6 She was so abandoned to the vice of luxury that lust she made licit in her law 57 to take away the blame into which she had been brought. She is Semiramis, of whom it is read that she succeeded Ninus and had been his wife; 60 she held the land which the Sultan rules. That other is she who, for love, slew herself, and broke faith to the ashes of Sichaeus; 63 next is Cleopatra, the luxurious. See Helen, for whom so long a time of ill revolved; and see the great Achilles, 66 who fought to the end with love. See Paris, Tristan—” and more than a thousand shades he showed me, and, pointing to them, named to me, 69 whom love had parted from our life. After I had heard my Teacher name the dames of eld and the cavaliers, 72 pity overcame me, and I was well nigh bewildered. I began: “Poet, willingly would I speak with those two that go together, 75 and seem to be so light upon the wind.” And he to me: “Thou shalt see when they are nearer to us, and do thou then pray them 78 by that love which leads them, and they will come.” Soon as the wind sways them toward us, I lifted my voice: “O wearied souls, 81 come to speak with us, if Another deny it not.”
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