Not yet was her mouth closed when at my side a Lady[1] appeared, holy, and ready to make her confused. “O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?” she sternly said; and he came with his eyes fixed only on that modest one. She took hold of the other, and in front she opened her, rending her garments, and showed me her belly; this waked me with the stench that issued from it. I turned my eyes, and the good Virgil said, “At least three calls have I given thee; arise and come; let us find the opening through which thou mayst enter.” [1] This lady seems to be the type of the conscience, virtus intellectualis, that calls reason to rescue the tempted soul. Up I rose, and now were all the circles of the sacred mountain full of the high day, and we went on with the new sun at our backs. Following him, I bore my forehead like one who has it laden with thought, and makes of himself the half arch of a bridge, when I heard, “Come ye! here is the passage,” spoken in a mode soft and benign, such as is not heard in this mortal region. With open wings, which seemed of a swan, he who thus had spoken to us turned us upward between the two walls of the hard rock. He moved his feathers then, and fanned us, affirming qui lugent[1] to be blessed, for they shall have their souls mistresses of consolation.[2] “What ails thee that ever on the ground thou lookest?” my Guide began to say to me, both of us having mounted up a little from the Angel. “With such apprehension a recent vision makes me go, which bends me to itself so that I cannot from the thought withdraw me.” “Hast thou seen,” said he, “that ancient sorceress who above us henceforth is alone lamented? Hast thou seen how from her man is unbound? Let it suffice thee, and strike thy heels on the ground;[3] turn thine eyes to the lure that the eternal King whirls with the great circles.” [1] “They that mourn.” [2] The meaning seems to be, “they shall be possessed of comfort.” Donne (i.e.”mistresses ) is a rhyme-word, and affords an instance of a straining of the meaning compelled by the rhyme. [3] Hasten thy steps.