The Portable Dante (81 page)

and with new-kindled eagerness to know, I turned around to ask my lady things that to my mind were still not clear enough.

What I expected was not what I saw! I thought to see Beatrice there but saw an elder in the robes of Heaven’s saints.

His eyes, his cheeks, were filled with the divine joy of the blest, his attitude with love that every tender-hearted father knows.

And “She, where is she?” instantly I asked. He answered: “I was urged by Beatrice to leave my place and end all your desire;

you will behold her, if you raise your eyes to the third circle from the highest tier, enthroned where her own merit destined her. ”

I did not say a word but raised my eyes and saw her there in all her glory crowned by the reflections of eternal light

Not from that place where highest thunder roars down to the very bottom of the sea, is any mortal’s sight so far away

as my eyes were from Beatrice there; but distance made no difference, for her image came down to me unblurred by anything.

“O lady in whom all my hope takes strength, and who for my salvation did endure to leave her footprints on the floor of Hell,

through your own power, through your own excellence I recognize the grace and the effect of all those things I have seen with my eyes.

From bondage into freedom you led me by all those paths, by using all those means which were within the limits of your power.

Preserve in me your great munificence, so that my soul which you have healed may be pleasing to you when it slips from the flesh. ”

Such was my prayer. And she, so far away, or so it seemed, looked down at me and smiled; then to Eternal Light she turned once more.

The holy elder spoke: “That you may reach your journey’s perfect consummation now, I have been sent by sacred love and prayer;

fly through this heavenly garden with your eyes, for gazing at it will prepare your sight to rise into the vision of God’s Ray.

The Queen of Heaven, for whom I constantly burn with love’s fire, will grant us every grace, because I am her faithful one, Bernard. ”

As one who comes from someplace like Croatia— to gaze on our Veronica, so long craved for, he now cannot look long enough,

and while it is displayed, he says in thought: “O Jesus Christ, my Lord, the One true God, is this what your face truly looked like then?”—

just so did I while gazing at the living love of the one who living in the world, through contemplation, tasted of that peace.

“My son of grace, ” he spoke again, “this state of blissful being will not be known to you as long as you keep your eyes fixed down here;

look up into the circles, to the highest until your eyes behold, enthroned, the Queen who holds as subject this devoted realm. ”

I raised my eyes. And as at break of day the eastern parts of the horizon shine brighter than at the point the sun goes down,

so I saw, as my eyes still climbed from vale to mountain-top, there at the highest point, a light outshining all that splendorous rim.

And as our sky, where we expect to see the ill-starred shaft of Phaethon’s chariot, burns brightest dimming all the light around,

so there, on high, that oriflame of peace lit up its center while on either side its glow was equally diminishing;

and all around that center, wings outstretched, I saw more than a thousand festive angels, each one distinct in brilliance and in art.

And there, smiling upon their games and song I saw a beauty that reflected bliss within the eyes of all the other saints;

and even if I were as rich in words as in remembering, I would not dare describe the least part of such beauty’s bliss.

Bernard, when he saw that my eyes were fixed devotedly upon his passion’s passion, his own he turned to her with so much love

that he made mine more ardent in their gaze.

Rapt in love’s Bliss, that contemplative soul generously assumed the role of guide as he began to speak these holy words:

“The wound which Mary was to close and heal she there, who sits so lovely at her feet, would open wider then and prick the flesh.

And sitting there directly under her among the thrones of the third tier is Rachel, and, there, see Beatrice by her side.

who was the great-grandmother of the singer who cried for his sin:
’Miserere mei, ’

you see them all as I go down from tier to tier and name them in their order, petal by petal, downward through the Rose.

Down from the seventh row, as up to it, was a descending line of Hebrew women that parted all the petals of the Rose;

according to the ways in which the faith viewed Christ, these women constitute the wall dividing these ranks down the sacred stairs.

On this side where the flower is full bloomed to its last petal, sit the souls of those who placed their faith upon Christ yet to come;

on that side where all of the semi-circles are broken by the empty scats, sit those who turned their face to Christ already come.

And just as on this side the glorious throne of Heaven’s lady with the other seats below it form this great dividing wall,

so, facing her, the throne of the great John who, ever holy, suffered through the desert, and martyrdom, then Hell for two more years,

and under him, chosen to mark the line, Francis, Benedict, Augustine and others descend from round to round as far as here.

Now marvel at the greatness of God’s plan: this garden shall be full in equal number of this and that aspect of the one faith.

And know that downward from the center row which cuts the two dividing walls midway, no soul through his own merit earned his seat,

but through another’s, under fixed conditions, for all these spirits were absolved of sin before they reached the age to make free choice.

You need only to look upon their faces and listen to the young sound of their voices to see and hear this clearly for yourself.

But you have doubts, doubts you do not reveal, so now I will untie the tangled knot in which your searching thoughts have bound you tight.

Within the vastness of this great domain no particle of chance can find a place— no more than sorrow, thirst, or hunger can—

for all that you see here has been ordained by the eternal law with such precision that ring and finger are a perfect fit.

And, therefore, all these souls of hurried comers to the true life are not ranked
sine causa
some high, some low, according to their merit.

The King, through whom this kingdom is at rest in so much love and in so much delight that no will dares to wish for any more,

creating all minds in His own mind’s bliss, endows each with as much grace as He wishes, at His own pleasure—let this fact suffice.

And Holy Scriptures set this down for you clear and expressly, speaking of those twins whose anger flared while in their mother’s womb;

so, it is fitting that God’s lofty light crown them with grace, as much as each one merits, according to the color of their hair.

Thus, through no merit of their own good works are they ranked differently; the difference is only in God’s gift of original grace.

During mankind’s first centuries on earth for innocent children to achieve salvation, only the faith of parents was required;

but then, when man’s first age came to an end, all males had to be circumcised to give innocent wings the strength to fly to Heaven;

but when the age of grace came down to man, then, without perfect baptism in Christ, such innocence to Limbo was confined.

Now look at that face which resembles Christ the most, for only in its radiance will you be made ready to look at Christ. ”

I saw such bliss rain down upon her face, bestowed on it by all those sacred minds created to fly through those holy heights,

that of all things I witnessed to this point nothing had held me more spellbound than this, nor shown a greater likeness unto God;

and that love which had once before descended now sang,
Ave, Maria, gratia plena,
before her presence there with wings spread wide.

Response came to this holy prayer of praise from all directions of the Court of Bliss and every face grew brighter with that joy.

“O holy father, who for my sake deigns to stand down here, so far from the sweet throne destined for you throughout eternity,

who is that angel who so joyously looks straight into the eyes of Heaven’s Queen, so much in love he seems to burn like fire?”

Thus, I turned for instruction once again to that one who in Mary’s beauty glowed as does the morning star in fresh sunlight.

And he: “All loving pride and gracious joy, as much as soul or angel can possess, is all in him, and we would have it so,

for he it is who bore the palm below to Mary when the Son of God had willed to bear the weight of man’s flesh on Himself.

Now let your eyes follow my words as I explain to you, and note the great patricians of this most just and pious of all realms.

Those two who sit most blest in their high thrones because they are the closest to the Empress are, as it were, the two roots of our Rose:

he, sitting on her left side, is that father, the one through whose presumptuous appetite mankind still tastes the bitterness of shame;

and on her right, you see the venerable Father of Holy Church to whom Christ gave the keys to this beautiful Rose of joy.