LITMIR.BIZ

      2: Early Doubts Quelled

      1 Day ended. Beasts and birds who love the sun

      homed to their dens and nests through dusky air.

      Mine seemed the only living body there

      4 going to warfare, marching to battle where

      each step ahead would be a struggle of

      pity with dread in perpetuity.

      7 O Muses! Highest altitudes of thought

      and memory, recording all I see

      by use of noble ingenuity!

      10 Let me teach others, as I have been taught!

      “Poet!” I cried. “Tell me if I am fit

      to go the fearful way you’re leading me.

      13 You sang how great Aeneas followed it

      and living, saw the nation of the dead.

      God let Aeneas, for it was His plan

      16 to found a pagan empire by that man –

      the Roman Empire Christ inherited,

      by crucifixion Christianising Rome.

      19 He went through death and Hell to bring souls home

      to heavenly bliss Aeneas never knew.

      How can this living me follow these two?

      Why me? Who has suggested that I go? 22

      I’m not Aeneas, nor am I Saint Paul

      summoned to follow Jesus by a call

      direct from Christ. If feeble me submits 25

      to enter Hell I’ll maybe lose my wits!

      Please! You know all! Why should I go with you?”

      Blethering thus, unwilling what I’d willed, 28

      I halted in an agony of doubt

      from the brisk pace at which we’d started out.

      Inside a darkened borderland I stood, 31

      my courage to continue almost killed,

      as if again within the evil wood.

      “If I have grasped the sense of what you say,” 34

      the ghost of splendid Virgil turned and said,

      “cowardice, which leads most folk astray,

      blocks (as its shadow on the road ahead 37

      frightens a horse) the way that you should tread.

      Listen to what should banish your remorse.

      There came to me in Limbo where I dwell 40

      (the only comfortable part of Hell)

      a holy lady altogether lovely.

      Her eyes like starlight and her quiet voice 43

      angelically sweet, made me rejoice

      to do the utmost thing she asked. Said she,

      ‘Poet of Mantua, whose epic song 46

      will last as long as stars and planets move,

      someone I dearly love is going wrong –

      49 If none will help he may be lost to me.

      On hearing this in Heaven I come to you.

      O courteous poet, listen to my plea:

      52 I beg you, join him where he turns aside

      from the true track. He stands alone, astray,

      at foot of a grim hill. O pity him!

      55 He needs your strength to guide him the right way.

      If you are not too late, say to him this:

      you have been sent by love and Beatrice,

      58 for I am Beatrice, for whom you go

      to save both him I love and me from woe.

      The love that drew me from eternity

      61 now draws me back. Soon I will see God’s face.

      Within the glory of His sacred city

      I'll praise forever in that holy place

      64 your goodness.’ There she paused. At once I said,

      ‘Lady, by virtue of your heavenly love,

      the love that made God form the human race

      67 with excellence that lifts it far above

      all other beasts within this world’s small space,

      obeying you is what I most desire,

      70 so much that done at once would be too slow.

      But there is something first I wish to know.

      Your blessed feet have carried you through Hell

      73 yet you are not alarmed. How is that so?’

      ‘Because you wish to learn I will explain,’

      said she. ‘God makes the innocent and wise

      both blind and deaf to Hell’s eternal pain, 73

      but not to troubles of a living soul.

      A gentle lady some call Heaven’s queen

      has mercy as her special ministry. 73

      She often countermands God’s stern decrees

      to save a sinner’s soul by purgatory –

      a breach of justice to which God agrees. 82

      She said to Lucy, “Saint of heavenly light,

      your best disciple is about to quit

      his upward climb to us, risking damnation. 85

      Dante’s in danger. Get him out of it.”

      Lucy sped to the height of contemplation

      where I conversed (she knew) with sage

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