The Science of Souls and Shadows — Divine Comedy

It is an hour when he who climbs had need to walk uncrippled. The sun has left the meridian circle to Taurus, and night to the Scorpion. They enter as one who makes no pause when urgent need impels. The steep and narrow scale admits them only one before the other. Dante's desire of questioning lifts and drops like a young stork that raises a wing, will not quit the nest, and lets it fall. Haste does not restrain Virgil. Fear not to speed the shaft that on thy lip stands trembling for its flight. Encouraged, Dante asks how leanness can come where there is no want of nourishment to feed.

If thou hadst remembered Meleager wasting with the brand, Virgil says, this would not trouble thee; if thou hadst thought how a reflected form vibrates with mimic motion in the mirror, what seems hard would be no harder than summer pulp. For full repose he calls Statius to be healer of the wound. Statius pleads the injunction, then begins. Blood well concocted, never imbibed by thirsty veins, rests as superfluous food and in the heart derives the virtue that informs the limbs. More concocted, it descends where shame forbids to mention, and distils on another's blood. One is disposed to endure, the other to act. The active virtue coagulates, vivifies, then moves and feels like a sea-sponge on the rock, assuming organic powers. How a babe of animal becomes remains for considering; a wiser man than Dante has erred here, disjoining the soul from passive intellect because he saw no organ assigned. Open thy bosom to the truth that comes. When articulation is complete in the embryo's brain, the primal Mover turns with a smile of joy and inbreathes new spirit, forming an individual soul that lives, feels, and bends reflective on itself. Mark how the sun's heat, mixed with moisture filtered through the vine, changes to wine. When Lachesis has spun the thread, the soul takes memory, intelligence, and will, keener than before; the other powers fall mute. She moves to her destined strand. Ambient air then wears the form the soul imprints, as showered air decks itself with many a hue, and as flame follows fire. Hence semblance, called shadow, with speech, laughter, tears, and sighs. The obedient shadow fails not to present whatever passion moves within. This is the cause of what thou marvelest at.

They reach the last flexure and turn right. The precipice hurls forth redundant flames; a blast upblown drives them back from the rim. They must pass one by one along the side that borders the void. Dante fears the fire on one hand and the headlong fall on the other. Strict rein must in this place direct the eyes, Virgil warns: a little swerving and the way is lost. From the burning mass he hears O God of mercy, and feels no less desire to turn. Spirits move along the flame. He shares his view by turns between their footsteps and his own. At the hymn's close they shout, I do not know a man. Then, in low voice, they take the strain again, and cry that Dian ran to the wood and drove forth Callisto, stung with Cytherea's poison. They return to the song, then extol many a pair who lived in virtue chastely and in the bands of wedded love. They do not surcease while the scorching fire enclasps them. Of such skill appliance needs to medicine the wound that healeth last.