His soul, which is thy sister and my own,
In coming upwards could not come alone,
By reason that it sees not in our fashion.
Whence I was drawn from out the ample throat
Of Hell to be his guide, and I shall guide him
As far on as my school hath power to lead.
But tell us, if thou knowest, why such a shudder
Erewhile the mountain gave, and why together
All seemed to cry, as far as its moist feet?"
In asking he so hit the very eye
Of my desire, that merely with the hope
My thirst became the less unsatisfied.
"Naught is there," he began, " that without order
May the religion of the mountain feel,
Nor aught that may be foreign to its custom.
Free is it here from every permutation;
What from itself heaven into itself receiveth
Can be of this the cause, and naught beside; Because that neither rain, nor hail, nor snow,
Nor dew, nor hoar-frost any higher falls
Than the short, little stairway of three steps. Dense clouds do not appear, nor rarefied,
Nor coruscation, nor the daughter of Thaumas, 50 That often upon earth her region shifts;
No arid vapor any farther rises
Than to the top of the three steps I spake of,
Whereon the Vicar of Peter hath his feet.
Lower down perchance it trembles less or more,
But, for the wind that in the earth is hidden
I know not how, up here it never trembled.
Line 33. As far on as my school has power to lead.
Line 54. Whereon the Vicar of Peter has his feet.