Paradiso (36 page)
Authors: Dante
And I: ‘Both philosophic reasoning
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and the authority that descends from here
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made me receive the imprint of such love,
‘for the good, by measure of its goodness, kindles
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love as soon as it is known, and so much more
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the more of goodness it contains.
‘To that essence, then, which holds such store of goodness
that every good outside of it is nothing
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but a light reflected of its rays,
‘the mind of everyone who sees the truth
on which this argument is based
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must, more than anything, be moved by love.
‘This truth is set forth to my understanding
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by him who demonstrates to me the primal love
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of all eternal substances.
‘And the voice of the truthful Author sets it forth
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when, speaking of Himself, He says to Moses:
‘You also set it forth to me in the beginning
of your great message, which, more than any other herald,
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proclaims the mystery of this high place on earth.’
And I heard: ‘In accord with human reason
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and with the authorities concordant with it,
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the highest of your loves is turned to God.
‘Say further if you feel still other cords
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that draw you to Him, so that you may declare
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the many teeth with which this love does bite.’
The holy purpose of Christ’s Eagle was not hidden.
Indeed, I readily perceived the road
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on which he set my declaration on its way.
Thus I began again: ‘All those things
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the bite of which can make hearts turn to God
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converge with one another in my love.
‘The world’s existence and my own,
the death He bore that I might live,
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and that which all believers hope for as do I,
‘all these—and the certain knowledge of which I spoke—
have drawn me from the sea of twisted love
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and brought me to the shore where love is just.
‘I love the leaves with which the garden
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of the eternal Gardener is in leaf
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in measure of the good He has bestowed on them.’
As soon as I was silent, the sweetest song
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resounded through that heaven, and my lady
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chanted with the others: ‘Holy, holy, holy!’
As sleep is broken by a piercing light
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when the spirit of sight runs to meet the brightness
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that passes through its filmy membranes,
and the awakened man recoils from what he sees,
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his senses stunned in that abrupt awakening
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until his judgment rushes to his aid—
exactly thus did Beatrice drive away each mote
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from my eyes with the radiance of her own,
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which could be seen a thousand miles away,
so that I then saw better than I had before.
And almost dazed with wonder I inquired
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about a fourth light shining there among us.
My lady answered: ‘Within these rays
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the first soul ever made by the First Power
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looks with love upon his Maker.’
As the tree that bends its highest branches
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in a gust of wind and then springs back,
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raised up by natural inclination,
so was I overcome while she was speaking—
awestruck—and then restored to confidence
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by the words that burned in me to be expressed.
I began: ‘O fruit who alone were brought forth ripe,
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O ancient father, of whom each bride
‘as humbly as I am able, I make supplication
for you to speak with me. You know what I long for.
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To have your answer sooner I leave that unsaid.’
Sometimes, beneath its covering, an animal
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stirs, thus making its desire clear
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by how its wrappings follow and reveal its movement.
In just this manner the very first soul
revealed to me, through its covering,
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how joyously it came to do me pleasure.
Then it breathed forth: ‘Without your telling me,
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I can discern your wishes even better
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than you can picture anything you know as certain.
‘For I can see them in that truthful mirror
which makes itself reflective of all else
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but which can be reflected nowhere else.
‘You wish to know how long it is since God
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placed me in the lofty garden where this lady
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prepared you for so long a stairway,
‘and how long it was a pleasure to my eyes,
and the true cause of the great wrath,
‘Know then, my son, that in itself the tasting of the tree
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was not the cause of such long exile—
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it lay in trespassing the boundary line.
‘In the place from which your lady sent down Virgil
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I longed for this assembly more than four thousand
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three hundred and two revolutions of the sun,
‘and I saw it return to all the lights
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along its track nine hundred thirty times
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while I was living on the earth.
‘The tongue I spoke was utterly extinct
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before the followers of Nimrod turned their minds
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to their unattainable ambition.
‘For nothing ever produced by reason—
since human tastes reflect the motion
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of the moving stars—can last forever.
‘It is the work of nature man should speak
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but, if in this way or in that, nature leaves to you,
‘Later
El
became His name, and that is as it should be,
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for mortal custom is like a leaf upon a branch,
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which goes and then another comes.
‘On the mountain that rises highest
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from the sea, I lived, pure, then guilty,
from the first hour until the sun changed quadrant,
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in the hour that follows on the sixth.’
STARRY SPHERE; CRYSTALLINE SPHERE
I
changed color, wait until you see the rest of these souls!”
Boniface VIII,
Christ’s vicar
Crucifixion
);
Scipio,
will act soon;