Chapter 3: Paradiso

Paradiso

I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze

With forms of Saints and holy men who died,

Here martyred and hereafter glorified;

And the great Rose upon its leaves displays

Christ’s Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,

With splendor upon splendor multiplied;

And Beatrice again at Dante’s side

No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.

And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs

Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love

And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;

And the melodious bells among the spires

O’er all the housetops and through heaven above

Proclaim the elevation of the Host!

O star of morning and of liberty!

O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines

Above the darkness of the Apennines,

Forerunner of the day that is to be!

The voices of the city and the sea,

The voices of the mountains and the pines,

Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines

Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!

Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,

Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,

As of a mighty wind, and men devout,

Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,

In their own language hear thy wondrous word,

And many are amazed and many doubt.

Canto
I

The ascent to the First Heaven.

The glory of Him who moveth everything1196

Doth penetrate the universe, and shine1197

In one part more and in another less.

Within that heaven which most his light receives1198

Was I, and things beheld which to repeat1199

Nor knows, nor can, who from above descends;

Because in drawing near to its desire1200

Our intellect engulfs itself so far,

That after it the memory cannot go.

Truly whatever of the holy realm

I had the power to treasure in my mind

Shall now become the subject of my song.

O good Apollo, for this last emprise1201

Make of me such a vessel of thy power

As giving the beloved laurel asks!

One summit of Parnassus hitherto

Has been enough for me, but now with both

I needs must enter the arena left.

Enter into my bosom, thou, and breathe1202

As at the time when Marsyas thou didst draw1203

Out of the scabbard of those limbs of his.

O power divine, lend’st thou thyself to me

So that the shadow of the blessed realm

Stamped in my brain I can make manifest,

Thou’lt see me come unto thy darling tree,

And crown myself thereafter with those leaves

Of which the theme and thou shall make me worthy.

So seldom, Father, do we gather them

For triumph or of Caesar or of Poet,

(The fault and shame of human inclinations,)

That the Peneian foliage should bring forth

Joy to the joyous Delphic deity,

When anyone it makes to thirst for it.

A little spark is followed by great flame;

Perchance with better voices after me

Shall prayer be made that Cyrrha may respond!1204

To mortal men by passages diverse

Uprises the world’s lamp; but by that one

Which circles four uniteth with three crosses,1205

With better course and with a better star

Conjoined it issues, and the mundane wax1206

Tempers and stamps more after its own fashion.

Almost that passage had made morning there

And evening here, and there was wholly white1207

That hemisphere, and black the other part,

When Beatrice towards the left-hand side

I saw turned round, and gazing at the sun;

Never did eagle fasten so upon it!

And even as a second ray is wont

To issue from the first and reascend,

Like to a pilgrim who would fain return,

Thus of her action, through the eyes infused

In my imagination, mine I made,

And sunward fixed mine eyes beyond our wont.

There much is lawful which is here unlawful

Unto our powers, by virtue of the place

Made for the human species as its own.

Not long I bore it, nor so little while

But I beheld it sparkle round about

Like iron that comes molten from the fire;1208

And suddenly it seemed that day to day1209

Was added, as if He who has the power

Had with another sun the heaven adorned.

With eyes upon the everlasting wheels

Stood Beatrice all intent, and I, on her

Fixing my vision from above removed,

Such at her aspect inwardly became

As Glaucus, tasting of the herb that made him1210

Peer of the other gods beneath the sea.

To represent transhumanize in words

Impossible were; the example, then, suffice

Him for whom Grace the experience reserves.

If I was merely what of me thou newly1211

Createdst, Love who governest the heaven,

Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light!

When now the wheel, which thou dost make eternal1212

Desiring thee, made me attentive to it

By harmony thou dost modulate and measure,1213

Then seemed to me so much of heaven enkindled

By the sun’s flame, that neither rain nor river

E’er made a lake so widely spread abroad.

The newness of the sound and the great light

Kindled in me a longing for their cause,

Never before with such acuteness felt;

Whence she, who saw me as I saw myself,

To quiet in me my perturbed mind,

Opened her mouth, ere I did mine to ask,

And she began: “Thou makest thyself so dull

With false imagining, that thou seest not

What thou wouldst see if thou hadst shaken it off.

Thou art not upon earth, as thou believest;

But lightning, fleeing its appropriate site,1214

Ne’er ran as thou, who thitherward returnest.”

If of my former doubt I was divested

By these brief little words more smiled than spoken,

I in a new one was the more ensnared;

And said: “Already did I rest content

From great amazement; but am now amazed

In what way I transcend these bodies light.”

Whereupon she, after a pitying sigh,

Her eyes directed tow’rds me with that look

A mother casts on a delirious child;

And she began: “All things whate’er they be

Have order among themselves, and this is form,

That makes the universe resemble God.

Here do the higher creatures see the footprints

Of the Eternal Power, which is the end

Whereto is made the law already mentioned.

In the order that I speak of are inclined1215

All natures, by their destinies diverse,

More or less near unto their origin;

Hence they move onward unto ports diverse

O’er the great sea of being; and each one

With instinct given it which bears it on.

This bears away the fire towards the moon;

This is in mortal hearts the motive power;

This binds together and unites the earth.

Nor only the created things that are

Without intelligence this bow shoots forth,

But those that have both intellect and love.

The Providence that regulates all this1216

Makes with its light the heaven forever quiet,1217

Wherein that turns which has the greatest haste.

And thither now, as to a site decreed,

Bears us away the virtue of that cord

Which aims its arrows at a joyous mark.

True is it, that as oftentimes the form

Accords not with the intention of the art,

Because in answering is matter deaf,

So likewise from this course doth deviate

Sometimes the creature, who the power possesses,

Though thus impelled, to swerve some other way,

(In the same wise as one may see the fire

Fall from a cloud,) if the first impetus

Earthward is wrested by some false delight.

Thou shouldst not wonder more, if well I judge,

At thine ascent, than at a rivulet

From some high mount descending to the lowland.

Marvel it would be in thee, if deprived

Of hindrance, thou wert seated down below,

As if on earth the living fire were quiet.”1218

Thereat she heavenward turned again her face.

Canto
II

The First Heaven, or that of the moon, in which are seen the spirits of those who, having taken monastic vows, were forced to violate them.

O Ye, who in some pretty little boat,1219

Eager to listen, have been following

Behind my ship, that singing sails along,

Turn back to look again upon your shores;

Do not put out to sea, lest peradventure,

In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.

The sea I sail has never yet been passed;

Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,1220

And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.

Ye other few who have the neck uplifted

Betimes to th’ bread of Angels upon which1221

One liveth here and grows not sated by it,

Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea

Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you

Upon the water that grows smooth again.

Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed1222

Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be,

When Jason they beheld a ploughman made!

The con-created and perpetual thirst1223

For the realm deiform did bear us on,

As swift almost as ye the heavens behold.

Upward gazed Beatrice, and I at her;

And in such space perchance as strikes a bolt1224

And flies, and from the notch unlocks itself,

Arrived I saw me where a wondrous thing

Drew to itself my sight; and therefore she

From whom no care of mine could be concealed,

Towards me turning, blithe as beautiful,

Said unto me: “Fix gratefully thy mind

On God, who unto the first star has brought us.”

It seemed to me a cloud encompassed us,

Luminous, dense, consolidate and bright

As adamant on which the sun is striking.

Into itself did the eternal pearl

Receive us, even as water doth receive

A ray of light, remaining still unbroken.

If I was body, (and we here conceive not

How one dimension tolerates another,

Which needs must be if body enter body,)

More the desire should be enkindled in us

That essence to behold, wherein is seen

How God and our own nature were united.

There will be seen what we receive by faith,

Not demonstrated, but self-evident

In guise of the first truth that man believes.

I made reply: “Madonna, as devoutly

As most I can do I give thanks to Him

Who has removed me from the mortal world.

But tell me what the dusky spots may be

Upon this body, which below on earth

Make people tell that fabulous tale of Cain?”1225

Somewhat she smiled; and then, “If the opinion

Of mortals be erroneous,” she said,

“Where’er the key of sense doth not unlock,

Certes, the shafts of wonder should not pierce thee

Now, forasmuch as, following the senses,

Thou seest that the reason has short wings.

But tell me what thou think’st of it thyself.”

And I: “What seems to us up here diverse,1226

Is caused, I think, by bodies rare and dense.”

And she: “Right truly shalt thou see immersed

In error thy belief, if well thou hearest

The argument that I shall make against it.

Lights many the eighth sphere displays to you1227

Which in their quality and quantity

May noted be of aspects different.

If this were caused by rare and dense alone,

One only virtue would there be in all

Or more or less diffused, or equally.

Virtues diverse must be perforce the fruits

Of formal principles; and these, save one,

Of course would by thy reasoning be destroyed.

Besides, if rarity were of this dimness1228

The cause thou askest, either through and through

This planet thus attenuate were of matter,

Or else, as in a body is apportioned

The fat and lean, so in like manner this

Would in its volume interchange the leaves.

Were it the former, in the sun’s eclipse

It would be manifest by the shining through

Of light, as through aught tenuous interfused.

This is not so; hence we must scan the other,

And if it chance the other I demolish,

Then falsified will thy opinion be.

But if this rarity go not through and through,

There needs must be a limit, beyond which

Its contrary prevents the further passing,

And thence the foreign radiance is reflected,

Even as a color cometh back from glass,

The which behind itself concealeth lead.1229

Now thou wilt say the sunbeam shows itself

More dimly there than in the other parts,

By being there reflected farther back.

From this reply experiment will free thee

If e’er thou try it, which is wont to be

The fountain to the rivers of your arts.

Three mirrors shalt thou take, and two remove

Alike from thee, the other more remote

Between the former two shall meet thine eyes.

Turned towards these, cause that behind thy back

Be placed a light, illuming the three mirrors

And coming back to thee by all reflected.

Though in its quantity be not so ample

The image most remote, there shalt thou see

How it perforce is equally resplendent.

Now, as beneath the touches of warm rays

Naked the subject of the snow remains1230

Both of its former color and its cold,

Thee thus remaining in thy intellect,

Will I inform with such a living light,

That it shall tremble in its aspect to thee.1231

Within the heaven of the divine repose1232

Revolves a body, in whose virtue lies

The being of whatever it contains.

The following heaven, that has so many eyes,1233

Divides this being by essences diverse,

Distinguished from it, and by it contained.

The other spheres, by various differences,

All the distinctions which they have within them

Dispose unto their ends and their effects.

Thus do these organs of the world proceed,

As thou perceivest now, from grade to grade;

Since from above they take, and act beneath.

Observe me well, how through this place I come

Unto the truth thou wishest, that hereafter

Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford.

The power and motion of the holy spheres,

As from the artisan the hammer’s craft,

Forth from the blessed motors must proceed.

The heaven, which lights so manifold make fair,

From the Intelligence profound, which turns it,1234

The image takes, and makes of it a seal.

And even as the soul within your dust

Through members different and accommodated

To faculties diverse expands itself,

So likewise this Intelligence diffuses

Its virtue multiplied among the stars,

Itself revolving on its unity.

Virtue diverse doth a diverse alloyage

Make with the precious body that it quickens,

In which, as life in you, it is combined.

From the glad nature whence it is derived,

The mingled virtue through the body shines,

Even as gladness through the living pupil.

From this proceeds whate’er from light to light

Appeareth different, not from dense and rare:

This is the formal principle that produces,1235

According to its goodness, dark and bright.”

Canto
III

Piccarda and Constance.

That Sun, which erst with love my bosom warmed,1236

Of beauteous truth had unto me discovered,

By proving and reproving, the sweet aspect.

And, that I might confess myself convinced

And confident, so far as was befitting,

I lifted more erect my head to speak.

But there appeared a vision, which withdrew me

So close to it, in order to be seen,

That my confession I remembered not.

Such as through polished and transparent glass,

Or waters crystalline and undisturbed,

But not so deep as that their bed be lost,

Come back again the outlines of our faces

So feeble, that a pearl on forehead white

Comes not less speedily unto our eyes;

Such saw I many faces prompt to speak,

So that I ran in error opposite

To that which kindled love ’twixt man and fountain.1237

As soon as I became aware of them,

Esteeming them as mirrored semblances,

To see of whom they were, mine eyes I turned,

And nothing saw, and once more turned them forward

Direct into the light of my sweet Guide,

Who smiling kindled in her holy eyes.

“Marvel thou not,” she said to me, “because

I smile at this thy puerile conceit,

Since on the truth it trusts not yet its foot,

But turns thee, as ’tis wont, on emptiness.

True substances are these which thou beholdest,

Here relegate for breaking of some vow.

Therefore speak with them, listen and believe;

For the true light, which giveth peace to them,

Permits them not to turn from it their feet.”

And I unto the shade that seemed most wishful

To speak directed me, and I began,

As one whom too great eagerness bewilders:

“O well-created spirit, who in the rays

Of life eternal dost the sweetness taste

Which being untasted ne’er is comprehended,

Grateful ’twill be to me, if thou content me

Both with thy name and with your destiny.”1238

Whereat she promptly and with laughing eyes:

“Our charity doth never shut the doors

Against a just desire, except as one1239

Who wills that all her court be like herself.

I was a virgin sister in the world;

And if thy mind doth contemplate me well,

The being more fair will not conceal me from thee,

But thou shalt recognise I am Piccarda,

Who, stationed here among these other blessed,

Myself am blessed in the slowest sphere.

All our affections, that alone inflamed

Are in the pleasure of the Holy Ghost,

Rejoice at being of his order formed;

And this allotment, which appears so low,

Therefore is given us, because our vows

Have been neglected and in some part void.”

Whence I to her: “In your miraculous aspects

There shines I know not what of the divine,

Which doth transform you from our first conceptions.

Therefore I was not swift in my remembrance;

But what thou tellest me now aids me so,

That the refiguring is easier to me.

But tell me, ye who in this place are happy,

Are you desirous of a higher place,

To see more or to make yourselves more friends?”

First with those other shades she smiled a little;

Thereafter answered me so full of gladness,

She seemed to burn in the first fire of love:

“Brother, our will is quieted by virtue1240

Of charity, that makes us wish alone

For what we have, nor gives us thirst for more.

If to be more exalted we aspired,

Discordant would our aspirations be

Unto the will of Him who here secludes us;

Which thou shalt see finds no place in these circles,

If being in charity is needful here,

And if thou lookest well into its nature;

Nay, ’tis essential to this blest existence

To keep itself within the will divine,

Whereby our very wishes are made one;

So that, as we are station above station

Throughout this realm, to all the realm ’tis pleasing,

As to the King, who makes his will our will.

And his will is our peace; this is the sea

To which is moving onward whatsoever

It doth create, and all that nature makes.”

Then it was clear to me how everywhere

In heaven is Paradise, although the grace

Of good supreme there rain not in one measure.

But as it comes to pass, if one food sates,

And for another still remains the longing,

We ask for this, and that decline with thanks,

E’en thus did I; with gesture and with word,

To learn from her what was the web wherein

She did not ply the shuttle to the end.

“A perfect life and merit high in-heaven

A lady o’er us,” said she, “by whose rule

Down in your world they vest and veil themselves,

That until death they may both watch and sleep

Beside that Spouse who every vow accepts

Which charity conformeth to his pleasure.

To follow her, in girlhood from the world

I fled, and in her habit shut myself,

And pledged me to the pathway of her sect.

Then men accustomed unto evil more

Than unto good, from the sweet cloister tore me;

God knows what afterward my life became.

This other splendor, which to thee reveals

Itself on my right side, and is enkindled

With all the illumination of our sphere,

What of myself I say applies to her;

A nun was she, and likewise from her head

Was ta’en the shadow of the sacred wimple.

But when she too was to the world returned

Against her wishes and against good usage,

Of the heart’s veil she never was divested.

Of great Costanza this is the effulgence,1241

Who from the second wind of Suabia

Brought forth the third and latest puissance.”

Thus unto me she spake, and then began

“Ave Maria” singing, and in singing

Vanished, as through deep water something heavy.

My sight, that followed her as long a time

As it was possible, when it had lost her

Turned round unto the mark of more desire,

And wholly unto Beatrice reverted;

But she such lightnings flashed into mine eyes,

That at the first my sight endured it not;

And this in questioning more backward made me.

Canto
IV

Questionings of the soul and of broken vows.

Between two viands, equally removed1242

And tempting, a free man would die of hunger1243

Ere either he could bring unto his teeth.

So would a lamb between the ravenings

Of two fierce wolves stand fearing both alike;

And so would stand a dog between two does.1244

Hence, if I held my peace, myself I blame not,

Impelled in equal measure by my doubts,

Since it must be so, nor do I commend.1245

I held my peace; but my desire was painted

Upon my face, and questioning with that

More fervent far than by articulate speech.

Beatrice did as Daniel had done1246

Relieving Nebuchadnezzar from the wrath

Which rendered him unjustly merciless,

And said: “Well see I how attracteth thee

One and the other wish, so that thy care

Binds itself so that forth it does not breathe.

Thou arguest, if good will be permanent,

The violence of others, for what reason

Doth it decrease the measure of my merit?

Again for doubting furnish thee occasion

Souls seeming to return unto the stars,

According to the sentiment of Plato.1247

These are the questions which upon thy wish

Are thrusting equally; and therefore first1248

Will I treat that which hath the most of gall.

He of the Seraphim most absorbed in God,1249

Moses, and Samuel, and whichever John

Thou mayst select, I say, and even Mary,

Have not in any other heaven their seats,

Than have those spirits that just appeared to thee,

Nor of existence more or fewer years;

But all make beautiful the primal circle,

And have sweet life in different degrees,

By feeling more or less the eternal breath.

They showed themselves here, not because allotted

This sphere has been to them, but to give sign

Of the celestial which is least exalted.

To speak thus is adapted to your mind,

Since only through the sense it apprehendeth

What then it worthy makes of intellect.1250

On this account the Scripture condescends

Unto your faculties, and feet and hands

To God attributes, and means something else;

And Holy Church under an aspect human

Gabriel and Michael represent to you,

And him who made Tobias whole again.1251

That which Timaeus argues of the soul1252

Doth not resemble that which here is seen,

Because it seems that as he speaks he thinks.1253

He says the soul unto its star returns,

Believing it to have been severed thence

Whenever nature gave it as a form.1254

Perhaps his doctrine is of other guise

Than the words sound, and possibly may be

With meaning that is not to be derided.

If he doth mean that to these wheels return

The honor of their influence and the blame,

Perhaps his bow doth hit upon some truth.

This principle ill understood once warped

The whole world nearly, till it went astray

Invoking Jove and Mercury and Mars.1255

The other doubt which doth disquiet thee1256

Less venom has, for its malevolence

Could never lead thee otherwhere from me.

That as unjust our justice should appear

In eyes of mortals, is an argument

Of faith, and not of sin heretical.

But still, that your perception may be able

To thoroughly penetrate this verity,

As thou desirest, I will satisfy thee.

If it be violence when he who suffers

Cooperates not with him who uses force,

These souls were not on that account excused;

For will is never quenched unless it will,

But operates as nature doth in fire

If violence a thousand times distort it.

Hence, if it yieldeth more or less, it seconds

The force; and these have done so, having power

Of turning back unto the holy place.

If their will had been perfect, like to that

Which Lawrence fast upon his gridiron held,1257

And Mutius made severe to his own hand,1258

It would have urged them back along the road

Whence they were dragged, as soon as they were free;

But such a solid will is all too rare.

And by these words, if thou hast gathered them

As thou shouldst do, the argument is refuted

That would have still annoyed thee many times.

But now another passage runs across

Before thine eyes, and such that by thyself

Thou couldst not thread it ere thou wouldst be weary.

I have for certain put into thy mind

That soul beatified could never lie,

For it is near the primal Truth,

And then thou from Piccarda might’st have heard

Costanza kept affection for the veil,

So that she seemeth here to contradict me.

Many times, brother, has it come to pass,

That, to escape from peril, with reluctance

That has been done it was not right to do,

E’en as Alcmaeon (who, being by his father1259

Thereto entreated, his own mother slew)

Not to lose pity pitiless became.

At this point I desire thee to remember

That force with will commingles, and they cause

That the offences cannot be excused.

Will absolute consenteth not to evil;

But in so far consenteth as it fears,

If it refrain, to fall into more harm.

Hence when Piccarda uses this expression,

She meaneth the will absolute, and I

The other, so that both of us speak truth.”

Such was the flowing of the holy river

That issued from the fount whence springs all truth;

This put to rest my wishes one and all.

“O love of the first lover, O divine,”1260

Said I forthwith, “whose speech inundates me

And warms me so, it more and more revives me,

My own affection is not so profound

As to suffice in rendering grace for grace;

Let Him, who sees and can, thereto respond.

Well I perceive that never sated is

Our intellect unless the Truth illume it,

Beyond which nothing true expands itself.

It rests therein, as wild beast in his lair,

When it attains it; and it can attain it;

If not, then each desire would frustrate be.

Therefore springs up, in fashion of a shoot,

Doubt at the foot of truth; and this is nature,1261

Which to the top from height to height impels us.

This doth invite me, this assurance give me

With reverence, Lady, to inquire of you

Another truth, which is obscure to me.

I wish to know if man can satisfy you

For broken vows with other good deeds, so

That in your balance they will not be light.”

Beatrice gazed upon me with her eyes1262

Full of the sparks of love, and so divine,

That, overcome my power, I turned my back

And almost lost myself with eyes downcast.

Canto
V

Compensations. Ascent to the Second Heaven, or that of Mercury, where are seen the spirits of those who for the love of fame achieved great deeds.

“If in the heat of love I flame upon thee1263

Beyond the measure that on earth is seen,

So that the valor of thine eyes I vanquish,

Marvel thou not thereat; for this proceeds

From perfect sight, which as it apprehends

To the good apprehended moves its feet.

Well I perceive how is already shining

Into thine intellect the eternal light,

That only seen enkindles always love;

And if some other thing your love seduce,1264

’Tis nothing but a vestige of the same,

Ill understood, which there is shining through.

Thou fain wouldst know if with another service

For broken vow can such return be made

As to secure the soul from further claim.”

This Canto thus did Beatrice begin;

And, as a man who breaks not off his speech,

Continued thus her holy argument:

“The greatest gift that in his largess God

Creating made, and unto his own goodness

Nearest conformed, and that which he doth prize

Most highly, is the freedom of the will,

Wherewith the creatures of intelligence

Both all and only were and are endowed.1265

Now wilt thou see, if thence thou reasonest,

The high worth of a vow, if it he made

So that when thou consentest God consents:

For, closing between God and man the compact,

A sacrifice is of this treasure made,

Such as I say, and made by its own act.

