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Dante's Paradise [Divine Comedy] | |
Translanted by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | |
August, 1997 [Etext #1003] | |
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Dante's Paradise [Divine Comedy] | |
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THE DIVINE COMEDY | |
OF DANTE ALIGHIERI | |
(1265-1321) | |
TRANSLATED BY | |
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW | |
(1807-1882) | |
CANTICLE III: PARADISO | |
CREDITS | |
The base text for this edition has been provided by Digital Dante, a | |
project sponsored by Columbia University's Institute for Learning | |
Technologies. Specific thanks goes to Jennifer Hogan (Project | |
Editor/Director), Tanya Larkin (Assistant to Editor), Robert W. Cole | |
(Proofreader/Assistant Editor), and Jennifer Cook (Proofreader). | |
The Digital Dante Project is a digital 'study space' for Dante studies and | |
scholarship. The project is multi-faceted and fluid by nature of the Web. | |
Digital Dante attempts to organize the information most significant for | |
students first engaging with Dante and scholars researching Dante. The | |
digital of Digital Dante incurs a new challenge to the student, the | |
scholar, and teacher, perusing the Web: to become proficient in the new | |
tools, e.g., Search, the Discussion Group, well enough to look beyond the | |
technology and delve into the content. For more information and access to | |
the project, please visit its web site at: | |
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/projects/dante/ | |
For this Project Gutenberg edition the e-text was rechecked. The editor | |
greatly thanks Dian McCarthy for her assistance in proofreading the | |
Paradiso. Also deserving praise are Herbert Fann for programming the text | |
editor "Desktop Tools/Edit" and the late August Dvorak for designing his | |
keyboard layout. Please refer to Project Gutenberg's e-text listings for | |
other editions or translations of 'The Divine Comedy.' Please refer to | |
the end of this file for supplemental materials. | |
Dennis McCarthy, July 1997 | |
imprimatur@juno.com | |
CONTENTS | |
Paradiso | |
I. The Ascent to the First Heaven. The Sphere of Fire. | |
II. The First Heaven, the Moon: Spirits who, having taken | |
Sacred Vows, were forced to violate them. The Lunar Spots. | |
III. Piccarda Donati and the Empress Constance. | |
IV. Questionings of the Soul and of Broken Vows. | |
V. Discourse of Beatrice on Vows and Compensations. | |
Ascent to the Second Heaven, Mercury: Spirits who for | |
the Love of Fame achieved great Deeds. | |
VI. Justinian. The Roman Eagle. The Empire. Romeo. | |
VII. Beatrice's Discourse of the Crucifixion, the Incarnation, | |
the Immortality of the Soul, and the Resurrection of the Body. | |
VIII. Ascent to the Third Heaven, Venus: Lovers. Charles Martel. | |
Discourse on diverse Natures. | |
IX. Cunizza da Romano, Folco of Marseilles, and Rahab. | |
Neglect of the Holy Land. | |
X. The Fourth Heaven, the Sun: Theologians and Fathers of | |
the Church. The First Circle. St. Thomas of Aquinas. | |
XI. St. Thomas recounts the Life of St. Francis. Lament over | |
the State of the Dominican Order. | |
XII. St. Buonaventura recounts the Life of St. Dominic. Lament | |
over the State of the Franciscan Order. The Second Circle. | |
XIII. Of the Wisdom of Solomon. St. Thomas reproaches | |
Dante's Judgement. | |
XIV. The Third Circle. Discourse on the Resurrection of the Flesh. | |
The Fifth Heaven, Mars: Martyrs and Crusaders who died fighting | |
for the true Faith. The Celestial Cross. | |
XV. Cacciaguida. Florence in the Olden Time. | |
XVI. Dante's Noble Ancestry. Cacciaguida's Discourse of | |
the Great Florentines. | |
XVII. Cacciaguida's Prophecy of Dante's Banishment. | |
XVIII. The Sixth Heaven, Jupiter: Righteous Kings and Rulers. | |
The Celestial Eagle. Dante's Invectives against | |
ecclesiastical Avarice. | |
XIX. The Eagle discourses of Salvation, Faith, and Virtue. | |
Condemnation of the vile Kings of A.D. 1300. | |
XX. The Eagle praises the Righteous Kings of old. | |
Benevolence of the Divine Will. | |
XXI. The Seventh Heaven, Saturn: The Contemplative. | |
The Celestial Stairway. St. Peter Damiano. His Invectives | |
against the Luxury of the Prelates. | |
XXII. St. Benedict. His Lamentation over the Corruption of Monks. | |
The Eighth Heaven, the Fixed Stars. | |
XXIII. The Triumph of Christ. The Virgin Mary. The Apostles. | |
Gabriel. | |
XXIV. The Radiant Wheel. St. Peter examines Dante on Faith. | |
XXV. The Laurel Crown. St. James examines Dante on Hope. | |
Dante's Blindness. | |
XXVI. St. John examines Dante on Charity. Dante's Sight. Adam. | |
XXVII. St. Peter's reproof of bad Popes. The Ascent to | |
the Ninth Heaven, the 'Primum Mobile.' | |
XXVIII. God and the Angelic Hierarchies. | |
XXIX. Beatrice's Discourse of the Creation of the Angels, | |
and of the Fall of Lucifer. Her Reproof of Foolish and | |
Avaricious Preachers. | |
XXX. The Tenth Heaven, or Empyrean. The River of Light. | |
The Two Courts of Heaven. The White Rose of Paradise. | |
The great Throne. | |
XXXI. The Glory of Paradise. Departure of Beatrice. St. Bernard. | |
XXXII. St. Bernard points out the Saints in the White Rose. | |
XXXIII. Prayer to the Virgin. The Threefold Circle of the Trinity. | |
Mystery of the Divine and Human Nature. | |
The Divine Comedy | |
translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | |
(e-text courtesy ILT's Digital Dante Project) | |
PARADISO | |
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. | |
Paradiso: Canto II | |
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." | |
Paradiso: Canto III | |
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. | |
Paradiso: Canto IV | |
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. | |
Paradiso: Canto V | |
"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. | |
Paradiso: Canto VI | |
"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." | |
Paradiso: Canto VII | |
"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." | |
Paradiso: Canto VIII | |
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." | |
Paradiso: Canto IX | |
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." | |
Paradiso: Canto X | |
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. | |
Paradiso: Canto XI | |
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 <DW72> 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 <DW72>, 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.'" | |
Paradiso: Canto XII | |
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." | |
Paradiso: Canto XIII | |
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." | |
Paradiso: Canto XIV | |
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. | |
Paradiso: Canto XV | |
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." | |
Paradiso: Canto XVI | |
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." | |
Paradiso: Canto XVII | |
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." | |
Paradiso: Canto XVIII | |
Now was alone rejoicing in its word | |
That soul beatified, and I was tasting | |
My own, the bitter tempering with the sweet, | |
And the Lady who to God was leading me | |
Said: "Change thy thought; consider that I am | |
Near unto Him who every wrong disburdens." | |
Unto the loving accents of my comfort | |
I turned me round, and then what love I saw | |
Within those holy eyes I here relinquish; | |
Not only that my language I distrust, | |
But that my mind cannot return so far | |
Above itself, unless another guide it. | |
Thus much upon that point can I repeat, | |
That, her again beholding, my affection | |
From every other longing was released. | |
While the eternal pleasure, which direct | |
Rayed upon Beatrice, from her fair face | |
Contented me with its reflected aspect, | |
Conquering me with the radiance of a smile, | |
She said to me, "Turn thee about and listen; | |
Not in mine eyes alone is Paradise." | |
Even as sometimes here do we behold | |
The affection in the look, if it be such | |
That all the soul is wrapt away by it, | |
So, by the flaming of the effulgence holy | |
To which I turned, I recognized therein | |
The wish of speaking to me somewhat farther. | |
And it began: "In this fifth resting-place | |
Upon the tree that liveth by its summit, | |
And aye bears fruit, and never loses leaf, | |
Are blessed spirits that below, ere yet | |
They came to Heaven, were of such great renown | |
That every Muse therewith would affluent be. | |
Therefore look thou upon the cross's horns; | |
He whom I now shall name will there enact | |
What doth within a cloud its own swift fire." | |
I saw athwart the Cross a splendour drawn | |
By naming Joshua, (even as he did it,) | |
Nor noted I the word before the deed; | |
And at the name of the great Maccabee | |
I saw another move itself revolving, | |
And gladness was the whip unto that top. | |
Likewise for Charlemagne and for Orlando, | |
Two of them my regard attentive followed | |
As followeth the eye its falcon flying. | |
William thereafterward, and Renouard, | |
And the Duke Godfrey, did attract my sight | |
Along upon that Cross, and Robert Guiscard. | |
Then, moved and mingled with the other lights, | |
The soul that had addressed me showed how great | |
An artist 'twas among the heavenly singers. | |
To my right side I turned myself around, | |
My duty to behold in Beatrice | |
Either by words or gesture signified; | |
And so translucent I beheld her eyes, | |
So full of pleasure, that her countenance | |
Surpassed its other and its latest wont. | |
And as, by feeling greater delectation, | |
A man in doing good from day to day | |
Becomes aware his virtue is increasing, | |
So I became aware that my gyration | |
With heaven together had increased its arc, | |
That miracle beholding more adorned. | |
And such as is the change, in little lapse | |
Of time, in a pale woman, when her face | |
Is from the load of bashfulness unladen, | |
Such was it in mine eyes, when I had turned, | |
Caused by the whiteness of the temperate star, | |
The sixth, which to itself had gathered me. | |
Within that Jovial torch did I behold | |
The sparkling of the love which was therein | |
Delineate our language to mine eyes. | |
And even as birds uprisen from the shore, | |
As in congratulation o'er their food, | |
Make squadrons of themselves, now round, now long, | |
So from within those lights the holy creatures | |
Sang flying to and fro, and in their figures | |
Made of themselves now D, now I, now L. | |
First singing they to their own music moved; | |
Then one becoming of these characters, | |
A little while they rested and were silent. | |
O divine Pegasea, thou who genius | |
Dost glorious make, and render it long-lived, | |
And this through thee the cities and the kingdoms, | |
Illume me with thyself, that I may bring | |
Their figures out as I have them conceived! | |
Apparent be thy power in these brief verses! | |
Themselves then they displayed in five times seven | |
Vowels and consonants; and I observed | |
The parts as they seemed spoken unto me. | |
'Diligite justitiam,' these were | |
First verb and noun of all that was depicted; | |
'Qui judicatis terram' were the last. | |
Thereafter in the M of the fifth word | |
Remained they so arranged, that Jupiter | |
Seemed to be silver there with gold inlaid. | |
And other lights I saw descend where was | |
The summit of the M, and pause there singing | |
The good, I think, that draws them to itself. | |
Then, as in striking upon burning logs | |
Upward there fly innumerable sparks, | |
Whence fools are wont to look for auguries, | |
More than a thousand lights seemed thence to rise, | |
And to ascend, some more, and others less, | |
Even as the Sun that lights them had allotted; | |
And, each one being quiet in its place, | |
The head and neck beheld I of an eagle | |
Delineated by that inlaid fire. | |
He who there paints has none to be his guide; | |
But Himself guides; and is from Him remembered | |
That virtue which is form unto the nest. | |
The other beatitude, that contented seemed | |
At first to bloom a lily on the M, | |
By a slight motion followed out the imprint. | |
O gentle star! what and how many gems | |
Did demonstrate to me, that all our justice | |
Effect is of that heaven which thou ingemmest! | |
Wherefore I pray the Mind, in which begin | |
Thy motion and thy virtue, to regard | |
Whence comes the smoke that vitiates thy rays; | |
So that a second time it now be wroth | |
With buying and with selling in the temple | |
Whose walls were built with signs and martyrdoms! | |
O soldiery of heaven, whom I contemplate, | |
Implore for those who are upon the earth | |
All gone astray after the bad example! | |
Once 'twas the custom to make war with swords; | |
But now 'tis made by taking here and there | |
The bread the pitying Father shuts from none. | |
Yet thou, who writest but to cancel, think | |
That Peter and that Paul, who for this vineyard | |
Which thou art spoiling died, are still alive! | |
Well canst thou say: "So steadfast my desire | |
Is unto him who willed to live alone, | |
And for a dance was led to martyrdom, | |
That I know not the Fisherman nor Paul." | |
Paradiso: Canto XIX | |
Appeared before me with its wings outspread | |
The beautiful image that in sweet fruition | |
Made jubilant the interwoven souls; | |
Appeared a little ruby each, wherein | |
Ray of the sun was burning so enkindled | |
That each into mine eyes refracted it. | |
And what it now behoves me to retrace | |
Nor voice has e'er reported, nor ink written, | |
Nor was by fantasy e'er comprehended; | |
For speak I saw, and likewise heard, the beak, | |
And utter with its voice both 'I' and 'My,' | |
When in conception it was 'We' and 'Our.' | |
And it began: "Being just and merciful | |
Am I exalted here unto that glory | |
Which cannot be exceeded by desire; | |
And upon earth I left my memory | |
Such, that the evil-minded people there | |
Commend it, but continue not the story." | |
So doth a single heat from many embers | |
Make itself felt, even as from many loves | |
Issued a single sound from out that image. | |
Whence I thereafter: "O perpetual flowers | |
Of the eternal joy, that only one | |
Make me perceive your odours manifold, | |
Exhaling, break within me the great fast | |
Which a long season has in hunger held me, | |
Not finding for it any food on earth. | |
Well do I know, that if in heaven its mirror | |
Justice Divine another realm doth make, | |
Yours apprehends it not through any veil. | |
You know how I attentively address me | |
To listen; and you know what is the doubt | |
That is in me so very old a fast." | |
Even as a falcon, issuing from his hood, | |
Doth move his head, and with his wings applaud him, | |
Showing desire, and making himself fine, | |
Saw I become that standard, which of lauds | |
Was interwoven of the grace divine, | |
