Paradiso (32 page)
Authors: Dante
As the bird among the leafy branches that she loves,
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perched on the nest with her sweet brood
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all through the night, which keeps things veiled from us,
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who in her longing to look upon their eyes and beaks
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and to find the food to nourish them—
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a task, though difficult, that gives her joy—
now, on an open bough, anticipates that time
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and, in her ardent expectation of the sun,
I, therefore, seeing her suspended, wistful,
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became as one who, filled with longing,
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finds satisfaction in his hope.
But time was short between one moment and the next,
I mean between my expectation and the sight
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of the sky turned more and more resplendent.
And Beatrice said: ‘Behold the hosts
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of Christ in triumph and all the fruit
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gathered from the wheeling of these spheres!’
It seemed to me her face was all aflame,
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her eyes so full of gladness
As, on clear nights when the moon is full,
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Trivia smiles among the eternal nymphs
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that deck the sky through all its depths,
I saw, above the many thousand lamps,
a Sun that kindled each and every one
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as ours lights up the sights we see above us,
and through that living light poured down
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a shining substance. It blazed so bright
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into my eyes that I could not sustain it.
O Beatrice, my sweet belovèd guide!
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To me she said: ‘What overwhelms you
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is a force against which there is no defense.
‘Here is the Wisdom and the Power that repaired
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the roads connecting Heaven and the earth
As fire breaks from a cloud,
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swelling till it finds no room there,
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and, against its nature, falls to earth,
just so my mind, grown greater at that feast,
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burst forth, transported from itself,
‘Open your eyes and see me as I am.
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The things that you have witnessed
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have given you the strength to bear my smile.’
I was like a man who finds himself awakened
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from a dream that has faded and who strives
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in vain to bring it back to mind
when I heard this invitation, deserving
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of such gratitude as can never be erased
If at this moment all the tongues
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that Polyhymnia and her sisters nurtured
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with their sweetest, richest milk
should sound to aid me now, their song could not attain
one-thousandth of the truth in singing of that holy smile
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and how it made her holy visage radiant.
And so, in representing Paradise,
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the sacred poem must make its leap across,
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as does a man who finds his path cut off.
But considering the heavy theme
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and the mortal shoulder it weighs down,
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no one would cast blame if it trembled with its load.
This is no easy voyage for a little bark,
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this stretch of sea the daring prow now cleaves,
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nor for a pilot who would spare himself.
‘Why does my face arouse you so to love
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you do not turn to see the lovely garden
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now blossoming beneath the rays of Christ?
‘There is the rose in which the Word of God
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was turned to flesh. There are the lilies
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for whose fragrance the right way was chosen.’
Beatrice said these words. And I, all eager
to follow her instruction, again resumed
As, lit by the sun’s rays streaming through broken clouds,
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my eyes, sheltered by the shade,
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once saw a field of flowers,
so now I saw a many-splendored throng
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illuminated from above by blazing rays,
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but could not see the source of all that brightness.
O gracious Power, who did thus imprint them!
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You rose to more exalted heights to grant
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their sight to eyes not ready to behold you.
The name of the fair flower I invoke
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each morning and at evening time, enthralled my mind
When the quality and magnitude of the living star,
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who surpasses up above as she surpassed below,
there descended through the sky a torch that,
circling, took on the likeness of a crown.
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It encircled her and wheeled around her.
The sweetest melody, heard here below,
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that most attracts our souls
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would seem a burst of cloud-torn thunder
compared with the reverberation of that lyre
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with which the lovely sapphire that so ensapphires
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the brightest heaven was encrowned.
‘I am angelic love and I encircle
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the exalted joy breathed from the womb
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that was the dwelling place of our desire,
‘and I shall circle you, Lady of Heaven,
until you follow your Son to the highest sphere,
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making it the more divine because you enter.’
Thus that circling music, sealing itself,
came to its conclusion, while all the other lights
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made Mary’s name resound.
The royal mantle of the universal turning spheres,
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which most burns and is most quickened
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in the breath of God and in His works,
was, at its inner boundary,
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so very far above us that as yet,
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from where I was, it was well beyond my seeing,
so that my eyes had not the power
to fasten on the crown-tipped flame
And, like a baby reaching out its arms
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to
mamma
after it has drunk her milk,
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its inner impulse kindled into outward flame,
all these white splendors were reaching upward
with their fiery tips, so that their deep affection
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for Mary was made clear to me.
Then they remained there in my sight,
singing
Regina celi
with such sweetness
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that my feeling of delight has never left me.