of St. Peter, and
those whom thou makest so afflicted."

Then he moved on, and I behind him kept.

CANTO II

THE ENTRANCE ON THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE ETERNAL WORLD, CONTINUED

[Dante, doubtful of his own powers, is discouraged. Virgil cheers
him by telling him that he has been sent to his aid by a blessed
Spirit from Heaven. Dante casts off fear, and the poets proceed.]

The day was going, and the dusky air was taking the living things that
are on earth from their fatigues, and I alone was preparing to sustain
the war alike of the road, and of the woe which the mind that errs not
shall retrace. O Muses, O lofty genius, now assist me! O mind that didst
inscribe that which I saw, here shall thy nobility appear! I began:--

"Poet, that guidest me, consider my virtue, if it be sufficient, ere to
the deep pass thou trustest me. Thou sayest that the parent of Silvius
while still corruptible went to the immortal world and was there in the
body. Wherefore if the Adversary of every ill was then courteous,
thinking on the high effect that should proceed from him, and on the Who
and the What,[11] it seemeth not unmeet to a man of understanding; for
in the empyreal heaven he had been chosen for father of revered Rome and
of her empire; both which (to say truth indeed) were ordained for the
holy place where the successor of the greater Peter has his seat.
Through this going, whereof thou givest him vaunt, he learned things
which were the cause of his victory and of the papal mantle! Afterward
the Chosen Vessel went thither to bring thence comfort to that faith
which is the beginning of the way of salvation. But I, why go I thither?
or who concedes it? I am not AEneas, I am not Paul; me worthy of this,
neither I nor others think; wherefore if I give myself up to go, I fear
lest the going may be mad. Thou art wise, thou understandest better than
I speak."

And as is he who unwills what he willed, and because of new thoughts
changes his design, so that he quite withdraws from beginning, such I
became on that dark hillside; wherefore in my thought I abandoned the
enterprise which had been so hasty in its beginning.

"If I have rightly understood thy speech," replied that shade of the
magnanimous one, "thy soul is hurt by cowardice, which oftentimes
encumbers a man so that it turns him back from honorable enterprise, as
false seeing doth a beast when it is startled. In order that thou loose
thee from this fear I