Part 17

The lovely lady who brought me through the pass, and Starius and I, were following the wheel that made its orbit with a smaller arc.

Thus walking through the lofty empty wood— blame of her who gave the serpent trust— an angelic note tempered our steps.

Perhaps as far as three flights of a loosened arrow takes, so far removed were we when Beatrice descended.

I heard them all murmur 'Adam'; then they crowned a tree stripped of leaves and other foliage on every branch.

Its crown, which spreads so wide the more it rises, would by the Indians be admired in their woods for height.

'Blessed are you, griffin, that you do not descend with beak upon this wood sweet to the taste, since the belly is ill twisted thence.'

Thus around the robust tree the others cried; and the two-formed beast: 'So is preserved the seed of every just one.'

And turning to the pole he had drawn, he drew it to the foot of the widowed branch, and left it bound thereto.

As our plants, when the great light falls mixed with that which shines behind the heavenly Fish, turgid become, and then each renews its color, before the sun brings his horses beneath another star;

less than rose and more than violet in color opening, the plant renewed itself, which before had branches so bare.

I understood it not, nor is the hymn sung here that that people sang then, nor did I bear the whole note.

Could I portray how the pitiless eyes slept at hearing of Syrinx— eyes for which only waking cost so dear;

as a painter who draws from example, I would depict how I fell asleep; but let him who can feign sleeping well.

Therefore I pass to when I woke, and say that a splendor rent the veil of sleep from me, and a call: 'Rise: what do you?'

As those who, to see the little flowers of the apple that makes the angels greedy for its fruit and makes perpetual marriage in heaven,

Peter and John and James were led and overcome, returned to the word from which greater slumbers were broken,

and saw their school diminished both of Moses and of Elijah, and their master's robe changed;

so returned I, and saw that pious one above me standing who was conductress of my steps along the river before.

And all in doubt I said: 'Where is Beatrice?' Whereon she: 'See her beneath the new foliage sitting upon her root.

See the company that surrounds her: the others after the griffin go upward with sweeter song and deeper.'

And if her speech was more drawn out, I know not, for already into my eyes was she who had closed me to other understanding.

Alone she sat upon the true earth, like a guard left there of the plough which I saw bound to the two-formed beast.

In a circle around her made cloister of themselves the seven nymphs, with those lights in hand that are secure from North and South.

'Here shalt you be a little while a woodsman; and shalt be with me without end a citizen of that Rome whereof Christ is Roman.

Therefore, for the world that lives ill, keep now your eyes upon the car, and what you see, returned thence, see that you write.'

Thus Beatrice; and I, who at the feet of her commands was all devoted, gave my mind and eyes where she willed.

Never descended with such swift motion fire from a thick cloud, when it rains from that boundary that goes most remote,

as I saw the bird of Jove descend down through the tree, breaking of the bark, not only of the flowers and new leaves;

and smote the car with all his force; whereby it bent like a ship in tempest, vanquished by the wave, now by lee, now by bow.

Then I saw leap into the cradle of the triumphal vehicle a fox that of every good food seemed fasting;

but, reproving her for foul faults, my lady turned her to such flight as the bones without flesh endured.

Then from whence it had come before, I saw the eagle descend into the ark of the car and leave it feathered of itself;

and as issues from a heart that grieves, such a voice came from heaven and said thus: 'O my little bark, how ill you are laden!'

Then it seemed to me that the earth opened between both wheels, and I saw issue a dragon that fixed its tail upward through the car;

and as a wasp that draws back the sting, drawing to itself the malignant tail, drew from the bottom, and they went vague vague.

That which remained, as from weed the living earth, from the plume, offered perhaps with sane and benign intent,

covered itself, and was covered both one and the other wheel and the pole, in such wise as a sigh keeps the mouth open longer.

Transformed thus the holy edifice put forth heads from its parts, three above the pole and one in each corner.

The first were horned like oxen, but the four had a single horn on the brow: such monster was never yet seen.

Secure, as a fortress on a high mountain, there appeared seated above a loose harlot with eyelids prompt around;

and as that he might not be taken from her, I saw at her side a giant upright; and they kissed each other at times.

But because the covetous and wandering eye he turned on me, that fierce adulterer scourged her from head to foot;

then, full of suspicion and cruel with rage, loosed the monster, and drew it through the wood, so much that only of her he made shield to me

from the harlot and the new beast.

Purgatory Canto XXXIII

'Deus, venerunt gentes', alternating now three now four, sweet psalmody, the women began, and weeping;

and Beatrice, sighing and pious, listened to them so much, that little more was Mary changed at the cross.

But when the other virgins gave place to her to speak, raised upright on her feet, she answered, colored like fire:

'Modicum, et non videbitis me; et iterum, my dear sisters, modicum, et vos videbitis me'.