What can be rendered then as compensation?

Think’st thou to make good use of what thou’st offered,

With gains ill gotten thou wouldst do good deed.1266

Now art thou certain of the greater point;

But because Holy Church in this dispenses,

Which seems against the truth which I have shown thee,

Behoves thee still to sit awhile at table,

Because the solid food which thou hast taken

Requireth further aid for thy digestion.

Open thy mind to that which I reveal,

And fix it there within; for ’tis not knowledge,

The having heard without retaining it.

In the essence of this sacrifice two things

Convene together; and the one is that

Of which ’tis made, the other is the agreement.

This last for evermore is cancelled not

Unless complied with, and concerning this

With such precision has above been spoken.

Therefore it was enjoined upon the Hebrews

To offer still, though sometimes what was offered

Might be commuted, as thou ought’st to know.

The other, which is known to thee as matter,1267

May well indeed be such that one errs not

If it for other matter be exchanged.

But let none shift the burden on his shoulder

At his arbitrament, without the turning

Both of the white and of the yellow key;1268

And every permutation deem as foolish,

If in the substitute the thing relinquished,

As the four is in six, be not contained.1269

Therefore whatever thing has so great weight

In value that it drags down every balance,

Cannot be satisfied with other spending.

Let mortals never take a vow in jest;

Be faithful and not blind in doing that,

As Jephthah was in his first offering,1270

Whom more beseemed to say, ‘I have done wrong,

Than to do worse by keeping; and as foolish

Thou the great leader of the Greeks wilt find,1271

Whence wept Iphigenia her fair face,1272

And made for her both wise and simple weep,

Who heard such kind of worship spoken of.’

Christians, be ye more serious in your movements;

Be ye not like a feather at each wind,

And think not every water washes you.

Ye have the Old and the New Testament,

And the Pastor of the Church who guideth you

Let this suffice you unto your salvation.

If evil appetite cry aught else to you,

Be ye as men, and not as silly sheep,1273

So that the Jew among you may not mock you.

Be ye not as the lamb that doth abandon1274

Its mother’s milk, and frolicsome and simple

Combats at its own pleasure with itself.”

Thus Beatrice to me even as I write it;

Then all desireful turned herself again

To that part where the world is most alive.1275

Her silence and her change of countenance

Silence imposed upon my eager mind,

That had already in advance new questions;

And as an arrow that upon the mark

Strikes ere the bowstring quiet hath become,

So did we speed into the second realm.

My Lady there so joyful I beheld,

As into the brightness of that heaven she entered,1276

More luminous thereat the planet grew;

And if the star itself was changed and smiled,1277

What became I, who by my nature am

Exceeding mutable in every guise!

As, in a fishpond which is pure and tranquil,

The fishes draw to that which from without

Comes in such fashion that their food they deem it;

So I beheld more than a thousand splendors

Drawing towards us, and in each was heard:

“Lo, this is she who shall increase our love.”

And as each one was coming unto us,

Full of beatitude the shade was seen,

By the effulgence clear that issued from it.1278

Think, Reader, if what here is just beginning

No farther should proceed, how thou wouldst have

An agonizing need of knowing more;

And of thyself thou’lt see how I from these

Was in desire of hearing their conditions,

As they unto mine eyes were manifest.

“O thou wellborn, unto whom Grace concedes

To see the thrones of the eternal triumph,

Or ever yet the warfare be abandoned

With light that through the whole of heaven is spread

Kindled are we, and hence if thou desirest

To know of us, at thine own pleasure sate thee.”

Thus by someone among those holy spirits1279

Was spoken, and by Beatrice: “Speak, speak

Securely, and believe them even as Gods.”

“Well I perceive how thou dost nest thyself

In thine own light, and drawest it from thine eyes,

Because they coruscate when thou dost smile,

But know not who thou art, nor why thou hast,

Spirit august, thy station in the sphere

That veils itself to men in alien rays.”1280

This said I in direction of the light

Which first had spoken to me; whence it became

By far more lucent than it was before.

Even as the sun, that doth conceal himself1281

By too much light, when heat has worn away

The tempering influence of the vapors dense,

By greater rapture thus concealed itself

In its own radiance the figure saintly,

And thus close, close enfolded answered me

In fashion as the following Canto sings.

Canto
VI

Justinian—The Roman eagle—Romeo.

“After that Constantine the eagle turned1282

Against the course of heaven, which it had followed

Behind the ancient who Lavinia took,

Two hundred years and more the bird of God1283

In the extreme of Europe held itself,1284

Near to the mountains whence it issued first;

And under shadow of the sacred plumes

It governed there the world from hand to hand,

And, changing thus, upon mine own alighted.

Caesar I was, and am Justinian,1285

Who, by the will of primal Love I feel,

Took from the laws the useless and redundant;1286

And ere unto the work I was attent,

One nature to exist in Christ, not more,1287

Believed, and with such faith was I contented.

But blessed Agapetus, he who was1288

The supreme pastor, to the faith sincere

Pointed me out the way by words of his.

Him I believed, and what was his assertion

I now see clearly, even as thou seest

Each contradiction to be false and true.

As soon as with the Church I moved my feet,

God in his grace it pleased with this high task

To inspire me, and I gave me wholly to it,

And to my Belisarius I commended1289

The arms, to which was heaven’s right hand so joined

It was a signal that I should repose.

Now here to the first question terminates

My answer; but the character thereof

Constrains me to continue with a sequel,

In order that thou see with how great reason

Men move against the standard sacrosanct,

Both who appropriate and who oppose it.

Behold how great a power has made it worthy

Of reverence, beginning from the hour

When Pallas died to give it sovereignty.1290

Thou knowest it made in Alba its abode1291

Three hundred years and upward, till at last

The three to three fought for it yet again.1292

Thou knowest what it achieved from Sabine wrong1293

Down to Lucretia’s sorrow, in seven kings

O’ercoming round about the neighboring nations;

Thou knowest what it achieved, borne by the Romans

Illustrious against Brennus, against Pyrrhus,1294

Against the other princes and confederates.

Torquatus thence and Quinctius, who from locks1295

Unkempt was named, Decii and Fabii,1296

Received the fame I willingly embalm;

It struck to earth the pride of the Arabians,

Who, following Hannibal, had passed across

The Alpine ridges, Po, from which thou glidest;

Beneath it triumphed while they yet were young

Pompey and Scipio, and to the hill1297

Beneath which thou wast born it bitter seemed;

Then, near unto the time when heaven had willed1298

To bring the whole world to its mood serene,

Did Caesar by the will of Rome assume it.

What it achieved from Var unto the Rhine,

Isere beheld and Saone, beheld the Seine,

And every valley whence the Rhone is filled;

What it achieved when it had left Ravenna,

And leaped the Rubicon, was such a flight

That neither tongue nor pen could follow it.

Round towards Spain it wheeled its legions; then

Towards Durazzo, and Pharsalia smote1299

That to the calid Nile was felt the pain.1300

Antandros and the Simois, whence it started,1301

It saw again, and there where Hector lies,

And ill for Ptolemy then roused itself.1302

From thence it came like lightning upon Juba;1303

Then wheeled itself again into your West,1304

Where the Pompeian clarion it heard.

From what it wrought with the next standard-bearer1305

Brutus and Cassius howl in Hell together,

And Modena and Perugia dolent were;1306

Still doth the mournful Cleopatra weep

Because thereof, who, fleeing from before it,

Took from the adder sudden and black death.

With him it ran even to the Red Sea shore;

With him it placed the world in so great peace,

That unto Janus was his temple closed.1307

But what the standard that has made me speak

Achieved before, and after should achieve

Throughout the mortal realm that lies beneath it,

Becometh in appearance mean and dim,

If in the hand of the third Caesar seen1308

With eye unclouded and affection pure,

Because the living Justice that inspires me

Granted it, in the hand of him I speak of,

The glory of doing vengeance for its wrath.1309

Now here attend to what I answer thee;

Later it ran with Titus to do vengeance1310

Upon the vengeance of the ancient sin.

And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten1311

The Holy Church, then underneath its wings

Did Charlemagne victorious succor her.

Now hast thou power to judge of such as those

Whom I accused above, and of their crimes,1312

Which are the cause of all your miseries.

To the public standard one the yellow lilies1313

Opposes, the other claims it for a party,

So that ’tis hard to see which sins the most.

Let, let the Ghibellines ply their handicraft

Beneath some other standard; for this ever

Ill follows he who it and justice parts.

And let not this new Charles e’er strike it down,1314

He and his Guelfs, but let him fear the talons

That from a nobler lion stripped the fell.

Already oftentimes the sons have wept

The father’s crime; and let him not believe

That God will change His scutcheon for the lilies.1315

This little planet doth adorn itself1316

With the good spirits that have active been,

That fame and honor might come after them;1317

And whensoever the desires mount thither,

Thus deviating, must perforce the rays

Of the true love less vividly mount upward.

But in commensuration of our wages

With our desert is portion of our joy,

Because we see them neither less nor greater.

Herein doth living Justice sweeten so1318

Affection in us, that for evermore

It cannot warp to any iniquity.

Voices diverse make up sweet melodies;

So in this life of ours the seats diverse

Render sweet harmony among these spheres;

And in the compass of this present pearl

Shineth the sheen of Romeo, of whom1319

The grand and beauteous work was ill rewarded.

But the Provençals who against him wrought,

They have not laughed, and therefore ill goes he

Who makes his hurt of the good deeds of others.

Four daughters, and each one of them a queen,

Had Raymond Berenger, and this for him

Did Romeo, a poor man and a pilgrim;

And then malicious words incited him

To summon to a reckoning this just man,

Who rendered to him seven and five for ten.

Then he departed poor and stricken in years,

And if the world could know the heart he had,

In begging bit by bit his livelihood,

Though much it laud him, it would laud him more.”1320

Canto
VII

Beatrice’s discourse of the incarnation, the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body.

“Osanna sanctus Deus Sabaoth,1321

Superillustrans claritate tua

Felices ignes horum malahoth!”

In this wise, to his melody returning,

This substance, upon which a double light1322

Doubles itself, was seen by me to sing,

And to their dance this and the others moved,1323

And in the manner of swift-hurrying sparks

Veiled themselves from me with a sudden distance.

Doubting was I, and saying, “Tell her, tell her,”1324

Within me, “tell her,” saying, “tell my Lady,”

Who slakes my thirst with her sweet effluences;

And yet that reverence which doth lord it over

The whole of me only by b and ice,1325

Bowed me again like unto one who drowses.

Short while did Beatrice endure me thus;

And she began, lighting me with a smile1326

Such as would make one happy in the fire:

“According to infallible advisement,

After what manner a just vengeance justly1327

Could be avenged has put thee upon thinking,

But I will speedily thy mind unloose;

And do thou listen, for these words of mine

Of a great doctrine will a present make thee.

By not enduring on the power that wills

Curb for his good, that man who ne’er was born,

Damning himself damned all his progeny;1328

Whereby the human species down below

Lay sick for many centuries in great error,

Till to descend it pleased the Word of God

To where the nature, which from its own Maker

Estranged itself, he joined to him in person

By the sole act of his eternal love.

Now unto what is said direct thy sight;

This nature when united to its Maker,

Such as created, was sincere and good;1329

But by itself alone was banished forth

From Paradise, because it turned aside

Out of the way of truth and of its life.

Therefore the penalty the cross held out,

If measured by the nature thus assumed,

None ever yet with so great justice stung,

And none was ever of so great injustice,

Considering who the Person was that suffered,

Within whom such a nature was contracted.

From one act therefore issued things diverse;

To God and to the Jews one death was pleasing;

Earth trembled at it and the Heaven was opened.

It should no longer now seem difficult

To thee, when it is said that a just vengeance

By a just court was afterward avenged.

But now do I behold thy mind entangled

From thought to thought within a knot, from which

With great desire it waits to free itself.

Thou sayest, ‘Well discern I what I hear;

But it is hidden from me why God willed

For our redemption only this one mode.’

Buried remaineth, brother, this decree

Unto the eyes of everyone whose nature

Is in the flame of love not yet adult.

Verily, inasmuch as at this mark

One gazes long and little is discerned,

Wherefore this mode was worthiest will I say.

Goodness Divine, which from itself doth spurn

All envy, burning in itself so sparkles1330

That the eternal beauties it unfolds.

Whate’er from this immediately distils1331

Has afterwards no end, for ne’er removed

Is its impression when it sets its seal.

Whate’er from this immediately rains down

Is wholly free, because it is not subject

Unto the influences of novel things.

The more conformed thereto, the more it pleases;

For the blest ardor that irradiates all things

In that most like itself is most vivacious.

With all of these things has advantaged been1332

The human creature; and if one be wanting,

From his nobility he needs must fall.

’Tis sin alone which doth disfranchise him,

And render him unlike the Good Supreme,

So that he little with its light is blanched,

And to his dignity no more returns,

Unless he fill up where transgression empties

With righteous pains for criminal delights.

Your nature when it sinned so utterly

In its own seed, out of these dignities

Even as out of Paradise was driven,

Nor could itself recover, if thou notest

With nicest subtlety, by anyway,

Except by passing one of these two fords:

Either that God through clemency alone

Had pardon granted, or that man himself

Had satisfaction for his folly made.

Fix now thine eye deep into the abyss

Of the eternal counsel, to my speech

As far as may be fastened steadfastly!

Man in his limitations had not power

To satisfy, not having power to sink

In his humility obeying then,

Far as he disobeying thought to rise;

And for this reason man has been from power

Of satisfying by himself excluded.

Therefore it God behoved in his own ways

Man to restore unto his perfect life,

I say in one, or else in both of them.

But since the action of the doer is

So much more grateful, as it more presents

The goodness of the heart from which it issues,

Goodness Divine, that doth imprint the world,

Has been contented to proceed by each

And all its ways to lift you up again;

Nor ’twixt the first day and the final night

Such high and such magnificent proceeding

By one or by the other was or shall be;

For God more bounteous was himself to give

To make man able to uplift himself,

Than if he only of himself had pardoned;

And all the other modes were insufficient

For justice, were it not the Son of God

Himself had humbled to become incarnate.

Now, to fill fully each desire of thine,

Return I to elucidate one place,

In order that thou there mayst see as I do.

Thou sayst: ‘I see the air, I see the fire,

The water, and the earth, and all their mixtures

Come to corruption, and short while endure;

And these things notwithstanding were created’;

Therefore if that which I have said were true,

They should have been secure against corruption.

The Angels, brother, and the land sincere1333

In which thou art, created may be called

Just as they are in their entire existence;

But all the elements which thou hast named,

And all those things which out of them are made,

By a created virtue are informed.

Created was the matter which they have;

Created was the informing influence

Within these stars that round about them go.

The soul of every brute and of the plants

By its potential temperament attracts

The ray and motion of the holy lights;

But your own life immediately inspires1334

Supreme Beneficence, and enamours it

So with herself, it evermore desires her.

And thou from this mayst argue furthermore

Your resurrection, if thou think again

How human flesh was fashioned at that time

When the first parents both of them were made.”

Canto
VIII

Ascent to the Third Heaven, or that of Venus, where are seen the spirits of lovers—Charles Martel.

The world used in its peril to believe1335

That the fair Cypria delirious love1336

Rayed out, in the third epicycle turning;1337

Wherefore not only unto her paid honor

Of sacrifices and of votive cry

The ancient nations in the ancient error,

But both Dione honored they and Cupid,1338

That as her mother, this one as her son,

And said that he had sat in Dido’s lap;1339

And they from her, whence I beginning take,1340

Took the denomination of the star

That woos the sun, now following, now in front.1341

I was not ware of our ascending to it;

But of our being in it gave full faith

My Lady whom I saw more beauteous grow.

And as within a flame a spark is seen,

And as within a voice a voice discerned,

When one is steadfast, and one comes and goes,

Within that light beheld I other lamps

Move in a circle, speeding more and less,

Methinks in measure of their inward vision.1342

From a cold cloud descended never winds,

Or visible or not, so rapidly1343

They would not laggard and impeded seem

To anyone who had those lights divine

Seen come towards us, leaving the gyration

Begun at first in the high Seraphim.1344

And behind those that most in front appeared

Sounded “Osanna!” so that never since

To hear again was I without desire.

Then unto us more nearly one approached,

And it alone began: “We all are ready

Unto thy pleasure, that thou joy in us.

We turn around with the celestial Princes,1345

One gyre and one gyration and one thirst,

To whom thou in the world of old didst say,

‘Ye who, intelligent, the third heaven are moving’;1346

And are so full of love, to pleasure thee

A little quiet will not be less sweet.”

After these eyes of mine themselves had offered1347

Unto my Lady reverently, and she

Content and certain of herself had made them,

Back to the light they turned, which so great promise

Made of itself, and “Say, who art thou?” was

My voice, imprinted with a great affection.

O how and how much I beheld it grow1348

With the new joy that superadded was

Unto its joys, as soon as I had spoken!

Thus changed, it said to me: “The world possessed me1349

Short time below; and, if it had been more,

Much evil will be which would not have been.

My gladness keepeth me concealed from thee,

Which rayeth round about me, and doth hide me

Like as a creature swathed in its own silk.

Much didst thou love me, and thou hadst good reason;

For had I been below, I should have shown thee

Somewhat beyond the foliage of my love.

That left-hand margin, which doth bathe itself1350

In Rhone, when it is mingled with the Sorgue,

Me for its lord awaited in due time,

And that horn of Ausonia, which is towned1351

With Bari, with Gaeta and Catona,

Whence Tronto and Verde in the sea disgorge.

Already flashed upon my brow the crown

Of that dominion which the Danube waters1352

After the German borders it abandons;

And beautiful Trinacria, that is murky1353

’Twixt Pachino and Peloro, (on the gulf1354

Which greatest scath from Eurus doth receive,)

Not through Typhoeus, but through nascent sulphur,1355

Would have awaited her own monarchs still,

Through me from Charles descended and from Rudolph,1356

If evil lordship, that exasperates ever

The subject populations, had not moved

Palermo to the outcry of ‘Death! death!’1357

And if my brother could but this foresee,1358

The greedy poverty of Catalonia

Straight would he flee, that it might not molest him;

For verily ’tis needful to provide,

Through him or other, so that on his bark1359

Already freighted no more freight be placed.

His nature, which from liberal covetous1360

Descended, such a soldiery would need

As should not care for hoarding in a chest.”1361

“Because I do believe the lofty joy

Thy speech infuses into me, my Lord,

Where every good thing doth begin and end1362

Thou seest as I see it, the more grateful

Is it to me; and this too hold I dear,

That gazing upon God thou dost discern it.

Glad hast thou made me; so make clear to me,

Since speaking thou hast stirred me up to doubt,

How from sweet seed can bitter issue forth.”

This I to him; and he to me: “If I

Can show to thee a truth, to what thou askest

Thy face thou’lt hold as thou dost hold thy back.

The Good which all the realm thou art ascending1363

Turns and contents, maketh its providence

To be a power within these bodies vast;

And not alone the natures are foreseen

Within the mind that in itself is perfect,

But they together with their preservation.

For whatsoever thing this bow shoots forth

Falls foreordained unto an end foreseen,

Even as a shaft directed to its mark.

If that were not, the heaven which thou dost walk

Would in such manner its effects produce,

That they no longer would be arts, but ruins.

This cannot be, if the Intelligences

That keep these stars in motion are not maimed,

And maimed the First that has not made them perfect.

Wilt thou this truth have clearer made to thee?”

And I: “Not so; for ’tis impossible

That nature tire, I see, in what is needful.”

Whence he again: “Now say, would it be worse

For men on earth were they not citizens?”1364

“Yes,” I replied; “and here I ask no reason.”

“And can they be so, if below they live not

Diversely unto offices diverse?

No, if your master writeth well for you.”1365

So came he with deductions to this point;

Then he concluded: “Therefore it behoves

The roots of your effects to be diverse.

Hence one is Solon born, another Xerxes,1366

Another Melchisedec, and another he

Who, flying through the air, his son did lose.

Revolving Nature, which a signet is

To mortal wax, doth practise well her art,

But not one inn distinguish from another;1367

Thence happens it that Esau differeth1368

In seed from Jacob; and Quirinus comes1369

From sire so vile that he is given to Mars.

A generated nature its own way

Would always make like its progenitors,

If Providence divine were not triumphant.

Now that which was behind thee is before thee;

But that thou know that I with thee am pleased,

With a corollary will I mantle thee.

Evermore nature, if it fortune find

Discordant to it, like each other seed

Out of its region, maketh evil thrift;1370

And if the world below would fix its mind

On the foundation which is laid by nature,

Pursuing that, ’twould have the people good.

But you unto religion wrench aside1371

Him who was born to gird him with the sword,

And make a king of him who is for sermons;

Therefore your footsteps wander from the road.”

Canto
IX

Cunizza, Folco of Marseilles, and Rahab.

Beautiful Clemence, after that thy Charles1372

Had me enlightened, he narrated to me

The treacheries his seed should undergo;1373

But said: “Be still and let the years roll round”;

So I can only say, that lamentation

Legitimate shall follow on your wrongs.

And of that holy light the life already

Had to the Sun which fills it turned again,

As to that good which for each thing sufficeth.

Ah, souls deceived, and creatures impious,

Who from such good do turn away your hearts,

Directing upon vanity your foreheads!

And now, behold, another of those splendors

Approached me, and its will to pleasure me

It signified by brightening outwardly.

The eyes of Beatrice, that fastened were

Upon me, as before, of dear assent

To my desire assurance gave to me.

“Ah, bring swift compensation to my wish,

Thou blessed spirit,” I said, “and give me proof

That what I think in thee I can reflect!”

Whereat the light, that still was new to me,1374

Out of its depths, whence it before was singing,

As one delighted to do good, continued:

“Within that region of the land depraved1375

Of Italy, that lies between Rialto

And fountainheads of Brenta and of Piava,

Rises a hill, and mounts not very high,1376

Wherefrom descended formerly a torch

That made upon that region great assault.

Out of one root were born both I and it;

Cunizza was I called, and here I shine1377

Because the splendor of this star o’ercame me.1378

But gladly to myself the cause I pardon1379

Of my allotment, and it does not grieve me;

Which would perhaps seem strong unto your vulgar.

