| |
| IT was an hour, when he who climbs, had need | |
| To walk uncrippled: for the sun 11 had now | |
| To Taurus the meridian circle left, | |
| And to the Scorpion left the night. As one, | |
| That makes no pause, but presses on his road, | 5 |
| Whate’er betide him, if some urgent need | |
| Impel; so enter’d we upon our way, | |
| One before other; for, but singly, none | |
| That steep and narrow scale admits to climb. | |
| E’en as the young stork lifteth up his wing | 10 |
| Through wish to fly, yet ventures not to quit | |
| The nest, and drops it; so in me desire | |
| Of questioning my guide arose, and fell, | |
| Arriving even to the act that marks | |
| A man prepared for speech. Him all our haste | 15 |
| Restrain’d not; but thus spake the sire beloved: | |
| “Fear not to speed the shaft, that on thy lip | |
| Stands trembling for its flight.” Encouraged thus, | |
| I straight began: “How there can leanness come, | |
| Where is no want of nourishment to feed?” | 20 |
| “If thou,” he answer’d, hadst remember’d thee, | |
| How Meleager 2 with the wasting brand | |
| Wasted alike, by equal fires consumed; | |
| This would not trouble thee: and hadst thou thought, | |
| How in the mirror 3 your reflected form | 25 |
| With mimic motion vibrates; what now seems | |
| Hard, had appear’d no harder than the pulp | |
| Of summer-fruit mature. But that thy will | |
| In certainty may find its full repose, | |
| Lo Statius here! on him I call, and pray | 30 |
| That he would now be healer of thy wound.” | |
| “If, in thy presence, I unfold to him | |
| The secrets of Heaven’s vengeance, let me plead | |
| Thine own injunction to exculpate me.” | |
| So Statius answer’d, and forthwith began: | 35 |
| “Attend my words, O son, and in thy mind | |
| Receive them; so shall they be light to clear | |
| The doubt thou offer’st. Blood, concocted well, | |
| Which by the thirsty veins is ne’er imbibed, | |
| And rests as food superfluous, to be ta’en | 40 |
| From the replenish’d table, in the heart | |
| Derives effectual virtue, that informs | |
| The several human limbs, as being that | |
| Which passes through the veins itself to make them. | |
| Yet more concocted it descends, where shame | 45 |
| Forbids to mention: and from thence distils | |
| In natural vessel on another’s blood. | |
| There each unite together; one disposed | |
| To endure, to act the other, through that power | |
| Derived from whence it came; and being met, | 50 |
| It ’gins to work, coagulating first; | |
| Then vivifies what its own substance made | |
| Consist. With animation now indued, | |
| The active virtue (differing from a plant | |
| No further, than that this is on the way, | 55 |
| And at its limit that) continues yet | |
| To operate, that now it moves, and feels, | |
| As sea-sponge clinging to the rock: and there | |
| Assumes the organic powers its seed convey’d. | |
| This is the moment, son! at which the virtue, | 60 |
| That from the generating heart proceeds, | |
| Is pliant and expansive; for each limb | |
| Is in the heart by forgetful nature plann’d. | |
| How babe of animal becomes, remains | |
| For thy considering. At this point, more wise, | 65 |
| Than thou, has err’d, making the soul disjoin’d | |
| From passive intellect, because he saw | |
| No organ for the latter’s use assign’d. | |
| “Open thy bosom to the truth that comes. | |
| Know, soon as in the embryo, to the brain | 70 |
| Articulation is complete, then turns | |
| The primal Mover with a smile of joy | |
| On such great work of nature; and imbreathes | |
| New spirit replete with virtue, that what here | |
| Active it finds, to its own substance draws; | 75 |
| And forms an individual soul, that lives, | |
| And feels, and bends reflective on itself. | |
| And that thou less may’st marvel at the word, | |
| Mark the sun’s heat; how that to wine doth change, | |
| Mix’d with the moisture filter’d through the vine. | 80 |
| “When Lachesis hath spun the thread, 4 the soul | |
| Takes with her both the human and divine, | |
| Memory, intelligence, and will, in act | |
| Far keener than before; the other powers | |
| Inactive all and mute. No pause allow’d, | 85 |
| In wondrous sort self-moving, to one strand | |
| Of those, where the departed roam, she falls: | |
| Here learns her destined path. Soon as the place | |
| Receives her, round the plastic virtue beams, | |
| Distinct as in the living limbs before: | 90 |
| And as the air, when saturate with showers, | |
| The casual beam refracting, decks itself | |
| With many a hue; so here the ambient air | |
| Weareth that form, which influence of the soul | |
| Imprints on it: and like the flame, that where | 95 |
| The fire moves, thither follows; so, henceforth, | |
| The new form on the spirit follows still: | |
| Hence hath it semblance, and is shadow call’d, | |
| With each sense, even to the sight, indued: | |
| Hence speech is ours, hence laughter, tears, and sighs, | 100 |
| Which thou mayst oft have witness’d on the mount. | |
| The obedient shadow fails not to present | |
| Whatever varying passion moves within us. | |
| And this the cause of what thou marvel’st at.” | |
| Now the last flexure of our way we reach’d; | 105 |
| And to the right hand turning, other care | |
| Awaits us. Here the rocky precipice | |
| Hurls forth redundant flames; and from the rim | |
| A blast up-blown, with forcible rebuff | |
| Driveth them back, sequester’d from its bound. | 110 |
| Behoved us, one by one, along the side, | |
| That border’d on the void, to pass; and I | |
| Fear’d on one hand the fire, on the other fear’d | |
| Headlong to fall: when thus the instructor warn’d: | |
| “Strict rein must in this place direct the eyes. | 115 |
| A little swerving and the way is lost.” | |
| Then from the bosom of the burning mass, | |
| “O God of mercy!” 5 heard I sung, and felt | |
| No less desire to turn. And when I saw | |
| Spirits along the flame proceeding, I | 120 |
| Between their footsteps and mine own was fain | |
| To share by turns my view. At the hymn’s close | |
| They shouted loud, “I do not know a man;” 6 | |
| Then in low voice again took up the strain; | |
| Which once more ended, “To the wood,” they cried, | 125 |
| “Ran Dian, and drave forth Callisto stung | |
| With Cytherea’s poison”; then return’d | |
| Unto their song; then many a pair extoll’d, | |
| Who lived in virtue chastely and the bands | |
| Of wedded love. Nor from that task, I ween, | 130 |
| Surcease they; whilesoe’er the scorching fire | |
| Enclasps them. Of such skill appliance needs, | |
| To medicine the wound that healeth last. | |