Then she put before her all the seven, and after her, only beckoning, moved me and the lady and the sage who stayed.

Thus she went; and I believe not her tenth step was set on earth, when with her eyes she struck my eyes;

and with tranquil aspect 'Come more quickly', she said to me, 'so that, if I speak with you, you may be well disposed to listen.'

As I was, as I ought, with her, she said to me: 'Brother, why do you not dare to ask me now, coming with me?'

As befalls those who too reverent before their superior in speaking are, who draw not the living voice to their teeth,

befell it me, who without full sound began: 'Madonna, my need you know, and what is good for it.'

And she to me: 'From fear and from shame I will that you now disentangle yourself, so that you speak no more as one who dreams.

Know that the vessel which the serpent broke, was and is not; but who has the blame, believe that he fears not the vengeance of God at supper.

Not all time shall be without heir the eagle that left the feathers on the car, whereby it became monster and then prey;

for I see certainly, and therefore narrate it, that for giving time there are stars now near, secure from every obstacle and bar,

in which a five hundred ten and five, sent by God, shall slay the thief with that giant who sins with her.

And perhaps my dark narration, like Themis and Sphinx, persuades you less, because after their fashion it informs the intellect;

but soon shall the facts make the Naiads, who shall solve this hard enigma without harm of sheep or corn.

Note you; and as from me they are brought, so mark these words to the living of the life which is a running to death.

And add to mind, when you write them, not to hide what you have seen of the plant that is now twice robbed here.

Whoever steals that or that branch, with factual blasphemy offends God, who created it holy only for His use.

For biting that, in pain and in desire five thousand years and more the first soul longed for Him who punished the bite in Himself.

Your wit sleeps, if it deems not for singular cause to be so exalted she, and so twisted in the top.

And if there had not been waters of Elsa the vain thoughts around your mind, and their pleasure a Pyramus to the mulberry,

for so many circumstances only the justice of God, in the interdict, you would know in the moral tree.

But because I see you in the intellect made of stone, and, impregnated, dyed, so that the light of my saying blinds you,

I will also, if not written, at least painted, that you bear it within you for that which bears the palm-girt staff.'

And I: 'As wax from the seal, which the impressed figure transforms not, is now signed by you my brain.

But why so much above my sight your desired word flies, that the more it is helped the more it is lost?'

'Because you may know', said she, 'that school which you have followed, and see its doctrine how it can follow my word;

and see your way from the divine differ so much, as discordant from earth is the heaven that hastens most high.'

Whereon I answered her: 'I recall not that I ever estranged myself from you, nor have I conscience that remords.'

'And if you cannot recall it', smiling she answered, 'now remember how you drank of Lethe today;

and if from smoke fire is argued, that oblivion clearly concludes fault in your will attentive elsewhere.

Truly now shall be bare my words, as behooves to disclose them to your rude sight.'

And more coruscant and with slower steps the sun held the circle of midday, which here and there, as the aspects, is made,

when they fixed themselves, as fixes who goes before people for escort if he finds novelty or his traces,

the seven ladies at the end of a pale shadow, such as under green leaves and black branches the Alps bear over its cold streams.

Before them Euphrates and Tigris I seemed to see issue from one fountain, and, as friends, depart sluggishly.

'O light, O glory of human kind, what water is this that here unfolds from one principle and far from itself?'

For such prayer said to me was: 'Pray Matilda that she tell you.' And here answered, as does who disburdens himself of fault,

the beautiful lady: 'This and other things were said to him by me; and I am sure that the water of Lethe hid them not from him.'

And Beatrice: 'Perhaps greater care, which oft deprives memory, has made his mind dark in the eyes.

But see Eunoe that turns there: lead him to it, and as you are wont, revive his fainting virtue.'

As a gentle soul, that makes no excuse, but makes its will of another's will soon as it is by sign disclosed;

so, after she took me, the beautiful lady moved, and to Starius womanly said: 'Come with him.'

If I had, reader, longer space to write, I would yet sing in part the sweet drinking that never could sate me;

but because all the sheets are full woven to this second cantica, the rein of art lets me go no further.

I returned from the most holy wave remade as plants new renewed with new foliage,

pure and disposed to rise to the stars.

PARADISE

Paradise Canto I

The glory of Him who moves all things through the universe penetrates, and shines in one part more and elsewhere less.

In the heaven that takes most of His light was I, and saw things which to tell again neither knows nor can who descends from above;

because approaching to his desire, our intellect sinks so deep, that memory cannot follow behind.

Truly as much as of the holy kingdom in my mind I could treasure, shall now be matter of my song.

O good Apollo, for the ultimate work make me such a vessel of your worth, as you demand to give the beloved laurel.

Up to here the one yoke of Parnassus was enough for me; but now with both I must enter the remaining field.

Enter my breast, and inspire there as when you drew Marsyas from the sheath of his limbs.

O divine virtue, if you lend yourself to me so that the shadow of the blessed kingdom marked in my head I manifest,

you shall see me at the foot of your beloved tree come, and crown myself with the leaves which the matter and you shall make me worthy of.

So rarely, father, are they gathered for triumph of Caesar or poet, fault and shame of human wills,

that the Peneian frond should breed joy on the glad Delphic deity, when one thirsts of himself.

A little spark second great flame: perhaps behind me with better voices shall be prayed that Cirrha answer.

The lantern of the world rises to mortals through diverse vents; but from that which joins four circles with three crosses,

with better course and with better star it issues conjoined, and the worldly wax more to its mode tempers and seals.

It had made morning there and evening here such vent, and almost all was white there that hemisphere, and the other part dark,

when Beatrice on the left flank I saw turned and gazing in the sun: eagle never fixed so on it.

And as second ray is wont to issue from the first and rise upward, like pilgrim who would return,

so from her act, through the eyes infused into my image, mine became, and fixed the eyes on the sun beyond our use.

Much is allowed there, that here is not lawful to our virtues, by mercy of the place made proper to human kind.

I endured it not long, nor so little, that I saw it not sparkle around, like iron that boiling issues from fire;

and of a sudden seemed day to day be added, as if he who could had adorned heaven with another sun.

Beatrice all in the eternal wheels fixed with her eyes stood; and I in her fixed the lights, removed from there above.

In her aspect such within me I became, as became Glaucus in tasting the herb that made him consort in sea of the other gods.

To transhumanize signifies in words could not be; therefore let the example suffice for him whom grace reserves experience.

If I was alone of me that which you created anew, Love that govern the heaven, you know it, who with your light raised me.

When the wheel which you eternal desired, to itself made me intent with the harmony that you temper and discern,

it seemed to me then so much of heaven enkindled with the flame of the sun, that rain or river made no lake so extended.

The novelty of the sound and the great light of their cause enkindled in me a desire never felt of such acumen.

Whereon she, who saw me as I, to quiet the moved soul, before I ask, opened the mouth

and began: 'You yourself make yourself gross with false imagining, so that you see not what you would see if you had shaken it off.

You are not on earth, as you believe; but lightning, fleeing its own site, ran not as you who to it return.'

If I was of the first doubt divested by the smiled short little words, within a new one more was I entangled

and said: 'Already content I rested of great wonder; but now I wonder how I transcend these light bodies.'

Whereon she, after a pious sigh, directed the eyes toward me with that semblance that mother makes over delirious son,

and began: 'All things whatsoever have order among them, and this is form that makes the universe like to God.

Here see the high creatures the trace of the eternal worth, which is end to which the touched norm is made.

In the order I say are inclined all natures, through diverse lots, more to their principle and less near;

whence they move to diverse ports through the great sea of being, and each with instinct given it that bears it.

This bears the fire toward the moon; this in mortal hearts is mover; this the earth in itself binds and gathers;

nor only the creatures that are outside of intelligence this bow shoots, but those that have intellect and love.

The providence, that so arranges, of its light makes the heaven always quiet in which turns that which has greatest haste;

and now there, as to decreed site, us bears the virtue of that cord which what it shoots directs to glad mark.

True is that, as form not accords many times with the intention of the art, because to answer the matter is deaf,

so from this course departs sometimes the creature, which has power to bend, thus impelled, to other part;

and as may be seen fire fall from cloud, so the first impulse casts it down twisted by false pleasure.

You should not more wonder, if well I deem, at your ascent, than as of a stream if from high mountain it descends low to bottom.

Wonder would be in you if, deprived of impediment, down you had sat, as on earth quiet in living fire.'

Thence she turned the face toward heaven.

Paradise Canto II

O you who are in little bark, desirous to hear, followed behind my ship that singing crosses,

return to see your shores: put not yourselves in the open sea, for perhaps, losing me, you would remain bewildered.

The water I take never yet was run; Minerva breathes, and Apollo conducts me, and nine Muses show me the Bears.

You others few who stretched the neck in time to the bread of angels, of which one lives here but comes not sated,

can well put through the deep salt your navigation, keeping my furrow before the water that returns equal.

Those glorious who passed to Colchis wondered not as you shall do, when they saw Jason made ploughman.

The concreated and perpetual thirst of the godlike kingdom bore us swift almost as you see the heaven.

Beatrice upward, and I on her gazed; and perhaps in as much as a dart rests and flies and from the nut is unsheathed,

joined I saw me where a wondrous thing turned my sight to itself; and therefore she whose care could not be hidden from me,

turned toward me, so glad as beautiful, 'Direct the mind to God grateful', said to me, 'who has joined us with the first star.'

It seemed to me that a cloud covered us lucid, dense, solid and pure, almost adamant that the sun should strike.

Through itself the eternal pearl received us, as water receives a ray of light remaining united.

If I was body, and here is not conceived how one dimension another suffers, which must be if body in body enters,

it should enkindle more the desire in us to see that essence in which is seen how our nature and God were united.

There shall be seen what we hold by faith, not demonstrated, but shall be of itself known in guise of the first truth that man believes.

I answered: 'Madonna, as devout as I can most, I thank Him who from the mortal world has removed me.

But tell me: what are the dark signs of this body, which down there on earth make men fable of Cain?'

And she smiled somewhat, and then 'If he errs the opinion', said to me, 'of mortals where key of sense unlocks not,

certainly should not prick you the darts of wonder now, since behind the senses you see that reason has short wings.

But tell me what you think of it yourself.' And I: 'That which appears here above diverse I believe the rare and dense bodies make.'

And she: 'Certainly you shall see sunk in the false your belief, if well you listen to the argument I shall make adverse.

The eighth sphere shows you many lights, which and in quality and in quantity may be noted of diverse aspects.

If rare and dense did this much, one sole virtue would be in all, more and less distributed and alike.

Diverse virtues must be fruits of formal principles, and those, save one, would follow to your reason destroyed.

Again, if rare were of that brown the cause you ask, or beyond in part would be of its matter so fasting

this planet, or, as distributes the fat and lean a body, so this in its volume would change pages.

If the first were, it would be manifest in eclipses of the sun, by transparency of the light as in other rare ingraft.

This is not: therefore it is to be seen of the other; and if it happens that I the other refute, falsified shall be your seeming.

If it is that this rare passes not, there must be a term whence its contrary no further lets it pass;

and thence the other's ray is refracted as color returns through glass which behind itself lead hides.

Now will you say that it shows dark there the ray more than in other parts, by being there refracted more behind.

From this instance can deliver you experience, if ever you prove it, which is wont to be fount to the streams of your arts.

Three mirrors take; and two remove from you in one mode, and the other, more removed, between both the first your eyes find.

Turned to them, make that behind your back stands a light that the three mirrors kindle and returns to you from all repercussed.

Though in quantity so far extends not the sight most far, there you shall see how it behooves them equally to shine.

Now, as at the blows of the warm rays the snow remains bare of subject both of color and of cold first;

so remained you in the intellect I will inform of light so living, that it shall tremble in you at its aspect.

Within the heaven of the divine peace turns a body in whose virtue the being of all its content lies.

The following heaven, which has so many views, that being parts through diverse essences, from it drawn and by it contained.

The other orbits through various differences the distinctions that within themselves have dispose to their ends and their seeds.

These organs of the world thus go, as you see now, from grade to grade, that from above take and from below make.

Regard well now as I go through this place to the truth you desire, so that then you alone hold the ford.

The motion and the virtue of the holy orbits, as from the smith the art of the hammer, from the blessed movers must breathe;

and the heaven which so many lights make fair, of the deep mind that revolves it takes the image and makes itself its seal.

And as the soul within your dust through different members and conformed to diverse powers resolves itself,

so its intelligence its goodness multiplied through the stars unfolds, turning itself upon its unity.

Diverse virtue makes diverse league with the precious body which it quickens, in which, as life in you, it binds.

Through the glad nature whence it derives, the mixed virtue through the body shines as joy through living pupil.

From it comes that which from light to light appears different, not from dense and rare; it is formal principle that produces,

conform to its goodness, the dark and the clear.'

Paradise Canto III

That sun which first warmed my breast with love, had of fair truth uncovered to me, proving and reproving, the sweet aspect;

and I, to confess corrected and certain myself, as much as behooved lifted my head to proffer more erect;

but a vision appeared that held to itself me so strait, for seeing itself, that of my confession I remembered not.

As through transparent and clear glass, or through clear and tranquil waters, not so deep that the bottoms are lost,

return our faces' faint traces, so that pearl on white brow comes not less strong to our pupils;

such saw I more faces prompt to speak; wherefore I ran into the contrary error to that which enkindled love between man and fountain.

Suddenly as I of them was aware, those deeming mirrored semblances, to see whose they were, I turned the eyes;

and saw nothing, and turned them forward straight in the light of the sweet guide, who, smiling, burned in the holy eyes.

'Marvel not that I smile', said to me, 'after your childish thought, since yet on the truth it trusts not the foot,'

“Stories of the world, in your language.”