Of this so luculent and precious jewel,1380

Which of our heaven is nearest unto me,

Great fame remained; and ere it die away

This hundredth year shall yet quintupled be.

See if man ought to make him excellent,

So that another life the first may leave!

And thus thinks not the present multitude

Shut in by Adige and Tagliamento,1381

Nor yet for being scourged is penitent.

But soon ’twill be that Padua in the marsh1382

Will change the water that Vicenza bathes,

Because the folk are stubborn against duty;

And where the Sile and Cagnano join1383

One lordeth it, and goes with lofty head,1384

For catching whom e’en now the net is making.

Feltro moreover of her impious pastor

Shall weep the crime, which shall so monstrous be1385

That for the like none ever entered Malta.1386

Ample exceedingly would be the vat

That of the Ferrarese could hold the blood,

And weary who should weigh it ounce by ounce,

Of which this courteous priest shall make a gift1387

To show himself a partisan; and such gifts

Will to the living of the land conform.1388

Above us there are mirrors, Thrones you call them,1389

From which shines out on us God Judicant,

So that this utterance seems good to us.”

Here it was silent, and it had the semblance

Of being turned elsewhither, by the wheel

On which it entered as it was before.

The other joy, already known to me,

Became a thing transplendent in my sight,

As a fine ruby smitten by the sun.1390

Through joy effulgence is acquired above,1391

As here a smile; but down below, the shade

Outwardly darkens, as the mind is sad.

“God seeth all things, and in Him, blest spirit,1392

Thy sight is,” said I, “so that never will

Of his can possibly from thee be hidden;

Thy voice, then, that forever makes the heavens1393

Glad, with the singing of those holy fires1394

Which of their six wings make themselves a cowl,

Wherefore does it not satisfy my longings?

Indeed, I would not wait thy questioning

If I in thee were as thou art in me.”1395

“The greatest of the valleys where the water1396

Expands itself,” forthwith its words began,

“That sea excepted which the earth engarlands,

Between discordant shores against the sun1397

Extends so far, that it meridian makes

Where it was wont before to make the horizon.

I was a dweller on that valley’s shore

’Twixt Ebro and Magra that with journey short1398

Doth from the Tuscan part the Genoese.

With the same sunset and same sunrise nearly

Sit Buggia and the city whence I was,1399

That with its blood once made the harbour hot.1400

Folco that people called me unto whom1401

My name was known; and now with me this heaven

Imprints itself, as I did once with it;

For more the daughter of Belus never burned,1402

Offending both Sichaeus and Creusa,

Than I, so long as it became my locks,

Nor yet that Rodophean, who deluded1403

Was by Demophoon, nor yet Alcides,1404

When Iole he in his heart had locked.

Yet here is no repenting, but we smile,1405

Not at the fault, which comes not back to mind,

But at the power which ordered and foresaw.

Here we behold the art that doth adorn1406

With such affection, and the good discover

Whereby the world above turns that below.

But that thou wholly satisfied mayst bear

Thy wishes hence which in this sphere are born,

Still farther to proceed behoveth me.

Thou fain wouldst know who is within this light

That here beside me thus is scintillating,

Even as a sunbeam in the limpid water.

Then know thou, that within there is at rest

Rahab, and being to our order joined,1407

With her in its supremest grade ’tis sealed.

Into this heaven, where ends the shadowy cone1408

Cast by your world, before all other souls

First of Christ’s triumph was she taken up.1409

Full meet it was to leave her in some heaven,

Even as a palm of the high victory

Which he acquired with one palm and the other,1410

Because she favored the first glorious deed1411

Of Joshua upon the Holy Land,1412

That little stirs the memory of the Pope.

Thy city, which an offshoot is of him1413

Who first upon his Maker turned his back,

And whose ambition is so sorely wept,

Brings forth and scatters the accursed flower1414

Which both the sheep and lambs hath led astray

Since it has turned the shepherd to a wolf.

For this the Evangel and the mighty Doctors1415

Are derelict, and only the Decretals

So studied that it shows upon their margins.

On this are Pope and Cardinals intent;

Their meditations reach not Nazareth,

There where his pinions Gabriel unfolded;1416

But Vatican and the other parts elect

Of Rome, which have a cemetery been

Unto the soldiery that followed Peter

Shall soon be free from this adultery.”

Canto
X

The Fourth Heaven, or that of the Sun, where are seen the spirits of theologians and fathers of the Church—St. Thomas Aquinas.

Looking into his Son with all the Love1417

Which each of them eternally breathes forth,1418

The Primal and unutterable Power

Whate’er before the mind or eye revolves

With so much order made, there can be none

Who this beholds without enjoying Him.

Lift up then, Reader, to the lofty wheels

With me thy vision straight unto that part

Where the one motion on the other strikes,1419

And there begin to contemplate with joy

That Master’s art, who in himself so loves it

That never doth his eye depart therefrom.

Behold how from that point goes branching off

The oblique circle, which conveys the planets,1420

To satisfy the world that calls upon them;

And if their pathway were not thus inflected,1421

Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain,

And almost every power below here dead.

If from the straight line distant more or less

Were the departure, much would wanting be

Above and underneath of mundane order.

Remain now, Reader, still upon thy bench,

In thought pursuing that which is foretasted,

If thou wouldst jocund be instead of weary.

I’ve set before thee; henceforth feed thyself,

For to itself diverteth all my care

That theme whereof I have been made the scribe.

The greatest of the ministers of nature,1422

Who with the power of heaven the world imprints

And measures with his light the time for us,

With that part which above is called to mind1423

Conjoined, along the spirals was revolving,1424

Where each time earlier he presents himself;

And I was with him; but of the ascending

I was not conscious, saving as a man

Of a first thought is conscious ere it come;

And Beatrice, she who is seen to pass

From good to better, and so suddenly

That not by time her action is expressed,

How lucent in herself must she have been!

And what was in the sun, wherein I entered,

Apparent not by color but by light,

I, though I call on genius, art, and practice,

Cannot so tell that it could be imagined;

Believe one can, and let him long to see it.

And if our fantasies too lowly are

For altitude so great, it is no marvel,

Since o’er the sun was never eye could go.1425

Such in this place was the fourth family

Of the high Father, who forever sates it,

Showing how he breathes forth and how begets.1426

And Beatrice began: “Give thanks, give thanks

Unto the Sun of Angels, who to this

Sensible one has raised thee by his grace!”

Never was heart of mortal so disposed

To worship, nor to give itself to God

With all its gratitude was it so ready,

As at those words did I myself become;

And all my love was so absorbed in Him,

That in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed.

Nor this displeased her; but she smiled at it

So that the splendor of her laughing eyes

My single mind on many things divided.

Lights many saw I, vivid and triumphant,

Make us a centre and themselves a circle,

More sweet in voice than luminous in aspect.

Thus girt about the daughter of Latona1427

We sometimes see, when pregnant is the air,

So that it holds the thread which makes her zone.

Within the court of Heaven, whence I return,

Are many jewels found, so fair and precious

They cannot be transported from the realm;

And of them was the singing of those lights.

Who takes not wings that he may fly up thither,

The tidings thence may from the dumb await!

As soon as singing thus those burning suns

Had round about us whirled themselves three times,

Like unto stars neighboring the steadfast poles,

Ladies they seemed, not from the dance released,

But who stop short, in silence listening

Till they have gathered the new melody.

And within one I heard beginning: “When1428

The radiance of grace, by which is kindled

True love, and which thereafter grows by loving,

Within thee multiplied is so resplendent

That it conducts thee upward by that stair,

Where without reascending none descends,1429

Who should deny the wine out of his vial

Unto thy thirst, in liberty were not1430

Except as water which descends not seaward.

Fain wouldst thou know with what plants is enflowered

This garland that encircles with delight

The Lady fair who makes thee strong for heaven.

Of the lambs was I of the holy flock

Which Dominic conducteth by a road

Where well one fattens if he strayeth not.

He who is nearest to me on the right

My brother and master was; and he Albertus1431

Is of Cologne, I Thomas of Aquinum.1432

If thou of all the others wouldst be certain,

Follow behind my speaking with thy sight

Upward along the blessed garland turning.

That next effulgence issues from the smile

Of Gratian, who assisted both the courts1433

In such wise that it pleased in Paradise.

The other which near by adorns our choir

That Peter was who, e’en as the poor widow,1434

Offered his treasure unto Holy Church.

The fifth light, that among us is the fairest,1435

Breathes forth from such a love, that all the world

Below is greedy to learn tidings of it.1436

Within it is the lofty mind, where knowledge

So deep was put, that, if the true be true,

To see so much there never rose a second.

Thou seest next the lustre of that taper,1437

Which in the flesh below looked most within

The angelic nature and its ministry.

Within that other little light is smiling

The advocate of the Christian centuries,1438

Out of whose rhetoric Augustine was furnished.

Now if thou trainest thy mind’s eye along

From light to light pursuant of my praise,

With thirst already of the eighth thou waitest.

By seeing every good therein exults

The sainted soul, which the fallacious world1439

Makes manifest to him who listeneth well;

The body whence ’twas hunted forth is lying

Down in Cieldauro, and from martyrdom1440

And banishment it came unto this peace.

See farther onward flame the burning breath

Of Isidore, of Beda, and of Richard1441

Who was in contemplation more than man.

This, whence to me returneth thy regard,

The light is of a spirit unto whom

In his grave meditations death seemed slow.1442

It is the light eternal of Sigier,1443

Who, reading lectures in the Street of Straw,1444

Did syllogize invidious verities.”1445

Then, as a horologe that calleth us

What time the Bride of God is rising up

With matins to her Spouse that he may love her,

Wherein one part the other draws and urges,

Ting! ting! resounding with so sweet a note,

That swells with love the spirit well disposed,

Thus I beheld the glorious wheel move round,

And render voice to voice, in modulation

And sweetness that can not be comprehended,1446

Excepting there where joy is made eternal.

Canto
XI

St. Thomas Aquinas recounts the life of St. Francis.

O Thou insensate care of mortal men,1447

How inconclusive are the syllogisms

That make thee beat thy wings in downward flight!

One after laws and one to aphorisms1448

Was going, and one following the priesthood,

And one to reign by force or sophistry,

And one in theft, and one in state affairs,

One in the pleasures of the flesh involved

Wearied himself, one gave himself to ease;

When I, from all these things emancipate,

With Beatrice above there in the Heavens

With such exceeding glory was received!

When each one had returned unto that point

Within the circle where it was before,

It stood as in a candlestick a candle;

And from within the effulgence which at first1449

Had spoken unto me, I heard begin

Smiling while it more luminous became:

“Even as I am kindled in its ray,

So, looking into the Eternal Light,1450

The occasion of thy thoughts I apprehend.

Thou doubtest, and wouldst have me to resift

In language so extended and so open

My speech, that to thy sense it may be plain,

Where just before I said, ‘where well one fattens,’1451

And where I said, ‘there never rose a second’;1452

And here ’tis needful we distinguish well.

The Providence, which governeth the world

With counsel, wherein all created vision

Is vanquished ere it reach unto the bottom,

(So that towards her own Beloved might go

The bride of Him who, uttering a loud cry,1453

Espoused her with his consecrated blood,

Self-confident and unto Him more faithful,)1454

Two Princes did ordain in her behoof,1455

Which on this side and that might be her guide.

The one was all seraphical in ardor;1456

The other by his wisdom upon earth

A splendor was of light cherubical.

One will I speak of, for of both is spoken1457

In praising one, whichever may be taken,

Because unto one end their labors were.

Between Tupino and the stream that falls1458

Down from the hill elect of blessed Ubald,

A fertile slope of lofty mountain hangs,

From which Perugia feels the cold and heat

Through Porta Sole, and behind it weep

Gualdo and Nocera their grievous yoke.

From out that slope, there where it breaketh most

Its steepness, rose upon the world a sun1459

As this one does sometimes from out the Ganges;1460

Therefore let him who speaketh of that place,

Say not Ascesi, for he would say little,1461

But Orient, if he properly would speak.

He was not yet far distant from his rising

Before he had begun to make the earth

Some comfort from his mighty virtue feel.

For he in youth his father’s wrath incurred

For certain Dame, to whom, as unto death,1462

The gate of pleasure no one doth unlock;

And was before his spiritual court1463

Et coram patre unto her united;

Then day by day more fervently he loved her.

She, reft of her first husband, scorned, obscure,

One thousand and one hundred years and more,1464

Waited without a suitor till he came.

Naught it availed to hear, that with Amyclas1465

Found her unmoved at sounding of his voice

He who struck terror into all the world;

Naught it availed being constant and undaunted,

So that, when Mary still remained below,

She mounted up with Christ upon the cross.

But that too darkly I may not proceed,

Francis and Poverty for these two lovers1466

Take thou henceforward in my speech diffuse.

Their concord and their joyous semblances,

The love, the wonder, and the sweet regard,

They made to be the cause of holy thoughts;

So much so that the venerable Bernard1467

First bared his feet, and after so great peace

Ran, and, in running, thought himself too slow.

O wealth unknown! O veritable good!

Giles bares his feet, and bares his feet Sylvester1468

Behind the bridegroom, so doth please the bride!

Then goes his way that father and that master,

He and his Lady and that family

Which now was girding on the humble cord;

Nor cowardice of heart weighed down his brow

At being son of Peter Bernardone,1469

Nor for appearing marvellously scorned;

But regally his hard determination

To Innocent he opened, and from him

Received the primal seal upon his Order.1470

After the people mendicant increased

Behind this man, whose admirable life

Better in glory of the heavens were sung,1471

Incoronated with a second crown

Was through Honorius by the Eternal Spirit1472

The holy purpose of this Archimandrite.1473

And when he had, through thirst of martyrdom,

In the proud presence of the Sultan preached1474

Christ and the others who came after him,

And, finding for conversion too unripe

The folk, and not to tarry there in vain,1475

Returned to fruit of the Italic grass,

On the rude rock ’twixt Tiber and the Arno1476

From Christ did he receive the final seal,

Which during two whole years his members bore.

When He, who chose him unto so much good,

Was pleased to draw him up to the reward

That he had merited by being lowly,

Unto his friars, as to the rightful heirs,

His most dear Lady did he recommend,

And bade that they should love her faithfully;

And from her bosom the illustrious soul

Wished to depart, returning to its realm,

And for its body wished no other bier.1477

Think now what man was he, who was a fit1478

Companion over the high seas to keep

The bark of Peter to its proper bearings.

And this man was our Patriarch; hence whoever

Doth follow him as he commands can see

That he is laden with good merchandise.

But for new pasturage his flock has grown

So greedy, that it is impossible

They be not scattered over fields diverse;

And in proportion as his sheep remote

And vagabond go farther off from him,

More void of milk return they to the fold.

Verily some there are that fear a hurt,

And keep close to the shepherd; but so few,

That little cloth doth furnish forth their hoods.

Now if my utterance be not indistinct,

If thine own hearing hath attentive been,

If thou recall to mind what I have said,

In part contented shall thy wishes be;

For thou shalt see the plant that’s chipped away,1479

And the rebuke that lieth in the words,1480

‘Where well one fattens, if he strayeth not.’ ”

Canto
XII

St. Buonaventura recounts the life of St. Dominic.

Soon as the blessed flame had taken up1481

The final word to give it utterance,

Began the holy millstone to revolve,1482

And in its gyre had not turned wholly round,

Before another in a ring enclosed it,

And motion joined to motion, song to song;

Song that as greatly doth transcend our Muses,

Our Sirens, in those dulcet clarions,

As primal splendor that which is reflected.

And as are spanned athwart a tender cloud

Two rainbows parallel and like in color,1483

When Juno to her handmaid gives command,1484

(The one without born of the one within,

Like to the speaking of that vagrant one1485

Whom love consumed as doth the sun the vapors,)

And make the people here, through covenant1486

God set with Noah, presageful of the world

That shall no more be covered with a flood,

In such wise of those sempiternal roses

The garlands twain encompassed us about,

And thus the outer to the inner answered.

After the dance, and other grand rejoicings,

Both of the singing, and the flaming forth

Effulgence with effulgence blithe and tender,

Together, at once, with one accord had stopped,

(Even as the eyes, that, as volition moves them,

Must needs together shut and lift themselves,)

Out of the heart of one of the new lights

There came a voice, that needle to the star

Made me appear in turning thitherward.

And it began: “The love that makes me fair1487

Draws me to speak about the other leader,1488

By whom so well is spoken here of mine.

’Tis right, where one is, to bring in the other,1489

That, as they were united in their warfare,

Together likewise may their glory shine.

The soldiery of Christ, which it had cost

So dear to arm again, behind the standard1490

Moved slow and doubtful and in numbers few,

When the Emperor who reigneth evermore

Provided for the host that was in peril,

Through grace alone and not that it was worthy;

And, as was said, he to his Bride brought succor1491

With champions twain, at whose deed, at whose word

The straggling people were together drawn.

Within that region where the sweet west wind1492

Rises to open the new leaves, wherewith

Europe is seen to clothe herself afresh,

Not far off from the beating of the waves,

Behind which in his long career the sun

Sometimes conceals himself from every man,

Is situate the fortunate Calahorra,1493

Under protection of the mighty shield1494

In which the Lion subject is and sovereign.

Therein was born the amorous paramour1495

Of Christian Faith, the athlete consecrate,

Kind to his own and cruel to his foes;

And when it was created was his mind1496

Replete with such a living energy,

That in his mother her it made prophetic.1497

As soon as the espousals were complete

Between him and the Faith at holy font,

Where they with mutual safety dowered each other,

The woman, who for him had given assent,1498

Saw in a dream the admirable fruit

That issue would from him and from his heirs;

And that he might be construed as he was,

A spirit from this place went forth to name him

With His possessive whose he wholly was.1499

Dominic was he called; and him I speak of1500

Even as of the husbandman whom Christ

Elected to his garden to assist him.

Envoy and servant sooth he seemed of Christ,

For the first love made manifest in him

Was the first counsel that was given by Christ.1501

Silent and wakeful many a time was he

Discovered by his nurse upon the ground,

As if he would have said, ‘For this I came.’

O thou his father, Felix verily!1502

O thou his mother, verily Joanna,

If this, interpreted, means as is said!

Not for the world which people toil for now

In following Ostiense and Taddeo,1503

But through his longing after the true manna,

He in short time became so great a teacher,

That he began to go about the vineyard,

Which fadeth soon, if faithless be the dresser;

And of the See, (that once was more benignant1504

Unto the righteous poor, not through itself,

But him who sits there and degenerates,)1505

Not to dispense or two or three for six,1506

Not any fortune of first vacancy,

Non decimas quae sunt pauperum Dei,

He asked for, but against the errant world

Permission to do battle for the seed,

Of which these four and twenty plants surround thee.

Then with the doctrine and the will together,

With office apostolical he moved,

Like torrent which some lofty vein out-presses;

And in among the shoots heretical

His impetus with greater fury smote,

Wherever the resistance was the greatest.

Of him were made thereafter divers runnels,

Whereby the garden catholic is watered,

So that more living its plantations stand.

If such the one wheel of the Biga was,1507

In which the Holy Church itself defended

And in the field its civic battle won,

Truly full manifest should be to thee

The excellence of the other, unto whom

Thomas so courteous was before my coming.

But still the orbit, which the highest part1508

Of its circumference made, is derelict,

So that the mould is where was once the crust.1509

His family, that had straight forward moved

With feet upon his footprints, are turned round

So that they set the point upon the heel.1510

And soon aware they will be of the harvest

Of this bad husbandry, when shall the tares

Complain the granary is taken from them.1511

Yet say I, he who searcheth leaf by leaf1512

Our volume through, would still some page discover

Where he could read, ‘I am as I am wont.’

’Twill not be from Casal nor Acquasparta,1513

From whence come such unto the written word

That one avoids it, and the other narrows.

Bonaventura of Bagnoregio’s life1514

Am I, who always in great offices

Postponed considerations sinister.

Here are Illuminato and Agostino,1515

Who of the first barefooted beggars were

That with the cord the friends of God became.

Hugh of Saint Victor is among them here,1516

And Peter Mangiador, and Peter of Spain,1517

Who down below in volumes twelve is shining;

Nathan the seer, and metropolitan1518

Chrysostom, and Anselmus, and Donatus1519

Who deigned to lay his hand to the first art;

Here is Rabanus, and beside me here1520

Shines the Calabrian Abbot Joachim,1521

He with the spirit of prophecy endowed.

To celebrate so great a paladin

Have moved me the impassioned courtesy

And the discreet discourses of Friar Thomas,

And with me they have moved this company.”

Canto
XIII

Of the wisdom of Solomon.

Let him imagine, who would well conceive1522

What now I saw, and let him while I speak

Retain the image as a steadfast rock,

The fifteen stars, that in their divers regions

The sky enliven with a light so great

That it transcends all clusters of the air;

Let him the Wain imagine unto which1523

Our vault of heaven sufficeth night and day,

So that in turning of its pole it fails not;

Let him the mouth imagine of the horn1524

That in the point beginneth of the axis

Round about which the primal wheel revolves—

To have fashioned of themselves two signs in heaven,

Like unto that which Minos’ daughter made,1525

The moment when she felt the frost of death;

And one to have its rays within the other,

And both to whirl themselves in such a manner

That one should forward go, the other backward;

And he will have some shadowing forth of that

True constellation and the double dance

That circled round the point at which I was;

Because it is as much beyond our wont,

As swifter than the motion of the Chiana1526

Moveth the heaven that all the rest outspeeds.1527

There sang they neither Bacchus, nor Apollo,

But in the divine nature Persons three,

And in one person the divine and human.

The singing and the dance fulfilled their measure,

And unto us those holy lights gave need,

Growing in happiness from care to care.

Then broke the silence of those saints concordant

The light in which the admirable life1528

Of God’s own mendicant was told to me,

And said: “Now that one straw is trodden out1529

Now that its seed is garnered up already,

Sweet love invites me to thresh out the other.

Into that bosom, thou believest, whence1530

Was drawn the rib to form the beauteous cheek

Whose taste to all the world is costing dear,

And into that which, by the lance transfixed,1531

Before and since, such satisfaction made

That it weighs down the balance of all sin,

Whate’er of light it has to human nature

Been lawful to possess was all infused

By the same power that both of them created;

And hence at what I said above dost wonder,

When I narrated that no second had

The good which in the fifth light is enclosed.1532

Now ope thine eyes to what I answer thee,

And thou shalt see thy creed and my discourse

Fit in the truth as centre in a circle.

