Paradiso
The Divine Comedy
translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Paradiso: Canto I
The glory of Him
who moveth everything
Doth
penetrate the universe, and shine
In one part more and in another less.
Within that heaven
which most his light receives
Was
I, and things beheld which to repeat
Nor knows, nor can, who from above descends;
Because in drawing
near to its desire
Our
intellect ingulphs itself so far,
That after it the memory cannot go.
Truly whatever of
the holy realm
I
had the power to treasure in my mind
Shall now become the subject of my song.
O good Apollo, for
this last emprise
Make
of me such a vessel of thy power
As giving the beloved laurel asks!
One summit of
Parnassus hitherto
Has
been enough for me, but now with both
I needs must enter the arena left.
Enter into my
bosom, thou, and breathe
As
at the time when Marsyas thou didst draw
Out of the scabbard of those limbs of his.
O power divine,
lend'st thou thyself to me
So
that the shadow of the blessed realm
Stamped in my brain I can make manifest,
Thou'lt see me come
unto thy darling tree,
And
crown myself thereafter with those leaves
Of which the theme and thou shall make me worthy.
So seldom, Father,
do we gather them
For
triumph or of Caesar or of Poet,
(The fault and shame of human inclinations,)
That the Peneian
foliage should bring forth
Joy
to the joyous Delphic deity,
When any one it makes to thirst for it.
A little spark is
followed by great flame;
Perchance
with better voices after me
Shall prayer be made that Cyrrha may respond!
To mortal men by
passages diverse
Uprises
the world's lamp; but by that one
Which circles four uniteth with three crosses,
With better course
and with a better star
Conjoined
it issues, and the mundane wax
Tempers and stamps more after its own fashion.
Almost that passage
had made morning there
And
evening here, and there was wholly white
That hemisphere, and black the other part,
When Beatrice
towards the left-hand side
I
saw turned round, and gazing at the sun;
Never did eagle fasten so upon it!
And even as a
second ray is wont
To
issue from the first and reascend,
Like to a pilgrim who would fain return,
Thus of her action,
through the eyes infused
In
my imagination, mine I made,
And sunward fixed mine eyes beyond our wont.
There much is
lawful which is here unlawful
Unto
our powers, by virtue of the place
Made for the human species as its own.
Not long I bore it,
nor so little while
But
I beheld it sparkle round about
Like iron that comes molten from the fire;
And suddenly it
seemed that day to day
Was
added, as if He who has the power
Had with another sun the heaven adorned.
With eyes upon the
everlasting wheels
Stood
Beatrice all intent, and I, on her
Fixing my vision from above removed,
Such at her aspect
inwardly became
As
Glaucus, tasting of the herb that made him
Peer of the other gods beneath the sea.
To represent
transhumanise in words
Impossible
were; the example, then, suffice
Him for whom Grace the experience reserves.
If I was merely
what of me thou newly
Createdst,
Love who governest the heaven,
Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light!
When now the wheel,
which thou dost make eternal
Desiring
thee, made me attentive to it
By harmony thou dost modulate and measure,
Then seemed to me
so much of heaven enkindled
By
the sun's flame, that neither rain nor river
E'er made a lake so widely spread abroad.
The newness of the
sound and the great light
Kindled
in me a longing for their cause,
Never before with such acuteness felt;
Whence she, who saw
me as I saw myself,
To
quiet in me my perturbed mind,
Opened her mouth, ere I did mine to ask,
And she began:
"Thou makest thyself so dull
With
false imagining, that thou seest not
What thou wouldst see if thou hadst shaken it off.
Thou art not upon
earth, as thou believest;
But
lightning, fleeing its appropriate site,
Ne'er ran as thou, who thitherward returnest."
If of my former
doubt I was divested
By
these brief little words more smiled than spoken,
I in a new one was the more ensnared;
And said: "Already
did I rest content
From
great amazement; but am now amazed
In what way I transcend these bodies light."
Whereupon she,
after a pitying sigh,
Her
eyes directed tow'rds me with that look
A mother casts on a delirious child;
And she began: "All
things whate'er they be
Have
order among themselves, and this is form,
That makes the universe resemble God.
Here do the higher
creatures see the footprints
Of
the Eternal Power, which is the end
Whereto is made the law already mentioned.
In the order that I
speak of are inclined
All
natures, by their destinies diverse,
More or less near unto their origin;
Hence they move
onward unto ports diverse
O'er
the great sea of being; and each one
With instinct given it which bears it on.
This bears away the
fire towards the moon;
This
is in mortal hearts the motive power
This binds together and unites the earth.
Nor only the
created things that are
Without
intelligence this bow shoots forth,
But those that have both intellect and love.
The Providence that
regulates all this
Makes
with its light the heaven forever quiet,
Wherein that turns which has the greatest haste.
And thither now, as
to a site decreed,
Bears
us away the virtue of that cord
Which aims its arrows at a joyous mark.
True is it, that as
oftentimes the form
Accords
not with the intention of the art,
Because in answering is matter deaf,
So likewise from
this course doth deviate
Sometimes
the creature, who the power possesses,
Though thus impelled, to swerve some other way,
(In the same wise
as one may see the fire
Fall
from a cloud,) if the first impetus
Earthward is wrested by some false delight.
Thou shouldst not
wonder more, if well I judge,
At
thine ascent, than at a rivulet
From some high mount descending to the lowland.
Marvel it would be
in thee, if deprived
Of
hindrance, thou wert seated down below,
As if on earth the living fire were quiet."
Thereat she
heavenward turned again her face.
O Ye, who in some
pretty little boat,
Eager
to listen, have been following
Behind my ship, that singing sails along,
Turn back to look
again upon your shores;
Do
not put out to sea, lest peradventure,
In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.
The sea I sail has
never yet been passed;
Minerva
breathes, and pilots me Apollo,
And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.
Ye other few who
have the neck uplifted
Betimes
to th' bread of Angels upon which
One liveth here and grows not sated by it,
Well may you launch
upon the deep salt-sea
Your
vessel, keeping still my wake before you
Upon the water that grows smooth again.
Those glorious ones
who unto Colchos passed
Were
not so wonder-struck as you shall be,
When Jason they beheld a ploughman made!
The con-created and
perpetual thirst
For
the realm deiform did bear us on,
As swift almost as ye the heavens behold.
Upward gazed
Beatrice, and I at her;
And
in such space perchance as strikes a bolt
And flies, and from the notch unlocks itself,
Arrived I saw me
where a wondrous thing
Drew
to itself my sight; and therefore she
From whom no care of mine could be concealed,
Towards me turning,
blithe as beautiful,
Said
unto me: "Fix gratefully thy mind
On God, who unto the first star has brought us."
It seemed to me a
cloud encompassed us,
Luminous,
dense, consolidate and bright
As adamant on which the sun is striking.
Into itself did the
eternal pearl
Receive
us, even as water doth receive
A ray of light, remaining still unbroken.
If I was body, (and
we here conceive not
How
one dimension tolerates another,
Which needs must be if body enter body,)
More the desire
should be enkindled in us
That
essence to behold, wherein is seen
How God and our own nature were united.
There will be seen
what we receive by faith,
Not
demonstrated, but self-evident
In guise of the first truth that man believes.
I made reply:
"Madonna, as devoutly
As
most I can do I give thanks to Him
Who has removed me from the mortal world.
But tell me what
the dusky spots may be
Upon
this body, which below on earth
Make people tell that fabulous tale of Cain?"
Somewhat she
smiled; and then, "If the opinion
Of
mortals be erroneous," she said,
"Where'er the key of sense doth not unlock,
Certes, the shafts
of wonder should not pierce thee
Now,
forasmuch as, following the senses,
Thou seest that the reason has short wings.
But tell me what
thou think'st of it thyself."
And
I: "What seems to us up here diverse,
Is caused, I think, by bodies rare and dense."
And she: "Right
truly shalt thou see immersed
In
error thy belief, if well thou hearest
The argument that I shall make against it.
Lights many the
eighth sphere displays to you
Which
in their quality and quantity
May noted be of aspects different.
If this were caused
by rare and dense alone,
One
only virtue would there be in all
Or more or less diffused, or equally.
Virtues diverse
must be perforce the fruits
Of
formal principles; and these, save one,
Of course would by thy reasoning be destroyed.
Besides, if rarity
were of this dimness
The
cause thou askest, either through and through
This planet thus attenuate were of matter,
Or else, as in a
body is apportioned
The
fat and lean, so in like manner this
Would in its volume interchange the leaves.
Were it the former,
in the sun's eclipse
It
would be manifest by the shining through
Of light, as through aught tenuous interfused.
This is not so;
hence we must scan the other,
And
if it chance the other I demolish,
Then falsified will thy opinion be.
But if this rarity
go not through and through,
There
needs must be a limit, beyond which
Its contrary prevents the further passing,
And thence the
foreign radiance is reflected,
Even
as a colour cometh back from glass,
The which behind itself concealeth lead.
Now thou wilt say
the sunbeam shows itself
More
dimly there than in the other parts,
By being there reflected farther back.
From this reply
experiment will free thee
If
e'er thou try it, which is wont to be
The fountain to the rivers of your arts.
Three mirrors shalt
thou take, and two remove
Alike
from thee, the other more remote
Between the former two shall meet thine eyes.
Turned towards
these, cause that behind thy back
Be
placed a light, illuming the three mirrors
And coming back to thee by all reflected.
Though in its
quantity be not so ample
The
image most remote, there shalt thou see
How it perforce is equally resplendent.
Now, as beneath the
touches of warm rays
Naked
the subject of the snow remains
Both of its former colour and its cold,
Thee thus remaining
in thy intellect,
Will
I inform with such a living light,
That it shall tremble in its aspect to thee.
Within the heaven
of the divine repose
Revolves
a body, in whose virtue lies
The being of whatever it contains.
The following
heaven, that has so many eyes,
Divides
this being by essences diverse,
Distinguished from it, and by it contained.
The other spheres,
by various differences,
All
the distinctions which they have within them
Dispose unto their ends and their effects.
Thus do these
organs of the world proceed,
As
thou perceivest now, from grade to grade;
Since from above they take, and act beneath.
Observe me well,
how through this place I come
Unto
the truth thou wishest, that hereafter
Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford
The power and
motion of the holy spheres,
As
from the artisan the hammer's craft,
Forth from the blessed motors must proceed.
The heaven, which
lights so manifold make fair,
From
the Intelligence profound, which turns it,
The image takes, and makes of it a seal.
And even as the
soul within your dust
Through
members different and accommodated
To faculties diverse expands itself,
So likewise this
Intelligence diffuses
Its
virtue multiplied among the stars.
Itself revolving on its unity.
Virtue diverse doth
a diverse alloyage
Make
with the precious body that it quickens,
In which, as life in you, it is combined.
From the glad
nature whence it is derived,
The
mingled virtue through the body shines,
Even as gladness through the living pupil.
From this proceeds
whate'er from light to light
Appeareth
different, not from dense and rare:
This is the formal principle that produces,
According to its
goodness, dark and bright."
That Sun, which
erst with love my bosom warmed,
Of
beauteous truth had unto me discovered,
By proving and reproving, the sweet aspect.
And, that I might
confess myself convinced
And
confident, so far as was befitting,
I lifted more erect my head to speak.
But there appeared
a vision, which withdrew me
So
close to it, in order to be seen,
That my confession I remembered not.
Such as through
polished and transparent glass,
Or
waters crystalline and undisturbed,
But not so deep as that their bed be lost,
Come back again the
outlines of our faces
So
feeble, that a pearl on forehead white
Comes not less speedily unto our eyes;
Such saw I many
faces prompt to speak,
So
that I ran in error opposite
To that which kindled love 'twixt man and fountain.
As soon as I became
aware of them,
Esteeming
them as mirrored semblances,
To see of whom they were, mine eyes I turned,
And nothing saw,
and once more turned them forward
Direct
into the light of my sweet Guide,
Who smiling kindled in her holy eyes.
"Marvel thou not,"
she said to me, "because
I
smile at this thy puerile conceit,
Since on the truth it trusts not yet its foot,
But turns thee, as
'tis wont, on emptiness.
True
substances are these which thou beholdest,
Here relegate for breaking of some vow.
Therefore speak
with them, listen and believe;
For
the true light, which giveth peace to them,
Permits them not to turn from it their feet."
And I unto the
shade that seemed most wishful
To
speak directed me, and I began,
As one whom too great eagerness bewilders:
"O well-created
spirit, who in the rays
Of
life eternal dost the sweetness taste
Which being untasted ne'er is comprehended,
Grateful 'twill be
to me, if thou content me
Both
with thy name and with your destiny."
