wiles of his cruel step-dame, so must even thou depart out of Florence.
Such is the wish, such this very moment the plot, and soon will it be
the deed, of those, the business of whose lives is to make a traffic of
Christ with Rome. Thou shalt quit every thing that is dearest to thee
in the world. That is the first arrow shot from the bow of exile. Thou
shalt experience how salt is the taste of bread eaten at the expense of
others; how hard is the going up and down others' stairs. But what shall
most bow thee down, is the worthless and disgusting company with whom
thy lot must be partaken; for they shall all turn against thee, the
whole mad, heartless, and ungrateful set. Nevertheless, it shall not be
long first, before themselves, and not thou, shall have cause to hang
down their heads for shame. The brutishness of all they do, will shew
how well it became thee to be of no party, but the party of thyself.[20]
"Thy first refuge thou shalt owe to the courtesy of the great Lombard,
who bears the Ladder charged with the Holy Bird.[21] So benignly
shall he regard thee, that in the matter of asking and receiving, the
customary order of things shall be reversed between you two, and the
gift anticipate the request. With him thou shalt behold the mortal, born
under so strong an influence of this our star, that the nations shall
take note of him. They are not aware of him yet, by reason
of his tender age; but ere the Gascon practise on the great
Henry, sparkles of his worth shall break forth in his contempt
of money and of ease; and when his munificence appears in all
its lustre, his very enemies shall not be able to hold their
tongues for admiration.[22] Look thou to this second benefactor
also; for many a change of the lots of people shall he make, both rich
and poor; and do thou bear in mind, but repeat not, what further I shall
now tell thee of thy life." Here the spirit, says the poet,
foretold things which afterwards appeared incredible to their very
beholders;--and then added: "Such, my son, is the heart and mystery of
the things thou hast desired to learn. The snares will shortly gather
about thee; but wish not to change places with the contrivers; for thy
days will outlast those of their retribution."
Again was the spirit silent; and yet again once more did his descendant
question him, anxious to have the advice of one that saw so far, and
that spoke the truth so purely, and loved him so well.
"Too plainly, my father," said Dante, "do I see the time coming, when a
blow is to be struck me, heaviest ever to the man that is not true to
himself. For which reason it is fit that I so far arm myself beforehand,
that in losing the spot dearest to me on earth, I do not let my verses
deprive me of every other refuge. Now I have been down below through the
region whose grief is without end; and I have scaled the mountain from
the top of which I was lifted by my lady's eyes; and I have come thus
far through heaven, from luminary to luminary; and in the course of this
my pilgrimage I have heard things which, if I tell again, may bitterly
disrelish with many. Yet, on the other hand, if I prove but a timid
friend to truth, I fear I shall not survive with the generations by whom
the present times will be called times of old."
The light that enclosed the treasure which its descendant had found in
heaven, first flashed at this speech like a golden mirror against the
sun, and then it replied thus:
"Let the consciences blush at thy words that have reason to blush. Do
thou, far from shadow of misrepresentation, make manifest all which thou
hast seen, and let the sore places be galled that deserve it. Thy bitter
truths shall carry with them vital nourishment--thy voice, as the wind
does, shall smite loudest the loftiest summits; and no little shall that
redound to thy praise. It is for this reason that, in all thy journey,
thou hast been shewn none but spirits of note, since little heed would
have been taken of such as excite doubt by their obscurity."
The spirit of Cacciaguida now relapsed into the silent joy of its
reflections, and the poet was standing absorbed in the mingled feelings
of his own, when Beatrice said to him, "Change the current of thy
thoughts. Consider how near I am in heaven to one that repayeth every
wrong."
Dante turned at the sound of this comfort, and felt no longer any other
wish than to look upon her eyes; but she said, with a smile, "Turn thee
round again, and attend. I am not thy only Paradise." And Dante again
turned, and saw his ancestor prepared to say more.
Cacciaguida bade him look again on the Cross, and he should see various
spirits, as he named them, flash over it like lightning; and they did
so. That of Joshua, which was first mentioned, darted along the Cross
in a stream. The light of Judas Maccabeus went spinning, as if joy had
scourged it.[23] Charlemagne and Orlando swept away together, pursued
by the poet's eyes. Guglielmo[24] followed, and Rinaldo, and Godfrey of
Bouillon, and Robert Guiscard of Naples; and the light of Cacciaguida
himself darted back to its place, and, uttering another sort of voice,
began shewing how sweet a singer he too was amidst the glittering choir.
