The walls that used of old to be an Abbey Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.
But heavy usury is not taken up So much against God's pleasure as that fruit Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;
For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping Is for the folk that ask it in God's name, Not for one's kindred or for something worse.
The flesh of mortals is so very soft, That good beginnings down below suffice not From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.
Peter began with neither gold nor silver, And I with orison and abstinence, And Francis with humility his convent.
And if thou lookest at each one's beginning, And then regardest whither he has run, Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.
In verity the Jordan backward turned, And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more A wonder to behold, than succour here."
Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew To his own band, and the band closed together;
Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.
The gentle Lady urged me on behind them Up o'er that stairway by a single sign, So did her virtue overcome my nature;
Nor here below, where one goes up and down By natural law, was motion e'er so swift That it could be compared unto my wing.
Reader, as I may unto that devout Triumph return, on whose account I often For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,--Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire And drawn it out again, before I saw The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.
O glorious stars, O light impregnated With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be, With you was born, and hid himself with you, He who is father of all mortal life, When first I tasted of the Tuscan air;
And then when grace was freely given to me To enter the high wheel which turns you round, Your region was allotted unto me.
To you devoutly at this hour my soul Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire For the stern pass that draws it to itself.
"Thou art so near unto the last salvation,"
Thus Beatrice began, "thou oughtest now To have thine eves unclouded and acute;
And therefore, ere thou enter farther in, Look down once more, and see how vast a world Thou hast already put beneath thy feet;
So that thy heart, as jocund as it may, Present itself to the triumphant throng That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether."
I with my sight returned through one and all The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance;
And that opinion I approve as best Which doth account it least; and he who thinks Of something else may truly be called just.
I saw the daughter of Latona shining Without that shadow, which to me was cause That once I had believed her rare and dense.
The aspect of thy son, Hyperion, Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves Around and near him Maia and Dione.
Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove 'Twixt son and father, and to me was clear The change that of their whereabout they make;
And all the seven made manifest to me How great they are, and eke how swift they are, And how they are in distant habitations.
The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud, To me revolving with the eternal Twins, Was all apparent made from hill to harbour!
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.
