Beatrice, in a milder tone, said to the angels, “This man, when he proposed to himself in his youth to lead a new life, was of a truth so gifted, that every good habit ought to have thrived with him; but the richer the soil, the greater peril of weeds.  For a while, the innocent light of my countenance drew him the right way; but when I quitted mortal life, he took away his thoughts from remembrance of me, and gave himself to others.  When I had risen from flesh to spirit, and increased in worth and beauty, then did I sink in his estimation, and he turned into other paths, and pursued false images of good that never keep their promise.  In vain I obtained from Heaven the power of interfering in his behalf, and endeavoured to affect him with it night and day.  So little was he concerned, and into such depths he fell, that nothing remained but to shew him the state of the condemned; and therefore I went to their outer regions, and commended him with tears to the guide that brought him hither.  The decrees of Heaven would be nought, if Lethe could be passed, and the fruit beyond it tasted, without any payment of remorse.[55]

“O thou,” she continued, addressing herself to Dante, “who standest on the other side of the holy stream, say, have I not spoken truth?”

Dante was so confused and penitent, that the words failed as they passed his lips.

“What could induce thee,” resumed his monitress, “when I had given thee aims indeed, to abandon them for objects that could end in nothing?”

Dante said, “Thy face was taken from me, and the presence of false pleasure led me astray.”

“Never didst thou behold,” cried the maiden, “loveliness like mine; and if bliss failed thee because of my death, how couldst thou be allured by mortal inferiority?  That first blow should have taught thee to disdain all perishable things, and aspire after the soul that had gone before thee.  How could thy spirit endure to stoop to further chances, or to a childish girl, or any other fleeting vanity?  The bird that is newly out of the nest may be twice or thrice tempted by the snare; but in vain, surely, is the net spread in sight of one that is older."[56]

Dante stood as silent and abashed as a sorry child.

“If but to hear me,” said Beatrice, “thus afflicts thee, lift up thy beard, and see what sight can do.”

Dante, though feeling the sting intended by the word “beard,” did as he was desired.  The angels had ceased to scatter their clouds of flowers about the maiden; and be beheld her, though still beneath her veil, as far surpassing her former self in loveliness, as that self had surpassed others.  The sight pierced him with such pangs, that the more he had loved any thing else, the more he now loathed it; and he fell senseless to the ground.