"Or ever to this mountain were directed
  The souls deserving to ascend to God,
  My bones were buried by Octavian.

I am Virgilius; and for no crime else
  Did I lose heaven, than for not having faith;"
  In this wise then my Leader made reply.

So he appeared; and then bowed down his brow,
  And with humility returned towards him,
  And, where inferiors embrace, embraced him.

"O glory of the Latians, thou," he said,
  "Through whom our language showed what it could do
  O pride eternal of the place I came from,

"Through all the circles of the doleful realm,"
  Responded he, "have I come hitherward;
  Heaven's power impelled me, and with that I come.

I by not doing, not by doing, lost
  The sight of that high sun which thou desirest,
  And which too late by me was recognized.

There dwell I with the little innocents
  Snatched by the teeth of Death, or ever they
  Were from our human sinfulness exempt.

There dwell I among those who the three saintly
  Virtues did not put on, and without vice
  The others knew and followed all of them.

He answered: "No fixed place has been assigned us;
  'Tis lawful for me to go up and round;
  So far as I can go, as guide I join thee.

But see already how the day declines,
  And to go up by night we are not able;
  Therefore 'tis well to think of some fair sojourn.

"How is this?" was the answer; "should one wish
  To mount by night would he prevented be
  By others? or mayhap would not have power?"

And on the ground the good Sordello drew
  His finger, saying, "See, this line alone
  Thou couldst not pass after the sun is gone;

We might indeed therewith return below,
  And, wandering, walk the hill-side round about,
  While the horizon holds the day imprisoned."

Thereon my Lord, as if in wonder, said:
  "Do thou conduct us thither, where thou sayest
  That we can take delight in tarrying."

"Thitherward," said that shade, "will we repair,
  Where of itself the hill-side makes a lap,
  And there for the new day will we await."

'Twixt hill and plain there was a winding path
  Which led us to the margin of that dell,
  Where dies the border more than half away.

By herbage and by flowers within that hollow
  Planted, each one in colour would be vanquished,
  As by its greater vanquished is the less.

Nor in that place had nature painted only,
  But of the sweetness of a thousand odours
  Made there a mingled fragrance and unknown.

"Before the scanty sun now seeks his nest,"
  Began the Mantuan who had led us thither,
  "Among them do not wish me to conduct you.

Better from off this ledge the acts and faces
  Of all of them will you discriminate,
  Than in the plain below received among them.

Rudolph the Emperor was, who had the power
  To heal the wounds that Italy have slain,
  So that through others slowly she revives.

The other, who in look doth comfort him,
  Governed the region where the water springs,
  The Moldau bears the Elbe, and Elbe the sea.

And the small-nosed, who close in council seems
  With him that has an aspect so benign,
  Died fleeing and disflowering the lily;

Look there, how he is beating at his breast!
  Behold the other one, who for his cheek
  Sighing has made of his own palm a bed;

He who appears so stalwart, and chimes in,
  Singing, with that one of the manly nose,
  The cord of every valour wore begirt;

And if as King had after him remained
  The stripling who in rear of him is sitting,
  Well had the valour passed from vase to vase,

Not oftentimes upriseth through the branches
  The probity of man; and this He wills
  Who gives it, so that we may ask of Him.

Eke to the large-nosed reach my words, no less
  Than to the other, Pier, who with him sings;
  Whence Provence and Apulia grieve already

Behold the monarch of the simple life,
  Harry of England, sitting there alone;
  He in his branches has a better issue.

He who the lowest on the ground among them
  Sits looking upward, is the Marquis William,
  For whose sake Alessandria and her war