Paradiso — Part 2

'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 honour.

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."

Paradiso: Canto XVIII

Now was alone rejoicing in its word

That soul beatified, and I was tasting

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;

Not only that my language I distrust,

But that my mind cannot return so far

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,

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 splendour drawn

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

Nor noted I the word before the deed;

And at the name of the great Maccabee

I saw another move itself revolving,

And gladness was the whip unto that top.

Likewise for Charlemagne and for Orlando,

Two of them my regard attentive followed

As followeth the eye its falcon flying.

William thereafterward, and Renouard,

And the Duke Godfrey, did attract my sight

Along upon that Cross, and Robert Guiscard.

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.

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,

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,

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.

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 genius

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.

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 logs

Upward there fly innumerable sparks,

Whence fools are wont to look for auguries,

More than a thousand lights seemed thence to rise,

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 eagle

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.

The other beatitude, that contented seemed

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!

O soldiery of heaven, whom I contemplate,

Implore for those who are upon the earth

All gone astray after the bad example!

Once 'twas the custom to make war with swords;

But now 'tis made by taking here and there

The bread the pitying Father shuts from none.

Yet thou, who writest but to cancel, think

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,

That I know not the Fisherman nor Paul."

Paradiso: Canto XIX

Appeared before me with its wings outspread

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.'

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 odours 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 mirror

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 doubt

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 lauds

Was interwoven of the grace divine,

With such songs as he knows who there rejoices.

Then it began: "He who a compass turned

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 Word

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.

And hence appears it, that each minor nature

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,

Cannot in its own nature be so potent,

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 darkness

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 splendours 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,

Before or since he to the tree was nailed.

But look thou, many crying are, 'Christ, Christ!'

Who at the judgment shall be far less near

To him than some shall be who knew not Christ.

Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn,

When the two companies shall be divided,

The one for ever rich, the other poor.

What to your kings may not the Persians say,

When they that volume opened shall behold

In which are written down all their dispraises?

There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert,

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.

There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst,

Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad

That they within their boundaries cannot rest;

Be seen the luxury and effeminate life

Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian,

Who valour never knew and never wished;

Be seen the Cripple of Jerusalem,

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,

Wherein Anchises finished his long life;

And to declare how pitiful he is

Shall be his record in contracted letters

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 nation

So famous have dishonoured, and two crowns.

And he of Portugal and he of Norway

Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too,

Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice.

O happy Hungary, if she let herself

Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy,

If with the hills that gird her she be armed!

And each one may believe that now, as hansel

Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta

Lament and rage because of their own beast,

Who from the others' flank departeth not."

Paradiso: Canto XX

When he who all the world illuminates

Out of our hemisphere so far descends

That on all sides the daylight is consumed,

The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled,

Doth suddenly reveal itself again

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 mountain-top.

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 pupil

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,

By the reward which is commensurate.

Of five, that make a circle for my brow,

He that approacheth nearest to my beak

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 circumference

Of which I speak, upon its highest arc,

Did death postpone by penitence sincere;

Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment

Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer

Maketh below to-morrow of to-day.

The next who follows, with the laws and me,

Under the good intent that bore bad fruit

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 deplores

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 round

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,

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 colour 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 quiddity

Cannot perceive, unless another show it.

'Regnum coelorum' suffereth violence

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 fifth

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.

For one from Hell, where no one e'er turns back

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.

The glorious soul concerning which I speak,

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 deep

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 wheel

Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptism

More than a thousand years before baptizing.

O thou predestination, how remote

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 short-sightedness,

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.

Paradiso: Canto XXI

Already on my Lady's face mine eyes

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.

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 splendour,

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,

Coloured like gold, on which the sunshine gleams,

A stairway I beheld to such a height

Uplifted, that mine eye pursued it not.

Likewise beheld I down the steps descending

So many splendours, 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 day

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 remained

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 when

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.

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.

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.

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,

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 hermitage

Wont to be dedicate to worship only."

Thus unto me the third speech recommenced,

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;

And Peter the Sinner was I in the house

Of Our Lady on the Adriatic shore.

Little of mortal life remained to me,

When I was called and dragged forth to the hat

Which shifteth evermore from bad to worse.

Came Cephas, and the mighty Vessel came

Of the Holy Spirit, meagre and barefooted,

Taking the food of any hostelry.

Now some one to support them on each side

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.

Paradiso: Canto XXII

Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide

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 see

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 stands

Was frequented of old upon its summit

By a deluded folk and ill-disposed;

And I am he who first up thither bore

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 neighbouring 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,

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 ardours,

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 alone

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 it

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.

The walls that used of old to be an Abbey

Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls

Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.

