When from their game of dice men separate, the loser stays revolving luckless throws, and the whole company goes with the other: one runs before, one twitches the mantle, one bids him remember. He stops not; a stretched hand here means stand aside. E'en such was Dante in that close-crowding throng: turning to all, and promising, he escaped with pains. He still sees Arezzo's slain, the man swallowed in chase, Frederic Novello, Marzuco's Pisan, Count Orso, and Peter de la Brosse, dismissed for spite, with a warning to the Lady of Brabant while she yet lives. Freed of those who prayed for others' prayers, he asks Virgil: thy text seems to deny that heaven's decree can bend, yet these entreat. Can their hope be vain?
Both what I write is plain, and these deceived not, if you consider that the sacred height of judgment doth not stoop, because love's flame in a short moment fulfils what the sojourner in right should satisfy. Prayer that had no access to God could supply no defect; this is different. Rest not in the suspicion unless she assure thee who infuses light betwixt truth and mind: Beatrice, on this mountain's crown. Dante wants more speed; he tires not as before. Their progress with this day shall be as much as they may dispatch, but they cannot be there before the sun returns. A spirit stands solitary and will instruct the speediest way. O thou Lombard: high abstracted mood, slow dignity, eyeing them as a lion on his watch. He will not show the ascent. He asks their country. When Virgil says Mantua, the shadow rises and cries, Mantuan! I am thy countryman Sordello. Each embraces the other.
Ah slavish Italy, inn of grief, vessel without a pilot, lady no longer of fair provinces. This dead spirit greets a fellow citizen at the mere sound of a land, while the living gnaw one another inside the same wall and moat. Justinian refitted the reins; the saddle stays unpressed. German Albert abandons her that is grown savage. Come see the Capulets and Montagues. Come hear Rome the widow: My Caesar, why dost thou desert my side? Florence may stay unmoved, being so wise: justice on the lip's edge, ready to cry Behold I stoop, a thread woven in October that dies by November, laws and coins and offices endlessly renewed. If thou canst see clear, thou wilt perceive thyself like a sick wretch, who finds no rest upon her down, but oft shifting her side, short respite seeks from pain.
