keep their
promise. In vain I obtained from Heaven the power of interfering in his
behalf, and endeavoured to affect him with it night and day. So little
was he concerned, and into such depths he fell, that nothing remained
but to shew him the state of the condemned; and therefore I went to
their outer regions, and commended him with tears to the guide that
brought him hither. The decrees of Heaven would be nought, if Lethe
could be passed, and the fruit beyond it tasted, without any payment of
remorse.[55]

"O thou," she continued, addressing herself to Dante, "who standest on
the other side of the holy stream, say, have I not spoken truth?"

Dante was so confused and penitent, that the words failed as they passed
his lips.

"What could induce thee," resumed his monitress, "when I had given thee
aims indeed, to abandon them for objects that could end in nothing?"

Dante said, "Thy face was taken from me, and the presence of false
pleasure led me astray."

"Never didst thou behold," cried the maiden, "loveliness like mine; and
if bliss failed thee because of my death, how couldst thou be allured by
mortal inferiority? That first blow should have taught thee to disdain
all perishable things, and aspire after the soul that had gone before
thee. How could thy spirit endure to stoop to further chances, or to a
childish girl, or any other fleeting vanity? The bird that is newly out
of the nest may be twice or thrice tempted by the snare; but in vain,
surely, is the net spread in sight of one that is older."[56]

Dante stood as silent and abashed as a sorry child.

"If but to hear me," said Beatrice, "thus afflicts thee, lift up thy
beard, and see what sight can do."

Dante, though feeling the sting intended by the word "beard," did as he
was desired. The angels had ceased to scatter their clouds of flowers
about the maiden; and be beheld her, though still beneath her veil, as
far surpassing her former self in loveliness, as that self had surpassed
others. The sight pierced him with such pangs, that the more he had
loved any thing else, the more he now loathed it; and he fell senseless
to the ground.

When he recovered his senses, he found himself in the hands of the lady
he had first seen in the place, who bidding him keep firm hold of her,
drew him into the river Lethe, and so through and across it to the other
side, speeding as she went like a weaver's shuttle, and immersing him
when she arrived, the angels all