The Better Maker in the Flame — Divine Comedy

They walk singly along the rim. The good master warns, often: look thou well; avail it that I caution thee. The sun changes the western clime from azure tinct to white. As Dante passes, his shadow makes the umbered flame burn ruddier. Many a spirit marvels on his way. This breeds the first speech of him: he seems no insubstantial frame. They stretch toward him, careful not to overpass the burning pale. O thou who followest the others, haply not more slow but moved by reverence, answer me, who burn in thirst and fire. All thirst more for the answer than Indian or Aethiop for the cooling stream. Tell us how thou makest thyself a wall against the sun, as if the inextricable toils of death had not yet taken thee.

Dante would have declared himself if a new appearance had not turned him. Midway on the burning path another crowd meets these. Shadows press forward, each snatching a hasty kiss, then away, as emmets peer one at another to spy their road. Before the first onward step, loud clamour rises. Those newly come shout Sodom and Gomorrah. The others name the cow Pasiphae entered, that the beast she wooed might rush unto her luxury. Then as cranes part, some toward ice, some toward sun, one crowd hastes off and the other advances, and they resume their first song weeping. The same spirit draws near again. Dante, who has twice noted their will, speaks. His limbs, neither crude nor in mature old age, still bear him fed with blood and sinew-strung. A dame on high winds this grace, that his mortal walks their realm. He asks who they are, and what multitude has passed behind, to stand recorded on his page. They stare like a mountain-bred man who enters city walls, then the amazement leaves. He who had questioned says those who do not proceed with them rebuke the crime for which Caesar heard the taunt of queen, and shout Sodom to aid the burning by their shame. Our sinning was hermaphrodite, but we broke the law of human kind, following like beasts, and record Pasiphae's name to our own disgrace. Time permits no roll of names. Of myself learn what thou wishest. Guinicelli I, who having truly sorrowed ere my last, already cleanse me.

Dante's joy is as the two sons gazing on their mother, rescued from Lycurgus, though more repressed. He hears the name of him who was a father to him, and to those his betters, in the sweet and pleasant rhymes of love. He goes long thoughtful, gazing, and only for the fire approaches not nearer. When his eyes are fed he devotes himself to Guinicelli's service. The older poet asks what cause impels that love. Those dulcet lays, Dante answers, shall make us love the very ink that traced them, as long as the beauty of our tongue does not fade. Brother, Guinicelli cries, and points at a shade before him: there is one whose mother speech owes him a fairer ornament. He stands without a rival in love ditties and tales of prose, and lets fools talk who prefer the songster of Limoges. Rumour confirms opinion before art or reason teaches; thus many cried up Guittone until truth vanquished numbers. If Dante has gained the cloister where Christ is Abbot, let him say one paternoster, as far as dwellers here still need, where power to sin no longer tempts. Then, to make way for the next, he vanishes through the fire as a fish glances diving to the deep. Dante draws onward to the spirit shown, and keeps gracious room for a name. Courtesy wins. I am Arnault. With songs, sorely lamenting his folly past, he wades this ford of fire and sees the day he hopes for smiling in his view. He prays, by the worth that guides them up the scale, that in time they remember his sufferings. With such words he disappears in the refining flame.