Onward I moved, and onward moved my Leader,
  Through vacant places, skirting still the rock,
  As on a wall close to the battlements;

For they that through their eyes pour drop by drop
  The malady which all the world pervades,
  On the other side too near the verge approach.

O heaven, in whose gyrations some appear
  To think conditions here below are changed,
  When will he come through whom she shall depart?

Onward we went with footsteps slow and scarce,
  And I attentive to the shades I heard
  Piteously weeping and bemoaning them;

And in continuance: "How poor thou wast
  Is manifested by that hostelry
  Where thou didst lay thy sacred burden down."

Thereafterward I heard: "O good Fabricius,
  Virtue with poverty didst thou prefer
  To the possession of great wealth with vice."

He furthermore was speaking of the largess
  Which Nicholas unto the maidens gave,
  In order to conduct their youth to honour.

"O soul that dost so excellently speak,
  Tell me who wast thou," said I, "and why only
  Thou dost renew these praises well deserved?

And he: "I'll tell thee, not for any comfort
  I may expect from earth, but that so much
  Grace shines in thee or ever thou art dead.

I was the root of that malignant plant
  Which overshadows all the Christian world,
  So that good fruit is seldom gathered from it;

Hugh Capet was I called upon the earth;
  From me were born the Louises and Philips,
  By whom in later days has France been governed.

I was the son of a Parisian butcher,
  What time the ancient kings had perished all,
  Excepting one, contrite in cloth of gray.

That to the widowed diadem promoted
  The head of mine own offspring was, from whom
  The consecrated bones of these began.

So long as the great dowry of Provence
  Out of my blood took not the sense of shame,
  'Twas little worth, but still it did no harm.

Charles came to Italy, and for amends
  A victim made of Conradin, and then
  Thrust Thomas back to heaven, for amends.

A time I see, not very distant now,
  Which draweth forth another Charles from France,
  The better to make known both him and his.

He thence not land, but sin and infamy,
  Shall gain, so much more grievous to himself
  As the more light such damage he accounts.

The other, now gone forth, ta'en in his ship,
  See I his daughter sell, and chaffer for her
  As corsairs do with other female slaves.

That less may seem the future ill and past,
  I see the flower-de-luce Alagna enter,
  And Christ in his own Vicar captive made.

I see him yet another time derided;
  I see renewed the vinegar and gall,
  And between living thieves I see him slain. 

When, O my Lord! shall I be joyful made
  By looking on the vengeance which, concealed,
  Makes sweet thine anger in thy secrecy?

What I was saying of that only bride
  Of the Holy Ghost, and which occasioned thee
  To turn towards me for some commentary,

At that time we repeat Pygmalion,
  Of whom a traitor, thief, and parricide
  Made his insatiable desire of gold;

And the misery of avaricious Midas,
  That followed his inordinate demand,
  At which forevermore one needs but laugh.

Then we accuse Sapphira with her husband,
  We laud the hoof-beats Heliodorus had,
  And the whole mount in infamy encircles

Polymnestor who murdered Polydorus.
  Here finally is cried: 'O Crassus, tell us,
  For thou dost know, what is the taste of gold?'

But in the good that here by day is talked of,
  Erewhile alone I was not; yet near by
  No other person lifted up his voice."

From him already we departed were,
  And made endeavour to o'ercome the road
  As much as was permitted to our power,

Certes so violently shook not Delos,
  Before Latona made her nest therein
  To give birth to the two eyes of the heaven.

Then upon all sides there began a cry,
  Such that the Master drew himself towards me,
  Saying, "Fear not, while I am guiding thee."

We paused immovable and in suspense,
  Even as the shepherds who first heard that song,
  Until the trembling ceased, and it was finished.

Then we resumed again our holy path,
  Watching the shades that lay upon the ground,
  Already turned to their accustomed plaint.