long;
For they have not offended grievously
With envious glances.  But the woe beneath
Urges my soul with more exceeding dread. 
That nether load already weighs me down.” 
     She thus:  “Who then amongst us here aloft
Hath brought thee, if thou weenest to return?”
     “He,” answer’d I, “who standeth mute beside me. 
I live:  of me ask therefore, chosen spirit,
If thou desire I yonder yet should move
For thee my mortal feet.” —­“Oh!” she replied,
“This is so strange a thing, it is great sign
That God doth love thee.  Therefore with thy prayer
Sometime assist me:  and by that I crave,
Which most thou covetest, that if thy feet
E’er tread on Tuscan soil, thou save my fame
Amongst my kindred.  Them shalt thou behold
With that vain multitude, who set their hope
On Telamone’s haven, there to fail
Confounded, more shall when the fancied stream
They sought of Dian call’d:  but they who lead
Their navies, more than ruin’d hopes shall mourn.”

CANTO XIV

“Say who is he around our mountain winds,
Or ever death has prun’d his wing for flight,
That opes his eyes and covers them at will?”
     “I know not who he is, but know thus much
He comes not singly.  Do thou ask of him,
For thou art nearer to him, and take heed
Accost him gently, so that he may speak.” 
     Thus on the right two Spirits bending each
Toward the other, talk’d of me, then both
Addressing me, their faces backward lean’d,
And thus the one began:  “O soul, who yet
Pent in the body, tendest towards the sky! 
For charity, we pray thee’ comfort us,
Recounting whence thou com’st, and who thou art: 
For thou dost make us at the favour shown thee
Marvel, as at a thing that ne’er hath been.” 
     “There stretches through the midst of Tuscany,
I straight began:  “a brooklet, whose well-head
Springs up in Falterona, with his race
Not satisfied, when he some hundred miles
Hath measur’d.  From his banks bring, I this frame. 
To tell you who I am were words misspent: 
For yet my name scarce sounds on rumour’s lip.” 
     “If well I do incorp’rate with my thought
The meaning of thy speech,” said he, who first
Addrest me, “thou dost speak of Arno’s wave.” 
     To whom the other:  “Why hath he conceal’d
The title of that river, as a man
Doth of some horrible thing?” The spirit, who
Thereof was question’d, did acquit him thus: 
“I know not:  but ’tis fitting well the name
Should perish of that vale; for from the source
Where teems so plenteously the Alpine steep
Maim’d of Pelorus, (that doth scarcely pass
Beyond that limit,) even to the point
Whereunto ocean is restor’d, what heaven
Drains from th’ exhaustless store for all earth’s streams,
Throughout the space is virtue worried down,
As ’twere a snake, by all, for mortal foe,