Whereat she promptly and with laughing eyes:
"Our charity doth
never shut the doors
Against
a just desire, except as one
Who wills that all her court be like herself.
I was a virgin
sister in the world;
And
if thy mind doth contemplate me well,
The being more fair will not conceal me from thee,
But thou shalt
recognise I am Piccarda,
Who,
stationed here among these other blessed,
Myself am blessed in the slowest sphere.
All our affections,
that alone inflamed
Are
in the pleasure of the Holy Ghost,
Rejoice at being of his order formed;
And this allotment,
which appears so low,
Therefore
is given us, because our vows
Have been neglected and in some part void."
Whence I to her:
"In your miraculous aspects
There
shines I know not what of the divine,
Which doth transform you from our first conceptions.
Therefore I was not
swift in my remembrance;
But
what thou tellest me now aids me so,
That the refiguring is easier to me.
But tell me, ye who
in this place are happy,
Are
you desirous of a higher place,
To see more or to make yourselves more friends?"
First with those
other shades she smiled a little;
Thereafter
answered me so full of gladness,
She seemed to burn in the first fire of love:
"Brother, our will
is quieted by virtue
Of
charity, that makes us wish alone
For what we have, nor gives us thirst for more.
If to be more
exalted we aspired,
Discordant
would our aspirations be
Unto the will of Him who here secludes us;
Which thou shalt
see finds no place in these circles,
If
being in charity is needful here,
And if thou lookest well into its nature;
Nay, 'tis essential
to this blest existence
To
keep itself within the will divine,
Whereby our very wishes are made one;
So that, as we are
station above station
Throughout
this realm, to all the realm 'tis pleasing,
As to the King, who makes his will our will.
And his will is our
peace; this is the sea
To
which is moving onward whatsoever
It doth create, and all that nature makes."
Then it was clear
to me how everywhere
In
heaven is Paradise, although the grace
Of good supreme there rain not in one measure.
But as it comes to
pass, if one food sates,
And
for another still remains the longing,
We ask for this, and that decline with thanks,
E'en thus did I;
with gesture and with word,
To
learn from her what was the web wherein
She did not ply the shuttle to the end.
"A perfect life and
merit high in-heaven
A
lady o'er us," said she, "by whose rule
Down in your world they vest and veil themselves,
That until death
they may both watch and sleep
Beside
that Spouse who every vow accepts
Which charity conformeth to his pleasure.
To follow her, in
girlhood from the world
I
fled, and in her habit shut myself,
And pledged me to the pathway of her sect.
Then men accustomed
unto evil more
Than
unto good, from the sweet cloister tore me;
God knows what afterward my life became.
This other
splendour, which to thee reveals
Itself
on my right side, and is enkindled
With all the illumination of our sphere,
What of myself I
say applies to her;
A
nun was she, and likewise from her head
Was ta'en the shadow of the sacred wimple.
But when she too
was to the world returned
Against
her wishes and against good usage,
Of the heart's veil she never was divested.
Of great Costanza
this is the effulgence,
Who
from the second wind of Suabia
Brought forth the third and latest puissance."
Thus unto me she
spake, and then began
"Ave
Maria" singing, and in singing
Vanished, as through deep water something heavy.
My sight, that
followed her as long a time
As
it was possible, when it had lost her
Turned round unto the mark of more desire,
And wholly unto
Beatrice reverted;
But
she such lightnings flashed into mine eyes,
That at the first my sight endured it not;
And this in
questioning more backward made me.
Between two viands,
equally removed
And
tempting, a free man would die of hunger
Ere either he could bring unto his teeth.
So would a lamb
between the ravenings
Of
two fierce wolves stand fearing both alike;
And so would stand a dog between two does.
Hence, if I held my
peace, myself I blame not,
Impelled
in equal measure by my doubts,
Since it must be so, nor do I commend.
I held my peace;
but my desire was painted
Upon
my face, and questioning with that
More fervent far than by articulate speech.
Beatrice did as
Daniel had done
Relieving
Nebuchadnezzar from the wrath
Which rendered him unjustly merciless,
And said: "Well see
I how attracteth thee
One
and the other wish, so that thy care
Binds itself so that forth it does not breathe.
Thou arguest, if
good will be permanent,
The
violence of others, for what reason
Doth it decrease the measure of my merit?
Again for doubting
furnish thee occasion
Souls
seeming to return unto the stars,
According to the sentiment of Plato.
These are the
questions which upon thy wish
Are
thrusting equally; and therefore first
Will I treat that which hath the most of gall.
He of the Seraphim
most absorbed in God,
Moses,
and Samuel, and whichever John
Thou mayst select, I say, and even Mary,
Have not in any
other heaven their seats,
Than
have those spirits that just appeared to thee,
Nor of existence more or fewer years;
But all make
beautiful the primal circle,
And
have sweet life in different degrees,
By feeling more or less the eternal breath.
They showed
themselves here, not because allotted
This
sphere has been to them, but to give sign
Of the celestial which is least exalted.
To speak thus is
adapted to your mind,
Since
only through the sense it apprehendeth
What then it worthy makes of intellect.
On this account the
Scripture condescends
Unto
your faculties, and feet and hands
To God attributes, and means something else;
And Holy Church
under an aspect human
Gabriel
and Michael represent to you,
And him who made Tobias whole again.
That which Timaeus
argues of the soul
Doth
not resemble that which here is seen,
Because it seems that as he speaks he thinks.
He says the soul
unto its star returns,
Believing
it to have been severed thence
Whenever nature gave it as a form.
Perhaps his
doctrine is of other guise
Than
the words sound, and possibly may be
With meaning that is not to be derided.
If he doth mean
that to these wheels return
The
honour of their influence and the blame,
Perhaps his bow doth hit upon some truth.
This principle ill
understood once warped
The
whole world nearly, till it went astray
Invoking Jove and Mercury and Mars.
The other doubt
which doth disquiet thee
Less
venom has, for its malevolence
Could never lead thee otherwhere from me.
That as unjust our
justice should appear
In
eyes of mortals, is an argument
Of faith, and not of sin heretical.
But still, that
your perception may be able
To
thoroughly penetrate this verity,
As thou desirest, I will satisfy thee.
If it be violence
when he who suffers
Co-operates
not with him who uses force,
These souls were not on that account excused;
For will is never
quenched unless it will,
But
operates as nature doth in fire
If violence a thousand times distort it.
Hence, if it
yieldeth more or less, it seconds
The
force; and these have done so, having power
Of turning back unto the holy place.
If their will had
been perfect, like to that
Which
Lawrence fast upon his gridiron held,
And Mutius made severe to his own hand,
It would have urged
them back along the road
Whence
they were dragged, as soon as they were free;
But such a solid will is all too rare.
And by these words,
if thou hast gathered them
As
thou shouldst do, the argument is refuted
That would have still annoyed thee many times.
But now another
passage runs across
Before
thine eyes, and such that by thyself
Thou couldst not thread it ere thou wouldst be weary.
I have for certain
put into thy mind
That
soul beatified could never lie,
For it is near the primal Truth,
And then thou from
Piccarda might'st have heard
Costanza
kept affection for the veil,
So that she seemeth here to contradict me.
Many times,
brother, has it come to pass,
That,
to escape from peril, with reluctance
That has been done it was not right to do,
E'en as Alcmaeon
(who, being by his father
Thereto
entreated, his own mother slew)
Not to lose pity pitiless became.
At this point I
desire thee to remember
That
force with will commingles, and they cause
That the offences cannot be excused.
Will absolute
consenteth not to evil;
But
in so far consenteth as it fears,
If it refrain, to fall into more harm.
Hence when Piccarda
uses this expression,
She
meaneth the will absolute, and I
The other, so that both of us speak truth."
Such was the
flowing of the holy river
That
issued from the fount whence springs all truth;
This put to rest my wishes one and all.
"O love of the
first lover, O divine,"
Said
I forthwith, "whose speech inundates me
And warms me so, it more and more revives me,
My own affection is
not so profound
As
to suffice in rendering grace for grace;
Let Him, who sees and can, thereto respond.
Well I perceive
that never sated is
Our
intellect unless the Truth illume it,
Beyond which nothing true expands itself.
It rests therein,
as wild beast in his lair,
When
it attains it; and it can attain it;
If not, then each desire would frustrate be.
Therefore springs
up, in fashion of a shoot,
Doubt
at the foot of truth; and this is nature,
Which to the top from height to height impels us.
This doth invite
me, this assurance give me
With
reverence, Lady, to inquire of you
Another truth, which is obscure to me.
I wish to know if
man can satisfy you
For
broken vows with other good deeds, so
That in your balance they will not be light."
Beatrice gazed upon
me with her eyes
Full
of the sparks of love, and so divine,
That, overcome my power, I turned my back
And almost lost
myself with eyes downcast.
"If in the heat of
love I flame upon thee
Beyond
the measure that on earth is seen,
So that the valour of thine eyes I vanquish,
Marvel thou not
thereat; for this proceeds
From
perfect sight, which as it apprehends
To the good apprehended moves its feet.
Well I perceive how
is already shining
Into
thine intellect the eternal light,
That only seen enkindles always love;
And if some other
thing your love seduce,
'Tis
nothing but a vestige of the same,
Ill understood, which there is shining through.
Thou fain wouldst
know if with another service
For
broken vow can such return be made
As to secure the soul from further claim."
This Canto thus did
Beatrice begin;
And,
as a man who breaks not off his speech,
Continued thus her holy argument:
"The greatest gift
that in his largess God
Creating
made, and unto his own goodness
Nearest conformed, and that which he doth prize
Most highly, is the
freedom of the will,
Wherewith
the creatures of intelligence
Both all and only were and are endowed.
Now wilt thou see,
if thence thou reasonest,
The
high worth of a vow, if it he made
So that when thou consentest God consents:
For, closing
between God and man the compact,
A
sacrifice is of this treasure made,
Such as I say, and made by its own act.
What can be
rendered then as compensation?
Think'st
thou to make good use of what thou'st offered,
With gains ill gotten thou wouldst do good deed.
Now art thou
certain of the greater point;
But
because Holy Church in this dispenses,
Which seems against the truth which I have shown thee,
Behoves thee still
to sit awhile at table,
Because
the solid food which thou hast taken
Requireth further aid for thy digestion.
Open thy mind to
that which I reveal,
And
fix it there within; for 'tis not knowledge,
The having heard without retaining it.
In the essence of
this sacrifice two things
Convene
together; and the one is that
Of which 'tis made, the other is the agreement.
This last for
evermore is cancelled not
Unless
complied with, and concerning this
With such precision has above been spoken.
Therefore it was
enjoined upon the Hebrews
To
offer still, though sometimes what was offered
Might be commuted, as thou ought'st to know.
The other, which is
known to thee as matter,
May
well indeed be such that one errs not
If it for other matter be exchanged.
But let none shift
the burden on his shoulder
At
his arbitrament, without the turning
Both of the white and of the yellow key;
And every
permutation deem as foolish,
If
in the substitute the thing relinquished,
As the four is in six, be not contained.
Therefore whatever
thing has so great weight
In
value that it drags down every balance,
Cannot be satisfied with other spending.
Let mortals never
take a vow in jest;
Be
faithful and not blind in doing that,
As Jephthah was in his first offering,
Whom more beseemed
to say, 'I have done wrong,
Than
to do worse by keeping; and as foolish
Thou the great leader of the Greeks wilt find,
Whence wept
Iphigenia her fair face,
And
made for her both wise and simple weep,
Who heard such kind of worship spoken of.'
Christians, be ye
more serious in your movements;
Be
ye not like a feather at each wind,
And think not every water washes you.
Ye have the Old and
the New Testament,
And
the Pastor of the Church who guideth you
Let this suffice you unto your salvation.
If evil appetite
cry aught else to you,
Be
ye as men, and not as silly sheep,
So that the Jew among you may not mock you.
Be ye not as the
lamb that doth abandon
Its
mother's milk, and frolicsome and simple
Combats at its own pleasure with itself."
Thus Beatrice to me
even as I write it;
Then
all desireful turned herself again
To that part where the world is most alive.
Her silence and her
change of countenance
Silence
imposed upon my eager mind,
That had already in advance new questions;
And as an arrow
that upon the mark
Strikes
ere the bowstring quiet hath become,
So did we speed into the second realm.