That which can die, and that which dieth not,1533

Are nothing but the splendor of the idea

Which by his love our Lord brings into being;

Because that living Light, which from its fount1534

Effulgent flows, so that it disunites not

From Him nor from the Love in them intrined,

Through its own goodness reunites its rays1535

In nine subsistences, as in a mirror,

Itself eternally remaining One.

Thence it descends to the last potencies,1536

Downward from act to act becoming such

That only brief contingencies it makes;

And these contingencies I hold to be1537

Things generated, which the heaven produces

By its own motion, with seed and without.

Neither their wax, nor that which tempers it,1538

Remains immutable, and hence beneath

The ideal signet more and less shines through;

Therefore it happens, that the selfsame tree

After its kind bears worse and better fruit,

And ye are born with characters diverse.

If in perfection tempered were the wax,1539

And were the heaven in its supremest virtue,

The brilliance of the seal would all appear;

But nature gives it evermore deficient,

In the like manner working as the artist,

Who has the skill of art and hand that trembles.

If then the fervent Love, the Vision clear,1540

Of primal Virtue do dispose and seal,

Perfection absolute is there acquired.

Thus was of old the earth created worthy

Of all and every animal perfection;

And thus the Virgin was impregnate made;

So that thine own opinion I commend,

That human nature never yet has been,

Nor will be, what it was in those two persons.

Now if no farther forth I should proceed,

‘Then in what way was he without a peer?’1541

Would be the first beginning of thy words.

But, that may well appear what now appears not,

Think who he was, and what occasion moved him

To make request, when it was told him, ‘Ask.’1542

I’ve not so spoken that thou canst not see

Clearly he was a king who asked for wisdom,

That he might be sufficiently a king;

’Twas not to know the number in which are

The motors here above, or if necesse1543

With a contingent e’er necesse make,1544

Non si est dare primum motum esse,1545

Or if in semicircle can be made

Triangle so that it have no right angle.1546

Whence, if thou notest this and what I said,1547

A regal prudence is that peerless seeing1548

In which the shaft of my intention strikes.

And if on ‘rose’ thou turnest thy clear eyes,

Thou’lt see that it has reference alone

To kings who’re many, and the good are rare.

With this distinction take thou what I said,

And thus it can consist with thy belief

Of the first father and of our Delight.

And lead shall this be always to thy feet,

To make thee, like a weary man, move slowly

Both to the Yes and No thou seest not;

For very low among the fools is he

Who affirms without distinction, or denies,

As well in one as in the other case;

Because it happens that full often bends

Current opinion in the false direction,

And then the feelings bind the intellect.

Far more than uselessly he leaves the shore,

(Since he returneth not the same he went,)

Who fishes for the truth, and has no skill;

And in the world proofs manifest thereof

Parmenides, Melissus, Brissus are,1549

And many who went on and knew not whither;

Thus did Sabellius, Arius, and those fools1550

Who have been even as swords unto the Scriptures1551

In rendering distorted their straight faces.

Nor yet shall people be too confident

In judging, even as he is who doth count

The corn in field or ever it be ripe.

For I have seen all winter long the thorn

First show itself intractable and fierce,

And after bear the rose upon its top;

And I have seen a ship direct and swift

Run o’er the sea throughout its course entire,

To perish at the harbour’s mouth at last.

Let not Dame Bertha nor Ser Martin think,1552

Seeing one steal, another offering make,

To see them in the arbitrament divine;1553

For one may rise, and fall the other may.”

Canto
XIV

The Fifth Heaven, or that of Mars, where are seen the spirits of martyrs, and of crusaders who died fighting for the true faith—The Celestial Cross.

From centre unto rim, from rim to centre,1554

In a round vase the water moves itself,1555

As from without ’tis struck or from within.

Into my mind upon a sudden dropped

What I am saying, at the moment when

Silent became the glorious life of Thomas,1556

Because of the resemblance that was born

Of his discourse and that of Beatrice,

Whom, after him, it pleased thus to begin:

“This man has need (and does not tell you so,

Nor with the voice, nor even in his thought)

Of going to the root of one truth more.

Declare unto him if the light wherewith

Blossoms your substance shall remain with you

Eternally the same that it is now;

And if it do remain, say in what manner,

After ye are again made visible,

It can be that it injure not your sight.”

As by a greater gladness urged and drawn

They who are dancing in a ring sometimes

Uplift their voices and their motions quicken;

So, at that orison devout and prompt,

The holy circles a new joy displayed

In their revolving and their wondrous song.

Whoso lamenteth him that here we die

That we may live above, has never there

Seen the refreshment of the eternal rain.

The One and Two and Three who ever liveth,1557

And reigneth ever in Three and Two and One,

Not circumscribed and all things circumscribing,

Three several times was chanted by each one

Among those spirits, with such melody

That for all merit it were just reward;

And, in the lustre most divine of all

The lesser ring, I heard a modest voice,1558

Such as perhaps the Angel’s was to Mary,

Answer: “As long as the festivity

Of Paradise shall be, so long our love

Shall radiate round about us such a vesture.

Its brightness is proportioned to the ardor,

The ardor to the vision; and the vision

Equals what grace it has above its worth.

When, glorious and sanctified, our flesh

Is reassumed, then shall our persons be

More pleasing by their being all complete;

For will increase whate’er bestows on us

Of light gratuitous the Good Supreme,

Light which enables us to look on Him;

Therefore the vision must perforce increase,

Increase the ardor which from that is kindled,

Increase the radiance which from this proceeds.

But even as a coal that sends forth flame,

And by its vivid whiteness overpowers it

So that its own appearance it maintains,

Thus the effulgence that surrounds us now

Shall be o’erpowered in aspect by the flesh,

Which still today the earth doth cover up;

Nor can so great a splendor weary us,

For strong will be the organs of the body

To everything which hath the power to please us.”

So sudden and alert appeared to me

Both one and the other choir to say Amen,

That well they showed desire for their dead bodies;

Nor sole for them perhaps, but for the mothers,

The fathers, and the rest who had been dear

Or ever they became eternal flames.

And lo! all round about of equal brightness

Arose a lustre over what was there,

Like an horizon that is clearing up.

And as at rise of early eve begin

Along the welkin new appearances,

So that the sight seems real and unreal,

It seemed to me that new subsistences1559

Began there to be seen, and make a circle

Outside the other two circumferences.

O very sparkling of the Holy Spirit,

How sudden and incandescent it became

Unto mine eyes, that vanquished bore it not!

But Beatrice so beautiful and smiling

Appeared to me, that with the other sights

That followed not my memory I must leave her.

Then to uplift themselves mine eyes resumed

The power, and I beheld myself translated

To higher salvation with my Lady only.

Well was I ware that I was more uplifted

By the enkindled smiling of the star,1560

That seemed to me more ruddy than its wont.1561

With all my heart, and in that dialect1562

Which is the same in all, such holocaust

To God I made as the new grace beseemed;

And not yet from my bosom was exhausted

The ardor of sacrifice, before I knew

This offering was accepted and auspicious;

For with so great a lustre and so red

Splendors appeared to me in twofold rays,

I said: “O Helios who dost so adorn them!”1563

Even as distinct with less and greater lights

Glimmers between the two poles of the world

The Galaxy that maketh wise men doubt,1564

Thus constellated in the depths of Mars,

Those rays described the venerable sign1565

That quadrants joining in a circle make.

Here doth my memory overcome my genius;

For on that cross as levin gleamed forth Christ,1566

So that I cannot find ensample worthy;

But he who takes his cross and follows Christ

Again will pardon me what I omit,

Seeing in that aurora lighten Christ.

From horn to horn, and ’twixt the top and base,1567

Lights were in motion, brightly scintillating

As they together met and passed each other;

Thus level and aslant and swift and slow1568

We here behold, renewing still the sight,

The particles of bodies long and short,

Across the sunbeam move, wherewith is listed

Sometimes the shade, which for their own defence

People with cunning and with art contrive.

And as a lute and harp, accordant strung

With many strings, a dulcet tinkling make

To him by whom the notes are not distinguished,

So from the lights that there to me appeared

Upgathered through the cross a melody,

Which rapt me, not distinguishing the hymn.

Well was I ware it was of lofty laud,

Because there came to me, “Arise and conquer!”1569

As unto him who hears and comprehends not.

So much enamoured I became therewith,

That until then there was not anything

That e’er had fettered me with such sweet bonds.

Perhaps my word appears somewhat too bold,

Postponing the delight of those fair eyes,

Into which gazing my desire has rest;

But who bethinks him that the living seals1570

Of every beauty grow in power ascending,

And that I there had not turned round to those,1571

Can me excuse, if I myself accuse

To excuse myself, and see that I speak truly:

For here the holy joy is not disclosed,

Because ascending it becomes more pure.1572

Canto
XV

Cacciaguida—Florence in the olden time.

A will benign, in which reveals itself1573

Ever the love that righteously inspires,

As in the iniquitous, cupidity,

Silence imposed upon that dulcet lyre,

And quieted the consecrated chords,

That Heaven’s right hand doth tighten and relax.

How unto just entreaties shall be deaf

Those substances, which, to give me desire

Of praying them, with one accord grew silent?

’Tis well that without end he should lament,

Who for the love of thing that doth not last

Eternally despoils him of that love!

As through the pure and tranquil evening air

There shoots from time to time a sudden fire,

Moving the eyes that steadfast were before,

And seems to be a star that changeth place,

Except that in the part where it is kindled

Nothing is missed, and this endureth little;

So from the horn that to the right extends

Unto that cross’s foot there ran a star

Out of the constellation shining there;

Nor was the gem dissevered from its ribbon,1574

But down the radiant fillet ran along,

So that fire seemed it behind alabaster.1575

Thus piteous did Anchises’ shade reach forward,1576

If any faith our greatest Muse deserve,

When in Elysium he his son perceived.

“O sanguis meus, O superinfusa1577

Gratia Dei, sicut tibi, cui

Bis unquam Coeli janua reclusa?”

Thus that effulgence; whence I gave it heed;

Then round unto my Lady turned my sight,

And on this side and that was stupefied;

For in her eyes was burning such a smile

That with mine own methought I touched the bottom

Both of my grace and of my Paradise!

Then, pleasant to the hearing and the sight,

The spirit joined to its beginning things

I understood not, so profound it spake;

Nor did it hide itself from me by choice,

But by necessity; for its conception

Above the mark of mortals set itself.

And when the bow of burning sympathy

Was so far slackened, that its speech descended

Towards the mark of our intelligence,

The first thing that was understood by me

Was “Benedight be Thou, O Trine and One,

Who hast unto my seed so courteous been!”

And it continued: “Hunger long and grateful,1578

Drawn from the reading of the mighty volume1579

Wherein is never changed the white nor dark,

Thou hast appeased, my son, within this light

In which I speak to thee, by grace of her

Who to this lofty flight with plumage clothed thee.

Thou thinkest that to me thy thought doth pass

From Him who is the first, as from the unit,1580

If that be known, ray out the five and six;

And therefore who I am thou askest not,

And why I seem more joyous unto thee

Than any other of this gladsome crowd.

Thou think’st the truth; because the small and great1581

Of this existence look into the mirror

Wherein, before thou think’st, thy thought thou showest.

But that the sacred love, in which I watch

With sight perpetual, and which makes me thirst

With sweet desire, may better be fulfilled,

Now let thy voice secure and frank and glad

Proclaim the wishes, the desire proclaim,

To which my answer is decreed already.”

To Beatrice I turned me, and she heard

Before I spake, and smiled to me a sign,

That made the wings of my desire increase;

Then in this wise began I: “Love and knowledge,

When on you dawned the first Equality,1582

Of the same weight for each of you became;

For in the Sun, which lighted you and burned

With heat and radiance, they so equal are,

That all similitudes are insufficient.

But among mortals will and argument,1583

For reason that to you is manifest,

Diversely feathered in their pinions are.

Whence I, who mortal am, feel in myself

This inequality; so give not thanks,

Save in my heart, for this paternal welcome.

Truly do I entreat thee, living topaz!1584

Set in this precious jewel as a gem,

That thou wilt satisfy me with thy name.”

“O leaf of mine, in whom I pleasure took

E’en while awaiting, I was thine own root!”1585

Such a beginning he in answer made me.

Then said to me: “That one from whom is named1586

Thy race, and who a hundred years and more

Has circled round the mount on the first cornice,

A son of mine and thy great-grandsire was;

Well it behoves thee that the long fatigue

Thou shouldst for him make shorter with thy works.

Florence, within the ancient boundary1587

From which she taketh still her tierce and nones,1588

Abode in quiet, temperate and chaste.1589

No golden chain she had, nor coronal,1590

Nor ladies shod with sandal shoon, nor girdle

That caught the eye more than the person did.1591

Not yet the daughter at her birth struck fear

Into the father, for the time and dower

Did not o’errun this side or that the measure.

No houses had she void of families,

Not yet had thither come Sardanapalus

To show what in a chamber can be done;1592

Not yet surpassed had Montemalo been1593

By your Uccellatojo, which surpassed1594

Shall in its downfall be as in its rise.

Bellincion Berti saw I go begirt1595

With leather and with bone, and from the mirror

His dame depart without a painted face;

And him of Nerli saw, and him of Vecchio,1596

Contented with their simple suits of buff

And with the spindle and the flax their dames.

O fortunate women! and each one was certain

Of her own burial-place, and none as yet

For sake of France was in her bed deserted.1597

One o’er the cradle kept her studious watch,

And in her lullaby the language used

That first delights the fathers and the mothers;

Another, drawing tresses from her distaff,

Told o’er among her family the tales

Of Trojans and of Fesole and Rome.

As great a marvel then would have been held

A Lapo Salterello, a Cianghella,1598

As Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.1599

To such a quiet, such a beautiful

Life of the citizen, to such a safe

Community, and to so sweet an inn,

Did Mary give me, with loud cries invoked,1600

And in your ancient Baptistery at once1601

Christian and Cacciaguida I became.1602

Moronto was my brother, and Eliseo;

From Val di Pado came to me my wife,1603

And from that place thy surname was derived.

I followed afterward the Emperor Conrad,1604

And he begirt me of his chivalry,1605

So much I pleased him with my noble deeds.

I followed in his train against that law’s

Iniquity, whose people doth usurp1606

Your just possession, through your Pastor’s fault.

There by that execrable race was I

Released from bonds of the fallacious world,

The love of which defileth many souls,

And came from martyrdom unto this peace.”

Canto
XVI

Cacciaguida’s discourse of the great Florentines.

O thou our poor nobility of blood,1607

If thou dost make the people glory in thee

Down here where our affection languishes,

A marvellous thing it ne’er will be to me;

For there where appetite is not perverted,

I say in Heaven, of thee I made a boast!

Truly thou art a cloak that quickly shortens,

So that unless we piece thee day by day

Time goeth round about thee with his shears!

With You, which Rome was first to tolerate,1608

(Wherein her family less perseveres,)

Yet once again my words beginning made;

Whence Beatrice, who stood somewhat apart,

Smiling, appeared like unto her who coughed1609

At the first failing writ of Guenever.

And I began: “You are my ancestor,

You give to me all hardihood to speak,

You lift me so that I am more than I.

So many rivulets with gladness fill

My mind, that of itself it makes a joy1610

Because it can endure this and not burst.

Then tell me, my beloved root ancestral,

Who were your ancestors, and what the years

That in your boyhood chronicled themselves?

Tell me about the sheepfold of Saint John,1611

How large it was, and who the people were

Within it worthy of the highest seats.”

As at the blowing of the winds a coal

Quickens to flame, so I beheld that light

Become resplendent at my blandishments.

And as unto mine eyes it grew more fair,

With voice more sweet and tender, but not in

This modern dialect, it said to me:1612

“From uttering of the Ave, till the birth1613

In which my mother, who is now a saint,

Of me was lightened who had been her burden,

Unto its Lion had this fire returned

Five hundred fifty times and thirty more,

To reinflame itself beneath his paw.

My ancestors and I our birthplace had

Where first is found the last ward of the city1614

By him who runneth in your annual game.1615

Suffice it of my elders to hear this;

But who they were, and whence they thither came,

Silence is more considerate than speech.

All those who at that time were there between

Mars and the Baptist, fit for bearing arms,1616

Were a fifth part of those who now are living;

But the community, that now is mixed

With Campi and Certaldo and Figghine,1617

Pure in the lowest artisan was seen.

O how much better ’twere to have as neighbors

The folk of whom I speak, and at Galluzzo1618

And at Trespiano have your boundary,

Than have them in the town, and bear the stench

Of Aguglione’s churl, and him of Signa1619

Who has sharp eyes for trickery already.

Had not the folk, which most of all the world1620

Degenerates, been a step-dame unto Caesar,

But as a mother to her son benignant,

Some who turn Florentines, and trade and discount,

Would have gone back again to Simifonte1621

There where their grandsires went about as beggars.

At Montemurlo still would be the Counts,1622

The Cerchi in the parish of Acone,1623

Perhaps in Valdigrieve the Buondelmonti.1624

Ever the intermingling of the people

Has been the source of malady in cities,

As in the body food it surfeits on;

And a blind bull more headlong plunges down1625

Than a blind lamb; and very often cuts

Better and more a single sword than five.1626

If Luni thou regard, and Urbisaglia,1627

How they have passed away, and how are passing

Chiusi and Sinigaglia after them,1628

To hear how races waste themselves away,1629

Will seem to thee no novel thing nor hard,

Seeing that even cities have an end.1630

All things of yours have their mortality,1631

Even as yourselves; but it is hidden in some

That a long while endure, and lives are short;1632

And as the turning of the lunar heaven

Covers and bares the shores without a pause,

In the like manner fortune does with Florence.

Therefore should not appear a marvellous thing

What I shall say of the great Florentines1633

Of whom the fame is hidden in the Past.

I saw the Ughi, saw the Catellini,

Filippi, Greci, Ormanni, and Alberichi,

Even in their fall illustrious citizens;

And saw, as mighty as they ancient were,

With him of La Sannella him of Arca,

And Soldanier, Ardinghi, and Bostichi.1634

Near to the gate that is at present laden

With a new felony of so much weight1635

That soon it shall be jetsam from the bark,

The Ravignani were, from whom descended

The County Guido, and whoe’er the name1636

Of the great Bellincione since hath taken.1637

He of La Pressa knew the art of ruling

Already, and already Galigajo

Had hilt and pommel gilded in his house.1638

Mighty already was the Column Vair,1639

Sacchetti, Giuochi, Fifant, and Barucci,

And Galli, and they who for the bushel blush.1640

The stock from which were the Calfucci born

Was great already, and already chosen

To curule chairs the Sizii and Arrigucci.

O how beheld I those who are undone1641

By their own pride! and how the Balls of Gold1642

Florence enflowered in all their mighty deeds!

So likewise did the ancestors of those1643

Who evermore, when vacant is your church,

Fatten by staying in consistory.

The insolent race, that like a dragon follows1644

Whoever flees, and unto him that shows

His teeth or purse is gentle as a lamb,

Already rising was, but from low people;

So that it pleased not Ubertin Donato1645

That his wife’s father should make him their kin.

Already had Caponsacco to the Market1646

From Fesole descended, and already

Giuda and Infangato were good burghers.

I’ll tell a thing incredible, but true;1647

One entered the small circuit by a gate

Which from the Della Pera took its name!

Each one that bears the beautiful escutcheon1648

Of the great baron whose renown and name

The festival of Thomas keepeth fresh,

Knighthood and privilege from him received;1649

Though with the populace unites himself

Today the man who binds it with a border.

Already were Gualterotti and Importuni;

And still more quiet would the Borgo be1650

If with new neighbors it remained unfed.

The house from which is born your lamentation,1651

Through just disdain that death among you brought

And put an end unto your joyous life,

Was honored in itself and its companions.

O Buondelmonte, how in evil hour1652

Thou fled’st the bridal at another’s promptings!

Many would be rejoicing who are sad,1653

If God had thee surrendered to the Ema

The first time that thou camest to the city.

But it behoved the mutilated stone1654

Which guards the bridge, that Florence should provide

A victim in her latest hour of peace.

With all these families, and others with them,

Florence beheld I in so great repose,

That no occasion had she whence to weep;

With all these families beheld so just

And glorious her people, that the lily

Never upon the spear was placed reversed,1655

Nor by division was vermilion made.”1656

Canto
XVII

Cacciaguida’s prophecy of Dante’s banishment.

As came to Clymene, to be made certain1657

Of that which he had heard against himself,1658

He who makes fathers chary still to children,1659

Even such was I, and such was I perceived

By Beatrice and by the holy light

That first on my account had changed its place.

Therefore my Lady said to me: “Send forth

The flame of thy desire, so that it issue

Imprinted well with the internal stamp;

Not that our knowledge may be greater made

By speech of thine, but to accustom thee

To tell thy thirst, that we may give thee drink.”

“O my beloved tree, (that so dost lift thee,

That even as minds terrestrial perceive

No triangle containeth two obtuse,

So thou beholdest the contingent things1660

Ere in themselves they are, fixing thine eyes

Upon the point in which all times are present,)1661

While I was with Virgilius conjoined

Upon the mountain that the souls doth heal,1662

And when descending into the dead world,1663

Were spoken to me of my future life

Some grievous words; although I feel myself

In sooth foursquare against the blows of chance.1664

On this account my wish would be content

To hear what fortune is approaching me,

Because foreseen an arrow comes more slowly.”

Thus did I say unto that selfsame light1665

That unto me had spoken before; and even

As Beatrice willed was my own will confessed.

Not in vague phrase, in which the foolish folk1666

Ensnared themselves of old, ere yet was slain

The Lamb of God who taketh sins away,

But with clear words and unambiguous

Language responded that paternal love,1667

Hid and revealed by its own proper smile:

“Contingency, that outside of the volume1668

Of your materiality extends not,

Is all depicted in the eternal aspect.

Necessity however thence it takes not,1669

Except as from the eye, in which ’tis mirrored,

A ship that with the current down descends.

From thence, e’en as there cometh to the ear

Sweet harmony from an organ, comes in sight

To me the time that is preparing for thee.

As forth from Athens went Hippolytus,1670

By reason of his step-dame false and cruel,

So thou from Florence must perforce depart.

