in where it behoved that I should swallow the water.[3] Then she
took me, and, thus bathed, brought me within the dance of the
four beautiful ones,[4] and each of them covered me with her arm.
"Here we are nymphs, and in heaven we are stars: ere Beatrice had
descended to the world we were ordained unto her for her
handmaids. We will head thee to her eyes; but in the joyous light
which is within them, the three yonder who deeper gaze shall make
keen thine own."[5] Thus singing, they began; and then to the
breast of the griffon they led me with them, where Beatrice was
standing turned toward us. They said, "See that thou sparest not
thy sight: we have placed thee before the emeralds whence Love of
old drew his arrows upon thee." A thousand desires hotter than
flame bound my eyes to the relucent eyes which only upon the
griffon were standing fixed. As the sun in a mirror, not
otherwise the twofold animal was gleaming therewithin, now with
one, now with another mode.[6] Think, Reader, if I marvelled when
I saw the thing stand quiet in itself, while in its image it was
transmuting itself.

[1] Matilda.

[2] The first words of the seventh verse of the fifty-first
Psalm: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and
I shall be whiter than snow."

[3] The drinking of the waters of Lethe which obliterate the
memory of sin.

[4] The four Cardinal Virtues.

[5] The Cardinal Virtues lead up to Theology, or the knowledge of
Divine things, but the Evangelic Virtues are needed to penetrate
within them.

[6] Mode of being,--the divine and the human.


While, full of amazement and glad, my soul was tasting that food
which, sating of itself, causes hunger for itself, the other
three, showing themselves in their bearing of loftier order,
came forward dancing to their angelic melody. "Turn, Beatrice,
turn thy holy eyes," was their song, "upon thy faithful one, who
to see thee has taken so many steps. For grace do us the grace
that thou unveil to hum thy mouth, so that he may discern the
second beauty which thou concealest."[1]

[1] "The eyes of Wisdom are her demonstrations by which one sees
the truth most surely; and her smile is her persuasions in which
the interior light of Wisdom is displayed without any veil; and
in these two is felt that loftiest pleasure of Beatitude, which
is the chief good in Paradise."--Convito, iii 15.


Oh splendor of living light eternal! Who hath become so pallid
under the shadow of Parnassus, or hath so drunk at its cistern,
that he would not seem to have his mind encumbered, trying to
represent thee as thou didst appear there where in harmony the
heaven overshadows thee when in the open air thou didst thyself
disclose?



CANTO XXXII. The Earthly Paradise.--Return of the Triumphal
procession.--The Chariot bound to the Mystic Tree.--Sleep of
Dante.--His waking to find the Triumph departed.--Transformation
of the Chariot.--The Harlot and the Giant.


So fixed and intent were mine eyes to relieve their ten years'
thirst, that my other senses were all extinct: and they
themselves, on one side and the other, had a wall of disregard,
so did the holy smile draw them to itself with the old net; when
perforce my sight was turned toward my left by those
goddesses,[1] because I heard from them a "Too fixedly."[2] And
the condition which exists for seeing in eyes but just now
smitten by the sun caused me to be some time without sight. But
when the sight reshaped itself to the little (I say to the
little, in respect to the great object of the sense wherefrom by
force I had removed myself), I saw that the glorious army had
wheeled upon its right flank, and was returning with the sun and
with the seven flames in its face.

[1] The three heavenly Virtues.

[2] "Thou lookest too fixedly; thou hast yet other duties than
contemplation."


As under its shields to save itself a troop turns and wheels with
its banner, before it all can change about, that soldiery of the
celestial realm which was in advance had wholly gone past us
before its front beam[1] had bent the chariot round. Then to the
wheels the ladies returned, and the griffon moved his blessed
burden, in such wise however that no feather of him shook. The
beautiful lady who had drawn me at the ford, and Statius and I
were following the wheel which made its orbit with the smaller
arc. So walking through the lofty wood, empty through fault of
her who trusted to the serpent, an angelic song set the time to
our steps. Perhaps an arrow loosed from the bow had in three
flights reached such a distance as we had advanced, when Beatrice


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