My Lady there so
joyful I beheld,
As
into the brightness of that heaven she entered,
More luminous thereat the planet grew;
And if the star
itself was changed and smiled,
What
became I, who by my nature am
Exceeding mutable in every guise!
As, in a fish-pond
which is pure and tranquil,
The
fishes draw to that which from without
Comes in such fashion that their food they deem it;
So I beheld more
than a thousand splendours
Drawing
towards us, and in each was heard:
"Lo, this is she who shall increase our love."
And as each one was
coming unto us,
Full
of beatitude the shade was seen,
By the effulgence clear that issued from it.
Think, Reader, if
what here is just beginning
No
farther should proceed, how thou wouldst have
An agonizing need of knowing more;
And of thyself
thou'lt see how I from these
Was
in desire of hearing their conditions,
As they unto mine eyes were manifest.
"O thou well-born,
unto whom Grace concedes
To
see the thrones of the eternal triumph,
Or ever yet the warfare be abandoned
With light that
through the whole of heaven is spread
Kindled
are we, and hence if thou desirest
To know of us, at thine own pleasure sate thee."
Thus by some one
among those holy spirits
Was
spoken, and by Beatrice: "Speak, speak
Securely, and believe them even as Gods."
"Well I perceive
how thou dost nest thyself
In
thine own light, and drawest it from thine eyes,
Because they coruscate when thou dost smile,
But know not who
thou art, nor why thou hast,
Spirit
august, thy station in the sphere
That veils itself to men in alien rays."
This said I in
direction of the light
Which
first had spoken to me; whence it became
By far more lucent than it was before.
Even as the sun,
that doth conceal himself
By
too much light, when heat has worn away
The tempering influence of the vapours dense,
By greater rapture
thus concealed itself
In
its own radiance the figure saintly,
And thus close, close enfolded answered me
In fashion as the
following Canto sings.
"After that
Constantine the eagle turned
Against
the course of heaven, which it had followed
Behind the ancient who Lavinia took,
Two hundred years
and more the bird of God
In
the extreme of Europe held itself,
Near to the mountains whence it issued first;
And under shadow of
the sacred plumes
It
governed there the world from hand to hand,
And, changing thus, upon mine own alighted.
Caesar I was, and
am Justinian,
Who,
by the will of primal Love I feel,
Took from the laws the useless and redundant;
And ere unto the
work I was attent,
One
nature to exist in Christ, not more,
Believed, and with such faith was I contented.
But blessed
Agapetus, he who was
The
supreme pastor, to the faith sincere
Pointed me out the way by words of his.
Him I believed, and
what was his assertion
I
now see clearly, even as thou seest
Each contradiction to be false and true.
As soon as with the
Church I moved my feet,
God
in his grace it pleased with this high task
To inspire me, and I gave me wholly to it,
And to my
Belisarius I commended
The
arms, to which was heaven's right hand so joined
It was a signal that I should repose.
Now here to the
first question terminates
My
answer; but the character thereof
Constrains me to continue with a sequel,
In order that thou
see with how great reason
Men
move against the standard sacrosanct,
Both who appropriate and who oppose it.
Behold how great a
power has made it worthy
Of
reverence, beginning from the hour
When Pallas died to give it sovereignty.
Thou knowest it
made in Alba its abode
Three
hundred years and upward, till at last
The three to three fought for it yet again.
Thou knowest what
it achieved from Sabine wrong
Down
to Lucretia's sorrow, in seven kings
O'ercoming round about the neighboring nations;
Thou knowest what
it achieved, borne by the Romans
Illustrious
against Brennus, against Pyrrhus,
Against the other princes and confederates.
Torquatus thence
and Quinctius, who from locks
Unkempt
was named, Decii and Fabii,
Received the fame I willingly embalm;
It struck to earth
the pride of the Arabians,
Who,
following Hannibal, had passed across
The Alpine ridges, Po, from which thou glidest;
Beneath it
triumphed while they yet were young
Pompey
and Scipio, and to the hill
Beneath which thou wast born it bitter seemed;
Then, near unto the
time when heaven had willed
To
bring the whole world to its mood serene,
Did Caesar by the will of Rome assume it.
What it achieved
from Var unto the Rhine,
Isere
beheld and Saone, beheld the Seine,
And every valley whence the Rhone is filled;
What it achieved
when it had left Ravenna,
And
leaped the Rubicon, was such a flight
That neither tongue nor pen could follow it.
Round towards Spain
it wheeled its legions; then
Towards
Durazzo, and Pharsalia smote
That to the calid Nile was felt the pain.
Antandros and the
Simois, whence it started,
It
saw again, and there where Hector lies,
And ill for Ptolemy then roused itself.
From thence it came
like lightning upon Juba;
Then
wheeled itself again into your West,
Where the Pompeian clarion it heard.
From what it
wrought with the next standard-bearer
Brutus
and Cassius howl in Hell together,
And Modena and Perugia dolent were;
Still doth the
mournful Cleopatra weep
Because
thereof, who, fleeing from before it,
Took from the adder sudden and black death.
With him it ran
even to the Red Sea shore;
With
him it placed the world in so great peace,
That unto Janus was his temple closed.
But what the
standard that has made me speak
Achieved
before, and after should achieve
Throughout the mortal realm that lies beneath it,
Becometh in
appearance mean and dim,
If
in the hand of the third Caesar seen
With eye unclouded and affection pure,
Because the living
Justice that inspires me
Granted
it, in the hand of him I speak of,
The glory of doing vengeance for its wrath.
Now here attend to
what I answer thee;
Later
it ran with Titus to do vengeance
Upon the vengeance of the ancient sin.
And when the tooth
of Lombardy had bitten
The
Holy Church, then underneath its wings
Did Charlemagne victorious succor her.
Now hast thou power
to judge of such as those
Whom
I accused above, and of their crimes,
Which are the cause of all your miseries.
To the public
standard one the yellow lilies
Opposes,
the other claims it for a party,
So that 'tis hard to see which sins the most.
Let, let the
Ghibellines ply their handicraft
Beneath
some other standard; for this ever
Ill follows he who it and justice parts.
And let not this
new Charles e'er strike it down,
He
and his Guelfs, but let him fear the talons
That from a nobler lion stripped the fell.
Already oftentimes
the sons have wept
The
father's crime; and let him not believe
That God will change His scutcheon for the lilies.
This little planet
doth adorn itself
With
the good spirits that have active been,
That fame and honour might come after them;
And whensoever the
desires mount thither,
Thus
deviating, must perforce the rays
Of the true love less vividly mount upward.
But in
commensuration of our wages
With
our desert is portion of our joy,
Because we see them neither less nor greater.
Herein doth living
Justice sweeten so
Affection
in us, that for evermore
It cannot warp to any iniquity.
Voices diverse make
up sweet melodies;
So
in this life of ours the seats diverse
Render sweet harmony among these spheres;
And in the compass
of this present pearl
Shineth
the sheen of Romeo, of whom
The grand and beauteous work was ill rewarded.
But the Provencals
who against him wrought,
They
have not laughed, and therefore ill goes he
Who makes his hurt of the good deeds of others.
Four daughters, and
each one of them a queen,
Had
Raymond Berenger, and this for him
Did Romeo, a poor man and a pilgrim;
And then malicious
words incited him
To
summon to a reckoning this just man,
Who rendered to him seven and five for ten.
Then he departed
poor and stricken in years,
And
if the world could know the heart he had,
In begging bit by bit his livelihood,
Though much it laud
him, it would laud him more."
"Osanna sanctus
Deus Sabaoth,
Superillustrans
claritate tua
Felices ignes horum malahoth!"
In this wise, to
his melody returning,
This
substance, upon which a double light
Doubles itself, was seen by me to sing,
And to their dance
this and the others moved,
And
in the manner of swift-hurrying sparks
Veiled themselves from me with a sudden distance.
Doubting was I, and
saying, "Tell her, tell her,"
Within
me, "tell her," saying, "tell my Lady,"
Who slakes my thirst with her sweet effluences;
And yet that
reverence which doth lord it over
The
whole of me only by B and ICE,
Bowed me again like unto one who drowses.
Short while did
Beatrice endure me thus;
And
she began, lighting me with a smile
Such as would make one happy in the fire:
"According to
infallible advisement,
After
what manner a just vengeance justly
Could be avenged has put thee upon thinking,
But I will speedily
thy mind unloose;
And
do thou listen, for these words of mine
Of a great doctrine will a present make thee.
By not enduring on
the power that wills
Curb
for his good, that man who ne'er was born,
Damning himself damned all his progeny;
Whereby the human
species down below
Lay
sick for many centuries in great error,
Till to descend it pleased the Word of God
To where the
nature, which from its own Maker
Estranged
itself, he joined to him in person
By the sole act of his eternal love.
Now unto what is
said direct thy sight;
This
nature when united to its Maker,
Such as created, was sincere and good;
But by itself alone
was banished forth
From
Paradise, because it turned aside
Out of the way of truth and of its life.
Therefore the
penalty the cross held out,
If
measured by the nature thus assumed,
None ever yet with so great justice stung,
And none was ever
of so great injustice,
Considering
who the Person was that suffered,
Within whom such a nature was contracted.
From one act
therefore issued things diverse;
To
God and to the Jews one death was pleasing;
Earth trembled at it and the Heaven was opened.
It should no longer
now seem difficult
To
thee, when it is said that a just vengeance
By a just court was afterward avenged.
But now do I behold
thy mind entangled
From
thought to thought within a knot, from which
With great desire it waits to free itself.
Thou sayest, 'Well
discern I what I hear;
But
it is hidden from me why God willed
For our redemption only this one mode.'
Buried remaineth,
brother, this decree
Unto
the eyes of every one whose nature
Is in the flame of love not yet adult.
Verily, inasmuch as
at this mark
One
gazes long and little is discerned,
Wherefore this mode was worthiest will I say.
Goodness Divine,
which from itself doth spurn
All
envy, burning in itself so sparkles
That the eternal beauties it unfolds.
Whate'er from this
immediately distils
Has
afterwards no end, for ne'er removed
Is its impression when it sets its seal.
Whate'er from this
immediately rains down
Is
wholly free, because it is not subject
Unto the influences of novel things.
The more conformed
thereto, the more it pleases;
For
the blest ardour that irradiates all things
In that most like itself is most vivacious.
With all of these
things has advantaged been
The
human creature; and if one be wanting,
From his nobility he needs must fall.
'Tis sin alone
which doth disfranchise him,
And
render him unlike the Good Supreme,
So that he little with its light is blanched,
And to his dignity
no more returns,
Unless
he fill up where transgression empties
With righteous pains for criminal delights.
Your nature when it
sinned so utterly
In
its own seed, out of these dignities
Even as out of Paradise was driven,
Nor could itself
recover, if thou notest
With
nicest subtilty, by any way,
Except by passing one of these two fords:
Either that God
through clemency alone
Had
pardon granted, or that man himself
Had satisfaction for his folly made.
Fix now thine eye
deep into the abyss
Of
the eternal counsel, to my speech
As far as may be fastened steadfastly!
Man in his
limitations had not power
To
satisfy, not having power to sink
In his humility obeying then,
Far as he
disobeying thought to rise;
And
for this reason man has been from power
Of satisfying by himself excluded.
Therefore it God
behoved in his own ways
Man
to restore unto his perfect life,
I say in one, or else in both of them.
But since the
action of the doer is
So
much more grateful, as it more presents
The goodness of the heart from which it issues,
Goodness Divine,
that doth imprint the world,
Has
been contented to proceed by each
And all its ways to lift you up again;
Nor 'twixt the
first day and the final night
Such
high and such magnificent proceeding
By one or by the other was or shall be;
For God more
bounteous was himself to give
To
make man able to uplift himself,
Than if he only of himself had pardoned;
And all the other
modes were insufficient
For
justice, were it not the Son of God
Himself had humbled to become incarnate.
Now, to fill fully
each desire of thine,
Return
I to elucidate one place,
In order that thou there mayst see as I do.
Thou sayst: 'I see
the air, I see the fire,
The
water, and the earth, and all their mixtures
Come to corruption, and short while endure;
And these things
notwithstanding were created;'
Therefore
if that which I have said were true,
They should have been secure against corruption.
The Angels,
brother, and the land sincere
In
which thou art, created may be called
Just as they are in their entire existence;
But all the
elements which thou hast named,
And
all those things which out of them are made,
By a created virtue are informed.
Created was the
matter which they have;
Created
was the informing influence
Within these stars that round about them go.
