8 what before was pleasing to me then was irksome to me, and I yielded me repentant and confessed. 84 Ah wretched, alas! and it would have availed. The Prince of the new Pharisees having war near the Lateran, — 87 and not with Saracens nor with Jews, for every enemy of his was Christian, and not one of them had been to conquer Acre, 90 or a trafficker in the land of the Soldan, — neither his supreme office, nor his Holy Orders regarded in himself, nor in me that cord 93 which was wont to make those girt with it more lean; but as Constantine besought Sylvester within Soracte to cure his leprosy, 96 so this one besought me as master to cure the fever of his pride. He asked counsel of me, and I kept silence, 99 because his words seemed drunken. And then he said to me: ‘Let not thy heart mistrust; from this time forward I absolve thee, and do thou teach me 102 to act so that I may throw Palestrina to the ground. I can lock and unlock Heaven, as thou knowest; wherefor the keys are two, 105 which my predecessor held not dear.’ Then his weighty arguments pushed me to where silence seemed to me the worst, 108 and I said: ‘Father, since thou dost wash me
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