Canto XXIII

English Edition, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1	The while among the verdant leaves mine eyes
2	I riveted, as he is wont to do
3	Who wastes his lifc pursuing little birds,

4	My more than Father said unto me: Son
5	Come now; because the time that is ordained us
6	More usefully should be apportioned out.

7	I turned my face and no less soon my steps
8	Unto the Sages, who were speaking so
9	They made the going of no cost to me;

10	And lo! were heard a song and a lament,
11	Labia mea, Domine, in fashion
12	Such that delight and dolence it brought forth.

13	O my sweet Father, what is this I hear?
14	Began I; and he answered: Shades that go
15	Perhaps the knot unloosing of their debt.

16	In the same way that thoughtful pilgrims do,
17	Who, unknown people on the road o'ertaking,
18	Turn themselves round to them, and do not stop,

19	Even thus, behind us with a swifter motion
20	Coming and passing onward, gazed upon us
21	A crowd of spirits silent and devout.

22	Each in his eyes was dark and cavernous,
23	Pallid in face, and so emaciate
24	That from the bones the skin did shape itself.

25	I do not think that so to merest rind
26	Could Erisichthon have been withered up
27	By famine, when most fear he had of it.

28	Thinking within myself I sald: Behold,
29	This is the folk who lost Jerusalem,
30	When Mary made a prey of her own son.

31	Their sockets were like rings without the gems;
32	Whoever in the face of men reads omo
33	Might well in these have recognised the m.

34	Who would believe the odour of an apple,
35	Begetting longing, could consume them so,
36	And that of water, without knowing how?

37	I still was wondering what so famished them,
38	For the occasion not yet manifest
39	Of their emaciation and sad squalor;

40	And lo! from out the hollow of his head
41	His eyes a shade turned on me, and looked keenly;
42	Then cried aloud: What grace to me is this?

43	Never should I have known him by his look;
44	But in his voice was evident to me
45	That which his aspect had suppressed within it.

46	This spark within me wholly re-enkindled
47	My recognition of his altered face,
48	And I recalled the features of Forese.

49	Ah, do not look at this dry leprosy,
50	Entreated he, which doth my skin discolour,
51	Nor at default of flesh that I may have;

52	But tell me truth of thee, and who are those
53	Two souls, that yonder make for thee an escort;
54	Do not delay in speaking unto me.

55	That face of thine, which dead I once bewept,
56	Gives me for weeping now no lesser grief,
57	I answered him, beholding it so changed!

58	But tell me, for God's sake, what thus denudes you?
59	Make me not speak while I am marvelling,
60	For ill speaks he who's full of other longings.

61	And he to me: From the eternal council
62	Falls power into the water and the tree
63	Behind us left, whereby I grow so thin.

64	All of this people who lamenting sing,
65	For following beyond measure appetite
66	In hunger and thirst are here re-sanctified.

67	Desire to eat and drink enkindles in us
68	The scent that issues from the apple-tree,
69	And from the spray that sprinkles o'er the verdure;

70	And not a single time alone, this ground
71	Encompassing, is refreshed our pain,--
72	I say our pain, and ought to say our solace,

73	For the same wish doth lead us to the tree
74	Which led the Christ rejoicing to say Eli,
75	When with his veins he liberated us.

76	And I to him: Forese, from that day
77	When for a better life thou changedst worlds,
78	Up to this time five years have not rolled round.

79	If sooner were the power exhausted in thee
80	Of sinning more, than thee the hour surprised
81	Of that good sorrow which to God reweds us,

82	How hast thou come up hitherward already?
83	I thought to find thee down there underneath,
84	Where time for time doth restitution make.

85	And he to me: Thus speedily has led me
86	To drink of the sweet wormwood of these torrnents,
87	My Nella with her overflowing tears;

88	She with her prayers devout and with her sighs
89	Has drawn me from the coast where one where one awaits,
90	And from the other circles set me free.

91	So much more dear and pleasing is to God
92	My little widow, whom so much I loved,
93	As in good works she is the more alone;

94	For the Barbagia of Sardinia
95	By far more modest in its women is
96	Than the Barbagia I have left her in.

97	O brother sweet, what wilt thou have me say?
98	A future time is in my sight already,
99	To which this hour will not be very old,

100	When from the pulpit shall be interdicted
101	To the unblushing womankind of Florence
102	To go about displaying breast and paps.

103	What savages were e'er, what Saracens,
104	Who stood in need, to make them covered go,
105	Of spiritual or other discipline?

106	But if the shameless women were assured
107	Of what swift Heaven prepares for them, already
108	Wide open would they have their mouths to howl;

109	For if my foresight here deceive me not,
110	They shall be sad ere he has bearded cheeks
111	Who now is hushed to sleep with lullaby.

112	O brother, now no longer hide thee from me;
113	See that not only I, but all these people
114	Are gazing there, where thou dost veil the sun.

115	Whence I to him: If thou bring back to mind
116	What thou with me hast been and I with thee,
117	The present memory will be grievous still.

118	Out of that life he turned me back who goes
119	In front of me, two days agone when round
120	The sister of him yonder showed herself,

121	And to the sun I pointed.Through the deep
122	Night of the truly dead has this one led me,
123	With this true flesh, that follows after him.

124	Thence his encouragements have led me up,
125	Ascending and still circling round the mount
126	That you doth straighten, whom the world made crooked.

127	He says that he will bear me company,
128	Till I shall be where Beatrice will be;
129	There it behoves me to remain without him.

130	This is Virgilius, who thus says to me,
131	And him I pointed at;the other is
132	That shade for whom just now shook every slope

133	Your realm, that from itself discharges him.

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Canto XXIII