so purely, and loved him so well.

"Too plainly, my father," said Dante, "do I see the time coming, when a
blow is to be struck me, heaviest ever to the man that is not true to
himself. For which reason it is fit that I so far arm myself beforehand,
that in losing the spot dearest to me on earth, I do not let my verses
deprive me of every other refuge. Now I have been down below through the
region whose grief is without end; and I have scaled the mountain from
the top of which I was lifted by my lady's eyes; and I have come thus
far through heaven, from luminary to luminary; and in the course of this
my pilgrimage I have heard things which, if I tell again, may bitterly
disrelish with many. Yet, on the other hand, if I prove but a timid
friend to truth, I fear I shall not survive with the generations by whom
the present times will be called times of old."

The light that enclosed the treasure which its descendant had found in
heaven, first flashed at this speech like a golden mirror against the
sun, and then it replied thus:

"Let the consciences blush at thy words that have reason to blush. Do
thou, far from shadow of misrepresentation, make manifest all which thou
hast seen, and let the sore places be galled that deserve it. Thy bitter
truths shall carry with them vital nourishment--thy voice, as the wind
does, shall smite loudest the loftiest summits; and no little shall that
redound to thy praise. It is for this reason that, in all thy journey,
thou hast been shewn none but spirits of note, since little heed would
have been taken of such as excite doubt by their obscurity."

The spirit of Cacciaguida now relapsed into the silent joy of its
reflections, and the poet was standing absorbed in the mingled feelings
of his own, when Beatrice said to him, "Change the current of thy
thoughts. Consider how near I am in heaven to one that repayeth every
wrong."

Dante turned at the sound of this comfort, and felt no longer any other
wish than to look upon her eyes; but she said, with a smile, "Turn thee
round again, and attend. I am not thy only Paradise." And Dante again
turned, and saw his ancestor prepared to say more.

Cacciaguida bade him look again on the Cross, and he should see various
spirits, as he named them, flash over it like lightning; and they did
so. That of Joshua, which was first mentioned, darted along the Cross
in a stream. The light of Judas Maccabeus went spinning, as if joy had
scourged it.[23] C