which is kindled within you arises of necessity, the power exists
in you to restrain it. This noble virtue Beatrice calls the free
will, and therefore see that thou have it in mind, if she take to
speaking of it with thee."

[1] If love be aroused in the soul by an external object, and if
it be natural to the soul to love, how does she deserve praise or
blame for loving?

[2] The substantial form is the soul, which is separate from
matter but united with it.

[3] In order that every other will may conform with the first,
that is, with the affection natural to man for the primal objects
of desire.

[4] The faculty of reason, the virtue which counsels and on which
free will depends, is "the specific virtue" of the soul.

[5] The rules of that morality which would have no existence were
it not for freedom of the will.


The moon, belated[1] almost to midnight, shaped[2] like a bucket
that is all ablaze, was making the stars appear fewer to us, and
was running counter to the heavens[3] along those paths which the
sun inflames, when the man of Rome sees it between Sardinia and
Corsica at its setting;[4] and that gentle shade, for whom
Pietola[5] is more famed than the Mantuan city, had laid down the
burden of my loading:[6] wherefore I, who had harvested his open
and plain discourse upon my questions, was standing like a man
who, drowsy, rambles. But this drowsiness was taken from me
suddenly by folk, who, behind our backs, had now come round to
us. And such as was the rage and throng, which of old Ismenus and
Asopus saw at night along their banks, in case the Thebans were
in need of Bacchus, so, according to what I saw of them as they
came, those who by good will and right love are ridden curve
their steps along that circle. Soon they were upon us; because,
running, all that great crowd was moving on; and two in front,
weeping, were crying out, "Mary ran with haste unto the mountain
[7] and Caesar, to subdue Ilerda, thrust at Marseilles, and then
ran on to Spain."[8] "Swift, swift, that time be not lost by
little love," cried the others following, "for zeal in doing well
may refreshen grace." "O people, in whom keen fervor now perhaps
redeems your negligence and delay, through lukewarmness, in
well-doing, this one who is alive (and surely I lie not to you)
wishes to go up, soon as the sun may shine again for us;
therefore tell us where is the opening near." These words were of
my Guide; and one of those spirits said: "Come thou behind us,
and thou shalt find the gap. We are so filled with desire to move
on that we cannot stay; therefore pardon, if thou holdest our
obligation for churlishness. I was Abbot[9] of San Zeno at
Verona, under the empire of the good Barbarossa, of whom Milan,
still grieving, doth discourse. And he has one foot already in
the grave,[10] who soon will lament on account of that monastery,
and will be sorry for having had power there; because in place of
its true shepherd he has put his son, ill in his whole body and
worse in mind, and who was evil-born." I know not if more he
said, or if he were silent, so far beyond us he had already run
by; but this I heard, and to retain it pleased me.

[1] In its rising.

[2] Gibbous, like certain buckets still in use in Italy.

[3] "These words describe the daily backing of the moon through
the signs from west to east."--Moore.

[4] These islands are invisible from Rome, but the line that runs
from Rome between them is a little south of east.

[5] The modern name of Andes, the birthplace of Virgil, and
therefore more famous than Mautua itself.

[6] With which I had laden him.

[7] Luke, i. 36.

[8] Examples of zeal.

[9] Unknown, save for this mention of him.

[10] Alberto della Scala, lord of Verona; he died in 1301. He had
forced upon the monastery for its abbot his deformed and depraved
illegitimate son.


And he who was at every need my succor said: "Turn thee this way;
see two of them coming, giving a bite to sloth." In rear of all
they were saying: "The people for whom the sea was opened were
dead before their heirs beheld the Jordan;[1] and those who
endured not the toil even to the end with the son of Anchises,[2]
offered themselves to life without glory."

[1] Numbers, xiv. 28.

[2] But left him, to remain with Acestes in Sicily--Aeneid, v.
751.




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