“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] Charlemagne and Orlando swept away together, pursued by the poet’s eyes.  Guglielmo[24] followed, and Rinaldo, and Godfrey of Bouillon, and Robert Guiscard of Naples; and the light of Cacciaguida himself darted back to its place, and, uttering another sort of voice, began shewing how sweet a singer he too was amidst the glittering choir.

Dante turned to share the joy with Beatrice, and, by the lovely paling of her cheek, like a maiden’s when it delivers itself of the burden of a blush,[25] knew that he was in another and whiter star.  It was the planet Jupiter, the abode of blessed Administrators of Justice.