Part 18

This cannot be, if the Intelligences That keep these stars in motion are not maimed, And maimed the First that has not made them perfect.

Wilt thou this truth have clearer made to thee?” And I: “Not so; for ’tis impossible That nature tire, I see, in what is needful.”

Whence he again: “Now say, would it be worse For men on earth were they not citizens?” “Yes,” I replied; “and here I ask no reason.”

“And can they be so, if below they live not Diversely unto offices diverse? No, if your master writeth well for you.”

So came he with deductions to this point; Then he concluded: “Therefore it behoves The roots of your effects to be diverse.

Hence one is Solon born, another Xerxes, Another Melchisedec, and another he Who, flying through the air, his son did lose.

Revolving Nature, which a signet is To mortal wax, doth practise well her art, But not one inn distinguish from another;

Thence happens it that Esau differeth In seed from Jacob; and Quirinus comes From sire so vile that he is given to Mars.

A generated nature its own way Would always make like its progenitors, If Providence divine were not triumphant.

Now that which was behind thee is before thee; But that thou know that I with thee am pleased, With a corollary will I mantle thee.

Evermore nature, if it fortune find Discordant to it, like each other seed Out of its region, maketh evil thrift;

And if the world below would fix its mind On the foundation which is laid by nature, Pursuing that, ’twould have the people good.

But you unto religion wrench aside Him who was born to gird him with the sword, And make a king of him who is for sermons;

Therefore your footsteps wander from the road.”

Paradiso: Canto IX

Beautiful Clemence, after that thy Charles Had me enlightened, he narrated to me The treacheries his seed should undergo;

But said: “Be still and let the years roll round;” So I can only say, that lamentation Legitimate shall follow on your wrongs.

And of that holy light the life already Had to the Sun which fills it turned again, As to that good which for each thing sufficeth.

Ah, souls deceived, and creatures impious, Who from such good do turn away your hearts, Directing upon vanity your foreheads!

And now, behold, another of those splendours Approached me, and its will to pleasure me It signified by brightening outwardly.

The eyes of Beatrice, that fastened were Upon me, as before, of dear assent To my desire assurance gave to me.

“Ah, bring swift compensation to my wish, Thou blessed spirit,” I said, “and give me proof That what I think in thee I can reflect!”

Whereat the light, that still was new to me, Out of its depths, whence it before was singing, As one delighted to do good, continued:

“Within that region of the land depraved Of Italy, that lies between Rialto And fountain-heads of Brenta and of Piava,

Rises a hill, and mounts not very high, Wherefrom descended formerly a torch That made upon that region great assault.

Out of one root were born both I and it; Cunizza was I called, and here I shine Because the splendour of this star o’ercame me.

But gladly to myself the cause I pardon Of my allotment, and it does not grieve me; Which would perhaps seem strong unto your vulgar.

Of this so luculent and precious jewel, Which of our heaven is nearest unto me, Great fame remained; and ere it die away

This hundredth year shall yet quintupled be. See if man ought to make him excellent, So that another life the first may leave!

And thus thinks not the present multitude Shut in by Adige and Tagliamento, Nor yet for being scourged is penitent.

But soon ’twill be that Padua in the marsh Will change the water that Vicenza bathes, Because the folk are stubborn against duty;

And where the Sile and Cagnano join One lordeth it, and goes with lofty head, For catching whom e’en now the net is making.

Feltro moreover of her impious pastor Shall weep the crime, which shall so monstrous be That for the like none ever entered Malta.

Ample exceedingly would be the vat That of the Ferrarese could hold the blood, And weary who should weigh it ounce by ounce,

Of which this courteous priest shall make a gift To show himself a partisan; and such gifts Will to the living of the land conform.

Above us there are mirrors, Thrones you call them, From which shines out on us God Judicant, So that this utterance seems good to us.”

Here it was silent, and it had the semblance Of being turned elsewhither, by the wheel On which it entered as it was before.

The other joy, already known to me, Became a thing transplendent in my sight, As a fine ruby smitten by the sun.

Through joy effulgence is acquired above, As here a smile; but down below, the shade Outwardly darkens, as the mind is sad.

“God seeth all things, and in Him, blest spirit, Thy sight is,” said I, “so that never will Of his can possibly from thee be hidden;

Thy voice, then, that for ever makes the heavens Glad, with the singing of those holy fires Which of their six wings make themselves a cowl,

Wherefore does it not satisfy my longings? Indeed, I would not wait thy questioning If I in thee were as thou art in me.”

“The greatest of the valleys where the water Expands itself,” forthwith its words began, “That sea excepted which the earth engarlands,

Between discordant shores against the sun Extends so far, that it meridian makes Where it was wont before to make the horizon.

I was a dweller on that valley’s shore ’Twixt Ebro and Magra that with journey short Doth from the Tuscan part the Genoese.

With the same sunset and same sunrise nearly Sit Buggia and the city whence I was, That with its blood once made the harbour hot.

Folco that people called me unto whom My name was known; and now with me this heaven Imprints itself, as I did once with it;

For more the daughter of Belus never burned, Offending both Sichaeus and Creusa, Than I, so long as it became my locks,

Nor yet that Rodophean, who deluded was by Demophoon, nor yet Alcides, When Iole he in his heart had locked.

Yet here is no repenting, but we smile, Not at the fault, which comes not back to mind, But at the power which ordered and foresaw.

Here we behold the art that doth adorn With such affection, and the good discover Whereby the world above turns that below.

But that thou wholly satisfied mayst bear Thy wishes hence which in this sphere are born, Still farther to proceed behoveth me.

Thou fain wouldst know who is within this light That here beside me thus is scintillating, Even as a sunbeam in the limpid water.

Then know thou, that within there is at rest Rahab, and being to our order joined, With her in its supremest grade ’tis sealed.

Into this heaven, where ends the shadowy cone Cast by your world, before all other souls First of Christ’s triumph was she taken up.

Full meet it was to leave her in some heaven, Even as a palm of the high victory Which he acquired with one palm and the other,

Because she favoured the first glorious deed Of Joshua upon the Holy Land, That little stirs the memory of the Pope.

Thy city, which an offshoot is of him Who first upon his Maker turned his back, And whose ambition is so sorely wept,

Brings forth and scatters the accursed flower Which both the sheep and lambs hath led astray Since it has turned the shepherd to a wolf.

For this the Evangel and the mighty Doctors Are derelict, and only the Decretals So studied that it shows upon their margins.

On this are Pope and Cardinals intent; Their meditations reach not Nazareth, There where his pinions Gabriel unfolded;

But Vatican and the other parts elect Of Rome, which have a cemetery been Unto the soldiery that followed Peter

Shall soon be free from this adultery.”

Paradiso: Canto X

Looking into his Son with all the Love Which each of them eternally breathes forth, The Primal and unutterable Power

Whate’er before the mind or eye revolves With so much order made, there can be none Who this beholds without enjoying Him.

Lift up then, Reader, to the lofty wheels With me thy vision straight unto that part Where the one motion on the other strikes,

And there begin to contemplate with joy That Master’s art, who in himself so loves it That never doth his eye depart therefrom.

Behold how from that point goes branching off The oblique circle, which conveys the planets, To satisfy the world that calls upon them;

And if their pathway were not thus inflected, Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain, And almost every power below here dead.

If from the straight line distant more or less Were the departure, much would wanting be Above and underneath of mundane order.

Remain now, Reader, still upon thy bench, In thought pursuing that which is foretasted, If thou wouldst jocund be instead of weary.

I’ve set before thee; henceforth feed thyself, For to itself diverteth all my care That theme whereof I have been made the scribe.

The greatest of the ministers of nature, Who with the power of heaven the world imprints And measures with his light the time for us,

With that part which above is called to mind Conjoined, along the spirals was revolving, Where each time earlier he presents himself;

And I was with him; but of the ascending I was not conscious, saving as a man Of a first thought is conscious ere it come;

And Beatrice, she who is seen to pass From good to better, and so suddenly That not by time her action is expressed,

How lucent in herself must she have been! And what was in the sun, wherein I entered, Apparent not by colour but by light,

I, though I call on genius, art, and practice, Cannot so tell that it could be imagined; Believe one can, and let him long to see it.

And if our fantasies too lowly are For altitude so great, it is no marvel, Since o’er the sun was never eye could go.

Such in this place was the fourth family Of the high Father, who forever sates it, Showing how he breathes forth and how begets.

And Beatrice began: “Give thanks, give thanks Unto the Sun of Angels, who to this Sensible one has raised thee by his grace!”

Never was heart of mortal so disposed To worship, nor to give itself to God With all its gratitude was it so ready,

As at those words did I myself become; And all my love was so absorbed in Him, That in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed.

Nor this displeased her; but she smiled at it So that the splendour of her laughing eyes My single mind on many things divided.

Lights many saw I, vivid and triumphant, Make us a centre and themselves a circle, More sweet in voice than luminous in aspect.

Thus girt about the daughter of Latona We sometimes see, when pregnant is the air, So that it holds the thread which makes her zone.

Within the court of Heaven, whence I return, Are many jewels found, so fair and precious They cannot be transported from the realm;

And of them was the singing of those lights. Who takes not wings that he may fly up thither, The tidings thence may from the dumb await!

As soon as singing thus those burning suns Had round about us whirled themselves three times, Like unto stars neighbouring the steadfast poles,

Ladies they seemed, not from the dance released, But who stop short, in silence listening Till they have gathered the new melody.

And within one I heard beginning: “When The radiance of grace, by which is kindled True love, and which thereafter grows by loving,

Within thee multiplied is so resplendent That it conducts thee upward by that stair, Where without reascending none descends,

Who should deny the wine out of his vial Unto thy thirst, in liberty were not Except as water which descends not seaward.

Fain wouldst thou know with what plants is enflowered This garland that encircles with delight The Lady fair who makes thee strong for heaven.

Of the lambs was I of the holy flock Which Dominic conducteth by a road Where well one fattens if he strayeth not.

He who is nearest to me on the right My brother and master was; and he Albertus Is of Cologne, I Thomas of Aquinum.

If thou of all the others wouldst be certain, Follow behind my speaking with thy sight Upward along the blessed garland turning.

That next effulgence issues from the smile Of Gratian, who assisted both the courts In such wise that it pleased in Paradise.

The other which near by adorns our choir That Peter was who, e’en as the poor widow, Offered his treasure unto Holy Church.

The fifth light, that among us is the fairest, Breathes forth from such a love, that all the world Below is greedy to learn tidings of it.

Within it is the lofty mind, where knowledge So deep was put, that, if the true be true, To see so much there never rose a second.

Thou seest next the lustre of that taper, Which in the flesh below looked most within The angelic nature and its ministry.

Within that other little light is smiling The advocate of the Christian centuries, Out of whose rhetoric Augustine was furnished.

Now if thou trainest thy mind’s eye along From light to light pursuant of my praise, With thirst already of the eighth thou waitest.

By seeing every good therein exults The sainted soul, which the fallacious world Makes manifest to him who listeneth well;

The body whence ’twas hunted forth is lying Down in Cieldauro, and from martyrdom And banishment it came unto this peace.

See farther onward flame the burning breath Of Isidore, of Beda, and of Richard Who was in contemplation more than man.

This, whence to me returneth thy regard, The light is of a spirit unto whom In his grave meditations death seemed slow.

It is the light eternal of Sigier, Who, reading lectures in the Street of Straw, Did syllogize invidious verities.”

Then, as a horologe that calleth us What time the Bride of God is rising up With matins to her Spouse that he may love her,

Wherein one part the other draws and urges, Ting! ting! resounding with so sweet a note, That swells with love the spirit well disposed,

Thus I beheld the glorious wheel move round, And render voice to voice, in modulation And sweetness that can not be comprehended,

Excepting there where joy is made eternal.

Paradiso: Canto XI

O Thou insensate care of mortal men, How inconclusive are the syllogisms That make thee beat thy wings in downward flight!

One after laws and one to aphorisms Was going, and one following the priesthood, And one to reign by force or sophistry,

And one in theft, and one in state affairs, One in the pleasures of the flesh involved Wearied himself, one gave himself to ease;

When I, from all these things emancipate, With Beatrice above there in the Heavens With such exceeding glory was received!

When each one had returned unto that point Within the circle where it was before, It stood as in a candlestick a candle;

And from within the effulgence which at first Had spoken unto me, I heard begin Smiling while it more luminous became:

“Even as I am kindled in its ray, So, looking into the Eternal Light, The occasion of thy thoughts I apprehend.

Thou doubtest, and wouldst have me to resift In language so extended and so open My speech, that to thy sense it may be plain,

Where just before I said, ‘where well one fattens,’ And where I said, ‘there never rose a second;’ And here ’tis needful we distinguish well.

The Providence, which governeth the world With counsel, wherein all created vision Is vanquished ere it reach unto the bottom,

(So that towards her own Beloved might go The bride of Him who, uttering a loud cry, Espoused her with his consecrated blood,

Self-confident and unto Him more faithful,) Two Princes did ordain in her behoof, Which on this side and that might be her guide.

The one was all seraphical in ardour; The other by his wisdom upon earth A splendour was of light cherubical.

One will I speak of, for of both is spoken In praising one, whichever may be taken, Because unto one end their labours were.

Between Tupino and the stream that falls Down from the hill elect of blessed Ubald, A fertile slope of lofty mountain hangs,

From which Perugia feels the cold and heat Through Porta Sole, and behind it weep Gualdo and Nocera their grievous yoke.

From out that slope, there where it breaketh most Its steepness, rose upon the world a sun As this one does sometimes from out the Ganges;

Therefore let him who speaketh of that place, Say not Ascesi, for he would say little, But Orient, if he properly would speak.

He was not yet far distant from his rising Before he had begun to make the earth Some comfort from his mighty virtue feel.

For he in youth his father’s wrath incurred For certain Dame, to whom, as unto death, The gate of pleasure no one doth unlock;

And was before his spiritual court ‘Et coram patre’ unto her united; Then day by day more fervently he loved her.

She, reft of her first husband, scorned, obscure, One thousand and one hundred years and more, Waited without a suitor till he came.

Naught it availed to hear, that with Amyclas Found her unmoved at sounding of his voice He who struck terror into all the world;

Naught it availed being constant and undaunted, So that, when Mary still remained below, She mounted up with Christ upon the cross.

But that too darkly I may not proceed, Francis and Poverty for these two lovers Take thou henceforward in my speech diffuse.

Their concord and their joyous semblances, The love, the wonder, and the sweet regard, They made to be the cause of holy thoughts;

So much so that the venerable Bernard First bared his feet, and after so great peace Ran, and, in running, thought himself too slow.

O wealth unknown! O veritable good! Giles bares his feet, and bares his feet Sylvester Behind the bridegroom, so doth please the bride!

Then goes his way that father and that master, He and his Lady and that family Which now was girding on the humble cord;

Nor cowardice of heart weighed down his brow At being son of Peter Bernardone, Nor for appearing marvellously scorned;

But regally his hard determination To Innocent he opened, and from him Received the primal seal upon his Order.

After the people mendicant increased Behind this man, whose admirable life Better in glory of the heavens were sung,

Incoronated with a second crown Was through Honorius by the Eternal Spirit The holy purpose of this Archimandrite.

And when he had, through thirst of martyrdom, In the proud presence of the Sultan preached Christ and the others who came after him,

And, finding for conversion too unripe The folk, and not to tarry there in vain, Returned to fruit of the Italic grass,

On the rude rock ’twixt Tiber and the Arno From Christ did he receive the final seal, Which during two whole years his members bore.

When He, who chose him unto so much good, Was pleased to draw him up to the reward That he had merited by being lowly,

Unto his friars, as to the rightful heirs, His most dear Lady did he recommend, And bade that they should love her faithfully;

And from her bosom the illustrious soul Wished to depart, returning to its realm, And for its body wished no other bier.

Think now what man was he, who was a fit Companion over the high seas to keep The bark of Peter to its proper bearings.

And this man was our Patriarch; hence whoever Doth follow him as he commands can see That he is laden with good merchandise.

But for new pasturage his flock has grown So greedy, that it is impossible They be not scattered over fields diverse;

And in proportion as his sheep remote And vagabond go farther off from him, More void of milk return they to the fold.

Verily some there are that fear a hurt, And keep close to the shepherd; but so few, That little cloth doth furnish forth their hoods.

Now if my utterance be not indistinct, If thine own hearing hath attentive been, If thou recall to mind what I have said,

In part contented shall thy wishes be; For thou shalt see the plant that’s chipped away, And the rebuke that lieth in the words,

‘Where well one fattens, if he strayeth not.’”

Paradiso: Canto XII

Soon as the blessed flame had taken up The final word to give it utterance, Began the holy millstone to revolve,

And in its gyre had not turned wholly round, Before another in a ring enclosed it, And motion joined to motion, song to song;

Song that as greatly doth transcend our Muses, Our Sirens, in those dulcet clarions, As primal splendour that which is reflected.

And as are spanned athwart a tender cloud Two rainbows parallel and like in colour, When Juno to her handmaid gives command,

(The one without born of the one within, Like to the speaking of that vagrant one Whom love consumed as doth the sun the vapours,)

And make the people here, through covenant God set with Noah, presageful of the world That shall no more be covered with a flood,

In such wise of those sempiternal roses The garlands twain encompassed us about, And thus the outer to the inner answered.

After the dance, and other grand rejoicings, Both of the singing, and the flaming forth Effulgence with effulgence blithe and tender,

Together, at once, with one accord had stopped, (Even as the eyes, that, as volition moves them, Must needs together shut and lift themselves,)

Out of the heart of one of the new lights There came a voice, that needle to the star Made me appear in turning thitherward.

And it began: “The love that makes me fair Draws me to speak about the other leader, By whom so well is spoken here of mine.

’Tis right, where one is, to bring in the other, That, as they were united in their warfare, Together likewise may their glory shine.

The soldiery of Christ, which it had cost So dear to arm again, behind the standard Moved slow and doubtful and in numbers few,

When the Emperor who reigneth evermore Provided for the host that was in peril, Through grace alone and not that it was worthy;

And, as was said, he to his Bride brought succour With champions twain, at whose deed, at whose word The straggling people were together drawn.

Within that region where the sweet west wind Rises to open the new leaves, wherewith Europe is seen to clothe herself afresh,

Not far off from the beating of the waves, Behind which in his long career the sun Sometimes conceals himself from every man,

Is situate the fortunate Calahorra, Under protection of the mighty shield In which the Lion subject is and sovereign.

Therein was born the amorous paramour Of Christian Faith, the athlete consecrate, Kind to his own and cruel to his foes;

And when it was created was his mind Replete with such a living energy, That in his mother her it made prophetic.

As soon as the espousals were complete Between him and the Faith at holy font, Where they with mutual safety dowered each other,

The woman, who for him had given assent, Saw in a dream the admirable fruit That issue would from him and from his heirs;

And that he might be construed as he was, A spirit from this place went forth to name him With His possessive whose he wholly was.

Dominic was he called; and him I speak of Even as of the husbandman whom Christ Elected to his garden to assist him.

Envoy and servant sooth he seemed of Christ, For the first love made manifest in him Was the first counsel that was given by Christ.

Silent and wakeful many a time was he Discovered by his nurse upon the ground, As if he would have said, ‘For this I came.’

O thou his father, Felix verily! O thou his mother, verily Joanna, If this, interpreted, means as is said!

Not for the world which people toil for now In following Ostiense and Taddeo, But through his longing after the true manna,

He in short time became so great a teacher, That he began to go about the vineyard, Which fadeth soon, if faithless be the dresser;

And of the See, (that once was more benignant Unto the righteous poor, not through itself, But him who sits there and degenerates,)

Not to dispense or two or three for six, Not any fortune of first vacancy, ‘Non decimas quae sunt pauperum Dei,’

He asked for, but against the errant world Permission to do battle for the seed, Of which these four and twenty plants surround thee.

Then with the doctrine and the will together, With office apostolical he moved, Like torrent which some lofty vein out-presses;

And in among the shoots heretical His impetus with greater fury smote, Wherever the resistance was the greatest.

Of him were made thereafter divers runnels, Whereby the garden catholic is watered, So that more living its plantations stand.

If such the one wheel of the Biga was, In which the Holy Church itself defended And in the field its civic battle won,

Truly full manifest should be to thee The excellence of the other, unto whom Thomas so courteous was before my coming.

But still the orbit, which the highest part Of its circumference made, is derelict, So that the mould is where was once the crust.

His family, that had straight forward moved With feet upon his footprints, are turned round So that they set the point upon the heel.

And soon aware they will be of the harvest Of this bad husbandry, when shall the tares Complain the granary is taken from them.

Yet say I, he who searcheth leaf by leaf Our volume through, would still some page discover Where he could read, ‘I am as I am wont.’

’Twill not be from Casal nor Acquasparta, From whence come such unto the written word That one avoids it, and the other narrows.

Bonaventura of Bagnoregio’s life Am I, who always in great offices Postponed considerations sinister.

Here are Illuminato and Agostino, Who of the first barefooted beggars were That with the cord the friends of God became.

Hugh of Saint Victor is among them here, And Peter Mangiador, and Peter of Spain, Who down below in volumes twelve is shining;

Nathan the seer, and metropolitan Chrysostom, and Anselmus, and Donatus Who deigned to lay his hand to the first art;

Here is Rabanus, and beside me here Shines the Calabrian Abbot Joachim, He with the spirit of prophecy endowed.

To celebrate so great a paladin Have moved me the impassioned courtesy And the discreet discourses of Friar Thomas,

And with me they have moved this company.”

Paradiso: Canto XIII

Let him imagine, who would well conceive What now I saw, and let him while I speak Retain the image as a steadfast rock,

The fifteen stars, that in their divers regions The sky enliven with a light so great That it transcends all clusters of the air;

Let him the Wain imagine unto which Our vault of heaven sufficeth night and day, So that in turning of its pole it fails not;

Let him the mouth imagine of the horn That in the point beginneth of the axis Round about which the primal wheel revolves,—

To have fashioned of themselves two signs in heaven, Like unto that which Minos’ daughter made, The moment when she felt the frost of death;

And one to have its rays within the other, And both to whirl themselves in such a manner That one should forward go, the other backward;

And he will have some shadowing forth of that True constellation and the double dance That circled round the point at which I was;

Because it is as much beyond our wont, As swifter than the motion of the Chiana Moveth the heaven that all the rest outspeeds.

There sang they neither Bacchus, nor Apollo, But in the divine nature Persons three, And in one person the divine and human.

The singing and the dance fulfilled their measure, And unto us those holy lights gave need, Growing in happiness from care to care.

Then broke the silence of those saints concordant The light in which the admirable life Of God’s own mendicant was told to me,

And said: “Now that one straw is trodden out Now that its seed is garnered up already, Sweet love invites me to thresh out the other.

Into that bosom, thou believest, whence Was drawn the rib to form the beauteous cheek Whose taste to all the world is costing dear,

“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”