[1] The pure white light becoming red.


With that color which, by reason of the opposite sun, paints the
cloud at evening and at morning, I then saw the whole Heaven
overspread. And like a modest lady who abides sure of herself,
and at the fault of another, in bearing of it only, becomes
timid, even thus did Beatrice change countenance; and such
eclipse I believe there was in heaven when the Supreme Power
suffered.

Then his words proceeded, in a voice so transmuted from itself
that his countenance was not more changed; "The Bride of Christ
was not nurtured on my blood, on that of Linus and of Cletus, to
be employed for acquist of gold; but for acquist of this glad
life Sixtus and Pius and Calixtus and Urban[1] shed their blood
after much weeping. It was not our intention that part of the
Christian people should sit on the right hand of our successors,
and part on the other; nor that the keys which were conceded to
me should become a sign upon a banner which should fight against
those who are baptized;[2] nor that I should be a figure on a
seal to venal and mendacious privileges, whereat I often redden
and flash. In garb of shepherd, rapacious wolves are seen from
here-above over all the pastures: O defence of God, why dost thou
yet lie
still! To drink our blood Cahorsines and Gascons are making
ready:[3] O
good beginning, to what vile end behoves it that thou fall! But
the high
Providence which with Scipio defended for Rome the glory of the
world,
will succor speedily, as I conceive. And thou, son, who because
of thy
mortal weight wilt again return below, open thy mouth, and
conceal not
that which I conceal not."

[1] Early Popes martyred for the faith.

[2] A reference to the war which Boniface VIII. waged against the
Colonnesi. See Inferno, Canto XXVII.

[3] John XXII., who came to the Papacy in 1316, was a native of
Cahors; his immediate predecessor, Clement V., 1305-1314, was a
Gascon. The passage is one of those which shows that this portion
of the poem was in hand during the last years of Dante's life.

[4] In midwinter, when the sun is in Capricorn.


Even as our air snows down flakes of frozen vapors, when the horn
of the Goat of heaven touches the sun,[1] so, upward, I saw the
aether become adorned, and flaked with the triumphant vapors[2]
that had made sojourn there with us. My sight was following their
semblances, and followed, till the intermediate space by its
greatness
pre. vented it from passing further onward. Whereon my Lady, who
saw me
disengaged from upward heeding, said to me, "Cast down thy sight,
and
look how thou hast revolved."

[1] The spirits.


Since the hour when I had first looked, I saw that I had moved
through the whole are which the first climate makes from its
middle to its end;[1] so that I saw beyond Cadiz the mad track of
Ulysses, and near on this side the shore[2] on which Europa
became a sweet burden. And more of the site of this little
threshing-floor would have been discovered to me, but the sun was
proceeding beneath my feet, a sign and more removed.[3]

[1] From Dante's first look downward from the Heavens, at the end
of Canto XXII, to the present moment, he had moved over the arc
which the first climate describes from its middle to its end. The
old geographers divided the earth into seven zones, called
climates, by circles parallel to the equator. The first climate
extended twenty degrees to the north of the equator. The sign of
the Gemini, in which Dante was revolving in the Heaven of the
Fixed Stars, is in the zone of the Heavens corresponding to the
first climate. As each climate extended on the habitable
hemisphere for one hundred and eighty degrees, the arc from its
middle to its end would be of ninety degrees, comprised between
Jerusalem and Cadiz, and the time required for passing through it
would be six hours, one fourth of the diurnal revolution of the
Heavens.

[2] The shore of Phoenicia, whence Europa was carried off by
Jupiter.

[3] The Sun in Aries was separated by Taurus from Gemini; hence
not all of the hemisphere of the earth seen from Gemini was
illuminated by the sun, which was some three hours in advance.


My enamoured mind, that ever dallies with my Lady, was more than
ever burning to bring back my eyes to her. And if nature has made
bait in human flesh, or art in its paintings, to catch the eyes


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