Day was departing, and the embrowned air Released the animals that are on earth From their fatigues; and I the only one Made myself ready to sustain the war, Both of the way and likewise of the woe, Which memory that errs not shall retrace.
O Muses, O high genius, now assist me!
O memory, that didst write down what I saw, Here thy nobility shall be manifest!
And I began: "Poet, who guidest me, Regard my manhood, if it be sufficient, Ere to the arduous pass thou dost confide me.
Thou sayest, that of Silvius the parent, While yet corruptible, unto the world Immortal went, and was there bodily.
But if the adversary of all evil Was courteous, thinking of the high effect That issue would from him, and who, and what, To men of intellect unmeet it seems not;
For he was of great Rome, and of her empire In the empyreal heaven as father chosen;
The which and what, wishing to speak the truth, Were stablished as the holy place, wherein Sits the successor of the greatest Peter.
Upon this journey, whence thou givest him vaunt, Things did he hear, which the occasion were Both of his victory and the papal mantle.
Thither went afterwards the Chosen Vessel, To bring back comfort thence unto that Faith, Which of salvation's way is the beginning.
But I, why thither come, or who concedes it?
I not Aeneas am, I am not Paul, Nor I, nor others, think me worthy of it.
Therefore, if I resign myself to come, I fear the coming may be ill-advised;
Thou'rt wise, and knowest better than I speak."
And as he is, who unwills what he willed, And by new thoughts doth his intention change, So that from his design he quite withdraws, Such I became, upon that dark hillside, Because, in thinking, I consumed the emprise, Which was so very prompt in the beginning.
"If I have well thy language understood,"
Replied that shade of the Magnanimous, "Thy soul attainted is with cowardice, Which many times a man encumbers so, It turns him back from honoured enterprise, As false sight doth a beast, when he is shy.
That thou mayst free thee from this apprehension, I'll tell thee why I came, and what I heard At the first moment when I grieved for thee.