Chapter 6

And it began: “Being just and merciful Am I exalted here unto that glory Which cannot be exceeded by desire;

And upon earth I left my memory Such, that the evil-minded people there Commend it, but continue not the story.”

So doth a single heat from many embers Make itself felt, even as from many loves Issued a single sound from out that image.

Whence I thereafter: “O perpetual flowers Of the eternal joy, that only one Make me perceive your odours manifold,

Exhaling, break within me the great fast Which a long season has in hunger held me, Not finding for it any food on earth.

Well do I know, that if in heaven its mirror Justice Divine another realm doth make, Yours apprehends it not through any veil.

You know how I attentively address me To listen; and you know what is the doubt That is in me so very old a fast.”

Even as a falcon, issuing from his hood, Doth move his head, and with his wings applaud him, Showing desire, and making himself fine,

Saw I become that standard, which of lauds Was interwoven of the grace divine, With such songs as he knows who there rejoices.

Then it began: “He who a compass turned On the world’s outer verge, and who within it Devised so much occult and manifest,

Could not the impress of his power so make On all the universe, as that his Word Should not remain in infinite excess.

And this makes certain that the first proud being, Who was the paragon of every creature, By not awaiting light fell immature.

And hence appears it, that each minor nature Is scant receptacle unto that good Which has no end, and by itself is measured.

In consequence our vision, which perforce Must be some ray of that intelligence With which all things whatever are replete,

Cannot in its own nature be so potent, That it shall not its origin discern Far beyond that which is apparent to it.

Therefore into the justice sempiternal The power of vision that your world receives, As eye into the ocean, penetrates;

Which, though it see the bottom near the shore, Upon the deep perceives it not, and yet ’Tis there, but it is hidden by the depth.

There is no light but comes from the serene That never is o’ercast, nay, it is darkness Or shadow of the flesh, or else its poison.

Amply to thee is opened now the cavern Which has concealed from thee the living justice Of which thou mad’st such frequent questioning.

For saidst thou: ‘Born a man is on the shore Of Indus, and is none who there can speak Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write;

And all his inclinations and his actions Are good, so far as human reason sees, Without a sin in life or in discourse:

He dieth unbaptised and without faith; Where is this justice that condemneth him? Where is his fault, if he do not believe?’

Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit In judgment at a thousand miles away, With the short vision of a single span?

Truly to him who with me subtilizes, If so the Scripture were not over you, For doubting there were marvellous occasion.

O animals terrene, O stolid minds, The primal will, that in itself is good, Ne’er from itself, the Good Supreme, has moved.

So much is just as is accordant with it; No good created draws it to itself, But it, by raying forth, occasions that.”

Even as above her nest goes circling round The stork when she has fed her little ones, And he who has been fed looks up at her,

So lifted I my brows, and even such Became the blessed image, which its wings Was moving, by so many counsels urged.

Circling around it sang, and said: “As are My notes to thee, who dost not comprehend them, Such is the eternal judgment to you mortals.”

Those lucent splendours of the Holy Spirit Grew quiet then, but still within the standard That made the Romans reverend to the world.

It recommenced: “Unto this kingdom never Ascended one who had not faith in Christ, Before or since he to the tree was nailed.

But look thou, many crying are, ‘Christ, Christ!’ Who at the judgment shall be far less near To him than some shall be who knew not Christ.

Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn, When the two companies shall be divided, The one for ever rich, the other poor.

What to your kings may not the Persians say, When they that volume opened shall behold In which are written down all their dispraises?

There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert, That which ere long shall set the pen in motion, For which the realm of Prague shall be deserted.

There shall be seen the woe that on the Seine He brings by falsifying of the coin, Who by the blow of a wild boar shall die.

There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst, Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad That they within their boundaries cannot rest;

Be seen the luxury and effeminate life Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian, Who valour never knew and never wished;

Be seen the Cripple of Jerusalem, His goodness represented by an I, While the reverse an M shall represent;

Be seen the avarice and poltroonery Of him who guards the Island of the Fire, Wherein Anchises finished his long life;

And to declare how pitiful he is Shall be his record in contracted letters Which shall make note of much in little space.

And shall appear to each one the foul deeds Of uncle and of brother who a nation So famous have dishonoured, and two crowns.

And he of Portugal and he of Norway Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too, Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice.

O happy Hungary, if she let herself Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy, If with the hills that gird her she be armed!

And each one may believe that now, as hansel Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta Lament and rage because of their own beast,

Who from the others’ flank departeth not.”

