To such, as sue for heav’n’s sweet sake, and not
To those who in respect of kindred claim,
Or on more vile allowance.  Mortal flesh
Is grown so dainty, good beginnings last not
From the oak’s birth, unto the acorn’s setting. 
His convent Peter founded without gold
Or silver; I with pray’rs and fasting mine;
And Francis his in meek humility. 
And if thou note the point, whence each proceeds,
Then look what it hath err’d to, thou shalt find
The white grown murky.  Jordan was turn’d back;
And a less wonder, then the refluent sea,
May at God’s pleasure work amendment here.”

So saying, to his assembly back he drew: 
And they together cluster’d into one,
Then all roll’d upward like an eddying wind.

The sweet dame beckon’d me to follow them: 
And, by that influence only, so prevail’d
Over my nature, that no natural motion,
Ascending or descending here below,
Had, as I mounted, with my pennon vied.

So, reader, as my hope is to return
Unto the holy triumph, for the which
I ofttimes wail my sins, and smite my breast,
Thou hadst been longer drawing out and thrusting
Thy finger in the fire, than I was, ere
The sign, that followeth Taurus, I beheld,
And enter’d its precinct.  O glorious stars! 
O light impregnate with exceeding virtue! 
To whom whate’er of genius lifteth me
Above the vulgar, grateful I refer;
With ye the parent of all mortal life
Arose and set, when I did first inhale
The Tuscan air; and afterward, when grace
Vouchsaf’d me entrance to the lofty wheel
That in its orb impels ye, fate decreed
My passage at your clime.  To you my soul
Devoutly sighs, for virtue even now
To meet the hard emprize that draws me on.

“Thou art so near the sum of blessedness,”
Said Beatrice, “that behooves thy ken
Be vigilant and clear.  And, to this end,
Or even thou advance thee further, hence
Look downward, and contemplate, what a world
Already stretched under our feet there lies: 
So as thy heart may, in its blithest mood,
Present itself to the triumphal throng,
Which through the’ etherial concave comes rejoicing.”

I straight obey’d; and with mine eye return’d
Through all the seven spheres, and saw this globe
So pitiful of semblance, that perforce
It moved my smiles:  and him in truth I hold
For wisest, who esteems it least:  whose thoughts
Elsewhere are fix’d, him worthiest call and best. 
I saw the daughter of Latona shine
Without the shadow, whereof late I deem’d
That dense and rare were cause.  Here I sustain’d
The visage, Hyperion! of thy sun;
And mark’d, how near him with their circle, round
Move Maia and Dione; here discern’d
Jove’s tempering ’twixt his sire and son; and hence
Their changes and their various aspects
Distinctly scann’d.  Nor might I not descry
Of all the seven, how bulky each, how swift;
Nor of their several distances not learn. 
This petty area (o’er the which we stride
So fiercely), as along the eternal twins
I wound my way, appear’d before me all,
Forth from the havens stretch’d unto the hills. 
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes return’d.