[7] The pain of contrition.
As I was about to say “Thou satisfiest me,” I saw myself arrived on the next round,[1] so that my eager eyes made me silent. There it seemed to me I was of a sudden rapt in an ecstatic vision, and saw many persons in a temple, and a lady at the entrance, with the sweet action of a mother, saying, “My son, why hast thou done thus toward us? Lo, sorrowing, thy father and I were seeking thee;” and when here she was silent, that which first appeared, disappeared.
[1] Where the sin of anger is expiated.
Then appeared to me another, with those waters down along her cheeks which grief distils when it springs from great despite toward others, and she was saying, “If thou art lord of the city about whose name was such great strife among the gods, and whence every science sparkles forth, avenge thyself on those audacious arms, that have embraced our daughter, O Pisistratus.” And the lord appeared to me, benign and mild, to answer her, with temperate look, “What shall we do to him who desires ill for us, if he who loves us is by us condemned?”[1]
[1] Dante translated this story from Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta mem., vi. 1.
Then I saw people kindled with fire of wrath, killing a youth with stones, loudly crying to each other only, “Slay, slay.” And I saw him bowed by death, which now was weighing on him, toward the ground, but in such great strife he ever made of his eyes gates for heaven, praying to the high Lord, that He would pardon his persecutors, with that aspect which unlocks pity.[1]
[1] See Acts, vii. 55-60.
When my mind returned outwardly to the things which outside of it are true, I recognized my not false errors. My Leader, who could see me do like a man who looses himself from slumber, said, “What ails thee, that thou canst not support thyself? but art come more than a half league veiling thine eyes, and with thy legs staggering like one whom wine or slumber bends.” “O sweet Father mine, if thou harkenest to me I will tell thee,” said I, “what appeared to me when my legs were thus taken from me.” And he, “If thou hadst a hundred masks upon thy face, thy thoughts howsoever small would not be hidden from me. That which thou hast seen was in order that thou excuse not thyself from opening thy heart to the waters of peace which are poured forth from the eternal fountain. I did not ask, ‘What ails thee?’ for the reason that he does who looks only with the eye which hath no seeing when the body lies inanimate; but I asked, in order to give vigor to the foot; thus it behoves to spur the sluggards, slow to use their wakefulness when it returns.”
We were going on through the vesper time, forward intent so far as the eyes could reach against the bright evening rays; when, lo, little by little, a smoke came toward us, dark as night; iior was there place to shelter ourselves from it. This took from us our eyes and the pure air.