And I began, “My own merit makes me not worthy of thy answer; but for

her sake who concedes to me the asking, O blessed life, that keepest

thyself hidden within thine own joy, make known to me the cause which

has placed thee so near me; and tell why in this wheel the sweet

symphony of Paradise is silent, which below through the others so

devoutly sounds.” “Thou hast thy hearing mortal, as thy sight,” it

replied to me; “therefore no song is here for the same reason that

Beatrice has no smile. Down along the steps of the holy stairway I have

thus far descended, only to give thee glad welcome with my speech and

with the light that mantles me; nor has more love made me to be more

ready, for as much and more love is burning here above, even as the

flaming manifests to thee; but the high charity, which makes us ready

servants to the counsel that governs the world, allots here,[1] even as

thou observest.” “I see well,” said I, “O sacred lamp, how the free

will of love suffices in this Court for following the eternal

Providence. But this is what seems to me hard to discern, why thou

alone wert predestined to this office among thy consorts.” I had not

come to the last word before the light made a centre of its middle,

whirling like a swift milestone. Then the love that was within it

answered, “A divine light strikes upon me, penetrating through this

wherein I embosom me: the virtue of which, conjoined with my vision,

lifts me above myself so far that I see the Supreme Essence from which

it emanates. Thence comes the joy wherewith I flame, because to my

vision, in proportion as it is clear, I match the clearness of my

flame. But that soul in Heaven which is most enlightened,[2] that

Seraph who has his eye most fixed on God, could not satisfy thy demand;

because that which thou askest lies so deep within the abyss of the

eternal statute, that from every created sight it is cut off. And when

thou retumest to the mortal world, carry this back, so that it may no

more presume to move its feet toward such a goal. The mind which shines

here, on earth is smoky; wherefore consider how there below it can do

that which it cannot do though Heaven assume it.”

[1] Assigns its part to each spirit.

[2] With the Divine light.

So did its words prescribe to me, that I left the question, and drew me

back to ask it humbly who it was. “Between the two shores of Italy, and

not very distant from thy native land, rise rocks so lofty that the

thunders sound far lower down, and they make a height which is called

Catria, beneath which a hermitage is consecrated which is wont to be

devoted to worship only.”[1] Thus it began again to me with its third

speech, and then, continuing, it said, “Here in the service of God I

became so steadfast, that, with food of olive juice alone, lightly I

used to pass the heats and frosts, content in contemplative thoughts.

That cloister was wont to render in abundance to these heavens; and now

it is become so empty as needs must soon be revealed. In that place I

was Peter Damian,[2] and Peter a sinner had I been in the house of Our

Lady on the Adriatic shore.[3] Little of mortal life was remaining for

me, when I was sought for and dragged to that hat[4] which ever is

passed down from bad to worse. Cephas[5] came, and the great vessel of

the Holy Spirit[6] came, lean and barefoot, taking the food of

whatsoever inn. Now the modern pastors require one to hold them up on

this side and that, and one to lead them, so heavy are they, and one to

support them behind. They cover their palfreys with their mantles, so

that two beasts go under one skin. O Patience, that endurest so much!”

At this voice I saw more flamelets from step to step descending and

revolving, and each revolution made them more beautiful. Round about

this one they came, and stopped, and uttered a cry of such deep sound

that here could be none like it, nor did I understand it, the thunder

so overcame me.

[1] Catria is a high offshoot to the east from the chain of the

Apennines, between Urbino and Gubbio. Far up on its side lies the

monastery of Santa Croce di Fouts Avellana, belonging to the order of

the Camaldulensians.

[2] A famous doctor of the Church in the eleventh century. He was for

many years abbot of the Monastery of Fonte Avellana.

[3] These last words are obscure, and have given occasion to much

discussion, after which they remain no clearer than before. The house

of Our Lady on the Adriatic shore is supposed to be the monastery of

Santa Maria in Porto, near Ravenna.

[4] He was made cardinal in 1058, and died in 1072.

[5] St. Peter. See John, i. 42.

[6] St. Paul. “He is a chosen vessel unto me.”—Acts, ix. 15.

CANTO XXII.

Beatrice reassures Dante.—St. Benedict appears.—He tells of the

founding of his Order, and of the falling away of its brethren.

Beatrice and Dante ascend to the Starry Heaven.—The constellation of

the Twins.—Sight of the Earth.

Oppressed with amazement, I turned me to my Guide, like a little child

who runs back always thither where he most confides. And she, like a

mother who quickly succors her pale and breathless son with her voice,

which is wont to reassure him, said to me, 11 Knowest thou not, that

thou art in Heaven? and knowest thou not that Heaven is all holy, and

whatever is done here comes from good zeal? How the song would have

transformed thee, and I by smiling, thou canst now conceive, since the

cry has moved thee so much; in which, if thou hadst understood its

prayers, already would be known to thee the vengeance which thou shalt

see before thou diest. The sword of here on high cuts not in haste, nor

slow, save to the seeming of him who, desiring, or fearing, awaits it.

But turn thee round now toward the others, for many illustrious spirits

thou shalt see, if, as I say, thou dost lead back thy look.”

As it pleased her I directed my eyes, and saw a hundred little spheres,

which together were becoming more beautiful with mutual rays. I was

standing as one who within himself represses the point of his desire,

and attempts not to ask, he so fears the too-much. And the largest and

the most luculent of those pearls came forward to make of its own

accord my wish content. Then within it I heard, “If thou couldst see,

as I do, the charity which burns among us, thy thoughts would be

expressed. But that thou through waiting mayst not delay thy high end,

I will make answer to thee, even to the thought concerning which thou

art so regardful.

“That mountain[1] on whose slope Cassino is, was of old frequented on

its summit by the deluded and illdisposed people, and I am be who first

carried up thither the name of Him who brought to earth the truth which

so high exalts us: and such grace shone upon me that I drew away the

surrounding villages from the impious worship which seduced the world.

These other fires were all contemplative men, kindled by that heat

which brings to birth holy flowers and fruits. Here is Macarius,[2]

here is Romuald,[3] here are my brothers, who within the cloisters

fixed their feet, and held a steadfast heart.” And I to him, “The

affection which thou displayest in speaking with me, and the good

semblance which I see and note in all your ardors, have so expanded my

confidence as the sun does the rose, when she becomes open so much as

she has power to be. Therefore I pray thee, and do thou, father, assure

me if I have power to receive so much grace, that I may see thee with

uncovered shape.” Whereon he, “Brother, thy high desire shall be

fulfilled in the last sphere, where are fulfilled all others and my

own. There perfect, mature, and whole is every desire; in that alone is

every part there where it always was: for it is not in space, and hath

not poles; and our stairway reaches up to it, wherefore thus from thy

sight it conceals itself. Far up as there the patriarch Jacob saw it

stretch its topmost part when it appeared to him so laden with Angels.

But now no one lifts his feet from earth to ascend it; and my Rule is

remaining as waste of paper. The walls, which used to be an abbey, have

become caves; and the cowls are sacks full of bad meal. But heavy usury

is not gathered in so greatly against the pleasure of God, as that

fruit which makes the heart of monks so foolish. For whatsoever the

Church guards is all for the folk that ask it in God's name, not for

one's kindred, or for another more vile. The flesh of mortals is so

soft that a good beginning suffices not below from the springing of the

oak to the forming of the acorn. Peter began without gold and without

silver, and I with prayers and with fasting, and Francis in humility

his convent; and if thou lookest at the source of each, and then

lookest again whither it has run, thou wilt see dark made of the white.

Truly, Jordan turned back, and the sea fleeing when God willed, were

more marvellous to behold than succor here.”[4]

[1] Monte Cassino, in the Kingdom of Naples, on which a temple of

Apollo had stood, was chosen by St. Benedict (480-543) as his abode,

and became the site of the most famous monastery of his Order.

[2] The Egyptian anchorite of the fourth century.

[3] The founder of the order of Camaldoli; he died in 1027.

[4] Were God now to interpose to correct the evils of the Church, the

marvel would be less than that of the miracles of old, and therefore

his interposition may be hoped for.

Thus he said to me, and then drew back to his company, and the company

closed up; then like a whirlwind all gathered itself upward.

The sweet Lady urged me behind them, with only a sign, up over that

stairway; so did her virtue overcome my nature. But never here below,

where one mounts and descends naturally, was there motion so rapid that

it could be compared unto my wing. So may I return, Reader, to that

devout triumph, for the sake of which I often bewail my sins and beat

my breast, thou hadst not so quickly drawn out and put thy finger in

the fire as I saw the sign which follows the Bull,[1] and was within

it.

[1] The sign of the Gemini, or Twins, in the Heaven of the Fixed Stars.

O glorious stars, O light impregnate with great virtue, from which I

acknowledge all my genius, whatever it may be; with you was born and

with you was hiding himself he who is father of every mortal life, when

I first felt the Tuscan air;[1] and then, when the grace was bestowed

on me of entrance within the lofty wheel which turns you, your region

was allotted to me. To you my soul now devoutly sighs to acquire virtue

for the difficult pass which draws her to itself.

[1] At the time of Dante's birth the sun was in the sign of the Twins.

“Thou art so near the ultimate salvation,” began Beatrice, “that thou

oughtest to have thine eyes clear and sharp. And therefore ere thou

further enterest it, look back downward, and see how great a world I

have already set beneath thy feet, in order that thy heart, so far as

it is able, may present itself joyous to the triumphant crowd which

comes glad through this round aether.” With my sight I returned through

each and all the seven spheres, and saw this globe such that I smiled

at its mean semblance; and that counsel I approve as best which holds

it of least account; and he who thinks of other things may be called

truly worthy. I saw the daughter of Latona enkindled without that

shadow which had been the cause why I once believed her rare and dense.

The aspect of thy son, Hyperion, here I endured, and I saw how Maia and

Dione[1] move around and near him. Then appeared to me the

temperateness of Jove, between his father and his son,[2] and then was

clear to me the variation which they make in their places. And all the

seven were displayed to me,[[how great they are and how swift they are,

and how they are in distant houses. While I was revolving with the

eternal Twins, the little threshing-floor[3] which makes us so fierce

all appeared to me, from its hills to its harbors.

[1] The mothers of Venus and Mercury, by whose names these planets are

designated.

[2] Saturn and Mars.

[3] The inhabited earth.

Then I turned back my eyes to the beautiful eyes.

CANTO XXIII.

The Triumph of Christ.

As the bird, among the beloved leaves, reposing on the nest of her

sweet brood through the night which hides things from us, who, in order

to see their longed-for looks and to find the food wherewith she may

feed them, in which heavy toils are pleasing to her, anticipates the

time upon the open twig, and with ardent affection awaits the sun,

fixedly looking till the dawn may break; thus my Lady was standing

erect and attentive, turned toward the region beneath which the sun

shows least haste;[1] so that I, seeing her rapt and eager, became such

as he who in desire should wish for something, and in hope is

satisfied. But short while was there between one and the other WHEN:

that of my awaiting, I mean, and of my seeing the heavens become

brighter and brighter. And Beatrice said, “Behold the hosts of the

triumph of Christ, and all the fruit harvested by the revolution of

these spheres.”[2] It seemed to me her face was all aflame, and her

eyes were so full of joy that I must needs pass it over without

description.

[1] The meridian.

[2] By the beneficent influences of the planets.

As in the clear skies at the full moon Trivia[1] smiles among the

eternal nymphs who paint the heaven through all its depths, I saw,

above myriads of lights, a Sun that was enkindling each and all of

them, as ours kindles the supernal shows;[2] and through its living

light the lucent Substance[3] shone so bright upon my face that I

sustained it not.

[1] An appellation of Diana, and hence of the moon.

[2] According to the belief, referred to at the opening of the

twentieth Canto, that the sun was the source of the light of the stars.

[3] Christ in his glorified body.

O Beatrice, sweet guide and dear!

She said to me, “That which overcomes thee is a power from which naught

defends itself. Here is the Wisdom and the Power that opened the roads

between heaven and earth, for which there had already been such long

desire.”

As fire from a cloud unlocks itself by dilating, so that it is not

contained therein, and against its own nature falls down to earth, so

my mind, becoming greater amid those feasts, issued from itself; and

what it became cannot remember.

“Open thine eyes and look at what I am; thou hast seen things such that

thou art become able to sustain my smile.” I was as one who awakes from

a forgotten dream and endeavors in vain to bring it back again to

memory, when I heard this invitation, worthy of such gratitude that it

is never effaced from the book which records the past. If now all those

tongues which Polyhymnia and her sisters made most fat with their

sweetest milk should sound to aid me, one would not come to a

thousandth of the truth in singing the holy smile and how it made the

holy face resplendent. And thus in depicting Paradise the consecrated

poem needs must make a leap, even as one who finds his way cut off. But

whoso should consider the ponderous theme and the mortal shoulder which

therewith is laden would not blame it if under this it tremble. It is

no coasting voyage for a little barque, this which the intrepid prow

goes cleaving, nor for a pilot who would spare himself.

“Why doth my face so enamour thee that thou turnest not to the fair

garden which beneath the rays of Christ is blossoming? Here is the

rose,[1] in which the Divine Word became flesh: here are the lilies[2]

by whose odor the good way was taken.” Thus Beatrice, and I, who to her

counsel was wholly prompt, again betook me unto the battle of the

feeble brows.

[1] The Virgin.

[2] The Apostles and Saints. The image is derived from St. Paul (2

Corinthians, ii. 14): “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us

to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge

by us in every place.” In the Vulgate the words are, “odorem notitiae

suae manifestat per nos.”

As my eyes, covered with a shadow, have ere now seen a meadow of

flowers in a sunbeam which streamed bright through a rifted cloud, so

saw I many throngs of splendors flashed-upon from above with burning

rays, without seeing the source of the gleams. O benignant Power which

so dost impress them, upwards didst thou exalt thyself to bestow space

there for my eyes, which were powerless.[1]

[1] The eyes of Dante, powerless to endure the sight of the glorified

body of Christ, when that is withdrawn on high, are able to look upon

those whom the light of Christ illumines.

The name of the fair flower which I ever invoke both morning and

evening, wholly constrained my mind to gaze upon the greater fire.[1]

And when the form and the glory of the living star, which up. there

surpasses as here below it surpassed, were depicted in both my eyes,

through the mid heavens a torch, formed in a circle in fashion of a

crown, descended, and engirt it, and revolved around it. Whatever

melody sounds sweetest here below, and to itself most draws the soul,

would seem a cloud which, rent apart, thunders, compared with the sound

of that lyre wherewith was crowned the beauteous sapphire by which the

brightest Heaven is ensapphired. “I am angelic Love, and I circle round

the lofty joy which breathes from the bosom which was the hostelry of

our desire; and I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while thou shalt follow

thy Son and make the supreme sphere more divine because thou enterest

it.” Thus the circling melody sealed itself up, and all the other

lights made resound the name of Mary.

[1] The Virgin,—Rosa mistica,—the brightest of all the host that

remained.

The royal mantle[1] of all the volumes[2] of the world, which is most

fervid and most quickened in the breath of God and in His ways, had its

inner shore so distant above us that sight of it, there where I was,

did not yet appear to me. Therefore my eyes had not the power to follow

the incoronate flame, which mounted upward following her own seed. And

as a little child which, when it has taken the milk, stretches its arms

toward its mother, through the spirit that flames up outwardly, each of

these white splendors stretched upward with its summit, so that the

deep aflection which they had for Mary was manifest to me. Then they

remained there in ray sight, singing “Regina coeli “ so sweetly that

never has the delight departed from me. Oh how great is the plenty that

is heaped up in those most rich chests which were good laborers in

sowing here below! Here they live and enjoy the treasure that was

acquired while weeping in the exile of Babylon, where the gold was left

aside.[3] Here triumphs, under the high Son of God and of Mary, in his

victory, both with the ancient and with the new council, he who holds

the keys of such glory.[4]

[l] The Primum Mobile, the ninth Heaven, which revolves around all the

others.

[2] The revolving spheres.

[3] Despising the treasures of the world, in the Babylonish exile of

this life, they laid up for themselves treasures in Heaven.

[4] St. Peter.

CANTO XXIV.

St. Peter examines Dante concerning Faith, and approves his answer.

“O company elect to the great supper of the blessed Lamb, who feeds you

so that your desire is always full, since by grace of God this man

foretastes of that which falls from your table, before death prescribes

the time for him, give heed to his immense longing, and bedew him a

little; ye drink ever of the fount whence comes that which he ponders.”

Thus Beatrice; and those glad souls made themselves spheres upon fixed

poles, flaming brightly in manner of comets. And as wheels within the

fittings of clocks revolve, so that to him who gives heed the first

seems quiet, and the last to fly, so these carols,[1] differently

dancing, swift and slow, enabled me to estimate their riches.

[1] A carol was a dance with song; here used for the souls who composed

the carols, the difference in whose speed gave to Dante the gauge of

their respective blessedness.

From that which I noted of greatest beauty, I saw issue a fire so happy

that it left there none of greater brightness; and three times it

revolved round Beatrice with a song so divine that my fancy repeats it

not to me; therefore the pen makes a leap, and I write it not, for our

imagination, much more our speech, is of too vivid color[1] for such

folds. “O holy sister mine, who so devoutly prayest to us, by thy

ardent affection thou unbindest me from that beautiful sphere:” after

it had stopped, the blessed fire directed to my Lady its breath, which

spoke thus as I have said. And she, “O light eternal of the great man

to whom our Lord left the keys, which he bore below, of this marvellous

joy, test this man on points light and grave, as pleases thee,

concerning the Faith, through which thou didst walk upon the sea. If he

loves rightly, and hopes rightly, and believes, it is hidden not from

thee, for thou hast thy sight there where everything—@is seen depicted.

But since this realm has made citizens by the true faith, it is well

that to glorify it speech of it should fall to him.”[2]

[1] The figure is a little obscure; pieghe, “folds,” is a rhyme-word;

the meaning seems to be that as folds cannot be painted properly with

bright hues, so our imagination and our speech are not delicate enough

for conceiving and depicting such exquisite delights.

[2] The meaning seems to be,—Thou knowest that he has true faith, but

because by its means one becomes a citizen of this realm, it is well

that he should celebrate it.

Even as, until the master propounds the question, the bachelor speaks

not, and arms himself in order to adduce the proof, not to decide it,

so, while she was speaking, I was arming me with every reason, in order

to be ready for such a questioner, and for such a profession.

“Say thou, good Christian, declare thyself; Faith,—what is it?” Whereon

I raised my brow to that light whence this was breathed out. Then I

turned to Beatrice, and she made prompt signals to me that I should

pour the water forth from my internal fount. “May the Grace,” began I,

“which grants to me that I confess myself to the high captain, cause my

conceptions to be expressed.”[1] And I went on, “As the veracious pen,

Father, of thy dear brother (who with thee set Rome on the good track)

wrote of it, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and evidence

of things not seen:[2] and this appears to me its essence.” Then I

heard, “Rightly dost thou think, if thou understandest well why he

placed it among the substances, and then among the evidences.” And I

thereon: “The deep things which grant unto me here the sight of

themselves, are so hidden to eyes below that there their existence is

in belief alone, upon which the high hope is founded, and therefore it

takes the designation of substance; and from this belief we needs must

syllogize, without having other sight, wherefore it receives the

designation of evidence.”[3] Then I heard, “If whatever is acquired

below for doctrine, were so understood, the wit of sophist would have

no place there.” Thus was breathed forth from that enkindled love; then

it added, “Very well have the alloy and the weight of this coin been

now run through, but tell me if thou hast it in thy purse?” And I,

“Yes, I have it so shining and so round that in its stamp nothing is

uncertain to me.” Then issued from the deep light which was shining

there, “This precious jewel, whereon every virtue is founded, whence

came it to thee?” And I, “The abundant rain of the Heavenly Spirit,

which is diffused over the Old and over the New parchments, is a

syllogism[4] which has proved it to me so acutely that in comparison

with it every demonstration seems to me obtuse.” I heard then, “The Old

and the New proposition[5] which are so conclusive to thee,—why dost

thou hold them for divine speech?” And I, “The proofs which disclose

the truth to me are the works[6] that followed, for which nature never

heated iron, nor beat anvil.” It was replied to me, “Say, what assures

thee that these works were? The very thing itself which requires to be

proved, naught else, affirms it to thee.” “If the world were converted

to Christianity,” said I, “without miracles, this alone is such that

the others are not the hundredth part; for thou didst enter poor and

fasting into the field to sow the good plant, which once was a vine and

now has become a thornbush.”

[1] May it enable me to express clearly my conceptions.

[2] Hebrews, xi, 1.

[3] The argument is as follows: The things of the spiritual world

having no visible existence upon earth, the hope of blessedness rests

only on belief unsupported by material proof; this belief is Faith, and

since on it alone are the high hopes founded, it is properly called

their substance, that is, their essential quality. And since all our

reasoning concerning spiritual things must be drawn not from visible

things, but from the convictions of Faith, our faith is also properly

called evidence.

[4] The evidence afforded by the Old and the New Testament that they

are inspired by the Holy Spirit, makes their teachings in regard to

matters of faith conclusive.

[5] The two premises of the syllogism.

[6] The miracles.

This ended, the high holy Court resounded through the spheres a “We

praise God,” in the melody which thereabove is sung.

And that Baron who thus from branch to branch, examining, had now drawn

me on, so that to the last leaves we were approaching, began again:

“The Grace that dallies with thy mind has opened thy mouth up to this

point as it should be opened, so that I approve that which has issued

forth, but now there is need to express what thou believest, and wbence

it has been offered to thy belief.” “O holy father, spirit who seest

that which thou so believedst that thou, toward the sepulchre, didst

outdo younger feet,”[1] began I, “thou wishest that I should declare

here the form of my ready belief, and also thou inquirest the cause of

it. And I answer: I believe in one God, sole and eternal, who, unmoved,

moves all the Heavens with love and with desire; and for such belief

have I not only proofs physical and metaphysical, but that truth also

gives it to me which hence rains down through Moses, through Prophets,

and through Psalms, through the Gospel, and through you who wrote after

the fiery Spirit made you holy. And I believe in three Eternal Persons,

and these I believe one essence, so one and so threefold that it will

admit to be conjoined with ARE and IS. Of the profound divine condition

on which I touch, the evangelic doctrine ofttimes sets the seal upon my

mind. This is the beginning; this is the spark which afterwards dilates

to vivid flame, and like a star in heaven scintillates within me.”

[1] “The other disciple did outrun Peter,” but Peter first “went into

the sepulchre.” See John, xx. 4-6.

Even as a lord who hears what pleases him, thereon, rejoicing in the

news, embraces his servant, soon as he is silent, thus, blessing me as

he sang, the apostolic light, at whose command I had spoken, thrice

encircled me when I was silent; so had I pleased him in my speech.

CANTO XXV.

St. James examines Dante concerning Hope.—St. John appears,with a

brightness so dazzling as to deprive Dante, for the time, of sight.

If it ever happen that the sacred poem to which both heaven and earth

have set their hand, so that it has made me lean for many years, sbould

overcome the cruelty which bars me out of the fair sheep-fold, where a

lamb I slept, an enemy to the wolves that give it war, then with other

voice, with other fleece, Poet will I return, and on the font of my

baptism will I take the crown; because there I entered into the faith

which makes the souls known to God, and afterward. Peter, for its sake,

thus encircled my brow.

Then a light moved toward us from that sphere whence the first-fruit

which Christ left of His vicars had issued. And my Lady, full of

gladness, said to me, “Look, look! behold the Baron for whose sake

Galicia is visited there below.”[1]

[1] It was believed that St. James, the brother of St. John, was buried

at Compostella, in the Spanish province of Galicia. His shrine was one

of the chief objects of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages.

Even as when the dove alights near his companion, and one, turning and

cooing, displays its affection to the other, so by the one great Prince

glorious I saw the other greeted, praising the food which feasts them

thereabove. But after their gratulation was completed, silent coram

me,[1] each stopped, so ignited that it overcame my sight. Smiling,

then Beatrice said, “Illustrious life, by whom the largess of our

basilica has been written,[2] do thou make Hope resound upon this

height; thou knowest that thou dost represent it as many times as Jesus

to the three displayed most brightness.”[3] “Lift up thy head and make

thyself assured; for that which comes up here from the mortal world

needs must be ripened in our rays.” This comfort from the second fire

came to me; whereon I lifted up my eyes unto the mountains which bent

them down before with too great weight.

[1] “Before me.” Here, as sometimes elsewhere, it is not evident why

Dante uses Latin words.

[2] The reference is to the Epistle of James, which Dante, falling into

a common error, attributes to St. James the Greater. The special words

be had in mind may have been: “ God, that giveth to all men liberally,”

i. 5; and “ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and

cometh down from the Father of lights,” i. 17. By “basilica” is meant

the court or church of heaven.

[3] Peter, James, and John, were chosen by their Master to be present

at the raising of the daughter of Jairus, and to witness his

Transfiguration. Peter personifying Faith, John personifying Love, it

was natural to take James as the personification of Hope.

“Since, through grace, our Emperor wills that thou, before thy death,

come face to face with his Counts in the most secret hall, so that,

having seen the truth of this Court, thou mayest therewith confirm in

thyself and others the Hope which there below rightly enamours, say

what it is, and how thy mind is flowering with it, and say whence it

came to thee;” thus further did the second light proceed. And that

compassionate one, who guided the feathers of my wings to such high

flight, thus in the reply anticipated me.[1] “The Church militant has

not any son with more hope, as is written in the Sun which irradiates

all our band; therefore it is conceded to him, that from Egypt be

should come to Jerusalem to see, ere the warfare be at end for him. The

other two points which are asked not for sake of knowing, but that he

may report how greatly this virtue is pleasing to thee, to him I leave,

for they will not be difficult to him, nor of vainglory, and let him

answer to this, and may the grace of God accord this to him.”

[1] Beatrice answers the question to which the reply, had it been left

to Dante, might seem to involve self-praise.

As a disciple who follows his teacher, prompt and willing, in that

wherein he is expert, so that his worth may be disclosed: “Hope,” said

I, “is a sure expectation of future glory, which divine grace produces,

and preceding merit.[1] From many stars this light comes to me, but be

instilled it first into my heart who was the supreme singer[2] of the

supreme Leader. Sperent in te,[3] 'who know thy name,' he says in his

Theody,[4] and who knows it not, if he has my faith? Thou afterwards

didst instil it into me with his instillation in thy Epistle, so that I

am full, and upon others shower down again your rain.”

[1] These words are taken directly from Peter Lombard (Liber

Sententiarum, iii. 26). Love is the merit which precedes Hope.

[2] David.

[3] “They will hope in thee.” See Psalm ix. 10.

[4] Divine song.

While I was speaking, within the living bosom of that burning a flash

was trembling, sudden and intense, in the manner of lightning. Then it

breathed, “The love wherewith I still glow toward the virtue which

followed me far as the palm, and to the issue of the field, wills that

breathe anew to thee, that thou delight in it; and it is my pleasure,

that thou tell that which Hope promises to thee.” And I, “The new and

the old Scriptures set up the sign, and it points this out to me. Of

the souls whom God hath made his friends, Isaiah says that each shall

be clothed in his own land with a double garment,[1] and his own land

is this sweet life. And thy brother, far more explicitly, there where

he treats of the white robes, makes manifest to us this revelation.”[2]

[1] “Therefore in their land they shall possess the double”—(Isaiah,

1xi. 7); the double vesture of the glorified natural body and of the

spiritual body.

[2] Revelation, vii.

And first, close on the end of these words, “Sperent in te” was heard

from above us, to which all the carols made answer. Then among them a

light became so bright that, if the Crab had one such crystal, winter

would have a month of one sole day.[1] And as a glad maiden rises and

goes and enters in the dance, only to do honor to the new bride, and

not for any fault,[2] so saw I the brightened splendor come to the two

who were turning in a wheel, such as was befitting to their ardent

love. It set itself there into the song and into the measure, and my

Lady kept her gaze upon them, even as a bride, silent and motionless.

“This is he who lay upon the breast of our Pelican,[3] and from upon

the cross this one was chosen to the great office.”[4] Thus my Lady,

nor yet moved she her look from its fixed attention after than before

these words of hers. As is he who gazes and endeavors to see the sun

eclipsed a little, who through seeing becomes sightless, so did I

become in respect to that last fire, till it was said, “Why dost thou

dazzle thyself in order to see a thing which has no place here?[5] On

earth my body is earth; and it will be there with the others until our

number corresponds with the eternal purpose.[6] With their two garments

in the blessed cloister are those two lights alone which ascended:[7]

and this thou shalt carry back unto your world.”

[1] If Cancer, which rises at sunset in early winter, had a star as

bright as this, the night would be light as day.

[2] Not for vanity, or love of, display.

[3] A common type of Christ during the Middle Ages, because of the

popular belief that the pelican killed its brood, and then revived them

with its blood.

[4] “Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother!”—John, xix. 27.

[5] Dante seeks to see whether St. John is present in body as well as

soul; his curiosity having its source in the words of the Gospel:

“Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is

that to thee? . . . Then went this saying abroad among the brethren,

that that disciple should not die.”—John, xxi. 22, 23.

[6] Till the predestined number of the elect is complete.

[7] Jesus and Mary, who had been seen to ascend. See Canto XXIII.

At this word the flaming gyre became quiet, together with the sweet

mingling that was made of the sound of the trinal breath, even as, at

ceasing of fatigue or danger, the oars, erst driven through the water,

all stop at the sound of a whistle. Ah! how greatly was I disturbed in

mind, when I turned to see Beatrice, at not being able to see her,

although I was near her, and in the happy world.

CANTO XXVI.

St. John examines Dante concerning Love.—Dante's sight restored.—Adam

appears, and answers questions put to him by Dante.

While I was apprehensive because of my quenched sight, a breath which

made me attentive issued from the effulgent flame that quenched it,

saying, “While thou art regaining the sense of sight which thou hast

consumed on me, it is well that thou make up for it by discourse. Begin

then, and tell whereto thy soul is aimed, and make thy reckoning that

sight is in thee bewildered and not dead; because the Lady who conducts

thee through this divine region has in her look the virtue which the

band of Ananias had.”[1] I said, “According to her pleasure, or soon or

late, let the cure come to the eyes which were gates when she entered

with the fire wherewith I ever burn! The Good which makes this court

content is Alpha and Omega of whatsoever writing Love reads to me,

either low or loud.” That same voice which had taken from me fear of

the sudden dazzling, laid on me the charge to speak further, and said,

“Surely with a finer sieve it behoves thee to clarify; it behoves thee

to tell who directed thy bow to such a target.” And I, “By philosophic

arguments and by authority that hence descends, such love must needs be

impressed on me; for the good, so far as it is good, in proportion as

it is understood, kindles love; and so much the greater as the more of

goodness it includes within itself. Therefore, to the Essence (wherein

is such supremacy that every good which is found outside of It is

naught else than a beam of Its own radiance), more than to any other,

the mind of every one who discerns the truth on which this argument is

founded must needs be moved in love.[2] Such truth to my intelligence

he makes plain, who demonstrates to me the first love of all the

sempiternal substances.[3] The voice of the true Author makes it plain

who, speaking of Himself, says to Moses, 'I will make thee see all

goodness.'[4] Thou, too, makest it plain to me, beginning the lofty

proclamation which there below, above all other trump, declares the

secret of this place on high.”[5] And I heard, “By human understanding,

and by authorities concordant with it, thy sovran love looks unto God;

but say, further, if thou feelest other cords draw thee towards Him, so

that thou mayest declare with how many teeth this love bites thee.”

[1] Acts ix.

[2] The argument is,—Whatever is good kindles love for itself; the

greater the good the greater the love; God is the supreme good and

therefore the chief object of love.

[3] It is doubtful to whom Dante here refers. The first love of

immortal creatures is for their own First Cause.

[4] “I will make all my goodness pass before thee.”—Exodus, xxxiii, 19.

[5] “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God

in him.”—1 John, iv. 16.

The holy intention of the Eagle of Christ was not latent to me; nay,

rather I perceived whither he wished to lead my profession; therefore,

I began again: “All those bitings which can make the heart turn to God

have been concurrent unto my charity;[1] for the existence of the

world, and my own existence, the death that He endured that I may live,

and that which all the faithful hope even as I do, together with the

aforesaid living knowledge, have drawn me from the sea of perverted

love, and have set me on the shore of the right. The leaves, wherewith

all the garden of the Eternal Gardener is enleaved, I love in

proportion as good is borne unto them from Him.”

[1] Have concurred to inspire me with love of God.

Soon as I was silent a most sweet song resounded through the heavens,

and my Lady said with the rest, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

And as at a keen light sleep is broken by the spirit of sight, which

runs to the splendor that goes from coat to coat,[1] and he who awakes

shrinks from what he sees, so confused is his sudden wakening, until

his judgment comes to his aid; thus Beatrice chased away every mote

from my eyes with the radiance of her own, which were resplendent more

than a thousand miles; so that I then saw better than before; and, as

it were amazed, I asked about a fourth light which I saw with us. And

my Lady, “Within those rays the first soul which the First Power ever

created gazes with joy upon its creator.”

[1] The spirit of the sight runs to meet the light which flashes

through the successive coats of the eye.

As the bough that bends its top at passing of the wind, and then lifts

itself by its own virtue which raises it, so did I, in amazement, the

while she was speaking; and then a desire to speak, wherewith I was

burning, gave me again assurance, and I began, “O Apple, that alone

wast produced mature, O ancient Father, to whom every bride is daughter

and daughter-in-law, devoutly as I can, I supplicate thee that thou

speak to me; thou seest my wish, and in order to hear thee quickly, I

do not tell it.”

Sometimes an animal, which is covered up, so stirs, that his desire

must needs become apparent through the corresponding movement which

that which wraps him makes; and in like manner the first soul made

evident to me, through its covering, how gladly it came to do me

pleasure. Then it breathed, “Without its being uttered to me by thee, I

better discern thy wish, than thou whatever thing is most certain to

thee; because I see it in the truthful mirror which makes of Itself a

likeness of other tbings, while nothing makes for It a likeness of

Itself.[1] Thou wouldst hear how long it is since God placed me in the

lofty garden where this Lady disposed thee for so long a stairway; and

how long it was a delight to my eyes; and the proper cause of the great

wrath; and the idiom which I used and which I made. Now, my son, the

tasting of the tree was not by itself the cause of so long an exile,

but only the overpassing of the bound. There whence thy Lady moved

Virgil, I longed for this assembly during four thousand three hundred

and two revolutions of the sun; and while I was on earth I saw him

return to all the lights of his path nine hundred and thirty times. The

tongue which I spoke was all extinct long before the people of Nimrod

attempted their unaccomplishable work; for never was any product of the

reason (because of human liking, which alters, following the heavens)

durable for ever.[2] A natural action it is for man to speak; but, thus

or thus, nature then leaves for you to do according as it pleases you.

Before I descended to the infernal anguish, the Supreme Good, whence

comes the gladness that swathes me, was on earth called I; EL it was

called afterwards;[3] and that must needs be,[4] for the custom of

mortals is as a leaf on a branch, which goes away and another comes. On

the mountain which rises highest from the wave I was, with pure life

and sinful, from the first hour to that which, when the sun changes

quadrant, follows the sixth hour.”[5]

[1] All things are seen in God as if reflected in a mirror; but nothing

can reflect an image of God. “In the eternal Idea, as in a glass, the

works of God are more perfectly seen than in themselves. . . . But it

is impossible for a thing created to represent that which is

increated.”—John Norton, The Orthodox Evangelist, 1554, p. 332.

[2] Speech, a product of human reason, changes according to the

pleasure of main, which alters from time to time under the influence of

the heavens.

[3] God was known in the primitive language by the sacred and mystical

symbol I or J, the Hebrew letter Jod; afterwards by the term El: the

first answering to Jehovah, the second to Elohim.

[4] Such change in the name was inevitable, because of the changing

customs of thought and speech.

[5] Adam's stay in the Earthly Paradise on the summit of the mount of

Purgatory was thus a little more than six hours; the sun changes

quadrant with every six hours.

CANTO XXVII.

Denunciation by St. Peter of his degenerate successors.—Dante gazes

upon the Earth.—Ascent of Beatrice and Dante to the Crystalline

Heaven.—Its nature.—Beatrice rebukes the covetousness of mortals.

“To the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit be glory,” all

Paradise began, so that the sweet song was inebriating me. That which I

was seeing seemed to me a smile of the Universe; for my inebriation was

entering through the hearing and through the sight. O joy! O ineffable

gladness! O life entire of love and of peace! O riches secure, without

longing![1]

[1] Which leave nothing for desire.

Before my eyes the four torches were standing enkindled, and that which

had come first began to make itself more vivid, and in its semblance be

came such as Jove would become, if be and Mars were birds, and should

interchange feathers.[1] The Providence which here apportions turn and

office, had imposed silence on the blessed choir on every side, when I

heard, “If I change color, marvel not; for, while I speak, thou shalt

see all these change color. He who on earth usurps my place, my place,

my place, which is vacant in the presence of the Son of God, has made

of my burial-place a sewer of blood and of stench, wherewith the

Perverse One who fell from here above, below there is placated.”

[1] The pure white light becoming red.

With that color which, by reason of the opposite sun, paints the cloud

at evening and at morning, I then saw the whole Heaven overspread. And

like a modest lady who abides sure of herself, and at the fault of

another, in bearing of it only, becomes timid, even thus did Beatrice

change countenance; and such eclipse I believe there was in heaven when

the Supreme Power suffered.

Then his words proceeded, in a voice so transmuted from itself that his

countenance was not more changed; “The Bride of Christ was not nurtured

on my blood, on that of Linus and of Cletus, to be employed for acquist

of gold; but for acquist of this glad life Sixtus and Pius and Calixtus

and Urban[1] shed their blood after much weeping. It was not our

intention that part of the Christian people should sit on the right

hand of our successors, and part on the other; nor that the keys which

were conceded to me should become a sign upon a banner which should

fight against those who are baptized;[2] nor that I should be a figure

on a seal to venal and mendacious privileges, whereat I often redden

and flash. In garb of shepherd, rapacious wolves are seen from

here-above over all the pastures: O defence of God, why dost thou yet

lie still! To drink our blood Cahorsines and Gascons are making

ready:[3] O good beginning, to what vile end behoves it that thou fall!

But the high Providence which with Scipio defended for Rome the glory

of the world, will succor speedily, as I conceive. And thou, son, who

because of thy mortal weight wilt again return below, open thy mouth,

and conceal not that which I conceal not.”

[1] Early Popes martyred for the faith.

[2] A reference to the war which Boniface VIII. waged against the

Colonnesi. See Inferno, Canto XXVII.

[3] John XXII., who came to the Papacy in 1316, was a native of Cahors;

his immediate predecessor, Clement V., 1305-1314, was a Gascon. The

passage is one of those which shows that this portion of the poem was

in hand during the last years of Dante's life.

[4] In midwinter, when the sun is in Capricorn.

Even as our air snows down flakes of frozen vapors, when the horn of

the Goat of heaven touches the sun,[1] so, upward, I saw the aether

become adorned, and flaked with the triumphant vapors[2] that had made

sojourn there with us. My sight was following their semblances, and

followed, till the intermediate space by its greatness pre. vented it

from passing further onward. Whereon my Lady, who saw me disengaged

from upward heeding, said to me, “Cast down thy sight, and look how

thou hast revolved.”

[1] The spirits.

Since the hour when I had first looked, I saw that I had moved through

the whole are which the first climate makes from its middle to its

end;[1] so that I saw beyond Cadiz the mad track of Ulysses, and near

on this side the shore[2] on which Europa became a sweet burden. And

more of the site of this little threshing-floor would have been

discovered to me, but the sun was proceeding beneath my feet, a sign

and more removed.[3]

[1] From Dante's first look downward from the Heavens, at the end of

Canto XXII, to the present moment, he had moved over the arc which the

first climate describes from its middle to its end. The old geographers

divided the earth into seven zones, called climates, by circles

parallel to the equator. The first climate extended twenty degrees to

the north of the equator. The sign of the Gemini, in which Dante was

revolving in the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, is in the zone of the

Heavens corresponding to the first climate. As each climate extended on

the habitable hemisphere for one hundred and eighty degrees, the arc

from its middle to its end would be of ninety degrees, comprised

between Jerusalem and Cadiz, and the time required for passing through

it would be six hours, one fourth of the diurnal revolution of the

Heavens.

[2] The shore of Phoenicia, whence Europa was carried off by Jupiter.

[3] The Sun in Aries was separated by Taurus from Gemini; hence not all

of the hemisphere of the earth seen from Gemini was illuminated by the

sun, which was some three hours in advance.

My enamoured mind, that ever dallies with my Lady, was more than ever

burning to bring back my eyes to her. And if nature has made bait in

human flesh, or art in its paintings, to catch the eyes in order to

possess the mind, all united would seem naught compared to the divine

pleasure which shone upon me when I turned me to her smiling face. And

the virtue with which the look indulged me, tore me from the fair nest

of Leda,[1] and impelled me to the swiftest heaven.[2]

[1] From Gemini, the constellation of Castor and Pollux, the twin sons

of Leda.

[2] The Primum Mobile, or Crystalline Heaven.

Its parts, most living and lofty, are so uniform that I cannot tell

which of them Beatrice chose for a place for me. But she, who saw my

desire, began, smiling so glad that God seemed to rejoice in her

countenance, “The nature of the world[1] which quiets the centre, and

moves all the rest around it, begins here as from its, starting-point.

And this heaven has no other Where than the Divine Mind, in which the

love that revolves it is kindled, and the virtue which it rains down.

Light and love enclose it with one circle, even as this does the

others, and of that cincture He who girds it is the sole

Intelligence.[2] The motion of this heaven is not marked out by

another, but the others are measured by this, even as ten by a half and

by a fifth.[3] And how time can hold its roots in such a flower-pot,

and in the others its leaves, may now be manifest to thee.

[1] The world of the revolving Heavens.

[2] The Angelic Intelligences move the lower Heavens, but of the

Empyrean God himself is the immediate governor.

[3] The reversal of magnitudes makes this image obscure. The motion of

the Crystalline Heaven, the swiftest of all, determines the slower

motions of the Heavens below it, and divides them; as five and two

divide ten. The fixed unit of time is the day which is established by

the revolution of the Primum Mobile.

“O covetousness,[1] which whelms mortals beneath thee, so that no one

has power to withdraw his eyes from out thy waves! Well. blossoms the

will in men, but the continual rain converts the true plums into

wildings. Faith and innocence are found only in children; then both fly

away ere yet the cheeks are covered. One, so long as he stammers,

fasts, who afterward, when his tongue is loosed, devours whatever food

under whatever moon; and one, while stammering, loves his mother and

listens to her, who, when speech is perfect, desires then to see her

buried. So the skin of the fair daughter of him who brings morning and

leaves evening, white in its first aspect, becomes black.[2] Do thou,

in order that thou make not marvel, reflect that on earth there is no

one who governs; wherefore the human family is gone astray. But ere

January be all un-wintered by that hundredth part which is down there

neglected,[3] these supernal circles shall so roar that the storm which

is so long awaited shall turn the sterns round to where the prows are,

so that the fleet shall run straight, and true fruit shall come after

the flower.”

[1] The connection of the ideas presented in what precedes with this

denunciation of covetousness, or selfishness, is not at first apparent.

But the transition is not unnatural, from the consideration of the

Heaven which pours down Divine influence, to the thought of the

engrossment of men in the pursuit of their selfish and transitory ends,

in which they are blinded to heavenly and eternal good.

[2] Both the order of the words and the meaning of this sentence axe

obscure.

[3] Before January falls in spring, owing to the lack of correctness in

the calendar, by which the year is lengthened by about a day in each

century. It is as if the poet said,—Before a thousand years shall pass;

meaning,—Within short while.

CANTO XXVIII.

The Heavenly Hierarchy.

After she who imparadises my mind had disclosed the truth counter to

the present life of wretched mortals, as he, who is lighted by a candle

from behind, sees its flame in a mirror before he has it in sight or in

thought, and turns round to see if the glass tell him the truth, and

sees that it accords with it as the note with its measure;[1] I thus my

memory recollects that I did, looking into the beautiful eyes,

wherewith Love made the cord to ensnare me.[2] And when I turned, and

mine were touched by that which is apparent in that revolving sphere

whenever one gazes fixedly on its gyration, I saw a Point which was

raying out light so keen that the sight on which it blazes must needs

close because of its intense keenness. And whatso star seems smallest

here would seem a moon if placed beside it, as star with star is

placed. Perhaps as near as a halo seems to girdle the light which

paints it, when the vapor that bears it is most dense, at such distance

round the Point a circle of fire was whirling so swiftly that it would

have surpassed that motion which with most speed girds the world; and

this was by another circumcinct, and that by the third, and the third

then by the fourth, by the fifth the fourth, and then by the sixth the

fifth. Thereon the seventh followed, so spread now in compass that the

messenger of Juno entire[3] would be narrow to contain it. So the

eighth and the ninth; and each was moving more slowly, according as it

was in number more distant from the first.[4] And that one had the

clearest flame from which the Pure Spark was least distant; I believe

because it partakes more of It. My Lady, who saw me deeply suspense in

doubt, said, “On that Point Heaven and all nature are dependent. Gaze

on that circle which is most conjoined to It, and know that its motion

is so swift because of the burning love whereby it is spurred.” And I

to her, “If the world were set in the order which I see in those

wheels, that which is propounded to me would have satisfied me; but in

the world of sense the revolutions may be seen so much the more divine

as they are more remote from the centre.[5] Wherefore if my desire is

to have end in this marvellous and angelic temple, which has for

confine only love and light, I need yet to hear why the example and the

exemplar go not in one fashion, because I by myself contemplate this in

vain.” “If thy fingers are insufficient for such a knot, it is no

wonder, so hard has it become through not being tried.” Thus my Lady;

then she said, “Take that which I shall tell thee, if thou wouldest be

satisfied, and make subtle thy wit about it. The corporeal circles[6]

are wide and narrow according to the more or less of virtue which is

spread through all their parts. Greater goodness must make greater

welfare; the greater body, if it has its parts equally complete,

contains greater welfare. Hence this one,[7] which sweeps along with

itself all the rest of the universe, corresponds to the circle[8] which

loves most, and knows most. Therefore, if thou compassest thy measure

round the virtue, not round the seeming of the substances which appear

circular to thee, thou wilt see in each heaven a marvellous agreement

with its Intelligence, of greater to more and of smaller to less.”[9]

[1] As the note of the song with the measure of the verse.

[2] The eyes of Beatrice reflected, as a mirror, the light which shone

from God.

[3] The full circle of Iris, or the rainbow.

[4] These circles of fire are the nine orders of Angels.

[5] The planetary spheres partake more of the divine nature, and move

more swiftly, in proportion to their distance from the earth, their

centre.

[6] The planetary spheres.

[7] The ninth sphere.

[8] Of the angelic hierarchy.

[9] The greater heaven corresponds to the angelic circle of the

Intelligences which love God most and know most of Him; the smaller to

that of those which love and know least.

As the hemisphere of the air remains splendid and serene when Boreas

blows from that cheek wherewith he is mildest,[1] whereby the mist

which first troubled it is cleared and dissolved, so that the heaven

smiles to us with the beauties of all its flock, so I became after my

Lady had provided me with her clear answer, and, like a star in heaven,

the truth was seen.

[1] When Boreas blows the north wind more from the west than from the

east.

And after her words had stopped, not otherwise does molten iron throw

out sparks than the circles sparkled. Every scintillation followed its

flame,[1] and they were so many that their number, was of more

thousands than the doubling of the chess. I heard Hosaimah sung from

choir to choir to the fixed Point that holds them, and will forever

hold them, at the Ubi[2] in which they have ever been. And she, who saw

the dubious thoughts within my mind, said, “The first circles have

shown to thee the Seraphim and the Cherubim. Thus swiftly they follow

their own bonds,[3] in order to liken themselves to the Point so far as

they can, and they can so far as they are exalted to see. Those other

loves, which go round about them, are called Thrones of the divine

aspect, because they terminated the first triad.[4] And thou shouldst

know that all have delight in proportion as their vision penetrates

into the True in which every understanding is at rest. Hence may be

seen how beatitude is founded on the act which sees, not on that which

loves, which follows after. And merit, which grace and good will bring

forth, is the measure of this seeing; thus is the progress from grade

to grade.

[1] The innumerable sparks each moved in accord with the gyration of

its flaming circle. The doubling of the chess alludes to the story that

the inventor of the game asked, as his reward from the King of Persia,

a grain of wheat for the first square of the board, two for the second,

and so on to the last or sixty-fourth square. The number reached by

this process of duplication extends to twenty figures.

[2] The WHERE, the appointed place.

[3] The course of their respective circles to which they are bound.

[4] “Throni elevantur ad hoc quod Deum familiariter in seipsis

recipiant.”—Summa Theol., I, cviii. 6.

“The next triad that thus buds in this sempiternal spring which the

nightly Aries despoils not,[1] perpetually sing their spring song of

Hosannah with three melodies, which sound in the three orders of joy

wherewith it is threefold. In this hierarchy are the three Divinities,

first Dominations, and then the Virtues; the third order is of Powers.

Then, in the two penultimate dances, the Principalities and Archangels

circle; the last is wholly of Angelic sports. These orders are all

upward gazing, and downward prevail, so that toward God they all are

drawn, and they all draw. And Dionysius[2] with such great desire set

himself to contemplate these orders, that he named and divided them, as

I. But Gregory[3] afterward separated from him; wherefore, so soon as

he opened his eyes in this Heaven, he smiled at himself. And if a

mortal proffered on earth so much of secret truth, I would not have

thee wonder, for he who saw it hereabove[4] disclosed it to him, with

much else of the truth of these circles.”

[1] At the autumnal equinox, the time of frosts, Aries is the sign in

which the night rises.

[2] The Areopagite. See Canto X.

[3] The Pope, St. Gregory, who differs slightly from Dionysius in his

arrangement of the Heavenly host.

[4] St. Paul, supposed to have communicated to his disciple the

knowledge which he gained when caught up to Heaven. See 2 Cor., xii. 2.

CANTO XXIX.

Discourse of Beatrice concerning the creation and nature of the

Angels.—She reproves the presumption and foolishness of preachers.

When both the children of Latona, covered by the Ram and by the Scales,

together make a zone of the horizon,[1] as long as from the moment the

zenith holds them in balance, till one and the other, changing their

hemisphere, are unbalanced from that girdle, soloing, with her

countenance painted with a smile, was Beatrice silent, looking fixedly

upon the Point which had overcome me. Then she began: “I speak, and I

ask not what thou wishest to hear, for I have seen it where every WHERE

and every WHEN are centred. Not for the gain of good unto Himself,

which cannot be, but that His splendor might, in resplendence, say,

Subsisto; in His own eternity, outside of time, outside of every other

limit, as pleased Him, the Eternal Love disclosed Himself in new loves.

Nor before, as if inert, did He lie; for the going forth of God upon

these waters had proceeded neither before nor after.[2] Form and

matter, conjoined and simple, came forth to existence which had no

defect, as three arrows from a three-stringed bow; and as in glass, in

amber, or in crystal a ray shines so that there is no interval between

its coining and its complete existence, so the triform effect[3] rayed

forth from its Lord into its. existence all at once, without

discrimination of beginning. Order was concreate, and established for

the substances, and those were top of the world in which pure act was

produced.[4] Pure potency held the lowest part;[5] in the middle such a

bond unites potency with act, that it is never unbound.[6] Jerome has

written to you of the Angels, created a long tract of centuries before

the rest of the world was made. But this truth[7] is written on many

pages by the writers of the that Holy Spirit: and thou wilt thyself

discover it, if thou watchest well for it; and even the reason sees it

somewhat, for it would not admit that the motors could be so long

without their perfection.[8] Now thou knowest where and when these

loves were elected, and how; so that three flames of thy desire are

already quenched.

[1] When at the spring equinox, the sun being in the sign of Aries or

the Ram, and the moon in that of Libra or the Scales, opposite to each

other on the horizon, the one just rising and the other setting, they

seem as if held for a moment in a balance which hangs from the zenith.

[2] In eternity there is no before or after; time had no existence till

the creation, and has relevancy only to created things.

[3] Pure form, pure matter, and form conjoined with matter.

[4] The substances created purely active, to exercise action upon

others, were the angels.

[5] The substances purely passive, capable potentially only of

submitting to the action of others, are the material things without

intelligence.

[6] The substances in which potency and act are united are the

creatures endowed with bodies and souls.

[7] The truth here set forth (contrary to Jerome's assertion), the

creation of the Angels was contemporaneous with that of the creation of

the rest of the Universe of which they were the Intelligences.

[8] Without scope for their action as movers of the spheres.

One would not reach to twenty, in counting, so quickly as a part of the

Angels disturbed the subject of your elements.[1] The rest remained and

began this art which thou beboldest, with such great delight that they

never cease from circling. The origin of the fall was the accursed

pride of him whom thou hast seen opprest by all the weights of the

world. Those whom thou seest here were modest in grateful recognition

of the goodness which had made them ready for intelligence so great;

wherefore their vision was exalted with illuminant grace and with their

merit, so that they have full and steadfast will. And I wish that thou

doubt not, but be certain, that to receive grace is meritorious in

proportion as the affection is open to it.

[1] The earth.

“Henceforth, if my words have been harvested, thou canst contemplate

sufficiently round about this consistory without other assistance. But

because on earth it is taught in your schools that the angelic nature

is such that it understands, and remembers, and wills, I will speak

further, in order that thou mayest see the truth pure, which there

below is mixed, through the equivocation in such like teaching. These

substances, from the time that they were glad in the face of God, have

not turned their sight from it, from which nothing is concealed.

Therefore they have not their vision interrupted by a new object, and

therefore do not need because of divided thought to recollect.[1] So

that there below men dream when not asleep, believing and not believing

to speak truth; but in the one is more fault and more shame.[2] Ye

below go not along one path in philosophizing; so much do the love of

appearance[3] and the thought of it transport you; and yet this is

endured hereabove with less indignation than when the divine Scripture

is set aside, or when it is perverted. Men think not there how much

blood it costs to sow it in the world, and how much he pleases who

humbly keeps close to its side. Every one strives for appearance, and

makes his own inventions, and those are discoursed of by the preachers,

and the Gospel is silent. One says that the moon turned back at the

passion of Christ and interposed herself, so that the light of the sun

reached not down; and others that the light hid itself of its own

accord, so that this eclipse answered for the Spaniards and for the

Indians as well as for the Jews. Florence hath not so many Lapi and

Bindi[4] as there are fables such as these shouted the year long from

the pulpits, on every side; so that the poor flocks, who have no

knowledge, return from the pasture fed with wind; and not seeing the

harm does not excuse them. Christ did not say to his first company,

'Go, and preach idle stories to the world,' but he gave to them the

true foundation; and that alone sounded in their cheeks, so that in the

battle for kindling of the faith they made shield and lance of the

Gospel. Now men go forth to preach with jests and with buffooneries,

and provided only there is a good laugh the cowl puffs up, and nothing

more is required. But such a bird is nesting in the tail of the hood,

that if the crowd should see it, they would see the pardon in which

they confide; through which such great folly has grown on earth, that,

without proof of any testimony, men would flock to every indulgence. On

this the pig of St. Antony fattens, and others also, who are far more

pigs, paying with money that has no stamp of coinage.

[1] The angels, looking always upon God, to whom all things are

present, have no need of memory.

[2] Many of the doctrines of men on earth axe like dreams, because they

have no foundation in truth; and while some honestly believe in them,

there are others, who, though not believing, still teach these

doctrines as truth.

[3] Of making a good show.

[4] Common nicknames in Florence; Lapo is from Jacopo, Bindo from

Ildebrando.

“But because we have digressed enough, turn back thine eyes now toward

the straight path, so that the way be shortened with the time. This

nature[1] so extends in number, that never was there speech or mortal

concept that could go so far. And if thou considerest that which is

revealed by Daniel thou wilt see that in his thousands[2] a determinate

number is concealed. The primal light that irradiates it all is

received in it by as many modes as are the splendors with which the

light pairs itself.[3] Wherefore, since the affection follows upon the

act[4] that conceives, in this nature the sweetness of love diversely

glows and warms. Behold now the height and the breadth of the Eternal

Goodness, since it has made for itself so many mirrors on which it is

broken, One in itself remaining as before.”

[1] The Angels.

[2] “Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten

thousand stood before him.”—Daniel, vii. 10.

[3] No two angels are precisely alike in their vision of God.

[4] Since love follows on knowledge through vision.

CANTO XXX.

Ascent to the Empyrean.—The River of Light.—The celestial Rose.—The

seat of Henry VII.—The last words of Beatrice.

The sixth hour is glowing perhaps six thousand miles distant from us,

and this world now inclines its shadow almost to a level bed, when the

mid heaven, deep above us, begins to become such that some one star

loses its show so far as to this depth;[1] and as the brightest

handmaid of the sun comes farther on, so the heaven is closed from

light to light, even to the most beautiful. Not otherwise the Triumph,

that plays forever round the Point which vanquished me, seeming

enclosed by that which it encloses, little by little to my sight was

extinguished;[2] wherefore my seeing nothing, and my love constrained

me to turn with my eyes to Beatrice. If what has been said of her so

far as here were all included in a single praise, it would be little to

furnish out this turn. The beauty which I saw transcends measure not

only by us, but truly I believe that its Maker alone can enjoy it all.

[1] When it is noon,—the sixth hour,—six thousand miles away from us to

the east, it is about daybreak where we are; the shadow of the earth

lies in the plane of vision, and with the growing light the stars one

after another become invisible at this depth, that is, to one on earth.

[2] Losing itself in the light which streams from the Divine point.

By this pass I concede myself vanquished more than ever comic or tragic

poet was overcome by crisis of his theme. For as the sun does to the

sight which trembles most, even so remembrance of the sweet smile

deprives my mind of its very self. From the first day that I saw her

face in this life, even to this look, the following with my song has

not been interrupted for me, but now needs must my pursuit desist from

further following her beauty in my verse, as at his utmost every

artist.

Such, as I leave her to a greater heralding than that of my trumpet,

which is bringing its arduous theme to a close, with act and voice of a

trusty leader she began again. “We have issued forth from the greatest

body[1] to the Heaven[2] which is pure light: light intellectual full

of love, love of true good, full of joy; joy which transcends every

sweetness. Here thou shalt see one and the other host of Paradise;[3]

and the one in those aspects which thou shalt see at the Last

Judgment.”

[1] The Primum Mobile, the greatest of the material spheres of the

universe.

[2] The Empyrean.

[3] The spirits of the redeemed who fought against the temptations of

the world, and the good angels who fought against the rebellious; and

here the souls in bliss will be seen in their bodily shapes.

As a sudden flash which scatters the spirits of the sight so that it

deprives the eye of the action of the strongest objects,[1] thus a

vivid light shone round about me, and left me swathed with such a veil

of its own effulgence that nothing was visible to me.

1] So that the clearest objects produce no effect upon the eye.

“The Love which quieteth this Heaven always welcomes to itself with

such a salutation, in order to make the candle ready for its flame.” No

sooner had these brief words come within me than I comprehended that I

was surmounting above my own power; and I rekindled me with a new

vision, such that no light is so pure that my eyes had not sustained

it. And I saw light in form of a river, bright with effulgence, between

two banks painted with a marvellous spring. Out of this stream were

issuing living sparks, and on every side were setting themselves in the

flowers, like rubies which gold encompasses. Then, as if inebriated by

the odors, they plunged again into the wonderful flood, and as one was

entering another was issuing forth.

“The high desire which now inflames and urges thee to have knowledge

concerning that which thou seest, Pleases me the more the more it

swells, but thou must needs drink of this water before so great a

thirst, in thee be slaked.” Thus the Sun of my eyes said to me; thereon

she added, “The stream, and the topazes which enter and issue, and the

smiling of the herbage, are foreshadowing prefaces of their truth;[1]

not that these things are in themselves immature,[2] but there is

defect on thy part who hast not yet vision so lofty.”

[1] The stream, the sparks, the flowers are not such in reality as they

seem to be; they are but images foreshadowing the truth.

[2] The things show themselves as they are, but the eyes cannot yet see

them correctly.

There is no babe who so hastily springs with face toward the milk, if

he awake much later than his wont, as I did, to make better mirrors yet

of my eyes, stooping to the wave which flows in order that one may be

bettered in it. And even as the eaves of my eyelids drank of it, so it

seemed to me from its length to become round. Then as folk who have

been under masks, who seem other than before, if they divest themselves

of the semblance not their own in which they disappeared, thus for me

the flowers and the sparks were changed into greater festival, so that

I saw both the Courts of Heaven manifest.

O splendor of God, by means of which I saw the high triumph of the true

kingdom, give me power to tell how I saw it!

Light is thereabove which makes the Creator visible to that creature

which has its peace only in seeing Him; and it is extended in a

circular figure so far that its circumference would be too wide a

girdle for the sun. Its whole appearance is made of a ray reflected

from the summit of the First Moving Heaven,[1] which therefrom takes

its life and potency. And as a hill mirrors itself in water at its

base, as if to see itself adorned, rich as it is with verdure and with

flowers, so ranged above the light, round and round about, on more than

a thousand seats, I saw mirrored all who of us have returned on high.

And if the lowest row gather within itself so great a light, how vast

is the spread of this rose in its outermost leaves! My sight lost not

itself in the breadth and in the height, but took in all the quantity

and the quality of that joy. There near and far nor add nor take away;

for where God immediately governs the natural law is of no relevancy.

[1] The Primum Mobile.

Into the yellow of the sempiternal rose, which spreads wide, rises in

steps, and is redolent with odor of praise unto the Sun that makes

perpetual spring, Beatrice, like one who is silent and wishes to speak,

drew me, and said, “Behold, how vast is the convent of the white

stoles![1] See our city, how wide its circuit! See our benches so full

that few people are now awaited here. On that great seat, on which thou

holdest thine eye because of the crown which already is set above it,

ere thou suppest at this wedding feast will sit the soul (which below

will be imperial) of the high Henry who, to set Italy straight, will

come ere she is ready.[2] The blind cupidity which bewitches you has

made you like the little child who dies of hunger, and drives away his

nurse. And such a one will then be prefect in the divine forum that

openly or covertly he will not go with him along one road;[3] but short

while thereafter shall he be endured by God in the holy office; for he

shall be thrust down for his deserts, there where Simon Magus is, and

shall make him of Anagna go lower.”

[1] “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white

raiment.”—Revelation, iii. 5.

[2] Henry VII., Emperor 1308, crowned at Milan 1311, died 1313.

[3] The Pope Clement V. ostensibly supported the Emperor Henry VII. in

his Italian expedition, but secretly manoeuvred against him. He died in

1314, eight months after the death of Henry. Beatrice here condemns him

to the third bolgia of the eighth circle of Hell, whither he was to

follow Boniface VIII.,—him of Anagna,—and push him deeper in the hole

where the simoniacal Popes were punished, Cf. Hell, XIX.

CANTO XXXI.

The Rose of Paradise.—St. Bernard.—Prayer to Beatrice.—The glory of the

Blessed Virgin.

In form then of a pure white rose the holy host was shown to me, which,

in His own blood, Christ made His bride. But the other,[1] which,

flying, sees and sings the glory of Him who enamours it, and the

goodness which made it so great, like a swarm of bees which one while

are among the flowers and anon return to the place where their work

gets its savor, were descending into the great flower which is adorned

with so many leaves, and thence rising up again to where their love

always abides. Their faces all were of living flame, and their wings of

gold, and the rest so white that no snow reaches that extreme. When

they descended into the flower, from bench to bench, they imparted

somewhat of the peace and of the ardor which they acquired as they

fanned their sides. Nor did the interposing of such a flying plenitude

between what was above and the flower impede the sight and the

splendor; for the divine light penetrates through the universe,

according as it is worthy, so that naught can be an obstacle to it.

This secure and joyous realm, thronged with aneient and with modern

folk, had all its look and love upon one mark.

[1] The angelic host.

O Trinal Light, which in a single star, scintillating on their sight,

so satisfies them, look down here upon our tempest!

If the Barbarians, coming from a region such that every day it is

covered by Helice,[1] revolving with her son of whom she is fond, when

they beheld Rome and her arduous work, were wonderstruck, what time

Lateran rose above mortal things,[2] I, who to the divine from the

human, to the eternal from the temporal, had come, and from Florence to

a people just and sane, with what amazement must I have been full!

Surely what with it and the joy I was well pleased not to hear, and to

stand mute. And as a pilgrim who is refreshed in the temple of his vow

in looking round, and hopes now to report how it was, so, journeying

through the living light, I carried my eyes over the ranks, now up, now

down, and now circling about. I saw faces persuasive to love,

beautified by the light of Another and by their own smile, and actions

ornate with every dignity.

[1] The nymph Callisto or Helice bore to Zeus a son, Arcas; she was

metamorphosed by Hera into a bear, and then transferred to Heaven by

Jupiter as the constellation of the Great Bear, while her son was

changed into the constellation of Aretophylax or Bootes. In the far

north these constellations remain always above the horizon.

[2] When Rome was mistress of the world, and the Lateran the seat of

imperial or papal power.

My look had now comprehended the general form of Paradise as a whole,

and on no part yet my sight was fixed; and I turned me with

re-enkindled wish to ask my Lady about things concerning which my mind

was in suspense. One thing I was meaning, and another answered me; I

was thinking to see Beatrice, and I saw an old man, robed like the

people in glory. His eyes and his cheeks were overspread with benignant

joy, in pious mien such as befits a tender father. And, “Where is she?”

on a sudden said I. Whereon he, “To terminate thy desire, Beatrice

urged me from my place, and if thou lookest up to the third circle from

the highest step, thou wilt again see her upon the throne which her

merits have allotted to her.” Without answering I lifted up my eyes,

and saw her as she made for herself a crown, reflecting from herself

the eternal rays. From that region which thunders highest up no mortal

eye is so far distant, in whatsoever sea it loses itself the lowest,[1]

as there from Beatrice was my sight. But this was naught to me, for her

image did not descend to me blurred by aught between.

[1] From the highest region of the air to the lowest depth of the sea.

“O Lady, in whom my hope is strong, and who, for my salvation, didst

endure to leave thy footprints in Hell, of all those things which I

have seen, I recognize by thy power and by thy goodness the grace and

the virtue. Thou hast drawn me from servitude to liberty by all those

ways, by all the modes whereby thou hadst the power to do this. Guard

thou in me thine own magnificence so that my soul, which thou hast made

whole, may, pleasing to thee, be unloosed from the body.” Thus I

prayed; and she, so distant, smiled, as it seemed, and looked at me;

then turned to the eternal fountain.

And the holy old man, “In order that thou mayest complete perfectly,”

he said, “thy journey, whereto prayer and holy love sent me, fly with

thy eyes through this garden; for seeing it will prepare thy look to

mount further through the divine radiance. And the Queen of Heaven, for

whom I burn wholly with love, will grant us every grace, because I am

her faithful Bernard.”[1]

[1] St. Bernard, to whom, because of his fervent devotion to her, the

Blessed Virgin had deigned to show herself during his life.

As is he who comes perchance from Croatia to see our Veronica,[1] who

is not satisfied by its ancient fame, but says in thought, while it is

shown, “My Lord Jesus Christ, true God, now was your semblance like to

this?” such was I, gazing on the living charity of him who, in this

world, in contemplation, tasted of that peace.

[1] The likeness of the Saviour miraculously impressed upon the

kerchief presented to him by a holy woman, on his way to Calvary,

wherewith to wipe the sweat and dust from his face, and now religiously

preserved at Rome, and shown at St. Peter's, on certain holydays.

“Son of Grace, this glad existence,” began he, “will not be known to

thee holding thine eyes only below here at the bottom, but look on the

circles even to the most remote, until thou seest upon her seat the

Queen to whom this realm is subject and devoted.” I lifted up my eyes;

and as at morning the eastern parts of the horizon surpass that where

the sun declines, thus, as if going with my eyes from valley to

mountain, I saw a part on the extreme verge vanquishing in light all

the other front. And even as there where the pole which Phaeton guided

ill is awaited,[1] the flame is brighter, and on this side and that the

light grows less, so that pacific oriflamme was vivid at the middle,

and on each side in equal measure the flame slackened. And at that mid

part I saw more than a thousand jubilant Angels with wings outspread,

each distinct both in brightness and in act. I saw there, smiling at

their sports and at their songs, a Beauty[2] which was joy in the eyes

of all the other saints. And if I had such wealth in speech as in

imagining, I should. not dare to attempt the least of its

delightfulness. Bernard, when he saw my eyes fixed and intent upon its

warm glow, turned his own with such affection to it, that he made mine

more ardent to gaze anew.

[1] Where the chariot of the sun is about to rise.

[2] The Virgin.

CANTO XXXII.

St. Bernard describes the order of the Rose, and points out many of the

Saints.—The children in Paradise.—The angelic festival.—The patricians

of the Court of Heaven.

Fixed in affection upon his Delight, that contemplator freely assumed

the office of a teacher, and began these holy words: “The wound which

Mary closed up and anointed, she who is so beautiful at her feet is she

who opened it and who pierced it. Beneath her, in the order which the

third seats make, sits Rachel with Beatrice, as thou seest. Sara,

Rebecca, Judith, and she[1] who was great-grandmother of the singer

who, through sorrow for his sin, said Miserere mei,[2] thou mayest see

thus from step to step in gradation downward, as with the name of each

I go downward through the rose from leaf to leaf. And from the seventh

row downwards, even as down to it, Hebrew women follow in succession,

dividing all the tresses of the flower; because these are the wall by

which the sacred stairways are separated according to the look which

faith turned on Christ. On this side, where the flower is mature with

all its leaves, are seated those who believed in Christ about to come.

On the other side, where the semicircles are broken by empty spaces,

are those who turned their faces on Christ already come.[3] And as on

this side the glorious seat of the Lady of Heaven, and the other seats

below it, make so great a division, thus, opposite, does that of the

great John, who, ever holy, endured the desert and martyrdom, and then

Hell for two years;[4] and beneath him Francis and Benedict and

Augustine and others are allotted thfis to divide, far down as here

from circle to circle. Now behold the high divine foresight; for one

and the other aspect of the faith will fill this garden equally. And

know that downwards from the row which midway cleaves[5] the two

divisions, they are seated for no merit of their own, but for that of

others, under certain conditions; for all these are spirits absolved

ere they had true election. Well canst thou perceive it by their looks,

and also by their childish voices, if thou lookest well upon them and

if thou listenest to them. Now thou art perplexed, and in perplexity

art silent; but I will loose for thee the strong bond in which thy

subtile thoughts fetter thee.[6] Within the amplitude of this realm a

casual point can have no place,[7] any more than sadness, or thirst, or

hunger; for whatever thou seest is established by eternal law, so that

here the ring answers exactly to the finger. And therefore this

folk,[8] hastened to true life, is not sine causa more and less

excellent here among itself. The King through whom this realm reposes

in such great love and in such great delight that no will is

venturesome for more, creating all the minds in His own glad aspect,

diversely endows with grace according to His own pleasure; and here let

the fact suffice.[9] And this is expressly and clearly noted for you in

the Holy Scripture in those twins who, while within their mother, had

their anger roused.[10] Therefore, according to the color of the hair

of such grace,[11] it behoves the highest light befittingly to crown

them. Without, then, merit from their modes of Efe, they are placed in

different grades, differing only in their primary keenness of

vision.[12] Thus in the fresh centuries the faith of parents alone

sufficed, together with innocence, to secure salvation. After the first

ages were, complete, it was needful for males with their innocent

plumage to acquire virtue through circumcision. But after the time of

grace had come, without perfect baptism in Christ, such minocence was

kept there below.

[1] Ruth.

[2] “Have mercy upon me.”—Psalm li. 1.

[3] The circle of the Rose is divided in two equal parts. In the one

half, the saints of the Old Dispensation, who believed in Christ about

to come, are seated. The benches of this half are full. In the other

half, the benches of which are not yet quite full, sit the redeemed of

the New Dispensation who have believed on Christ already come. On one

side the line of division between the semicircles is made by the Hebrew

women from the Virgin Mary downwards; on the opposite side the line is

made by St. John Baptist and other saints who had rendered special

service to Christ and his Church. The lower tiers of seats all round

are occupied by children elect to bliss.

[4] The two years from the death of John to the death of Christ and his

descent to Hell, to draw from the limbus patrum the souls predestined

to salvation.

[5] Horizontally.

[6] The perplexity was, How can there be difference of merit in the

innocent, assigning them to different seats in Paradise?

[7] No least thing can here be matter of chance.

[8] This childish folk.

[9] Without attempt to account for it, to seek the wherefore of the

will of God.

[10] Jacob and Esau. See Genesis, xxv. 22.

[11] The crown of light and the station in Paradise axe allotted

according to the diversity in the endowment of grace, which is like the

diversity in the color of the hair of men.

[12] In capacity to see God.

“Look now upon the face which most resembles Christ, for only its

brightness can prepare thee to see Christ.”

I saw raining upon her such great joy borne in the holy minds created

to fly across through that height, that whatsoever I had seen before

had not rapt me with such great admiration, nor shown to me such

likeness to God. And that love which had first descended there, in

front of her spread wide his wings, singing “Ave, Maria, gratia plena.”

The blessed Court responded to the divine song from all parts, so that

every countenance became thereby serener.

“O holy Father, who for me submittest to be below here, leaving the

sweet place in which thou sittest through eternal allotment, who is

that Angel who with such jubilee looks into the eyes of our Queen, so

enamoured that he seems of fire?” Thus I again had recourse to the

teaching of him who was made beautiful by Mary, as the morning star by

the sun. And he to me, “Confidence and grace as much as there can be in

Angel and in soul, axe all in him, and so we would have it be, for he

it is who bore the palm down to Mary, when the Son of God willed to

load Himself with our burden.

“But come now with thine eyes, as I shall go on speaking, and note the

great patricians of this most just and pious empire. Those two who sit

there above, most happy through being nearest to the Empress, are, as

it were, the two roots of this rose. He who on the left is close to her

is the Father through whose rash taste the human race tastes so much

bitterness. On the right thou seest that ancient Father of Holy Church,

to whom Christ entrusted the keys of this lovely flower. And he who saw

before his death all the heavy times of the beautiful bride, who was

won with the lance and with the nails, sits at his side; and alongside

the other rests that leader, under whom the ingrate, fickle and

stubborn people lived on manna. Opposite Peter thou seest Anna sitting,

so content to gaze upon her daughter, that she moves not her eyes while

singing Hosannah; and opposite the eldest father of a family sits

Lucia, who moved thy Lady, when thou didst bend thy brow to rush

downward.

“But because the time flies which holds thee slumbering,[1] here will

we make a stop, like a good tailor who makes the gown according as he

has cloth, and we will direct our eyes to the First Love, so that,

looking towards Him, thou mayst penetrate so far as is possible through

His effulgence. Truly, lest perchance, moving thy wings, thou go

backward, believing to advance, it is needful that grace be obtained by

prayer; grace from her who has the power to aid thee; and do thou

follow me with thy affection so that thy heart depart not from my

speech.”

[1] This is the single passage in which Dante implies that his vision

is of the nature of a dream.

And he began this holy supplication.

CANTO XXXIII.

Prayer to the Virgin.—The Beatific Vision.—The Ultimate Salvation.

“Virgin Mother, daughter of thine own Son, humble and exalted more than

any creature, fixed term of the eternal counsel, thou art she who didst

so ennoble human nature that its own Maker disdained not to become His

own making. Within thy womb was rekindled the Love through whose warmth

this flower has thus blossomed in the eternal peace. Here thou art to

us the noonday torch of charity, and below, among mortals, thou art the

living fount of hope. Lady, thou art so great, and so availest, that

whoso wishes grace, and has not recourse to thee, wishes his desire to

fly without wings. Thy benignity not only succors him who asks, but

oftentimes freely foreruns the asking. In thee mercy, in thee pity, in

thee magnificence, in thee whatever of goodness is in any creature, are

united. Now doth this man, who, from the lowest abyss of the universe,

far even as here, has seen one by one the lives of spirits, supplicate

thee, through grace, for virtue such that he may be able with his eyes

to uplift himself higher toward the Ultimate Salvation. And I, who

never for my own vision burned more than I do for his, proffer to thee

all my prayers, and pray that they be not scant, that with thy prayers

thou wouldest dissipate for him every cloud of his mortality, so that

the Supreme Pleasure may be displayed to him. Further I pray thee,

Queen, who canst whatso thou wilt, that, after so great a vision, thou

wouldest preserve his affections sound. May thy guardianship vanquish

human impulses. Behold Beatrice with all the Blessed for my prayers

clasp their hands to thee.”[1]

[1] In the Second Nun's Tale Chaucer has rendered, with great beauty,

the larger part of this prayer.

The eyes beloved and revered by God, fixed on the speaker, showed to us

how pleasing unto her are devout prayers. Then to the Eternal Light

were they directed, on which it is not to be believed that eye so clear

is turned by any creature.

And I, who to the end of all desires was approaching, even as I ought,

ended within myself the ardor of my longing.[1] Bernard was beckoning

to me, and was smiling, that I should look upward; but I was already,

of my own accord, such as he wished; for my sight, becoming pure, was

entering more and more through the radiance of the lofty Light which of

itself is true.

[1] The ardor of longing ceased, as was natural, in the consummation

and enjoyment of desire.

Thenceforward my vision was greater than our speech, which yields to

such a sight, and the memory yields to such excess.[1]

[1] Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame

In matter-moulded forms of speech,

Or ev'n for intellect to reach

Thro' memory that which I became.”

—In Memoriam, XCV.

As is he who dreaming sees, and after the dream the passion remains

imprinted, and the rest returns not to the mind, such am I; for my

vision almost wholly fails, while the sweetness that was born of it yet

distils within my heart. Thus the snow is by the sun unsealed; thus on

the wind, in the light leaves, was lost the saying of the Sibyl.

O Supreme Light, that so high upliftest Thyself from mortal

conceptions, re-lend a little to my mind of what Thou didst appear, and

make my tongue so powerful that it may be able to leave one single

spark of Thy glory for the future people; for, by returning somewhat to

my memory and by sounding a little in these verses, more of Thy victory

shall be conceived.

I think that by the keenness of the living ray which I endured, I

should have been bewildered if my eyes had been averted from it. And it

comes to my mind that for this reason I was the more hardy to sustain

so much, that I joined my look unto the Infinite Goodness.

O abundant Grace, whereby I presumed to fix my eyes through the Eternal

Light so far that there I consumed my sight!

In its depth I saw that whatsoever is dispersed through the universe is

there included, bound with love in one volume; substance and accidents

and their modes, fused together, as it were, in such wise, that that of

which I speak is one simple Light. The universal form of this knot[1] I

believe that I saw, because in saying this I feel that I more at large

rejoice. One instant only is greater oblivion for me than five and

twenty centuries to the emprise which made Neptune wonder at the shadow

of Argo.[2]

[1] This union of substance and accident and their modes; the unity of

creation in the Creator.

[2] The mysteries of God vanish in an instant from memory, but the

larger joy felt in recording them is proof that they were seen.

Thus my mind, wholly rapt, was gazing fixed, motionless, and intent,

and ever with gazing grew enkindled. In that Light one becomes such

that it is impossible he should ever consent to turn himself from it

for other sight; because the Good which is the object of the will is

all collected in it, and outside of it that is defective which is

perfect there.

Now will my speech be shorter, even in respect to that which I

remember, than an infant's who still bathes his tongue at the breast.

Not because more than one simple semblance was in the Living Light

wherein I was gazing, which is always such as it was before; but

through my sight, which was growing strong in me as I looked, one sole

appearance, as I myself changed, was altering itself to me.

Within the profound and clear subsistence of the lofty Light appeared

to me three circles of three colors and of one dimension; and one

appeared reflected by the other, as Iris by Iris,[1] and the third

appeared fire which from the one and from the other is equally breathed

forth.

[1] As one arch of the rainbow by the other.

O how short is the telling, and how feeble toward my conception! and

this toward what I saw is such that it suffices not to call it little.

O Light Eternal, that sole dwellest in Thyself, sole understandest

Thyself, and, by Thyself understood and understanding, lovest and

smilest on Thyself! That circle, which, thus conceived, appeared in

Thee as a reflected light, being somewhile regarded by my eyes, seemed

to me depicted within itself, of its own very color, by our effigy,

wherefore my sight was wholly set upon it. As is the geometer who

wholly applies himself to measure the circle, and finds not by thinking

that principle of which he is in need, such was I at that new sight. I

wished to see how the image accorded with the circle, and how it has

its place therein; but my own wings were not for this, had it not been

that my mind was smitten by a flash in which its wish came.

To my high fantasy here power failed; but now my desire and my will,

like a wheel which evenly is moved, the Lovee was turning which moves

the Sun and the other stars.