XXIII. It may not be without intention that the first blessed spirit

whom Dante sees in Paradise is a relative of his own wife, Gemma dei Donati. [3] Rejoice in whatever grade of bliss is assigned to thern in that order of the universe which is the form that makes it like unto God. [4] Charity here means love, the love of God. [5] Of necessity; the Latin word being used for the rhyme's sake. “Mansionem Deus haber non potest ubi charitas non est” B. Alberti Magni, De adhoerendo Deo, c. xii. Clear was it then to me, how everywhere in Heaven is Paradise, although the grace of the Supreme Good rains not there in one measure. But even as it happen, if one food sates, and for another the appetite still remains, that this is asked for, and that declined with thanks; so did I, with gesture and with speech, to learn from her, what was the web whereof she did not draw the shuttle to the head.[1] “Perfect life and high merit in-heaven a lady higher up,” she said to me, “according to whose rule, in your world below, there are who vest and veil themselves, so that till death they may wake and sleep with that Spouse who accepts every vow which love conforms unto His pleasure. A young girl, I fled from the world to follow her, and in her garb I shut myself, and pledged me to the pathway of her order. Afterward men, more used to ill than good, dragged me forth from the sweet cloister;[2] and God knows what then my life became. And this other splendor, which shows itself to thee at my right side, and which glows with all the light of our sphere, that which I say of me understands of herself.[3] A sister was she; and in like manner from her head the shadow of the sacred veils was taken. But after she too was returned unto the world against her liking and against good usage, from the veil of the heart she was never unbound.[4] This is the light of the great Constance,[5] who from the second wind of Swabia produced the third and the last power.” [1] To learn from her what was the vow which she did not fulfil. [2] According to the old commentators, her brother Corso forced Piccarda by violence to leave the convent, in order to make a marriage which he desired for her. [3] Her experience was similar to that of Piccarda. [4] She remained a nun at heart. [5] Constance, daughter of the king of Sicily, Roger 1.; married, in 1186, to the Emperor, Henry VI., the son of Frederick Barbarossa, and father of Frederick II, who died in 1250, the last Emperor of his line. Thus she spoke to me, and then began singing “Ave Maria,” and Singing vanished, like a heavy thing through deep water. My sight, that followed her so far as was possible, after it lost her turned to the mark of greater desire, and wholly rendered itself to Beatrice; but she so flashed upon my gaze that at first the sight endured it not: and this made me more slow in questioning. CANTO IV. Doubts of Dante, respecting the justice of Heaven and the abode of the blessed, solved by Beatrice.—Question of Dante as to the possibility of reparation for broken vows. Between two viands, distant and attractive in like measure, a free man would die of hunger, before he would bring one of them to his teeth. Thus a lamb would stand between two ravenings of fierce wolves, fearing equally; thus would stand a dog between two does. Hence if, urged by my doubts in like measure, I was silent, I blame not myself; nor, since it was necessary, do I commend. I was silent, but my desire was depicted on my face, and the questioning with that far more fervent than by distinct speech. Beatrice did what Daniel did, delivering Nebuchadnezzar from anger, which had made him unjustly cruel, and said, “I see clearly how one and the other desire draws thee, so that thy care so binds itself that it breathes not forth. Thou reasonest, 'If the good will endure, by what reckoning doth the violence of others lessen for me the measure of desert?' Further, it gives thee occasion for doubt, that the souls appear to return to the stars, in accordance with the opinion of Plato.[1] These are the questions that thrust equally upon thy wish; and therefore I will treat first of that which hath the most venom.[2] [1] Plato, in his Timaeus (41, 42), says that the creator of the universe assigned each soul to a star, whence they were to be sown in the vessels of time. “ He who lived well during his appointed time was to return to the star which was his habitation, and there he would have a blessed and suitable existence.” Dante's doubt has arisen from the words of Piccarda, which implied that her station was in the sphere of the Moon. [2] The conception that the souls after death had their abode in the stars would be a definite heresy, and hence far more dangerous than a question concerning the justice of Heaven, for such a question might be consistent with entire faith in that justice. “Of the Seraphim he who is most in God, Moses, Samuel, and whichever John thou wilt take, I say, and even Mary, have not their seats in another heaven than those spirits who just now appeared to thee, nor have they more or fewer years for their existence; but all make beautiful the first circle, and have sweet life in different measure, through feeling more or less the eternal breath.[1] They showed themselves here, not because this sphere is allotted to them, but to afford sign of the celestial condition which is least exalted. To speak thus is befitting to your mind, since only by objects of the sense doth it apprehend that which it then makes worthy of the understanding. For this reason the Scripture condescends to your capacity, and attributes feet and hands to God, while meaning otherwise; and Holy Church represents to you with human aspect Gabriel and Michael and the other who made Tobias whole again.[2] That which Timaeus, reasons of the souls is not like this which is seen here, since it seems that he thinks as he says. He says that the soul returns to its own star, believing it to have been severed thence, when nature gave it as the form.[3] And perchance his opinion is of other guise than his words sound, and may be of a meaning not to be derided. If he means that the honor of their influence and the blame returns to these wheels, perhaps his bow hits on some truth. This principle, ill understood, formerly turned awry almost the whole world, so that it ran astray in naming Jove, Mercury, and Mars.[4] [1] The abode of all the blessed is the Empyrean,—the first circle, counting from above; but there are degrees in blessedness, each spirit enjoying according to its capacity; no one is conscious of any lack. [2] The archangel Raphael. [3] The intellectual soul is united with the body as its substantial form. That by means of which anything performs its functions (operatur) is its form. The soul is that by which the body lives, and hence is its form.—Summa Theol., I. lxxvi. 1, 6, 7. [4] The belief in the influence of the stars led men to assign to them divine powers, and to name their gods after them. The other dubitation which disturbs thee has less venom, for its malice could not lead thee from me elsewhere. That our justice seems unjust in the eyes of mortals is argument of faith,[1] and not of heretical iniquity. But in order that your perception may surely penetrate unto this truth, I will make thee content, as thou desirest. Though there be violence when he who suffers nowise consents to him who compels, these souls were not by reason of that excused; for will, unless it wills, is not quenched,[2] but does as nature does in fire, though violence a thousand times may wrest it. Wherefore if it bend much or little, it follows the force; and thus these did, having power to return to the holy place. If their will had been entire, such as held Lawrence on the gridiron, and made Mucius severe unto his hand, it would have urged them back, so soon as they were loosed, along the road on which they had been dragged; but will so firm is too rare. And by these words, if thou hast gathered them up as thou shouldst, is the argument quashed that would have given thee annoy yet many times. [1] Mortals would not trouble themselves concerning the justice of God, unless they had faith in it. These perplexities are then arguments or proofs of faith; as St. Thomas Aquinas says, “The merit of faith consists in believing what one does not see.” But in this case, as Beatrice goes on to show, mere human intelligence if Sufficient to see that the injustice is only apparent. [2] Violence has no power over the will; the original will may, however, by act of will, be changed. “But now another path runs traverse before thine eyes, such that by thyself thou wouldst not issue forth therefrom ere thou wert weary. I have put it in thy mind for certain, that a soul in bliss cannot lie, since it is always near to the Primal Truth; and then thou hast heard from Piccarda that Constance retained affection for the veil; so that she seems in this to contradict me. Often ere now, brother, has it happened that, in order to escape peril, that which it was not meet to do has been done against one's liking; even as Alcmaeon (who thereto entreated by his father, slew his own mother), not to lose piety, pitiless became. On this point, I wish thee to think that the violence is mingled with the will, and they so act that the offences cannot be excused. Absolute will consents not to the wrong; but the will in so far consents thereto, as it fears, if it draw back, to fall into greater trouble. Therefore when Piccarda says that, she means it of the absolute will; and I of the other so that we both speak truth alike.” Such was the current of the holy stream which issued from the fount whence every truth flows forth; and such it set at rest one and the other desire. “O beloved of the First Lover, O divine one,” said I then, “whose speech inundates me, and warms me so that more and more it quickens me, my affection is not so profound that it can suffice to render to you grace for grace, but may He who sees and can, respond for this. I clearly see that our intellect is never satisfied unless the Truth illume it, outside of which no truth extends. In that it reposes, as a wild beast in his lair, soon as it has reached it: and it can reach it; otherwise every desire would be in vain. Because of this,[1] the doubt, in likeness of a shoot, springs up at the foot of the truth; and it is nature which urges us to the summit from height to height. This[2] invites me, this gives me assurance, Lady, with reverence to ask you of another truth which is obscure to me. I wish to know if man can make satisfaction to you[3] for defective vows with other goods, so that in your scales they may not be light?” looked at we with such divine eyes, full of the sparks of love, that my power, vanquished, turned its back, and almost I lost myself with eyes cast down. [1] Of this constant desire for truth. [2] This natural impulse. [3] To you, that is, to the court of Heaven. CANTO V. The sanctity of vows, and the seriousness with which they are to be made or changed.