第86章 Purgatorio: Canto XXIX(2)

And I beheld the flamelets onward go, Leaving behind themselves the air depicted, And they of trailing pennons had the semblance, So that it overhead remained distinct With sevenfold lists, all of them of the colours Whence the sun's bow is made, and Delia's girdle.

These standards to the rearward longer were Than was my sight; and, as it seemed to me, Ten paces were the outermost apart.

Under so fair a heaven as I describe The four and twenty Elders, two by two, Came on incoronate with flower-de-luce.

They all of them were singing: "Blessed thou Among the daughters of Adam art, and blessed For evermore shall be thy loveliness."

After the flowers and other tender grasses In front of me upon the other margin Were disencumbered of that race elect, Even as in heaven star followeth after star, There came close after them four animals, Incoronate each one with verdant leaf.

Plumed with six wings was every one of them, The plumage full of eyes; the eyes of Argus If they were living would be such as these.

Reader! to trace their forms no more I waste My rhymes; for other spendings press me so, That I in this cannot be prodigal.

But read Ezekiel, who depicteth them As he beheld them from the region cold Coming with cloud, with whirlwind, and with fire;

And such as thou shalt find them in his pages, Such were they here; saving that in their plumage John is with me, and differeth from him.

The interval between these four contained A chariot triumphal on two wheels, Which by a Griffin's neck came drawn along;

And upward he extended both his wings Between the middle list and three and three, So that he injured none by cleaving it.

So high they rose that they were lost to sight;

His limbs were gold, so far as he was bird, And white the others with vermilion mingled.

Not only Rome with no such splendid car E'er gladdened Africanus, or Augustus, But poor to it that of the Sun would be,--That of the Sun, which swerving was burnt up At the importunate orison of Earth, When Jove was so mysteriously just.

Three maidens at the right wheel in a circle Came onward dancing; one so very red That in the fire she hardly had been noted.

The second was as if her flesh and bones Had all been fashioned out of emerald;

The third appeared as snow but newly fallen.

And now they seemed conducted by the white, Now by the red, and from the song of her The others took their step, or slow or swift.

Upon the left hand four made holiday Vested in purple, following the measure Of one of them with three eyes m her head.

In rear of all the group here treated of Two old men I beheld, unlike in habit, But like in gait, each dignified and grave.

One showed himself as one of the disciples Of that supreme Hippocrates, whom nature Made for the animals she holds most dear;

Contrary care the other manifested, With sword so shining and so sharp, it caused Terror to me on this side of the river.

Thereafter four I saw of humble aspect, And behind all an aged man alone Walking in sleep with countenance acute.

And like the foremost company these seven Were habited; yet of the flower-de-luce No garland round about the head they wore, But of the rose, and other flowers vermilion;

At little distance would the sight have sworn That all were in a flame above their brows.

And when the car was opposite to me Thunder was heard; and all that folk august Seemed to have further progress interdicted, There with the vanward ensigns standing still.