Whence I to him: "The slaughter and great carnage
Which have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause
Such orisons in our temple to be made."

After his head he with a sigh had shaken,
"There I was not alone," he said, "nor surely
Without a cause had with the others moved.

But there I was alone, where every one
Consented to the laying waste of Florence,
He who defended her with open face."

"Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,"
I him entreated, "solve for me that knot,
Which has entangled my conceptions here.

It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly,
Beforehand whatsoe'er time brings with it,
And in the present have another mode."

"We see, like those who have imperfect sight,
The things," he said, "that distant are from us;
So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler.

When they draw near, or are, is wholly vain
Our intellect, and if none brings it to us,
Not anything know we of your human state.

Hence thou canst understand, that wholly dead