“Ladies, that understand the lore of love?"[46]

“I am one,” replied Dante, “who writes as Love would have him, heeding no manner but his dictator’s, and uttering simply what he suggests."[47]

“Ay, that is the sweet new style,” returned Buonaggiunta; “and I now see what it was that hindered the notary, and Guittone, and myself, from hitting the right natural point.”  And here he ceased speaking, looking like one contented to have ascertained a truth.[48]

The whole multitude then, except Forese, skimmed away like cranes, swift alike through eagerness and through leanness.  Forese lingered a moment to have a parting word with his friend, and to prophesy the violent end of the chief of his family, Corso, run away with and dragged at the heels of his horse faster and faster, till the frenzied animal smites him dead.  Having given the poet this information, the prophet speeded after the others.

The companions now came to a second fruit-tree, to which a multitude were in vain lifting up their hands, just as children lift them to a man who tantalises them with shewing something which he withholds; but a voice out of a thicket by the road-side warned the travellers not to stop, telling them that the tree was an offset from that of which Eve tasted.  “Call to mind,” said the voice, “those creatures of the clouds, the Centaurs, whose feasting cost them their lives.  Remember the Hebrews, how they dropped away from the ranks of Gideon to quench their effeminate thirst."[49]

The poets proceeded, wrapt in thought, till they heard another voice of a nature that made Dante start and shake as if he had been some paltry hackney.

“Of what value is thought,” said the voice, “if it lose its way?  The path lies hither.”

Dante turned toward the voice, and beheld a shape glowing red as in a furnace, with a visage too dazzling to be looked upon.  It met him, nevertheless, as he drew nigh, with an air from the fanning of its wings fresh as the first breathing of the wind on a May morning, and fragrant as all its flowers; and Dante lost the sixth letter on his forehead, and ascended with the two other poets into the seventh and last circle of the mountain.

This circle was all in flames, except a narrow path on the edge of its precipice, along which the pilgrims walked.  A great wind from outside of the precipice kept the flames from raging beyond the path; and in the midst of the fire went spirits expiating the sin of Incontinence.  They sang the hymn beginning “God of consummate mercy!"[50] Dante was compelled to divide his attention between his own footsteps and theirs, in order to move without destruction.  At the close of the hymn they cried aloud, “I know not a man!"[51] and then recommenced it; after which they again cried aloud, saying, “Diana ran to the wood, and drove Calisto out of it, because she knew the poison of Venus!” And then again they sang the hymn, and then extolled the memories of chaste women and husbands; and so they went on without ceasing, as long as their time of trial lasted.