With such songs as he knows who there rejoices. | |
Then it began: "He who a compass turned | |
On the world's outer verge, and who within it | |
Devised so much occult and manifest, | |
Could not the impress of his power so make | |
On all the universe, as that his Word | |
Should not remain in infinite excess. | |
And this makes certain that the first proud being, | |
Who was the paragon of every creature, | |
By not awaiting light fell immature. | |
And hence appears it, that each minor nature | |
Is scant receptacle unto that good | |
Which has no end, and by itself is measured. | |
In consequence our vision, which perforce | |
Must be some ray of that intelligence | |
With which all things whatever are replete, | |
Cannot in its own nature be so potent, | |
That it shall not its origin discern | |
Far beyond that which is apparent to it. | |
Therefore into the justice sempiternal | |
The power of vision that your world receives, | |
As eye into the ocean, penetrates; | |
Which, though it see the bottom near the shore, | |
Upon the deep perceives it not, and yet | |
'Tis there, but it is hidden by the depth. | |
There is no light but comes from the serene | |
That never is o'ercast, nay, it is darkness | |
Or shadow of the flesh, or else its poison. | |
Amply to thee is opened now the cavern | |
Which has concealed from thee the living justice | |
Of which thou mad'st such frequent questioning. | |
For saidst thou: 'Born a man is on the shore | |
Of Indus, and is none who there can speak | |
Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write; | |
And all his inclinations and his actions | |
Are good, so far as human reason sees, | |
Without a sin in life or in discourse: | |
He dieth unbaptised and without faith; | |
Where is this justice that condemneth him? | |
Where is his fault, if he do not believe?' | |
Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit | |
In judgment at a thousand miles away, | |
With the short vision of a single span? | |
Truly to him who with me subtilizes, | |
If so the Scripture were not over you, | |
For doubting there were marvellous occasion. | |
O animals terrene, O stolid minds, | |
The primal will, that in itself is good, | |
Ne'er from itself, the Good Supreme, has moved. | |
So much is just as is accordant with it; | |
No good created draws it to itself, | |
But it, by raying forth, occasions that." | |
Even as above her nest goes circling round | |
The stork when she has fed her little ones, | |
And he who has been fed looks up at her, | |
So lifted I my brows, and even such | |
Became the blessed image, which its wings | |
Was moving, by so many counsels urged. | |
Circling around it sang, and said: "As are | |
My notes to thee, who dost not comprehend them, | |
Such is the eternal judgment to you mortals." | |
Those lucent splendours of the Holy Spirit | |
Grew quiet then, but still within the standard | |
That made the Romans reverend to the world. | |
It recommenced: "Unto this kingdom never | |
Ascended one who had not faith in Christ, | |
Before or since he to the tree was nailed. | |
But look thou, many crying are, 'Christ, Christ!' | |
Who at the judgment shall be far less near | |
To him than some shall be who knew not Christ. | |
Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn, | |
When the two companies shall be divided, | |
The one for ever rich, the other poor. | |
What to your kings may not the Persians say, | |
When they that volume opened shall behold | |
In which are written down all their dispraises? | |
There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert, | |
That which ere long shall set the pen in motion, | |
For which the realm of Prague shall be deserted. | |
There shall be seen the woe that on the Seine | |
He brings by falsifying of the coin, | |
Who by the blow of a wild boar shall die. | |
There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst, | |
Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad | |
That they within their boundaries cannot rest; | |
Be seen the luxury and effeminate life | |
Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian, | |
Who valour never knew and never wished; | |
Be seen the <DW36> of Jerusalem, | |
His goodness represented by an I, | |
While the reverse an M shall represent; | |
Be seen the avarice and poltroonery | |
Of him who guards the Island of the Fire, | |
Wherein Anchises finished his long life; | |
And to declare how pitiful he is | |
Shall be his record in contracted letters | |
Which shall make note of much in little space. | |
And shall appear to each one the foul deeds | |
Of uncle and of brother who a nation | |
So famous have dishonoured, and two crowns. | |
And he of Portugal and he of Norway | |
Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too, | |
Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice. | |
O happy Hungary, if she let herself | |
Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy, | |
If with the hills that gird her she be armed! | |
And each one may believe that now, as hansel | |
Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta | |
Lament and rage because of their own beast, | |
Who from the others' flank departeth not." | |
Paradiso: Canto XX | |
When he who all the world illuminates | |
Out of our hemisphere so far descends | |
That on all sides the daylight is consumed, | |
The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled, | |
Doth suddenly reveal itself again | |
By many lights, wherein is one resplendent. | |
And came into my mind this act of heaven, | |
When the ensign of the world and of its leaders | |
Had silent in the blessed beak become; | |
Because those living luminaries all, | |
By far more luminous, did songs begin | |
Lapsing and falling from my memory. | |
O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee, | |
How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear, | |
That had the breath alone of holy thoughts! | |
After the precious and pellucid crystals, | |
With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld, | |
Silence imposed on the angelic bells, | |
I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river | |
That clear descendeth down from rock to rock, | |
Showing the affluence of its mountain-top. | |
And as the sound upon the cithern's neck | |
Taketh its form, and as upon the vent | |
Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it, | |
Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting, | |
That murmuring of the eagle mounted up | |
Along its neck, as if it had been hollow. | |
There it became a voice, and issued thence | |
From out its beak, in such a form of words | |
As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them. | |
"The part in me which sees and bears the sun | |
In mortal eagles," it began to me, | |
"Now fixedly must needs be looked upon; | |
For of the fires of which I make my figure, | |
Those whence the eye doth sparkle in my head | |
Of all their orders the supremest are. | |
He who is shining in the midst as pupil | |
Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit, | |
Who bore the ark from city unto city; | |
Now knoweth he the merit of his song, | |
In so far as effect of his own counsel, | |
By the reward which is commensurate. | |
Of five, that make a circle for my brow, | |
He that approacheth nearest to my beak | |
Did the poor widow for her son console; | |
Now knoweth he how dearly it doth cost | |
Not following Christ, by the experience | |
Of this sweet life and of its opposite. | |
He who comes next in the circumference | |
Of which I speak, upon its highest arc, | |
Did death postpone by penitence sincere; | |
Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment | |
Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer | |
Maketh below to-morrow of to-day. | |
The next who follows, with the laws and me, | |
Under the good intent that bore bad fruit | |
Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor; | |
Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced | |
From his good action is not harmful to him, | |
Although the world thereby may be destroyed. | |
And he, whom in the downward arc thou seest, | |
Guglielmo was, whom the same land deplores | |
That weepeth Charles and Frederick yet alive; | |
Now knoweth he how heaven enamoured is | |
With a just king; and in the outward show | |
Of his effulgence he reveals it still. | |
Who would believe, down in the errant world, | |
That e'er the Trojan Ripheus in this round | |
Could be the fifth one of the holy lights? | |
Now knoweth he enough of what the world | |
Has not the power to see of grace divine, | |
Although his sight may not discern the bottom." | |
Like as a lark that in the air expatiates, | |
First singing and then silent with content | |
Of the last sweetness that doth satisfy her, | |
Such seemed to me the image of the imprint | |
Of the eternal pleasure, by whose will | |
Doth everything become the thing it is. | |
And notwithstanding to my doubt I was | |
As glass is to the colour that invests it, | |
To wait the time in silence it endured not, | |
But forth from out my mouth, "What things are these?" | |
Extorted with the force of its own weight; | |
Whereat I saw great joy of coruscation. | |
Thereafterward with eye still more enkindled | |
The blessed standard made to me reply, | |
To keep me not in wonderment suspended: | |
"I see that thou believest in these things | |
Because I say them, but thou seest not how; | |
So that, although believed in, they are hidden. | |
Thou doest as he doth who a thing by name | |
Well apprehendeth, but its quiddity | |
Cannot perceive, unless another show it. | |
'Regnum coelorum' suffereth violence | |
From fervent love, and from that living hope | |
That overcometh the Divine volition; | |
Not in the guise that man o'ercometh man, | |
But conquers it because it will be conquered, | |
And conquered conquers by benignity. | |
The first life of the eyebrow and the fifth | |
Cause thee astonishment, because with them | |
Thou seest the region of the angels painted. | |
They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest, | |
Gentiles, but Christians in the steadfast faith | |
Of feet that were to suffer and had suffered. | |
For one from Hell, where no one e'er turns back | |
Unto good will, returned unto his bones, | |
And that of living hope was the reward,-- | |
Of living hope, that placed its efficacy | |
In prayers to God made to resuscitate him, | |
So that 'twere possible to move his will. | |
The glorious soul concerning which I speak, | |
Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay, | |
Believed in Him who had the power to aid it; | |
And, in believing, kindled to such fire | |
Of genuine love, that at the second death | |
Worthy it was to come unto this joy. | |
The other one, through grace, that from so deep | |
A fountain wells that never hath the eye | |
Of any creature reached its primal wave, | |
Set all his love below on righteousness; | |
Wherefore from grace to grace did God unclose | |
His eye to our redemption yet to be, | |
Whence he believed therein, and suffered not | |
From that day forth the stench of paganism, | |
And he reproved therefor the folk perverse. | |
Those Maidens three, whom at the right-hand wheel | |
Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptism | |
More than a thousand years before baptizing. | |
O thou predestination, how remote | |
Thy root is from the aspect of all those | |
Who the First Cause do not behold entire! | |
And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrained | |
In judging; for ourselves, who look on God, | |
We do not know as yet all the elect; | |
And sweet to us is such a deprivation, | |
Because our good in this good is made perfect, | |
That whatsoe'er God wills, we also will." | |
After this manner by that shape divine, | |
To make clear in me my short-sightedness, | |
Was given to me a pleasant medicine; | |
And as good singer a good lutanist | |
Accompanies with vibrations of the chords, | |
Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires, | |
So, while it spake, do I remember me | |
That I beheld both of those blessed lights, | |
Even as the winking of the eyes concords, | |
Moving unto the words their little flames. | |
Paradiso: Canto XXI | |
Already on my Lady's face mine eyes | |
Again were fastened, and with these my mind, | |
And from all other purpose was withdrawn; | |
And she smiled not; but "If I were to smile," | |
She unto me began, "thou wouldst become | |
Like Semele, when she was turned to ashes. | |
Because my beauty, that along the stairs | |
Of the eternal palace more enkindles, | |
As thou hast seen, the farther we ascend, | |
If it were tempered not, is so resplendent | |
That all thy mortal power in its effulgence | |
Would seem a leaflet that the thunder crushes. | |
We are uplifted to the seventh splendour, | |
That underneath the burning Lion's breast | |
Now radiates downward mingled with his power. | |
Fix in direction of thine eyes the mind, | |
And make of them a mirror for the figure | |
That in this mirror shall appear to thee." | |
He who could know what was the pasturage | |
My sight had in that blessed countenance, | |
When I transferred me to another care, | |
Would recognize how grateful was to me | |
Obedience unto my celestial escort, | |
By counterpoising one side with the other. | |
Within the crystal which, around the world | |
Revolving, bears the name of its dear leader, | |
Under whom every wickedness lay dead, | |
like gold, on which the sunshine gleams, | |
A stairway I beheld to such a height | |
Uplifted, that mine eye pursued it not. | |
Likewise beheld I down the steps descending | |
So many splendours, that I thought each light | |
That in the heaven appears was there diffused. | |
And as accordant with their natural custom | |
The rooks together at the break of day | |
Bestir themselves to warm their feathers cold; | |
Then some of them fly off without return, | |
Others come back to where they started from, | |
And others, wheeling round, still keep at home; | |
Such fashion it appeared to me was there | |
Within the sparkling that together came, | |
As soon as on a certain step it struck, | |
And that which nearest unto us remained | |
Became so clear, that in my thought I said, | |
"Well I perceive the love thou showest me; | |
But she, from whom I wait the how and when | |
Of speech and silence, standeth still; whence I | |
Against desire do well if I ask not." | |
She thereupon, who saw my silentness | |
In the sight of Him who seeth everything, | |
Said unto me, "Let loose thy warm desire." | |
And I began: "No merit of my own | |
Renders me worthy of response from thee; | |
But for her sake who granteth me the asking, | |
Thou blessed life that dost remain concealed | |
In thy beatitude, make known to me | |
The cause which draweth thee so near my side; | |
And tell me why is silent in this wheel | |
The dulcet symphony of Paradise, | |