But heavy usury is not taken up

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,

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

A wonder to behold, than succour 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 often

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.

O glorious stars, O light impregnated

With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge

All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be,

With you was born, and hid himself with you,

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,

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 eves 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;

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 shining

Without that shadow, which to me was cause

That once I had believed her rare and dense.

The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,

Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves

Around and near him Maia and Dione.

Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove

'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,

And how they are in distant habitations.

The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,

To me revolving with the eternal Twins,

Was all apparent made from hill to harbour!

Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.

Paradiso: Canto XXIII

Even as a bird, 'mid the beloved leaves,

Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood

Throughout the night, that hideth all things from us,

Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks

And find the food wherewith to nourish them,

In which, to her, grave labours 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;

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 fruit

Harvested by the rolling of these spheres!"

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 eternal

Who paint the firmament through all its gulfs,

Saw I, above the myriads of lamps,

A Sun that one and all of them enkindled,

E'en as our own doth the supernal sights,

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:

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 endeavours

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 made

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,

That to the garden fair thou turnest not,

Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?

There is the Rose in which the Word Divine

Became incarnate; there the lilies are

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.

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 splendours manifold I saw

Illumined from above with burning rays,

Beholding not the source of the effulgence.

O power benignant that dost so imprint them!

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 invoke

Morning and evening utterly enthralled

My soul to gaze upon the greater fire.

And when in both mine eyes depicted were

The glory and greatness of the living star

Which there excelleth, as it here excelled,

Athwart the heavens a little torch descended

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,

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;

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 all

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,

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.

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,

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.

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.

Paradiso: Canto XXIV

"O company elect to the great supper

Of the Lamb benedight, who feedeth you

So that for ever 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

For ever 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, dancing

In different measure, of their affluence

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

From that one which I noted of most beauty

Beheld I issue forth a fire so happy

That none it left there of a greater brightness;

And around Beatrice three several times

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.

"O holy sister mine, who us implorest

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 sight

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,

Cause my conceptions all to be explicit!"

And I continued: "As the truthful pen,

Father, of thy dear brother wrote of it,

Who put with thee Rome into the good way,

Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,

And evidence of those that are not seen;

And this appears to me its quiddity."

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."

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."

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,

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,

Examining, had thus conducted me,

Till the extremest leaves we were approaching,

Again began: "The Grace that dallying

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,"

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;

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 wrote

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.'

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,

The apostolic light, at whose command

I spoken had, in speaking I so pleased him.

Paradiso: Canto XXV

If e'er it happen that the Poem Sacred,

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,

An enemy to the wolves that war upon it,

With other voice forthwith, with other fleece

Poet will I return, and at my font

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.

Thereafterward towards us moved a light

Out of that band whence issued the first-fruits

Which of his vicars Christ behind him left,

And then my Lady, full of ecstasy,

Said unto me: "Look, look! behold the Baron

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,

So incandescent it o'ercame my sight.

Smiling thereafterwards, said Beatrice:

"Illustrious life, by whom the benefactions

Of our Basilica have been described,

Make Hope resound within this altitude;

Thou knowest as oft thou dost personify it

As Jesus to the three gave greater clearness."--

"Lift up thy head, and make thyself assured;

For what comes hither from the mortal world

Must needs be ripened in our radiance."

This comfort came to me from the second fire;

Wherefore mine eyes I lifted to the hills,

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,

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 piloted

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;

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 knowledge

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;

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 expectation

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.

'Sperent in te,' in the high Theody

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."

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,

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,

Of all the souls whom God hath made his friends.

Isaiah saith, that each one garmented

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,

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,

So that, if Cancer one such crystal had,

Winter would have a month of one sole day.

And as uprises, goes, and enters the dance

A winsome maiden, only to do honour

To the new bride, and not from any failing,

Even thus did I behold the brightened splendour

Approach the two, who in a wheel revolved

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 he

To the great office from the cross elected."

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 endeavours

To see the eclipsing of the sun a little,

And who, by seeing, sightless doth become,

So I became before that latest fire,

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.

With the two garments in the blessed cloister

Are the two lights alone that have ascended:

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,

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 was

Close at her side and in the Happy World!

Paradiso: Canto XXVI

While I was doubting for my vision quenched,

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."

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 all

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 every one, 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 love

Of all the sempiternal substances.

The voice reveals it of the truthful Author,

Who says to Moses, speaking of Himself,

'I will make all my goodness pass before thee.'

Thou too revealest it to me, beginning

The loud Evangel, that proclaims the secret

Of heaven to earth above all other edict."

And I heard say: "By human intellect

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 Christ

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 garden

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!"

