The Portable Dante (61 page)

“If, in the warmth of love, you see me glow with light the world below has never seen, stunning the power of your mortal sight,

you should not be amazed, for it proceeds from perfect vision which, the more it sees, the more it moves to reach the good perceived.

I can see how into your mind already there shines Eternal Light which, of Itself, once it is seen, forever kindles love;

and should some other thing seduce man’s love, it can be only some trace of this Light, misapprehended, shining through that thing.

You wish to know if for a broken vow one can make compensation of the kind that makes the soul secure from litigation. ”

These were the words with which my Beatrice began this canto, then without delay continued with her sacred explication:

“The greatest gift that our bounteous Lord bestowed as the Creator, in creating, the gift He cherishes the most, the one

most like Himself, was freedom of the will. All creatures with intelligence, and they alone, were so endowed both then and now.

Such reasoning as this should make it clear how sacred is the vow when it is made with God consenting to your own consent;

when, therefore, God and man have sealed the pact, this treasure, then, of which I speak becomes the sacrifice the free will wills itself.

What compensation can you offer, then? Can you use well what is no longer yours? You cannot do good works with ill-got gains.

So far, the main point should be clear to you, but since the Church grants dispensations here, which seems to contradict the truth I spoke,

you must sit at the table yet awhile because the food that you have taken in is tough and takes time to assimilate.

Open your mind to what I shall reveal and seal it in, for to have understood and not retained, as knowledge does not count.

The essence of this sacrifice depends on two things: first, the promised act itself, and next, the solemn nature of the pact.

The latter cannot be annulled except by its fulfillment; and it was of this I spoke in such precise terms earlier.

Thus, it was mandatory for the Jews to sacrifice, but they could, as you know, substitute one offering for another.

This may be called the substance of the vow, and may be such that no real fault occur if the one substance take the other’s place.

But let no one assume by his own choice responsibility for substitution; be sure the white and yellow keys have turned.

And any change must be considered vain if the new matter not contain the old, as six exceeds and holds the number four.

There are, however, certain things once sworn that by their value can tip every scale: for these no substitution can be made.

Let no man take his vow too lightly. Keep your word! But, do not make a blind, rash oath as Jephthah did in his first offering—

better if he had said, ‘My vow was wrong, ’ than do far worse by keeping it. No less insensate was that great war-chief, the Greek

whose Iphigenia mourned her loveliness, and made the wise as well as simple weep to hear the tale of such a grievous rite.

Christians, beware of rushing into vows. Do not be like a feather in the wind, or think that every water washes clean!

You have the Testaments, the Old and New; as guide you have the Shepherd of the church: they should be all you need to save your soul.

If evil greed incites you otherwise, be men, not senseless sheep, lest any Jew among you point his finger out of scorn!

Do not be like the lamb who turns away from its own mother’s milk, capriciously playing a silly game to its own harm!”

As I have written, so spoke Beatrice. Then full of yearning she turned to that height where all the universe is quickened most.

Her stillness, her transfigured countenance imposed silence upon my eager mind, already stirred with new questions to ask;

and like an arrow that has struck the mark before the bow-string stops its quivering, we soared into the second realm, and there,

I saw my lady so caught up in joy as she went into that new heaven’s glow, the planet shone with more than its own light.

And if the star changed then and seemed to smile, imagine what took place in me, a man whose nature is transmutability.

As in the clear, still water of a pond the fish are lured toward something fallen in, as if they knew it was their food—so, here,

I saw more than a thousand splendors move toward us, and in each one I heard the cry: “Behold one more who will increase our love. ”

And as they came nearer to us, the joy of each soul there was rendered visible in the clear luminance with which it shone.

Imagine, Reader, if I were to stop right here without describing what came next, how keenly you would crave to hear the rest—

and you will surely understand how keen I was to learn from them all they could tell about themselves as soon as they appeared.

“O bliss-born soul, to whom God grants the grace to see the thrones of the eternal triumph before abandoning the war of life,

the light of God that shines throughout the heavens is lit in us, and so, if you desire enlightenment, ask to your heart’s content. ”

So spoke one holy soul, and Beatrice was quick to urge me: “Speak, and have no fear, confide in them, as if they were all gods!”

“I see how you have made yourself a nest of your own light and how those rays of light pour from your eyes that dazzle when you smile,

but who you are, I do not know, or why, O worthy soul, you are assigned this sphere which with another’s rays is veiled to man. ”

These were the words I spoke into the glow that had addressed me; whereupon it shone, this time with light far brighter than before.

Just as the sun, when its increasing rays have broken through dense vapors, hides itself within the very excess of its light—

even so, in its own glowing jubilance that holy figure hid itself from me, and so enraptured wrapt, it answered me

the way in which the following canto chants.

“Once Constantine reversed the eagle’s flight, against the course of Heaven which it pursued behind that warrior who wed Lavinia,

one hundred and one hundred years and more the bird of God remained on Europe’s edge close to the mountains whence it first arose;

there, shadowed by its sacred wings, it ruled over the world, passing from hand to hand, and changing thus, alighted on my own.

Caesar I was, Justinian I remain who, by the will of the First Love I feel, purged all the laws of excess and of shame.

Before I had assumed this task I thought that Christ had but one nature and no more, and I was satisfied with this belief;

but blessed Agapetus, he who was supreme shepherd of God, directed me with his enlightened words to the true faith;

I trusted him, and what he knew by faith I now see clear, as clear as you can see all contradictions are both true and false.

And once I was in step with Holy Church, God in his grace inspired me to assume that task to which I gave all of myself:

To my Belisarius I gave my arms, for God’s right hand so guided his, I knew it was a sign for me to rest from war.