That through the rest below sounds so devoutly." | |
"Thou hast thy hearing mortal as thy sight," | |
It answer made to me; "they sing not here, | |
For the same cause that Beatrice has not smiled. | |
Thus far adown the holy stairway's steps | |
Have I descended but to give thee welcome | |
With words, and with the light that mantles me; | |
Nor did more love cause me to be more ready, | |
For love as much and more up there is burning, | |
As doth the flaming manifest to thee. | |
But the high charity, that makes us servants | |
Prompt to the counsel which controls the world, | |
Allotteth here, even as thou dost observe." | |
"I see full well," said I, "O sacred lamp! | |
How love unfettered in this court sufficeth | |
To follow the eternal Providence; | |
But this is what seems hard for me to see, | |
Wherefore predestinate wast thou alone | |
Unto this office from among thy consorts." | |
No sooner had I come to the last word, | |
Than of its middle made the light a centre, | |
Whirling itself about like a swift millstone. | |
When answer made the love that was therein: | |
"On me directed is a light divine, | |
Piercing through this in which I am embosomed, | |
Of which the virtue with my sight conjoined | |
Lifts me above myself so far, I see | |
The supreme essence from which this is drawn. | |
Hence comes the joyfulness with which I flame, | |
For to my sight, as far as it is clear, | |
The clearness of the flame I equal make. | |
But that soul in the heaven which is most pure, | |
That seraph which his eye on God most fixes, | |
Could this demand of thine not satisfy; | |
Because so deeply sinks in the abyss | |
Of the eternal statute what thou askest, | |
From all created sight it is cut off. | |
And to the mortal world, when thou returnest, | |
This carry back, that it may not presume | |
Longer tow'rd such a goal to move its feet. | |
The mind, that shineth here, on earth doth smoke; | |
From this observe how can it do below | |
That which it cannot though the heaven assume it?" | |
Such limit did its words prescribe to me, | |
The question I relinquished, and restricted | |
Myself to ask it humbly who it was. | |
"Between two shores of Italy rise cliffs, | |
And not far distant from thy native place, | |
So high, the thunders far below them sound, | |
And form a ridge that Catria is called, | |
'Neath which is consecrate a hermitage | |
Wont to be dedicate to worship only." | |
Thus unto me the third speech recommenced, | |
And then, continuing, it said: "Therein | |
Unto God's service I became so steadfast, | |
That feeding only on the juice of olives | |
Lightly I passed away the heats and frosts, | |
Contented in my thoughts contemplative. | |
That cloister used to render to these heavens | |
Abundantly, and now is empty grown, | |
So that perforce it soon must be revealed. | |
I in that place was Peter Damiano; | |
And Peter the Sinner was I in the house | |
Of Our Lady on the Adriatic shore. | |
Little of mortal life remained to me, | |
When I was called and dragged forth to the hat | |
Which shifteth evermore from bad to worse. | |
Came Cephas, and the mighty Vessel came | |
Of the Holy Spirit, meagre and barefooted, | |
Taking the food of any hostelry. | |
Now some one to support them on each side | |
The modern shepherds need, and some to lead them, | |
So heavy are they, and to hold their trains. | |
They cover up their palfreys with their cloaks, | |
So that two beasts go underneath one skin; | |
O Patience, that dost tolerate so much!" | |
At this voice saw I many little flames | |
From step to step descending and revolving, | |
And every revolution made them fairer. | |
Round about this one came they and stood still, | |
And a cry uttered of so loud a sound, | |
It here could find no parallel, nor I | |
Distinguished it, the thunder so o'ercame me. | |
Paradiso: Canto XXII | |
Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide | |
Turned like a little child who always runs | |
For refuge there where he confideth most; | |
And she, even as a mother who straightway | |
Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy | |
With voice whose wont it is to reassure him, | |
Said to me: "Knowest thou not thou art in heaven, | |
And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all | |
And what is done here cometh from good zeal? | |
After what wise the singing would have changed thee | |
And I by smiling, thou canst now imagine, | |
Since that the cry has startled thee so much, | |
In which if thou hadst understood its prayers | |
Already would be known to thee the vengeance | |
Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest. | |
The sword above here smiteth not in haste | |
Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him | |
Who fearing or desiring waits for it. | |
But turn thee round towards the others now, | |
For very illustrious spirits shalt thou see, | |
If thou thy sight directest as I say." | |
As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned, | |
And saw a hundred spherules that together | |
With mutual rays each other more embellished. | |
I stood as one who in himself represses | |
The point of his desire, and ventures not | |
To question, he so feareth the too much. | |
And now the largest and most luculent | |
Among those pearls came forward, that it might | |
Make my desire concerning it content. | |
Within it then I heard: "If thou couldst see | |
Even as myself the charity that burns | |
Among us, thy conceits would be expressed; | |
But, that by waiting thou mayst not come late | |
To the high end, I will make answer even | |
Unto the thought of which thou art so chary. | |
That mountain on whose <DW72> Cassino stands | |
Was frequented of old upon its summit | |
By a deluded folk and ill-disposed; | |
And I am he who first up thither bore | |
The name of Him who brought upon the earth | |
The truth that so much sublimateth us. | |
And such abundant grace upon me shone | |
That all the neighbouring towns I drew away | |
From the impious worship that seduced the world. | |
These other fires, each one of them, were men | |
Contemplative, enkindled by that heat | |
Which maketh holy flowers and fruits spring up. | |
Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus, | |
Here are my brethren, who within the cloisters | |
Their footsteps stayed and kept a steadfast heart." | |
And I to him: "The affection which thou showest | |
Speaking with me, and the good countenance | |
Which I behold and note in all your ardours, | |
In me have so my confidence dilated | |
As the sun doth the rose, when it becomes | |
As far unfolded as it hath the power. | |
Therefore I pray, and thou assure me, father, | |
If I may so much grace receive, that I | |
May thee behold with countenance unveiled." | |
He thereupon: "Brother, thy high desire | |
In the remotest sphere shall be fulfilled, | |
Where are fulfilled all others and my own. | |
There perfect is, and ripened, and complete, | |
Every desire; within that one alone | |
Is every part where it has always been; | |
For it is not in space, nor turns on poles, | |
And unto it our stairway reaches up, | |
Whence thus from out thy sight it steals away. | |
Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it | |
Extending its supernal part, what time | |
So thronged with angels it appeared to him. | |
But to ascend it now no one uplifts | |
His feet from off the earth, and now my Rule | |
Below remaineth for mere waste of paper. | |
The walls that used of old to be an Abbey | |
Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls | |
Are sacks filled full of miserable flour. | |
But heavy usury is not taken up | |
So much against God's pleasure as that fruit | |
Which maketh so insane the heart of monks; | |
For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping | |
Is for the folk that ask it in God's name, | |
Not for one's kindred or for something worse. | |
The flesh of mortals is so very soft, | |
That good beginnings down below suffice not | |
From springing of the oak to bearing acorns. | |
Peter began with neither gold nor silver, | |
And I with orison and abstinence, | |
And Francis with humility his convent. | |
And if thou lookest at each one's beginning, | |
And then regardest whither he has run, | |
Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown. | |
In verity the Jordan backward turned, | |
And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more | |
A wonder to behold, than succour here." | |
Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew | |
To his own band, and the band closed together; | |
Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt. | |
The gentle Lady urged me on behind them | |
Up o'er that stairway by a single sign, | |
So did her virtue overcome my nature; | |
Nor here below, where one goes up and down | |
By natural law, was motion e'er so swift | |
That it could be compared unto my wing. | |
Reader, as I may unto that devout | |
Triumph return, on whose account I often | |
For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,-- | |
Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire | |
And drawn it out again, before I saw | |
The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it. | |
O glorious stars, O light impregnated | |
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge | |
All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be, | |
With you was born, and hid himself with you, | |
He who is father of all mortal life, | |
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air; | |
And then when grace was freely given to me | |
To enter the high wheel which turns you round, | |
Your region was allotted unto me. | |
To you devoutly at this hour my soul | |
Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire | |
For the stern pass that draws it to itself. | |
"Thou art so near unto the last salvation," | |
Thus Beatrice began, "thou oughtest now | |
To have thine eves unclouded and acute; | |
And therefore, ere thou enter farther in, | |
Look down once more, and see how vast a world | |
Thou hast already put beneath thy feet; | |
So that thy heart, as jocund as it may, | |
Present itself to the triumphant throng | |
That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether." | |
I with my sight returned through one and all | |
The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe | |
Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance; | |
And that opinion I approve as best | |
Which doth account it least; and he who thinks | |
Of something else may truly be called just. | |
I saw the daughter of Latona shining | |
Without that shadow, which to me was cause | |
That once I had believed her rare and dense. | |
The aspect of thy son, Hyperion, | |
Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves | |
Around and near him Maia and Dione. | |
Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove | |
'Twixt son and father, and to me was clear | |
The change that of their whereabout they make; | |
And all the seven made manifest to me | |
How great they are, and eke how swift they are, | |
And how they are in distant habitations. | |
The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud, | |
To me revolving with the eternal Twins, | |
Was all apparent made from hill to harbour! | |
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned. | |
Paradiso: Canto XXIII | |
Even as a bird, 'mid the beloved leaves, | |
Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood | |
Throughout the night, that hideth all things from us, | |
Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks | |
And find the food wherewith to nourish them, | |
In which, to her, grave labours grateful are, | |
Anticipates the time on open spray | |
And with an ardent longing waits the sun, | |
Gazing intent as soon as breaks the dawn: | |
Even thus my Lady standing was, erect | |
And vigilant, turned round towards the zone | |
Underneath which the sun displays less haste; | |
So that beholding her distraught and wistful, | |
Such I became as he is who desiring | |
For something yearns, and hoping is appeased. | |
But brief the space from one When to the other; | |
Of my awaiting, say I, and the seeing | |
The welkin grow resplendent more and more. | |
And Beatrice exclaimed: "Behold the hosts | |
Of Christ's triumphal march, and all the fruit | |
Harvested by the rolling of these spheres!" | |
It seemed to me her face was all aflame; | |
And eyes she had so full of ecstasy | |
That I must needs pass on without describing. | |
As when in nights serene of the full moon | |
Smiles Trivia among the nymphs eternal | |
Who paint the firmament through all its gulfs, | |
Saw I, above the myriads of lamps, | |
A Sun that one and all of them enkindled, | |
E'en as our own doth the supernal sights, | |
And through the living light transparent shone | |
The lucent substance so intensely clear | |
Into my sight, that I sustained it not. | |
O Beatrice, thou gentle guide and dear! | |
To me she said: "What overmasters thee | |
A virtue is from which naught shields itself. | |
There are the wisdom and the omnipotence | |
That oped the thoroughfares 'twixt heaven and earth, | |
For which there erst had been so long a yearning." | |
As fire from out a cloud unlocks itself, | |
Dilating so it finds not room therein, | |
And down, against its nature, falls to earth, | |
So did my mind, among those aliments | |
Becoming larger, issue from itself, | |
And that which it became cannot remember. | |
"Open thine eyes, and look at what I am: | |
Thou hast beheld such things, that strong enough | |
Hast thou become to tolerate my smile." | |
I was as one who still retains the feeling | |
Of a forgotten vision, and endeavours | |
In vain to bring it back into his mind, | |
When I this invitation heard, deserving | |
Of so much gratitude, it never fades | |
Out of the book that chronicles the past. | |
If at this moment sounded all the tongues | |
That Polyhymnia and her sisters made | |
Most lubrical with their delicious milk, | |
To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth | |
It would not reach, singing the holy smile | |
And how the holy aspect it illumed. | |
And therefore, representing Paradise, | |
The sacred poem must perforce leap over, | |
Even as a man who finds his way cut off; | |
But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme, | |
And of the mortal shoulder laden with it, | |
Should blame it not, if under this it tremble. | |
It is no passage for a little boat | |
This which goes cleaving the audacious prow, | |
Nor for a pilot who would spare himself. | |
"Why doth my face so much enamour thee, | |
That to the garden fair thou turnest not, | |
Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming? | |
There is the Rose in which the Word Divine | |
Became incarnate; there the lilies are | |
By whose perfume the good way was discovered." | |
Thus Beatrice; and I, who to her counsels | |
Was wholly ready, once again betook me | |