Paradiso: Canto XX

When he who all the world illuminates Out of our hemisphere so far descends That on all sides the daylight is consumed,

The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled, Doth suddenly reveal itself again By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.

And came into my mind this act of heaven, When the ensign of the world and of its leaders Had silent in the blessed beak become;

Because those living luminaries all, By far more luminous, did songs begin Lapsing and falling from my memory.

O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee, How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear, That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!

After the precious and pellucid crystals, With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld, Silence imposed on the angelic bells,

I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river That clear descendeth down from rock to rock, Showing the affluence of its mountain-top.

And as the sound upon the cithern’s neck Taketh its form, and as upon the vent Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it,

Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting, That murmuring of the eagle mounted up Along its neck, as if it had been hollow.

There it became a voice, and issued thence From out its beak, in such a form of words As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.

“The part in me which sees and bears the sun In mortal eagles,” it began to me, “Now fixedly must needs be looked upon;

For of the fires of which I make my figure, Those whence the eye doth sparkle in my head Of all their orders the supremest are.

He who is shining in the midst as pupil Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit, Who bore the ark from city unto city;

Now knoweth he the merit of his song, In so far as effect of his own counsel, By the reward which is commensurate.

Of five, that make a circle for my brow, He that approacheth nearest to my beak Did the poor widow for her son console;

Now knoweth he how dearly it doth cost Not following Christ, by the experience Of this sweet life and of its opposite.

He who comes next in the circumference Of which I speak, upon its highest arc, Did death postpone by penitence sincere;

Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer Maketh below to-morrow of to-day.

The next who follows, with the laws and me, Under the good intent that bore bad fruit Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor;

Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced From his good action is not harmful to him, Although the world thereby may be destroyed.

And he, whom in the downward arc thou seest, Guglielmo was, whom the same land deplores That weepeth Charles and Frederick yet alive;

Now knoweth he how heaven enamoured is With a just king; and in the outward show Of his effulgence he reveals it still.

Who would believe, down in the errant world, That e’er the Trojan Ripheus in this round Could be the fifth one of the holy lights?

Now knoweth he enough of what the world Has not the power to see of grace divine, Although his sight may not discern the bottom.”

Like as a lark that in the air expatiates, First singing and then silent with content Of the last sweetness that doth satisfy her,

Such seemed to me the image of the imprint Of the eternal pleasure, by whose will Doth everything become the thing it is.

And notwithstanding to my doubt I was As glass is to the colour that invests it, To wait the time in silence it endured not,

But forth from out my mouth, “What things are these?” Extorted with the force of its own weight; Whereat I saw great joy of coruscation.

Thereafterward with eye still more enkindled The blessed standard made to me reply, To keep me not in wonderment suspended:

“I see that thou believest in these things Because I say them, but thou seest not how; So that, although believed in, they are hidden.

Thou doest as he doth who a thing by name Well apprehendeth, but its quiddity Cannot perceive, unless another show it.

‘Regnum coelorum’ suffereth violence From fervent love, and from that living hope That overcometh the Divine volition;

Not in the guise that man o’ercometh man, But conquers it because it will be conquered, And conquered conquers by benignity.

The first life of the eyebrow and the fifth Cause thee astonishment, because with them Thou seest the region of the angels painted.

They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest, Gentiles, but Christians in the steadfast faith Of feet that were to suffer and had suffered.

For one from Hell, where no one e’er turns back Unto good will, returned unto his bones, And that of living hope was the reward,—

Of living hope, that placed its efficacy In prayers to God made to resuscitate him, So that ’twere possible to move his will.

The glorious soul concerning which I speak, Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay, Believed in Him who had the power to aid it;

And, in believing, kindled to such fire Of genuine love, that at the second death Worthy it was to come unto this joy.

The other one, through grace, that from so deep A fountain wells that never hath the eye Of any creature reached its primal wave,

Set all his love below on righteousness; Wherefore from grace to grace did God unclose His eye to our redemption yet to be,

Whence he believed therein, and suffered not From that day forth the stench of paganism, And he reproved therefor the folk perverse.

Those Maidens three, whom at the right-hand wheel Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptism More than a thousand years before baptizing.

O thou predestination, how remote Thy root is from the aspect of all those Who the First Cause do not behold entire!

And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrained In judging; for ourselves, who look on God, We do not know as yet all the elect;

And sweet to us is such a deprivation, Because our good in this good is made perfect, That whatsoe’er God wills, we also will.”

After this manner by that shape divine, To make clear in me my short-sightedness, Was given to me a pleasant medicine;

And as good singer a good lutanist Accompanies with vibrations of the chords, Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires,

So, while it spake, do I remember me That I beheld both of those blessed lights, Even as the winking of the eyes concords,

Moving unto the words their little flames.

Paradiso: Canto XXI

Already on my Lady’s face mine eyes Again were fastened, and with these my mind, And from all other purpose was withdrawn;

And she smiled not; but “If I were to smile,” She unto me began, “thou wouldst become Like Semele, when she was turned to ashes.

Because my beauty, that along the stairs Of the eternal palace more enkindles, As thou hast seen, the farther we ascend,

If it were tempered not, is so resplendent That all thy mortal power in its effulgence Would seem a leaflet that the thunder crushes.

We are uplifted to the seventh splendour, That underneath the burning Lion’s breast Now radiates downward mingled with his power.

Fix in direction of thine eyes the mind, And make of them a mirror for the figure That in this mirror shall appear to thee.”

He who could know what was the pasturage My sight had in that blessed countenance, When I transferred me to another care,

Would recognize how grateful was to me Obedience unto my celestial escort, By counterpoising one side with the other.

Within the crystal which, around the world Revolving, bears the name of its dear leader, Under whom every wickedness lay dead,

Coloured like gold, on which the sunshine gleams, A stairway I beheld to such a height Uplifted, that mine eye pursued it not.

Likewise beheld I down the steps descending So many splendours, that I thought each light That in the heaven appears was there diffused.

And as accordant with their natural custom The rooks together at the break of day Bestir themselves to warm their feathers cold;

Then some of them fly off without return, Others come back to where they started from, And others, wheeling round, still keep at home;

Such fashion it appeared to me was there Within the sparkling that together came, As soon as on a certain step it struck,

And that which nearest unto us remained Became so clear, that in my thought I said, “Well I perceive the love thou showest me;

But she, from whom I wait the how and when Of speech and silence, standeth still; whence I Against desire do well if I ask not.”

She thereupon, who saw my silentness In the sight of Him who seeth everything, Said unto me, “Let loose thy warm desire.”

And I began: “No merit of my own Renders me worthy of response from thee; But for her sake who granteth me the asking,

Thou blessed life that dost remain concealed In thy beatitude, make known to me The cause which draweth thee so near my side;

And tell me why is silent in this wheel The dulcet symphony of Paradise, That through the rest below sounds so devoutly.”

“Thou hast thy hearing mortal as thy sight,” It answer made to me; “they sing not here, For the same cause that Beatrice has not smiled.

Thus far adown the holy stairway’s steps Have I descended but to give thee welcome With words, and with the light that mantles me;

Nor did more love cause me to be more ready, For love as much and more up there is burning, As doth the flaming manifest to thee.

But the high charity, that makes us servants Prompt to the counsel which controls the world, Allotteth here, even as thou dost observe.”

“I see full well,” said I, “O sacred lamp! How love unfettered in this court sufficeth To follow the eternal Providence;

But this is what seems hard for me to see, Wherefore predestinate wast thou alone Unto this office from among thy consorts.”

No sooner had I come to the last word, Than of its middle made the light a centre, Whirling itself about like a swift millstone.

When answer made the love that was therein: “On me directed is a light divine, Piercing through this in which I am embosomed,

Of which the virtue with my sight conjoined Lifts me above myself so far, I see The supreme essence from which this is drawn.

Hence comes the joyfulness with which I flame, For to my sight, as far as it is clear, The clearness of the flame I equal make.

But that soul in the heaven which is most pure, That seraph which his eye on God most fixes, Could this demand of thine not satisfy;

Because so deeply sinks in the abyss Of the eternal statute what thou askest, From all created sight it is cut off.

And to the mortal world, when thou returnest, This carry back, that it may not presume Longer tow’rd such a goal to move its feet.

The mind, that shineth here, on earth doth smoke; From this observe how can it do below That which it cannot though the heaven assume it?”

Such limit did its words prescribe to me, The question I relinquished, and restricted Myself to ask it humbly who it was.

“Between two shores of Italy rise cliffs, And not far distant from thy native place, So high, the thunders far below them sound,

And form a ridge that Catria is called, ’Neath which is consecrate a hermitage Wont to be dedicate to worship only.”

