Authors: Dante
Paradiso (8 page)
Between two foods, equally near at hand and tempting,
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left free to choose, a man would die of hunger
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before he could bring either to his teeth—
so would a lamb stand still, caught between the cravings
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of two ferocious wolves, in equal fear of both,
just so, if I kept silent, urged in equal measure
by my doubts, I merit neither praise nor blame,
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since my silence was forced, not freely chosen.
I kept silent, but my longing
and my questions all were painted on my face
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more ardently than words could have expressed.
Beatrice did what Daniel did
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when he freed Nebuchadnezzar from his wrath,
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which had made him cruel unjustly,
by her words: ‘It is clear to me you feel the pull
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of two desires, so that your divided craving
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binds itself so tight it can’t breathe out.
‘You reason: “If the will does not even waver
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in devotion to the good, how can the violence
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of another reduce my measure of reward?”
‘Still another cause for your perplexity
is that you think, in accord with Plato’s teaching,
‘These are the questions that weigh equally
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upon your will. First I shall deal
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with the one that has more venom in it.
‘Not the Seraph that most ingods himself,
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not Moses, Samuel, or whichever John you please—
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none of these, I say, not even Mary,
‘have their seats in another heaven
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than do these spirits you have just now seen,
‘Those souls put themselves on view here
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not because they are allotted to this sphere
‘It is necessary thus to address your faculties,
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since only in perceiving through the senses can they grasp
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that which they then make fit for intellect.
‘For this reason Scripture condescends
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to your capacity when it attributes hands and feet
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to God, but has another meaning,
‘and for your sake Holy Church portrays
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Gabriel and Michael with the faces of men
‘What Timaeus has to say about the souls
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does not resemble what one here observes
‘He claims the soul returns to its own star,
from which he thinks that it was drawn
‘But perhaps his meaning differs
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from what his words seem to express
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and may have an intention not lightly mocked.
‘If he intends to assign to these wheels
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the honor of their influence and the blame,
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then his shaft may strike a certain truth.
‘This principle, wrongly understood, once misled
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nearly all the world so that it went astray
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and named stars Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars.
‘The other doubt that troubles you
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contains less venom because its harm
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could not lead you away from me.
‘For divine justice to appear unjust
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in mortal eyes is evidence of faith,
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not of heretical iniquity.
‘Since your human understanding is quite able
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to penetrate this truth,
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I shall content you as you wish.
‘Even if violence is done when the one who bears it
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in no way consents to the one who deals it out,
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these souls were not excused on that account.
‘For the will, except by its own willing, is not spent,
but does as by its nature fire does in flame,
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though violence may force it down one thousand times.
‘Thus, if it stays bent, whether much or little,
it then accepts that force, as indeed did these,
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since they could have retreated to their holy place.
‘Had their will remained unbroken,
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as did the will that fastened Lawrence to the grate
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and which made Mucius harsh to his own hand,
‘then, once freed, it would have drawn them back
along the path from which they had been dragged.
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But will so firm is all too rare.
‘And these words, if you have correctly understood them,
have destroyed an argument
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that would have often troubled you again.
‘But now before your eyes you find
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another obstacle, so vast that your attempt
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to overcome it on your own would leave you spent.
‘Assuredly I have set it firmly in your mind
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that a soul in bliss could never tell a lie,
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since it is always near the primal Truth.
‘But then you may have heard Piccarda say
that Constance kept her true love for the veil,
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so that in this she seems to contradict me.
‘Many times, brother, has it occurred
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that, if unwillingly, to escape from harm,
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one does a thing that had better not been done,
‘as Alcmaeon, exhorted by his father,
slew his own mother: so as not to fail
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in piety, he steeled himself to pity.
‘At this point, I would ask you to reflect,
the threat of violence so mingles with the will
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that these offenses cannot be excused.
‘An absolute will consents not to the wrong,
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but the will
does
consent to the extent it fears,
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if it draws back, to fall into still greater harm.
‘Piccarda, thus, in that which she affirms,
speaks of the absolute will, while I refer
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to the other, so that we both maintain a truth.’
Such was the rippling of the holy stream,
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issuing from the source from which all truth derives,
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that put each one of my desires at peace.
‘O belovèd of the first Lover,’ I said then,
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‘divine creature whose speech so floods and scalds me
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that I am more and more alive,
‘not all the depth of my affection
is enough to requite You grace for grace.
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But may He who sees, and has the power, reward You.
‘I now see clearly that our intellect
cannot be satisfied until that truth enlighten it
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beyond whose boundary no further truth extends.
‘In that truth, like a wild beast in its den, it rests
once it has made its way there—and it can do that,
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or else its every wish would be in vain.
‘Like a shoot, doubt springs
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from the root of truth, and its nature
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urges us toward the summit, from ridge to ridge.
‘It is this, lady, that invites and assures me
to ask You, with reverence, about another truth
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that still remains obscure to me.