mind that erreth not shall retrace. O Muses, O lofty genius, now
assist me! O mind that didst inscribe that which I saw, here
shall thy nobility appear! I began:--"Poet, that guidest me,
consider my virtue, if it is sufficient, ere to the deep pass
thou trustest me. Thou sayest that the parent of Silvius while
still corruptible went to the immortal world and was there in the
body. Wherefore if the Adversary of every ill was then courteous,
thinking on the high effect that should proceed from him, and on
the Who and the What,[1] it seemeth not unmeet to the man of
understanding; for in the empyreal heaven he had been chosen for
father of revered Rome and of her empire; both which (to say
truth indeed) were ordained for the holy place where the
successor of the greater Peter hath his seat. Through this going,
whereof thou givest him vaunt, he learned things which were the
cause of his victory and of the papal mantle. Afterward the
Chosen Vessel went thither to bring thence comfort to that faith
which is the beginning of the way of salvation. But I, why go I
thither? or who concedes it? I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul; me
worthy of this, neither I nor others think; wherefore if I give
myself up to go, I fear lest the going may be mad. Thou art wise,
thou understandest better than I speak."

[1] Who he was, and what should result.


And as is he who unwills what he willed, and because of new
thoughts changes his design, so that he quite withdraws from
beginning, such I became on that dark hillside: wherefore in my
thought I abandoned the enterprise which had been so hasty in the
beginning.