Dante turned to share the joy with Beatrice, and, by the lovely paling
of her cheek, like a maiden's when it delivers itself of the burden of
a blush,[25] knew that he was in another and whiter star. It was the
planet Jupiter, the abode of blessed Administrators of Justice.
Here he beheld troops of dazzling essences, warbling as they flew, and
shaping their flights hither and thither, like birds when they rise from
the banks of rivers, and rejoice with one another in new-found pasture.
But the figures into which the flights were shaped were of a more
special sort, being mystical compositions of letters of the alphabet,
now a D, now an I, now an L, and so on, till the poet observed that they
completed the whole text of Scripture, which says, _Diligite justitiam,
qui judicatis terram_--(Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the
earth). The last letter, M, they did not decompose like the rest, but
kept it entire for a while, and glowed so deeply within it, that the
silvery orb thereabout seemed burning with gold. Other lights, with a
song of rapture, then descended like a crown of lilies, on the top, of
the letter; and then, from the body of it, rose thousands of sparks, as
from a shaken firebrand, and, gradually expanding into the form of an
eagle, the lights which had descended like lilies distributed themselves
over the whole bird, encrusting it with rubies flashing in the sun.
But what, says the poet, was never yet heard of, written, or
imagined,--the beak of the eagle spoke! It uttered many minds in one
voice, just as one heat is given out by many embers; and proclaimed
itself to have been thus exalted, because it united justice and mercy
while on earth.
Dante addressed this splendid phenomenon, and prayed it to ease his mind
of the perplexities of its worldly reason respecting the Divine nature
and government, and the exclusion from heaven of goodness itself, unless
within the Christian pale.
The celestial bird, rousing itself into motion with delight, like a
falcon in the conscious energy of its will and beauty, when, upon being
set free from its hood, it glances above it into the air, and claps its
self-congratulating wings, answered nevertheless somewhat disdainfully,
that it was impossible for man, in his mortal state, to comprehend such
things; and that the astonishment he feels at them, though doubtless it
would be excusable under other circumstances, must rest satisfied with
the affirmations of Scripture.
The bird then bent over its questioner, as a stork does over the
nestling newly fed when it looks up at her, and then wheeling round, and
renewing its warble, concluded it with saying, "As my notes are to thee
that understandest them not, so are the judgments of the Eternal to
thine earthly brethren. None ever yet ascended into these heavenly
regions that did not believe in Christ, either after he was crucified or
before it. Yet many, who call Christ! Christ! shall at the last day be
found less near to him than such as knew him not. What shall the kings
of Islam say to your Christian kings, when they see the book of judgment
opened, and hear all that is set down in it to their dishonour? In
that book shall be read the desolation which Albert will inflict
on Bohemia:[26]--in that book, the woes inflicted on Paris by that
adulterator of his kingdom's money, who shall die by the hog's
teeth:--in that book, the ambition which makes such mad fools of the
Scotch and English kings, that they cannot keep within their bounds:--in
that book, the luxury of the Spaniard, and the effeminate life of the
Bohemian, who neither knows nor cares for any thing worthy:--in that
book, the lame wretch of Jerusalem, whose value will be expressed by a
unit, and his worthlessness by a million:--in that book, the avarice and
cowardice of the warder of the Isle of Fire, in which old Anchises died;
and that the record may answer the better to his abundant littleness,
the writing shall be in short-hand; and his uncle's and his brother's
filthy doings shall be read in that book--they who have made such
rottenness of a good old house and two diadems; and there also shall the
Portuguese and the Norwegian be known for what they are, and the coiner
of Dalmatia, who beheld with such covetous eyes the Venetian ducat. O
blessed Hungary, if thou wouldst resolve to endure no longer!--O blessed
Navarre, if thou wouldst but keep out the Frenchman with thy mountain
walls! May the cries and groans of Nicosia and Famagosta be an earnest
of those happier days, proclaiming as they do the vile habits of the
beast, who keeps so close in the path of the herd his brethren."
The blessed bird for a moment was silent; but as, at the going down of
the sun, the heavens are darkened, and then break forth into innumerable
stars which the sun lights up,[27] so the splendours within the figure
of the bird suddenly became more splendid, and broke forth into songs
too beautiful for mortal to remember.
O dulcet love, that dost shew thee forth in smiles, how ardent was thy
manifestation in the lustrous sparkles which arose out of the mere
thoughts of those pious hearts!
After the gems in that glittering figure had ceased chiming their
angelic songs, the poet seemed to hear the murmur of a river which comes
falling from rock to rock, and chews, by the fulness of its tone, the
abundance of its mountain spring; and as the sound of the guitar is
modulated on the neck of it, and the breath of the pipe is accordant to
the spiracle from which it issues, so the murmuring within the eagle
suddenly took voice, and, rising through the neck, again issued forth in
words. The bird now bade the poet fix his attention on its eye; because,
of all the fires that composed its figure, those that sparkled in the
eye were the noblest. The spirit (it said) which Dante beheld in the
pupil was that of the royal singer who danced before the ark, now
enjoying the reward of his superiority to vulgar discernment. Of the
five spirits that composed the eyebrow, the one nearest the beak was
Trajan, now experienced above all others in the knowledge of what it
costs not to follow Christ, by reason of his having been in hell
before he was translated to heaven. Next to Trajan was Hezekiah,
whose penitence delayed for him the hour of his death: next Hezekiah,
Constantine, though, in letting the pope become a prince instead of
a pastor, he had unwittingly brought destruction on the world: next
Constantine, William the Good of Sicily, whose death is not more
lamented than the lives of those who contest his crown and lastly, next
William, Riphaeus the Trojan. "What erring mortal," cried the bird,
"would believe it possible to find Riphæus the Trojan among the
blest?--but so it is; and he now knows more respecting the divine grace
than mortals do, though even he discerns it not to the depth."[28]
The bird again relapsing into silence, appeared to repose on the
happiness of its thoughts, like the lark which, after quivering and
expatiating through all its airy warble, becomes mute and content,
having satisfied its soul to the last drop of its sweetness.[29]
But again Dante could not help speaking, being astonished to find Pagans
in Heaven; and once more the celestial figure indulged his curiosity.
It told him that Trajan had been delivered from hell, for his love of
justice, by the prayers of St. Gregory; and that Riphaeus, for the same
reason, had been gifted with a prophetic knowledge of the Redemption;
and then it ended with a rapture on the hidden mysteries of
Predestination, and on the joy of ignorance itself when submitting to
the divine will. The two blessed spirits, meanwhile, whom the bird
mentioned, like the fingers of sweet lutenist to sweet singer, when they
quiver to his warble as it goes, manifested the delight they experienced
by movements of accord simultaneous as the twinkling of two eyes.[30]
Dante turned to receive his own final delight from the eyes of Beatrice,
and he found it, though the customary smile on her face was no longer
there. She told him that her beauty increased with such intensity at
every fresh ascent among the stars, that he would no longer have been
able to bear the smile; and they were now in the seventh Heaven, or the
planet Saturn, the retreat of those who had passed their lives in Holy
Contemplation.
In this crystal sphere, called after the name of the monarch who reigned
over the Age of Innocence, Dante looked up, and beheld a ladder, the hue
of which was like gold when the sun glisters it, and the height so great
that its top was out of sight; and down the steps of this ladder he saw
coming such multitudes of shining spirits, that it seemed as if all the
lights of heaven must have been there poured forth; but not a sound was
in the whole splendour. It was spared to the poet for the same reason
that he missed the smile of Beatrice. When they came to a certain step
in the ladder, some of the spirits flew off it in circles or other
careers, like rooks when they issue from their trees in the morning
to dry their feathers in the sun, part of them going away without
returning, others returning to the point they left, and others
contenting themselves with flying round about it. One of them came so
near Dante and Beatrice, and brightened with such ardour, that the poet
saw it was done in affection towards them, and begged the loving spirit
to tell them who it was.
"Between the two coasts of Italy," said the spirit, "and not far from
thine own country, the stony mountains ascend into a ridge so lofty
that the thunder rolls beneath it. Catria is its name. Beneath it is a
consecrated cell; and in that cell I was called Pietro Damiano.[31] I so
devoted myself to the service of God, that with no other sustenance than
the juice of the olive, I forgot both heat and cold, happy in heavenly
meditation. That cloister made abundant returns in its season to these
granaries of the Lord; but so idle has it become now, that it is fit
the world should know its barrenness. The days of my mortal life were
drawing to a close, when I was besought and drawn into wearing the hat
which descends every day from bad head to worse.[32] St. Peter and St.
Paul came lean and barefoot, getting their bread where they could; but
pastors now-a-days must be lifted from the ground, and have ushers going
before them, and train-bearers behind them, and ride upon palfreys
covered with their spreading mantles, so that two beasts go under one
skin.[33] O Lord, how long!"
At these words Dante saw more splendours come pouring down the ladder,
and wheel round and round, and become at every wheel more beautiful.
The whole dazzling body then gathered round the indignant speaker, and
shouted something in a voice so tremendous, that the poet could liken it
to nothing on earth. The thunder was so overwhelming, that he did not
even hear what they said.[34]
Pallid and stunned, he turned in affright to Beatrice, who comforted him
as a mother comforts a child that wants breath to speak. The shout was
prophetic of the vengeance about to overtake the Church. Beatrice then
directed hisattention to a multitude of small orbs, which increased one
another's beauty by interchanging their splendours. They enclosed the
spirits of those who most combined meditation with love. One of them was
Saint Benedict; and others Macarius and Romoaldo.[35] The light of St.
Benedict issued forth from among its companions to address the poet;
and after explaining how its occupant was unable farther to disclose
himself, inveighed against the degeneracy of the religious orders. It
then rejoined its fellows, and the whole company clustering into one
meteor, swept aloft like a whirlwind. Beatrice beckoned the poet to
ascend after them. He did so, gifted with the usual virtue by her eyes;
and found himself in the twin light of the Gemini, the constellation
that presided over his birth. He was now in the region of the fixed
stars.
"Thou art now," said his guide, "so near the summit of thy prayers, that
it behoves thee to take a last look at things below thee, and see
how little they should account in thine eyes." Dante turned his
eyes downwards through all the seven spheres, and saw the earth so
diminutive, that he smiled at its miserable appearance. Wisest, thought
he, is the man that esteems it least; and truly worthy he that sets his
thoughts on the world to come. He now saw the moon without those spots
in it which made him formerly attribute the variation to dense and rare.
He sustained the brightness of the face of the sun, and discerned all
the signs and motions and relative distances of the planets. Finally, he
saw, as he rolled round with the sphere in which he stood, and by virtue
of his gifted sight, the petty arena, from hill to harbour, which filled
his countrymen with such ferocious ambition; and then he turned his eyes
to the sweet eyes beside him.[36]
Beatrice stood wrapt in attention, looking earnestly towards the south,
as if she expected some appearance. She resembled the bird that sits
among the dewy leaves in the darkness of night, yearning for the coming
of the morning, that she may again behold her young, and have light by
which to seek the food, that renders her fatigue for them a joy. So
stood Beatrice, looking; which caused Dante to watch in the same
direction, with the feelings of one that is already possessed of some
new delight by the assuredness of his expectation.[37]
The quarter on which they were gazing soon became brighter and brighter,
and Beatrice exclaimed, "Behold the armies of the triumph of Christ!"
Her face appeared all fire, and her eyes so full of love, that the poet
could find no words to express them.
As the moon, when the depths of heaven are serene with her fulness,
looks abroad smiling among her eternal handmaids the stars, that paint
every gulf of the great hollow with beauty;[38] so brightest, above
myriads of splendours around it, appeared a sun which gave radiance to
them all, even as our earthly sun gives light to the constellations.
"O Beatrice!" exclaimed Dante, overpowered, "sweet and beloved guide!"
"Overwhelming," said Beatrice, "is the virtue with which nothing can
compare. What thou hast seen is the Wisdom and the Power, by whom the
path between heaven and earth has been laid open."[39]
Dante's soul--like the fire which falls to earth out of the swollen
thunder-cloud, instead of rising according to the wont of fire--had
grown too great for his still mortal nature; and he could afterwards
find within him no memory of what it did.
"Open thine eyes," said Beatrice, "and see me now indeed. Thou hast
beheld things that empower thee to sustain my smiling."
Dante, while doing as he was desired, felt like one who has suddenly
waked up from a dream, and endeavours in vain to recollect it.
"Never," said he, "can that moment be erased from the book of the past.
If all the tongues were granted me that were fed with the richest milk
of Polyhymnia and her sisters, they could not express one thousandth
part of the beauty of that divine smile, or of the thorough perfection
which it made of the whole of her divine countenance."
But Beatrice said, "Why dost thou so enamour thee of this face, and
lose the sight of the beautiful guide, blossoming beneath the beams of
Christ? Behold the rose, in which the Word was made flesh.[40] Behold
the lilies, by whose odour the way of life is tracked."
Dante looked, and gave battle to the sight with his weak eyes.[41]
As flowers on a cloudy day in a meadow are suddenly lit up by a gleam of
sunshine, he beheld multitudes of splendours effulgent with beaming rays
that smote on them from above, though he could not discern the source of
the effulgence. He had invoked the name of the Virgin when he looked;
and the gracious fountain of the light had drawn itself higher up within
the heaven, to accommodate the radiance to his faculties. He then beheld
the Virgin herself bodily present,--her who is fairest now in heaven,
as she was on earth; and while his eyes were being painted with her
beauty,[42] there fell on a sudden a seraphic light from heaven, which,
spinning into a circle as it came, formed a diadem round her head, still
spinning, and warbling as it spun. The sweetest melody that ever drew
the soul to it on earth would have seemed like the splitting of a
thunder-cloud, compared with the music that sung around the head of that
jewel of Paradise.[43]
"I am Angelic Love," said the light, "and I spin for joy of the womb in
which our Hope abided; and ever, O Lady of Heaven, must I thus attend
thee, as long as thou art pleased to attend thy Son, journeying in his
loving-kindness from sphere to sphere."
All the other splendours now resounded the name of Mary. The Virgin
began ascending to pursue the path of her Son; and Dante, unable to
endure her beauty as it rose, turned his eyes to the angelical callers
on the name of Mary, who remained yearning after her with their hands
outstretched, as a babe yearns after the bosom withdrawn from his lips.
Then rising after her themselves, they halted ere they went out of
sight, and sung "O Queen of Heaven" so sweetly, that the delight never
quitted the air.
A flame now approached and thrice encircled Beatrice, singing all the
while so divinely, that the poet could retain no idea expressive of its
sweetness. Mortal imagination cannot unfold such wonder. It was Saint
Peter, whom she had besought to come down from his higher sphere, in
order to catechise and discourse with her companion on the subject of
faith.
The catechising and the discourse ensued, and were concluded by the
Apostle's giving the poet the benediction, and encircling his forehead
thrice with his holy light. "So well," says Dante, "was he pleased with
my answers."[44]
"If ever," continued the Florentine, "the sacred poem to which heaven
and earth have set their hands, and which for years past has wasted my
flesh in the writing, shall prevail against the cruelty that shut me out
of the sweet fold in which I slept like a lamb, wishing harm to none but
the wolves that beset it,--with another voice, and in another guise than
now, will I return, a poet, and standing by the fount of my baptism,
assume the crown that belongs to me; for I there first entered on the
faith which gives souls to God; and for that faith did Peter thus
encircle my forehead."[45]
A flame enclosing Saint James now succeeded to that of Saint Peter, and
after greeting his predecessor as doves greet one another, murmuring and
moving round, proceeded to examine the mortal visitant on the subject
of Hope. The examination was closed amidst resounding anthems of,"
Let their hope be in thee;"[46] and a third apostolic flame ensued,
enclosing Saint John, who completed the catechism with the topic of
Charity. Dante acquitted himself with skill throughout; the spheres
resounded with songs of "Holy, holy," Beatrice joining in the warble;
and the poet suddenly found Adam beside him. The parent of the human
race knew by intuition what his descendant wished to learn of him; and
manifesting his assent before he spoke, as an animal sometimes does by
movements and quiverings of the flesh within its coat, corresponding
with its good-will,[47] told him, that his fall was not owing to the
fruit which he tasted, but to the violation of the injunction not to
taste it; that he remained in the Limbo on hell-borders upwards of five
thousand years; and that the language he spoke had become obsolete
before the days of Nimrod.
The gentle fire of Saint Peter now began to assume an awful brightness,
such as the planet Jupiter might assume, if Mars and it were birds,
and exchanged the colour of their plumage.[48] Silence fell upon the
celestial choristers; and the Apostle spoke thus: