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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 Rachel, 88

noblest mother of the Jewish nation

and wife of flock-attending Israel.

“Beatrice!” she said, “in harmony with God! 91

Why, why, O why ignore a lover who

was taught to love divinity by you?

Can you not hear him miserably cry, 94

lonely and lost beside death’s raving sea

and threatened by a foul rapacity?”

As soon as Lucy’s words were understood, 97

nobody ever moved as fast as me.

I came to you whose wise and truthful speech

can heal my lover’s hurt and do him good – 100

speech glorifying you and all who hear,’

she said, turning her face to hide a tear.

103 Its brightness urged me to this place. The wolf

still blocks the uphill path. We’ll reach the top

going the long way round. With me your guide

106 and three celestial women on your side,

why hesitate? What have you got to fear?

Why all this cowardice? Have you no pride?”

109 As daisies folding petals up at night,

heavy with frozen dew, lean to the ground

until the rising sun’s warm, gift of light

112 thaws and unbends and opens them, I found

at last my crippled courage stand upright.

Like one set free I cried, “Let us go on!

115 The great compassion of that heavenly she,

forbye the wonder of your courtesy

have cured my idiot timidity.

118 Your words have filled me with new confidence,

making your will and mine a single will.

Guide, Lord and Master, come! Let us go hence.”

121 The wild path that we followed led downhill.