the son the mother seems proud, so
she seemed to me; for somewhat bitter tasteth the savor of stern pity.

She was silent, and the angels sang of a sudden, "In te, Domine,
speravi" [In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust];[27] but beyond "pedes
meos" [my feet] they did not pass. Even as the snow, among the living
rafters upon the back of Italy, is congealed, blown, and packed by
Slavonian winds, then melting trickles through itself, if only the land
that loses shadow[28] breathe so that it seems a fire that melts the
candle: so was I without tears and sighs before the song of those who
time their notes after the notes of the eternal circles. But when I
heard in their sweet accords their compassion for me, more than if they
had said, "Lady, why dost thou so confound him?" the ice that was bound
tight around my heart became breath and water, and with anguish poured
from my breast through my mouth and eyes.

She, still standing motionless on the aforesaid side of the chariot,
then turned her words to those pious[29] beings thus:--"Ye watch in the
eternal day, so that nor night nor slumber robs from you one step the
world may make along its ways; wherefore my reply is with greater care,
that he who is weeping yonder may understand me, so that fault and grief
may be of one measure. Not only through the working of the great
wheels,[30] which direct every seed to some end according as the stars
are its companions, but through largess of divine graces, which have for
their rain vapors so lofty that our sight goes not near thereto,--this
man was such in his new life, virtually, that every right habit would
have made admirable proof in him. But so much the more malign and more
savage becomes the land ill-sown and untilled, as it has more of good
terrestrial vigor. Some time did I sustain him with my face; showing my
youthful eyes to him, I led him with me turned in right direction. So
soon as I was upon the threshold of my second age, and had changed life,
this one took himself from me, and gave himself to others. When from
flesh to spirit I had ascended, and beauty and virtue were increased in
me, I was less dear and less pleasing to him; and he turned his steps
along a way not true, following false images of good, which pay no
promise in full. Nor did it avail me to win by entreaty[31] inspirations
with which, both in dream and otherwise, I called him back; so little
did he heed them. So low he fell that all means for his salvatio