And as at some keen light one wakes from sleep

By reason of the visual spirit that runs

Unto the splendour 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 soul

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 mature

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,

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,

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 extinct

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.

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,

From whom comes all the joy that wraps me round

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

Because the use of men is like a leaf

On bough, which goeth and another cometh.

Upon the mount that highest o'er the wave

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."

Paradiso: Canto XXVII

"Glory be to the Father, to the Son,

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!

Before mine eyes were standing the four torches

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 Mars

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 colour change,

Marvel not at it; for while I am speaking

Thou shalt behold all these their colour change.

He who usurps upon the earth my place,

My place, my place, which vacant has become

Before the presence of the Son of God,

Has of my cemetery made a sewer

Of blood and stench, whereby the Perverse One,

Who fell from here, below there is appeased!"

With the same colour 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;

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,

To be made use of in acquest of gold;

But in acquest of this delightful life

Sixtus and Pius, Urban and Calixtus,

After much lamentation, shed their blood.

Our purpose was not, that on the right hand

Of our successors should in part be seated

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,

That should wage war on those who are baptized;

Nor I be made the figure of a seal

To privileges venal and mendacious,

Whereat I often redden and flash with fire.

In garb of shepherds the rapacious wolves

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

O wrath of God, why dost thou slumber still?

To drink our blood the Caorsines and Gascons

Are making ready. O thou good beginning,

Unto how vile an end must thou needs fall!

But the high Providence, that with Scipio

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 vapours downward falls

In flakes our atmosphere, what time the horn

Of the celestial Goat doth touch the sun,

Upward in such array saw I the ether

Become, and flaked with the triumphant vapours,

Which there together with us had remained.

My sight was following up their semblances,

And followed till the medium, by excess,

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,

I saw that I had moved through the whole arc

Which the first climate makes from midst to end;

So that I saw the mad track of Ulysses

Past Gades, and this side, well nigh the shore

Whereon became Europa a sweet burden.

And of this threshing-floor the site to me

Were more unveiled, but the sun was proceeding

Under my feet, a sign and more removed.

My mind enamoured, which is dallying

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 bait

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,

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,

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 Where

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 precinct

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.

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 ingulf

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 found

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 fair

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;

Whence goes astray the human family.

Ere January be unwintered wholly

By the centesimal on earth neglected,

Shall these supernal circles roar so loud

The tempest that has been so long awaited

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."

Paradiso: Canto XXVIII

After the truth against the present life

Of miserable mortals was unfolded

By her who doth imparadise my mind,

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,

Whenever on its gyre we gaze intent,

A point beheld I, that was raying out

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 vapour 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 messenger

Entire would be too narrow to contain it.

Even so the eighth and ninth; and every one

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 example

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."

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 narrow

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 it

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,

In every heaven, with its Intelligence."

Even as remaineth splendid and serene

The hemisphere of air, when Boreas

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.

Their coruscation all the sparks repeated,

And they so many were, their number makes

More millions than the doubling of the chess.

I heard them sing hosanna choir by choir

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

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.

Thus rapidly they follow their own bonds,

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,

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,

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;

Thus on from grade to grade doth it proceed.

The second Triad, which is germinating

In such wise in this sempiternal spring,

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;

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 desire

To contemplate these Orders set himself,

He named them and distinguished them as I do.

But Gregory afterwards dissented from him;

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,

With much more of the truth about these circles."

Paradiso: Canto XXIX

At what time both the children of Latona,

Surmounted by the Ram and by the Scales,

Together make a zone of the horizon,

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.

Then she began: "I say, and I ask not

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

Where centres every When and every 'Ubi.'

Not to acquire some good unto himself,

Which is impossible, but that his splendour

In its resplendency may say, 'Subsisto,'

In his eternity outside of time,

Outside all other limits, as it pleased him,

Into new Loves the Eternal Love unfolded.

Nor as if torpid did he lie before;

For neither after nor before proceeded

The going forth of God upon these waters.

Matter and Form unmingled and conjoined

Came into being that had no defect,

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.

Pure potentiality held the lowest part;

Midway bound potentiality with act

Such bond that it shall never be unbound.

Jerome has written unto you of angels

Created a long lapse of centuries

Or ever yet the other world was made;

But written is this truth in many places

By writers of the Holy Ghost, and thou

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.

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.

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 seen

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,

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 such like 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 are

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 Bindi

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,

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 drolleries

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,

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,

And many others, who are worse than pigs,

Paying in money without mark of coinage.

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 itself

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 thousands

Number determinate is kept concealed.

The primal light, that all irradiates it,

By modes as many is received therein,

As are the splendours wherewith it is mated.

Hence, inasmuch as on the act conceptive

The affection followeth, of love the sweetness

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."

Paradiso: Canto XXX

Perchance six thousand miles remote from us

Is glowing the sixth hour, and now this world

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 for ever

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 body

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.

Here shalt thou see the one host and the other

Of Paradise, and one in the same aspects

Which at the final judgment thou shalt see."

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 river

Fulvid with its effulgence, 'twixt two banks

Depicted with an admirable Spring.

Out of this river issued living sparks,

And on all sides sank down into the flowers,

Like unto rubies that are set in gold;

And then, as if inebriate with the odours,

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 topazes

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.

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 splendour 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!

There is a light above, which visible

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 Eternal

That spreads, and multiplies, and breathes an odour

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!

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 Augustus

On earth) of noble Henry, who shall come

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 be

A Prefect such, that openly or covert

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,

And make him of Alagna lower go!"

Paradiso: Canto XXXI

In fashion then as of a snow-white rose

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 flowers

One moment, and the next returns again

To where its labour 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 ardour

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 splendour;

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,

Revolving with her son whom she delights in,

Beholding Rome and all her noble works,

Were wonder-struck, what time the Lateran

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 thunders

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."

As he who peradventure from Croatia

Cometh to gaze at our Veronica,

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 Queen

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 splendour all the other front.

And even as there where we await the pole

That Phaeton drove badly, blazes more

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 fervour,

His own with such affection turned to her

That it made mine more ardent to behold.

Paradiso: Canto XXXII

Absorbed in his delight, that contemplator

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,

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,

With Beatrice, in manner as thou seest.

Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and her who was

Ancestress of the Singer, who for dole

Of the misdeed said, 'Miserere mei,'

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.

Upon the other side, where intersected

With vacant spaces are the semicircles,

Are those who looked to Christ already come.

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,

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 cleaves

Midway the sequence of the two divisions,

Not by their proper merit are they seated;

But by another's under fixed conditions;

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 subtile 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, festinate

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 twins

Who in their mother had their anger roused.

According to the colour of the hair,

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.

'Tis true that in the early centuries,

With innocence, to work out their salvation

Sufficient was the faith of parents only.

After the earlier ages were completed,

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 Christ

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,

"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.

"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 Mary

As doth the star of morning in the sun.

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,

Are as it were the two roots of this Rose.

He who upon the left is near her placed

The father is, by whose audacious taste

The human species so much bitter tastes.

Upon the right thou seest that ancient father

Of Holy Church, into whose keeping Christ

The keys committed of this lovely flower.

And he who all the evil days beheld,

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 lived

The people ingrate, fickle, and stiff-necked.

Opposite Peter seest thou Anna seated,

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 moved

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,

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.

Paradiso: Canto XXXIII

"Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,

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 fountain-head 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 succour

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.

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 ardour of desire within me ended.

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.

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;

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,

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.

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,

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,

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.

Within the deep and luminous subsistence

Of the High Light appeared to me three circles,

Of threefold colour 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,

When somewhat contemplated by mine eyes,

Within itself, of its own very colour

Seemed to me painted with our effigy,

Wherefore my sight was all absorbed therein.

As the geometrician, who endeavours

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.

Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy:

But now was turning my desire and will,

Even as a wheel that equally is moved,

The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.

APPENDIX

SIX SONNETS ON DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882)

I

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door

A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,

Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet

Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor

Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;

Far off the noises of the world retreat;

The loud vociferations of the street

Become an undistinguishable roar.

So, as I enter here from day to day,

And leave my burden at this minster gate,

Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,

The tumult of the time disconsolate

To inarticulate murmurs dies away,

While the eternal ages watch and wait.

II

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!

This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves

Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves

Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,

And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!

But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves

Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,

And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!

Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,

What exultations trampling on despair,

What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,

What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,

Uprose this poem of the earth and air,

This mediaeval miracle of song!

III

I enter, and I see thee in the gloom

Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!

And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.

The air is filled with some unknown perfume;

The congregation of the dead make room

For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;

Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine,

The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.

From the confessionals I hear arise

Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,

And lamentations from the crypts below

And then a voice celestial that begins

With the pathetic words, "Although your sins

As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow."

IV

With snow-white veil, and garments as of flame,

She stands before thee, who so long ago

Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe

From which thy song in all its splendors came;

And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,

The ice about thy heart melts as the snow

On mountain heights, and in swift overflow

Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.

Thou makest full confession; and a gleam

As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,

Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;

Lethe and Eunoe--the remembered dream

And the forgotten sorrow--bring at last

That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.

V

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 house-tops and through heaven above

Proclaim the elevation of the Host!

VI

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.

End