His aspect had bereft me of my sight, So that I turned me back unto my Teachers, Like one who goeth as his hearing guides him. And as, the harbinger of early dawn, The air of May doth move and breathe out fragrance, Impregnate all with herbage and with flowers, So did I feel a breeze strike in the midst My front, and felt the moving of the plumes That breathed around an odour of ambrosia; And heard it said: “Blessed are they whom grace So much illumines, that the love of taste Excites not in their breasts too great desire, Hungering at all times so far as is just.” Purgatorio: Canto XXV Now was it the ascent no hindrance brooked, Because the sun had his meridian circle To Taurus left, and night to Scorpio; Wherefore as doth a man who tarries not, But goes his way, whate’er to him appear, If of necessity the sting transfix him, In this wise did we enter through the gap, Taking the stairway, one before the other, Which by its narrowness divides the climbers. And as the little stork that lifts its wing With a desire to fly, and does not venture To leave the nest, and lets it downward droop, Even such was I, with the desire of asking Kindled and quenched, unto the motion coming He makes who doth address himself to speak. Not for our pace, though rapid it might be, My father sweet forbore, but said: “Let fly The bow of speech thou to the barb hast drawn.” With confidence I opened then my mouth, And I began: “How can one meagre grow There where the need of nutriment applies not?” “If thou wouldst call to mind how Meleager Was wasted by the wasting of a brand, This would not,” said he, “be to thee so sour; And wouldst thou think how at each tremulous motion Trembles within a mirror your own image; That which seems hard would mellow seem to thee. But that thou mayst content thee in thy wish Lo Statius here; and him I call and pray He now will be the healer of thy wounds.” “If I unfold to him the eternal vengeance,” Responded Statius, “where thou present art, Be my excuse that I can naught deny thee.” Then he began: “Son, if these words of mine Thy mind doth contemplate and doth receive, They’ll be thy light unto the How thou sayest. The perfect blood, which never is drunk up Into the thirsty veins, and which remaineth Like food that from the table thou removest, Takes in the heart for all the human members Virtue informative, as being that Which to be changed to them goes through the veins Again digest, descends it where ’tis better Silent to be than say; and then drops thence Upon another’s blood in natural vase. There one together with the other mingles, One to be passive meant, the other active By reason of the perfect place it springs from; And being conjoined, begins to operate, Coagulating first, then vivifying What for its matter it had made consistent.