—Ascent to the Heaven of Mercury.—The shade of Justinian. “If I flame upon thee in the heat of love, beyond the fashion that on earth is seen, go that I vanquish the valor of thine eyes, marvel not, for it proceeds from perfect vision,[1] which according as it apprehends, so moves its feet to the apprehended good. I see clearly how already shines in thy intellect the eternal light, which, being seen, alone ever enkindles love. And if any other thing seduce your love, it is naught but some vestige of that, illrecognized, which therein shines through. Thou wishest to know if for a defective vow so much can be rendered with other service as may secure the soul from suit.” [1] From the brightness of my eyes illuminated by the divine light. Thus Beatrice began this canto, and even as one who breaks not off his speech, she thus continued her holy discourse. “The greatest gift which God in His largess bestowed in creating, and the most conformed unto His goodness and that which He esteems the most, was the freedom of the will, with which all the creatures of intelligence, and they alone, were and are endowed. Now will appear to thee, if from this thou reasonest, the high worth of the vow, if it be such that God consent when thou consentest;[1] for, in closing the compact between God and man, sacrifice is made of this treasure, which is such as I say, and it is made by its own act. What then can be rendered in compensation? If thou thinkest to make good use of that which thou hast offered, with illgotten gain thou wouldst do good work.[2] [1] If the vow be valid through its acceptance by God. [2] The intent to put what had been vowed to another (though good) use, affords no excuse for breaking a vow. “Thou art now assured of the greater point; but since Holy Church in this gives dispensation, which seems contrary to the truth which I have disclosed to thee, it behoves thee still to sit a little at table, because the tough food which thou hast taken requires still some aid for thy digestion. Open thy mind to that which I reveal to thee, and enclose it therewithin; for to have heard without retaining doth not make knowledge. “Two things combine in the essence of this sacrifice; the one is that of which it consists, the other is the covenant. This last is never cancelled if it be not kept; and concerning this has my preceding speech been so precise. On this account it was necessary for the Hebrews still to make offering, although some part of the offering might be changed, as thou shouldst know.[1] The other, which as the matter[2] is known to thee, may truly be such that one errs not if for some other matter it be changed. But let not any one shift the load upon his shoulder at his own will, without the turning both of the white and of the yellow key.[3] And let him deem every permutation foolish, if the thing laid down be not included in the thing taken up, as four in six.[4] Therefore whatever thing is, through its own worth, of such great weight that it can draw down every balance, cannot be made good with other spending. [1] See Leviticus, xxvii., in respect to commutation allowed. [2] That is, as the subject matter of the vow, the thing of which sacrifice is made. [3] Without the turning of the keys of St. Peter, that is, without clerical dispensation; the key of gold signifying authority, that of silver, knowledge. Cf. Purgatory, Canto IX. [4] The matter substituted must exceed in worth that of the original vow, but not necessarily in a definite proportion. “Let not mortals take a vow in jest; be faithful, and not squint-eyed in doing this, as Jephthah was in his first. offering;[1] to whom it better behoved to say, 'I have done ill,' than, by keeping his vow, to do worse. And thou mayest find the great leader of the Greeks in like manner foolish; wherefore Iphigenia wept for her fair face, and made weep for her both the simple and the wise, who heard speak of such like observance. Be, ye Christians, more grave in moving; be not like a feather on every wind, and think not that every water can wash you. Ye have the Old and the New Testament, and the Shepherd of the Church, who guides you; let this suffice you for your salvation. If evil covetousness cry aught else to you, be ye men, and not silly sheep, so that the Jew among you may not laugh at you. Act not like the lamb, that leaves the milk of his mother, and, simple and wanton, at its own pleasure combats with itself.” [1] See Judges, xi. Thus Beatrice to me, even as I write; then all desireful turned herself again to that region where the world is most alive.[1] Her silence, and her transmuted countenance imposed silence on my eager mind, which already had new questions in advance. And even as an arrow, that hits the mark before the bowstring is quiet, so we ran into the second realm.[2] Here I saw my lady so joyous as she entered into the light of that heaven, that thereby the planet became more lucent. And if the star war, changed and smiled, what did I become, who even by my nature am transmutable in every wise! [1] Looking upward, toward the Empyrean. [2] The Heaven of Mercury, where blessed spirits who have been active in the pursuit of honor and fame show themselves. As in a fishpond, which is tranquil and pure, the fish draw to that which comes from without in such manner that they deem. it their food, so indeed I saw more than a thousand splendors drawing toward. us, and in each one was heard,—“Lo, one who shall increase our loves!”[1] And as each came to us, the shade was seen full of joy in the bright effulgence that issued from it. [1] By giving us occasion to manifest our love. Think, Reader, if that which is here begun should not proceed, how thou wouldst have distressful want of knowing more; and by thyself thou wilt see how desirous I was to hear from these of their conditions, as they became manifest to mine eyes. “O well-born,[1] to whom Grace concedes to see the thrones of the eternal triumph ere the warfare is abandoned,[2] with the light which spreads through the whole heaven we are enkindled, and therefore if thou desirest to make thyself clear concerning us, at thine own pleasure sate thyself.” Thus was said to me by one of those pious spirits; and by Beatrice, “Speak, speak securely, and trust even as to gods.” “I see clearly, how thou dost nest thyself in thine ownlight, and that by thine eyes thou drawest it, because they sparkle when thou smilest; but I know not who thou art, nor why thou hast, O worthy soul, thy station in the sphere which is veiled to mortals by another's rays.”[3] This I said, addressed unto the light which first had spoken to me; whereon it became more lucent far than it had been. Even as the sun, which, when the heat has consumed the tempering of dense vapors, conceals itself by excess of light, so, through greater joy, the holy shape bid itself from me within its own radiance, and thus close enclosed, it answered me in the fashion that the following canto sings. [1] That is, born to good, to attain blessedness. [2] Ere thy life on earth, as a member of the Church Militant, is ended. [3] Mercury is veiled by the Sun. CANTO VI. Justinian tells of his own life.—The story of the Roman Eagle.—Spirits in the planet Mercury.—Romeo. After Constantine turned the Eagle counter to the course of the heavens which it had followed behind the ancient who took to wife Lavinia,[1] a hundred and a hundred years and more[2] the bird of God held itself on the verge of Europe, near to the Mountains[3] from which it first came forth, and there governed the world beneath the shadow of the sacred wings, from hand to hand, and thus changing, unto mine own arrived. Caesar I was,[4] and am Justinian, who, through will of the primal Love which I feel, drew out from among the laws what was superfluous and vain.[5] And before I was intent on this work, I believed one nature to be in Christ, not more,[6] and with such faith was content. But the blessed Agapetus, who was the supreme pastor, directed me to the pure faith with his words. I believed him; and that which was in his faith I now see clearly, even as thou seest every contradiction to be both false and true.[7] Soon as with the Church I moved my feet, it pleased God, through grace, to inspire me with the high labor, and I gave myself wholly to it. And I entrusted my armies to my Belisarius, to whom the right hand of Heaven was so joined that it was a sign that I should take repose. [1] Constantine, transferring the seat of Empire from Rome to Byzantium, carried the Eagle from West to East, counter to the course along which Aeneas had borne it when he went from Troy to found the Roman Empire. [2] From A. D. 324, when the transfer was begun, to 527, when Justinian became Emperor. [3] Of the Troad, opposite Byzantium. [4] On earth Emperor, but in Heaven earthly dignities exist no longer. [5] The allusion is to Justinian's codification of the Roman Law. [6] The divine nature only. Dante here follows Brunetto Latini (Li Tresor, I. ii. 87) in an historical error. [7] Of the two terms of a contradictory proposition one is true, the other false. “Now here to the first question my answer comes to the stop; but its nature constrains me to add a sequel to it, in order that thou mayst see with how much reason[1] move against the ensign sacrosanct, both he who appropriates it to himself,[2] and he who opposes himself to it.[3] See how great virtue has made it worthy of reverence,” and he began from the hour when Pallas[4] died to give it a kingdom. “Thou knowest it made in Alba its abode for three hundred years and move, till at the end the three fought with the three[4] for its sake still. And thou knowest what it did, from the wrong of the Sabine women clown to the sorrow of Lucretia, in seven kings, conquering the neighboring peoples round about. Thou knowest what it did when borne by the illustrious Romans against Brennus, against Pyrrhus, and against the other chiefs and allies; whereby Torquatus, and Quinctius who was named from his neglected locks, the Decii and the Fabii acquired the fame which willingly I embalm. It struck to earth the pride of the Arabs, who, following Hannibal, passed the Alpine rocks from which thou, Po, glidest. Beneath it, in their youth, Scipio and Pompey triumphed, and to that hill beneath which thou wast born, it seemed bitter.