me.” “And if thou canst not remember it,” smiling she replied, “now bethink thee how this day thou hast drunk of Lethe. And if from smoke fire be inferred, such oblivion clearly proves fault in thy will elsewhere intent.[15] Truly my words shall henceforth be naked so far as it shall be befitting to uncover them to thy rude sight.” [1] Are unable to speak with distinct words. [2] The dragon. [3] “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not.”—Revelation, xvii. 8. [4] According to a belief, which the old commentators report as commonly held by the Florentines, if a murderer could contrive within nine days of the murder to eat a sop of bread dipped in wine, above the grave of his victim, he would escape from the vengeance of the family of the murdered man. [5] The meaning is that an Emperor shall come, who shall restore the Church from its captivity, and reestablish the Divine order upon earth, in rise mutually dependent and severally independent authority of Church and Empire. [6] This prophecy is too obscure to admit of a sure interpretation. Five hundred, ten, and five, in Roman numerals, give the letters D X V; which by transposition form the word Dux, a leader. [7] The harlot, who had no right in the car, but had stolen her place there, or, in plain words, the Popes who by corruption had secured this papal throne. [8] Obscure as the oracles of Thiemis or the enigmas of the Sphinx. [9] According to a misreading of a verse in Ovid’s Metam., vii. 759, the Naiades solved the riddles of the oracles, at which Themis, offended, sent forth a wild beast to ravage the flocks and fields. [10] Robs it as Adam did, splinters it as the Emperors did. [11] A river of Tuscany, whose waters have a petrifying quality. [12] Darkening thy mind as the blood of Pyramus dyed the mulberry. [13] If not clearly inscribed, at least so imprinted on the mind, that, like the palm on the pilgrim’s staff, it may be a sign of where thou hast been and of what thou hast seen. [14] How far its doctrine is from my teaching. [15] The having been obliged to drink of Lethe is the proof that thou hadst sin to he forgotten, and that thy will had turned thee to other things than me. And more coruscant, and with slower steps, the sun was holding the circle of the meridian, which is set here or there according to the aspect,[1] when even as he, who goes before a troop as guide, stops if he find some strange thing on his track, the seven ladies stopped at the edge of a pale shade, such as beneath green leaves and black boughs the Alp casts over its cold streams. In front of them, it seemed to me I saw Euphrates and Tigris issue from one fountain, and, like friends, part slow from one another. [1] Which shifts as seen from one place or another.