Thus unto me the third speech recommenced, And then, continuing, it said: “Therein Unto God’s service I became so steadfast,

That feeding only on the juice of olives Lightly I passed away the heats and frosts, Contented in my thoughts contemplative.

That cloister used to render to these heavens Abundantly, and now is empty grown, So that perforce it soon must be revealed.

I in that place was Peter Damiano; And Peter the Sinner was I in the house Of Our Lady on the Adriatic shore.

Little of mortal life remained to me, When I was called and dragged forth to the hat Which shifteth evermore from bad to worse.

Came Cephas, and the mighty Vessel came Of the Holy Spirit, meagre and barefooted, Taking the food of any hostelry.

Now some one to support them on each side The modern shepherds need, and some to lead them, So heavy are they, and to hold their trains.

They cover up their palfreys with their cloaks, So that two beasts go underneath one skin; O Patience, that dost tolerate so much!”

At this voice saw I many little flames From step to step descending and revolving, And every revolution made them fairer.

Round about this one came they and stood still, And a cry uttered of so loud a sound, It here could find no parallel, nor I

Distinguished it, the thunder so o’ercame me.

Paradiso: Canto XXII

Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide Turned like a little child who always runs For refuge there where he confideth most;

And she, even as a mother who straightway Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy With voice whose wont it is to reassure him,

Said to me: “Knowest thou not thou art in heaven, And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all And what is done here cometh from good zeal?

After what wise the singing would have changed thee And I by smiling, thou canst now imagine, Since that the cry has startled thee so much,

In which if thou hadst understood its prayers Already would be known to thee the vengeance Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest.

The sword above here smiteth not in haste Nor tardily, howe’er it seem to him Who fearing or desiring waits for it.

But turn thee round towards the others now, For very illustrious spirits shalt thou see, If thou thy sight directest as I say.”

As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned, And saw a hundred spherules that together With mutual rays each other more embellished.

I stood as one who in himself represses The point of his desire, and ventures not To question, he so feareth the too much.

And now the largest and most luculent Among those pearls came forward, that it might Make my desire concerning it content.

Within it then I heard: “If thou couldst see Even as myself the charity that burns Among us, thy conceits would be expressed;

But, that by waiting thou mayst not come late To the high end, I will make answer even Unto the thought of which thou art so chary.

That mountain on whose slope Cassino stands Was frequented of old upon its summit By a deluded folk and ill-disposed;

And I am he who first up thither bore The name of Him who brought upon the earth The truth that so much sublimateth us.

And such abundant grace upon me shone That all the neighbouring towns I drew away From the impious worship that seduced the world.

These other fires, each one of them, were men Contemplative, enkindled by that heat Which maketh holy flowers and fruits spring up.

Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus, Here are my brethren, who within the cloisters Their footsteps stayed and kept a steadfast heart.”

And I to him: “The affection which thou showest Speaking with me, and the good countenance Which I behold and note in all your ardours,

In me have so my confidence dilated As the sun doth the rose, when it becomes As far unfolded as it hath the power.

Therefore I pray, and thou assure me, father, If I may so much grace receive, that I May thee behold with countenance unveiled.”

He thereupon: “Brother, thy high desire In the remotest sphere shall be fulfilled, Where are fulfilled all others and my own.

There perfect is, and ripened, and complete, Every desire; within that one alone Is every part where it has always been;

For it is not in space, nor turns on poles, And unto it our stairway reaches up, Whence thus from out thy sight it steals away.

Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it Extending its supernal part, what time So thronged with angels it appeared to him.

But to ascend it now no one uplifts His feet from off the earth, and now my Rule Below remaineth for mere waste of paper.

The walls that used of old to be an Abbey Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.

But heavy usury is not taken up So much against God’s pleasure as that fruit Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;

For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping Is for the folk that ask it in God’s name, Not for one’s kindred or for something worse.

The flesh of mortals is so very soft, That good beginnings down below suffice not From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.

Peter began with neither gold nor silver, And I with orison and abstinence, And Francis with humility his convent.

And if thou lookest at each one’s beginning, And then regardest whither he has run, Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.

In verity the Jordan backward turned, And the sea’s fleeing, when God willed were more A wonder to behold, than succour here.”

Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew To his own band, and the band closed together; Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.

The gentle Lady urged me on behind them Up o’er that stairway by a single sign, So did her virtue overcome my nature;

Nor here below, where one goes up and down By natural law, was motion e’er so swift That it could be compared unto my wing.