[1] That is, in those singers.
After the precious and lucent stones, wherewith I saw the sixth luminary ingemmed, imposed silence on their angelic bells, I seemed to hear the murmur of a stream which falls pellucid down from rock to rock, showing the abundance of its mountain source. And as the sound takes its form at the cithern's neck, and in like manner at the vent of the bagpipe the air which enters it, thus, without pause of waiting, that murmur of the Eagle rose up through its neck, as if it were hollow. There it became voice, and thence it issued through its beak in form of words, such as the heart whereon I wrote them was awaiting.
“The part in me which in mortal eagles sees and endures the sun,” it began to me, “must now be fixedly looked upon, because of the fires whereof I make my shape, those wherewith the eye in my head sparkles are the highest of all their grades. He who shineth in the middle, as the pupil, was the, singer of the Holy Spirit, who, bore about the ark from town to town.[1] Now he knows the merit of his song, so far as it was the effect of his own counsel,[2] by the recompense which is equal to it. Of the five which make a circle for the brow, be who is nearest to my beak consoled the poor widow for her son.[3] Now he knows, by the experience of this sweet life and of the opposite, how dear it costs not to follow Christ. And he who follows along the top of the are in the circumference of which I speak, by true penitence postponed death.[4] Now he knows that the eternal judgment is not altered, when worthy prayer there below makes to-morrow's what is of to-day. The next who follows,[5] under a good intention which bore bad fruit, by ceding to the Pastor[6] made himself Greek, together with the laws and me. Now he knows how the ill derived from his good action is not hurtful to him, although thereby the world may be destroyed. And he whom thou seest in the down-bent are was William,[7] whom that land deplores which weeps for Charles and Frederick living.[8] Now he knows how heaven is enamoured of a just king, and even by the aspect of his effulgence makes it seen. Who, down in the erring world, would believe that Rhipeus the Trojan[9] was the fifth in this circle of the holy lights? Now he knows much of what the world cannot see of the divine grace, although his sight cannot discern its depth.”
[1] David. See 2 Samuel, vi.
[2] So far as it proceeded from his own free will, open to the inspiration of grace.
[3] Trajan. See Purgatory, Canto X.
[4] King Hezekiah. See 2 Kings, xx.
[5] The Emperor Constantine.
[6] By his so-called “Donation,” Constantine was believed to have ceded Rome to the Pope, and by transferring the seat of empire to Constantinople, he made the laws and the eagle Greek.
[7] William H., son of Robert Guiscard, King of Sicily and Apulia, called “the Good.”