Unto the battle of the feeble brows. | |
As in the sunshine, that unsullied streams | |
Through fractured cloud, ere now a meadow of flowers | |
Mine eyes with shadow covered o'er have seen, | |
So troops of splendours manifold I saw | |
Illumined from above with burning rays, | |
Beholding not the source of the effulgence. | |
O power benignant that dost so imprint them! | |
Thou didst exalt thyself to give more scope | |
There to mine eyes, that were not strong enough. | |
The name of that fair flower I e'er invoke | |
Morning and evening utterly enthralled | |
My soul to gaze upon the greater fire. | |
And when in both mine eyes depicted were | |
The glory and greatness of the living star | |
Which there excelleth, as it here excelled, | |
Athwart the heavens a little torch descended | |
Formed in a circle like a coronal, | |
And cinctured it, and whirled itself about it. | |
Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth | |
On earth, and to itself most draws the soul, | |
Would seem a cloud that, rent asunder, thunders, | |
Compared unto the sounding of that lyre | |
Wherewith was crowned the sapphire beautiful, | |
Which gives the clearest heaven its sapphire hue. | |
"I am Angelic Love, that circle round | |
The joy sublime which breathes from out the womb | |
That was the hostelry of our Desire; | |
And I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while | |
Thou followest thy Son, and mak'st diviner | |
The sphere supreme, because thou enterest there." | |
Thus did the circulated melody | |
Seal itself up; and all the other lights | |
Were making to resound the name of Mary. | |
The regal mantle of the volumes all | |
Of that world, which most fervid is and living | |
With breath of God and with his works and ways, | |
Extended over us its inner border, | |
So very distant, that the semblance of it | |
There where I was not yet appeared to me. | |
Therefore mine eyes did not possess the power | |
Of following the incoronated flame, | |
Which mounted upward near to its own seed. | |
And as a little child, that towards its mother | |
Stretches its arms, when it the milk has taken, | |
Through impulse kindled into outward flame, | |
Each of those gleams of whiteness upward reached | |
So with its summit, that the deep affection | |
They had for Mary was revealed to me. | |
Thereafter they remained there in my sight, | |
'Regina coeli' singing with such sweetness, | |
That ne'er from me has the delight departed. | |
O, what exuberance is garnered up | |
Within those richest coffers, which had been | |
Good husbandmen for sowing here below! | |
There they enjoy and live upon the treasure | |
Which was acquired while weeping in the exile | |
Of Babylon, wherein the gold was left. | |
There triumpheth, beneath the exalted Son | |
Of God and Mary, in his victory, | |
Both with the ancient council and the new, | |
He who doth keep the keys of such a glory. | |
Paradiso: Canto XXIV | |
"O company elect to the great supper | |
Of the Lamb benedight, who feedeth you | |
So that for ever full is your desire, | |
If by the grace of God this man foretaste | |
Something of that which falleth from your table, | |
Or ever death prescribe to him the time, | |
Direct your mind to his immense desire, | |
And him somewhat bedew; ye drinking are | |
For ever at the fount whence comes his thought." | |
Thus Beatrice; and those souls beatified | |
Transformed themselves to spheres on steadfast poles, | |
Flaming intensely in the guise of comets. | |
And as the wheels in works of horologes | |
Revolve so that the first to the beholder | |
Motionless seems, and the last one to fly, | |
So in like manner did those carols, dancing | |
In different measure, of their affluence | |
Give me the gauge, as they were swift or slow. | |
From that one which I noted of most beauty | |
Beheld I issue forth a fire so happy | |
That none it left there of a greater brightness; | |
And around Beatrice three several times | |
It whirled itself with so divine a song, | |
My fantasy repeats it not to me; | |
Therefore the pen skips, and I write it not, | |
Since our imagination for such folds, | |
Much more our speech, is of a tint too glaring. | |
"O holy sister mine, who us implorest | |
With such devotion, by thine ardent love | |
Thou dost unbind me from that beautiful sphere!" | |
Thereafter, having stopped, the blessed fire | |
Unto my Lady did direct its breath, | |
Which spake in fashion as I here have said. | |
And she: "O light eterne of the great man | |
To whom our Lord delivered up the keys | |
He carried down of this miraculous joy, | |
This one examine on points light and grave, | |
As good beseemeth thee, about the Faith | |
By means of which thou on the sea didst walk. | |
If he love well, and hope well, and believe, | |
From thee 'tis hid not; for thou hast thy sight | |
There where depicted everything is seen. | |
But since this kingdom has made citizens | |
By means of the true Faith, to glorify it | |
'Tis well he have the chance to speak thereof." | |
As baccalaureate arms himself, and speaks not | |
Until the master doth propose the question, | |
To argue it, and not to terminate it, | |
So did I arm myself with every reason, | |
While she was speaking, that I might be ready | |
For such a questioner and such profession. | |
"Say, thou good Christian; manifest thyself; | |
What is the Faith?" Whereat I raised my brow | |
Unto that light wherefrom was this breathed forth. | |
Then turned I round to Beatrice, and she | |
Prompt signals made to me that I should pour | |
The water forth from my internal fountain. | |
"May grace, that suffers me to make confession," | |
Began I, "to the great centurion, | |
Cause my conceptions all to be explicit!" | |
And I continued: "As the truthful pen, | |
Father, of thy dear brother wrote of it, | |
Who put with thee Rome into the good way, | |
Faith is the substance of the things we hope for, | |
And evidence of those that are not seen; | |
And this appears to me its quiddity." | |
Then heard I: "Very rightly thou perceivest, | |
If well thou understandest why he placed it | |
With substances and then with evidences." | |
And I thereafterward: "The things profound, | |
That here vouchsafe to me their apparition, | |
Unto all eyes below are so concealed, | |
That they exist there only in belief, | |
Upon the which is founded the high hope, | |
And hence it takes the nature of a substance. | |
And it behoveth us from this belief | |
To reason without having other sight, | |
And hence it has the nature of evidence." | |
Then heard I: "If whatever is acquired | |
Below by doctrine were thus understood, | |
No sophist's subtlety would there find place." | |
Thus was breathed forth from that enkindled love; | |
Then added: "Very well has been gone over | |
Already of this coin the alloy and weight; | |
But tell me if thou hast it in thy purse?" | |
And I: "Yes, both so shining and so round | |
That in its stamp there is no peradventure." | |
Thereafter issued from the light profound | |
That there resplendent was: "This precious jewel, | |
Upon the which is every virtue founded, | |
Whence hadst thou it?" And I: "The large outpouring | |
Of Holy Spirit, which has been diffused | |
Upon the ancient parchments and the new, | |
A syllogism is, which proved it to me | |
With such acuteness, that, compared therewith, | |
All demonstration seems to me obtuse." | |
And then I heard: "The ancient and the new | |
Postulates, that to thee are so conclusive, | |
Why dost thou take them for the word divine?" | |
And I: "The proofs, which show the truth to me, | |
Are the works subsequent, whereunto Nature | |
Ne'er heated iron yet, nor anvil beat." | |
'Twas answered me: "Say, who assureth thee | |
That those works ever were? the thing itself | |
That must be proved, nought else to thee affirms it." | |
"Were the world to Christianity converted," | |
I said, "withouten miracles, this one | |
Is such, the rest are not its hundredth part; | |
Because that poor and fasting thou didst enter | |
Into the field to sow there the good plant, | |
Which was a vine and has become a thorn!" | |
This being finished, the high, holy Court | |
Resounded through the spheres, "One God we praise!" | |
In melody that there above is chanted. | |
And then that Baron, who from branch to branch, | |
Examining, had thus conducted me, | |
Till the extremest leaves we were approaching, | |
Again began: "The Grace that dallying | |
Plays with thine intellect thy mouth has opened, | |
Up to this point, as it should opened be, | |
So that I do approve what forth emerged; | |
But now thou must express what thou believest, | |
And whence to thy belief it was presented." | |
"O holy father, spirit who beholdest | |
What thou believedst so that thou o'ercamest, | |
Towards the sepulchre, more youthful feet," | |
Began I, "thou dost wish me in this place | |
The form to manifest of my prompt belief, | |
And likewise thou the cause thereof demandest. | |
And I respond: In one God I believe, | |
Sole and eterne, who moveth all the heavens | |
With love and with desire, himself unmoved; | |
And of such faith not only have I proofs | |
Physical and metaphysical, but gives them | |
Likewise the truth that from this place rains down | |
Through Moses, through the Prophets and the Psalms, | |
Through the Evangel, and through you, who wrote | |
After the fiery Spirit sanctified you; | |
In Persons three eterne believe, and these | |
One essence I believe, so one and trine | |
They bear conjunction both with 'sunt' and 'est.' | |
With the profound condition and divine | |
Which now I touch upon, doth stamp my mind | |
Ofttimes the doctrine evangelical. | |
This the beginning is, this is the spark | |
Which afterwards dilates to vivid flame, | |
And, like a star in heaven, is sparkling in me." | |
Even as a lord who hears what pleaseth him | |
His servant straight embraces, gratulating | |
For the good news as soon as he is silent; | |
So, giving me its benediction, singing, | |
Three times encircled me, when I was silent, | |
The apostolic light, at whose command | |
I spoken had, in speaking I so pleased him. | |
Paradiso: Canto XXV | |
If e'er it happen that the Poem Sacred, | |
To which both heaven and earth have set their hand, | |
So that it many a year hath made me lean, | |
O'ercome the cruelty that bars me out | |
From the fair sheepfold, where a lamb I slumbered, | |
An enemy to the wolves that war upon it, | |
With other voice forthwith, with other fleece | |
Poet will I return, and at my font | |
Baptismal will I take the laurel crown; | |
Because into the Faith that maketh known | |
All souls to God there entered I, and then | |
Peter for her sake thus my brow encircled. | |
Thereafterward towards us moved a light | |
Out of that band whence issued the first-fruits | |
Which of his vicars Christ behind him left, | |
And then my Lady, full of ecstasy, | |
Said unto me: "Look, look! behold the Baron | |
For whom below Galicia is frequented." | |
In the same way as, when a dove alights | |
Near his companion, both of them pour forth, | |
Circling about and murmuring, their affection, | |
So one beheld I by the other grand | |
Prince glorified to be with welcome greeted, | |
Lauding the food that there above is eaten. | |
But when their gratulations were complete, | |
Silently 'coram me' each one stood still, | |
So incandescent it o'ercame my sight. | |
Smiling thereafterwards, said Beatrice: | |
"Illustrious life, by whom the benefactions | |
Of our Basilica have been described, | |
Make Hope resound within this altitude; | |
Thou knowest as oft thou dost personify it | |
As Jesus to the three gave greater clearness."-- | |
"Lift up thy head, and make thyself assured; | |
For what comes hither from the mortal world | |
Must needs be ripened in our radiance." | |
This comfort came to me from the second fire; | |
Wherefore mine eyes I lifted to the hills, | |
Which bent them down before with too great weight. | |
"Since, through his grace, our Emperor wills that thou | |
Shouldst find thee face to face, before thy death, | |
In the most secret chamber, with his Counts, | |
So that, the truth beholden of this court, | |
Hope, which below there rightfully enamours, | |
Thereby thou strengthen in thyself and others, | |
Say what it is, and how is flowering with it | |
Thy mind, and say from whence it came to thee." | |
Thus did the second light again continue. | |
And the Compassionate, who piloted | |
The plumage of my wings in such high flight, | |
Did in reply anticipate me thus: | |
"No child whatever the Church Militant | |
Of greater hope possesses, as is written | |
In that Sun which irradiates all our band; | |
Therefore it is conceded him from Egypt | |
To come into Jerusalem to see, | |
Or ever yet his warfare be completed. | |
The two remaining points, that not for knowledge | |
Have been demanded, but that he report | |
How much this virtue unto thee is pleasing, | |
To him I leave; for hard he will not find them, | |
Nor of self-praise; and let him answer them; | |
And may the grace of God in this assist him!" | |
As a disciple, who his teacher follows, | |
Ready and willing, where he is expert, | |
That his proficiency may be displayed, | |
"Hope," said I, "is the certain expectation | |
Of future glory, which is the effect | |
Of grace divine and merit precedent. | |
From many stars this light comes unto me; | |
But he instilled it first into my heart | |
Who was chief singer unto the chief captain. | |
'Sperent in te,' in the high Theody | |
He sayeth, 'those who know thy name;' and who | |
Knoweth it not, if he my faith possess? | |
Thou didst instil me, then, with his instilling | |
In the Epistle, so that I am full, | |
And upon others rain again your rain." | |
While I was speaking, in the living bosom | |
Of that combustion quivered an effulgence, | |
Sudden and frequent, in the guise of lightning; | |
Then breathed: "The love wherewith I am inflamed | |
Towards the virtue still which followed me | |
Unto the palm and issue of the field, | |
Wills that I breathe to thee that thou delight | |
In her; and grateful to me is thy telling | |
Whatever things Hope promises to thee." | |
And I: "The ancient Scriptures and the new | |
The mark establish, and this shows it me, | |
Of all the souls whom God hath made his friends. | |
Isaiah saith, that each one garmented | |
In his own land shall be with twofold garments, | |
And his own land is this delightful life. | |
Thy brother, too, far more explicitly, | |
There where he treateth of the robes of white, | |
This revelation manifests to us." | |
And first, and near the ending of these words, | |
"Sperent in te" from over us was heard, | |
To which responsive answered all the carols. | |
Thereafterward a light among them brightened, | |
So that, if Cancer one such crystal had, | |
Winter would have a month of one sole day. | |
And as uprises, goes, and enters the dance | |
