[2] “A little while and ye shall not see me: and again, A little while and ye shall see me.”—John, xvi. 16. An answer and promise corresponding to the complaint and petition of the Psalm.
[3] The lady, Matilda, and the sage, Statius.
Even as befalls those who with excess of reverence are speaking in presence of their superiors, and drag not their voice living to the teeth,[1] it befell me that without perfect sound I began, “My Lady, you know my need, and that which is good for it.” And site to me, “From fear and from shame I wish that thou henceforth divest thyself, so that thou speak no more like a man who dreams. Know thou, that the vessel which the serpent[2] broke was, and is not;[3] but let him who is to blame therefor believe that the vengeance of God fears not sops.[4] Not for all time shall be without an heir the eagle that left its feathers on the car, whereby it became a monster, and then a prey.[5] For I see surely, and therefore I tell it, stars already close at hand, secure from every obstacle and from every hindrance, to give to us a time in which a Five hundred, Ten, and Five sent by God[6] shall slay the thievish woman[7] and that giant who with her is delinquent. And perchance my narration, dark as Themis and the Sphinx,[8] less persuades thee, because after their fashion it clouds the understanding. But soon the facts will be the Naiades[9] that shall solve this difficult enigma, without harm of flocks or of harvest. Do thou note; and even as they are borne from me, do thou so report these words to those alive with that life which is a running unto death; and have in mind when thou writest them, not to conceal what thou hast seen the plant, which now has been twice plundered here. Whoso robs that, or breaks it,[10] with blasphemy in act offends God, who only for His own use created it holy. For biting that, the first soul, in pain and in desire, five thousand years and more, longed for Him who punished on Himself the bite. Thy wit sleeps, if it deem not that for a special reason it is so high and so inverted at its top. And if thy vain thoughts had not been as water of Elsa[11] round about thy mind, and their pleasantness as Pyramus to the mulberry,[12] by so many circumstances only thou hadst recognized morally the justice of God in the interdict upon the tree. But since I see thee in thy understanding made of stone, and thus stony, dark, so that the light of my speech dazzles thee, I would yet that thou bear it hence within thee,—and if not written, at least depicted,—for the reason that the pilgrim’s staff is carried wreathed with palm.”[13] And I, “Even as by a seal wax which alters not the imprinted figure, is my brain now stamped by you. But why does your desired word fly so far above my sight, that the more it strives the more it loses it?” “In order that thou mayst know,” she said, “that school which thou hast followed, and mayst see how its doctrine can follow my word [14] and mayst see your path distant so far from the divine, as the heaven which highest hastens is remote from earth.” Whereon I replied to her, “I do not remember that I ever estranged myself from you, nor have I conscience of it that may sting me.” “And if thou canst not remember it,” smiling she replied, “now bethink thee how this day thou hast drunk of Lethe. And if from smoke fire be inferred, such oblivion clearly proves fault in thy will elsewhere intent.[15] Truly my words shall henceforth be naked so far as it shall be befitting to uncover them to thy rude sight.”
[1] Are unable to speak with distinct words.
[2] The dragon.
[3] “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not.”—Revelation, xvii. 8.
[4] According to a belief, which the old commentators report as commonly held by the Florentines, if a murderer could contrive within nine days of the murder to eat a sop of bread dipped in wine, above the grave of his victim, he would escape from the vengeance of the family of the murdered man.
[5] The meaning is that an Emperor shall come, who shall restore the Church from its captivity, and reestablish the Divine order upon earth, in rise mutually dependent and severally independent authority of Church and Empire.
[6] This prophecy is too obscure to admit of a sure interpretation. Five hundred, ten, and five, in Roman numerals, give the letters D X V; which by transposition form the word Dux, a leader.
[7] The harlot, who had no right in the car, but had stolen her place there, or, in plain words, the Popes who by corruption had secured this papal throne.