The soul of every
brute and of the plants
By
its potential temperament attracts
The ray and motion of the holy lights;
But your own life
immediately inspires
Supreme
Beneficence, and enamours it
So with herself, it evermore desires her.
And thou from this
mayst argue furthermore
Your
resurrection, if thou think again
How human flesh was fashioned at that time
When the first
parents both of them were made."
The world used in
its peril to believe
That
the fair Cypria delirious love
Rayed out, in the third epicycle turning;
Wherefore not only
unto her paid honour
Of
sacrifices and of votive cry
The ancient nations in the ancient error,
But both Dione
honoured they and Cupid,
That
as her mother, this one as her son,
And said that he had sat in Dido's lap;
And they from her,
whence I beginning take,
Took
the denomination of the star
That woos the sun, now following, now in front.
I was not ware of
our ascending to it;
But
of our being in it gave full faith
My Lady whom I saw more beauteous grow.
And as within a
flame a spark is seen,
And
as within a voice a voice discerned,
When one is steadfast, and one comes and goes,
Within that light
beheld I other lamps
Move
in a circle, speeding more and less,
Methinks in measure of their inward vision.
From a cold cloud
descended never winds,
Or
visible or not, so rapidly
They would not laggard and impeded seem
To any one who had
those lights divine
Seen
come towards us, leaving the gyration
Begun at first in the high Seraphim.
And behind those
that most in front appeared
Sounded
"Osanna!" so that never since
To hear again was I without desire.
Then unto us more
nearly one approached,
And
it alone began: "We all are ready
Unto thy pleasure, that thou joy in us.
We turn around with
the celestial Princes,
One
gyre and one gyration and one thirst,
To whom thou in the world of old didst say,
'Ye who,
intelligent, the third heaven are moving;'
And
are so full of love, to pleasure thee
A little quiet will not be less sweet."
After these eyes of
mine themselves had offered
Unto
my Lady reverently, and she
Content and certain of herself had made them,
Back to the light
they turned, which so great promise
Made
of itself, and "Say, who art thou?" was
My voice, imprinted with a great affection.
O how and how much
I beheld it grow
With
the new joy that superadded was
Unto its joys, as soon as I had spoken!
Thus changed, it
said to me: "The world possessed me
Short
time below; and, if it had been more,
Much evil will be which would not have been.
My gladness keepeth
me concealed from thee,
Which
rayeth round about me, and doth hide me
Like as a creature swathed in its own silk.
Much didst thou
love me, and thou hadst good reason;
For
had I been below, I should have shown thee
Somewhat beyond the foliage of my love.
That left-hand
margin, which doth bathe itself
In
Rhone, when it is mingled with the Sorgue,
Me for its lord awaited in due time,
And that horn of
Ausonia, which is towned
With
Bari, with Gaeta and Catona,
Whence Tronto and Verde in the sea disgorge.
Already flashed
upon my brow the crown
Of
that dominion which the Danube waters
After the German borders it abandons;
And beautiful
Trinacria, that is murky
'Twixt
Pachino and Peloro, (on the gulf
Which greatest scath from Eurus doth receive,)
Not through
Typhoeus, but through nascent sulphur,
Would
have awaited her own monarchs still,
Through me from Charles descended and from Rudolph,
If evil lordship,
that exasperates ever
The
subject populations, had not moved
Palermo to the outcry of 'Death! death!'
And if my brother
could but this foresee,
The
greedy poverty of Catalonia
Straight would he flee, that it might not molest him;
For verily 'tis
needful to provide,
Through
him or other, so that on his bark
Already freighted no more freight be placed.
His nature, which
from liberal covetous
Descended,
such a soldiery would need
As should not care for hoarding in a chest."
"Because I do
believe the lofty joy
Thy
speech infuses into me, my Lord,
Where every good thing doth begin and end
Thou seest as I see
it, the more grateful
Is
it to me; and this too hold I dear,
That gazing upon God thou dost discern it.
Glad hast thou made
me; so make clear to me,
Since
speaking thou hast stirred me up to doubt,
How from sweet seed can bitter issue forth."
This I to him; and
he to me: "If I
Can
show to thee a truth, to what thou askest
Thy face thou'lt hold as thou dost hold thy back.
The Good which all
the realm thou art ascending
Turns
and contents, maketh its providence
To be a power within these bodies vast;
And not alone the
natures are foreseen
Within
the mind that in itself is perfect,
But they together with their preservation.
For whatsoever
thing this bow shoots forth
Falls
foreordained unto an end foreseen,
Even as a shaft directed to its mark.
If that were not,
the heaven which thou dost walk
Would
in such manner its effects produce,
That they no longer would be arts, but ruins.
This cannot be, if
the Intelligences
That
keep these stars in motion are not maimed,
And maimed the First that has not made them perfect.
Wilt thou this
truth have clearer made to thee?"
And
I: "Not so; for 'tis impossible
That nature tire, I see, in what is needful."
Whence he again:
"Now say, would it be worse
For
men on earth were they not citizens?"
"Yes," I replied; "and here I ask no reason."
"And can they be
so, if below they live not
Diversely
unto offices diverse?
No, if your master writeth well for you."
So came he with
deductions to this point;
Then
he concluded: "Therefore it behoves
The roots of your effects to be diverse.
Hence one is Solon
born, another Xerxes,
Another
Melchisedec, and another he
Who, flying through the air, his son did lose.
Revolving Nature,
which a signet is
To
mortal wax, doth practise well her art,
But not one inn distinguish from another;
Thence happens it
that Esau differeth
In
seed from Jacob; and Quirinus comes
From sire so vile that he is given to Mars.
A generated nature
its own way
Would
always make like its progenitors,
If Providence divine were not triumphant.
Now that which was
behind thee is before thee;
But
that thou know that I with thee am pleased,
With a corollary will I mantle thee.
Evermore nature, if
it fortune find
Discordant
to it, like each other seed
Out of its region, maketh evil thrift;
And if the world
below would fix its mind
On
the foundation which is laid by nature,
Pursuing that, 'twould have the people good.
But you unto
religion wrench aside
Him
who was born to gird him with the sword,
And make a king of him who is for sermons;
Therefore your
footsteps wander from the road."
Beautiful Clemence,
after that thy Charles
Had
me enlightened, he narrated to me
The treacheries his seed should undergo;
But said: "Be still
and let the years roll round;"
So
I can only say, that lamentation
Legitimate shall follow on your wrongs.
And of that holy
light the life already
Had
to the Sun which fills it turned again,
As to that good which for each thing sufficeth.
Ah, souls deceived,
and creatures impious,
Who
from such good do turn away your hearts,
Directing upon vanity your foreheads!
And now, behold,
another of those splendours
Approached
me, and its will to pleasure me
It signified by brightening outwardly.
The eyes of
Beatrice, that fastened were
Upon
me, as before, of dear assent
To my desire assurance gave to me.
"Ah, bring swift
compensation to my wish,
Thou
blessed spirit," I said, "and give me proof
That what I think in thee I can reflect!"
Whereat the light,
that still was new to me,
Out
of its depths, whence it before was singing,
As one delighted to do good, continued:
"Within that region
of the land depraved
Of
Italy, that lies between Rialto
And fountain-heads of Brenta and of Piava,
Rises a hill, and
mounts not very high,
Wherefrom
descended formerly a torch
That made upon that region great assault.
Out of one root
were born both I and it;
Cunizza
was I called, and here I shine
Because the splendour of this star o'ercame me.
But gladly to
myself the cause I pardon
Of
my allotment, and it does not grieve me;
Which would perhaps seem strong unto your vulgar.
Of this so luculent
and precious jewel,
Which
of our heaven is nearest unto me,
Great fame remained; and ere it die away
This hundredth year
shall yet quintupled be.
See
if man ought to make him excellent,
So that another life the first may leave!
And thus thinks not
the present multitude
Shut
in by Adige and Tagliamento,
Nor yet for being scourged is penitent.
But soon 'twill be
that Padua in the marsh
Will
change the water that Vicenza bathes,
Because the folk are stubborn against duty;
And where the Sile
and Cagnano join
One
lordeth it, and goes with lofty head,
For catching whom e'en now the net is making.
Feltro moreover of
her impious pastor
Shall
weep the crime, which shall so monstrous be
That for the like none ever entered Malta.
Ample exceedingly
would be the vat
That
of the Ferrarese could hold the blood,
And weary who should weigh it ounce by ounce,
Of which this
courteous priest shall make a gift
To
show himself a partisan; and such gifts
Will to the living of the land conform.
Above us there are
mirrors, Thrones you call them,
From
which shines out on us God Judicant,
So that this utterance seems good to us."
Here it was silent,
and it had the semblance
Of
being turned elsewhither, by the wheel
On which it entered as it was before.
The other joy,
already known to me,
Became
a thing transplendent in my sight,
As a fine ruby smitten by the sun.
Through joy
effulgence is acquired above,
As
here a smile; but down below, the shade
Outwardly darkens, as the mind is sad.
"God seeth all
things, and in Him, blest spirit,
Thy
sight is," said I, "so that never will
Of his can possibly from thee be hidden;
Thy voice, then,
that for ever makes the heavens
Glad,
with the singing of those holy fires
Which of their six wings make themselves a cowl,
Wherefore does it
not satisfy my longings?
Indeed,
I would not wait thy questioning
If I in thee were as thou art in me."
"The greatest of
the valleys where the water
Expands
itself," forthwith its words began,
"That sea excepted which the earth engarlands,
Between discordant
shores against the sun
Extends
so far, that it meridian makes
Where it was wont before to make the horizon.
I was a dweller on
that valley's shore
'Twixt
Ebro and Magra that with journey short
Doth from the Tuscan part the Genoese.
With the same
sunset and same sunrise nearly
Sit
Buggia and the city whence I was,
That with its blood once made the harbour hot.
Folco that people
called me unto whom
My
name was known; and now with me this heaven
Imprints itself, as I did once with it;
For more the
daughter of Belus never burned,
Offending
both Sichaeus and Creusa,
Than I, so long as it became my locks,
Nor yet that
Rodophean, who deluded
was
by Demophoon, nor yet Alcides,
When Iole he in his heart had locked.
Yet here is no
repenting, but we smile,
Not
at the fault, which comes not back to mind,
But at the power which ordered and foresaw.
Here we behold the
art that doth adorn
With
such affection, and the good discover
Whereby the world above turns that below.
But that thou
wholly satisfied mayst bear
Thy
wishes hence which in this sphere are born,
Still farther to proceed behoveth me.
Thou fain wouldst
know who is within this light
That
here beside me thus is scintillating,
Even as a sunbeam in the limpid water.
Then know thou,
that within there is at rest
Rahab,
and being to our order joined,
With her in its supremest grade 'tis sealed.
Into this heaven,
where ends the shadowy cone
Cast
by your world, before all other souls
First of Christ's triumph was she taken up.
Full meet it was to
leave her in some heaven,
Even
as a palm of the high victory
Which he acquired with one palm and the other,
Because she
favoured the first glorious deed
Of
Joshua upon the Holy Land,
That little stirs the memory of the Pope.
Thy city, which an
offshoot is of him
Who
first upon his Maker turned his back,
And whose ambition is so sorely wept,
Brings forth and
scatters the accursed flower
Which
both the sheep and lambs hath led astray
Since it has turned the shepherd to a wolf.
For this the
Evangel and the mighty Doctors
Are
derelict, and only the Decretals
So studied that it shows upon their margins.
On this are Pope
and Cardinals intent;
Their
meditations reach not Nazareth,
There where his pinions Gabriel unfolded;
But Vatican and the
other parts elect
Of
Rome, which have a cemetery been
Unto the soldiery that followed Peter
Shall soon be free
from this adultery."
Looking into his
Son with all the Love
Which
each of them eternally breathes forth,
The Primal and unutterable Power
Whate'er before the
mind or eye revolves
With
so much order made, there can be none
Who this beholds without enjoying Him.
Lift up then,
Reader, to the lofty wheels
With
me thy vision straight unto that part
Where the one motion on the other strikes,
And there begin to
contemplate with joy
That
Master's art, who in himself so loves it
That never doth his eye depart therefrom.
Behold how from
that point goes branching off
The
oblique circle, which conveys the planets,
To satisfy the world that calls upon them;
And if their
pathway were not thus inflected,
Much
virtue in the heavens would be in vain,
And almost every power below here dead.
If from the
straight line distant more or less
Were
the departure, much would wanting be
Above and underneath of mundane order.
Remain now, Reader,
still upon thy bench,
In
thought pursuing that which is foretasted,
If thou wouldst jocund be instead of weary.
