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Shall weep the crime, which shall so monstrous be

       That for the like none ever entered Malta.

      Ample exceedingly would be the vat

       That of the Ferrarese could hold the blood,

       And weary who should weigh it ounce by ounce,

      Of which this courteous priest shall make a gift

       To show himself a partisan; and such gifts

       Will to the living of the land conform.

      Above us there are mirrors, Thrones you call them,

       From which shines out on us God Judicant,

       So that this utterance seems good to us."

      Here it was silent, and it had the semblance

       Of being turned elsewhither, by the wheel

       On which it entered as it was before.

      The other joy, already known to me,

       Became a thing transplendent in my sight,

       As a fine ruby smitten by the sun.

      Through joy effulgence is acquired above,

       As here a smile; but down below, the shade

       Outwardly darkens, as the mind is sad.

      "God seeth all things, and in Him, blest spirit,

       Thy sight is," said I, "so that never will

       Of his can possibly from thee be hidden;

      Thy voice, then, that for ever makes the heavens

       Glad, with the singing of those holy fires

       Which of their six wings make themselves a cowl,

      Wherefore does it not satisfy my longings?

       Indeed, I would not wait thy questioning

       If I in thee were as thou art in me."

      "The greatest of the valleys where the water

       Expands itself," forthwith its words began,

       "That sea excepted which the earth engarlands,

      Between discordant shores against the sun

       Extends so far, that it meridian makes

       Where it was wont before to make the horizon.

      I was a dweller on that valley's shore

       'Twixt Ebro and Magra that with journey short

       Doth from the Tuscan part the Genoese.

      With the same sunset and same sunrise nearly

       Sit Buggia and the city whence I was,

       That with its blood once made the harbour hot.

      Folco that people called me unto whom

       My name was known; and now with me this heaven

       Imprints itself, as I did once with it;

      For more the daughter of Belus never burned,

       Offending both Sichaeus and Creusa,

       Than I, so long as it became my locks,

      Nor yet that Rodophean, who deluded

       was by Demophoon, nor yet Alcides,

       When Iole he in his heart had locked.

      Yet here is no repenting, but we smile,

       Not at the fault, which comes not back to mind,

       But at the power which ordered and foresaw.

      Here we behold the art that doth adorn

       With such affection, and the good discover

       Whereby the world above turns that below.

      But that thou wholly satisfied mayst bear

       Thy wishes hence which in this sphere are born,

       Still farther to proceed behoveth me.

      Thou fain wouldst know who is within this light

       That here beside me thus is scintillating,

       Even as a sunbeam in the limpid water.

      Then know thou, that within there is at rest

       Rahab, and being to our order joined,

       With her in its supremest grade 'tis sealed.

      Into this heaven, where ends the shadowy cone

       Cast by your world, before all other souls

       First of Christ's triumph was she taken up.

      Full meet it was to leave her in some heaven,

       Even as a palm of the high victory

       Which he acquired with one palm and the other,

      Because she favoured the first glorious deed

       Of Joshua upon the Holy Land,

       That little stirs the memory of the Pope.

      Thy city, which an offshoot is of him

       Who first upon his Maker turned his back,

       And whose ambition is so sorely wept,

      Brings forth and scatters the accursed flower

       Which both the sheep and lambs hath led astray

       Since it has turned the shepherd to a wolf.

      For this the Evangel and the mighty Doctors

       Are derelict, and only the Decretals

       So studied that it shows upon their margins.

      On this are Pope and Cardinals intent;

       Their meditations reach not Nazareth,

       There where his pinions Gabriel unfolded;

      But Vatican and the other parts elect

       Of Rome, which have a cemetery been

       Unto the soldiery that followed Peter

      Shall soon be free from this adultery."

      X. The Fourth Heaven, the Sun: Theologians and Fathers of the Church. The First Circle. St. Thomas of Aquinas.

       Table of Contents

      Looking into his Son with all the Love

       Which each of them eternally breathes forth,

       The Primal and unutterable Power

      Whate'er before the mind or eye revolves

       With so much order made, there can be none

       Who this beholds without enjoying Him.

      Lift up then, Reader, to the lofty wheels

       With me thy vision straight unto that part

       Where the one motion on the other strikes,

      And there begin to contemplate with joy

       That Master's art, who in himself so loves it

       That never doth his eye depart therefrom.

      Behold how from that point goes branching off

       The oblique circle, which conveys the planets,

       To satisfy the world that calls upon them;

      And if their pathway were not thus inflected,

       Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain,

       And almost every power below here dead.

      If from the straight line distant more or less

       Were the departure, much would wanting be

       Above and underneath of mundane

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