X. The Needle's Eye. The First Circle: The Proud. The Sculptures on the Wall.

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      When we had crossed the threshold of the door

       Which the perverted love of souls disuses,

       Because it makes the crooked way seem straight,

      Re-echoing I heard it closed again;

       And if I had turned back mine eyes upon it,

       What for my failing had been fit excuse?

      We mounted upward through a rifted rock,

       Which undulated to this side and that,

       Even as a wave receding and advancing.

      "Here it behoves us use a little art,"

       Began my Leader, "to adapt ourselves

       Now here, now there, to the receding side."

      And this our footsteps so infrequent made,

       That sooner had the moon's decreasing disk

       Regained its bed to sink again to rest,

      Than we were forth from out that needle's eye;

       But when we free and in the open were,

       There where the mountain backward piles itself,

      I wearied out, and both of us uncertain

       About our way, we stopped upon a plain

       More desolate than roads across the deserts.

      From where its margin borders on the void,

       To foot of the high bank that ever rises,

       A human body three times told would measure;

      And far as eye of mine could wing its flight,

       Now on the left, and on the right flank now,

       The same this cornice did appear to me.

      Thereon our feet had not been moved as yet,

       When I perceived the embankment round about,

       Which all right of ascent had interdicted,

      To be of marble white, and so adorned

       With sculptures, that not only Polycletus,

       But Nature's self, had there been put to shame.

      The Angel, who came down to earth with tidings

       Of peace, that had been wept for many a year,

       And opened Heaven from its long interdict,

      In front of us appeared so truthfully

       There sculptured in a gracious attitude,

       He did not seem an image that is silent.

      One would have sworn that he was saying, "Ave;"

       For she was there in effigy portrayed

       Who turned the key to ope the exalted love,

      And in her mien this language had impressed,

       "Ecce ancilla Dei," as distinctly

       As any figure stamps itself in wax.

      "Keep not thy mind upon one place alone,"

       The gentle Master said, who had me standing

       Upon that side where people have their hearts;

      Whereat I moved mine eyes, and I beheld

       In rear of Mary, and upon that side

       Where he was standing who conducted me,

      Another story on the rock imposed;

       Wherefore I passed Virgilius and drew near,

       So that before mine eyes it might be set.

      There sculptured in the selfsame marble were

       The cart and oxen, drawing the holy ark,

       Wherefore one dreads an office not appointed.

      People appeared in front, and all of them

       In seven choirs divided, of two senses

       Made one say "No," the other, "Yes, they sing."

      Likewise unto the smoke of the frankincense,

       Which there was imaged forth, the eyes and nose

       Were in the yes and no discordant made.

      Preceded there the vessel benedight,

       Dancing with girded loins, the humble Psalmist,

       And more and less than King was he in this.

      Opposite, represented at the window

       Of a great palace, Michal looked upon him,

       Even as a woman scornful and afflicted.

      I moved my feet from where I had been standing,

       To examine near at hand another story,

       Which after Michal glimmered white upon me.

      There the high glory of the Roman Prince

       Was chronicled, whose great beneficence

       Moved Gregory to his great victory;

      'Tis of the Emperor Trajan I am speaking;

       And a poor widow at his bridle stood,

       In attitude of weeping and of grief.

      Around about him seemed it thronged and full

       Of cavaliers, and the eagles in the gold

       Above them visibly in the wind were moving.

      The wretched woman in the midst of these

       Seemed to be saying: "Give me vengeance, Lord,

       For my dead son, for whom my heart is breaking."

      And