Purgatorio: Canto VIII

Purgatorio: Canto VIII


'Twas now the hour that turneth back desire
  In those who sail the sea, and melts the heart,
  The day they've said to their sweet friends farewell,

And the new pilgrim penetrates with love,
  If he doth hear from far away a bell
  That seemeth to deplore the dying day,

When I began to make of no avail
  My hearing, and to watch one of the souls
  Uprisen, that begged attention with its hand.

It joined and lifted upward both its palms,
  Fixing its eyes upon the orient,
  As if it said to God, "Naught else I care for."

"Te lucis ante" so devoutly issued
  Forth from its mouth, and with such dulcet notes,
  It made me issue forth from my own mind.

And then the others, sweetly and devoutly,
  Accompanied it through all the hymn entire,
  Having their eyes on the supernal wheels.

Here, Reader, fix thine eyes well on the truth,
  For now indeed so subtile is the veil,
  Surely to penetrate within is easy.

I saw that army of the gentle-born
  Thereafterward in silence upward gaze,
  As if in expectation, pale and humble;

And from on high come forth and down descend,
  I saw two Angels with two flaming swords,
  Truncated and deprived of their points.