XXIII. Forese. Reproof of immodest Florentine Women.

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      The while among the verdant leaves mine eyes

       I riveted, as he is wont to do

       Who wastes his life pursuing little birds,

      My more than Father said unto me: "Son,

       Come now; because the time that is ordained us

       More usefully should be apportioned out."

      I turned my face and no less soon my steps

       Unto the Sages, who were speaking so

       They made the going of no cost to me;

      And lo! were heard a song and a lament,

       "Labia mea, Domine," in fashion

       Such that delight and dolence it brought forth.

      "O my sweet Father, what is this I hear?"

       Began I; and he answered: "Shades that go

       Perhaps the knot unloosing of their debt."

      In the same way that thoughtful pilgrims do,

       Who, unknown people on the road o'ertaking,

       Turn themselves round to them, and do not stop,

      Even thus, behind us with a swifter motion

       Coming and passing onward, gazed upon us

       A crowd of spirits silent and devout.

      Each in his eyes was dark and cavernous,

       Pallid in face, and so emaciate

       That from the bones the skin did shape itself.

      I do not think that so to merest rind

       Could Erisichthon have been withered up

       By famine, when most fear he had of it.

      Thinking within myself I said: "Behold,

       This is the folk who lost Jerusalem,

       When Mary made a prey of her own son."

      Their sockets were like rings without the gems;

       Whoever in the face of men reads 'omo'

       Might well in these have recognised the 'm.'

      Who would believe the odour of an apple,

       Begetting longing, could consume them so,

       And that of water, without knowing how?

      I still was wondering what so famished them,

       For the occasion not yet manifest

       Of their emaciation and sad squalor;

      And lo! from out the hollow of his head

       His eyes a shade turned on me, and looked keenly;

       Then cried aloud: "What grace to me is this?"

      Never should I have known him by his look;

       But in his voice was evident to me

       That which his aspect had suppressed within it.

      This spark within me wholly re-enkindled

       My recognition of his altered face,

       And I recalled the features of Forese.

      "Ah, do not look at this dry leprosy,"

       Entreated he, "which doth my skin discolour,

       Nor at default of flesh that I may have;

      But tell me truth of thee, and who are those

       Two souls, that yonder make for thee an escort;

       Do not delay in speaking unto me."

      "That face of thine, which dead I once bewept,

       Gives me for weeping now no lesser grief,"

       I answered him, "beholding it so changed!

      But tell me, for God's sake, what thus denudes you?

       Make me not speak while I am marvelling,

       For ill speaks he who's full of other longings."

      And he to me: "From the eternal council

       Falls power into the water and the tree

       Behind us left, whereby I grow so thin.

      All of this people who lamenting sing,

       For following beyond measure appetite

       In hunger and thirst are here re-sanctified.

      Desire to eat and drink enkindles in us

       The scent that issues from the apple-tree,

       And from the spray that sprinkles o'er the verdure;

      And not a single time alone, this ground

       Encompassing, is refreshed our pain,—

       I say our pain, and ought to say our solace,—

      For the same wish doth lead us to the tree

       Which led the Christ rejoicing to say 'Eli,'

       When with his veins he liberated us."

      And I to him: "Forese, from that day

       When for a better life thou changedst worlds,

       Up to this time five years have not rolled round.

      If sooner were the power exhausted in thee

       Of sinning more, than thee the hour surprised

       Of that good sorrow which to God reweds us,

      How hast thou come up hitherward already?

       I thought to find thee down there underneath,

       Where time for time doth restitution make."

      And he to me: "Thus speedily has led me

       To drink of the sweet wormwood of these torments,

       My Nella with her overflowing tears;

      She with her prayers devout and with her sighs

       Has drawn me from the coast where one where one awaits,

       And from the other circles set me free.

      So much more dear and pleasing is to God

       My little widow, whom so much I loved,

       As in good works she is the more alone;

      For the Barbagia of Sardinia

       By far more modest in its women is

       Than the Barbagia I have left her in.

      O brother sweet, what wilt thou have me say?

       A future time is in my sight already,

       To which this hour will not be very old,

      When from the pulpit shall be interdicted

       To the unblushing womankind of Florence

       To go about displaying breast and paps.

      What savages were e'er, what Saracens,

       Who stood in need, to make them covered go,