So it appeared to me that by a light
Refracted there before me I was smitten;
On which account my sight was swift to flee.
“What is that, Father sweet, from which I cannot
So fully screen my sight that it avail me,”
Said I, “and seems towards us to be moving?”
“Marvel thou not, if dazzle thee as yet
The family of heaven,” he answered me;
“An angel ’tis, who comes to invite us upward.
Soon will it be, that to behold these things
Shall not be grievous, but delightful to thee
As much as nature fashioned thee to feel.”
When we had reached the Angel benedight,
With joyful voice he said: “Here enter in
To stairway far less steep than are the others.”
We mounting were, already thence departed,
And “Beati misericordes” was
Behind us sung, “Rejoice, thou that o’ercomest!”
My Master and myself, we two alone
Were going upward, and I thought, in going,
Some profit to acquire from words of his;
And I to him directed me, thus asking:
“What did the spirit of Romagna mean,
Mentioning interdict and partnership?”
Whence he to me: “Of his own greatest failing
He knows the harm; and therefore wonder not
If he reprove us, that we less may rue it.
Because are thither pointed your desires
Where by companionship each share is lessened,
Envy doth ply the bellows to your sighs.