A winsome maiden, only to do honour | |
To the new bride, and not from any failing, | |
Even thus did I behold the brightened splendour | |
Approach the two, who in a wheel revolved | |
As was beseeming to their ardent love. | |
Into the song and music there it entered; | |
And fixed on them my Lady kept her look, | |
Even as a bride silent and motionless. | |
"This is the one who lay upon the breast | |
Of him our Pelican; and this is he | |
To the great office from the cross elected." | |
My Lady thus; but therefore none the more | |
Did move her sight from its attentive gaze | |
Before or afterward these words of hers. | |
Even as a man who gazes, and endeavours | |
To see the eclipsing of the sun a little, | |
And who, by seeing, sightless doth become, | |
So I became before that latest fire, | |
While it was said, "Why dost thou daze thyself | |
To see a thing which here hath no existence? | |
Earth in the earth my body is, and shall be | |
With all the others there, until our number | |
With the eternal proposition tallies. | |
With the two garments in the blessed cloister | |
Are the two lights alone that have ascended: | |
And this shalt thou take back into your world." | |
And at this utterance the flaming circle | |
Grew quiet, with the dulcet intermingling | |
Of sound that by the trinal breath was made, | |
As to escape from danger or fatigue | |
The oars that erst were in the water beaten | |
Are all suspended at a whistle's sound. | |
Ah, how much in my mind was I disturbed, | |
When I turned round to look on Beatrice, | |
That her I could not see, although I was | |
Close at her side and in the Happy World! | |
Paradiso: Canto XXVI | |
While I was doubting for my vision quenched, | |
Out of the flame refulgent that had quenched it | |
Issued a breathing, that attentive made me, | |
Saying: "While thou recoverest the sense | |
Of seeing which in me thou hast consumed, | |
'Tis well that speaking thou shouldst compensate it. | |
Begin then, and declare to what thy soul | |
Is aimed, and count it for a certainty, | |
Sight is in thee bewildered and not dead; | |
Because the Lady, who through this divine | |
Region conducteth thee, has in her look | |
The power the hand of Ananias had." | |
I said: "As pleaseth her, or soon or late | |
Let the cure come to eyes that portals were | |
When she with fire I ever burn with entered. | |
The Good, that gives contentment to this Court, | |
The Alpha and Omega is of all | |
The writing that love reads me low or loud." | |
The selfsame voice, that taken had from me | |
The terror of the sudden dazzlement, | |
To speak still farther put it in my thought; | |
And said: "In verity with finer sieve | |
Behoveth thee to sift; thee it behoveth | |
To say who aimed thy bow at such a target." | |
And I: "By philosophic arguments, | |
And by authority that hence descends, | |
Such love must needs imprint itself in me; | |
For Good, so far as good, when comprehended | |
Doth straight enkindle love, and so much greater | |
As more of goodness in itself it holds; | |
Then to that Essence (whose is such advantage | |
That every good which out of it is found | |
Is nothing but a ray of its own light) | |
More than elsewhither must the mind be moved | |
Of every one, in loving, who discerns | |
The truth in which this evidence is founded. | |
Such truth he to my intellect reveals | |
Who demonstrates to me the primal love | |
Of all the sempiternal substances. | |
The voice reveals it of the truthful Author, | |
Who says to Moses, speaking of Himself, | |
'I will make all my goodness pass before thee.' | |
Thou too revealest it to me, beginning | |
The loud Evangel, that proclaims the secret | |
Of heaven to earth above all other edict." | |
And I heard say: "By human intellect | |
And by authority concordant with it, | |
Of all thy loves reserve for God the highest. | |
But say again if other cords thou feelest, | |
Draw thee towards Him, that thou mayst proclaim | |
With how many teeth this love is biting thee." | |
The holy purpose of the Eagle of Christ | |
Not latent was, nay, rather I perceived | |
Whither he fain would my profession lead. | |
Therefore I recommenced: "All of those bites | |
Which have the power to turn the heart to God | |
Unto my charity have been concurrent. | |
The being of the world, and my own being, | |
The death which He endured that I may live, | |
And that which all the faithful hope, as I do, | |
With the forementioned vivid consciousness | |
Have drawn me from the sea of love perverse, | |
And of the right have placed me on the shore. | |
The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the garden | |
Of the Eternal Gardener, do I love | |
As much as he has granted them of good." | |
As soon as I had ceased, a song most sweet | |
Throughout the heaven resounded, and my Lady | |
Said with the others, "Holy, holy, holy!" | |
And as at some keen light one wakes from sleep | |
By reason of the visual spirit that runs | |
Unto the splendour passed from coat to coat, | |
And he who wakes abhorreth what he sees, | |
So all unconscious is his sudden waking, | |
Until the judgment cometh to his aid, | |
So from before mine eyes did Beatrice | |
Chase every mote with radiance of her own, | |
That cast its light a thousand miles and more. | |
Whence better after than before I saw, | |
And in a kind of wonderment I asked | |
About a fourth light that I saw with us. | |
And said my Lady: "There within those rays | |
Gazes upon its Maker the first soul | |
That ever the first virtue did create." | |
Even as the bough that downward bends its top | |
At transit of the wind, and then is lifted | |
By its own virtue, which inclines it upward, | |
Likewise did I, the while that she was speaking, | |
Being amazed, and then I was made bold | |
By a desire to speak wherewith I burned. | |
And I began: "O apple, that mature | |
Alone hast been produced, O ancient father, | |
To whom each wife is daughter and daughter-in-law, | |
Devoutly as I can I supplicate thee | |
That thou wouldst speak to me; thou seest my wish; | |
And I, to hear thee quickly, speak it not." | |
Sometimes an animal, when covered, struggles | |
So that his impulse needs must be apparent, | |
By reason of the wrappage following it; | |
And in like manner the primeval soul | |
Made clear to me athwart its covering | |
How jubilant it was to give me pleasure. | |
Then breathed: "Without thy uttering it to me, | |
Thine inclination better I discern | |
Than thou whatever thing is surest to thee; | |
For I behold it in the truthful mirror, | |
That of Himself all things parhelion makes, | |
And none makes Him parhelion of itself. | |
Thou fain wouldst hear how long ago God placed me | |
Within the lofty garden, where this Lady | |
Unto so long a stairway thee disposed. | |
And how long to mine eyes it was a pleasure, | |
And of the great disdain the proper cause, | |
And the language that I used and that I made. | |
Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree | |
Not in itself was cause of so great exile, | |
But solely the o'erstepping of the bounds. | |
There, whence thy Lady moved Virgilius, | |
Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits | |
Made by the sun, this Council I desired; | |
And him I saw return to all the lights | |
Of his highway nine hundred times and thirty, | |
Whilst I upon the earth was tarrying. | |
The language that I spake was quite extinct | |
Before that in the work interminable | |
The people under Nimrod were employed; | |
For nevermore result of reasoning | |
(Because of human pleasure that doth change, | |
Obedient to the heavens) was durable. | |
A natural action is it that man speaks; | |
But whether thus or thus, doth nature leave | |
To your own art, as seemeth best to you. | |
Ere I descended to the infernal anguish, | |
'El' was on earth the name of the Chief Good, | |
From whom comes all the joy that wraps me round | |
'Eli' he then was called, and that is proper, | |
Because the use of men is like a leaf | |
On bough, which goeth and another cometh. | |
Upon the mount that highest o'er the wave | |
Rises was I, in life or pure or sinful, | |
From the first hour to that which is the second, | |
As the sun changes quadrant, to the sixth." | |
Paradiso: Canto XXVII | |
"Glory be to the Father, to the Son, | |
And Holy Ghost!" all Paradise began, | |
So that the melody inebriate made me. | |
What I beheld seemed unto me a smile | |
Of the universe; for my inebriation | |
Found entrance through the hearing and the sight. | |
O joy! O gladness inexpressible! | |
O perfect life of love and peacefulness! | |
O riches without hankering secure! | |
Before mine eyes were standing the four torches | |
Enkindled, and the one that first had come | |
Began to make itself more luminous; | |
And even such in semblance it became | |
As Jupiter would become, if he and Mars | |
Were birds, and they should interchange their feathers. | |
That Providence, which here distributeth | |
Season and service, in the blessed choir | |
Had silence upon every side imposed. | |
When I heard say: "If I my colour change, | |
Marvel not at it; for while I am speaking | |
Thou shalt behold all these their colour change. | |
He who usurps upon the earth my place, | |
My place, my place, which vacant has become | |
Before the presence of the Son of God, | |
Has of my cemetery made a sewer | |
Of blood and stench, whereby the Perverse One, | |
Who fell from here, below there is appeased!" | |
With the same colour which, through sun adverse, | |
Painteth the clouds at evening or at morn, | |
Beheld I then the whole of heaven suffused. | |
And as a modest woman, who abides | |
Sure of herself, and at another's failing, | |
From listening only, timorous becomes, | |
Even thus did Beatrice change countenance; | |
And I believe in heaven was such eclipse, | |
When suffered the supreme Omnipotence; | |
Thereafterward proceeded forth his words | |
With voice so much transmuted from itself, | |
The very countenance was not more changed. | |
"The spouse of Christ has never nurtured been | |
On blood of mine, of Linus and of Cletus, | |
To be made use of in acquest of gold; | |
But in acquest of this delightful life | |
Sixtus and Pius, Urban and Calixtus, | |
After much lamentation, shed their blood. | |
Our purpose was not, that on the right hand | |
Of our successors should in part be seated | |
The Christian folk, in part upon the other; | |
Nor that the keys which were to me confided | |
Should e'er become the escutcheon on a banner, | |
That should wage war on those who are baptized; | |
Nor I be made the figure of a seal | |
To privileges venal and mendacious, | |
Whereat I often redden and flash with fire. | |
In garb of shepherds the rapacious wolves | |
Are seen from here above o'er all the pastures! | |
O wrath of God, why dost thou slumber still? | |
To drink our blood the Caorsines and Gascons | |
Are making ready. O thou good beginning, | |
Unto how vile an end must thou needs fall! | |
But the high Providence, that with Scipio | |
At Rome the glory of the world defended, | |
Will speedily bring aid, as I conceive; | |
And thou, my son, who by thy mortal weight | |
Shalt down return again, open thy mouth; | |
What I conceal not, do not thou conceal." | |
As with its frozen vapours downward falls | |
In flakes our atmosphere, what time the horn | |
Of the celestial Goat doth touch the sun, | |
Upward in such array saw I the ether | |
Become, and flaked with the triumphant vapours, | |
Which there together with us had remained. | |
My sight was following up their semblances, | |
And followed till the medium, by excess, | |
The passing farther onward took from it; | |
Whereat the Lady, who beheld me freed | |
From gazing upward, said to me: "Cast down | |
Thy sight, and see how far thou art turned round." | |
Since the first time that I had downward looked, | |
I saw that I had moved through the whole arc | |
Which the first climate makes from midst to end; | |
So that I saw the mad track of Ulysses | |
Past Gades, and this side, well nigh the shore | |
Whereon became Europa a sweet burden. | |
And of this threshing-floor the site to me | |
Were more unveiled, but the sun was proceeding | |
Under my feet, a sign and more removed. | |
My mind enamoured, which is dallying | |
At all times with my Lady, to bring back | |
To her mine eyes was more than ever ardent. | |
And if or Art or Nature has made bait | |
To catch the eyes and so possess the mind, | |
In human flesh or in its portraiture, | |
All joined together would appear as nought | |
To the divine delight which shone upon me | |
When to her smiling face I turned me round. | |
The virtue that her look endowed me with | |
From the fair nest of Leda tore me forth, | |
And up into the swiftest heaven impelled me. | |
Its parts exceeding full of life and lofty | |
Are all so uniform, I cannot say | |
Which Beatrice selected for my place. | |
But she, who was aware of my desire, | |
Began, the while she smiled so joyously | |
That God seemed in her countenance to rejoice: | |
"The nature of that motion, which keeps quiet | |
The centre and all the rest about it moves, | |
From hence begins as from its starting point. | |
And in this heaven there is no other Where | |
Than in the Mind Divine, wherein is kindled | |
The love that turns it, and the power it rains. | |
Within a circle light and love embrace it, | |
Even as this doth the others, and that precinct | |
He who encircles it alone controls. | |
Its motion is not by another meted, | |
But all the others measured are by this, | |
As ten is by the half and by the fifth. | |
And in what manner time in such a pot | |
May have its roots, and in the rest its leaves, | |
Now unto thee can manifest be made. | |
O Covetousness, that mortals dost ingulf | |
Beneath thee so, that no one hath the power | |
Of drawing back his eyes from out thy waves! | |
Full fairly blossoms in mankind the will; | |
But the uninterrupted rain converts | |
Into abortive wildings the true plums. | |
Fidelity and innocence are found | |
Only in children; afterwards they both | |
Take flight or e'er the cheeks with down are covered. | |
One, while he prattles still, observes the fasts, | |
Who, when his tongue is loosed, forthwith devours | |
Whatever food under whatever moon; | |
Another, while he prattles, loves and listens | |
Unto his mother, who when speech is perfect | |
Forthwith desires to see her in her grave. | |
Even thus is swarthy made the skin so white | |
In its first aspect of the daughter fair | |
Of him who brings the morn, and leaves the night. | |
Thou, that it may not be a marvel to thee, | |
Think that on earth there is no one who governs; | |
Whence goes astray the human family. | |
Ere January be unwintered wholly | |
By the centesimal on earth neglected, | |
Shall these supernal circles roar so loud | |
The tempest that has been so long awaited | |
Shall whirl the poops about where are the prows; | |