Already this is willed, and this is sought for;

And soon it shall be done by him who thinks it,1671

Where every day the Christ is bought and sold.

The blame shall follow the offended party1672

In outcry as is usual; but the vengeance1673

Shall witness to the truth that doth dispense it.

Thou shalt abandon everything beloved

Most tenderly, and this the arrow is

Which first the bow of banishment shoots forth.

Thou shalt have proof how savoureth of salt1674

The bread of others, and how hard a road

The going down and up another’s stairs.

And that which most shall weigh upon thy shoulders

Will be the bad and foolish company1675

With which into this valley thou shalt fall;

For all ingrate, all mad and impious

Will they become against thee; but soon after

They, and not thou, shall have the forehead scarlet.1676

Of their bestiality their own proceedings

Shall furnish proof; so ’twill be well for thee

A party to have made thee by thyself.

Thine earliest refuge and thine earliest inn

Shall be the mighty Lombard’s courtesy,1677

Who on the Ladder bears the holy bird,

Who such benign regard shall have for thee

That ’twixt you twain, in doing and in asking,

That shall be first which is with others last.

With him shalt thou see one who at his birth1678

Has by this star of strength been so impressed,

That notable shall his achievements be.

Not yet the people are aware of him

Through his young age, since only nine years yet

Around about him have these wheels revolved.

But ere the Gascon cheat the noble Henry,1679

Some sparkles of his virtue shall appear

In caring not for silver nor for toil.

So recognized shall his magnificence

Become hereafter, that his enemies

Will not have power to keep mute tongues about it.

On him rely, and on his benefits;

By him shall many people be transformed,

Changing condition rich and mendicant;

And written in thy mind thou hence shalt bear

Of him, but shalt not say it”—and things said he

Incredible to those who shall be present.

Then added: “Son, these are the commentaries1680

On what was said to thee; behold the snares

That are concealed behind few revolutions;

Yet would I not thy neighbors thou shouldst envy,

Because thy life into the future reaches

Beyond the punishment of their perfidies.”

When by its silence showed that sainted soul

That it had finished putting in the woof

Into that web which I had given it warped,

Began I, even as he who yearneth after,

Being in doubt, some counsel from a person

Who seeth, and uprightly wills, and loves:

“Well see I, father mine, how spurreth on

The time towards me such a blow to deal me

As heaviest is to him who most gives way.

Therefore with foresight it is well I arm me,

That, if the dearest place be taken from me,

I may not lose the others by my songs.

Down through the world of infinite bitterness,

And o’er the mountain, from whose beauteous summit

The eyes of my own Lady lifted me,

And afterward through heaven from light to light,

I have learned that which, if I tell again,

Will be a savor of strong herbs to many.

And if I am a timid friend to truth,

I fear lest I may lose my life with those

Who will hereafter call this time the olden.”

The light in which was smiling my own treasure

Which there I had discovered, flashed at first

As in the sunshine doth a golden mirror;

Then made reply: “A conscience overcast

Or with its own or with another’s shame,

Will taste forsooth the tartness of thy word;

But ne’ertheless, all falsehood laid aside,

Make manifest thy vision utterly,1681

And let them scratch wherever is the itch;1682

For if thine utterance shall offensive be

At the first taste, a vital nutriment

’Twill leave thereafter, when it is digested.

This cry of thine shall do as doth the wind,

Which smiteth most the most exalted summits,

And that is no slight argument of honor.

Therefore are shown to thee within these wheels,

Upon the mount and in the dolorous valley,

Only the souls that unto fame are known;

Because the spirit of the hearer rests not,

Nor doth confirm its faith by an example

Which has the root of it unknown and hidden,

Or other reason that is not apparent.”

Canto
XVIII

The Sixth Heaven, or that of Jupiter, where are seen the spirits of righteous kings and rulers—The celestial eagle.

Now was alone rejoicing in its word1683

That soul beatified, and I was tasting1684

My own, the bitter tempering with the sweet,

And the Lady who to God was leading me

Said: “Change thy thought; consider that I am

Near unto Him who every wrong disburdens.”

Unto the loving accents of my comfort

I turned me round, and then what love I saw

Within those holy eyes I here relinquish;1685

Not only that my language I distrust,

But that my mind cannot return so far1686

Above itself, unless another guide it.

Thus much upon that point can I repeat,

That, her again beholding, my affection

From every other longing was released.

While the eternal pleasure, which direct

Rayed upon Beatrice, from her fair face

Contented me with its reflected aspect,

Conquering me with the radiance of a smile,

She said to me, “Turn thee about and listen;

Not in mine eyes alone is Paradise.”

Even as sometimes here do we behold

The affection in the look, if it be such

That all the soul is wrapt away by it,

So, by the flaming of the effulgence holy

To which I turned, I recognized therein

The wish of speaking to me somewhat farther.

And it began: “In this fifth resting-place

Upon the tree that liveth by its summit,1687

And aye bears fruit, and never loses leaf,

Are blessed spirits that below, ere yet

They came to Heaven, were of such great renown

That every Muse therewith would affluent be.

Therefore look thou upon the cross’s horns;

He whom I now shall name will there enact

What doth within a cloud its own swift fire.”

I saw athwart the Cross a splendor drawn

By naming Joshua, (even as he did it,)1688

Nor noted I the word before the deed;

And at the name of the great Maccabee1689

I saw another move itself revolving,

And gladness was the whip unto that top.1690

Likewise for Charlemagne and for Orlando,1691

Two of them my regard attentive followed

As followeth the eye its falcon flying.

William thereafterward, and Renouard,1692

And the Duke Godfrey, did attract my sight1693

Along upon that Cross, and Robert Guiscard.1694

Then, moved and mingled with the other lights,

The soul that had addressed me showed how great

An artist ’twas among the heavenly singers.

To my right side I turned myself around,

My duty to behold in Beatrice

Either by words or gesture signified;

And so translucent I beheld her eyes,

So full of pleasure, that her countenance

Surpassed its other and its latest wont.

And as, by feeling greater delectation,

A man in doing good from day to day

Becomes aware his virtue is increasing,

So I became aware that my gyration

With heaven together had increased its arc,

That miracle beholding more adorned.1695

And such as is the change, in little lapse

Of time, in a pale woman, when her face

Is from the load of bashfulness unladen,

Such was it in mine eyes, when I had turned,1696

Caused by the whiteness of the temperate star,

The sixth, which to itself had gathered me.

Within that Jovial torch did I behold

The sparkling of the love which was therein

Delineate our language to mine eyes.

And even as birds uprisen from the shore,

As in congratulation o’er their food,

Make squadrons of themselves, now round, now long,1697

So from within those lights the holy creatures

Sang flying to and fro, and in their figures

Made of themselves now d, now i, now l.1698

First singing they to their own music moved;

Then one becoming of these characters,

A little while they rested and were silent.

O divine Pegasea, thou who genius1699

Dost glorious make, and render it long-lived,

And this through thee the cities and the kingdoms,

Illume me with thyself, that I may bring

Their figures out as I have them conceived!

Apparent be thy power in these brief verses!

Themselves then they displayed in five times seven

Vowels and consonants; and I observed

The parts as they seemed spoken unto me.

Diligite justitiam, these were

First verb and noun of all that was depicted;

Qui judicatis terram were the last.1700

Thereafter in the m of the fifth word

Remained they so arranged, that Jupiter

Seemed to be silver there with gold inlaid.

And other lights I saw descend where was

The summit of the m, and pause there singing

The good, I think, that draws them to itself.

Then, as in striking upon burning logs1701

Upward there fly innumerable sparks,

Whence fools are wont to look for auguries,

More than a thousand lights seemed thence to rise,1702

And to ascend, some more, and others less,

Even as the Sun that lights them had allotted;

And, each one being quiet in its place,

The head and neck beheld I of an eagle1703

Delineated by that inlaid fire.

He who there paints has none to be his guide;

But Himself guides; and is from Him remembered

That virtue which is form unto the nest.1704

The other beatitude, that contented seemed1705

At first to bloom a lily on the m,

By a slight motion followed out the imprint.

O gentle star! what and how many gems

Did demonstrate to me, that all our justice

Effect is of that heaven which thou ingemmest!

Wherefore I pray the Mind, in which begin

Thy motion and thy virtue, to regard

Whence comes the smoke that vitiates thy rays;

So that a second time it now be wroth

With buying and with selling in the temple

Whose walls were built with signs and martyrdoms!1706

O soldiery of heaven, whom I contemplate,

Implore for those who are upon the earth

All gone astray after the bad example!1707

Once ’twas the custom to make war with swords;

But now ’tis made by taking here and there1708

The bread the pitying Father shuts from none.

Yet thou, who writest but to cancel, think1709

That Peter and that Paul, who for this vineyard

Which thou art spoiling died, are still alive!

Well canst thou say: “So steadfast my desire

Is unto him who willed to live alone,

And for a dance was led to martyrdom,1710

That I know not the Fisherman nor Paul.”

Canto
XIX

The eagle discourses of salvation by faith.

Appeared before me with its wings outspread1711

The beautiful image that in sweet fruition

Made jubilant the interwoven souls;

Appeared a little ruby each, wherein

Ray of the sun was burning so enkindled

That each into mine eyes refracted it.

And what it now behoves me to retrace

Nor voice has e’er reported, nor ink written,

Nor was by fantasy e’er comprehended;

For speak I saw, and likewise heard, the beak,

And utter with its voice both I and My,

When in conception it was We and Our.1712

And it began: “Being just and merciful

Am I exalted here unto that glory

Which cannot be exceeded by desire;

And upon earth I left my memory

Such, that the evil-minded people there

Commend it, but continue not the story.”

So doth a single heat from many embers

Make itself felt, even as from many loves

Issued a single sound from out that image.

Whence I thereafter: “O perpetual flowers

Of the eternal joy, that only one

Make me perceive your odors manifold,

Exhaling, break within me the great fast

Which a long season has in hunger held me,

Not finding for it any food on earth.

Well do I know, that if in heaven its mirror1713

Justice Divine another realm doth make,

Yours apprehends it not through any veil.

You know how I attentively address me

To listen; and you know what is the doubt1714

That is in me so very old a fast.”

Even as a falcon, issuing from his hood,

Doth move his head, and with his wings applaud him,

Showing desire, and making himself fine,

Saw I become that standard, which of lauds1715

Was interwoven of the grace divine,

With such songs as he knows who there rejoices.

Then it began: “He who a compass turned1716

On the world’s outer verge, and who within it

Devised so much occult and manifest,

Could not the impress of his power so make

On all the universe, as that his Word1717

Should not remain in infinite excess.

And this makes certain that the first proud being,

Who was the paragon of every creature,

By not awaiting light fell immature.1718

And hence appears it, that each minor nature1719

Is scant receptacle unto that good

Which has no end, and by itself is measured.

In consequence our vision, which perforce

Must be some ray of that intelligence

With which all things whatever are replete,1720

Cannot in its own nature be so potent,1721

That it shall not its origin discern

Far beyond that which is apparent to it.

Therefore into the justice sempiternal

The power of vision that your world receives,

As eye into the ocean, penetrates;

Which, though it see the bottom near the shore,

Upon the deep perceives it not, and yet

’Tis there, but it is hidden by the depth.

There is no light but comes from the serene

That never is o’ercast, nay, it is darkness1722

Or shadow of the flesh, or else its poison.

Amply to thee is opened now the cavern

Which has concealed from thee the living justice

Of which thou mad’st such frequent questioning.

For saidst thou: ‘Born a man is on the shore

Of Indus, and is none who there can speak

Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write;

And all his inclinations and his actions

Are good, so far as human reason sees,

Without a sin in life or in discourse:

He dieth unbaptised and without faith;

Where is this justice that condemneth him?

Where is his fault, if he do not believe?’

Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit

In judgment at a thousand miles away,

With the short vision of a single span?

Truly to him who with me subtilizes,

If so the Scripture were not over you,

For doubting there were marvellous occasion.

O animals terrene, O stolid minds,

The primal will, that in itself is good,

Ne’er from itself, the Good Supreme, has moved.

So much is just as is accordant with it;

No good created draws it to itself,

But it, by raying forth, occasions that.”

Even as above her nest goes circling round

The stork when she has fed her little ones,

And he who has been fed looks up at her,

So lifted I my brows, and even such

Became the blessed image, which its wings

Was moving, by so many counsels urged.

Circling around it sang, and said: “As are

My notes to thee, who dost not comprehend them,

Such is the eternal judgment to you mortals.”

Those lucent splendors of the Holy Spirit

Grew quiet then, but still within the standard

That made the Romans reverend to the world.

It recommenced: “Unto this kingdom never

Ascended one who had not faith in Christ,1723

Before or since he to the tree was nailed.

But look thou, many crying are, ‘Christ, Christ!’1724

Who at the judgment shall be far less near

To him than some shall be who knew not Christ.1725

Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn,1726

When the two companies shall be divided,1727

The one forever rich, the other poor.

What to your kings may not the Persians say,

When they that volume opened shall behold1728

In which are written down all their dispraises?

There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert,1729

That which ere long shall set the pen in motion,

For which the realm of Prague shall be deserted.

There shall be seen the woe that on the Seine

He brings by falsifying of the coin,

Who by the blow of a wild boar shall die.1730

There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst,

Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad1731

That they within their boundaries cannot rest;

Be seen the luxury and effeminate life

Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian,1732

Who valor never knew and never wished;

Be seen the Cripple of Jerusalem,1733

His goodness represented by an I,

While the reverse an m shall represent;

Be seen the avarice and poltroonery

Of him who guards the Island of the Fire,1734

Wherein Anchises finished his long life;1735

And to declare how pitiful he is

Shall be his record in contracted letters1736

Which shall make note of much in little space.

And shall appear to each one the foul deeds

Of uncle and of brother who a nation1737

So famous have dishonored, and two crowns.

And he of Portugal and he of Norway1738

Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too,1739

Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice.1740

O happy Hungary, if she let herself1741

Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy,

If with the hills that gird her she be armed!1742

And each one may believe that now, as hansel1743

Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta1744

Lament and rage because of their own beast,

Who from the others’ flank departeth not.”1745

Canto
XX

The eagle praises the righteous kings of old.

When he who all the world illuminates1746

Out of our hemisphere so far descends

That on all sides the daylight is consumed,1747

The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled,

Doth suddenly reveal itself again1748

By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.

And came into my mind this act of heaven,

When the ensign of the world and of its leaders

Had silent in the blessed beak become;

Because those living luminaries all,

By far more luminous, did songs begin

Lapsing and falling from my memory.

O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee,

How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear,

That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!

After the precious and pellucid crystals,

With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld,

Silence imposed on the angelic bells,

I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river

That clear descendeth down from rock to rock,

Showing the affluence of its mountaintop.

And as the sound upon the cithern’s neck

Taketh its form, and as upon the vent

Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it,

Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting,

That murmuring of the eagle mounted up

Along its neck, as if it had been hollow.

There it became a voice, and issued thence

From out its beak, in such a form of words

As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.

“The part in me which sees and bears the sun

In mortal eagles,” it began to me,

“Now fixedly must needs be looked upon;

For of the fires of which I make my figure,

Those whence the eye doth sparkle in my head

Of all their orders the supremest are.

He who is shining in the midst as pupil1749

Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit,

Who bore the ark from city unto city;

Now knoweth he the merit of his song,

In so far as effect of his own counsel,1750

By the reward which is commensurate.

Of five, that make a circle for my brow,

He that approacheth nearest to my beak1751

Did the poor widow for her son console;

Now knoweth he how dearly it doth cost

Not following Christ, by the experience

Of this sweet life and of its opposite.

He who comes next in the circumference1752

Of which I speak, upon its highest arc,

Did death postpone by penitence sincere;1753

Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment

Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer

Maketh below tomorrow of today.

The next who follows, with the laws and me,1754

Under the good intent that bore bad fruit1755

Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor;

Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced

From his good action is not harmful to him,

Although the world thereby may be destroyed.

And he, whom in the downward arc thou seest,

Guglielmo was, whom the same land deplores1756

That weepeth Charles and Frederick yet alive;

Now knoweth he how heaven enamoured is

With a just king; and in the outward show

Of his effulgence he reveals it still.

Who would believe, down in the errant world,

That e’er the Trojan Ripheus in this round1757

Could be the fifth one of the holy lights?

Now knoweth he enough of what the world

Has not the power to see of grace divine,

Although his sight may not discern the bottom.”

Like as a lark that in the air expatiates,1758

First singing and then silent with content

Of the last sweetness that doth satisfy her,

Such seemed to me the image of the imprint

Of the eternal pleasure, by whose will

Doth everything become the thing it is.

And notwithstanding to my doubt I was

As glass is to the color that invests it,

To wait the time in silence it endured not,

But forth from out my mouth, “What things are these?”

Extorted with the force of its own weight;

Whereat I saw great joy of coruscation.

Thereafterward with eye still more enkindled

The blessed standard made to me reply,

To keep me not in wonderment suspended:

“I see that thou believest in these things

Because I say them, but thou seest not how;

So that, although believed in, they are hidden.

Thou doest as he doth who a thing by name

Well apprehendeth, but its quiddity1759

Cannot perceive, unless another show it.

Regnum coelorum suffereth violence1760

From fervent love, and from that living hope

That overcometh the Divine volition;

Not in the guise that man o’ercometh man,

But conquers it because it will be conquered,

And conquered conquers by benignity.

The first life of the eyebrow and the fifth1761

Cause thee astonishment, because with them

Thou seest the region of the angels painted.

They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest,

Gentiles, but Christians in the steadfast faith

Of feet that were to suffer and had suffered.1762

For one from Hell, where no one e’er turns back1763

Unto good will, returned unto his bones,

And that of living hope was the reward—

Of living hope, that placed its efficacy

In prayers to God made to resuscitate him,

So that ’twere possible to move his will.1764

The glorious soul concerning which I speak,1765

Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay,

Believed in Him who had the power to aid it;

And, in believing, kindled to such fire

Of genuine love, that at the second death

Worthy it was to come unto this joy.

The other one, through grace, that from so deep1766

A fountain wells that never hath the eye

Of any creature reached its primal wave,

Set all his love below on righteousness;

Wherefore from grace to grace did God unclose

His eye to our redemption yet to be,

Whence he believed therein, and suffered not

From that day forth the stench of paganism,

And he reproved therefor the folk perverse.

Those Maidens three, whom at the right-hand wheel1767

Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptism

More than a thousand years before baptizing.

O thou predestination, how remote1768

Thy root is from the aspect of all those

Who the First Cause do not behold entire!

And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrained

In judging; for ourselves, who look on God,

We do not know as yet all the elect;

And sweet to us is such a deprivation,

Because our good in this good is made perfect,

That whatsoe’er God wills, we also will.”

After this manner by that shape divine,

To make clear in me my shortsightedness,

Was given to me a pleasant medicine;

And as good singer a good lutanist

Accompanies with vibrations of the chords,

Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires,

So, while it spake, do I remember me

That I beheld both of those blessed lights,

Even as the winking of the eyes concords,

Moving unto the words their little flames.

Canto
XXI

The Seventh Heaven, or that of Saturn, where are seen the spirits of the contemplative—The Celestial Stairway—St. Peter Damiano—His invectives against the luxury of the Prelates.

Already on my Lady’s face mine eyes1769

Again were fastened, and with these my mind,

And from all other purpose was withdrawn;

And she smiled not; but “If I were to smile,”

She unto me began, “thou wouldst become

Like Semele, when she was turned to ashes.1770

Because my beauty, that along the stairs

Of the eternal palace more enkindles,

As thou hast seen, the farther we ascend,

If it were tempered not, is so resplendent

That all thy mortal power in its effulgence

Would seem a leaflet that the thunder crushes.

We are uplifted to the seventh splendor,1771

That underneath the burning Lion’s breast

Now radiates downward mingled with his power.

Fix in direction of thine eyes the mind,

And make of them a mirror for the figure

That in this mirror shall appear to thee.”

He who could know what was the pasturage

My sight had in that blessed countenance,

When I transferred me to another care,

Would recognize how grateful was to me

Obedience unto my celestial escort,

By counterpoising one side with the other.

Within the crystal which, around the world

Revolving, bears the name of its dear leader,

Under whom every wickedness lay dead,1772

Coloured like gold, on which the sunshine gleams,

A stairway I beheld to such a height1773

Uplifted, that mine eye pursued it not.

Likewise beheld I down the steps descending

So many splendors, that I thought each light

That in the heaven appears was there diffused.

And as accordant with their natural custom

The rooks together at the break of day1774

Bestir themselves to warm their feathers cold;

Then some of them fly off without return,

Others come back to where they started from,

And others, wheeling round, still keep at home;

Such fashion it appeared to me was there

Within the sparkling that together came,

As soon as on a certain step it struck,

And that which nearest unto us remained1775

Became so clear, that in my thought I said,

“Well I perceive the love thou showest me;

But she, from whom I wait the how and when1776

Of speech and silence, standeth still; whence I

Against desire do well if I ask not.”

She thereupon, who saw my silentness

In the sight of Him who seeth everything,

Said unto me, “Let loose thy warm desire.”

And I began: “No merit of my own

Renders me worthy of response from thee;

But for her sake who granteth me the asking,

Thou blessed life that dost remain concealed

In thy beatitude, make known to me

The cause which draweth thee so near my side;

And tell me why is silent in this wheel

The dulcet symphony of Paradise,

That through the rest below sounds so devoutly.”

“Thou hast thy hearing mortal as thy sight,”

It answer made to me; “they sing not here,

For the same cause that Beatrice has not smiled.1777

Thus far adown the holy stairway’s steps

Have I descended but to give thee welcome

With words, and with the light that mantles me;

Nor did more love cause me to be more ready,

For love as much and more up there is burning,

As doth the flaming manifest to thee.

But the high charity, that makes us servants

Prompt to the counsel which controls the world,

Allotteth here, even as thou dost observe.”

“I see full well,” said I, “O sacred lamp!

How love unfettered in this court sufficeth

To follow the eternal Providence;

But this is what seems hard for me to see,

Wherefore predestinate wast thou alone

Unto this office from among thy consorts.”

No sooner had I come to the last word,

Than of its middle made the light a centre,

Whirling itself about like a swift millstone.1778

When answer made the love that was therein:

“On me directed is a light divine,

Piercing through this in which I am embosomed,

Of which the virtue with my sight conjoined

Lifts me above myself so far, I see

The supreme essence from which this is drawn.

Hence comes the joyfulness with which I flame,

For to my sight, as far as it is clear,

The clearness of the flame I equal make.1779

But that soul in the heaven which is most pure,

That seraph which his eye on God most fixes,

Could this demand of thine not satisfy;

Because so deeply sinks in the abyss

Of the eternal statute what thou askest,

From all created sight it is cut off.

And to the mortal world, when thou returnest,

This carry back, that it may not presume

Longer tow’rd such a goal to move its feet.

The mind, that shineth here, on earth doth smoke;

From this observe how can it do below

That which it cannot though the heaven assume it?”

Such limit did its words prescribe to me,

The question I relinquished, and restricted

Myself to ask it humbly who it was.

“Between two shores of Italy rise cliffs,1780

And not far distant from thy native place,

So high, the thunders far below them sound,

And form a ridge that Catria is called,

’Neath which is consecrate a hermitage1781

Wont to be dedicate to worship only.”

Thus unto me the third speech recommenced,1782

And then, continuing, it said: “Therein

Unto God’s service I became so steadfast,

That feeding only on the juice of olives

Lightly I passed away the heats and frosts,

Contented in my thoughts contemplative.

That cloister used to render to these heavens

Abundantly, and now is empty grown,

So that perforce it soon must be revealed.

I in that place was Peter Damiano;1783

And Peter the Sinner was I in the house1784

Of Our Lady on the Adriatic shore.

Little of mortal life remained to me,

When I was called and dragged forth to the hat1785

Which shifteth evermore from bad to worse.

Came Cephas, and the mighty Vessel came1786

Of the Holy Spirit, meagre and barefooted,

Taking the food of any hostelry.1787

Now someone to support them on each side1788

The modern shepherds need, and some to lead them,

So heavy are they, and to hold their trains.

They cover up their palfreys with their cloaks,

So that two beasts go underneath one skin;

O Patience, that dost tolerate so much!”

At this voice saw I many little flames

From step to step descending and revolving,

And every revolution made them fairer.

Round about this one came they and stood still,

And a cry uttered of so loud a sound,

It here could find no parallel, nor I

Distinguished it, the thunder so o’ercame me.1789

Canto
XXII

St. Benedict—His lamentation over the corruption of the monks—The Eighth Heaven, or that of the Fixed Stars.

Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide1790

Turned like a little child who always runs

For refuge there where he confideth most;

And she, even as a mother who straightway

Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy

With voice whose wont it is to reassure him,

Said to me: “Knowest thou not thou art in heaven,

And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all

And what is done here cometh from good zeal?

After what wise the singing would have changed thee

And I by smiling, thou canst now imagine,

Since that the cry has startled thee so much,

In which if thou hadst understood its prayers

Already would be known to thee the vengeance

Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest.

The sword above here smiteth not in haste

Nor tardily, howe’er it seem to him

Who fearing or desiring waits for it.

But turn thee round towards the others now,

For very illustrious spirits shalt thou see,

If thou thy sight directest as I say.”

As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned,

And saw a hundred spherules that together

With mutual rays each other more embellished.

I stood as one who in himself represses

The point of his desire, and ventures not

To question, he so feareth the too much.

And now the largest and most luculent

Among those pearls came forward, that it might

Make my desire concerning it content.

Within it then I heard: “If thou couldst see1791

Even as myself the charity that burns

Among us, thy conceits would be expressed;

But, that by waiting thou mayst not come late

To the high end, I will make answer even

Unto the thought of which thou art so chary.

That mountain on whose slope Cassino stands1792

Was frequented of old upon its summit

By a deluded folk and ill-disposed;

And I am he who first up thither bore1793

The name of Him who brought upon the earth

The truth that so much sublimateth us.

And such abundant grace upon me shone

That all the neighboring towns I drew away

From the impious worship that seduced the world.

These other fires, each one of them, were men

Contemplative, enkindled by that heat

Which maketh holy flowers and fruits spring up.

Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus,1794

Here are my brethren, who within the cloisters

Their footsteps stayed and kept a steadfast heart.”

And I to him: “The affection which thou showest

Speaking with me, and the good countenance

Which I behold and note in all your ardors,

In me have so my confidence dilated

As the sun doth the rose, when it becomes

As far unfolded as it hath the power.

Therefore I pray, and thou assure me, father,

If I may so much grace receive, that I

May thee behold with countenance unveiled.”

He thereupon: “Brother, thy high desire

In the remotest sphere shall be fulfilled,

Where are fulfilled all others and my own.

There perfect is, and ripened, and complete,

Every desire; within that one alone1795

Is every part where it has always been;

For it is not in space, nor turns on poles,

And unto it our stairway reaches up,

Whence thus from out thy sight it steals away.

Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it1796

Extending its supernal part, what time

So thronged with angels it appeared to him.

But to ascend it now no one uplifts

His feet from off the earth, and now my Rule

Below remaineth for mere waste of paper.1797

The walls that used of old to be an Abbey

Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls1798

Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.

But heavy usury is not taken up1799

So much against God’s pleasure as that fruit

Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;

For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping

Is for the folk that ask it in God’s name,

Not for one’s kindred or for something worse.

The flesh of mortals is so very soft,

That good beginnings down below suffice not

From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.

Peter began with neither gold nor silver,

And I with orison and abstinence,

And Francis with humility his convent.

And if thou lookest at each one’s beginning,

And then regardest whither he has run,

Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.

In verity the Jordan backward turned,1800

And the sea’s fleeing, when God willed were more

A wonder to behold, than succor here.”

Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew

To his own band, and the band closed together;

Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.

The gentle Lady urged me on behind them

Up o’er that stairway by a single sign,

So did her virtue overcome my nature;

Nor here below, where one goes up and down

By natural law, was motion e’er so swift

That it could be compared unto my wing.

Reader, as I may unto that devout

Triumph return, on whose account I often1801

For my transgressions weep and beat my breast—

Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire

And drawn it out again, before I saw

The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.1802

O glorious stars, O light impregnated1803

With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge

All of my genius, whatsoe’er it be,

With you was born, and hid himself with you,1804

He who is father of all mortal life,

When first I tasted of the Tuscan air;

And then when grace was freely given to me

To enter the high wheel which turns you round,1805

Your region was allotted unto me.

To you devoutly at this hour my soul

Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire

For the stern pass that draws it to itself.

“Thou art so near unto the last salvation,”

Thus Beatrice began, “thou oughtest now

To have thine eyes unclouded and acute;

And therefore, ere thou enter farther in,

Look down once more, and see how vast a world

Thou hast already put beneath thy feet;

So that thy heart, as jocund as it may,

Present itself to the triumphant throng

That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether.”

I with my sight returned through one and all

The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe

Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance;1806

And that opinion I approve as best

Which doth account it least; and he who thinks

Of something else may truly be called just.

I saw the daughter of Latona shining1807

Without that shadow, which to me was cause

That once I had believed her rare and dense.1808

The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,1809

Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves

Around and near him Maia and Dione.1810

Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove1811

’Twixt son and father, and to me was clear

The change that of their whereabout they make;

And all the seven made manifest to me

How great they are, and eke how swift they are,1812

And how they are in distant habitations.

The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,1813

To me revolving with the eternal Twins,

Was all apparent made from hill to harbour!

Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.

Canto
XXIII

The triumph of Christ.

Even as a bird, ’mid the beloved leaves,1814

Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood

Throughout the night, that hideth all things from us,1815

Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks

And find the food wherewith to nourish them,

In which, to her, grave labors grateful are,

Anticipates the time on open spray

And with an ardent longing waits the sun,

Gazing intent as soon as breaks the dawn:

Even thus my Lady standing was, erect

And vigilant, turned round towards the zone

Underneath which the sun displays less haste;1816

So that beholding her distraught and wistful,

Such I became as he is who desiring

For something yearns, and hoping is appeased.

But brief the space from one When to the other;

Of my awaiting, say I, and the seeing

The welkin grow resplendent more and more.

And Beatrice exclaimed: “Behold the hosts

Of Christ’s triumphal march, and all the fruit1817

Harvested by the rolling of these spheres!”1818

It seemed to me her face was all aflame;

And eyes she had so full of ecstasy

That I must needs pass on without describing.

As when in nights serene of the full moon

Smiles Trivia among the nymphs eternal1819

Who paint the firmament through all its gulfs,

Saw I, above the myriads of lamps,

A Sun that one and all of them enkindled,1820

E’en as our own doth the supernal sights,1821

And through the living light transparent shone

The lucent substance so intensely clear

Into my sight, that I sustained it not.

O Beatrice, thou gentle guide and dear!

To me she said: “What overmasters thee

A virtue is from which naught shields itself.

There are the wisdom and the omnipotence

That oped the thoroughfares ’twixt heaven and earth,

For which there erst had been so long a yearning.”

As fire from out a cloud unlocks itself,

Dilating so it finds not room therein,

And down, against its nature, falls to earth,

So did my mind, among those aliments

Becoming larger, issue from itself,

And that which it became cannot remember.

“Open thine eyes, and look at what I am:1822

Thou hast beheld such things, that strong enough

Hast thou become to tolerate my smile.”

I was as one who still retains the feeling

Of a forgotten vision, and endeavors

In vain to bring it back into his mind,

When I this invitation heard, deserving

Of so much gratitude, it never fades

Out of the book that chronicles the past.

If at this moment sounded all the tongues

That Polyhymnia and her sisters made1823

Most lubrical with their delicious milk,

To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth

It would not reach, singing the holy smile

And how the holy aspect it illumed.

And therefore, representing Paradise,

The sacred poem must perforce leap over,

Even as a man who finds his way cut off;

But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme,

And of the mortal shoulder laden with it,

Should blame it not, if under this it tremble.

It is no passage for a little boat

This which goes cleaving the audacious prow,

Nor for a pilot who would spare himself.

“Why doth my face so much enamour thee,1824

That to the garden fair thou turnest not,

Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?

There is the Rose in which the Word Divine1825

Became incarnate; there the lilies are1826

By whose perfume the good way was discovered.”

Thus Beatrice; and I, who to her counsels

Was wholly ready, once again betook me

Unto the battle of the feeble brows.1827

As in the sunshine, that unsullied streams

Through fractured cloud, ere now a meadow of flowers

Mine eyes with shadow covered o’er have seen,

So troops of splendors manifold I saw

Illumined from above with burning rays,

Beholding not the source of the effulgence.

O power benignant that dost so imprint them!1828

Thou didst exalt thyself to give more scope

There to mine eyes, that were not strong enough.

The name of that fair flower I e’er invoke1829

Morning and evening utterly enthralled

My soul to gaze upon the greater fire.1830

And when in both mine eyes depicted were

The glory and greatness of the living star1831

Which there excelleth, as it here excelled,

Athwart the heavens a little torch descended1832

Formed in a circle like a coronal,

And cinctured it, and whirled itself about it.

Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth

On earth, and to itself most draws the soul,

Would seem a cloud that, rent asunder, thunders,

Compared unto the sounding of that lyre

Wherewith was crowned the sapphire beautiful,1833

Which gives the clearest heaven its sapphire hue.

“I am Angelic Love, that circle round

The joy sublime which breathes from out the womb

That was the hostelry of our Desire;1834

And I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while

Thou followest thy Son, and mak’st diviner

The sphere supreme, because thou enterest there.”

Thus did the circulated melody

Seal itself up; and all the other lights

Were making to resound the name of Mary.

The regal mantle of the volumes all1835

Of that world, which most fervid is and living

With breath of God and with his works and ways,

Extended over us its inner border,1836

So very distant, that the semblance of it

There where I was not yet appeared to me.

Therefore mine eyes did not possess the power

Of following the incoronated flame,

Which mounted upward near to its own seed.1837

And as a little child, that towards its mother

Stretches its arms, when it the milk has taken,

Through impulse kindled into outward flame,

Each of those gleams of whiteness upward reached

So with its summit, that the deep affection

They had for Mary was revealed to me.

Thereafter they remained there in my sight,

Regina coeli singing with such sweetness,1838

That ne’er from me has the delight departed.

O, what exuberance is garnered up

Within those richest coffers, which had been

Good husbandmen for sowing here below!

There they enjoy and live upon the treasure

Which was acquired while weeping in the exile

Of Babylon, wherein the gold was left.1839

There triumpheth, beneath the exalted Son

Of God and Mary, in his victory,

Both with the ancient council and the new,

He who doth keep the keys of such a glory.1840

Canto
XXIV

St. Peter examines Dante upon Faith.

“O company elect to the great supper1841

Of the Lamb benedight, who feedeth you

So that forever full is your desire,

If by the grace of God this man foretaste

Something of that which falleth from your table,

Or ever death prescribe to him the time,

Direct your mind to his immense desire,

And him somewhat bedew; ye drinking are

Forever at the fount whence comes his thought.”

Thus Beatrice; and those souls beatified

Transformed themselves to spheres on steadfast poles,

Flaming intensely in the guise of comets.

And as the wheels in works of horologes

Revolve so that the first to the beholder

Motionless seems, and the last one to fly,

So in like manner did those carols, dancing1842

In different measure, of their affluence1843

Give me the gauge, as they were swift or slow.

From that one which I noted of most beauty1844

Beheld I issue forth a fire so happy1845

That none it left there of a greater brightness;

And around Beatrice three several times1846

It whirled itself with so divine a song,

My fantasy repeats it not to me;

Therefore the pen skips, and I write it not,

Since our imagination for such folds,

Much more our speech, is of a tint too glaring.1847

“O holy sister mine, who us implorest1848

With such devotion, by thine ardent love

Thou dost unbind me from that beautiful sphere!”

Thereafter, having stopped, the blessed fire

Unto my Lady did direct its breath,

Which spake in fashion as I here have said.

And she: “O light eterne of the great man

To whom our Lord delivered up the keys

He carried down of this miraculous joy,

This one examine on points light and grave,

As good beseemeth thee, about the Faith

By means of which thou on the sea didst walk.

If he love well, and hope well, and believe,

From thee ’tis hid not; for thou hast thy sight1849

There where depicted everything is seen.

But since this kingdom has made citizens

By means of the true Faith, to glorify it

’Tis well he have the chance to speak thereof.”

As baccalaureate arms himself, and speaks not

Until the master doth propose the question,

To argue it, and not to terminate it,

So did I arm myself with every reason,

While she was speaking, that I might be ready

For such a questioner and such profession.

“Say, thou good Christian; manifest thyself;

What is the Faith?” Whereat I raised my brow

Unto that light wherefrom was this breathed forth.

Then turned I round to Beatrice, and she

Prompt signals made to me that I should pour

The water forth from my internal fountain.

“May grace, that suffers me to make confession,”

Began I, “to the great centurion,1850

Cause my conceptions all to be explicit!”

And I continued: “As the truthful pen,

Father, of thy dear brother wrote of it,1851

Who put with thee Rome into the good way,

Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,1852

And evidence of those that are not seen;

And this appears to me its quiddity.”1853

Then heard I: “Very rightly thou perceivest,

If well thou understandest why he placed it

With substances and then with evidences.”

And I thereafterward: “The things profound,

That here vouchsafe to me their apparition,

Unto all eyes below are so concealed,

That they exist there only in belief,

Upon the which is founded the high hope,

And hence it takes the nature of a substance.

And it behoveth us from this belief

To reason without having other sight,

And hence it has the nature of evidence.”1854

Then heard I: “If whatever is acquired

Below by doctrine were thus understood,

No sophist’s subtlety would there find place.”

Thus was breathed forth from that enkindled love;

Then added: “Very well has been gone over

Already of this coin the alloy and weight;

But tell me if thou hast it in thy purse?”

And I: “Yes, both so shining and so round

That in its stamp there is no peradventure.”1855

Thereafter issued from the light profound

That there resplendent was: “This precious jewel,

Upon the which is every virtue founded,

Whence hadst thou it?” And I: “The large outpouring

Of Holy Spirit, which has been diffused

Upon the ancient parchments and the new,1856

A syllogism is, which proved it to me

With such acuteness, that, compared therewith,

All demonstration seems to me obtuse.”

And then I heard: “The ancient and the new

Postulates, that to thee are so conclusive,

Why dost thou take them for the word divine?”

And I: “The proofs, which show the truth to me,

Are the works subsequent, whereunto Nature

Ne’er heated iron yet, nor anvil beat.”

’Twas answered me: “Say, who assureth thee

That those works ever were? the thing itself

That must be proved, nought else to thee affirms it.”

“Were the world to Christianity converted,”

I said, “withouten miracles, this one

Is such, the rest are not its hundredth part;

Because that poor and fasting thou didst enter

Into the field to sow there the good plant,

Which was a vine and has become a thorn!”

This being finished, the high, holy Court

Resounded through the spheres, “One God we praise!”

In melody that there above is chanted.

And then that Baron, who from branch to branch,1857

Examining, had thus conducted me,

Till the extremest leaves we were approaching,

Again began: “The Grace that dallying1858

Plays with thine intellect thy mouth has opened,

Up to this point, as it should opened be,

So that I do approve what forth emerged;

But now thou must express what thou believest,

And whence to thy belief it was presented.”

“O holy father, spirit who beholdest

What thou believedst so that thou o’ercamest,

Towards the sepulchre, more youthful feet,”1859

Began I, “thou dost wish me in this place

The form to manifest of my prompt belief,

And likewise thou the cause thereof demandest.

And I respond: In one God I believe,

Sole and eterne, who moveth all the heavens

With love and with desire, himself unmoved;1860

And of such faith not only have I proofs

Physical and metaphysical, but gives them

Likewise the truth that from this place rains down

Through Moses, through the Prophets and the Psalms,

Through the Evangel, and through you, who wrote1861

After the fiery Spirit sanctified you;

In Persons three eterne believe, and these

One essence I believe, so one and trine

They bear conjunction both with sunt and est.1862

With the profound condition and divine

Which now I touch upon, doth stamp my mind

Ofttimes the doctrine evangelical.

This the beginning is, this is the spark

Which afterwards dilates to vivid flame,

And, like a star in heaven, is sparkling in me.”

Even as a lord who hears what pleaseth him

His servant straight embraces, gratulating

For the good news as soon as he is silent;

So, giving me its benediction, singing,

Three times encircled me, when I was silent,1863

The apostolic light, at whose command

I spoken had, in speaking I so pleased him.

Canto
XXV

St. James examines Dante upon Hope.

If e’er it happen that the Poem Sacred,1864

To which both heaven and earth have set their hand,

So that it many a year hath made me lean,

O’ercome the cruelty that bars me out

From the fair sheepfold, where a lamb I slumbered,1865

An enemy to the wolves that war upon it,

With other voice forthwith, with other fleece1866

Poet will I return, and at my font1867

Baptismal will I take the laurel crown;

Because into the Faith that maketh known

All souls to God there entered I, and then

Peter for her sake thus my brow encircled.1868

Thereafterward towards us moved a light

Out of that band whence issued the first-fruits1869

Which of his vicars Christ behind him left,

And then my Lady, full of ecstasy,

Said unto me: “Look, look! behold the Baron1870

For whom below Galicia is frequented.”

In the same way as, when a dove alights

Near his companion, both of them pour forth,

Circling about and murmuring, their affection,

So one beheld I by the other grand

Prince glorified to be with welcome greeted,

Lauding the food that there above is eaten.

But when their gratulations were complete,

Silently coram me each one stood still,1871

So incandescent it o’ercame my sight.

Smiling thereafterwards, said Beatrice:

“Illustrious life, by whom the benefactions1872

Of our Basilica have been described,

Make Hope resound within this altitude;

Thou knowest as oft thou dost personify it1873

As Jesus to the three gave greater clearness.”—

“Lift up thy head, and make thyself assured;1874

For what comes hither from the mortal world

Must needs be ripened in our radiance.”1875

This comfort came to me from the second fire;

Wherefore mine eyes I lifted to the hills,1876

Which bent them down before with too great weight.

“Since, through his grace, our Emperor wills that thou

Shouldst find thee face to face, before thy death,

In the most secret chamber, with his Counts,1877

So that, the truth beholden of this court,

Hope, which below there rightfully enamours,

Thereby thou strengthen in thyself and others,

Say what it is, and how is flowering with it

Thy mind, and say from whence it came to thee.”

Thus did the second light again continue.

And the Compassionate, who piloted1878

The plumage of my wings in such high flight,

Did in reply anticipate me thus:

“No child whatever the Church Militant

Of greater hope possesses, as is written

In that Sun which irradiates all our band;1879

Therefore it is conceded him from Egypt

To come into Jerusalem to see,

Or ever yet his warfare be completed.

The two remaining points, that not for knowledge1880

Have been demanded, but that he report

How much this virtue unto thee is pleasing,

To him I leave; for hard he will not find them,

Nor of self-praise; and let him answer them;1881

And may the grace of God in this assist him!”

As a disciple, who his teacher follows,

Ready and willing, where he is expert,

That his proficiency may be displayed,

“Hope,” said I, “is the certain expectation1882

Of future glory, which is the effect

Of grace divine and merit precedent.

From many stars this light comes unto me;

But he instilled it first into my heart

Who was chief singer unto the chief captain.1883

Sperent in te, in the high Theody1884

He sayeth, ‘those who know thy name’; and who

Knoweth it not, if he my faith possess?

Thou didst instil me, then, with his instilling

In the Epistle, so that I am full,

And upon others rain again your rain.”1885

While I was speaking, in the living bosom

Of that combustion quivered an effulgence,

Sudden and frequent, in the guise of lightning;

Then breathed: “The love wherewith I am inflamed

Towards the virtue still which followed me

Unto the palm and issue of the field,1886

Wills that I breathe to thee that thou delight

In her; and grateful to me is thy telling

Whatever things Hope promises to thee.”

And I: “The ancient Scriptures and the new

The mark establish, and this shows it me,1887

Of all the souls whom God hath made his friends.1888

Isaiah saith, that each one garmented1889

In his own land shall be with twofold garments,

And his own land is this delightful life.

Thy brother, too, far more explicitly,

There where he treateth of the robes of white,1890

This revelation manifests to us.”

And first, and near the ending of these words,

“Sperent in te” from over us was heard,

To which responsive answered all the carols.

Thereafterward a light among them brightened,1891

So that, if Cancer one such crystal had,1892

Winter would have a month of one sole day.

And as uprises, goes, and enters the dance

A winsome maiden, only to do honor

To the new bride, and not from any failing,1893

Even thus did I behold the brightened splendor

Approach the two, who in a wheel revolved1894

As was beseeming to their ardent love.

Into the song and music there it entered;

And fixed on them my Lady kept her look,

Even as a bride silent and motionless.

“This is the one who lay upon the breast

Of him our Pelican; and this is he1895

To the great office from the cross elected.”1896

My Lady thus; but therefore none the more

Did move her sight from its attentive gaze

Before or afterward these words of hers.

Even as a man who gazes, and endeavors

To see the eclipsing of the sun a little,

And who, by seeing, sightless doth become,

So I became before that latest fire,1897

While it was said, “Why dost thou daze thyself

To see a thing which here hath no existence?

Earth in the earth my body is, and shall be

With all the others there, until our number

With the eternal proposition tallies.1898

With the two garments in the blessed cloister1899

Are the two lights alone that have ascended:1900

And this shalt thou take back into your world.”

And at this utterance the flaming circle

Grew quiet, with the dulcet intermingling

Of sound that by the trinal breath was made,1901

As to escape from danger or fatigue

The oars that erst were in the water beaten

Are all suspended at a whistle’s sound.

Ah, how much in my mind was I disturbed,

When I turned round to look on Beatrice,

That her I could not see, although I was1902

Close at her side and in the Happy World!

Canto
XXVI

St. John examines Dante upon Charity.

While I was doubting for my vision quenched,1903

Out of the flame refulgent that had quenched it

Issued a breathing, that attentive made me,

Saying: “While thou recoverest the sense

Of seeing which in me thou hast consumed,

’Tis well that speaking thou shouldst compensate it.

Begin then, and declare to what thy soul

Is aimed, and count it for a certainty,

Sight is in thee bewildered and not dead;

Because the Lady, who through this divine

Region conducteth thee, has in her look

The power the hand of Ananias had.”1904

I said: “As pleaseth her, or soon or late

Let the cure come to eyes that portals were

When she with fire I ever burn with entered.

The Good, that gives contentment to this Court,

The Alpha and Omega is of all1905

The writing that love reads me low or loud.”

The selfsame voice, that taken had from me

The terror of the sudden dazzlement,

To speak still farther put it in my thought;

And said: “In verity with finer sieve

Behoveth thee to sift; thee it behoveth

To say who aimed thy bow at such a target.”

And I: “By philosophic arguments,

And by authority that hence descends,

Such love must needs imprint itself in me;

For Good, so far as good, when comprehended

Doth straight enkindle love, and so much greater

As more of goodness in itself it holds;

Then to that Essence (whose is such advantage

That every good which out of it is found

Is nothing but a ray of its own light)

More than elsewhither must the mind be moved

Of everyone, in loving, who discerns

The truth in which this evidence is founded.

Such truth he to my intellect reveals

Who demonstrates to me the primal love1906

Of all the sempiternal substances.1907

The voice reveals it of the truthful Author,

Who says to Moses, speaking of Himself,

‘I will make all my goodness pass before thee.’1908

Thou too revealest it to me, beginning

The loud Evangel, that proclaims the secret1909

Of heaven to earth above all other edict.”

And I heard say: “By human intellect1910

And by authority concordant with it,

Of all thy loves reserve for God the highest.

But say again if other cords thou feelest,

Draw thee towards Him, that thou mayst proclaim

With how many teeth this love is biting thee.”

The holy purpose of the Eagle of Christ1911

Not latent was, nay, rather I perceived

Whither he fain would my profession lead.

Therefore I recommenced: “All of those bites

Which have the power to turn the heart to God

Unto my charity have been concurrent.

The being of the world, and my own being,

The death which He endured that I may live,

And that which all the faithful hope, as I do,

With the forementioned vivid consciousness

Have drawn me from the sea of love perverse,

And of the right have placed me on the shore.

The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the garden1912

Of the Eternal Gardener, do I love

As much as he has granted them of good.”

As soon as I had ceased, a song most sweet

Throughout the heaven resounded, and my Lady

Said with the others, “Holy, holy, holy!”1913

And as at some keen light one wakes from sleep

By reason of the visual spirit that runs

Unto the splendor passed from coat to coat,

And he who wakes abhorreth what he sees,

So all unconscious is his sudden waking,

Until the judgment cometh to his aid,

So from before mine eyes did Beatrice

Chase every mote with radiance of her own,

That cast its light a thousand miles and more.

Whence better after than before I saw,

And in a kind of wonderment I asked

About a fourth light that I saw with us.

And said my Lady: “There within those rays

Gazes upon its Maker the first soul1914

That ever the first virtue did create.”

Even as the bough that downward bends its top

At transit of the wind, and then is lifted

By its own virtue, which inclines it upward,

Likewise did I, the while that she was speaking,

Being amazed, and then I was made bold

By a desire to speak wherewith I burned.

And I began: “O apple, that mature1915

Alone hast been produced, O ancient father,

To whom each wife is daughter and daughter-in-law,

Devoutly as I can I supplicate thee

That thou wouldst speak to me; thou seest my wish;

And I, to hear thee quickly, speak it not.”

Sometimes an animal, when covered, struggles

So that his impulse needs must be apparent,

By reason of the wrappage following it;

And in like manner the primeval soul

Made clear to me athwart its covering

How jubilant it was to give me pleasure.

Then breathed: “Without thy uttering it to me,

Thine inclination better I discern

Than thou whatever thing is surest to thee;

For I behold it in the truthful mirror,

That of Himself all things parhelion makes,1916

And none makes Him parhelion of itself.

Thou fain wouldst hear how long ago God placed me

Within the lofty garden, where this Lady

Unto so long a stairway thee disposed.

And how long to mine eyes it was a pleasure,

And of the great disdain the proper cause,

And the language that I used and that I made.

Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree

Not in itself was cause of so great exile,

But solely the o’erstepping of the bounds.

There, whence thy Lady moved Virgilius,1917

Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits

Made by the sun, this Council I desired;

And him I saw return to all the lights

Of his highway nine hundred times and thirty,

Whilst I upon the earth was tarrying.

The language that I spake was quite extinct1918

Before that in the work interminable

The people under Nimrod were employed;

For nevermore result of reasoning

(Because of human pleasure that doth change,

Obedient to the heavens) was durable.1919

A natural action is it that man speaks;

But whether thus or thus, doth nature leave

To your own art, as seemeth best to you.

Ere I descended to the infernal anguish,

El was on earth the name of the Chief Good,1920

From whom comes all the joy that wraps me round

Eli he then was called, and that is proper,1921

Because the use of men is like a leaf1922

On bough, which goeth and another cometh.

Upon the mount that highest o’er the wave1923

Rises was I, in life or pure or sinful,

From the first hour to that which is the second,

As the sun changes quadrant, to the sixth.”1924

Canto
XXVII

St. Peter’s reproof of bad popes—The Ascent to the Ninth Heaven, or the Primum Mobile.

“Glory be to the Father, to the Son,1925

And Holy Ghost!” all Paradise began,

So that the melody inebriate made me.

What I beheld seemed unto me a smile

Of the universe; for my inebriation

Found entrance through the hearing and the sight.

O joy! O gladness inexpressible!

O perfect life of love and peacefulness!

O riches without hankering secure!1926

Before mine eyes were standing the four torches1927

Enkindled, and the one that first had come

Began to make itself more luminous;

And even such in semblance it became

As Jupiter would become, if he and Mars1928

Were birds, and they should interchange their feathers.

That Providence, which here distributeth

Season and service, in the blessed choir

Had silence upon every side imposed.

When I heard say: “If I my color change,

Marvel not at it; for while I am speaking

Thou shalt behold all these their color change.

He who usurps upon the earth my place,1929

My place, my place, which vacant has become

Before the presence of the Son of God,

Has of my cemetery made a sewer1930

Of blood and stench, whereby the Perverse One,

Who fell from here, below there is appeased!”

With the same color which, through sun adverse,

Painteth the clouds at evening or at morn,

Beheld I then the whole of heaven suffused.

And as a modest woman, who abides

Sure of herself, and at another’s failing,

From listening only, timorous becomes,

Even thus did Beatrice change countenance;

And I believe in heaven was such eclipse,

When suffered the supreme Omnipotence;1931

Thereafterward proceeded forth his words

With voice so much transmuted from itself,

The very countenance was not more changed.

“The spouse of Christ has never nurtured been

On blood of mine, of Linus and of Cletus,1932

To be made use of in acquest of gold;

But in acquest of this delightful life

Sixtus and Pius, Urban and Calixtus,1933

After much lamentation, shed their blood.

Our purpose was not, that on the right hand

Of our successors should in part be seated1934

The Christian folk, in part upon the other;

Nor that the keys which were to me confided

Should e’er become the escutcheon on a banner,1935

That should wage war on those who are baptized;1936

Nor I be made the figure of a seal

To privileges venal and mendacious,1937

Whereat I often redden and flash with fire.

In garb of shepherds the rapacious wolves1938

Are seen from here above o’er all the pastures!

O wrath of God, why dost thou slumber still?1939

To drink our blood the Caorsines and Gascons1940

Are making ready. O thou good beginning,

Unto how vile an end must thou needs fall!

But the high Providence, that with Scipio1941

At Rome the glory of the world defended,

Will speedily bring aid, as I conceive;

And thou, my son, who by thy mortal weight

Shalt down return again, open thy mouth;

What I conceal not, do not thou conceal.”

As with its frozen vapors downward falls

In flakes our atmosphere, what time the horn1942

Of the celestial Goat doth touch the sun,1943

Upward in such array saw I the ether

Become, and flaked with the triumphant vapors,

Which there together with us had remained.1944

My sight was following up their semblances,

And followed till the medium, by excess,1945

The passing farther onward took from it;

Whereat the Lady, who beheld me freed

From gazing upward, said to me: “Cast down

Thy sight, and see how far thou art turned round.”

Since the first time that I had downward looked,1946

I saw that I had moved through the whole arc

Which the first climate makes from midst to end;1947

So that I saw the mad track of Ulysses1948

Past Gades, and this side, well nigh the shore1949

Whereon became Europa a sweet burden.1950

And of this threshing-floor the site to me1951

Were more unveiled, but the sun was proceeding

Under my feet, a sign and more removed.1952

My mind enamoured, which is dallying1953

At all times with my Lady, to bring back

To her mine eyes was more than ever ardent.

And if or Art or Nature has made bait1954

To catch the eyes and so possess the mind,

In human flesh or in its portraiture,

All joined together would appear as nought

To the divine delight which shone upon me

When to her smiling face I turned me round.

The virtue that her look endowed me with

From the fair nest of Leda tore me forth,1955

And up into the swiftest heaven impelled me.

Its parts exceeding full of life and lofty

Are all so uniform, I cannot say

Which Beatrice selected for my place.

But she, who was aware of my desire,1956

Began, the while she smiled so joyously

That God seemed in her countenance to rejoice:

“The nature of that motion, which keeps quiet

The centre and all the rest about it moves,

From hence begins as from its starting point.

And in this heaven there is no other Where1957

Than in the Mind Divine, wherein is kindled

The love that turns it, and the power it rains.

Within a circle light and love embrace it,

Even as this doth the others, and that precinct1958

He who encircles it alone controls.

Its motion is not by another meted,

But all the others measured are by this,

As ten is by the half and by the fifth.1959

And in what manner time in such a pot

May have its roots, and in the rest its leaves,

Now unto thee can manifest be made.

O Covetousness, that mortals dost engulf

Beneath thee so, that no one hath the power

Of drawing back his eyes from out thy waves!

Full fairly blossoms in mankind the will;

But the uninterrupted rain converts

Into abortive wildings the true plums.

Fidelity and innocence are found1960

Only in children; afterwards they both

Take flight or e’er the cheeks with down are covered.

One, while he prattles still, observes the fasts,

Who, when his tongue is loosed, forthwith devours

Whatever food under whatever moon;

Another, while he prattles, loves and listens

Unto his mother, who when speech is perfect

Forthwith desires to see her in her grave.

Even thus is swarthy made the skin so white

In its first aspect of the daughter fair1961

Of him who brings the morn, and leaves the night.

Thou, that it may not be a marvel to thee,

Think that on earth there is no one who governs;1962

Whence goes astray the human family.

Ere January be unwintered wholly

By the centesimal on earth neglected,1963

Shall these supernal circles roar so loud

The tempest that has been so long awaited1964

Shall whirl the poops about where are the prows;

So that the fleet shall run its course direct,

And the true fruit shall follow on the flower.”

Canto
XXVIII

God and the Celestial Hierarchies.

After the truth against the present life1965

Of miserable mortals was unfolded

By her who doth imparadise my mind,1966

As in a looking-glass a taper’s flame

He sees who from behind is lighted by it,

Before he has it in his sight or thought,

And turns him round to see if so the glass

Tell him the truth, and sees that it accords

Therewith as doth a music with its metre,

In similar wise my memory recollecteth

That I did, looking into those fair eyes,

Of which Love made the springes to ensnare me.

And as I turned me round, and mine were touched

By that which is apparent in that volume,1967

Whenever on its gyre we gaze intent,

A point beheld I, that was raying out1968

Light so acute, the sight which it enkindles

Must close perforce before such great acuteness.

And whatsoever star seems smallest here

Would seem to be a moon, if placed beside it.

As one star with another star is placed.

Perhaps at such a distance as appears

A halo cincturing the light that paints it,

When densest is the vapor that sustains it,

Thus distant round the point a circle of fire

So swiftly whirled, that it would have surpassed

Whatever motion soonest girds the world;

And this was by another circumcinct,

That by a third, the third then by a fourth,

By a fifth the fourth, and then by a sixth the fifth;

The seventh followed thereupon in width

So ample now, that Juno’s messenger1969

Entire would be too narrow to contain it.

Even so the eighth and ninth; and everyone1970

More slowly moved, according as it was

In number distant farther from the first.

And that one had its flame most crystalline

From which less distant was the stainless spark,

I think because more with its truth imbued.

My Lady, who in my anxiety

Beheld me much perplexed, said: “From that point

Dependent is the heaven and nature all.

Behold that circle most conjoined to it,

And know thou, that its motion is so swift

Through burning love whereby it is spurred on.”

And I to her: “If the world were arranged

In the order which I see in yonder wheels,

What’s set before me would have satisfied me;

But in the world of sense we can perceive

That evermore the circles are diviner

As they are from the centre more remote

Wherefore if my desire is to be ended

In this miraculous and angelic temple,

That has for confines only love and light,

To hear behoves me still how the example1971

And the exemplar go not in one fashion,

Since for myself in vain I contemplate it.”

“If thine own fingers unto such a knot

Be insufficient, it is no great wonder,

So hard hath it become for want of trying.”1972

My Lady thus; then said she: “Do thou take

What I shall tell thee, if thou wouldst be sated,

And exercise on that thy subtlety.

The circles corporal are wide and narrow1973

According to the more or less of virtue

Which is distributed through all their parts.

The greater goodness works the greater weal,

The greater weal the greater body holds,

If perfect equally are all its parts.

Therefore this one which sweeps along with it1974

The universe sublime, doth correspond

Unto the circle which most loves and knows.

On which account, if thou unto the virtue

Apply thy measure, not to the appearance

Of substances that unto thee seem round,

Thou wilt behold a marvellous agreement,

Of more to greater, and of less to smaller,1975

In every heaven, with its Intelligence.”

Even as remaineth splendid and serene

The hemisphere of air, when Boreas1976

Is blowing from that cheek where he is mildest,

Because is purified and resolved the rack

That erst disturbed it, till the welkin laughs

With all the beauties of its pageantry;

Thus did I likewise, after that my Lady

Had me provided with her clear response,

And like a star in heaven the truth was seen.

And soon as to a stop her words had come,

Not otherwise does iron scintillate

When molten, than those circles scintillated.1977

Their coruscation all the sparks repeated,

And they so many were, their number makes

More millions than the doubling of the chess.1978

I heard them sing hosanna choir by choir

To the fixed point which holds them at the Ubi,1979

And ever will, where they have ever been.

And she, who saw the dubious meditations

Within my mind, “The primal circles,” said,

“Have shown thee Seraphim and Cherubim.1980

Thus rapidly they follow their own bonds,1981

To be as like the point as most they can,

And can as far as they are high in vision.

Those other Loves, that round about them go,

Thrones of the countenance divine are called,1982

Because they terminate the primal Triad.

And thou shouldst know that they all have delight

As much as their own vision penetrates

The Truth, in which all intellect finds rest.

From this it may be seen how blessedness

Is founded in the faculty which sees,1983

And not in that which loves, and follows next;

And of this seeing merit is the measure,

Which is brought forth by grace, and by good will;1984

Thus on from grade to grade doth it proceed.

The second Triad, which is germinating

In such wise in this sempiternal spring,1985

That no nocturnal Aries despoils,

Perpetually hosanna warbles forth

With threefold melody, that sounds in three

Orders of joy, with which it is intrined.

The three Divine are in this hierarchy,

First the Dominions, and the Virtues next;1986

And the third order is that of the Powers.

Then in the dances twain penultimate

The Principalities and Archangels wheel;

The last is wholly of angelic sports.

These orders upward all of them are gazing,

And downward so prevail, that unto God

They all attracted are and all attract.

And Dionysius with so great desire1987

To contemplate these Orders set himself,

He named them and distinguished them as I do.

But Gregory afterwards dissented from him;1988

Wherefore, as soon as he unclosed his eyes

Within this heaven, he at himself did smile.

And if so much of secret truth a mortal

Proffered on earth, I would not have thee marvel,

For he who saw it here revealed it to him,1989

With much more of the truth about these circles.”

Canto
XXIX

Beatrice’s discourse of the creation of the Angels, and of the fall of Lucifer—Her reproof of the ignorance and avarice of preachers, and the sale of indulgences.

At what time both the children of Latona,1990

Surmounted by the Ram and by the Scales,1991

Together make a zone of the horizon,1992

As long as from the time the zenith holds them

In equipoise, till from that girdle both

Changing their hemisphere disturb the balance,

So long, her face depicted with a smile,

Did Beatrice keep silence while she gazed

Fixedly at the point which had o’ercome me.1993

Then she began: “I say, and I ask not

What thou dost wish to hear, for I have seen it1994

Where centres every When and every Ubi.1995

Not to acquire some good unto himself,

Which is impossible, but that his splendor1996

In its resplendency may say, ‘Subsisto,’

In his eternity outside of time,1997

Outside all other limits, as it pleased him,

Into new Loves the Eternal Love unfolded.1998

Nor as if torpid did he lie before;

For neither after nor before proceeded

The going forth of God upon these waters.1999

Matter and Form unmingled and conjoined2000

Came into being that had no defect,2001

E’en as three arrows from a three-stringed bow.

And as in glass, in amber, or in crystal

A sunbeam flashes so, that from its coming

To its full being is no interval,

So from its Lord did the triform effect

Ray forth into its being all together,

Without discrimination of beginning.

Order was con-created and constructed

In substances, and summit of the world

Were those wherein the pure act was produced.2002

Pure potentiality held the lowest part;2003

Midway bound potentiality with act2004

Such bond that it shall never be unbound.2005

Jerome has written unto you of angels2006

Created a long lapse of centuries

Or ever yet the other world was made;

But written is this truth in many places2007

By writers of the Holy Ghost, and thou2008

Shalt see it, if thou lookest well thereat.

And even reason seeth it somewhat,

For it would not concede that for so long

Could be the motors without their perfection.2009

Now dost thou know both where and when these Loves

Created were, and how; so that extinct

In thy desire already are three fires.

Nor could one reach, in counting, unto twenty

So swiftly, as a portion of these angels

Disturbed the subject of your elements.2010

The rest remained, and they began this art

Which thou discernest, with so great delight

That never from their circling do they cease.

The occasion of the fall was the accursed

Presumption of that One, whom thou hast seen2011

By all the burden of the world constrained.

Those whom thou here beholdest modest were

To recognise themselves as of that goodness

Which made them apt for so much understanding;

On which account their vision was exalted

By the enlightening grace and their own merit,

So that they have a full and steadfast will.

I would not have thee doubt, but certain be,

’Tis meritorious to receive this grace,2012

According as the affection opens to it.

Now round about in this consistory

Much mayst thou contemplate, if these my words

Be gathered up, without all further aid.

But since upon the earth, throughout your schools,

They teach that such is the angelic nature

That it doth hear, and recollect, and will,

More will I say, that thou mayst see unmixed

The truth that is confounded there below,

Equivocating in suchlike prelections.

These substances, since in God’s countenance

They jocund were, turned not away their sight

From that wherefrom not anything is hidden;

Hence they have not their vision intercepted

By object new, and hence they do not need

To recollect, through interrupted thought.

So that below, not sleeping, people dream,

Believing they speak truth, and not believing;

And in the last is greater sin and shame.

Below you do not journey by one path

Philosophising; so transporteth you

Love of appearance and the thought thereof.

And even this above here is endured

With less disdain, than when is set aside

The Holy Writ, or when it is distorted.

They think not there how much of blood it costs

To sow it in the world, and how he pleases

Who in humility keeps close to it.

Each striveth for appearance, and doth make

His own inventions; and these treated are2013

By preachers, and the Evangel holds its peace.

One sayeth that the moon did backward turn,

In the Passion of Christ, and interpose herself

So that the sunlight reached not down below;

And lies; for of its own accord the light

Hid itself; whence to Spaniards and to Indians,

As to the Jews, did such eclipse respond.

Florence has not so many Lapi and Bindi2014

As fables such as these, that every year

Are shouted from the pulpit back and forth,

In such wise that the lambs, who do not know,

Come back from pasture fed upon the wind,2015

And not to see the harm doth not excuse them.

Christ did not to his first disciples say,

‘Go forth, and to the world preach idle tales,’

But unto them a true foundation gave;

And this so loudly sounded from their lips,

That, in the warfare to enkindle Faith,

They made of the Evangel shields and lances.

Now men go forth with jests and drolleries2016

To preach, and if but well the people laugh,

The hood puffs out, and nothing more is asked.

But in the cowl there nestles such a bird,2017

That, if the common people were to see it,

They would perceive what pardons they confide in,

For which so great on earth has grown the folly,

That, without proof of any testimony,

To each indulgence they would flock together.

By this Saint Anthony his pig doth fatten,2018

And many others, who are worse than pigs,

Paying in money without mark of coinage.2019

But since we have digressed abundantly,

Turn back thine eyes forthwith to the right path,

So that the way be shortened with the time.

