No longer stainless.  Sin alone is that,
  Which doth disfranchise him, and make unlike
  To the chief good; for that its light in him
  Is darkened.  And to dignity thus lost
  Is no return; unless, where guilt makes void,
  He for ill pleasure pay with equal pain. 
  Your nature, which entirely in its seed
  Transgressed, from these distinctions fell, no less
  Than from its state in Paradise; nor means
  Found on recovery (search all methods out
  As strictly as thou may) save one of these,
  The only fords were left through which to wade: 
  Either, that God had of his courtesy
  Released him merely; or else, man himself
  For his own folly by himself atoned. 
    “Fix now thine eye, intently as thou canst,
  On the everlasting counsel; and explore,
  Instructed by my words, the dread abyss. 
    “Man in himself had ever lacked the means
  Of satisfaction, for he could not stoop
  Obeying, in humility so low,
  As high, he, disobeying, thought to soar: 
  And, for this reason, he had vainly tried,
  Out of his own sufficiency, to pay
  The rigid satisfaction.  Then behoved
  That God should by his own ways lead him back
  Unto the life, from whence he fell, restored: 
  By both his ways, I mean, or one alone. 
  But since the deed is ever prized the more. 
  The more the doer’s good intent appears;
  Goodness celestial, whose broad signature
  Is on the universe, of all its ways
  To raise ye up, was fain to leave out none. 
  Nor aught so vast or so magnificent,
  Either for him who gave or who received,
  Between the last night and the primal day,
  Was or can be.  For God more bounty showed,
  Giving himself to make man capable
  Of his return to life, than had the terms
  Been mere and unconditional release. 
  And for his justice, every method else
  Were all too scant, had not the Son of God
  Humbled himself to put on mortal flesh.”

* * * * *

    THE TRIUMPH OF CHRIST.

    CANTO XIV.

    And lo! forthwith there rose up round about
  A lustre, over that already there;
  Of equal clearness, like the brightening up
  Of the horizon.  As at evening hour
  Of twilight, new appearances through heaven
  Peer with faint glimmer, doubtfully descried;
  So, there, new substances methought, began
  To rise in view beyond the other twain,
  And wheeling, sweep their ampler circuit wide. 
    O genuine glitter of eternal Beam! 
  With what a sudden whiteness did it flow,
  O’erpowering vision in me.  But so fair,
  So passing lovely, Beatrice showed,
  Mind cannot follow it, nor words express
  Her infinite sweetness.  Thence mine eyes regained
  Power to look up; and I beheld myself,
  Sole with my lady, to more lofty bliss
  Translated:  for the star, with warmer