thousand.

[7] Frederick of Aragon, King of Sicily, too worthless to have
his deeds written out in full. Dante's scorn of Frederick was
enhanced by his desertion of the Ghibellines after the death of
Henry VII.

[8] James, King of Majorca and Minorca, and James, King of
Aragon.

[9] Denis, King of Portugal, 1279-1325.

[10] Perhaps Hakon Haleggr (Longlegs), 1299-1319.

[11] Rascia, so called from a Slavonic tribe, which occupied a
region south of the Danube, embracing a part of the modern Servia
and Bosnia. The kingdom was established in 1170. One of its
kings, Stephen Ouros, who died in 1307, imitated the coin of
Venice with a debased coinage.

[12] If she would make the Pyrenees her defence against France,
into the hands of whose kings Navarre fell in 1304.

[13] The lot of these cities in Cyprus, which are now lamenting
under the rule of Henry II. of the Lusignani, a beast who goes
along with the rest, is a pledge in advance of what sort of fate
falls to those who do not defend themselves.



CANTO XX. The Song of the Just.--Princes who have loved
righteousness, in the eye of the Eagle.--Spirits, once Pagans, in
bliss.--Faith and Salvation.--Predestination.

When he who illumines all the world, descends from our hemisphere
so that the day on every side is spent, the heavens which erst by
him alone are enkindled, suddenly become again conspicuous with
many lights, on which one is shining.[1] And this act of the
heavens came to my mind when the ensign of the world and of its
leaders became silent in its blessed beak; because all those
living lights, far more shining, began songs which lapse and fall
from out my memory.

[1] One, that is, the sun, supposed to be the source of the
light of the stars.


O sweet love, that cloakest thee with a smile, how ardent didst
thou appear in those pipes[1] which had the breath alone of holy
thoughts!

[1] That is, in those singers.


After the precious and lucent stones, wherewith I saw the sixth
luminary ingemmed, imposed silence on their angelic bells, I
seemed to hear the murmur of a stream which falls pellucid down
from rock to rock, showing the abundance of its mountain source.
And as the sound takes its form at the cithern's neck, and in
like manner at the vent of the bagpipe the air which enters it,
thus, without pause of waiting, that murmur of the Eagle rose up
through its neck, as if it were hollow. There it became voice,
and thence it issued through its beak in form of words, such as
the heart whereon I wrote them was awaiting.

"The part in me which in mortal eagles sees and endures the sun,"
it began to me, "must now be fixedly looked upon, because of the
fires whereof I make my shape, those wherewith the eye in my head
sparkles are the highest of all their grades. He who shineth in
the middle, as the pupil, was the, singer of the Holy Spirit,
who, bore about the ark from town to town.[1] Now he knows the
merit of his song, so far as it was the effect of his own
counsel,[2] by the recompense which is equal to it. Of the five
which make a circle for the brow, be who is nearest to my beak
consoled the poor widow for her son.[3] Now he knows, by the
experience of this sweet life and of the opposite, how dear it
costs not to follow Christ. And he who follows along the top of
the are in the circumference of which I speak, by true penitence
postponed death.[4] Now he knows that the eternal judgment is not
altered, when worthy prayer there below makes to-morrow's what is
of to-day. The next who follows,[5] under a good intention which
bore bad fruit, by ceding to the Pastor[6] made himself Greek,
together with the laws and me. Now he knows how the ill derived
from his good action is not hurtful to him, although thereby the
world may be destroyed. And he whom thou seest in the down-bent
are was William,[7] whom that land deplores which weeps for
Charles and Frederick living.[8] Now he knows how heaven is
enamoured of a just king, and even by the aspect of his
effulgence makes it seen. Who, down in the erring world, would
believe that Rhipeus the Trojan[9] was the fifth in this circle
of the holy lights? Now he knows much of what the world cannot
see of the divine grace, although his sight cannot discern its
depth."

[1] David. See 2 Samuel, vi.

[2] So far as it proceeded from his own free will, open to the
inspiration of grace.

[3] Trajan. See Purgatory, Canto X.


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