Thy question shows me thy belief to be
That I was niggard in the other life,
It may be from the circle where I was;
Therefore know thou, that avarice was removed
Too far from me; and this extravagance
Thousands of lunar periods have punished.
And were it not that I my thoughts uplifted,
When I the passage heard where thou exclaimest,
As if indignant, unto human nature,
‘To what impellest thou not, O cursed hunger
Of gold, the appetite of mortal men?’
Revolving I should feel the dismal joustings.
Then I perceived the hands could spread too wide
Their wings in spending, and repented me
As well of that as of my other sins;
How many with shorn hair shall rise again
Because of ignorance, which from this sin
Cuts off repentance living and in death!
And know that the transgression which rebuts
By direct opposition any sin
Together with it here its verdure dries.
Therefore if I have been among that folk
Which mourns its avarice, to purify me,
For its opposite has this befallen me.”
“Now when thou sangest the relentless weapons
Of the twofold affliction of Jocasta,”
The singer of the Songs Bucolic said,
“From that which Clio there with thee preludes,
It does not seem that yet had made thee faithful
That faith without which no good works suffice.