“God sees everything, and thy vision, blessed spirit, is in Him,” said I, “so that no wish can steal itself away from thee. Thy voice, then, that ever charms the heavens, with the song of those pious fires which make a cowl for themselves with their six wings,[1] why does it not satisfy my desires? Surely I should not wait for thy request if I in-theed myself, as thou thyself in-meest.”[2] “The greatest deep in which the water spreads,”[3] began then his words, “except of that sea which garlands the earth, between its discordant shores stretches so far counter to the sun, that it makes a meridian where first it was wont to make the horizon.[4] I was a dweller on the shore of that deep, between the Ebro and the Magra,[5] which, for a short way, divides the Genoese from the Tuscan. With almost the same sunset and the same sunrise sit Buggea and the city whence I was, which once made its harbor warm with its own blood.[6] That people to whom my name was known called me Folco, and this heaven is imprinted by me, as I was by it. For the daughter of Belus,[7] harmful alike to Sichaeus and Creusa, burned not more than I, so long as it befitted my hair;[8] nor she of Rhodopea who was deluded by Demophoon;[9] nor Alcides when he had enclosed Iole in his heart.[10] Yet one repents not here, but smiles, not for the fault which returns not to the memory, but for the power which ordained and foresaw. Here one gazes upon the art which adorns so great a work, and the good is discerned whereby the world above turns that below. [1] The Seraphim, who with their wings cover their faces. See Isaiah, vi. 2. [2] If I saw thee inwardly as thou seest me. Dante invents the words he uses here, and they are no less unfamiliar in Italian than in English. [3] The Mediterranean. [4] According to the geography of the time the Mediterranean stretched from east to west ninety degrees of longitude. [5] Between the Ebro in Spain and the Magra in Italy lies Marseilles, under almost the same meridian as Buggea (now Bougie) on the African coast. [6] When the fleet of Caesar defeated that of Pompey with its contingent of vessels and soldiers of Marseilles, B. C. 49. [7] Dido. [8] Till my hair grew thin and gray. [9] Phyllis, daughter of the king of Thrace, who hung herself when deserted by Demophoon, the son of Theseus. [10] The excess of the love of Hercules for Iole led to his death.