O'er better waves to speed her rapid course the light bark of my genius lifts the sail, well pleased to leave so cruel sea behind; and of that second region will I sing, in which the human spirit from sinful blot is purged, and for ascent to Heaven prepares. Calliope is asked for a somewhat higher song. Sweet hue of eastern sapphire, to Dante's eyes unwonted joy renewed, soon as he escaped the atmosphere of deadly gloom. The planet that to love invites made all the orient laugh. To the right he saw four stars ne'er seen before save by our first parents. O thou northern site, bereft and widowed of these. Turning toward the other pole he saw an old man standing by his side alone, so worthy of reverence that ne'er from son to father more was owed. The four luminaries on his face shone so that Dante beheld him as the sun.
Say who are ye, that stemming the blind stream have fled the eternal prison-house? Who hath conducted you? Are the firm statutes of the abyss broken, that thus, condemned, ye to my caves approach? Virgil made Dante's knees and eye pay due reverence, then: not of myself I come; a Dame from heaven had besought me in my charge to bring. This mortal erring by his folly had approached so near the gloom that little space was left to turn. I have displayed the regions of the bad, and purpose now those spirits under thy command. In the search of liberty he journeys: that how dear they know, who for her sake have life refused. Thou knowest, to whom death for her was sweet in Utica. For us the eternal edicts are unmoved: he breathes, and I am free of Minos. By Marcia's love we implore thee, let us pass. Marcia so pleasing in my sight was found, while I was there, that all she asked I was fain to grant. Now that beyond the accursed stream she dwells, she may no longer move me. Not so, if Dame from heaven moves thee; then no flattery needs. Enough that in her name thou ask. Go: with a slender reed duly gird him, and his face lave, till all sordid stain thou wipe from thence. For not with eye by any cloud obscured would it be seemly before him to come who stands the foremost minister in heaven. Where the wave beats, the oozy bed produces reeds. No other plant, covered with leaves or hardened in its stalk, lives there, not bending to the water's sway. After, this way return not; the sun will show you the mountain in its easiest ascent.
He disappeared. Dante upraised himself speechless. My son, observant thou my steps pursue. We must retreat to rearward, where the champain declines. From afar he spied the trembling of the ocean stream. They traversed the deserted plain as one who thinks every step vain till he regain the path. Where yet the tender dew strove with the sun, both hands the master placed on the watery grass. Dante stretched out his cheeks suffused with tears. There to his visage he anew restored that hue which the dun shades of hell concealed. On the solitary shore, that never saw man measure back his course, he girt him as instructed, and, strange to tell, wherever one humble plant was plucked, another there resembling straightway in its place arose.