This nature doth so multiply itself2020

In numbers, that there never yet was speech

Nor mortal fancy that can go so far.

And if thou notest that which is revealed

By Daniel, thou wilt see that in his thousands2021

Number determinate is kept concealed.

The primal light, that all irradiates it,2022

By modes as many is received therein,

As are the splendors wherewith it is mated.2023

Hence, inasmuch as on the act conceptive

The affection followeth, of love the sweetness2024

Therein diversely fervid is or tepid.

The height behold now and the amplitude

Of the eternal power, since it hath made

Itself so many mirrors, where ’tis broken,

One in itself remaining as before.”

Canto
XXX

The Tenth Heaven, or Empyrean—The River of Light—The Two Courts of Heaven—The White Rose of Paradise.

Perchance six thousand miles remote from us2025

Is glowing the sixth hour, and now this world2026

Inclines its shadow almost to a level,

When the mid-heaven begins to make itself

So deep to us, that here and there a star

Ceases to shine so far down as this depth,

And as advances bright exceedingly

The handmaid of the sun, the heaven is closed

Light after light to the most beautiful;

Not otherwise the Triumph, which forever2027

Plays round about the point that vanquished me,

Seeming enclosed by what itself encloses,

Little by little from my vision faded;

Whereat to turn mine eyes on Beatrice

My seeing nothing and my love constrained me.

If what has hitherto been said of her

Were all concluded in a single praise,

Scant would it be to serve the present turn.

Not only does the beauty I beheld

Transcend ourselves, but truly I believe

Its Maker only may enjoy it all.

Vanquished do I confess me by this passage

More than by problem of his theme was ever

O’ercome the comic or the tragic poet;

For as the sun the sight that trembles most,

Even so the memory of that sweet smile

My mind depriveth of its very self.

From the first day that I beheld her face

In this life, to the moment of this look,

The sequence of my song has ne’er been severed;

But now perforce this sequence must desist

From following her beauty with my verse,

As every artist at his uttermost.

Such as I leave her to a greater fame

Than any of my trumpet, which is bringing

Its arduous matter to a final close,

With voice and gesture of a perfect leader

She recommenced: “We from the greatest body2028

Have issued to the heaven that is pure light;

Light intellectual replete with love,

Love of true good replete with ecstasy,

Ecstasy that transcendeth every sweetness.2029

Here shalt thou see the one host and the other2030

Of Paradise, and one in the same aspects

Which at the final judgment thou shalt see.”2031

Even as a sudden lightning that disperses

The visual spirits, so that it deprives

The eye of impress from the strongest objects,

Thus round about me flashed a living light,

And left me swathed around with such a veil

Of its effulgence, that I nothing saw.

“Ever the Love which quieteth this heaven

Welcomes into itself with such salute,

To make the candle ready for its flame.”

No sooner had within me these brief words

An entrance found, than I perceived myself

To be uplifted over my own power,

And I with vision new rekindled me,

Such that no light whatever is so pure

But that mine eyes were fortified against it.

And light I saw in fashion of a river2032

Fulvid with its effulgence, ’twixt two banks

Depicted with an admirable Spring.

Out of this river issued living sparks,2033

And on all sides sank down into the flowers,

Like unto rubies that are set in gold;2034

And then, as if inebriate with the odors,

They plunged again into the wondrous torrent,

And as one entered issued forth another.

“The high desire, that now inflames and moves thee

To have intelligence of what thou seest,

Pleaseth me all the more, the more it swells.

But of this water it behoves thee drink

Before so great a thirst in thee be slaked.”

Thus said to me the sunshine of mine eyes;

And added: “The river and the topazes2035

Going in and out, and the laughing of the herbage,

Are of their truth foreshadowing prefaces;

Not that these things are difficult in themselves,

But the deficiency is on thy side,

For yet thou hast not vision so exalted.”

There is no babe that leaps so suddenly

With face towards the milk, if he awake

Much later than his usual custom is,

As I did, that I might make better mirrors

Still of mine eyes, down stooping to the wave

Which flows that we therein be better made.

And even as the penthouse of mine eyelids

Drank of it, it forthwith appeared to me

Out of its length to be transformed to round.2036

Then as a folk who have been under masks

Seem other than before, if they divest

The semblance not their own they disappeared in,

Thus into greater pomp were changed for me

The flowerets and the sparks, so that I saw

Both of the Courts of Heaven made manifest.

O splendor of God! by means of which I saw

The lofty triumph of the realm veracious,

Give me the power to say how it I saw!2037

There is a light above, which visible2038

Makes the Creator unto every creature,

Who only in beholding Him has peace,

And it expands itself in circular form

To such extent, that its circumference

Would be too large a girdle for the sun.

The semblance of it is all made of rays

Reflected from the top of Primal Motion,

Which takes therefrom vitality and power.

And as a hill in water at its base

Mirrors itself, as if to see its beauty

When affluent most in verdure and in flowers,

So, ranged aloft all round about the light,

Mirrored I saw in more ranks than a thousand

All who above there have from us returned.

And if the lowest row collect within it

So great a light, how vast the amplitude

Is of this Rose in its extremest leaves!

My vision in the vastness and the height

Lost not itself, but comprehended all

The quantity and quality of that gladness.

There near and far nor add nor take away;

For there where God immediately doth govern,

The natural law in naught is relevant.

Into the yellow of the Rose Eternal2039

That spreads, and multiplies, and breathes an odor

Of praise unto the ever-vernal Sun,

As one who silent is and fain would speak,

Me Beatrice drew on, and said: “Behold

Of the white stoles how vast the convent is!2040

Behold how vast the circuit of our city!

Behold our seats so filled to overflowing,

That here henceforward are few people wanting!

On that great throne whereon thine eyes are fixed

For the crown’s sake already placed upon it,

Before thou suppest at this wedding feast

Shall sit the soul (that is to be Augustus2041

On earth) of noble Henry, who shall come2042

To redress Italy ere she be ready.

Blind covetousness, that casts its spell upon you,

Has made you like unto the little child,

Who dies of hunger and drives off the nurse.

And in the sacred forum then shall be2043

A Prefect such, that openly or covert2044

On the same road he will not walk with him.

But long of God he will not be endured

In holy office; he shall be thrust down

Where Simon Magus is for his deserts,2045

And make him of Alagna lower go!”2046

Canto
XXXI

The glory of Paradise—St. Bernard.

In fashion then as of a snow-white rose2047

Displayed itself to me the saintly host,

Whom Christ in his own blood had made his bride,

But the other host, that flying sees and sings

The glory of Him who doth enamour it,

And the goodness that created it so noble,

Even as a swarm of bees, that sinks in flowers2048

One moment, and the next returns again

To where its labor is to sweetness turned,

Sank into the great flower, that is adorned

With leaves so many, and thence reascended

To where its love abideth evermore.

Their faces had they all of living flame,

And wings of gold, and all the rest so white

No snow unto that limit doth attain.

From bench to bench, into the flower descending,

They carried something of the peace and ardor

Which by the fanning of their flanks they won.

Nor did the interposing ’twixt the flower

And what was o’er it of such plenitude

Of flying shapes impede the sight and splendor;

Because the light divine so penetrates

The universe, according to its merit,

That naught can be an obstacle against it.

This realm secure and full of gladsomeness,

Crowded with ancient people and with modern,

Unto one mark had all its look and love.

O Trinal Light, that in a single star

Sparkling upon their sight so satisfies them,

Look down upon our tempest here below!

If the barbarians, coming from some region

That every day by Helice is covered,2049

Revolving with her son whom she delights in,

Beholding Rome and all her noble works,2050

Were wonder-struck, what time the Lateran2051

Above all mortal things was eminent—

I who to the divine had from the human,

From time unto eternity, had come,

From Florence to a people just and sane,

With what amazement must I have been filled!

Truly between this and the joy, it was

My pleasure not to hear, and to be mute.

And as a pilgrim who delighteth him

In gazing round the temple of his vow,

And hopes some day to retell how it was,

So through the living light my way pursuing

Directed I mine eyes o’er all the ranks,

Now up, now down, and now all round about.

Faces I saw of charity persuasive,

Embellished by His light and their own smile,

And attitudes adorned with every grace.

The general form of Paradise already

My glance had comprehended as a whole,

In no part hitherto remaining fixed,

And round I turned me with rekindled wish

My Lady to interrogate of things

Concerning which my mind was in suspense.

One thing I meant, another answered me;

I thought I should see Beatrice, and saw

An Old Man habited like the glorious people.

O’erflowing was he in his eyes and cheeks

With joy benign, in attitude of pity

As to a tender father is becoming.

And “She, where is she?” instantly I said;

Whence he: “To put an end to thy desire,

Me Beatrice hath sent from mine own place.

And if thou lookest up to the third round

Of the first rank, again shalt thou behold her

Upon the throne her merits have assigned her.”

Without reply I lifted up mine eyes,

And saw her, as she made herself a crown

Reflecting from herself the eternal rays.

Not from that region which the highest thunders2052

Is any mortal eye so far removed,

In whatsoever sea it deepest sinks,

As there from Beatrice my sight; but this

Was nothing unto me; because her image

Descended not to me by medium blurred.

“O Lady, thou in whom my hope is strong,

And who for my salvation didst endure

In Hell to leave the imprint of thy feet,

Of whatsoever things I have beheld,

As coming from thy power and from thy goodness

I recognise the virtue and the grace.

Thou from a slave hast brought me unto freedom,

By all those ways, by all the expedients,

Whereby thou hadst the power of doing it.

Preserve towards me thy magnificence,

So that this soul of mine, which thou hast healed,

Pleasing to thee be loosened from the body.”

Thus I implored; and she, so far away,

Smiled, as it seemed, and looked once more at me;

Then unto the eternal fountain turned.

And said the Old Man holy: “That thou mayst

Accomplish perfectly thy journeying,

Whereunto prayer and holy love have sent me,

Fly with thine eyes all round about this garden;

For seeing it will discipline thy sight

Farther to mount along the ray divine.

And she, the Queen of Heaven, for whom I burn

Wholly with love, will grant us every grace,

Because that I her faithful Bernard am.”2053

As he who peradventure from Croatia

Cometh to gaze at our Veronica,2054

Who through its ancient fame is never sated,

But says in thought, the while it is displayed,

“My Lord, Christ Jesus, God of very God,

Now was your semblance made like unto this?”

Even such was I while gazing at the living

Charity of the man, who in this world

By contemplation tasted of that peace.

“Thou son of grace, this jocund life,” began he,

“Will not be known to thee by keeping ever

Thine eyes below here on the lowest place;

But mark the circles to the most remote,

Until thou shalt behold enthroned the Queen2055

To whom this realm is subject and devoted.”

I lifted up mine eyes, and as at morn

The oriental part of the horizon

Surpasses that wherein the sun goes down,

Thus, as if going with mine eyes from vale

To mount, I saw a part in the remoteness

Surpass in splendor all the other front.

And even as there where we await the pole

That Phaeton drove badly, blazes more2056

The light, and is on either side diminished,

So likewise that pacific oriflamme

Gleamed brightest in the centre, and each side

In equal measure did the flame abate.

And at that centre, with their wings expanded,

More than a thousand jubilant Angels saw I,

Each differing in effulgence and in kind.

I saw there at their sports and at their songs

A beauty smiling, which the gladness was

Within the eyes of all the other saints;

And if I had in speaking as much wealth

As in imagining, I should not dare

To attempt the smallest part of its delight.

Bernard, as soon as he beheld mine eyes

Fixed and intent upon its fervid fervor,

His own with such affection turned to her

That it made mine more ardent to behold.

Canto
XXXII

St. Bernard points out the saints in the White Rose.

Absorbed in his delight, that contemplator2057

Assumed the willing office of a teacher,

And gave beginning to these holy words:

“The wound that Mary closed up and anointed,

She at her feet who is so beautiful,2058

She is the one who opened it and pierced it.

Within that order which the third seats make

Is seated Rachel, lower than the other,2059

With Beatrice, in manner as thou seest.

Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and her who was

Ancestress of the Singer, who for dole2060

Of the misdeed said, ‘Miserere mei,’2061

Canst thou behold from seat to seat descending

Down in gradation, as with each one’s name

I through the Rose go down from leaf to leaf.

And downward from the seventh row, even as

Above the same, succeed the Hebrew women,

Dividing all the tresses of the flower;

Because, according to the view which Faith

In Christ had taken, these are the partition

By which the sacred stairways are divided.

Upon this side, where perfect is the flower

With each one of its petals, seated are

Those who believed in Christ who was to come.2062

Upon the other side, where intersected

With vacant spaces are the semicircles,

Are those who looked to Christ already come.2063

And as, upon this side, the glorious seat

Of the Lady of Heaven, and the other seats

Below it, such a great division make,

So opposite doth that of the great John,2064

Who, ever holy, desert and martyrdom

Endured, and afterwards two years in Hell.

And under him thus to divide were chosen

Francis, and Benedict, and Augustine,

And down to us the rest from round to round.

Behold now the high providence divine;

For one and other aspect of the Faith

In equal measure shall this garden fill.

And know that downward from that rank which cleaves2065

Midway the sequence of the two divisions,

Not by their proper merit are they seated;

But by another’s under fixed conditions;2066

For these are spirits one and all assoiled

Before they any true election had.

Well canst thou recognise it in their faces,

And also in their voices puerile,

If thou regard them well and hearken to them.

Now doubtest thou, and doubting thou art silent;

But I will loosen for thee the strong bond

In which thy subtle fancies hold thee fast.

Within the amplitude of this domain

No casual point can possibly find place,

No more than sadness can, or thirst, or hunger;

For by eternal law has been established

Whatever thou beholdest, so that closely

The ring is fitted to the finger here.

And therefore are these people, festinate2067

Unto true life, not sine causa here

More and less excellent among themselves.

The King, by means of whom this realm reposes

In so great love and in so great delight

That no will ventureth to ask for more,

In his own joyous aspect every mind

Creating, at his pleasure dowers with grace

Diversely; and let here the effect suffice.

And this is clearly and expressly noted

For you in Holy Scripture, in those twins2068

Who in their mother had their anger roused.

According to the color of the hair,2069

Therefore, with such a grace the light supreme

Consenteth that they worthily be crowned.

Without, then, any merit of their deeds,

Stationed are they in different gradations,

Differing only in their first acuteness.2070

’Tis true that in the early centuries,2071

With innocence, to work out their salvation

Sufficient was the faith of parents only.

After the earlier ages were completed,2072

Behoved it that the males by circumcision

Unto their innocent wings should virtue add;

But after that the time of grace had come

Without the baptism absolute of Christ,

Such innocence below there was retained.

Look now into the face that unto Christ2073

Hath most resemblance; for its brightness only

Is able to prepare thee to see Christ.”

On her did I behold so great a gladness

Rain down, borne onward in the holy minds

Created through that altitude to fly,

That whatsoever I had seen before

Did not suspend me in such admiration,

Nor show me such similitude of God.

And the same Love that first descended there,2074

“Ave Maria, gratia plena,” singing,

In front of her his wings expanded wide.

Unto the canticle divine responded

From every part the court beatified,

So that each sight became serener for it.2075

“O holy father, who for me endurest

To be below here, leaving the sweet place

In which thou sittest by eternal lot,

Who is the Angel that with so much joy

Into the eyes is looking of our Queen,

Enamoured so that he seems made of fire?”

Thus I again recourse had to the teaching

Of that one who delighted him in Mary2076

As doth the star of morning in the sun.2077

And he to me: “Such gallantry and grace

As there can be in Angel and in soul,

All is in him; and thus we fain would have it;

Because he is the one who bore the palm

Down unto Mary, when the Son of God

To take our burden on himself decreed.

But now come onward with thine eyes, as I

Speaking shall go, and note the great patricians

Of this most just and merciful of empires.

Those two that sit above there most enrapture

As being very near unto Augusta,2078

Are as it were the two roots of this Rose.

He who upon the left is near her placed2079

The father is, by whose audacious taste

The human species so much bitter tastes.

Upon the right thou seest that ancient father2080

Of Holy Church, into whose keeping Christ

The keys committed of this lovely flower.

And he who all the evil days beheld,2081

Before his death, of her the beauteous bride

Who with the spear and with the nails was won,

Beside him sits, and by the other rests

That leader under whom on manna lived2082

The people ingrate, fickle, and stiff-necked.2083

Opposite Peter seest thou Anna seated,2084

So well content to look upon her daughter,

Her eyes she moves not while she sings Hosanna.

And opposite the eldest household father

Lucia sits, she who thy Lady moved2085

When to rush downward thou didst bend thy brows.

But since the moments of thy vision fly,

Here will we make full stop, as a good tailor

Who makes the gown according to his cloth,

And unto the first Love will turn our eyes,

That looking upon Him thou penetrate

As far as possible through his effulgence.

Truly, lest peradventure thou recede,

Moving thy wings believing to advance,2086

By prayer behoves it that grace be obtained;

Grace from that one who has the power to aid thee;

And thou shalt follow me with thy affection

That from my words thy heart turn not aside.”

And he began this holy orison.

Canto
XXXIII

Prayer to the Virgin—The Threefold Circle of the Trinity—Mystery of the divine and human nature.

“Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,2087

Humble and high beyond all other creature,

The limit fixed of the eternal counsel,

Thou art the one who such nobility

To human nature gave, that its Creator

Did not disdain to make himself its creature.

Within thy womb rekindled was the love,

By heat of which in the eternal peace

After such wise this flower has germinated.

Here unto us thou art a noonday torch

Of charity, and below there among mortals

Thou art the living fountainhead of hope.

Lady, thou art so great, and so prevailing,

That he who wishes grace, nor runs to thee,

His aspirations without wings would fly.

Not only thy benignity gives succor

To him who asketh it, but oftentimes

Forerunneth of its own accord the asking.

In thee compassion is, in thee is pity,

In thee magnificence; in thee unites

Whate’er of goodness is in any creature.

Now doth this man, who from the lowest depth

Of the universe as far as here has seen

One after one the spiritual lives,

Supplicate thee through grace for so much power

That with his eyes he may uplift himself

Higher towards the uttermost salvation.

And I, who never burned for my own seeing

More than I do for his, all of my prayers

Proffer to thee, and pray they come not short,

That thou wouldst scatter from him every cloud

Of his mortality so with thy prayers,

That the Chief Pleasure be to him displayed.

Still farther do I pray thee, Queen, who canst

Whate’er thou wilt, that sound thou mayst preserve

After so great a vision his affections.2088

Let thy protection conquer human movements;

See Beatrice and all the blessed ones

My prayers to second clasp their hands to thee!”

The eyes beloved and revered of God,

Fastened upon the speaker, showed to us

How grateful unto her are prayers devout;

Then unto the Eternal Light they turned,

On which it is not credible could be

By any creature bent an eye so clear.

And I, who to the end of all desires

Was now approaching, even as I ought

The ardor of desire within me ended.2089

Bernard was beckoning unto me, and smiling,

That I should upward look; but I already

Was of my own accord such as he wished;

Because my sight, becoming purified,

Was entering more and more into the ray

Of the High Light which of itself is true.

From that time forward what I saw was greater

Than our discourse, that to such vision yields,

And yields the memory unto such excess.

Even as he is who seeth in a dream,

And after dreaming the imprinted passion

Remains, and to his mind the rest returns not,

Even such am I, for almost utterly

Ceases my vision, and distilleth yet

Within my heart the sweetness born of it;

Even thus the snow is in the sun unsealed,

Even thus upon the wind in the light leaves

Were the soothsayings of the Sibyl lost.2090

O Light Supreme, that dost so far uplift thee

From the conceits of mortals, to my mind

Of what thou didst appear re-lend a little,

And make my tongue of so great puissance,

That but a single sparkle of thy glory

It may bequeath unto the future people;

For by returning to my memory somewhat,

And by a little sounding in these verses,

More of thy victory shall be conceived!

I think the keenness of the living ray

Which I endured would have bewildered me,

If but mine eyes had been averted from it;2091

And I remember that I was more bold

On this account to bear, so that I joined

My aspect with the Glory Infinite.

O grace abundant, by which I presumed

To fix my sight upon the Light Eternal,

So that the seeing I consumed therein!

I saw that in its depth far down is lying

Bound up with love together in one volume,2092

What through the universe in leaves is scattered;

Substance, and accident, and their operations,

All interfused together in such wise

That what I speak of is one simple light.2093

The universal fashion of this knot

Methinks I saw, since more abundantly

In saying this I feel that I rejoice.

One moment is more lethargy to me,2094

Than five and twenty centuries to the emprise

That startled Neptune with the shade of Argo!

My mind in this wise wholly in suspense,

Steadfast, immovable, attentive gazed,

And evermore with gazing grew enkindled.

In presence of that light one such becomes,

That to withdraw therefrom for other prospect

It is impossible he e’er consent;

Because the good, which object is of will,2095

Is gathered all in this, and out of it

That is defective which is perfect there.

Shorter henceforward will my language fall

Of what I yet remember, than an infant’s

Who still his tongue doth moisten at the breast.

Not because more than one unmingled semblance

Was in the living light on which I looked,

For it is always what it was before;

But through the sight, that fortified itself

In me by looking, one appearance only

To me was ever changing as I changed.2096

Within the deep and luminous subsistence2097

Of the High Light appeared to me three circles,2098

Of threefold color and of one dimension,

And by the second seemed the first reflected

As Iris is by Iris, and the third

Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed.

O how all speech is feeble and falls short

Of my conceit, and this to what I saw

Is such, ’tis not enough to call it little!

O Light Eterne, sole in thyself that dwellest,

Sole knowest thyself, and, known unto thyself

And knowing, lovest and smilest on thyself!

That circulation, which being thus conceived

Appeared in thee as a reflected light,2099

When somewhat contemplated by mine eyes,

Within itself, of its own very color

Seemed to me painted with our effigy,2100

Wherefore my sight was all absorbed therein.

As the geometrician, who endeavors

To square the circle, and discovers not,

By taking thought, the principle he wants,

Even such was I at that new apparition;

I wished to see how the image to the circle

Conformed itself, and how it there finds place;

But my own wings were not enough for this,

Had it not been that then my mind there smote

A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish.2101

Here vigor failed the lofty fantasy:

But now was turning my desire and will,

Even as a wheel that equally is moved,2102

The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.2103