Page:The Contrasts in Dante.djvu/32

 "Francis came for me afterwards, as soon as I was dead, but one of the black Cherubim (interposing) said to him: "Bear him not away; defraud me not. He has got to come down among my minions, because he gave the fraudulent counsel, from which time I have been (clutching) at his hair. For he who does not repent cannot be absolved, nor is it possible to repent and to will at the same time, by reason of the contradiction which allows it not." Ah wretched me! how I' re-awakened (i.e., how my eyes were suddenly opened) when he seized me, saying to me: "Thou didst not imagine perchance that I was a logician!""

Observe the force of the fiendish dialectic! No one can be absolved from a sin unless he has repented of it. Guide could not assuredly repent by anticipation of the sin which he had the will in his soul to commit; therefore the absolution was null and void, and he died in sin. Man repents of what he would not willingly have done; but to repent of a trespass, and to will to trespass, is the same time as repenting and not repenting at the same time; which involves a contradiction.

There is little more for Guide to tell Dante. The Demon's action is exceedingly prompt, and the routine of Dante's Hell has little variation, except that even in Minos the enormity of Guide's crime would seem to have aroused especial indignation.

""To Minos he bore me: and he round his stubborn back eight times did coil his tail, and then when from great fury he had bitten it, said: This is one of the sinners of the thievish fire (i.e., the flame which conceals its prey): wherefore I, where thou seest, am lost, and going thus attired, I bemoan me.""

Guido's story is now told. He has no wish to be recalled to memory, and as he utters his last mournful words, he hurries away, whereupon the Poets pass on to the top of the bridge that overhangs the next Bolgia.