Innocence Once Lost - Religious Classics Collection. Джон Мильтон

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      Hence from the hour that Juvenal descended

       Among us into the infernal Limbo,

       Who made apparent to me thy affection,

      My kindliness towards thee was as great

       As ever bound one to an unseen person,

       So that these stairs will now seem short to me.

      But tell me, and forgive me as a friend,

       If too great confidence let loose the rein,

       And as a friend now hold discourse with me;

      How was it possible within thy breast

       For avarice to find place, 'mid so much wisdom

       As thou wast filled with by thy diligence?"

      These words excited Statius at first

       Somewhat to laughter; afterward he answered:

       "Each word of thine is love's dear sign to me.

      Verily oftentimes do things appear

       Which give fallacious matter to our doubts,

       Instead of the true causes which are hidden!

      Thy question shows me thy belief to be

       That I was niggard in the other life,

       It may be from the circle where I was;

      Therefore know thou, that avarice was removed

       Too far from me; and this extravagance

       Thousands of lunar periods have punished.

      And were it not that I my thoughts uplifted,

       When I the passage heard where thou exclaimest,

       As if indignant, unto human nature,

      'To what impellest thou not, O cursed hunger

       Of gold, the appetite of mortal men?'

       Revolving I should feel the dismal joustings.

      Then I perceived the hands could spread too wide

       Their wings in spending, and repented me

       As well of that as of my other sins;

      How many with shorn hair shall rise again

       Because of ignorance, which from this sin

       Cuts off repentance living and in death!

      And know that the transgression which rebuts

       By direct opposition any sin

       Together with it here its verdure dries.

      Therefore if I have been among that folk

       Which mourns its avarice, to purify me,

       For its opposite has this befallen me."

      "Now when thou sangest the relentless weapons

       Of the twofold affliction of Jocasta,"

       The singer of the Songs Bucolic said,

      "From that which Clio there with thee preludes,

       It does not seem that yet had made thee faithful

       That faith without which no good works suffice.

      If this be so, what candles or what sun

       Scattered thy darkness so that thou didst trim

       Thy sails behind the Fisherman thereafter?"

      And he to him: "Thou first directedst me

       Towards Parnassus, in its grots to drink,

       And first concerning God didst me enlighten.

      Thou didst as he who walketh in the night,

       Who bears his light behind, which helps him not,

       But wary makes the persons after him,

      When thou didst say: 'The age renews itself,

       Justice returns, and man's primeval time,

       And a new progeny descends from heaven.'

      Through thee I Poet was, through thee a Christian;

       But that thou better see what I design,

       To colour it will I extend my hand.

      Already was the world in every part

       Pregnant with the true creed, disseminated

       By messengers of the eternal kingdom;

      And thy assertion, spoken of above,

       With the new preachers was in unison;

       Whence I to visit them the custom took.

      Then they became so holy in my sight,

       That, when Domitian persecuted them,

       Not without tears of mine were their laments;

      And all the while that I on earth remained,

       Them I befriended, and their upright customs

       Made me disparage all the other sects.

      And ere I led the Greeks unto the rivers

       Of Thebes, in poetry, I was baptized,

       But out of fear was covertly a Christian,

      For a long time professing paganism;

       And this lukewarmness caused me the fourth circle

       To circuit round more than four centuries.

      Thou, therefore, who hast raised the covering

       That hid from me whatever good I speak of,

       While in ascending we have time to spare,

      Tell me, in what place is our friend Terentius,

       Caecilius, Plautus, Varro, if thou knowest;

       Tell me if they are damned, and in what alley."

      "These, Persius and myself, and others many,"

       Replied my Leader, "with that Grecian are

       Whom more than all the rest the Muses suckled,

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