So that the fleet shall run its course direct, | |
And the true fruit shall follow on the flower." | |
Paradiso: Canto XXVIII | |
After the truth against the present life | |
Of miserable mortals was unfolded | |
By her who doth imparadise my mind, | |
As in a looking-glass a taper's flame | |
He sees who from behind is lighted by it, | |
Before he has it in his sight or thought, | |
And turns him round to see if so the glass | |
Tell him the truth, and sees that it accords | |
Therewith as doth a music with its metre, | |
In similar wise my memory recollecteth | |
That I did, looking into those fair eyes, | |
Of which Love made the springes to ensnare me. | |
And as I turned me round, and mine were touched | |
By that which is apparent in that volume, | |
Whenever on its gyre we gaze intent, | |
A point beheld I, that was raying out | |
Light so acute, the sight which it enkindles | |
Must close perforce before such great acuteness. | |
And whatsoever star seems smallest here | |
Would seem to be a moon, if placed beside it. | |
As one star with another star is placed. | |
Perhaps at such a distance as appears | |
A halo cincturing the light that paints it, | |
When densest is the vapour that sustains it, | |
Thus distant round the point a circle of fire | |
So swiftly whirled, that it would have surpassed | |
Whatever motion soonest girds the world; | |
And this was by another circumcinct, | |
That by a third, the third then by a fourth, | |
By a fifth the fourth, and then by a sixth the fifth; | |
The seventh followed thereupon in width | |
So ample now, that Juno's messenger | |
Entire would be too narrow to contain it. | |
Even so the eighth and ninth; and every one | |
More slowly moved, according as it was | |
In number distant farther from the first. | |
And that one had its flame most crystalline | |
From which less distant was the stainless spark, | |
I think because more with its truth imbued. | |
My Lady, who in my anxiety | |
Beheld me much perplexed, said: "From that point | |
Dependent is the heaven and nature all. | |
Behold that circle most conjoined to it, | |
And know thou, that its motion is so swift | |
Through burning love whereby it is spurred on." | |
And I to her: "If the world were arranged | |
In the order which I see in yonder wheels, | |
What's set before me would have satisfied me; | |
But in the world of sense we can perceive | |
That evermore the circles are diviner | |
As they are from the centre more remote | |
Wherefore if my desire is to be ended | |
In this miraculous and angelic temple, | |
That has for confines only love and light, | |
To hear behoves me still how the example | |
And the exemplar go not in one fashion, | |
Since for myself in vain I contemplate it." | |
"If thine own fingers unto such a knot | |
Be insufficient, it is no great wonder, | |
So hard hath it become for want of trying." | |
My Lady thus; then said she: "Do thou take | |
What I shall tell thee, if thou wouldst be sated, | |
And exercise on that thy subtlety. | |
The circles corporal are wide and narrow | |
According to the more or less of virtue | |
Which is distributed through all their parts. | |
The greater goodness works the greater weal, | |
The greater weal the greater body holds, | |
If perfect equally are all its parts. | |
Therefore this one which sweeps along with it | |
The universe sublime, doth correspond | |
Unto the circle which most loves and knows. | |
On which account, if thou unto the virtue | |
Apply thy measure, not to the appearance | |
Of substances that unto thee seem round, | |
Thou wilt behold a marvellous agreement, | |
Of more to greater, and of less to smaller, | |
In every heaven, with its Intelligence." | |
Even as remaineth splendid and serene | |
The hemisphere of air, when Boreas | |
Is blowing from that cheek where he is mildest, | |
Because is purified and resolved the rack | |
That erst disturbed it, till the welkin laughs | |
With all the beauties of its pageantry; | |
Thus did I likewise, after that my Lady | |
Had me provided with her clear response, | |
And like a star in heaven the truth was seen. | |
And soon as to a stop her words had come, | |
Not otherwise does iron scintillate | |
When molten, than those circles scintillated. | |
Their coruscation all the sparks repeated, | |
And they so many were, their number makes | |
More millions than the doubling of the chess. | |
I heard them sing hosanna choir by choir | |
To the fixed point which holds them at the 'Ubi,' | |
And ever will, where they have ever been. | |
And she, who saw the dubious meditations | |
Within my mind, "The primal circles," said, | |
"Have shown thee Seraphim and Cherubim. | |
Thus rapidly they follow their own bonds, | |
To be as like the point as most they can, | |
And can as far as they are high in vision. | |
Those other Loves, that round about them go, | |
Thrones of the countenance divine are called, | |
Because they terminate the primal Triad. | |
And thou shouldst know that they all have delight | |
As much as their own vision penetrates | |
The Truth, in which all intellect finds rest. | |
From this it may be seen how blessedness | |
Is founded in the faculty which sees, | |
And not in that which loves, and follows next; | |
And of this seeing merit is the measure, | |
Which is brought forth by grace, and by good will; | |
Thus on from grade to grade doth it proceed. | |
The second Triad, which is germinating | |
In such wise in this sempiternal spring, | |
That no nocturnal Aries despoils, | |
Perpetually hosanna warbles forth | |
With threefold melody, that sounds in three | |
Orders of joy, with which it is intrined. | |
The three Divine are in this hierarchy, | |
First the Dominions, and the Virtues next; | |
And the third order is that of the Powers. | |
Then in the dances twain penultimate | |
The Principalities and Archangels wheel; | |
The last is wholly of angelic sports. | |
These orders upward all of them are gazing, | |
And downward so prevail, that unto God | |
They all attracted are and all attract. | |
And Dionysius with so great desire | |
To contemplate these Orders set himself, | |
He named them and distinguished them as I do. | |
But Gregory afterwards dissented from him; | |
Wherefore, as soon as he unclosed his eyes | |
Within this heaven, he at himself did smile. | |
And if so much of secret truth a mortal | |
Proffered on earth, I would not have thee marvel, | |
For he who saw it here revealed it to him, | |
With much more of the truth about these circles." | |
Paradiso: Canto XXIX | |
At what time both the children of Latona, | |
Surmounted by the Ram and by the Scales, | |
Together make a zone of the horizon, | |
As long as from the time the zenith holds them | |
In equipoise, till from that girdle both | |
Changing their hemisphere disturb the balance, | |
So long, her face depicted with a smile, | |
Did Beatrice keep silence while she gazed | |
Fixedly at the point which had o'ercome me. | |
Then she began: "I say, and I ask not | |
What thou dost wish to hear, for I have seen it | |
Where centres every When and every 'Ubi.' | |
Not to acquire some good unto himself, | |
Which is impossible, but that his splendour | |
In its resplendency may say, 'Subsisto,' | |
In his eternity outside of time, | |
Outside all other limits, as it pleased him, | |
Into new Loves the Eternal Love unfolded. | |
Nor as if torpid did he lie before; | |
For neither after nor before proceeded | |
The going forth of God upon these waters. | |
Matter and Form unmingled and conjoined | |
Came into being that had no defect, | |
E'en as three arrows from a three-stringed bow. | |
And as in glass, in amber, or in crystal | |
A sunbeam flashes so, that from its coming | |
To its full being is no interval, | |
So from its Lord did the triform effect | |
Ray forth into its being all together, | |
Without discrimination of beginning. | |
Order was con-created and constructed | |
In substances, and summit of the world | |
Were those wherein the pure act was produced. | |
Pure potentiality held the lowest part; | |
Midway bound potentiality with act | |
Such bond that it shall never be unbound. | |
Jerome has written unto you of angels | |
Created a long lapse of centuries | |
Or ever yet the other world was made; | |
But written is this truth in many places | |
By writers of the Holy Ghost, and thou | |
Shalt see it, if thou lookest well thereat. | |
And even reason seeth it somewhat, | |
For it would not concede that for so long | |
Could be the motors without their perfection. | |
Now dost thou know both where and when these Loves | |
Created were, and how; so that extinct | |
In thy desire already are three fires. | |
Nor could one reach, in counting, unto twenty | |
So swiftly, as a portion of these angels | |
Disturbed the subject of your elements. | |
The rest remained, and they began this art | |
Which thou discernest, with so great delight | |
That never from their circling do they cease. | |
The occasion of the fall was the accursed | |
Presumption of that One, whom thou hast seen | |
By all the burden of the world constrained. | |
Those whom thou here beholdest modest were | |
To recognise themselves as of that goodness | |
Which made them apt for so much understanding; | |
On which account their vision was exalted | |
By the enlightening grace and their own merit, | |
So that they have a full and steadfast will. | |
I would not have thee doubt, but certain be, | |
'Tis meritorious to receive this grace, | |
According as the affection opens to it. | |
Now round about in this consistory | |
Much mayst thou contemplate, if these my words | |
Be gathered up, without all further aid. | |
But since upon the earth, throughout your schools, | |
They teach that such is the angelic nature | |
That it doth hear, and recollect, and will, | |
More will I say, that thou mayst see unmixed | |
The truth that is confounded there below, | |
Equivocating in such like prelections. | |
These substances, since in God's countenance | |
They jocund were, turned not away their sight | |
From that wherefrom not anything is hidden; | |
Hence they have not their vision intercepted | |
By object new, and hence they do not need | |
To recollect, through interrupted thought. | |
So that below, not sleeping, people dream, | |
Believing they speak truth, and not believing; | |
And in the last is greater sin and shame. | |
Below you do not journey by one path | |
Philosophising; so transporteth you | |
Love of appearance and the thought thereof. | |
And even this above here is endured | |
With less disdain, than when is set aside | |
The Holy Writ, or when it is distorted. | |
They think not there how much of blood it costs | |
To sow it in the world, and how he pleases | |
Who in humility keeps close to it. | |
Each striveth for appearance, and doth make | |
His own inventions; and these treated are | |
By preachers, and the Evangel holds its peace. | |
One sayeth that the moon did backward turn, | |
In the Passion of Christ, and interpose herself | |
So that the sunlight reached not down below; | |
And lies; for of its own accord the light | |
Hid itself; whence to Spaniards and to Indians, | |
As to the Jews, did such eclipse respond. | |
Florence has not so many Lapi and Bindi | |
As fables such as these, that every year | |
Are shouted from the pulpit back and forth, | |
In such wise that the lambs, who do not know, | |
Come back from pasture fed upon the wind, | |
And not to see the harm doth not excuse them. | |
Christ did not to his first disciples say, | |
'Go forth, and to the world preach idle tales,' | |
But unto them a true foundation gave; | |
And this so loudly sounded from their lips, | |
That, in the warfare to enkindle Faith, | |
They made of the Evangel shields and lances. | |
Now men go forth with jests and drolleries | |
To preach, and if but well the people laugh, | |
The hood puffs out, and nothing more is asked. | |
But in the cowl there nestles such a bird, | |
That, if the common people were to see it, | |
They would perceive what pardons they confide in, | |
For which so great on earth has grown the folly, | |
That, without proof of any testimony, | |
To each indulgence they would flock together. | |
By this Saint Anthony his pig doth fatten, | |
And many others, who are worse than pigs, | |
Paying in money without mark of coinage. | |
But since we have digressed abundantly, | |
Turn back thine eyes forthwith to the right path, | |
So that the way be shortened with the time. | |
This nature doth so multiply itself | |
In numbers, that there never yet was speech | |
Nor mortal fancy that can go so far. | |
And if thou notest that which is revealed | |
By Daniel, thou wilt see that in his thousands | |
Number determinate is kept concealed. | |
The primal light, that all irradiates it, | |
By modes as many is received therein, | |
As are the splendours wherewith it is mated. | |
Hence, inasmuch as on the act conceptive | |
The affection followeth, of love the sweetness | |
Therein diversely fervid is or tepid. | |
The height behold now and the amplitude | |
Of the eternal power, since it hath made | |
Itself so many mirrors, where 'tis broken, | |
One in itself remaining as before." | |
Paradiso: Canto XXX | |
Perchance six thousand miles remote from us | |
Is glowing the sixth hour, and now this world | |
Inclines its shadow almost to a level, | |
When the mid-heaven begins to make itself | |
So deep to us, that here and there a star | |
Ceases to shine so far down as this depth, | |
And as advances bright exceedingly | |
The handmaid of the sun, the heaven is closed | |
Light after light to the most beautiful; | |
Not otherwise the Triumph, which for ever | |
Plays round about the point that vanquished me, | |
Seeming enclosed by what itself encloses, | |
Little by little from my vision faded; | |
Whereat to turn mine eyes on Beatrice | |
My seeing nothing and my love constrained me. | |
If what has hitherto been said of her | |
Were all concluded in a single praise, | |
Scant would it be to serve the present turn. | |
Not only does the beauty I beheld | |
Transcend ourselves, but truly I believe | |
Its Maker only may enjoy it all. | |
Vanquished do I confess me by this passage | |
More than by problem of his theme was ever | |
O'ercome the comic or the tragic poet; | |
For as the sun the sight that trembles most, | |
Even so the memory of that sweet smile | |
My mind depriveth of its very self. | |
From the first day that I beheld her face | |
In this life, to the moment of this look, | |
The sequence of my song has ne'er been severed; | |
But now perforce this sequence must desist | |
From following her beauty with my verse, | |
As every artist at his uttermost. | |
Such as I leave her to a greater fame | |
Than any of my trumpet, which is bringing | |
Its arduous matter to a final close, | |
With voice and gesture of a perfect leader | |
She recommenced: "We from the greatest body | |
Have issued to the heaven that is pure light; | |
