https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dant ... atorio-31/
Purg. 31:
“O you upon the
holy stream’s far shore,”
[..]
Just as a crossbow that is drawn too taut
snaps both its cord and bow when it is shot,
and
arrow meets its mark with feeble force,
so,
caught beneath that heavy weight, I burst;
and I let tears and sighs pour forth; my voice
had lost its life along its passage out.
[…]
in evidence: it’s known by such a
Judge!
But
when the charge of sinfulness has burst
from one’s own cheek, then in our court the whet—
stone turns and blunts our blade’s own cutting edge.
[…]
have done with
all the tears you sowed, and listen:
so shall you hear how, unto other ends,
my buried flesh should have directed you.
Nature or art had never showed you any
beauty that matched the lovely limbs in which
I was enclosed—limbs scattered now in dust;
and if the highest beauty failed you through
my death, what mortal thing could then induce
you to desire it?
For when the first
arrow of things deceptive struck you, then
you surely should have lifted up your wings
to follow me, no longer such a thing.
No green young girl or other novelty—
such brief delight—should have weighed down your wings,
awaiting further shafts. The fledgling bird
must meet two or three blows before he learns,
but any full-fledged bird is proof against
the net that has been spread or arrow, aimed.”
[…]
and still uncertain of itself, my vision
[…]
Such self-indictment seized my heart
that I
collapsed, my senses slack; […]
She’d plunged me, up to my throat, in the river,
and, drawing me behind her, she now crossed,
light as a gondola, along the surface.
[…]
That done, she drew me out and led me, bathed,
into the dance of the four lovely women;
and each one placed her arm above my head.
“Here we are nymphs; in heaven, stars; before
she had descended to the world, we were
assigned, as her handmaids, to Beatrice;
we’ll be your guides unto her eyes;
but it
will be the three beyond, who see more deeply,
who’ll help you penetrate her joyous light.”
So, singing, they began; then, leading me
[…]
A thousand longings burning more than flames
compelled my eyes to watch […]
Just like the sun within a mirror, so
the double-natured creature gleamed within,
now showing one, and now the other guise.
Consider, reader, if I did not wonder
when I saw something that displayed no movement
though its reflected image kept on changing.
And while, full of astonishment and gladness,
my soul tasted that food which, even as
it quenches hunger, spurs the appetite,
the other three, whose stance showed them to be
the members of a higher troop, advanced—
and, to their chant, they danced angelically.
[…]
Out of your grace, do us this grace; unveil
your lips to him, so that he may discern
the second beauty you have kept concealed.”
O splendor of e
ternal living light,
who’s ever grown so pale beneath Parnassus’
shade or has drunk so deeply from its fountain,
that he’d not seem to have his mind confounded,
trying
to render you as you appeared
where heaven’s harmony was your pale likeness—
your face, seen through the air, unveiled completely?