[5] Then, near the time when all Heaven willed to bring the world to its own serene mood, Caesar by the will of Rome took it: and what it did from the Var even to the Rhine, the Isere beheld, and the Saone, and the Seine beheld, and every valley whence the Rhone is filled. What afterward it did when it came forth from Ravenna, and leaped the Rubicon, was of such flight that neither tongue nor pen could follow it. Toward Spain it wheeled its troop; then toward Dyrrachium, and smote Pharsalia so that to the warm Nile the pain was felt. It saw again Antandros and Simois, whence it set forth, and there where Hector lies; and ill for Ptolemy then it shook itself. Thence it swooped flashing down on Juba; then wheeled again unto your west, where it heard the Pompeian trumpet. Of what it did with the next standard-bearer,[7] Bruttis and Cassius are barking in Hell; and it made Modena and Perugia woful. Still does the sad Cleopatra weep therefor, who, fleeing before it, took from the asp sudden and black death. With him it ran far as the Red Sea shore; with him it set the world in peace so great that on Janus his temple was locked up. But what the ensign which makes me speak had done before, and after was to do, through the mortal realm that is subject to it, becomes in appearance little and obscure, if in the hand of the third Caesar[8] it be looked at with clear eye, and with pure affection. For the living Justice which inspires me granted to it, in the hand of him of whom I speak, the glory of doing vengeance for Its own ire[9]—now marvel here at that which I unfold to thee,—then with Titus it ran to do vengeance for the avenging of the ancient sin.[2] And when the Lombard tooth bit the Holy Church, under its wings Charlemagne, conquering, succored her. [1] Ironical. The meaning is, “how wrongly.” [2] The Ghibelline. [3] The Guelph. [4] Son of Evander, King of Latium, sent by his father to aid Aeneas. His death in battle against Turnus led to that of Turnus himself, and to the possession of the Latian kingdom by Aeneas. [5] The Horatii and Curiatii. [6] According to popular tradition Fiesole was destroyed by the Romans after the defeat of Catiline. [7] Augustus. [8] Tiberius. [9] It was under the authority of Rome that Christ was crucified, whereby the sin of Adam. was avenged. [10] Vengeance was taken on the Jews, because although the death of Christ was divinely ordained, their crime in it was none the less. “Now canst thou judge of such as those whom I accused above, and of their crimes, which are the cause of all your ills. To the public ensign one opposes the yellow lilies,[1] and the other appropriates it to a party, so that it is hard to see which is most at fault. Let the Ghibellines practice, let them practice their art under another ensign, for he ever follows it ill who parts justice and it. And let not this new Charles[2] strike it down with his Guelphs, but let him fear its talons, which from a loftier lion have stripped the fell. Often ere now the sons have wept for the sin of the father; and let him not believe that for his lilies Goa win change His arms. [1] The fleur-de-lys of France. [2] Charles II., King of Apulia, son of Charles of Anjou. “This little star is furnished with good spirits who have been active in order that honor and fame may follow them. And when the desires thus straying mount here, it must needs be that the rays of the true love mount upward less living.[1] But in the commeasuring of our wages with our desert is part of our joy, because we see them neither less nor greater. Hereby the living Justice so sweetens the affection in us, that it can never be bent aside to any wrong. Diverse voices make sweet notes; thus in our life diverse benches[2] render sweet harmony among these wheels. [1] The desire for fame interferes with, though it may not wholly prevent, the true love of God. [2] The different grades of the blessed. “And within the present pearl shines the light of Romeo, whose great and beautiful work was ill rewarded. But the Provencals who wrought against him are not smiling; and forsooth he goes an ill road who makes harm for himself of another's good deed.[1] Four daughters, and each a queen, had Raymond Berenger, and Romeo, a humble person and a pilgrim, did this[2] for him. And then crooked words moved him to demand a reckoning of this just man, who rendered to him seven and five for ten. Then he departed, poor and old, and if the world but knew the heart he had, while begging his livelihood bit by bit, much as it lauds him it would laud him more.” [1] According to Giovanni Villani (vi. 90), one Romeo, a pilgrim, came to the court of Raymond Berenger IV., Count of Provence (who died, in 1245), and winning the count's favor, served him with such wisdom and fidelity that by his means his master's revenues were greatly increased, and his four daughters married to four kings,—Margaret, to Louis IX. of France, St. Louis; Eleanor, to Henry III. of England; Sanzia, to Richard, Earl of Cornwall (brother of Henry III.), elected King of the Romans; and Beatrice, to Charles of Anjou (brother of Louis IX.), King of Apulia and Sicily. The Provencal nobles, jealous of Romeo, procured his dismissal, and he departed, with his mule and his pilgrim's staff and scrip, and was never seen more. [2] The making each a queen. CANTO VII. Discourse of Beatrice.—The Fall of Man.—The scheme of his Redemption. “Osanna sanctus Deus Sabaoth, superillustrans claritate tua felices ignes horum malacoth!”[1]—thus, turning to its own melody, this substance,[2] upon which a double light is twinned,[3] was seen by me to sing. And it and the others moved with their dance, and like swiftest sparks veiled themselves to me with sudden distance. I was in doubt, and was saying to myself, “Tell her, tell her,” I was saying, “tell her, my Lady, who slakes my thirst with her sweet distillings;” but that reverence which lords it altogether over me, only by BE and by ICE,[4] bowed me again like one who drowses. Little did Beatrice endure me thus, and she began, irradiating me with a smile such as would make a man in the fire happy, “According to my infallible advisement, how a just vengeance could be justly avenged has set thee thinking. But I will quickly loose thy mind: and do thou listen, for my words will make thee a present of a great doctrine. [1] “Hosanna! Holy God of Sabaoth, beaming with thy brightness upon the blessed fires of these realms.” [2] Substance, as a scholastic term, signifies a being subsisting by itself with a quality of its own. “Substantiae nomen significat essentiam cui competit sic esse, id est per se esse; quod tamen esse non est ipsa ejus essentia.”—Summa Theol. I. iii. 5. [3] The double light of Emperor and compiler of the Laws. [4] Only by the sound of her name. “By not enduring for his own good a curb upon the power which wills, that man who was not born,—damning himself, damned all his offspring; wherefore the human race lay sick below for many centuries, in great error, till it pleased the Word of God to descend where He, by the sole act of His eternal love, united with Himself in person the nature which had. removed itself from its Maker. “Now direct thy sight to the discourse which follows. This nature, united with its Maker, became sincere and good, as it had been created; but by itself it had been banished from Paradise, because it turned aside from the way of truth and from its own life. The punishment therefore which the cross afforded, if it be measured by the nature assumed, none ever so justly stung; and, likewise, none was ever of such great wrong, regarding the Person who suffered, with whom this nature was united. Therefore from one act issued things diverse; for unto God and unto the Jews one death was pleasing: by it earth trembled and the heavens were opened. No more henceforth ought it to seem perplexing to thee, when it is said that a just vengeance was afterward avenged by a just court, “But I see now thy mind tied up, from thought to thought, within a knot the loosing of which is awaited with great desire, Thou sayest, 'I discern clearly that which I bear; but it is occult to we why God should will only this mode for our redemption.' This decree, brother, stands buried to the eyes of every one whose wit is not full grown in the flame of love. Truly, inasmuch as on this mark there is much gazing, and little is discerned, I will tell why such mode was most worthy. The Divine Goodness, which from Itself spurns all rancor, burning in Itself so sparkles that It displays the eternal beauties. That which distils immediately[1] from It, thereafter has no end, for when It seals, Its imprint is not removed. That which from It immediately rains down is wholly free, because it is not subject unto the power of the new things.[2] It is the most conformed to It, and therefore pleases It the most; for the Holy Ardor which irradiates every thing is most living in what is most resemblance to Itself. With all these things[3] the human creature is advantaged, and if one fail, he needs must fall from his nobility. Sin alone is that which disfranchises him, and makes him unlike the Supreme Good, so that by Its light he is little illumined. And to his dignity he never returns, unless, where sin makes void, he fill up for evil pleasures with just penalties. Your nature, when it sinned totally in its seed,[4] was removed from these dignities, even as from Paradise; nor could they be recovered, if thou considerest full subtly, by any way, without passing by one of these fords:—either that God alone by His courtesy should forgive, or that man by himself should make satisfaction for his folly. Fix now thine eye within the abyss of the eternal counsel, fixed as closely on my speech as thou art able. Man within his own limits could never make satisfaction, through not being able to descend so far with humility in subsequent obedience, as disobeying he intended to ascend; and this is the reason why man was excluded from power to make satisfaction by himself. Therefore it behoved God by His own paths[5] to restore man to his entire life, I mean by one, or else by both. But because the work of the workman is so much the more pleasing, the more it represents of the goodness of the heart whence it issues, the Divine Goodness which imprints the world was content to proceed by all Its paths to lift you up again; nor between the last night and the first day has there been or will there be so lofty and so magnificent a procedure either by one or by the other; for God was more liberal in giving Himself to make man sufficient to lift himself up again, than if only of Himself He had pardoned him. And all the other modes were scanty in respect to justice, if the Son of God had not humbled himself to become incarnate. [1] Without the intervention of a second cause. [2] That is, of the heavens, new as compared with the First Cause. [3] That is, with immediate creation, with immortality, with free will, with likeness to God, and the love of God for it. [4] Adam. [5] “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.”