Light intellectual replete with love, | |
Love of true good replete with ecstasy, | |
Ecstasy that transcendeth every sweetness. | |
Here shalt thou see the one host and the other | |
Of Paradise, and one in the same aspects | |
Which at the final judgment thou shalt see." | |
Even as a sudden lightning that disperses | |
The visual spirits, so that it deprives | |
The eye of impress from the strongest objects, | |
Thus round about me flashed a living light, | |
And left me swathed around with such a veil | |
Of its effulgence, that I nothing saw. | |
"Ever the Love which quieteth this heaven | |
Welcomes into itself with such salute, | |
To make the candle ready for its flame." | |
No sooner had within me these brief words | |
An entrance found, than I perceived myself | |
To be uplifted over my own power, | |
And I with vision new rekindled me, | |
Such that no light whatever is so pure | |
But that mine eyes were fortified against it. | |
And light I saw in fashion of a river | |
Fulvid with its effulgence, 'twixt two banks | |
Depicted with an admirable Spring. | |
Out of this river issued living sparks, | |
And on all sides sank down into the flowers, | |
Like unto rubies that are set in gold; | |
And then, as if inebriate with the odours, | |
They plunged again into the wondrous torrent, | |
And as one entered issued forth another. | |
"The high desire, that now inflames and moves thee | |
To have intelligence of what thou seest, | |
Pleaseth me all the more, the more it swells. | |
But of this water it behoves thee drink | |
Before so great a thirst in thee be slaked." | |
Thus said to me the sunshine of mine eyes; | |
And added: "The river and the topazes | |
Going in and out, and the laughing of the herbage, | |
Are of their truth foreshadowing prefaces; | |
Not that these things are difficult in themselves, | |
But the deficiency is on thy side, | |
For yet thou hast not vision so exalted." | |
There is no babe that leaps so suddenly | |
With face towards the milk, if he awake | |
Much later than his usual custom is, | |
As I did, that I might make better mirrors | |
Still of mine eyes, down stooping to the wave | |
Which flows that we therein be better made. | |
And even as the penthouse of mine eyelids | |
Drank of it, it forthwith appeared to me | |
Out of its length to be transformed to round. | |
Then as a folk who have been under masks | |
Seem other than before, if they divest | |
The semblance not their own they disappeared in, | |
Thus into greater pomp were changed for me | |
The flowerets and the sparks, so that I saw | |
Both of the Courts of Heaven made manifest. | |
O splendour of God! by means of which I saw | |
The lofty triumph of the realm veracious, | |
Give me the power to say how it I saw! | |
There is a light above, which visible | |
Makes the Creator unto every creature, | |
Who only in beholding Him has peace, | |
And it expands itself in circular form | |
To such extent, that its circumference | |
Would be too large a girdle for the sun. | |
The semblance of it is all made of rays | |
Reflected from the top of Primal Motion, | |
Which takes therefrom vitality and power. | |
And as a hill in water at its base | |
Mirrors itself, as if to see its beauty | |
When affluent most in verdure and in flowers, | |
So, ranged aloft all round about the light, | |
Mirrored I saw in more ranks than a thousand | |
All who above there have from us returned. | |
And if the lowest row collect within it | |
So great a light, how vast the amplitude | |
Is of this Rose in its extremest leaves! | |
My vision in the vastness and the height | |
Lost not itself, but comprehended all | |
The quantity and quality of that gladness. | |
There near and far nor add nor take away; | |
For there where God immediately doth govern, | |
The natural law in naught is relevant. | |
Into the yellow of the Rose Eternal | |
That spreads, and multiplies, and breathes an odour | |
Of praise unto the ever-vernal Sun, | |
As one who silent is and fain would speak, | |
Me Beatrice drew on, and said: "Behold | |
Of the white stoles how vast the convent is! | |
Behold how vast the circuit of our city! | |
Behold our seats so filled to overflowing, | |
That here henceforward are few people wanting! | |
On that great throne whereon thine eyes are fixed | |
For the crown's sake already placed upon it, | |
Before thou suppest at this wedding feast | |
Shall sit the soul (that is to be Augustus | |
On earth) of noble Henry, who shall come | |
To redress Italy ere she be ready. | |
Blind covetousness, that casts its spell upon you, | |
Has made you like unto the little child, | |
Who dies of hunger and drives off the nurse. | |
And in the sacred forum then shall be | |
A Prefect such, that openly or covert | |
On the same road he will not walk with him. | |
But long of God he will not be endured | |
In holy office; he shall be thrust down | |
Where Simon Magus is for his deserts, | |
And make him of Alagna lower go!" | |
Paradiso: Canto XXXI | |
In fashion then as of a snow-white rose | |
Displayed itself to me the saintly host, | |
Whom Christ in his own blood had made his bride, | |
But the other host, that flying sees and sings | |
The glory of Him who doth enamour it, | |
And the goodness that created it so noble, | |
Even as a swarm of bees, that sinks in flowers | |
One moment, and the next returns again | |
To where its labour is to sweetness turned, | |
Sank into the great flower, that is adorned | |
With leaves so many, and thence reascended | |
To where its love abideth evermore. | |
Their faces had they all of living flame, | |
And wings of gold, and all the rest so white | |
No snow unto that limit doth attain. | |
From bench to bench, into the flower descending, | |
They carried something of the peace and ardour | |
Which by the fanning of their flanks they won. | |
Nor did the interposing 'twixt the flower | |
And what was o'er it of such plenitude | |
Of flying shapes impede the sight and splendour; | |
Because the light divine so penetrates | |
The universe, according to its merit, | |
That naught can be an obstacle against it. | |
This realm secure and full of gladsomeness, | |
Crowded with ancient people and with modern, | |
Unto one mark had all its look and love. | |
O Trinal Light, that in a single star | |
Sparkling upon their sight so satisfies them, | |
Look down upon our tempest here below! | |
If the barbarians, coming from some region | |
That every day by Helice is covered, | |
Revolving with her son whom she delights in, | |
Beholding Rome and all her noble works, | |
Were wonder-struck, what time the Lateran | |
Above all mortal things was eminent,-- | |
I who to the divine had from the human, | |
From time unto eternity, had come, | |
From Florence to a people just and sane, | |
With what amazement must I have been filled! | |
Truly between this and the joy, it was | |
My pleasure not to hear, and to be mute. | |
And as a pilgrim who delighteth him | |
In gazing round the temple of his vow, | |
And hopes some day to retell how it was, | |
So through the living light my way pursuing | |
Directed I mine eyes o'er all the ranks, | |
Now up, now down, and now all round about. | |
Faces I saw of charity persuasive, | |
Embellished by His light and their own smile, | |
And attitudes adorned with every grace. | |
The general form of Paradise already | |
My glance had comprehended as a whole, | |
In no part hitherto remaining fixed, | |
And round I turned me with rekindled wish | |
My Lady to interrogate of things | |
Concerning which my mind was in suspense. | |
One thing I meant, another answered me; | |
I thought I should see Beatrice, and saw | |
An Old Man habited like the glorious people. | |
O'erflowing was he in his eyes and cheeks | |
With joy benign, in attitude of pity | |
As to a tender father is becoming. | |
And "She, where is she?" instantly I said; | |
Whence he: "To put an end to thy desire, | |
Me Beatrice hath sent from mine own place. | |
And if thou lookest up to the third round | |
Of the first rank, again shalt thou behold her | |
Upon the throne her merits have assigned her." | |
Without reply I lifted up mine eyes, | |
And saw her, as she made herself a crown | |
Reflecting from herself the eternal rays. | |
Not from that region which the highest thunders | |
Is any mortal eye so far removed, | |
In whatsoever sea it deepest sinks, | |
As there from Beatrice my sight; but this | |
Was nothing unto me; because her image | |
Descended not to me by medium blurred. | |
"O Lady, thou in whom my hope is strong, | |
And who for my salvation didst endure | |
In Hell to leave the imprint of thy feet, | |
Of whatsoever things I have beheld, | |
As coming from thy power and from thy goodness | |
I recognise the virtue and the grace. | |
Thou from a slave hast brought me unto freedom, | |
By all those ways, by all the expedients, | |
Whereby thou hadst the power of doing it. | |
Preserve towards me thy magnificence, | |
So that this soul of mine, which thou hast healed, | |
Pleasing to thee be loosened from the body." | |
Thus I implored; and she, so far away, | |
Smiled, as it seemed, and looked once more at me; | |
Then unto the eternal fountain turned. | |
And said the Old Man holy: "That thou mayst | |
Accomplish perfectly thy journeying, | |
Whereunto prayer and holy love have sent me, | |
Fly with thine eyes all round about this garden; | |
For seeing it will discipline thy sight | |
Farther to mount along the ray divine. | |
And she, the Queen of Heaven, for whom I burn | |
Wholly with love, will grant us every grace, | |
Because that I her faithful Bernard am." | |
As he who peradventure from Croatia | |
Cometh to gaze at our Veronica, | |
Who through its ancient fame is never sated, | |
But says in thought, the while it is displayed, | |
"My Lord, Christ Jesus, God of very God, | |
Now was your semblance made like unto this?" | |
Even such was I while gazing at the living | |
Charity of the man, who in this world | |
By contemplation tasted of that peace. | |
"Thou son of grace, this jocund life," began he, | |
"Will not be known to thee by keeping ever | |
Thine eyes below here on the lowest place; | |
But mark the circles to the most remote, | |
Until thou shalt behold enthroned the Queen | |
To whom this realm is subject and devoted." | |
I lifted up mine eyes, and as at morn | |
The oriental part of the horizon | |
Surpasses that wherein the sun goes down, | |
Thus, as if going with mine eyes from vale | |
To mount, I saw a part in the remoteness | |
Surpass in splendour all the other front. | |
And even as there where we await the pole | |
That Phaeton drove badly, blazes more | |
The light, and is on either side diminished, | |
So likewise that pacific oriflamme | |
Gleamed brightest in the centre, and each side | |
In equal measure did the flame abate. | |
And at that centre, with their wings expanded, | |
More than a thousand jubilant Angels saw I, | |
Each differing in effulgence and in kind. | |
I saw there at their sports and at their songs | |
A beauty smiling, which the gladness was | |
Within the eyes of all the other saints; | |
And if I had in speaking as much wealth | |
As in imagining, I should not dare | |
To attempt the smallest part of its delight. | |
Bernard, as soon as he beheld mine eyes | |
Fixed and intent upon its fervid fervour, | |
His own with such affection turned to her | |
That it made mine more ardent to behold. | |
Paradiso: Canto XXXII | |
Absorbed in his delight, that contemplator | |
Assumed the willing office of a teacher, | |
And gave beginning to these holy words: | |
"The wound that Mary closed up and anointed, | |
She at her feet who is so beautiful, | |
She is the one who opened it and pierced it. | |
Within that order which the third seats make | |
Is seated Rachel, lower than the other, | |
With Beatrice, in manner as thou seest. | |
Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and her who was | |
Ancestress of the Singer, who for dole | |
Of the misdeed said, 'Miserere mei,' | |
Canst thou behold from seat to seat descending | |
Down in gradation, as with each one's name | |
I through the Rose go down from leaf to leaf. | |
And downward from the seventh row, even as | |
Above the same, succeed the Hebrew women, | |
Dividing all the tresses of the flower; | |
Because, according to the view which Faith | |
In Christ had taken, these are the partition | |
By which the sacred stairways are divided. | |
Upon this side, where perfect is the flower | |
With each one of its petals, seated are | |
Those who believed in Christ who was to come. | |
Upon the other side, where intersected | |
With vacant spaces are the semicircles, | |
Are those who looked to Christ already come. | |
And as, upon this side, the glorious seat | |
Of the Lady of Heaven, and the other seats | |
Below it, such a great division make, | |
So opposite doth that of the great John, | |
Who, ever holy, desert and martyrdom | |
Endured, and afterwards two years in Hell. | |
And under him thus to divide were chosen | |
Francis, and Benedict, and Augustine, | |
And down to us the rest from round to round. | |
Behold now the high providence divine; | |
For one and other aspect of the Faith | |
In equal measure shall this garden fill. | |
And know that downward from that rank which cleaves | |
Midway the sequence of the two divisions, | |
Not by their proper merit are they seated; | |
But by another's under fixed conditions; | |
For these are spirits one and all assoiled | |
Before they any true election had. | |
Well canst thou recognise it in their faces, | |
And also in their voices puerile, | |
If thou regard them well and hearken to them. | |
Now doubtest thou, and doubting thou art silent; | |
But I will loosen for thee the strong bond | |
In which thy subtile fancies hold thee fast. | |
Within the amplitude of this domain | |
No casual point can possibly find place, | |
No more than sadness can, or thirst, or hunger; | |
For by eternal law has been established | |
Whatever thou beholdest, so that closely | |
The ring is fitted to the finger here. | |
And therefore are these people, festinate | |
Unto true life, not 'sine causa' here | |
More and less excellent among themselves. | |
The King, by means of whom this realm reposes | |
In so great love and in so great delight | |
That no will ventureth to ask for more, | |
In his own joyous aspect every mind | |
Creating, at his pleasure dowers with grace | |
Diversely; and let here the effect suffice. | |
And this is clearly and expressly noted | |
For you in Holy Scripture, in those twins | |
Who in their mother had their anger roused. | |
According to the colour of the hair, | |
Therefore, with such a grace the light supreme | |
Consenteth that they worthily be crowned. | |
Without, then, any merit of their deeds, | |
Stationed are they in different gradations, | |
Differing only in their first acuteness. | |
'Tis true that in the early centuries, | |
