4 When I had withdrawn from regarding them, turning me a little to the other pole, 30 there whence the Wain had already disappeared, I saw close to me an old man alone, in aspect worthy of so much reverence 33 that no son owes more to his father. His beard long and mingled with white hair he wore, like his locks, 36 of which a double list fell upon his breast. The rays of the four holy stars so adorned his face with light, 39 that I saw him, as though the sun had been in front. “Who are ye that, counter to the blind stream, have fled from the eternal prison?” 42 said he, moving those venerable plumes. “Who has guided you? Or who was a lamp to you, issuing forth from the deep night 45 which ever makes the infernal valley black? Are the laws of the abyss thus broken? or is a new design changed in heaven 48 that, being damned, ye come to my rocks?” My Leader then took hold of me, and with words, and with hands, and with signs, 51 controlled to reverence my knees and brow. Then he answered him: “Of myself I came not; a Lady descended from Heaven, by reason of whose prayers 54 I succored this man with my company.
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