Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/87

Rh "O Sun, that healest all distempered vision,

Thou dost content me so, when thou resolvest,

That doubting pleases me no less than knowing!

Once more a little backward turn thee," said I,

"There where thou sayest that usury offends

Goodness divine, and disengage the knot."

"Philosophy," he said, "to him who heeds it,

Noteth, not only in one place alone,

After what manner Nature takes her course

From Intellect Divine, and from its art;

And if thy Physics carefully thou notest,

After not many pages shalt thou find,

That this your art as far as possible

Follows, as the disciple doth the master;

So that your art is, as it were, God's grandchild.

From these two, if thou bringest to thy mind

Genesis at the beginning, it behoves

Mankind to gain their life and to advance;

And since the usurer takes another way,

Nature herself and in her follower

Disdains he, for elsewhere he puts his hope.

But follow, now, as I would fain go on,

For quivering are the Fishes on the horizon,

And the Wain wholly over Caurus lies,

And far beyond there we descend the crag."