And he who wakes abhorreth what he sees,
  So all unconscious is his sudden waking,
  Until the judgment cometh to his aid,

So from before mine eyes did Beatrice
  Chase every mote with radiance of her own,
  That cast its light a thousand miles and more.

Whence better after than before I saw,
  And in a kind of wonderment I asked
  About a fourth light that I saw with us.

And said my Lady: "There within those rays
  Gazes upon its Maker the first soul
  That ever the first virtue did create."

Even as the bough that downward bends its top
  At transit of the wind, and then is lifted
  By its own virtue, which inclines it upward,

Likewise did I, the while that she was speaking,
  Being amazed, and then I was made bold
  By a desire to speak wherewith I burned.

And I began: "O apple, that mature
  Alone hast been produced, O ancient father,
  To whom each wife is daughter and daughter-in-law,

Devoutly as I can I supplicate thee
  That thou wouldst speak to me; thou seest my wish;
  And I, to hear thee quickly, speak it not."

Sometimes an animal, when covered, struggles
  So that his impulse needs must be apparent,
  By reason of the wrappage following it;

And in like manner the primeval soul
  Made clear to me athwart its covering
  How jubilant it was to give me pleasure.

Then breathed: "Without thy uttering it to me,
  Thine inclination better I discern
  Than thou whatever thing is surest to thee;

For I behold it in the truthful mirror,
  That of Himself all things parhelion makes,
  And none makes Him parhelion of itself.

Thou fain wouldst hear how long ago God placed me
  Within the lofty garden, where this Lady
  Unto so long a stairway thee disposed.

And how long to mine eyes it was a pleasure,
  And of the great disdain the proper cause,
  And the language that I used and that I made.

Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree
  Not in itself was cause of so great exile,
  But solely the o'erstepping of the bounds.

There, whence thy Lady moved Virgilius,
  Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits
  Made by the sun, this Council I desired;

And him I saw return to all the lights
  Of his highway nine hundred times and thirty,
  Whilst I upon the earth was tarrying.

The language that I spake was quite extinct
  Before that in the work interminable
  The people under Nimrod were employed;

For nevermore result of reasoning
  (Because of human pleasure that doth change,
  Obedient to the heavens) was durable.

A natural action is it that man speaks;
  But whether thus or thus, doth nature leave
  To your own art, as seemeth best to you.

Ere I descended to the infernal anguish,
  'El' was on earth the name of the Chief Good,
  From whom comes all the joy that wraps me round

'Eli' he then was called, and that is proper,
  Because the use of men is like a leaf
  On bough, which goeth and another cometh.

Upon the mount that highest o'er the wave
  Rises was I, in life or pure or sinful,
  From the first hour to that which is the second,

As the sun changes quadrant, to the sixth."