—Psalm xxv. 10. Truth may be here interpreted, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, as justice. “Now to fill completely every desire of thine, I return to a certain place to clear it up, in order that thou mayest see there even, as I do. Thou sayest, 'I see the water, I see the fire, the air; and the earth, and all their mixtures come to corruption, and endure short while, and yet these things were created;' so that, if what I have said has been true, they ought to be secure against corruption. The Angels, brother, and the sincere[1] country in which thou art, may be called created, even as they are, in their entire being; but the elements which thou hast named, and those things which are made of them, are informed by a created power.[2] The matter of which they consist was created; the informing power in these stars which go round about them was created. The ray and the motion of the holy lights draw out from its potential elements[3] the soul of every brute and of the plants; but the Supreme Benignity inspires your life without intermediary, and enamors it of Itself so that ever after it desires It. And hence[4] thou canst argue further your resurrection, if thou refleetest bow the human flesh was made when the first parents were both made.” [1] Sincere is here used in the sense of incorruptible, or perhaps unspoiled,—the quality of the Heavens as contrasted with the Earth. [2] The elements axe informed, that is, receive their specific being not immediately from Goa, but mediately through the informing Intelligences. [3] Literally, “from the potentiate mingling,” that is, from the matter endowed with the potentiality of becoming informed by the vegetative and the sensitive soul. [4] From the principle that what proceeds immediately from Goa is immortal. CANTO VIII. Ascent to the Heaven of Venus.—Spirits of Lovers, Source of the order and the varieties in mortal things. The world in its peril[1] was wont to believe that the beautiful Cypriote[2] revolving in the third epicycle rayed out mad love; wherefore the ancient people in their ancient error not only unto her did honor with sacrifice and with votive cry, but they honored Dione[3] also and Cupid, the one as her mother, the other as her son, and they said that he had sat in Dido's lap[4] And from her, from whom I take my beginning, they took the name of the star which the sun wooes, now at her back now at her front.[5] I was not aware of the ascent to it; but of being in it, my Lady, whom I saw become more beautiful, gave me full assurance. [1] In heathen times. [2] Venus, so called from her birth in Cyprus. [3] Dione, daughter of Oceanus and Thetis, mother of Venus. [4] Under the form of Ascanius, as Virgil tells in the first book of the Aeneid. [5] According as it is morning or evening star. And even as in a flame a spark is seen, and as voice from voice is distinguished when one is steady and the other goes and returns, I saw in that light other lamps moving in a circle more and less rapidly, in the measure, I believe, of their inward vision. From a cold cloud winds never descended, or visible or not, go swift, that they would not seem impeded and slow to him who had seen these divine lights coming to us, leaving the circling begun first among the high Seraphim. And within those who appeared most in front was sounding HOSANNA, so that never since have I been without desire of hearing it again. Then one came nearer to us, and alone began, “We all are ready to thy pleasure, that thou mayest joy in us. With one circle, with one circling, and with one thirst,[1] we revolve with the celestial Princes,[2] to whom thou in the world once said: 'Ye who intelligent move the third heaven;' and we are so full of love that, to please thee, a little quiet will not be less sweet to us.” [1] One circle in space, one circling in eternity, one thirst for the vision of God. [2] The third in ascending order of the hierarchy of the Angels, corresponding with the heaven of Venus. After my eyes had offered themselves reverently to my Lady, and she had of herself made them contented and assured, they turned again to the light which had promised so much; and, “Tell who ye are,” was my utterance, stamped with great affection. And how much greater alike in quantity and quality did I see it become, through the new gladness which was added to its gladnesses when I spoke! Become thus, it said to me,[1] “The world had me below short while; and had it been longer much evil had not been which will be. My joy which rays around me, and hides me like a creature swathed in its own silk, holds me concealed from thee. Much didst thou love me, and thou hadst good reason; for had I stayed below I had showed thee of my love far more than the leaves. That left bank which is bathed by the Rhone, after it has mingled with the Sorgue, awaited me in due time for its lord;[2] and that born of Ansonia[3] which is towned with Bari, with Gaeta, and with Catona,[4] whence the Tronto and the Verde disgorge into the sea. Already was shining on my brow the crown of that land which the Danube waters after it abandons its German banks;[5] and the fair Trinacria[6] (which is darkened, not by Typhoeus but by nascent sulphur, on the gulf between Pachynus and Pelorus which receives greatest annoy from Eurus[7]) would be still awaiting its kings descended through me from Charles and Rudolph,[8] if evil rule, which always embitters the subject people, had not moved Palermo to shout, 'Die! Die!'[9] And if my brother had taken note of this,[10] he would already put to flight the greedy poverty of Catalonia, in order that it might not do him harm: for truly there is need for him or for some other to look to it, so that on his laden bark more load be not put. His own nature, which descended niggardly from a liberal one, would have need of such a soldiery as should not care to put into a chest.”[11] [1] It is Charles Martel, son of Charles II. of Naples, who speaks. He was born about 1270, and in 1294 he was at Florence for more than twenty days, and at this time may have become acquainted with Dante. Great honor was done him by the Florentines, and he showed great love to them, so that he won favor from everybody, says Villani. He died in 1295. [2] Charles of Anjou, grandfather of Charles Martel, had received this part of Provence as dowry of his wife Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Raymond Berenger. [3] A name for Italy, used only by the poets. [4] Bari on the Adriatic, Gaeta on the Mediterranean, and Catons at the too of Italy, together with the two rivers named, give roughly the boundaries of the Kingdom of Naples. [5] The mother of Charles Martel was sister of Ladislaus IV., King of Hungary. He died without offspring, and Charles II. claimed the kingdom by right of his wife. [6] Sicily; the gulf darkened by sulphurous fumes is the Bay of Calabria, which lies exposed to Eurus, that is, to winds from the south-east. [7] The sea between Cape Pachynus, the extreme southeastern point of the island, and Cape Pelorus, the extreme northeastern, lies exposed to the violence of Eurus or the East wind. Clouds of smoke from Etna sometimes darken it. The eruptions of Etna were ascribed by Ovid (Metam. v., 346-353) to the struggles of Typhoeus, one of the rebellious Giants. Ovid's verses suggested this description. [8] From his father, Charles H., or his grandfather, Charles of Anjou, and from the Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg, who was the father of Clemence, Charles Martel's wife. [9] By the insurrection which began at Palermo in 1282,—the famous Sicilian Vespers,—the French were driven from the island. [10] This brother was Robert, the third son of Charles II. He had been kept as a hostage in Catalonia from 1288 to 1295, and when he became King of Naples in 1309 he introduced into his service many Catalonian officials. The words of Charles Martel are prophetic of the evils wrought by their greed. [11] Officials who would not, by oppression of the subjects, seek their private gain. “Because I believe that the deep joy which thy speech, my lord, infuses in me is seen by thee there where every good ends and begins[1] even as I see it in myself, it is the more grateful to me; and this also I hold dear, that thou discernest it, gazing upon God.[2] Thou hast made me glad; and in like wise do thou make clear to me (since in speaking thou bast moved me to doubt) how bitter can issue from sweet seed.” This I to him; and he to me, “If I am able to show to thee a truth, thou wilt hold thy face to that which thou askest, as thou dost hold thy back. The Good which turns and contents all the realm which thou ascendest, makes its providence to be a power in these great bodies.[3] And not the natures only are foreseen in the Mind which by itself is perfect, but they together with their salvation.[4] For whatsoever this bow shoots falls disposed to its foreseen end, even as a thing directed to its aim. Were this not so, the heavens through which thou journeyest would produce their effects in such wise that they would not be works of art but ruins; and that cannot be, if the Intelligences which move these stars are not defective, and defective also the prime Intelligence which has not made them perfect.[5] Dost thou wish that this truth be made still clearer to thee?” And I, “No, truly; because I see it to be impossible that Nature should weary in that which is needful.”[6] Whereupon he again, “Now say, would it be worse for man on earth if he were not a citizen?”[7] “Yes,” answered I, “and here I ask not the reason.”[8] “And can he be so, unless he live there below in divers manner through divers offices?[9] No; if your master[10] writes well of this.” So he went on deducing far as here; then he concluded, “Hence it behoves that the roots of your works must be diverse.[11] Wherefore one is born Solon, and another Xerxes, another Melchisedech, and another he who, flying through the air, lost his son. The revolving nature, which is the seal of the mortal wax, performs its art well, but does not distinguish one inn from another.[12] Hence it happens that Esau differs in seed from Jacob, and Quirinus comes from so mean a father that he is ascribed to Mars. The generated nature would always make its path like its progenitors, if the divine foresight did not conquer. Now that which was behind thee is before thee, but that thou mayest know that I have joy in thee, I wish that thou cloak thee with a corollary.[13] Nature, if she find fortune discordant with herself, like every other seed out of its region, always makes bad result. And if the world down there would fix attention on the foundation which nature lays, following that, it would have its people good. But ye wrest to religion one who shall be born to gird on the sword, and ye make a king of one who is for preaching; wherefore your track is out of the road.” [1] Is seen in the mind of God. [2] My own joy is the dearer in that thou seest that it is more grateful to me because known by thee. [3] The providence of God is fulfilled through the influences of the Heavens acting upon the natures subject to them. [4] That is, together with the good ends for which they are created and ordained. [5] Defect in the subordinate Intelligences would imply defect in God, which is impossible. [6] It is impossible that the order of nature should fail, that order being the design of God in creation. [7] That is, united with other men in society. [8] Because man is by nature a social animal, and cannot attain his true end except as a member of a community. [9] Society cannot exist without diversity in the functions of its members. [10] Aristotle, “the master of human reason, who treats of this in many places, for instance in his Ethics, i. 7, where he speaks of man as “by nature social,” so that his end is accomplished only in society. [11] Human dispositions, the roots of human works, must be diverse in order to produce diverse effects. [12] The spheres pour down their various influences without discrimination in the choice of the individual upon whom they fall. Hence sons may differ in their dispositions from their fathers. [13] This additional statement completes the instruction, as a cloak completes the clothing of a body. CANTO IX. The Heaven of Venus.—Conversation of Dante with Cunizza da Romano,—With Folco of Marseilles.—Rahab.—Avarice of the Papal Court. After thy Charles, O beautiful Clemence,[1] had enlightened me, he told to me of the treasons which his seed must suffer. But he said, “Be silent, and let the years revolve:” so that I can tell nothing, save that just lament shall follow on your wrongs.[2] [1] The widow of Charles Martel. [2] Those who have done the wrong shall justly lament therefor. And now the life of that holy light had turned again unto the Sun which fills it, as that Good which suffices for every thing. Ah, souls deceived, and creatures impious, who from such Good turn away your hearts, directing your foreheads unto vanity! And lo! another of those splendors made towards me, and in brightening outwardly was signifying its will to please me. The eyes of Beatrice, which were fixed upon me, as before, made me assured of dear assent to my desire. “I pray thee give swift quittance to my wish, blessed spirit,” I said, “and afford me proof that what think I can reflect on thee.”[1] Whereon the light which was still new[2] to me, from out its depth, wherein erst it was singing, proceeded, as one whom doing good delights, “In that part[3] of the wicked Italian land, which lies between Rialto and the founts of the Brenta and the Piave, rises a hill,[4] and mounts not very high, whence a torch descended which made a great assault upon that district. From one root both I and it were born; Cunizza was I called; and I am refulgent here because the light of this star overcame me. But gladly do I pardon to myself the cause of my lot, and it gives me no annoy;[5] which perhaps would seem difficult to your vulgar. Of this resplendent and dear jewel of our kingdom,[6] who is nearest to me, great fame has remained, and ere it die away this hundredth year shall yet come round five times. See if man ought to make himself excellent, so that the first may leave another life! And this the present crowd, which the Tagliameuto and the Adige shut in,[7] considers not; nor yet by being scourged doth it repent. But it will soon come to pass that at the marsh Padua will discolor the water which bathes Vicenza, because her people are stubborn against duty.[8] And where the Sile and the Cagnano unite, one lords it, and goes with his head high, for catching whom the web is already spun.[9] Feltro will yet weep the crime of its impious shepherd, which will be so shameful, that, for a like, none ever entered Malta.[10] Too large would be the vat which would hold the Ferrarese blood, and weary he who should weigh it, ounce by ounce, which this courteous priest will give to show himself a partisan;[11] and such gifts will be conformed to the living of the country. Above are mirrors, ye call them Thrones,[12] wherefrom God shines on us in his judgments, so that these words seem good to us.”[13] Here she was silent, and had to me the semblance of being turned elsewhither by the wheel in which she set herself as she was before.[14] [1] That thou, gazing on the mind of God, seest therein my thoughts. [2] Still unknown by name. [3] The March of Treviso, lying between Venice (Rialto) and the Alps. [4] The hill on which stood the little stronghold of Romano, the birthplace of the tyrant Azzolino, or Ezzolino, whom Dante had seen in Hell (Canto XII.) punished for his cruel misdeeds, in the river of boiling blood. Cunizza was his sister. [5] The sin which has limited the capacity of bliss, the sin which has determined the low grade in Paradise of Cunizza, is forgiven and forgotten, and she, like Piccarda, wishes only for that blessedness which she has. [6] Folco, or Foulquet, of Marseilles, once a famous singer of songs of love, then a bishop. He died in 1213. [7] The people of the region where Cunizza lived. [8] The Paduan Guelphs, resisting the Emperor, to whom they owed duty, were defeated more than once, near Vicenza, by Can Grande, during the years in which Dante was writing his poem. [9] The Sile and the Cagnano unite at Treviso, whose lord, Ricciardo da Camino, was assassinated in 1312. [10] An act of treachery on the part of the Bishop and Lord of Feltro, Alessandro Novello, in delivering up Ghibelline exiles from Ferrara, of whom thirty were beheaded; a treason so vile that in the tower called Malta, where ecclesiastics who committed capital crimes were imprisoned, no such crime as his was ever punished. [11] That is, of the Guelphs, by whom the designation of The Party was appropriated. [12] The Thrones were, according to St. Gregory, that order of Angels through whom God executes his judgments. [13] Because we see reflected from the Thrones the judgment of God above to fall on the guilty. [14] See Canto VIII., near the beginning. The next joy, which was already known to me as an illustrious thing,[1] became to my sight like a fine ruby whereon the sun should strike. Through joy effulgence is gained there on high, even as a smile here; but below[2] the shade darkens outwardly, as the mind is sad. [1] By the words of Cunizza. [2] In Hell. “God sees everything, and thy vision, blessed spirit, is in Him,” said I, “so that no wish can steal itself away from thee. Thy voice, then, that ever charms the heavens, with the song of those pious fires which make a cowl for themselves with their six wings,[1] why does it not satisfy my desires? Surely I should not wait for thy request if I in-theed myself, as thou thyself in-meest.”[2] “The greatest deep in which the water spreads,”[3] began then his words, “except of that sea which garlands the earth, between its discordant shores stretches so far counter to the sun, that it makes a meridian where first it was wont to make the horizon.[4] I was a dweller on the shore of that deep, between the Ebro and the Magra,[5] which, for a short way, divides the Genoese from the Tuscan. With almost the same sunset and the same sunrise sit Buggea and the city whence I was, which once made its harbor warm with its own blood.[6] That people to whom my name was known called me Folco, and this heaven is imprinted by me, as I was by it. For the daughter of Belus,[7] harmful alike to Sichaeus and Creusa, burned not more than I, so long as it befitted my hair;[8] nor she of Rhodopea who was deluded by Demophoon;[9] nor Alcides when he had enclosed Iole in his heart.[10] Yet one repents not here, but smiles, not for the fault which returns not to the memory, but for the power which ordained and foresaw. Here one gazes upon the art which adorns so great a work, and the good is discerned whereby the world above turns that below. [1] The Seraphim, who with their wings cover their faces. See Isaiah, vi. 2. [2] If I saw thee inwardly as thou seest me. Dante invents the words he uses here, and they are no less unfamiliar in Italian than in English. [3] The Mediterranean. [4] According to the geography of the time the Mediterranean stretched from east to west ninety degrees of longitude. [5] Between the Ebro in Spain and the Magra in Italy lies Marseilles, under almost the same meridian as Buggea (now Bougie) on the African coast. [6] When the fleet of Caesar defeated that of Pompey with its contingent of vessels and soldiers of Marseilles, B. C. 49. [7] Dido. [8] Till my hair grew thin and gray. [9] Phyllis, daughter of the king of Thrace, who hung herself when deserted by Demophoon, the son of Theseus. [10] The excess of the love of Hercules for Iole led to his death. “But in order that thou mayst bear away satisfied all thy wishes which have been born in this sphere, it behoves me to proceed still further. Thou wouldst know who is in this light, which beside me here so sparkles, as a sunbeam on clear water. Now know that therewithin Rahab[1] is at rest, and being joined with our order it is sealed by her in the supreme degree. By this heaven in which the shadow that your world makes comes to a point[2] she was taken up before any other soul at the triumph of Christ. It was well befitting to leave her in some heaven, as a palm of the high victory which was won with the two hands,[3] because she aided the first glory of Joshua within the Holy Land, which little touches the memory of the Pope. [1] “By faith the harlot Rabab perished not with them that believed not.”—Hebrews, xi. 31. See Joshua, ii. 1-21; vi. 17; James, ii. 25. [2] The conical shadow of the earth ended, according to Ptolemy, at the heaven of Venus. Philalethes suggests that there may be here an allegorical meaning, the shadow of the earth being shown in feebleness of will, worldly ambition, and inordinate love, which have allotted the souls who appear in these first heavens to the lowest grades in Paradise. [3] Nailed to the cross. The glory of Joshua was the winning of the Holy Land for the inheritance of the children of Israel. “Thy city, which is plant of him who first turned his back on his Maker, and whose envy[1] has been so bewept, produces and scatters the accursed flower[2] which has led astray the sheep and the lambs, because it has made a wolf of the shepherd. For this the Gospel and the great Doctors are deserted, and there is study only of the Decretals,[3] as is apparent by their margins. On this the Pope and the Cardinals are intent; their thoughts go not to Nazareth, there where Gabriel spread his wings. But the Vatican, and the other elect parts of Rome, which have been the burial place for the soldiery that followed Peter, shall soon be free from this adultery.”[4] [1] “Through envy of the devil came death into the world.”—Wisdom of Solomon, ii. 24. [2] The lily on its florin. [3] The books of the Ecclesiastical Law. [4] By the removal in 1305 of the Papal Court to Avignon. CANTO X. Ascent to the Sun.—Spirits of the wise, and the learned in theology.—St. Thomas Aquinas.—He names to Dante those who surround him. Looking upon His Son with the Love which the one and the other eternally breathe forth, the Primal and Ineffable Power made everything which revolves through the mind or through space with such order that he who contemplates it cannot be without taste of Him.[1] Lift then thy sight, Reader, with me to the lofty wheels, straight to that region where the one motion strikes on the other;[2] and there begin to gaze with delight on the art of that Master who within Himself so loves it that His eye never departs from it. See how from that point the oblique circle which bears the planets[3] branches off, to satisfy the world which calls on them;[4] and if their road had not been bent, much virtue in the heavens would be in vain, and well-nigh every potency dead here below.[5] And if from the straight line its departure had been more or less distant, much of the order of the world, both below and above, would be defective. Now do thou remain, Reader, upon thy bench,[6] following in thought that which is fore. tasted, if thou wouldst be glad far sooner than weary. I have set before thee; henceforth feed thee by thyself, for that theme whereof I have been made scribe wrests all my care unto itself. [1] All things, as well the spiritual and invisible objects of the intelligence as the corporal and visible objects of sense, were made by God the Father, operating through the Son, with the love of the Holy Spirit, and made in such order that he who contemplates the creation beholds the partial image of the Creator. [2] At the equinox, the season of Dante's journey, the sun in Aries is at the intersection of the ecliptic and the equator of the celestial sphere, and his apparent motion in his annual revolution cuts the apparent diurnal motion of the fixed stars, which is performed in circles parallel to the equator. [3] The ecliptic. [4] Which invokes their influence. [5] Because on the obliquity of their path depends the variety of their influence. [6] As a scholar. The greatest minister of nature, which imprints the world with the power of the heavens, and with its light measures the time for us, in conjunction with that region called to mind above, was circling through the spirals in which from day to day he earlier presents himself.[1] And I was with him; but of the ascent I was not aware, otherwise than as a man is aware, before his first thought, of its coming. Beatrice is she who thus conducts from good to better so swiftly that her act extends not through time. [1] In that spiral course in which, according to the Ptolemaic system, the sun passes from the equator to the tropic of Cancer, rising earlier every day. How lucent of itself must that have been which, within the sun where I entered, was appareiit not by color but by light! Though I should call on genius, art, and use, I could not tell it so that it could ever be imagined; but it may be believed, and sight of it longed for. And if our fancies are low for such loftiness, it is no marvel, for beyond the sun was never eye could go. Such[1] was here the fourth family of the High Father, who always satisfies it, showing how He breathes forth, and how He begets.[2] And Beatrice began, “Thank, thank thou the Sun of the Angels, who to this visible one has raised thee by His grace.” Heart of mortal was never so disposed to devotion, and so ready, with its own entire pleasure, to give itself to God, as I became at those words; and all my love was so set on Him that Beatrice was eclipsed in oblivion. It displeased her not; but she so smiled thereat that the splendor of her smiling eyes divided upon many things my singly intent mind. [1] So lucent, brighter than the sun. [2] Showing himself in the Holy Spirit and in the Son. I saw many living and surpassing effulgences make a centre of us, and make a crown of themselves, more sweet in voice than shining in aspect. Thus girt we sometimes see the daughter of Latona, when the air is pregnant so that it holds the thread which makes the girdle.[1] In the court of Heaven, wherefrom I return, are found many jewels so precious and beautiful that they cannot be brought from the kingdom, and of these was the song of those lights. Who wings not himself so that he may fly up thither, let him await the tidings thence from the dumb. [1] When the air is so full of vapor that it forms a halo. After those burning suns, thus singing, had circled three times round about us, like stars near fixed poles, they seemed to me as ladies not loosed from a dance, but who stop silent, listening till they have caught the new notes. And within one I heard begin, “Since the ray of grace, whereby true love is kindled, and which thereafter grows multiplied in loving, so shines on thee that it conducts thee upward by that stair upon which, without reascending, no one descends, he who should deny to thee the wine of his flask for thy thirst, would not be more at liberty than water which descends not to the sea.[1] Thou wishest to know with what plants this garland is enflowered, which, round about her, gazes with delight upon the, beautiful Lady who strengthens thee for heaven. I was of the lambs of the holy flock[2] which Dominic leads along the way where one fattens well if he stray not.[3] This one who is nearest to me on the right was my brother and master; and he was Albert of Cologne,[4] and I Thomas of Aquino. If thus of all the rest thou wishest to be informed, come, following my speech, with thy sight circling around upon the blessed chaplet. That next flaming issues from the smile of Gratian, who so assisted one court and the other that it pleases in Paradise.[5] The next, who at his side adorns our choir, was that Peter who, like the poor woman, offered his treasure to Holy Church.[6] The fifth light, which is most beautiful among us,[7] breathes from such love, that all the world there below is greedy to know tidings of it.[8] Within it is the lofty mind, wherein wisdom so profound was put, that, if the truth is true, to see so much no second has arisen.[9] At his side thou seest the light of that candle, which, below in the flesh, saw most inwardly the angelic nature, and its ministry.[10] In the next little light smiles that advocate of the Christian times, with whose discourse Augustine provided himself.[11] Now if thou leadest the eye of the mind, following my praises, from light to light, thou remainest already thirsting for the eighth. Therewithin, through seeing every good, the holy soul rejoices which makes the deceit of the world manifest to whoso hears him well.[12] The body whence it was hunted out lies below in Cieldauro,[13] and from martyrdom and from exile it came unto this peace. Beyond thou seest flaming the burning breath of Isidore, of Bede, and of Richard who in contemplation was more than man.[14] The one from whom thy look returns to me is the light of a spirit to whom in grave thoughts death seemed to come slow. It is the eternal light of Sigier,[15] who reading in the Street of Straw syllogized truths which were hated.” [1] He would be restrained against his nature, as water prevented from flowing down to the sea. [2] Of the Order of St. Dominic. [3] Where one acquires spiritual good, if he be not distracted by the allurement of worldly things. [4] The learned Doctor, Albertus Magnus. [5] Gratian was an Italian Benedictine monk, who lived in the 12th century, and compiled the famous work known as the Decretum Gratiani, composed of texts of Scripture, of the Canons of the Church, of Decretals of the Popes, and of extracts from the Fathers, designed to show the agreement of the civil and ecclesiastical law,—a work pleasing in Paradise because promoting concord between the two authorities. [6] Peter Lombard, a theologian of the 12th century, known as Magister Sententiarum, from his compilation of extracts relating to the doctrines of the Church, under the title of Sententiarum Libri IV. In the proem to his work he says that he desired, “like the poor widow, to cast something from his penury into the treasury of the Lord.” [7] Solomon. [8] It was matter of debate whether Solomon was among the blessed or the damned. [9] “Lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.”—1 Kings, iii. 12. [10] Dionysius the Areopagite, the disciple of St. Paul (Acts, xvii. 34), to whom was falsely ascribed a book of great repute, written in the fourth century, “ On the Celestial Hierarchy.” [11] Paulus Orosius, who wrote his History against the Pagans, at the request of St. Augustine, to defend Christianity from the charge brought against it by the Gentiles of being the source of the calamities which had befallen the Roman world. His work might be regarded as a supplement to St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei. [12] Boethins, statesman and philosopher. whose work, De Consolatione Philosophiae, was one of the books held in highest esteem by Dante. [13] Boethius, who was put to death in Pavia, in 524, was buried in the church of S. Pietro in Ciel d' Oro—St. Peter's of the Golden Ceiling. [14] Isidore, bishop of Seville, died 636; the Venerable Bede, died 735; Richard, prior of the Monastery of St. Victor, at Paris, a mystic of the 12th century; all eminent theologians. [15] Sigier of Brabant, who lectured, applying logic to questions in theology, at Paris, in the 13th century, in the Rue du Fouarre. Then, as a horologe which calls us at the hour when the Bride of God[1] rises to sing matins to her Bridegroom that he may love her, in which the one part draws and urges the other, sounding ting! ting! with such sweet note that the well-disposed spirit swells with love, so saw I the glorious wheel move, and render voice to voice in concord and in sweetness which cannot be known save there where joy becomes eternal. [1] The Church. CANTO XI. The Vanity of worldly desires,—St. Thomas Aquinas undertakes to solve two doubts perplexing Dante.—He narrates the life of St. Francis of Assisi. O insensate care of mortals, how defective are those syllogisms which make thee downward beat thy wings! One was going after the Laws, and one after the Aphorisms,[1] and one following the priesthood, and one to reign by force or by sophisms, and one to rob, and one to civic business; one, involved in pleasure of the flesh, was wearying himself, and one was giving himself to idleness, when I, loosed from all these things, with Beatrice, was thus gloriously received on high in Heaven. [1] The Aphorisms of Hippocrates, meaning here, the study of medicine. When each[1] had returned unto that point of the circle at which it was at first, it stayed, as a candle in a candlestick. And within that light which first had spoken to me I heard, as smiling it began, making itself more clear, “Even as I am resplendent with its radiance, so, looking into the Eternal Light, I apprehend whence thou drawest the occasion of thy thoughts. Thou art perplexed, and hast the wish that my speech be bolted again in language so open and so plain that it may be level to thy sense, where just now I said, 'where well one fattens,' and there where I said, 'the second has not been born;' and here is need that one distinguish well. [1] Each of the lights which had encircled. Beatrice and Dante. “The Providence which governs the world with that counsel, in which every created vision is vanquished ere it reach the depth, in order that the bride[1] of Him, who with loud cries espoused her with His blessed blood, might go toward her beloved, secure in herself and also more faithful to Him, ordained two princes in her favor, who on this side and that should be to her for guides. The one was all seraphic in ardor,[2] the other, through wisdom, was a splendor of cherubic light[3] on earth. Of the one I will speak, because both are spoken of in praising one, whichever be taken, for unto one end were their works. [1] The Church. [2] St. Francis of Assisi [3] St. Dominic. “Between the Tupino and the water[1] which descends from the hill chosen by the blessed Ubaldo, hangs the fertile slope of a high mountain, wherefrom Perugia at Porta Sole[2] feeleth cold and heat, while behind it Nocera and Gualdo weep because of their heavy yoke.[3] On that slope, where it most breaks its steepness, rose a Sun upon the world, as this one sometimes does from the Ganges. Therefore let him who talks of that place not say Ascesi,[4] for he would speak short, but Orient,[5] if be would speak properly. He was not yet very far from his rising when he began to make the earth feel some comfort from his great virtue. For, still a youth, he ran to strife[6] with his father for a lady such as unto whom, even as unto death, no one unlocks the gate of pleasure; and before his spiritual court et coram patre[7] to her he had himself united; thereafter from day to day he loved her more ardently. She, deprived of her first husband,[8] for one thousand and one hundred years and more, despised and obscure, had stood without wooing till he came;[9] nor had it availed[10] to hear, that he, who caused fear to all the world, found her at the sound of his voice secure with Amyclas;[11] nor had it availed to have been constant and bold, so that where Mary remained below, she wept with Christ upon the cross. But that I may not proceed too obscurely, take henceforth in my diffuse speech Francis and Poverty for these lovers. Their concord and their glad semblances made love, and wonder, and sweet regard to be the cause of holy thoughts;[12] so that the venerable Bernard first bared his feet,[13] and ran following such great peace, and, running, it seemed to him that he was slow. Oh unknown riches! oh fertile good! Egidius bares his feet and Sylvester bares his feet, following the bridegroom; so pleasing is the bride. Then that father and that master goes on his way with his lady, and with that family which the humble cord was now girding.[14] Nor did baseness of heart weigh down his brow at being son of Pietro Bernardone,[15] nor at appearing marvellously despised; but royally he opened his bard intention to Innocent, and received from bim the first seal for his Order.[16] After the poor people had increased behind him, whose marvellous life would be better sung in glory of the heavens, the holy purpose of this archimandrite[17] was adorned with a second crown by the Eternal Spirit, through Honorius.[18] And when, through thirst for martyrdom, he had preached Christ and the rest who followed him in the proud presence of the Sultan,[19] and because he found the people too unripe for conversion, and in order not to stay in vain, had returned to the fruit of the Italian grass,[20] on the rude rock,[21] between the Tiber and the Arno, he took from Christ the last seal,[22] which his limbs bore for two years. When it pleased Him, who had allotted him to such great good, to draw him up to the reward which he had gained in making himself abject, he commended his most dear lady to his brethren as to rightful heirs, and commanded them to love her faithfully; and from her lap, his illustrious soul willed to depart, returning to its realm, and for his body he willed no other bier.[23] [1] The Chiassi, which flows from the hill chosen for his hermitage by St. Ubaldo. [2] The gate of Perugia, which fronts Monte Subasio, on which Assisi lies, some fifteen miles to the south. [3] Towns, southeast of Assisi, oppressed by their rulers. [4] So the name Assisi was sometimes spelled, and here with a play on ascesi (I have risen). [5] As the sun at the vernal equinox, the sacred season of the Creation and the Resurrection, rises in the due east or orient, represented in the geographical system of the time by the Ganges, so the place where this new Sun of righteousness arose should be called Orient. [6] Devoting himself to poverty against his father's will. [7] Before the Bishop of Assisi, and “in presence of his father,” he renounced his worldly possessions. [8] Christ. [9] St. Francis was born in 1182. [10] To procure suitors for her, [11] When Caesar knocked at the door of Amyclas his voice caused no alarm, because Poverty made the fisherman secure.—Lucan, Pharsalia, V. 515 ff. [12] In the hearts of those who behold them. [13] The followers of Francis imitated him in going barefoot. [14] The cord for their only girdle. [15] Perhaps, because his father was neither noble nor famous. [16] In or about 1210 Pope Innocent III. approved the Rule of St. Francis. [17] “The head of the fold:” a term of the Greek Church, designating the head of one or more monasteries. [18] In 1223, Honorius III. confirmed the sanction of the Order. [19] Probably the Sultan of Egypt, at the time of the Fifth Crusade, in 1219. [20] To the harvest of good grain in Italy. [21] Mount Alvernia. [22] The Stigmata. [23] St. Francis died in 1226. “Think now of what sort was he,[1] who was a worthy colleague to keep the bark of Peter on the deep sea to its right aim; and this was our Patriarch:[2] wherefore thou canst see that whoever follows him as he commands loads good merchandise. But his flock has become so greedy of strange food that. it cannot but be scattered over diverse meadows; and as his sheep, remote and vagabond, go farther from him, the emptier of milk they return to the fold. Truly there are some of them who fear the harm, and keep close to the shepherd; but they are so few that little cloth suffices for their cowls. Now if my words are not obscure, if thy hearing has been attentive, if thou recallest to mind that which I have said, thy wish will be content in part, because thou wilt see the plant wherefrom they are hewn,[3] and thou wilt see how the wearer of the thong reasons—'Where well one fattens if one does not stray.' [1] How holy he must have been. [2] St. Dominic. [3] The plant of which the words are splinters or chips; in other terms, “thou wilt understand the whole ground of my assertion, and thou wilt see what a Dominican, wearer of the leather thong of the Order, means, when he says that the flock of Dominic fatten, if they stray not from the road on which he leads them.” CANTO XII. Second circle of the spirits of wise religious men, doctors of the Church and teachers.—St. Bonaventura narrates the life of St. Dominic, and tells the names of those who form the circle with him. Soon as the blessed flame uttered the last word of its speech the holy mill-stone[1] began to rotate, and had not wholly turned in its gyration before another enclosed it with a circle, and matched motion with motion, song with song; song which in those sweet pipes so surpasses our Muses, our Sirens, as a primal splendor that which it reflects.