With innocence, to work out their salvation | |
Sufficient was the faith of parents only. | |
After the earlier ages were completed, | |
Behoved it that the males by circumcision | |
Unto their innocent wings should virtue add; | |
But after that the time of grace had come | |
Without the baptism absolute of Christ, | |
Such innocence below there was retained. | |
Look now into the face that unto Christ | |
Hath most resemblance; for its brightness only | |
Is able to prepare thee to see Christ." | |
On her did I behold so great a gladness | |
Rain down, borne onward in the holy minds | |
Created through that altitude to fly, | |
That whatsoever I had seen before | |
Did not suspend me in such admiration, | |
Nor show me such similitude of God. | |
And the same Love that first descended there, | |
"Ave Maria, gratia plena," singing, | |
In front of her his wings expanded wide. | |
Unto the canticle divine responded | |
From every part the court beatified, | |
So that each sight became serener for it. | |
"O holy father, who for me endurest | |
To be below here, leaving the sweet place | |
In which thou sittest by eternal lot, | |
Who is the Angel that with so much joy | |
Into the eyes is looking of our Queen, | |
Enamoured so that he seems made of fire?" | |
Thus I again recourse had to the teaching | |
Of that one who delighted him in Mary | |
As doth the star of morning in the sun. | |
And he to me: "Such gallantry and grace | |
As there can be in Angel and in soul, | |
All is in him; and thus we fain would have it; | |
Because he is the one who bore the palm | |
Down unto Mary, when the Son of God | |
To take our burden on himself decreed. | |
But now come onward with thine eyes, as I | |
Speaking shall go, and note the great patricians | |
Of this most just and merciful of empires. | |
Those two that sit above there most enrapture | |
As being very near unto Augusta, | |
Are as it were the two roots of this Rose. | |
He who upon the left is near her placed | |
The father is, by whose audacious taste | |
The human species so much bitter tastes. | |
Upon the right thou seest that ancient father | |
Of Holy Church, into whose keeping Christ | |
The keys committed of this lovely flower. | |
And he who all the evil days beheld, | |
Before his death, of her the beauteous bride | |
Who with the spear and with the nails was won, | |
Beside him sits, and by the other rests | |
That leader under whom on manna lived | |
The people ingrate, fickle, and stiff-necked. | |
Opposite Peter seest thou Anna seated, | |
So well content to look upon her daughter, | |
Her eyes she moves not while she sings Hosanna. | |
And opposite the eldest household father | |
Lucia sits, she who thy Lady moved | |
When to rush downward thou didst bend thy brows. | |
But since the moments of thy vision fly, | |
Here will we make full stop, as a good tailor | |
Who makes the gown according to his cloth, | |
And unto the first Love will turn our eyes, | |
That looking upon Him thou penetrate | |
As far as possible through his effulgence. | |
Truly, lest peradventure thou recede, | |
Moving thy wings believing to advance, | |
By prayer behoves it that grace be obtained; | |
Grace from that one who has the power to aid thee; | |
And thou shalt follow me with thy affection | |
That from my words thy heart turn not aside." | |
And he began this holy orison. | |
Paradiso: Canto XXXIII | |
"Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, | |
Humble and high beyond all other creature, | |
The limit fixed of the eternal counsel, | |
Thou art the one who such nobility | |
To human nature gave, that its Creator | |
Did not disdain to make himself its creature. | |
Within thy womb rekindled was the love, | |
By heat of which in the eternal peace | |
After such wise this flower has germinated. | |
Here unto us thou art a noonday torch | |
Of charity, and below there among mortals | |
Thou art the living fountain-head of hope. | |
Lady, thou art so great, and so prevailing, | |
That he who wishes grace, nor runs to thee, | |
His aspirations without wings would fly. | |
Not only thy benignity gives succour | |
To him who asketh it, but oftentimes | |
Forerunneth of its own accord the asking. | |
In thee compassion is, in thee is pity, | |
In thee magnificence; in thee unites | |
Whate'er of goodness is in any creature. | |
Now doth this man, who from the lowest depth | |
Of the universe as far as here has seen | |
One after one the spiritual lives, | |
Supplicate thee through grace for so much power | |
That with his eyes he may uplift himself | |
Higher towards the uttermost salvation. | |
And I, who never burned for my own seeing | |
More than I do for his, all of my prayers | |
Proffer to thee, and pray they come not short, | |
That thou wouldst scatter from him every cloud | |
Of his mortality so with thy prayers, | |
That the Chief Pleasure be to him displayed. | |
Still farther do I pray thee, Queen, who canst | |
Whate'er thou wilt, that sound thou mayst preserve | |
After so great a vision his affections. | |
Let thy protection conquer human movements; | |
See Beatrice and all the blessed ones | |
My prayers to second clasp their hands to thee!" | |
The eyes beloved and revered of God, | |
Fastened upon the speaker, showed to us | |
How grateful unto her are prayers devout; | |
Then unto the Eternal Light they turned, | |
On which it is not credible could be | |
By any creature bent an eye so clear. | |
And I, who to the end of all desires | |
Was now approaching, even as I ought | |
The ardour of desire within me ended. | |
Bernard was beckoning unto me, and smiling, | |
That I should upward look; but I already | |
Was of my own accord such as he wished; | |
Because my sight, becoming purified, | |
Was entering more and more into the ray | |
Of the High Light which of itself is true. | |
From that time forward what I saw was greater | |
Than our discourse, that to such vision yields, | |
And yields the memory unto such excess. | |
Even as he is who seeth in a dream, | |
And after dreaming the imprinted passion | |
Remains, and to his mind the rest returns not, | |
Even such am I, for almost utterly | |
Ceases my vision, and distilleth yet | |
Within my heart the sweetness born of it; | |
Even thus the snow is in the sun unsealed, | |
Even thus upon the wind in the light leaves | |
Were the soothsayings of the Sibyl lost. | |
O Light Supreme, that dost so far uplift thee | |
From the conceits of mortals, to my mind | |
Of what thou didst appear re-lend a little, | |
And make my tongue of so great puissance, | |
That but a single sparkle of thy glory | |
It may bequeath unto the future people; | |
For by returning to my memory somewhat, | |
And by a little sounding in these verses, | |
More of thy victory shall be conceived! | |
I think the keenness of the living ray | |
Which I endured would have bewildered me, | |
If but mine eyes had been averted from it; | |
And I remember that I was more bold | |
On this account to bear, so that I joined | |
My aspect with the Glory Infinite. | |
O grace abundant, by which I presumed | |
To fix my sight upon the Light Eternal, | |
So that the seeing I consumed therein! | |
I saw that in its depth far down is lying | |
Bound up with love together in one volume, | |
What through the universe in leaves is scattered; | |
Substance, and accident, and their operations, | |
All interfused together in such wise | |
That what I speak of is one simple light. | |
The universal fashion of this knot | |
Methinks I saw, since more abundantly | |
In saying this I feel that I rejoice. | |
One moment is more lethargy to me, | |
Than five and twenty centuries to the emprise | |
That startled Neptune with the shade of Argo! | |
My mind in this wise wholly in suspense, | |
Steadfast, immovable, attentive gazed, | |
And evermore with gazing grew enkindled. | |
In presence of that light one such becomes, | |
That to withdraw therefrom for other prospect | |
It is impossible he e'er consent; | |
Because the good, which object is of will, | |
Is gathered all in this, and out of it | |
That is defective which is perfect there. | |
Shorter henceforward will my language fall | |
Of what I yet remember, than an infant's | |
Who still his tongue doth moisten at the breast. | |
Not because more than one unmingled semblance | |
Was in the living light on which I looked, | |
For it is always what it was before; | |
But through the sight, that fortified itself | |
In me by looking, one appearance only | |
To me was ever changing as I changed. | |
Within the deep and luminous subsistence | |
Of the High Light appeared to me three circles, | |
Of threefold colour and of one dimension, | |
And by the second seemed the first reflected | |
As Iris is by Iris, and the third | |
Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed. | |
O how all speech is feeble and falls short | |
Of my conceit, and this to what I saw | |
Is such, 'tis not enough to call it little! | |
O Light Eterne, sole in thyself that dwellest, | |
Sole knowest thyself, and, known unto thyself | |
And knowing, lovest and smilest on thyself! | |
That circulation, which being thus conceived | |
Appeared in thee as a reflected light, | |
When somewhat contemplated by mine eyes, | |
Within itself, of its own very colour | |
Seemed to me painted with our effigy, | |
Wherefore my sight was all absorbed therein. | |
As the geometrician, who endeavours | |
To square the circle, and discovers not, | |
By taking thought, the principle he wants, | |
Even such was I at that new apparition; | |
I wished to see how the image to the circle | |
Conformed itself, and how it there finds place; | |
But my own wings were not enough for this, | |
Had it not been that then my mind there smote | |
A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish. | |
Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy: | |
But now was turning my desire and will, | |
Even as a wheel that equally is moved, | |
The Love which moves the sun and the other stars. | |
APPENDIX | |
SIX SONNETS ON DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY | |
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882) | |
I | |
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door | |
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, | |
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet | |
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor | |
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er; | |
Far off the noises of the world retreat; | |
The loud vociferations of the street | |
Become an undistinguishable roar. | |
So, as I enter here from day to day, | |
And leave my burden at this minster gate, | |
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, | |
The tumult of the time disconsolate | |
To inarticulate murmurs dies away, | |
While the eternal ages watch and wait. | |
II | |
How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers! | |
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves | |
Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves | |
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers, | |
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers! | |
But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves | |
Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, | |
And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers! | |
Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain, | |
What exultations trampling on despair, | |
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, | |
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, | |
Uprose this poem of the earth and air, | |
This mediaeval miracle of song! | |
III | |
I enter, and I see thee in the gloom | |
Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine! | |
And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine. | |
The air is filled with some unknown perfume; | |
The congregation of the dead make room | |
For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine; | |
Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine, | |
The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb. | |
From the confessionals I hear arise | |
Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies, | |
And lamentations from the crypts below | |
And then a voice celestial that begins | |
With the pathetic words, "Although your sins | |
As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow." | |
IV | |
With snow-white veil, and garments as of flame, | |
She stands before thee, who so long ago | |
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe | |
From which thy song in all its splendors came; | |
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name, | |
The ice about thy heart melts as the snow | |
On mountain heights, and in swift overflow | |
Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame. | |
Thou makest full confession; and a gleam | |
As of the dawn on some dark forest cast, | |
Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase; | |
Lethe and Eunoe--the remembered dream | |
And the forgotten sorrow--bring at last | |
That perfect pardon which is perfect peace. | |
V | |
I Lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze | |
With forms of saints and holy men who died, | |
Here martyred and hereafter glorified; | |
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays | |
Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays, | |
With splendor upon splendor multiplied; | |
And Beatrice again at Dante's side | |
No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise. | |
And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs | |
Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love | |
And benedictions of the Holy Ghost; | |
And the melodious bells among the spires | |
O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above | |
Proclaim the elevation of the Host! | |
VI | |
O star of morning and of liberty! | |
O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines | |
Above the darkness of the Apennines, | |
Forerunner of the day that is to be! | |
The voices of the city and the sea, | |
The voices of the mountains and the pines, | |
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines | |
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy! | |
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights, | |
Through all the nations; and a sound is heard, | |
As of a mighty wind, and men devout, | |
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes, | |
In their own language hear thy wondrous word, | |
And many are amazed and many doubt. | |
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 | |
imprimatur@juno.com | |
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 | |
characters, used occasionally in the original, have been transcribed | |
into 7-bit 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 Dante's Paradise [Divine Comedy] | |
as translanted by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | |