The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise

O thou small nobleness of our blood! If thou makest folk glory in thee down here, where our affection languishes, it will nevermore be a marvel to me; for there, where appetite...

The world in its peril[1] was wont to believe that the beautiful Cypriote[2] revolving in the third epicycle rayed out mad love; wherefore the ancient people in their ancient er...

Second circle of the spirits of wise religious men, doctors of the Church and teachers.—St. Bonaventura narrates the life of St. Dominic, and tells the names of those who form t...

Looking upon His Son with the Love which the one and the other eternally breathe forth, the Primal and Ineffable Power made everything which revolves through the mind or through...

After thy Charles, O beautiful Clemence,[1] had enlightened me, he told to me of the treasons which his seed must suffer. But he said, “Be silent, and let the years revolve:” so...

The beautiful image, which in its sweet fruition was making joyful the interwoven souls, appeared before me with outspread wings. Each soul appeared a little ruby on which a ray...

Let him imagine,[1] who desires to understand well that which I now saw (and let him retain the image like a firm rock, while I am speaking), fifteen stars which in different re...

A benign will, wherein the love which righteously inspires always manifests itself, as cupidity does in the evil will, imposed silence on that sweet lyre, and quieted the holy s...

The glory of Him who moves everything penetrates through the universe, and shines in one part more and in another less. In the heaven that receives most of its light I have been...

After Constantine turned the Eagle counter to the course of the heavens which it had followed behind the ancient who took to wife Lavinia,[1] a hundred and a hundred years and m...

If it ever happen that the sacred poem to which both heaven and earth have set their hand, so that it has made me lean for many years, sbould overcome the cruelty which bars me...

O insensate care of mortals, how defective are those syllogisms which make thee downward beat thy wings! One was going after the Laws, and one after the Aphorisms,[1] and one fo...

Between two viands, distant and attractive in like measure, a free man would die of hunger, before he would bring one of them to his teeth. Thus a lamb would stand between two r...

The sixth hour is glowing perhaps six thousand miles distant from us, and this world now inclines its shadow almost to a level bed, when the mid heaven, deep above us, begins to...

When both the children of Latona, covered by the Ram and by the Scales, together make a zone of the horizon,[1] as long as from the moment the zenith holds them in balance, till...

When he who illumines all the world, descends from our hemisphere so that the day on every side is spent, the heavens which erst by him alone are enkindled, suddenly become agai...

“O company elect to the great supper of the blessed Lamb, who feeds you so that your desire is always full, since by grace of God this man foretastes of that which falls from yo...

While I was apprehensive because of my quenched sight, a breath which made me attentive issued from the effulgent flame that quenched it, saying, “While thou art regaining the s...

Fixed in affection upon his Delight, that contemplator freely assumed the office of a teacher, and began these holy words: “The wound which Mary closed up and anointed, she who...

O ye, who are in a little bark, desirous to listen, following behind my craft which singing passes on, turn to see again Your shores; put not out upon the deep; for haply losing...

At the prayer of Beatrice, Solomon tells of the glorified body of the blessed after the Last Judgment.—Ascent to the Heaven of Mars.—Souls of the Soldiery of Christ in the form...

After she who imparadises my mind had disclosed the truth counter to the present life of wretched mortals, as he, who is lighted by a candle from behind, sees its flame in a mir...

Beatrice reassures Dante.—St. Benedict appears.—He tells of the founding of his Order, and of the falling away of its brethren. Beatrice and Dante ascend to the Starry Heaven.—T...

The Spirits in the Cross of Mars.—Ascent to the Heaven of Jupiter.—Words shaped in light upon the planet by the Spirits.—Denunciation of the avarice of the Popes.

“Osanna sanctus Deus Sabaoth, superillustrans claritate tua felices ignes horum malacoth!”[1]—thus, turning to its own melody, this substance,[2] upon which a double light is tw...

Now were my eyes fixed again upon the countenance of my Lady, and my mind with them, and from every other intent it was withdrawn; and she was not smiling, but, “If I should smi...

“If I flame upon thee in the heat of love, beyond the fashion that on earth is seen, go that I vanquish the valor of thine eyes, marvel not, for it proceeds from perfect vision,...

That sun which first had heated my breast with love, proving and refuting, had uncovered to me the sweet aspect of fair truth; and I, in order to confess myself corrected and as...

As he who still makes fathers chary toward their sons[1] came to Clymene, to ascertain concerning that which he had heard against himself; such was I, and such was I perceived t...

As the bird, among the beloved leaves, reposing on the nest of her sweet brood through the night which hides things from us, who, in order to see their longed-for looks and to f...

“Virgin Mother, daughter of thine own Son, humble and exalted more than any creature, fixed term of the eternal counsel, thou art she who didst so ennoble human nature that its...

In form then of a pure white rose the holy host was shown to me, which, in His own blood, Christ made His bride. But the other,[1] which, flying, sees and sings the glory of Him...

first climate describes from its middle to its end. The old geographers divided the earth into seven zones, called climates, by circles parallel to the equator. The first climat...

Denunciation by St. Peter of his degenerate successors.—Dante gazes upon the Earth.—Ascent of Beatrice and Dante to the Crystalline Heaven.—Its nature.—Beatrice rebukes the cove...

each distinct both in brightness and in act. I saw there, smiling at their sports and at their songs, a Beauty[2] which was joy in the eyes of all the other saints. And if I had...

At the prayer of Beatrice, Solomon tells of the glorified body of the blessed after the Last Judgment.—Ascent to the Heaven of Mars.—Souls of the Soldiery of Christ in the form...

Beatrice reassures Dante.—St. Benedict appears.—He tells of the founding of his Order, and of the falling away of its brethren. Beatrice and Dante ascend to the Starry Heaven.—T...

Second circle of the spirits of wise religious men, doctors of the Church and teachers.—St. Bonaventura narrates the life of St. Dominic, and tells the names of those who form t...

The Spirits in the Cross of Mars.—Ascent to the Heaven of Jupiter.—Words shaped in light upon the planet by the Spirits.—Denunciation of the avarice of the Popes.

Denunciation by St. Peter of his degenerate successors.—Dante gazes upon the Earth.—Ascent of Beatrice and Dante to the Crystalline Heaven.—Its nature.—Beatrice rebukes the cove...