I've set before
thee; henceforth feed thyself,
For
to itself diverteth all my care
That theme whereof I have been made the scribe.
The greatest of the
ministers of nature,
Who
with the power of heaven the world imprints
And measures with his light the time for us,
With that part
which above is called to mind
Conjoined,
along the spirals was revolving,
Where each time earlier he presents himself;
And I was with him;
but of the ascending
I
was not conscious, saving as a man
Of a first thought is conscious ere it come;
And Beatrice, she
who is seen to pass
From
good to better, and so suddenly
That not by time her action is expressed,
How lucent in
herself must she have been!
And
what was in the sun, wherein I entered,
Apparent not by colour but by light,
I, though I call on
genius, art, and practice,
Cannot
so tell that it could be imagined;
Believe one can, and let him long to see it.
And if our
fantasies too lowly are
For
altitude so great, it is no marvel,
Since o'er the sun was never eye could go.
Such in this place
was the fourth family
Of
the high Father, who forever sates it,
Showing how he breathes forth and how begets.
And Beatrice began:
"Give thanks, give thanks
Unto
the Sun of Angels, who to this
Sensible one has raised thee by his grace!"
Never was heart of
mortal so disposed
To
worship, nor to give itself to God
With all its gratitude was it so ready,
As at those words
did I myself become;
And
all my love was so absorbed in Him,
That in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed.
Nor this displeased
her; but she smiled at it
So
that the splendour of her laughing eyes
My single mind on many things divided.
Lights many saw I,
vivid and triumphant,
Make
us a centre and themselves a circle,
More sweet in voice than luminous in aspect.
Thus girt about the
daughter of Latona
We
sometimes see, when pregnant is the air,
So that it holds the thread which makes her zone.
Within the court of
Heaven, whence I return,
Are
many jewels found, so fair and precious
They cannot be transported from the realm;
And of them was the
singing of those lights.
Who
takes not wings that he may fly up thither,
The tidings thence may from the dumb await!
As soon as singing
thus those burning suns
Had
round about us whirled themselves three times,
Like unto stars neighbouring the steadfast poles,
Ladies they seemed,
not from the dance released,
But
who stop short, in silence listening
Till they have gathered the new melody.
And within one I
heard beginning: "When
The
radiance of grace, by which is kindled
True love, and which thereafter grows by loving,
Within thee
multiplied is so resplendent
That
it conducts thee upward by that stair,
Where without reascending none descends,
Who should deny the
wine out of his vial
Unto
thy thirst, in liberty were not
Except as water which descends not seaward.
Fain wouldst thou
know with what plants is enflowered
This
garland that encircles with delight
The Lady fair who makes thee strong for heaven.
Of the lambs was I
of the holy flock
Which
Dominic conducteth by a road
Where well one fattens if he strayeth not.
He who is nearest
to me on the right
My
brother and master was; and he Albertus
Is of Cologne, I Thomas of Aquinum.
If thou of all the
others wouldst be certain,
Follow
behind my speaking with thy sight
Upward along the blessed garland turning.
That next
effulgence issues from the smile
Of
Gratian, who assisted both the courts
In such wise that it pleased in Paradise.
The other which
near by adorns our choir
That
Peter was who, e'en as the poor widow,
Offered his treasure unto Holy Church.
The fifth light,
that among us is the fairest,
Breathes
forth from such a love, that all the world
Below is greedy to learn tidings of it.
Within it is the
lofty mind, where knowledge
So
deep was put, that, if the true be true,
To see so much there never rose a second.
Thou seest next the
lustre of that taper,
Which
in the flesh below looked most within
The angelic nature and its ministry.
Within that other
little light is smiling
The
advocate of the Christian centuries,
Out of whose rhetoric Augustine was furnished.
Now if thou
trainest thy mind's eye along
From
light to light pursuant of my praise,
With thirst already of the eighth thou waitest.
By seeing every
good therein exults
The
sainted soul, which the fallacious world
Makes manifest to him who listeneth well;
The body whence
'twas hunted forth is lying
Down
in Cieldauro, and from martyrdom
And banishment it came unto this peace.
See farther onward
flame the burning breath
Of
Isidore, of Beda, and of Richard
Who was in contemplation more than man.
This, whence to me
returneth thy regard,
The
light is of a spirit unto whom
In his grave meditations death seemed slow.
It is the light
eternal of Sigier,
Who,
reading lectures in the Street of Straw,
Did syllogize invidious verities."
Then, as a horologe
that calleth us
What
time the Bride of God is rising up
With matins to her Spouse that he may love her,
Wherein one part
the other draws and urges,
Ting!
ting! resounding with so sweet a note,
That swells with love the spirit well disposed,
Thus I beheld the
glorious wheel move round,
And
render voice to voice, in modulation
And sweetness that can not be comprehended,
Excepting there
where joy is made eternal.
O Thou insensate
care of mortal men,
How
inconclusive are the syllogisms
That make thee beat thy wings in downward flight!
One after laws and
one to aphorisms
Was
going, and one following the priesthood,
And one to reign by force or sophistry,
And one in theft,
and one in state affairs,
One
in the pleasures of the flesh involved
Wearied himself, one gave himself to ease;
When I, from all
these things emancipate,
With
Beatrice above there in the Heavens
With such exceeding glory was received!
When each one had
returned unto that point
Within
the circle where it was before,
It stood as in a candlestick a candle;
And from within the
effulgence which at first
Had
spoken unto me, I heard begin
Smiling while it more luminous became:
"Even as I am
kindled in its ray,
So,
looking into the Eternal Light,
The occasion of thy thoughts I apprehend.
Thou doubtest, and
wouldst have me to resift
In
language so extended and so open
My speech, that to thy sense it may be plain,
Where just before I
said, 'where well one fattens,'
And
where I said, 'there never rose a second;'
And here 'tis needful we distinguish well.
The Providence,
which governeth the world
With
counsel, wherein all created vision
Is vanquished ere it reach unto the bottom,
(So that towards
her own Beloved might go
The
bride of Him who, uttering a loud cry,
Espoused her with his consecrated blood,
Self-confident and
unto Him more faithful,)
Two
Princes did ordain in her behoof,
Which on this side and that might be her guide.
The one was all
seraphical in ardour;
The
other by his wisdom upon earth
A splendour was of light cherubical.
One will I speak
of, for of both is spoken
In
praising one, whichever may be taken,
Because unto one end their labours were.
Between Tupino and
the stream that falls
Down
from the hill elect of blessed Ubald,
A fertile slope of lofty mountain hangs,
From which Perugia
feels the cold and heat
Through
Porta Sole, and behind it weep
Gualdo and Nocera their grievous yoke.
From out that
slope, there where it breaketh most
Its
steepness, rose upon the world a sun
As this one does sometimes from out the Ganges;
Therefore let him
who speaketh of that place,
Say
not Ascesi, for he would say little,
But Orient, if he properly would speak.
He was not yet far
distant from his rising
Before
he had begun to make the earth
Some comfort from his mighty virtue feel.
For he in youth his
father's wrath incurred
For
certain Dame, to whom, as unto death,
The gate of pleasure no one doth unlock;
And was before his
spiritual court
'Et
coram patre' unto her united;
Then day by day more fervently he loved her.
She, reft of her
first husband, scorned, obscure,
One
thousand and one hundred years and more,
Waited without a suitor till he came.
Naught it availed
to hear, that with Amyclas
Found
her unmoved at sounding of his voice
He who struck terror into all the world;
Naught it availed
being constant and undaunted,
So
that, when Mary still remained below,
She mounted up with Christ upon the cross.
But that too darkly
I may not proceed,
Francis
and Poverty for these two lovers
Take thou henceforward in my speech diffuse.
Their concord and
their joyous semblances,
The
love, the wonder, and the sweet regard,
They made to be the cause of holy thoughts;
So much so that the
venerable Bernard
First
bared his feet, and after so great peace
Ran, and, in running, thought himself too slow.
O wealth unknown!
O veritable good!
Giles
bares his feet, and bares his feet Sylvester
Behind the bridegroom, so doth please the bride!
Then goes his way
that father and that master,
He
and his Lady and that family
Which now was girding on the humble cord;
Nor cowardice of
heart weighed down his brow
At
being son of Peter Bernardone,
Nor for appearing marvellously scorned;
But regally his
hard determination
To
Innocent he opened, and from him
Received the primal seal upon his Order.
After the people
mendicant increased
Behind
this man, whose admirable life
Better in glory of the heavens were sung,
Incoronated with a
second crown
Was
through Honorius by the Eternal Spirit
The holy purpose of this Archimandrite.
And when he had,
through thirst of martyrdom,
In
the proud presence of the Sultan preached
Christ and the others who came after him,
And, finding for
conversion too unripe
The
folk, and not to tarry there in vain,
Returned to fruit of the Italic grass,
On the rude rock
'twixt Tiber and the Arno
From
Christ did he receive the final seal,
Which during two whole years his members bore.
When He, who chose
him unto so much good,
Was
pleased to draw him up to the reward
That he had merited by being lowly,
Unto his friars, as
to the rightful heirs,
His
most dear Lady did he recommend,
And bade that they should love her faithfully;
And from her bosom
the illustrious soul
Wished
to depart, returning to its realm,
And for its body wished no other bier.
Think now what man
was he, who was a fit
Companion
over the high seas to keep
The bark of Peter to its proper bearings.
And this man was
our Patriarch; hence whoever
Doth
follow him as he commands can see
That he is laden with good merchandise.
But for new
pasturage his flock has grown
So
greedy, that it is impossible
They be not scattered over fields diverse;
And in proportion
as his sheep remote
And
vagabond go farther off from him,
More void of milk return they to the fold.
Verily some there
are that fear a hurt,
And
keep close to the shepherd; but so few,
That little cloth doth furnish forth their hoods.
Now if my utterance
be not indistinct,
If
thine own hearing hath attentive been,
If thou recall to mind what I have said,
In part contented
shall thy wishes be;
For
thou shalt see the plant that's chipped away,
And the rebuke that lieth in the words,
'Where well one
fattens, if he strayeth not.'"
Soon as the blessed
flame had taken up
The
final word to give it utterance,
Began the holy millstone to revolve,
And in its gyre had
not turned wholly round,
Before
another in a ring enclosed it,
And motion joined to motion, song to song;
Song that as
greatly doth transcend our Muses,
Our
Sirens, in those dulcet clarions,
As primal splendour that which is reflected.
And as are spanned
athwart a tender cloud
Two
rainbows parallel and like in colour,
When Juno to her handmaid gives command,
(The one without
born of the one within,
Like
to the speaking of that vagrant one
Whom love consumed as doth the sun the vapours,)
And make the people
here, through covenant
God
set with Noah, presageful of the world
That shall no more be covered with a flood,
In such wise of
those sempiternal roses
The
garlands twain encompassed us about,
And thus the outer to the inner answered.
After the dance,
and other grand rejoicings,
Both
of the singing, and the flaming forth
Effulgence with effulgence blithe and tender,
Together, at once,
with one accord had stopped,
(Even
as the eyes, that, as volition moves them,
Must needs together shut and lift themselves,)
Out of the heart of
one of the new lights
There
came a voice, that needle to the star
Made me appear in turning thitherward.
And it began: "The
love that makes me fair
Draws
me to speak about the other leader,
By whom so well is spoken here of mine.
'Tis right, where
one is, to bring in the other,
That,
as they were united in their warfare,
Together likewise may their glory shine.
The soldiery of
Christ, which it had cost
So
dear to arm again, behind the standard
Moved slow and doubtful and in numbers few,
When the Emperor
who reigneth evermore
Provided
for the host that was in peril,
Through grace alone and not that it was worthy;
And, as was said,
he to his Bride brought succour
With
champions twain, at whose deed, at whose word
The straggling people were together drawn.
Within that region
where the sweet west wind
Rises
to open the new leaves, wherewith
Europe is seen to clothe herself afresh,
Not far off from
the beating of the waves,
Behind
which in his long career the sun
Sometimes conceals himself from every man,
Is situate the
fortunate Calahorra,
Under
protection of the mighty shield
In which the Lion subject is and sovereign.
Therein was born
the amorous paramour
Of
Christian Faith, the athlete consecrate,
Kind to his own and cruel to his foes;
And when it was
created was his mind
Replete
with such a living energy,
That in his mother her it made prophetic.
As soon as the
espousals were complete
Between
him and the Faith at holy font,
Where they with mutual safety dowered each other,
The woman, who for
him had given assent,
Saw
in a dream the admirable fruit
That issue would from him and from his heirs;
And that he might
be construed as he was,
A
spirit from this place went forth to name him
With His possessive whose he wholly was.
Dominic was he
called; and him I speak of
Even
as of the husbandman whom Christ
Elected to his garden to assist him.
Envoy and servant
sooth he seemed of Christ,
For
the first love made manifest in him
Was the first counsel that was given by Christ.
Silent and wakeful
many a time was he
Discovered
by his nurse upon the ground,
As if he would have said, 'For this I came.'
O thou his father,
Felix verily!
O
thou his mother, verily Joanna,
If this, interpreted, means as is said!
Not for the world
which people toil for now
In
following Ostiense and Taddeo,
But through his longing after the true manna,
He in short time
became so great a teacher,
That
he began to go about the vineyard,
Which fadeth soon, if faithless be the dresser;
And of the See,
(that once was more benignant
Unto
the righteous poor, not through itself,
But him who sits there and degenerates,)
Not to dispense or
two or three for six,
Not
any fortune of first vacancy,
'Non decimas quae sunt pauperum Dei,'
He asked for, but
against the errant world
Permission
to do battle for the seed,
Of which these four and twenty plants surround thee.
Then with the
doctrine and the will together,
With
office apostolical he moved,
Like torrent which some lofty vein out-presses;
And in among the
shoots heretical
His
impetus with greater fury smote,
Wherever the resistance was the greatest.
Of him were made
thereafter divers runnels,
Whereby
the garden catholic is watered,
So that more living its plantations stand.
If such the one
wheel of the Biga was,
In
which the Holy Church itself defended
And in the field its civic battle won,
Truly full manifest
should be to thee
The
excellence of the other, unto whom
Thomas so courteous was before my coming.
But still the
orbit, which the highest part
Of
its circumference made, is derelict,
So that the mould is where was once the crust.
His family, that
had straight forward moved
With
feet upon his footprints, are turned round
So that they set the point upon the heel.
And soon aware they
will be of the harvest
Of
this bad husbandry, when shall the tares
Complain the granary is taken from them.
Yet say I, he who
searcheth leaf by leaf
Our
volume through, would still some page discover
Where he could read, 'I am as I am wont.'
'Twill not be from
Casal nor Acquasparta,
From
whence come such unto the written word
That one avoids it, and the other narrows.
Bonaventura of
Bagnoregio's life
Am
I, who always in great offices
Postponed considerations sinister.
Here are Illuminato
and Agostino,
Who
of the first barefooted beggars were
That with the cord the friends of God became.
Hugh of Saint
Victor is among them here,
And
Peter Mangiador, and Peter of Spain,
Who down below in volumes twelve is shining;
Nathan the seer,
and metropolitan
Chrysostom,
and Anselmus, and Donatus
Who deigned to lay his hand to the first art;
Here is Rabanus,
and beside me here
Shines
the Calabrian Abbot Joachim,
He with the spirit of prophecy endowed.
To celebrate so
great a paladin
Have
moved me the impassioned courtesy
And the discreet discourses of Friar Thomas,
And with me they
have moved this company."
Let him imagine,
who would well conceive
What
now I saw, and let him while I speak
Retain the image as a steadfast rock,
The fifteen stars,
that in their divers regions
The
sky enliven with a light so great
That it transcends all clusters of the air;
Let him the Wain
imagine unto which
Our
vault of heaven sufficeth night and day,
So that in turning of its pole it fails not;
Let him the mouth
imagine of the horn
That
in the point beginneth of the axis
Round about which the primal wheel revolves,--
To have fashioned
of themselves two signs in heaven,
Like
unto that which Minos' daughter made,
The moment when she felt the frost of death;
And one to have its
rays within the other,
And
both to whirl themselves in such a manner
That one should forward go, the other backward;
And he will have
some shadowing forth of that
True
constellation and the double dance
That circled round the point at which I was;
Because it is as
much beyond our wont,
As
swifter than the motion of the Chiana
Moveth the heaven that all the rest outspeeds.
There sang they
neither Bacchus, nor Apollo,
But
in the divine nature Persons three,
And in one person the divine and human.
The singing and the
dance fulfilled their measure,
And
unto us those holy lights gave need,
Growing in happiness from care to care.
Then broke the
silence of those saints concordant
The
light in which the admirable life
Of God's own mendicant was told to me,
And said: "Now that
one straw is trodden out
Now
that its seed is garnered up already,
Sweet love invites me to thresh out the other.
Into that bosom,
thou believest, whence
Was
drawn the rib to form the beauteous cheek
Whose taste to all the world is costing dear,
And into that
which, by the lance transfixed,
Before
and since, such satisfaction made
That it weighs down the balance of all sin,
Whate'er of light
it has to human nature
Been
lawful to possess was all infused
By the same power that both of them created;
And hence at what I
said above dost wonder,
When
I narrated that no second had
The good which in the fifth light is enclosed.
Now ope thine eyes
to what I answer thee,
And
thou shalt see thy creed and my discourse
Fit in the truth as centre in a circle.
That which can die,
and that which dieth not,
Are
nothing but the splendour of the idea
Which by his love our Lord brings into being;
Because that living
Light, which from its fount
Effulgent
flows, so that it disunites not
From Him nor from the Love in them intrined,
Through its own
goodness reunites its rays
In
nine subsistences, as in a mirror,
Itself eternally remaining One.
Thence it descends
to the last potencies,
Downward
from act to act becoming such
That only brief contingencies it makes;
And these
contingencies I hold to be
Things
generated, which the heaven produces
By its own motion, with seed and without.
Neither their wax,
nor that which tempers it,
Remains
immutable, and hence beneath
The ideal signet more and less shines through;
Therefore it
happens, that the selfsame tree
After
its kind bears worse and better fruit,
And ye are born with characters diverse.
If in perfection
tempered were the wax,
And
were the heaven in its supremest virtue,
The brilliance of the seal would all appear;
But nature gives it
evermore deficient,
In
the like manner working as the artist,
Who has the skill of art and hand that trembles.
If then the fervent
Love, the Vision clear,
Of
primal Virtue do dispose and seal,
Perfection absolute is there acquired.
Thus was of old the
earth created worthy
Of
all and every animal perfection;
And thus the Virgin was impregnate made;
So that thine own
opinion I commend,
That
human nature never yet has been,
Nor will be, what it was in those two persons.
Now if no farther
forth I should proceed,
'Then
in what way was he without a peer?'
Would be the first beginning of thy words.
But, that may well
appear what now appears not,
Think
who he was, and what occasion moved him
To make request, when it was told him, 'Ask.'
I've not so spoken
that thou canst not see
Clearly
he was a king who asked for wisdom,
That he might be sufficiently a king;
'Twas not to know
the number in which are
The
motors here above, or if 'necesse'
With a contingent e'er 'necesse' make,
'Non si est dare
primum motum esse,'
Or
if in semicircle can be made
Triangle so that it have no right angle.
Whence, if thou
notest this and what I said,
A
regal prudence is that peerless seeing
In which the shaft of my intention strikes.
And if on 'rose'
thou turnest thy clear eyes,
Thou'lt
see that it has reference alone
To kings who're many, and the good are rare.
With this
distinction take thou what I said,
And
thus it can consist with thy belief
Of the first father and of our Delight.
And lead shall this
be always to thy feet,
To
make thee, like a weary man, move slowly
Both to the Yes and No thou seest not;
For very low among
the fools is he
Who
affirms without distinction, or denies,
As well in one as in the other case;
Because it happens
that full often bends
Current
opinion in the false direction,
And then the feelings bind the intellect.
Far more than
uselessly he leaves the shore,
(Since
he returneth not the same he went,)
Who fishes for the truth, and has no skill;
And in the world
proofs manifest thereof
Parmenides,
Melissus, Brissus are,
And many who went on and knew not whither;
Thus did Sabellius,
Arius, and those fools
Who
have been even as swords unto the Scriptures
In rendering distorted their straight faces.
Nor yet shall
people be too confident
In
judging, even as he is who doth count
The corn in field or ever it be ripe.
For I have seen all
winter long the thorn
First
show itself intractable and fierce,
And after bear the rose upon its top;
And I have seen a
ship direct and swift
Run
o'er the sea throughout its course entire,
To perish at the harbour's mouth at last.
Let not Dame Bertha
nor Ser Martin think,
Seeing
one steal, another offering make,
To see them in the arbitrament divine;
For one may rise,
and fall the other may."
From centre unto
rim, from rim to centre,
In
a round vase the water moves itself,
As from without 'tis struck or from within.
Into my mind upon a
sudden dropped
What
I am saying, at the moment when
Silent became the glorious life of Thomas,
Because of the
resemblance that was born
Of
his discourse and that of Beatrice,
Whom, after him, it pleased thus to begin:
"This man has need
(and does not tell you so,
Nor
with the voice, nor even in his thought)
Of going to the root of one truth more.
Declare unto him if
the light wherewith
Blossoms
your substance shall remain with you
Eternally the same that it is now;
And if it do
remain, say in what manner,
After
ye are again made visible,
It can be that it injure not your sight."
As by a greater
gladness urged and drawn
They
who are dancing in a ring sometimes
Uplift their voices and their motions quicken;
So, at that orison
devout and prompt,
The
holy circles a new joy displayed
In their revolving and their wondrous song.
Whoso lamenteth him
that here we die
That
we may live above, has never there
Seen the refreshment of the eternal rain.
The One and Two and
Three who ever liveth,
And
reigneth ever in Three and Two and One,
Not circumscribed and all things circumscribing,
Three several times
was chanted by each one
Among
those spirits, with such melody
That for all merit it were just reward;
And, in the lustre
most divine of all
The
lesser ring, I heard a modest voice,
Such as perhaps the Angel's was to Mary,
Answer: "As long as
the festivity
Of
Paradise shall be, so long our love
Shall radiate round about us such a vesture.
Its brightness is
proportioned to the ardour,
The
ardour to the vision; and the vision
Equals what grace it has above its worth.
When, glorious and
sanctified, our flesh
Is
reassumed, then shall our persons be
More pleasing by their being all complete;
For will increase
whate'er bestows on us
Of
light gratuitous the Good Supreme,
Light which enables us to look on Him;
Therefore the
vision must perforce increase,
Increase
the ardour which from that is kindled,
Increase the radiance which from this proceeds.
But even as a coal
that sends forth flame,
And
by its vivid whiteness overpowers it
So that its own appearance it maintains,
Thus the effulgence
that surrounds us now
Shall
be o'erpowered in aspect by the flesh,
Which still to-day the earth doth cover up;
Nor can so great a
splendour weary us,
For
strong will be the organs of the body
To everything which hath the power to please us."
So sudden and alert
appeared to me
Both
one and the other choir to say Amen,
That well they showed desire for their dead bodies;
Nor sole for them
perhaps, but for the mothers,
The
fathers, and the rest who had been dear
Or ever they became eternal flames.
And lo! all round
about of equal brightness
Arose
a lustre over what was there,
Like an horizon that is clearing up.
And as at rise of
early eve begin
Along
the welkin new appearances,
So that the sight seems real and unreal,
It seemed to me
that new subsistences
Began
there to be seen, and make a circle
Outside the other two circumferences.
O very sparkling of
the Holy Spirit,
How
sudden and incandescent it became
Unto mine eyes, that vanquished bore it not!
But Beatrice so
beautiful and smiling
Appeared
to me, that with the other sights
That followed not my memory I must leave her.
Then to uplift
themselves mine eyes resumed
The
power, and I beheld myself translated
To higher salvation with my Lady only.
Well was I ware
that I was more uplifted
By
the enkindled smiling of the star,
That seemed to me more ruddy than its wont.
With all my heart,
and in that dialect
Which
is the same in all, such holocaust
To God I made as the new grace beseemed;
And not yet from my
bosom was exhausted
The
ardour of sacrifice, before I knew
This offering was accepted and auspicious;
For with so great a
lustre and so red
Splendours
appeared to me in twofold rays,
I said: "O Helios who dost so adorn them!"
Even as distinct
with less and greater lights
Glimmers
between the two poles of the world
The Galaxy that maketh wise men doubt,
Thus constellated
in the depths of Mars,
Those
rays described the venerable sign
That quadrants joining in a circle make.
Here doth my memory
overcome my genius;
For
on that cross as levin gleamed forth Christ,
So that I cannot find ensample worthy;
But he who takes
his cross and follows Christ
Again
will pardon me what I omit,
Seeing in that aurora lighten Christ.
From horn to horn,
and 'twixt the top and base,
Lights
were in motion, brightly scintillating
As they together met and passed each other;
Thus level and
aslant and swift and slow
We
here behold, renewing still the sight,
The particles of bodies long and short,
Across the sunbeam
move, wherewith is listed
Sometimes
the shade, which for their own defence
People with cunning and with art contrive.
And as a lute and
harp, accordant strung
With
many strings, a dulcet tinkling make
To him by whom the notes are not distinguished,
So from the lights
that there to me appeared
Upgathered
through the cross a melody,
Which rapt me, not distinguishing the hymn.
Well was I ware it
was of lofty laud,
Because
there came to me, "Arise and conquer!"
As unto him who hears and comprehends not.
So much enamoured I
became therewith,
That
until then there was not anything
That e'er had fettered me with such sweet bonds.
Perhaps my word
appears somewhat too bold,
Postponing
the delight of those fair eyes,
Into which gazing my desire has rest;
But who bethinks
him that the living seals
Of
every beauty grow in power ascending,
And that I there had not turned round to those,
Can me excuse, if I
myself accuse
To
excuse myself, and see that I speak truly:
For here the holy joy is not disclosed,
Because ascending
it becomes more pure.
A will benign, in
which reveals itself
Ever
the love that righteously inspires,
As in the iniquitous, cupidity,
Silence imposed
upon that dulcet lyre,
And
quieted the consecrated chords,
That Heaven's right hand doth tighten and relax.
How unto just
entreaties shall be deaf
Those
substances, which, to give me desire
Of praying them, with one accord grew silent?
'Tis well that
without end he should lament,
Who
for the love of thing that doth not last
Eternally despoils him of that love!
As through the pure
and tranquil evening air
There
shoots from time to time a sudden fire,
Moving the eyes that steadfast were before,
And seems to be a
star that changeth place,
Except
that in the part where it is kindled
Nothing is missed, and this endureth little;
So from the horn
that to the right extends
Unto
that cross's foot there ran a star
Out of the constellation shining there;
Nor was the gem
dissevered from its ribbon,
But
down the radiant fillet ran along,
So that fire seemed it behind alabaster.
Thus piteous did
Anchises' shade reach forward,
If
any faith our greatest Muse deserve,
When in Elysium he his son perceived.
"O sanguis meus, O
superinfusa
Gratia
Dei, sicut tibi, cui
Bis unquam Coeli janua reclusa?"
Thus that
effulgence; whence I gave it heed;
Then
round unto my Lady turned my sight,
And on this side and that was stupefied;
For in her eyes was
burning such a smile
That
with mine own methought I touched the bottom
Both of my grace and of my Paradise!
Then, pleasant to
the hearing and the sight,
The
spirit joined to its beginning things
I understood not, so profound it spake;
Nor did it hide
itself from me by choice,
But
by necessity; for its conception
Above the mark of mortals set itself.
And when the bow of
burning sympathy
Was
so far slackened, that its speech descended
Towards the mark of our intelligence,
The first thing
that was understood by me
Was
"Benedight be Thou, O Trine and One,
Who hast unto my seed so courteous been!"
And it continued:
"Hunger long and grateful,
Drawn
from the reading of the mighty volume
Wherein is never changed the white nor dark,
Thou hast appeased,
my son, within this light
In
which I speak to thee, by grace of her
Who to this lofty flight with plumage clothed thee.
Thou thinkest that
to me thy thought doth pass
From
Him who is the first, as from the unit,
If that be known, ray out the five and six;
And therefore who I
am thou askest not,
And
why I seem more joyous unto thee
Than any other of this gladsome crowd.
Thou think'st the
truth; because the small and great
Of
this existence look into the mirror
Wherein, before thou think'st, thy thought thou showest.
But that the sacred
love, in which I watch
With
sight perpetual, and which makes me thirst
With sweet desire, may better be fulfilled,
Now let thy voice
secure and frank and glad
Proclaim
the wishes, the desire proclaim,
To which my answer is decreed already."
To Beatrice I
turned me, and she heard
Before
I spake, and smiled to me a sign,
That made the wings of my desire increase;
Then in this wise
began I: "Love and knowledge,
When
on you dawned the first Equality,
Of the same weight for each of you became;
For in the Sun,
which lighted you and burned
With
heat and radiance, they so equal are,
That all similitudes are insufficient.
But among mortals
will and argument,
For
reason that to you is manifest,
Diversely feathered in their pinions are.
Whence I, who
mortal am, feel in myself
This
inequality; so give not thanks,
Save in my heart, for this paternal welcome.
Truly do I entreat
thee, living topaz!
Set
in this precious jewel as a gem,
That thou wilt satisfy me with thy name."
"O leaf of mine, in
whom I pleasure took
E'en
while awaiting, I was thine own root!"
Such a beginning he in answer made me.
Then said to me:
"That one from whom is named
Thy
race, and who a hundred years and more
Has circled round the mount on the first cornice,
A son of mine and
thy great-grandsire was;
Well
it behoves thee that the long fatigue
Thou shouldst for him make shorter with thy works.
Florence, within
the ancient boundary
From
which she taketh still her tierce and nones,
Abode in quiet, temperate and chaste.
No golden chain she
had, nor coronal,
Nor
ladies shod with sandal shoon, nor girdle
That caught the eye more than the person did.
Not yet the
daughter at her birth struck fear
Into
the father, for the time and dower
Did not o'errun this side or that the measure.
No houses had she
void of families,
Not
yet had thither come Sardanapalus
To show what in a chamber can be done;
Not yet surpassed
had Montemalo been
By
your Uccellatojo, which surpassed
Shall in its downfall be as in its rise.
Bellincion Berti
saw I go begirt
With
leather and with bone, and from the mirror
His dame depart without a painted face;
And him of Nerli
saw, and him of Vecchio,
Contented
with their simple suits of buff
And with the spindle and the flax their dames.
O fortunate women!
and each one was certain
Of
her own burial-place, and none as yet
For sake of France was in her bed deserted.
One o'er the cradle
kept her studious watch,
And
in her lullaby the language used
That first delights the fathers and the mothers;
Another, drawing
tresses from her distaff,
Told
o'er among her family the tales
Of Trojans and of Fesole and Rome.
As great a marvel
then would have been held
A
Lapo Salterello, a Cianghella,
As Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.
To such a quiet,
such a beautiful
Life
of the citizen, to such a safe
Community, and to so sweet an inn,
Did Mary give me,
with loud cries invoked,
And
in your ancient Baptistery at once
Christian and Cacciaguida I became.
Moronto was my
brother, and Eliseo;
From
Val di Pado came to me my wife,
And from that place thy surname was derived.
I followed
afterward the Emperor Conrad,
And
he begirt me of his chivalry,
So much I pleased him with my noble deeds.
I followed in his
train against that law's
Iniquity,
whose people doth usurp
Your just possession, through your Pastor's fault.
There by that
execrable race was I
Released
from bonds of the fallacious world,
The love of which defileth many souls,
And came from
martyrdom unto this peace."
O thou our poor
nobility of blood,
If
thou dost make the people glory in thee
Down here where our affection languishes,
A marvellous thing
it ne'er will be to me;
For
there where appetite is not perverted,
I say in Heaven, of thee I made a boast!
Truly thou art a
cloak that quickly shortens,
So
that unless we piece thee day by day
Time goeth round about thee with his shears!
With 'You,' which
Rome was first to tolerate,
(Wherein
her family less perseveres,)
Yet once again my words beginning made;
Whence Beatrice,
who stood somewhat apart,
Smiling,
appeared like unto her who coughed
At the first failing writ of Guenever.
And I began: "You
are my ancestor,
You
give to me all hardihood to speak,
You lift me so that I am more than I.
So many rivulets
with gladness fill
My
mind, that of itself it makes a joy
Because it can endure this and not burst.
Then tell me, my
beloved root ancestral,
Who
were your ancestors, and what the years
That in your boyhood chronicled themselves?
Tell me about the
sheepfold of Saint John,
How
large it was, and who the people were
Within it worthy of the highest seats."
As at the blowing
of the winds a coal
Quickens
to flame, so I beheld that light
Become resplendent at my blandishments.
And as unto mine
eyes it grew more fair,
With
voice more sweet and tender, but not in
This modern dialect, it said to me:
"From uttering of
the 'Ave,' till the birth
In
which my mother, who is now a saint,
Of me was lightened who had been her burden,
Unto its Lion had
this fire returned
Five
hundred fifty times and thirty more,
To reinflame itself beneath his paw.
My ancestors and I
our birthplace had
Where
first is found the last ward of the city
By him who runneth in your annual game.
Suffice it of my
elders to hear this;
But
who they were, and whence they thither came,
Silence is more considerate than speech.
All those who at
that time were there between
Mars
and the Baptist, fit for bearing arms,
Were a fifth part of those who now are living;
But the community,
that now is mixed
With
Campi and Certaldo and Figghine,
Pure in the lowest artisan was seen.
O how much better
'twere to have as neighbours
The
folk of whom I speak, and at Galluzzo
And at Trespiano have your boundary,
Than have them in
the town, and bear the stench
Of
Aguglione's churl, and him of Signa
Who has sharp eyes for trickery already.
Had not the folk,
which most of all the world
Degenerates,
been a step-dame unto Caesar,
But as a mother to her son benignant,
Some who turn
Florentines, and trade and discount,
Would
have gone back again to Simifonte
There where their grandsires went about as beggars.
At Montemurlo still
would be the Counts,
The
Cerchi in the parish of Acone,
Perhaps in Valdigrieve the Buondelmonti.
Ever the
intermingling of the people
Has
been the source of malady in cities,
As in the body food it surfeits on;
And a blind bull
more headlong plunges down
Than
a blind lamb; and very often cuts
Better and more a single sword than five.
If Luni thou
regard, and Urbisaglia,
How
they have passed away, and how are passing
Chiusi and Sinigaglia after them,
To hear how races
waste themselves away,
Will
seem to thee no novel thing nor hard,
Seeing that even cities have an end.
All things of yours
have their mortality,
Even
as yourselves; but it is hidden in some
That a long while endure, and lives are short;
And as the turning
of the lunar heaven
Covers
and bares the shores without a pause,
In the like manner fortune does with Florence.
Therefore should
not appear a marvellous thing
What
I shall say of the great Florentines
Of whom the fame is hidden in the Past.
I saw the Ughi, saw
the Catellini,
Filippi,
Greci, Ormanni, and Alberichi,
Even in their fall illustrious citizens;
And saw, as mighty
as they ancient were,
With
him of La Sannella him of Arca,
And Soldanier, Ardinghi, and Bostichi.
Near to the gate
that is at present laden
With
a new felony of so much weight
That soon it shall be jetsam from the bark,
The Ravignani were,
from whom descended
The
County Guido, and whoe'er the name
Of the great Bellincione since hath taken.
He of La Pressa
knew the art of ruling
Already,
and already Galigajo
Had hilt and pommel gilded in his house.
Mighty already was
the Column Vair,
Sacchetti,
Giuochi, Fifant, and Barucci,
And Galli, and they who for the bushel blush.
The stock from
which were the Calfucci born
Was
great already, and already chosen
To curule chairs the Sizii and Arrigucci.
O how beheld I
those who are undone
By
their own pride! and how the Balls of Gold
Florence enflowered in all their mighty deeds!
So likewise did the
ancestors of those
Who
evermore, when vacant is your church,
Fatten by staying in consistory.
The insolent race,
that like a dragon follows
Whoever
flees, and unto him that shows
His teeth or purse is gentle as a lamb,
Already rising was,
but from low people;
So
that it pleased not Ubertin Donato
That his wife's father should make him their kin.
Already had
Caponsacco to the Market
From
Fesole descended, and already
Giuda and Infangato were good burghers.
I'll tell a thing
incredible, but true;
One
entered the small circuit by a gate
Which from the Della Pera took its name!
Each one that bears
the beautiful escutcheon
Of
the great baron whose renown and name
The festival of Thomas keepeth fresh,
Knighthood and
privilege from him received;
Though
with the populace unites himself
To-day the man who binds it with a border.
Already were
Gualterotti and Importuni;
And
still more quiet would the Borgo be
If with new neighbours it remained unfed.
The house from
which is born your lamentation,
Through
just disdain that death among you brought
And put an end unto your joyous life,
Was honoured in
itself and its companions.
O
Buondelmonte, how in evil hour
Thou fled'st the bridal at another's promptings!
Many would be
rejoicing who are sad,
If
God had thee surrendered to the Ema
The first time that thou camest to the city.
But it behoved the
mutilated stone
Which
guards the bridge, that Florence should provide
A victim in her latest hour of peace.
With all these
families, and others with them,
Florence
beheld I in so great repose,
That no occasion had she whence to weep;
With all these
families beheld so just
And
glorious her people, that the lily
Never upon the spear was placed reversed,
Nor by division was
vermilion made."
As came to Clymene,
to be made certain
Of
that which he had heard against himself,
He who makes fathers chary still to children,
Even such was I,
and such was I perceived
By
Beatrice and by the holy light
That first on my account had changed its place.
Therefore my Lady
said to me: "Send forth
The
flame of thy desire, so that it issue
Imprinted well with the internal stamp;
Not that our
knowledge may be greater made
By
speech of thine, but to accustom thee
To tell thy thirst, that we may give thee drink."
"O my beloved tree,
(that so dost lift thee,
That
even as minds terrestrial perceive
No triangle containeth two obtuse,
So thou beholdest
the contingent things
Ere
in themselves they are, fixing thine eyes
Upon the point in which all times are present,)
While I was with
Virgilius conjoined
Upon
the mountain that the souls doth heal,
And when descending into the dead world,
Were spoken to me
of my future life
Some
grievous words; although I feel myself
In sooth foursquare against the blows of chance.
On this account my
wish would be content
To
hear what fortune is approaching me,
Because foreseen an arrow comes more slowly."
Thus did I say unto
that selfsame light
That
unto me had spoken before; and even
As Beatrice willed was my own will confessed.
Not in vague
phrase, in which the foolish folk
Ensnared
themselves of old, ere yet was slain
The Lamb of God who taketh sins away,
But with clear
words and unambiguous
Language
responded that paternal love,
Hid and revealed by its own proper smile:
"Contingency, that
outside of the volume
Of
your materiality extends not,
Is all depicted in the eternal aspect.
Necessity however
thence it takes not,
Except
as from the eye, in which 'tis mirrored,
A ship that with the current down descends.
From thence, e'en
as there cometh to the ear
Sweet
harmony from an organ, comes in sight
To me the time that is preparing for thee.
As forth from
Athens went Hippolytus,
By
reason of his step-dame false and cruel,
So thou from Florence must perforce depart.
Already this is
willed, and this is sought for;
And
soon it shall be done by him who thinks it,
Where every day the Christ is bought and sold.
The blame shall
follow the offended party
In
outcry as is usual; but the vengeance
Shall witness to the truth that doth dispense it.
Thou shalt abandon
everything beloved
Most
tenderly, and this the arrow is
Which first the bow of banishment shoots forth.
Thou shalt have
proof how savoureth of salt
The
bread of others, and how hard a road
The going down and up another's stairs.
And that which most
shall weigh upon thy shoulders
Will
be the bad and foolish company
With which into this valley thou shalt fall;
For all ingrate,
all mad and impious
Will
they become against thee; but soon after
They, and not thou, shall have the forehead scarlet.
Of their bestiality
their own proceedings
Shall
furnish proof; so 'twill be well for thee
A party to have made thee by thyself.
Thine earliest
refuge and thine earliest inn
Shall
be the mighty Lombard's courtesy,
Who on the Ladder bears the holy bird,
Who such benign
regard shall have for thee
That
'twixt you twain, in doing and in asking,
That shall be first which is with others last.
With him shalt thou
see one who at his birth
Has
by this star of strength been so impressed,
That notable shall his achievements be.
Not yet the people
are aware of him
Through
his young age, since only nine years yet
Around about him have these wheels revolved.
But ere the Gascon
cheat the noble Henry,
Some
sparkles of his virtue shall appear
In caring not for silver nor for toil.
So recognized shall
his magnificence
Become
hereafter, that his enemies
Will not have power to keep mute tongues about it.
On him rely, and on
his benefits;
By
him shall many people be transformed,
Changing condition rich and mendicant;
And written in thy
mind thou hence shalt bear
Of
him, but shalt not say it"--and things said he
Incredible to those who shall be present.
Then added: "Son,
these are the commentaries
On
what was said to thee; behold the snares
That are concealed behind few revolutions;
Yet would I not thy
neighbours thou shouldst envy,
Because
thy life into the future reaches
Beyond the punishment of their perfidies."
When by its silence
showed that sainted soul
That
it had finished putting in the woof
Into that web which I had given it warped,
Began I, even as he
who yearneth after,
Being
in doubt, some counsel from a person
Who seeth, and uprightly wills, and loves:
"Well see I, father
mine, how spurreth on
The
time towards me such a blow to deal me
As heaviest is to him who most gives way.
Therefore with
foresight it is well I arm me,
That,
if the dearest place be taken from me,
I may not lose the others by my songs.
Down through the
world of infinite bitterness,
And
o'er the mountain, from whose beauteous summit
The eyes of my own Lady lifted me,
And afterward
through heaven from light to light,
I
have learned that which, if I tell again,
Will be a savour of strong herbs to many.
And if I am a timid
friend to truth,
I
fear lest I may lose my life with those
Who will hereafter call this time the olden."
The light in which
was smiling my own treasure
Which
there I had discovered, flashed at first
As in the sunshine doth a golden mirror;
Then made reply: "A
conscience overcast
Or
with its own or with another's shame,
Will taste forsooth the tartness of thy word;
But ne'ertheless,
all falsehood laid aside,
Make
manifest thy vision utterly,
And let them scratch wherever is the itch;
For if thine
utterance shall offensive be
At
the first taste, a vital nutriment
'Twill leave thereafter, when it is digested.
This cry of thine
shall do as doth the wind,
Which
smiteth most the most exalted summits,
And that is no slight argument of 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."
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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!
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."
"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."
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."
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."
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!"
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.
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.
"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
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.
POSTSCRIPT
'Ich habe unter meinen Papieren ein Blatt gefunden,
wo ich die Baukunst eine erstarrte Musik nenne.'
(Johann Wolfgang Goethe, 1829 March 23)
I found Dante in a bar. The Poet had indeed
lost the True Way to be found reduced to party chatter in a Capitol Hill
basement, but I had found him at last. I must have been drinking in the Dark
Tavern of Error, for I did not even realize I had begun the dolorous path
followed by many since the Poet's journey of A.D. 1300. Actually no one spoke
a word about Dante or his Divine Comedy, rather I heard a second-hand Goethe
call architecture "frozen music." Soon I took my second step through the gate
to a people lost; this time on a more respectable occasion--a lecture at the
Catholic University of America. Clio, the muse of history, must have been
aiding Prof. Schumacher that evening, because it sustained my full three-hour
attention, even after I had just presented an all-night project. There I heard
of a most astonishing Italian translation of 'la Divina Commedia' di Dante
Alighieri. An Italian architect, Giuseppi Terragni, had translated the Comedy
into the 'Danteum,' a projected stone and glass monument to Poet and Poem near
the Basilica of Maxentius in Rome.
Do not look for the Danteum in the Eternal City.
In true Dantean form, politics stood in the way of its construction in 1938.
Ironically this literature-inspired building can itself most easily be found in
book form. Reading this book I remembered Goethe's quote about frozen music.
Did Terragni try to freeze Dante's medieval miracle of song? Certainly a
cold-poem seems artistically repulsive. Unflattering comparisons to the lake
of Cocytus spring to mind too. While I cannot read Italian, I can read some
German. After locating the original quotation I discovered that 'frozen' is a
problematic (though common) translation of Goethe's original 'erstarrte.' The
verb 'erstarren' more properly means 'to solidify' or 'to stiffen.' This
suggests a chemical reaction in which the art does not necessarily chill in the
transformation. Nor can simple thawing yield the original work. Like a
chemical reaction it requires an artistic catalyst, a muse. Indeed the Danteum
is not a physical translation of the Poem. Terragni thought it inappropriate
to translate the Comedy literally into a non-literary work. The Danteum would
not be a stage set, rather Terragni generated his design from the Comedy's
structure, not its finishes.
The poem is divided into three canticles of thirty-three cantos
each, plus one extra in the first, the Inferno, making a total of one hundred
cantos. Each canto is composed of three-line tercets, the first and third
lines rhyme, the second line rhymes with the beginning of the next tercet,
establishing a kind of overlap, reflected in the overlapping motif of the
Danteum design. Dante's realms are further subdivided: the Inferno is composed
of nine levels, the vestibule makes a tenth. Purgatory has seven terraces,
plus two ledges in an ante-purgatory; adding these to the Earthly Paradise
yields ten zones. Paradise is composed of nine heavens; Empyrean makes the
tenth. In the Inferno, sinners are organized by three vices--Incontinence,
Violence, and Fraud--and further subdivided by the seven deadly sins. In
Purgatory, penance is ordered on the basis of three types of natural love.
Paradise is organized on the basis of three types of Divine Love, and further
subdivided according to the three theological and four cardinal
virtues.
(Thomas Schumacher, "The Danteum,"
Princeton Architectural Press, 1993)
By translating the structure, Terragni could
then layer the literal and the spiritual meanings of the Poem without allowing
either to dominate. These layers of meaning are native to the Divine Comedy as
they are native to much medieval literature, although modern readers and
tourists may not be so familiar with them. They are literal, allegorical,
moral, and anagogical. I offer you St. Thomas of Aquinas' definition of these
last three as they relate to Sacred Scripture:
. . .this spiritual sense has a threefold division. . .so far as
the things of the Old Law signify the things of the New Law, there is the
allegorical sense; so far as the things done in Christ, or so far as the things
which signify Christ, are types of what we ought to do, there is the moral
sense. But so far as they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the
anagogical sense. (Summa Theologica I, 1, 10)
Within the Danteum the Poet's meanings lurk
in solid form. An example: the Danteum design does have spaces literally
associated with the Comedy--the Dark Wood of Error, Inferno, Purgatorio, and
the Paradiso--but these spaces also relate among themselves spiritually. Dante
often highlights a virtue by first condemning its corruption. Within Dante's
system Justice is the greatest of the cardinal virtues; its corruption, Fraud,
is the most contemptible of vices. Because Dante saw the papacy as the most
precious of sacred institutions, corrupt popes figure prominently among the
damned in the Poet's Inferno. In the Danteum the materiality of the worldly
Dark Wood directly opposes the transcendence of the Paradiso. In the realm of
error every thought is lost and secular, while in heaven every soul's intent is
directed toward God. The shadowy Inferno of the Danteum mirrors the
Purgatorio's illuminated ascent to heaven. Purgatory embodies hope and growth
where hell chases its own dark inertia. Such is the cosmography shared by
Terragni and Dante.
In this postscript I intend neither to fully
examine the meaning nor the plan of the Danteum, but rather to evince the power
that art has acted as a catalyst to other artists. The Danteum, a modern
design inspired by a medieval poem, is but one example. Dante's poem is filled
with characters epitomizing the full range of vices and virtues of human
personalities. Dante's characters come from his present and literature's past;
they are mythological, biblical, classical, ancient, and medieval. They,
rather than Calliope and her sisters, were Dante's muses.
'La Divina Commedia' seems a natural candidate to
complete Project Gutenberg's first milleditio and to begin its second thousand
e-texts. Although distinctly medieval, its continuum of influence spans the
Renaissance and modernity. Terragni saw his place within the Comedy as surely
as Dante saw his own. We too fit within Dante's understanding of the human
condition; we differ less from our past than we might like to believe. T. S.
Eliot understood this when he wrote "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern
world between them, there is no third." So now Dante joins Shakespeare (e-text
#100) in the Project Gutenberg collection. Two works that influenced Dante are
also part of the collection: The Bible (#10) and Virgil's Aeneid (#227). Other
major influences--St. Thomas of Aquinas' Summa Theologica, The Metamorphoses of
Ovid, and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics--are available in electronic form at
other Internet sites. If one searches enough he may even find a computer
rendering of the Danteum on the Internet. By presenting this electronic text
to Project Gutenberg it is my hope that in will not rest in a computer unknown
and unread; it is my hope that artists will see themselves in the Divine Comedy
and be inspired, just as Dante ran the paths left by Virgil and St. Thomas that
led him to the stars.
Dennis McCarthy, July 1997
Atlanta, Georgia USA
[email protected]
TECHNICAL NOTES
Text that was originally in italics has been
placed within single quotes ('italics'). Where italic text coincided with
existing quotation marks it was not given any additional markup. Extended
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ASCII. To view the italics and special characters please refer to the HTML
version of this e-text.
End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of The
Divine Comedy of Dante as translanted by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow