Part 3
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,
And into that which, by the lance transfixed, Before and since, such satisfaction made That it weighs down the balance of all sin,
Whate’er of light it has to human nature Been lawful to possess was all infused By the same power that both of them created;
And hence at what I said above dost wonder, When I narrated that no second had The good which in the fifth light is enclosed.
Now ope thine eyes to what I answer thee, And thou shalt see thy creed and my discourse Fit in the truth as centre in a circle.
That which can die, and that which dieth not, Are nothing but the splendour of the idea Which by his love our Lord brings into being;
Because that living Light, which from its fount Effulgent flows, so that it disunites not From Him nor from the Love in them intrined,
Through its own goodness reunites its rays In nine subsistences, as in a mirror, Itself eternally remaining One.
Thence it descends to the last potencies, Downward from act to act becoming such That only brief contingencies it makes;
And these contingencies I hold to be Things generated, which the heaven produces By its own motion, with seed and without.
Neither their wax, nor that which tempers it, Remains immutable, and hence beneath The ideal signet more and less shines through;
Therefore it happens, that the selfsame tree After its kind bears worse and better fruit, And ye are born with characters diverse.
If in perfection tempered were the wax, And were the heaven in its supremest virtue, The brilliance of the seal would all appear;
But nature gives it evermore deficient, In the like manner working as the artist, Who has the skill of art and hand that trembles.
If then the fervent Love, the Vision clear, Of primal Virtue do dispose and seal, Perfection absolute is there acquired.
Thus was of old the earth created worthy Of all and every animal perfection; And thus the Virgin was impregnate made;
So that thine own opinion I commend, That human nature never yet has been, Nor will be, what it was in those two persons.
Now if no farther forth I should proceed, ‘Then in what way was he without a peer?’ Would be the first beginning of thy words.
But, that may well appear what now appears not, Think who he was, and what occasion moved him To make request, when it was told him, ‘Ask.’
I’ve not so spoken that thou canst not see Clearly he was a king who asked for wisdom, That he might be sufficiently a king;
’Twas not to know the number in which are The motors here above, or if ‘necesse’ With a contingent e’er ‘necesse’ make,
‘Non si est dare primum motum esse,’ Or if in semicircle can be made Triangle so that it have no right angle.
Whence, if thou notest this and what I said, A regal prudence is that peerless seeing In which the shaft of my intention strikes.
And if on ‘rose’ thou turnest thy clear eyes, Thou’lt see that it has reference alone To kings who’re many, and the good are rare.
With this distinction take thou what I said, And thus it can consist with thy belief Of the first father and of our Delight.
And lead shall this be always to thy feet, To make thee, like a weary man, move slowly Both to the Yes and No thou seest not;
For very low among the fools is he Who affirms without distinction, or denies, As well in one as in the other case;
Because it happens that full often bends Current opinion in the false direction, And then the feelings bind the intellect.
Far more than uselessly he leaves the shore, (Since he returneth not the same he went,) Who fishes for the truth, and has no skill;
And in the world proofs manifest thereof Parmenides, Melissus, Brissus are, And many who went on and knew not whither;
Thus did Sabellius, Arius, and those fools Who have been even as swords unto the Scriptures In rendering distorted their straight faces.
Nor yet shall people be too confident In judging, even as he is who doth count The corn in field or ever it be ripe.
For I have seen all winter long the thorn First show itself intractable and fierce, And after bear the rose upon its top;
And I have seen a ship direct and swift Run o’er the sea throughout its course entire, To perish at the harbour’s mouth at last.
Let not Dame Bertha nor Ser Martin think, Seeing one steal, another offering make, To see them in the arbitrament divine;
For one may rise, and fall the other may.”
Paradiso: Canto XIV
From centre unto rim, from rim to centre, In a round vase the water moves itself, As from without ’tis struck or from within.
Into my mind upon a sudden dropped What I am saying, at the moment when Silent became the glorious life of Thomas,
Because of the resemblance that was born Of his discourse and that of Beatrice, Whom, after him, it pleased thus to begin:
“This man has need (and does not tell you so, Nor with the voice, nor even in his thought) Of going to the root of one truth more.
Declare unto him if the light wherewith Blossoms your substance shall remain with you Eternally the same that it is now;
And if it do remain, say in what manner, After ye are again made visible, It can be that it injure not your sight.”
As by a greater gladness urged and drawn They who are dancing in a ring sometimes Uplift their voices and their motions quicken;
So, at that orison devout and prompt, The holy circles a new joy displayed In their revolving and their wondrous song.
Whoso lamenteth him that here we die That we may live above, has never there Seen the refreshment of the eternal rain.
The One and Two and Three who ever liveth, And reigneth ever in Three and Two and One, Not circumscribed and all things circumscribing,
Three several times was chanted by each one Among those spirits, with such melody That for all merit it were just reward;
“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”