hide
What is by me not hidden." As a flood
Of frozen vapours streams adown the air,
What time the she-goat4 with her skiey horn
Touches the sun; so saw I there stream wide
The vapours, who with us had linger'd late,
And with glad triumph deck the ethereal cope.
Onward my sight their semblances pursued;
So far pursued, as till the space between
From its reach sever'd them: whereat the guide
Celestial, marking me no more intent

On upward gazing, said, "Look down, and see
What circuit thou hast compast." From the hour 5
When I before had cast my view beneath,

All the first region overpast I saw,

Which from the midmost to the boundary winds;
That onward, thence, from Gades, I beheld
The unwise passage of Laertes' son;

And hitherward the shore7, where thou, Europa,

1 Wolves.]

Wolves shall succeed to teachers, grievous wolves.
Milton, P. L. b. xii. 508.

2 Cahorsines and Gascons.] He alludes to Jacques d'Ossa, a native of Cahors, who filled the papal chair in 1316, after it had been two years vacant, and assumed the name of John XXII. and to Clement V. a Gascon, of whom see Hell, Canto xix. 86, and note.

3 Thou, son.] Beatrus Petrus-multaque locutus est, et docuit me de veteri testamento, de hominibus etiam adhuc in seculo adhuc viventibus plura peccata intonuit mihi, precepitque, ut ea quæ de illis audieram eis referrem. Alberici Visio, $45. 4 The she-goat.] When the sun is in Capricorn.

5 From the hour.] Since he had last looked (see Canto xxii.) he perceived that he had past from the meridian circle to the eastern horizon; the half of our hemisphere, and a quarter of the heaven.

6 From Gades.] See Hell, Canto xxvi. 106.

7 The shore.] Phoenicia, where Europa, the daughter of Agenor, mounted on the back of Jupiter, in his shape of a bull.