Canto VIII of the Purgatory

The patroness of the lost valley.
Do that the temptations of the night do not violate our bodies.

 Era già l'ora che volge il disio
ai navicanti e 'ntenerisce il core
lo dì c'han detto ai dolci amici addio;

  e che lo novo peregrin d'amore
punge, se ode squilla di lontano
che paia il giorno pianger che si more;

  quand'io incominciai a render vano
l'udire e a mirare una de l'alme
surta, che l'ascoltar chiedea con mano.

  Ella giunse e levò ambo le palme,
ficcando li occhi verso l'oriente,
come dicesse a Dio: 'D'altro non calme'.

It was already the hour which sharpens the desires of those who sails and tenderizes the heart, 
the day when it was necessary to say goodbyes to these unsatiated White Ladies, 
the hour which moves the pilgrim, by love, if he sees coming, the return of the day. 

When I started not to smell the heat of this beautiful body and to look at it rising 
and joining the hands in a prayer which seemed, to be intended to God and who said: 


"Lord, at the hour, when darkness makes our souls more fragile, 
do that  the temptations of the night do not come and rape our bodies." 


This song was so soft and sincere that it made me lose consciousness of myself.
 Then the others, with softness and piety, joined her to tune out the anthem 
until the end; their eyes remained fixed on the celestial spheres. 

I beg you, reader to be indulgent in the interpretation of what you will make 
of the events that will follow and, if you have a twisted mind, I invite you to ignore this chapter. 

I thus saw this suddenly quiet troop, look towards the sky, like if waiting for something. And I saw, 
leaving from up there and coming down towards them, two angels who appeared to me to be young girls, with flesh 
and wings of green colour, like many small leaves hardly born that floated gracefully at the will of the wind. 
I distinguished their fair head but, on their faces, my glance was lost as if it were for me too great an effort. 

Marianne then said: 
 
"Both come from the bosom of Marie, to protect the valley against the snake, whom must appear soon."
Marianne attracted my Master and says to him, anxious: 
"Look by there, here he comes, the adversary of these noble souls." 


At the place where the small valley does not have any edge, there was a snake, undoubtedly the same, 
who made Eve, taste the fruit of knowledge. It came crawling between the grass and the flowers 
turning around the frightened noble souls, it held up its tail while trying to violate her
going from one to the other, excited and erecting himself, not knowing on whom to comfort its member. 

Then, I saw very well both angels take their fly and, at the noise of their green wings 
which split the air, they had made the damn snake flee. 
And the angel girls, tired by this great effort, lay down between the bodies of the noble souls.
 I then saw, and you can believe me, that they thanked her, in lavishing thousand of caresses to hers, 
of the same kisses and penetrations only intended to men, and, that these caresses 
and these kisses and these loving simulations removed tiredness from the angel girls who, 
discovering then pleasure, groaned and twisted like with pain.