The Portable Dante (75 page)

Shocked, in amazement, like a little boy who always runs back to the one in whom he trusts the most, so I turned to my guide;

and she, just like a mother quick to help her pale and breathless son by giving him her voice whose calmness always reassures,

said, “Don’t you know that you are up in Heaven, and don’t you know that all is holy here and every act here springs from righteous zeal?

Imagine had they sung or had I smiled, what would have happened to you then, if now you are so shaken by a single cry?

If you had heard the prayer within their shout you now would know the vengeance yet to come, though you will witness it before you die.

The sword of Here on High cuts not in haste nor is it slow—except as it appears to those who wait for it in hope or fear.

But now turn your attention to the rest; if you allow my words to guide your eyes, many illustrious spirits you will see. ”

As she directed me I turned my eyes and saw hundreds of little globes of fire growing in beauty through each other’s light.

I stood there like the anxious man restrained, forced to hold back the thrust of his desire, longing to ask while fearing to offend;

and then the largest and the brightest one among those pearls came forward to fulfill my silent longing to know who he was.

Then from inside it I heard words: “If you could see, as I do, with what love we burn, you would have shared your silent thought with us.

But rather than to cause you some delay in reaching your high goal, I shall reply directly to the question you hold back.

The summit of that mountain on whose slope Cassino lies was once inhabited by people with perverse and false beliefs;

I was the first to carry up to them the name of Him Who brought down to the earth that truth which gives mankind the strength to rise;

such grace shone down on me that I reclaimed all the surrounding towns, converting them from pagan worship that seduced the world.

These other flames were all contemplatives, men who were kindled by the warmth that breeds the flowers and the fruits of holiness.

Here is Macarius and Romuald, here are my brothers who kept to the cloisters, and, never roaming, kept a steadfast heart. ”

And I to him: “The love you have shown me in speaking this way and the good intentions I truly see glowing in all your fire

allow my confidence to open wide: it grows, unfolding petals like a rose warmed by the sun, till now it is full blown:

therefore, I pray you father, please tell me, assure me: do I have sufficient grace to see the unveiled image of your face?”

Whereon he said: “Brother, your high desire shall be fulfilled in the last sphere, for there not only mine but every wish comes true;

for there, and only there, is every wish become a perfect, ripe, entire one, there where each part is always where it was:

that sphere is in no space, it has no pole, and since our ladder reaches to that height, its full extent is stolen from your sight.

It was the patriarch Jacob who saw our ladder stretch to touch the final height, the time he dreamed of it so thronged with angels.

But now no man will lift a foot from earth and try to climb it, and my Rule is worth the wasted parchment it is written on.

The walls that used to be our abbey cells are dens for beasts now, and the cowls monks wear are just so many sacks of rotting meal.

The greed of usury, however gross, offends God less than does that holy fruit which drives the hungry hearts of monks insane;

for what the Church has in its keeping should be for the poor who ask it in God’s name, not for the families of monks—or worse.

The flesh of mortals is so weak: on earth a good beginning does not last as long as the oak’s springing to the acorn’s birth.

Peter built his without silver or gold, and I constructed mine with prayer and fast while Francis, his convent, with humbleness;

if you examine each one’s origins, then look again at what became of it, you see the white has withered into dark.

Yet Jordan’s waters at the will of God flowed backward and the Sea fled—miracles far greater than if God now helped His Church. ”

These were his words to me; then he drew back into his company whose flames closed in, and like a whirlwind, they were swept on high.

With a mere gesture my sweet lady sped me up behind them, up the ladder’s rungs, my nature conquered by her greater power.

Down here on earth where men go up or down by natural means, there never was a speed to match the motion of my wings up here.

Reader, as I hope ever to return here to this holy triumph for whose sake, I weep my sins and beat my breast—no quicker

could you have pulled your finger from a flame and thrust it in, than I caught sight and was already in the sign that follows Taurus.

O glorious constellation! O mighty stars pregnant with holy power which is the source of all of whatever genius may be mine,

in company with you there rose and set He who is father of all mortal life when I drew my first breath of Tuscan air;

and then, when that grace was bestowed on me to enter the great sphere that makes you turn, to your own zone of stars I was assigned!

To you devoutly my soul breathes its prayer to grant it strength enough for what is now the hardest phase to reach the journey’s end.

“You are so close to final blessedness, ” said Beatrice, “that you now must keep your eyes unclouded and your vision keen;

and so, before insiding further here, look down and see how vast a universe I have already put beneath your feet,

so that your heart, knowing the utmost joy, may greet that host of the Triumphant who come in joy through this ethereal round.

My vision travelled back through all the spheres, through seven heavens, and then I saw our globe; it made me smile, it looked so paltry there.

I hold that mind as best that holds our world for least, and I consider truly wise the man who turns his thoughts to other things.

I saw Latona’s daughter glowing full without those shadows which had led me once to think that she was rare and dense in parts.

On your son’s face, Hyperion, my eyes could gaze, and I saw, circling close to him, how Maia and Dione’s children move;

From there I saw the tempering of Jove between his son and sire—and it was clear how they could change position in their course.

All seven at one time were visible: I saw how vast they were, how swift they spun, and all the distances between the spheres;

as for the puny threshing-ground that drives us mad—I, turning with the timeless Twins, saw all of it, from hilltops to its shores.

Then, to the eyes of beauty my eyes turned.

As a bird quiet among the leaves she loves sits on the nest of her beloved young all through the night that hides things from our sight,

anxious to look upon her longed-for ones, eager to go in search of food for them (her heavy labors she performs with joy),

foretelling daybreak from an open bough, she waits there for the sun with glowing love, her gaze fixed on the birth of a new day—

just so my lady waited, vigilant, intense, as she looked at that part of Heaven beneath which the sun’s movement seems so slow;

then I, who saw her poised in longing there, became like one who wishes he had more and lets his hope feed on anticipation.

But time between the
when
was quick to pass— I mean the
when
of waiting and beholding the heavens growing bright and brighter still.

And Beatrice said: “Behold the hosts of Christ in triumph, and see all the fruit harvested from the turning of these spheres. ”

I saw her face aflame with so much light, her eyes so bright with holy happiness, that I shall have to leave it undescribed.

As in the clearness of a fullmooned sky Trivia smiles among eternal nymphs who paint the depths of Heaven everywhere,

I saw, above a myriad of lights, one Sun that lit them all, even as our sun illuminates the stars of his domain;

and through its living light there poured the glow of its translucent substance, bright, so bright that my poor eyes could not endure the sight.

O Beatrice, loving guide, sweet one! She answered: “That which overcomes you now is strength against which nothing has defense.

Within it dwell the wisdom and the power that opened between Heaven and earth the road mankind for ages longed for ardently. ”

As fire when it expands within a cloud must soon explode because it has no space, and, though against its nature, crash to earth,

so my mind there amid so rich a feast began to swell until it broke its bounds, and what became of it, it does not know.

“Open your eyes, look straight into my face! Such things have you been witness to that now you have the power to endure my smile. ”