Authors: Dante
Paradiso (18 page)
As soon as the blessèd flame
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had spoken its last word
song that, heard from such sweet instruments,
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as far excels our muses and our sirens
As twin rainbows, parallel in shape and color,
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arc in their pathway through translucent clouds
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when Juno gives the order to her handmaid—
the outer one born of the inner,
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like the voice of that wandering nymph
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whom love consumed as the sun does vapors—
and allow the people here on earth to know the future
because of the covenant God made with Noah,
so the two wreaths of those eternal roses
circled all around us and, thus reflected,
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the outer circle shone in answer to the inner.
When the dance and all the other celebration—
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the singing and the brilliant blaze of flames,
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light with light blent in ardent joy—
came to a stop together and of one accord,
as eyes, when beauty moves them,
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must open wide or close as one,
from the core of one of these new lights,
as the North Star makes a compass needle veer,
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rose a voice that made me turn to where it came from.
And it began: ‘The love that makes me beautiful
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bids me, in turn, to laud that other leader
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because of whom my own has won such praise.
‘It is fitting that, in naming one, we name the other
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so that, just as they were joined as one in combat
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with a single goal, their fame should shine as one.
‘Rearmed at such high cost, the troops of Christ
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moved with halting steps behind the standard,
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full of doubt and few in number,
‘when the Emperor who reigns forever
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provided for His soldiers in their peril—
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only of His grace, not for their merit—
‘and, as was said, gave comfort to His bride
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through these two champions, whose deeds and words
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brought together the scattered people.
‘In that place where gentle Zephyr’s breath
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rises to open the unfolding leaves
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in which Europe sees herself reclad,
‘not far from the pounding waves
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beyond which the sun, having finished his long course,
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sometimes hides himself from human sight,
‘favored Calaroga lies
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behind the shelter of the noble shield
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that shows one lion in defeat and one in triumph.
‘His mind, at the moment of its making,
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was so full of living power that,
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yet in his mother’s womb, he made of her a prophet.
‘After his nuptials with the Faith
were celebrated at the holy font
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‘the lady who offered her assent for his
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saw in a dream the admirable fruit
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destined to spring from him and from his heirs.
‘And, that he might be known as what he was indeed,
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a spirit from Heaven came and named him
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from the possessive form of Him whose he already was.
‘He was called Dominic, and I shall speak of him
as that laborer chosen by Christ
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to help Him dress and keep His garden.
‘He seemed indeed a messenger and intimate of Christ,
since the first love made manifest in him
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was for the initial precept taught by Christ.
‘Many a time did his nurse find him
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awake and silent on the ground,
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as if he said, “It is for this I have come.”
‘O happy father, indeed Felix!
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O blessèd mother, indeed Giovanna,
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if, rightly construed, her name means what they say!
‘Not for this world, for which men toil today,
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following Taddeo and the Ostian,
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but for love of the true manna,
‘he soon became a teacher so renowned
that he began to travel through the vineyard,
‘And to the papal seat, not now as benevolent
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to the upright poor as it was once—not flawed in itself,
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but degenerate in its occupant—he made appeal,
‘not to give away just two or three instead of six,
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not for his chance at the first vacancy,
‘but for the privilege of fighting
against the errors of the world, thus to preserve the seed
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‘Then, both with learning and with zeal,
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secure in apostolic office, he went forth,
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like a torrent gushing from its lofty source,
‘and fell upon the tangled weeds of heresy,
attacking with his overwhelming force
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wherever the resistance was most stubborn.
‘From him there sprang still other streams
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from which the Catholic garden draws its moisture,
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so that its saplings grow with greater vigor.
‘If such was one of the wheels of the chariot
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used by Holy Church in self-defense
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to overcome the rebels in the field,
‘surely the excellence of that other’
about whom Thomas spoke so courteously
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before I came, must be well known to you.
‘But the track left by the outer rim
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of its circumference is abandoned,
‘His family, which started out setting their feet
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upon his footprints, is now turned backward,
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setting their toes where once they placed their heels.
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‘Soon that harvest of bad tillage
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shall occur, when the tares complain
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that the barn is shut against them.
‘I readily admit that, should one search our volume
leaf by leaf, one still could find some pages
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where one might read, “What once I was, I am.”
‘But these will not come from Casale or Acquasparta,
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for those from there come to the Rule
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either to flee it or constrict it further.
‘Here are Illuminato and Augustine,
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among the first brothers barefoot in poverty,