The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

know.
The other, which is known to thee as matter,1267
May well indeed be such that one errs not
If it for other matter be exchanged.
But let none shift the burden on his shoulder
At his arbitrament, without the turning
Both of the white and of the yellow key;1268
And every permutation deem as foolish,
If in the substitute the thing relinquished,
As the four is in six, be not contained.1269
Therefore whatever thing has so great weight
In value that it drags down every balance,
Cannot be satisfied with other spending.
Let mortals never take a vow in jest;
Be faithful and not blind in doing that,
As Jephthah was in his first offering,1270
Whom more beseemed to say, ‘I have done wrong,
Than to do worse by keeping; and as foolish
Thou the great leader of the Greeks wilt find,1271
Whence wept Iphigenia her fair face,1272
And made for her both wise and simple weep,
Who heard such kind of worship spoken of.’
Christians, be ye more serious in your movements;
Be ye not like a feather at each wind,
And think not every water washes you.
Ye have the Old and the New Testament,
And the Pastor of the Church who guideth you
Let this suffice you unto your salvation.
If evil appetite cry aught else to you,
Be ye as men, and not as silly sheep,1273
So that the Jew among you may not mock you.
Be ye not as the lamb that doth abandon1274
Its mother’s milk, and frolicsome and simple
Combats at its own pleasure with itself.”
Thus Beatrice to me even as I write it;
Then all desireful turned herself again
To that part where the world is most alive.1275
Her silence and her change of countenance
Silence imposed upon my eager mind,
That had already in advance new questions;
And as an arrow that upon the mark
Strikes ere the bowstring quiet hath become,
So did we speed into the second realm.
My Lady there so joyful I beheld,
As into the brightness of that heaven she entered,1276
More luminous thereat the planet grew;
And if the star itself was changed and smiled,1277
What became I, who by my nature am
Exceeding mutable in every guise!
As, in a fishpond which is pure and tranquil,
The fishes draw to that which from without
Comes in such fashion that their food they deem it;
So I beheld more than a thousand splendors
Drawing towards us, and in each was heard:
“Lo, this is she who shall increase our love.”
And as each one was coming unto us,
Full of beatitude the shade was seen,
By the effulgence clear that issued from it.1278
Think, Reader, if what here is just beginning
No farther should proceed, how thou wouldst have
An agonizing need of knowing more;
And of thyself thou’lt see how I from these
Was in desire of hearing their conditions,
As they unto mine eyes were manifest.
“O thou wellborn, unto whom Grace concedes
To see the thrones of the eternal triumph,
Or ever yet the warfare be abandoned
With light that through the whole of heaven is spread
Kindled are we, and hence if thou desirest
To know of us, at thine own pleasure sate thee.”
Thus by someone among those holy spirits1279
Was spoken, and by Beatrice: “Speak, speak
Securely, and believe them even as Gods.”
“Well I perceive how thou dost nest thyself
In thine own light, and drawest it from thine eyes,
Because they coruscate when thou dost smile,
But know not who thou art, nor why thou hast,
Spirit august, thy station in the sphere
That veils itself to men in alien rays.”1280
This said I in direction of the light
Which first had spoken to me; whence it became
By far more lucent than it was before.
Even as the sun, that doth conceal himself1281
By too much light, when heat has worn away
The tempering influence of the vapors dense,
By greater rapture thus concealed itself
In its own radiance the figure saintly,
And thus close, close enfolded answered me
In fashion as the following Canto sings. Canto VI

Justinian⁠—The Roman eagle⁠—Romeo.

“After that Constantine the eagle turned1282
Against the course of heaven, which it had followed
Behind the ancient who Lavinia took,
Two hundred years and more the bird of God1283
In the extreme of Europe held itself,1284
Near to the mountains whence it issued first;
And under shadow of the sacred plumes
It governed there the world from hand to hand,
And, changing thus, upon mine own alighted.
Caesar I was, and am Justinian,1285
Who, by the will of primal Love I feel,
Took from the laws the useless and redundant;1286
And ere unto the work I was attent,
One nature to exist in Christ, not more,1287
Believed, and with such faith was I contented.
But blessed Agapetus, he who was1288
The supreme pastor, to the faith sincere
Pointed me out the way by words of his.
Him I believed, and what was his assertion
I now see clearly, even as thou seest
Each contradiction to be false and true.
As soon as with the Church I moved my feet,
God in his grace it pleased with this high task
To inspire me, and I gave me wholly to it,
And to my Belisarius I commended1289
The arms, to which was heaven’s right hand so joined
It was a signal that I should repose.
Now here to the first question terminates
My answer; but the character thereof
Constrains me to continue with a sequel,
In order that thou see with how great reason
Men move against the standard sacrosanct,
Both who appropriate and who oppose it.
Behold how great a power has made it worthy
Of reverence, beginning from the hour
When