[2] As two bows parallel and of like colors are turned across a thin cloud when Juno gives the order to her handmaid[3] (the outer one born of that within, after the manner of the speech of that wandering one[4] whom love consumed, as the sun does vapors), and make the people here presageful, because of the covenant which God established with Noah concerning the world, that it is nevermore to be flooded; so the two garlands of those sempiternal roses turned around us, and so the outer responded to the inner. After the dance and the other great festivity, alike of the singing and of the flaming, light with light joyous and courteous, had become quiet together at an instant and with one will (just as the eyes which must needs together close and open to the pleasure that moves them), from the heart of one of the new lights a voice proceeded, which made me seem as the needle to the star in turning me to its place and it began,[5] “The love which makes me beautiful draws me to speak of the other leader by whom[6] so well has been spoken here of mine. It is fit that where one is the other be led in, so that as they served in war with one another, together likewise may their glory shine. [1] The garland of spirits encircling Beatrice and Dante. [2] As an original ray is brighter than one reflected. [3] Iris. [4] Echo. [5] It is St. Bonaventura, the biographer of St. Francis, who speaks. He became General of the Order in 1256, and died in 1276. [6] By whom, through one of his brethren. “The army of Christ, which it had cost so dear to arm afresh,[1] was moving slow, mistrustful, and scattered, behind the standard,[2] when the Emperor who forever reigns provided for the soldiery that was in peril, through grace alone, not because it was worthy, and, as has been said, succored his Bride with two champions, by whose deed, by whose word, the people gone astray were rallied. [1] The elect, who had lost grace through Adam's sin, were armed afresh by the costly sacirifice of the Son of God. [2] The Cross. “In that region where the sweet west wind rises to open the new leaves wherewith Europe is seen to reclothe herself, not very far from the beating of the waves behind which, over their long course, the sun sometimes bides himself to all men, sits the fortunate Callaroga, under the protection of the great shield on which the Lion is subject and subjugates.[1] Therein was born the amorous lover of the Christian faith, the holy athlete, benignant to his own, and to his enemies harsh.[2] And when it was created, his mind was so replete with living virtue, that in his mother it made her a prophetess.[3] After the espousals between him and the faith were completed at the sacred font, where they dowered each other with mutual safety, the lady who gave the assent for him saw in a dream the marvellous fruit which was to proceed from him and from his heirs;[4] and in order that he might be spoken of as he was,[5] a spirit went forth from here[6] to name him with the possessive of Him whose he wholly was. Dominic[7] he was called; and I speak of him as of the husbandman whom Christ elected to his garden to assist him. Truly he seemed the messenger and familiar of Christ; for the first love that was manifest in him was for the first counsel that Christ gave.[8] Oftentimes was he found by his nurse upon the ground silent and awake, as though he said, 'I am come for this.' O father of him truly Felix! Omother of him truly Joan, if this, being interpreted, means as is said![9] [1] The shield of Castile, on which two lions and two castles are quartered, one lion below and one above. [2] St. Dominic, born in 1170. [3] His mother dreamed that she gave birth to a dog, black and white in color, with a lighted torch in its mouth, which set the world on fire; symbols of the black and white robe of the Order, and of the flaming zeal of its brethren. Hence arose a play of words on their name, Domini cani, “the dogs of the Lord.” [4] The godmother of Dominic saw in dream a star on the forehead and another on the back of the head of the child, signifying the light that should stream from him over East and West. [5] That his name might express his nature. [6] From heaven. [7] Dominicus, the possessive of Dominus, “Belonging to the Lord.” [8] “Sell that thou hast and give to the poor.”—Matthew, xix. 21. [9] Felix, signifying “happy,” and Joanna, “full of grace.” “Not for the world,[1] for which men now toil, following him of Ostia and Thaddeus,[2] but for the love of the true manna, be became in short time a great teacher, such that he set himself to go about the vineyard, which quickly fades if the vinedresser is bad; and of the Seat[3] which was formerly more benign unto the righteous poor (not through itself but through him who sits there and degenerates[4]), he asked not to dispense or two or three for six,[5] not the fortune of the first vacancy, non decimas, quae sunt pauperum Dei,[6] but leave to fight against the errant world for that seed[7] of which four and twenty plants are girding thee. Then with doctrine and with will, together with the apostolic office,[8] he went forth like a torrent which a lofty vein pours out, and on the heretical stocks his onset smote with most vigor there where the resistance was the greatest. From him proceeded thereafter divers streams wherewith the catholic garden is watered, so that its bushes stand more living. [1] The goods of this world. [2] Henry of Susa, cardinal of Ostia, who wrote a much studied commentary on the Decretals, and Thaddeus of Bologna, who, says Giovanni Villani, “was the greatest physician in Christendom.” The thought is the same as that at the beginning of Canto XI, where Dante speaks of “one following the Laws, and one the Aphorisms.” [3] The Papal chair. [4] The grammatical construction is imperfect; the meaning is that the change in the temper of the see of Rome is due not to the fault of the Church itself, but to that of the Pope. [5] Not for license to compound for unjust acquisitions by de. voting a part of them to pious uses. [6] “Not the tithes which belong to God's poor.” [7] The true faith; “the seed is the word of God.”—Luke, viii. 11. [8] The authority conferred on him by Innocent III. If such was one wheel of the chariot on which the Holy Church defended itself and vanquished in the field its civil strife,[1] surely the excellence of the other should be very plain to thee, concerning which Thomas before my coming was so courteous. But the track which the highest part of its circumference made is derelict;[2] So that the mould is where the crust was.[3] His household, which set forth straight with their feet upon his footprints, are so turned round that they set the forward foot on that behind;[4] and soon the quality of the barvest of this bad culture shall be seen, when the tare will complain that the chest is taken from it.[5] Yet I say, he who should search our volume leaf by leaf might still find a page where he would read, 'I am that which I am wont:' but it will not be from Casale nor from Acquasparta,[6] whence such come unto the Written Rule that one flies from it, and the other contracts it. [1] The heresies within its own borders. [2] The track made by St. Francis is deserted. [3] The change of metaphor is sudden; good wine makes a crust, bad wine mould in the cask. [4] They go in an opposite direction from that followed by the saint. [5] That it is taken from the chest in the granary to be burned. [6] Frate Ubertino of Casale, the leader of a party of zealots among the Franciscans, enforced the Rule of the Order with excessive strictness; Matteo, of Acquasparta, general of the Franciscans in 1257, relaxed it. “I am the life of Bonaventura of Bagnoregio, who in great offices always set sinister[1] care behind me. Illuminato and Augustin are here, who were among the first barefoot poor that in the cord made themselves friends to God. Hugh of St. Victor[2] is here with them, and Peter Mangiadore, and Peter of Spain,[3] who down below shines in twelve books; Nathan the prophet, and the Metropolitan Chrysostom,[4] and Anselm,[5] and that Donatus[6] who deigned to set his hand to the first art; Raban[7] is here, and at my side shines the Calabrian abbot Joachim,[8] endowed with prophetic spirit. [1] Sinister, that is, temporal. [2] Hugh (1097-1141), a noted schoolman, of the famous monastery of St. Victor at Paris. [3] Peter Mangiador, or Comestor, “the Eater,” so called as being a devourer of books. He himself wrote books famous in their time. He was chancellor of the University at Paris, and died in 1198. The Summae logicales of Peter of Spain, in twelve books, was long held in high repute. He was made Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum in 1273, and was elected Pope in 1276, taking the name of John XXI. He was killed in May, 1277, by the fall of the ceiling of the chamber in which he was sleeping in the Papal palace at Viterbo. He is the only Pope of recent times whom Dante meets in Paradise. [4] The famous doctor of the Church, patriarch of Constantinople. [5] Born about 1033 at Aosta in Piedmont, consecrated Arch. bishop of Canterbury in 1093, died 1109; magnus et subtilis doctor in theologia.” [6] The compiler of the treatise on grammar (the first of the seven arts of the Trivium. and the Quadrivium), which was in use throughout the Middle Ages. [7] Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz, in the ninth century; a great scholar and teacher, “cui similem suo tempore non habuit Ecelesia.” [8] Joachim, Abbot of Flora, whose mystic prophecies had great vogue. “The flaming courtesy of Brother Thomas, and his discreet discourse, moved me to celebrate[1] so great a paladin; and with me moved this company.” [1] Literally, “to envy;” hence, perhaps, “to admire,” “to praise,” “to celebrate;” but the meaning is doubtful. CANTO XIII. St. Thomas Aquinas speaks again, and explains the relation of the wisdom of Solomon to that of Adam and of Christ, and declares the vanity of human judgment. Let him imagine,[1] who desires to understand well that which I now saw (and let him retain the image like a firm rock, while I am speaking), fifteen stars which in different regions vivify the heaven with brightness so great that it overcomes all thickness of the air; let him imagine that Wain[2] for which the bosom of our heaven suffices both night and day, so that in the turning of its pole it disappears not; let him imagine the mouth of that horn[3] which begins at the point of the axle on which the primal wheel goes round,—to have made of themselves two signs in the heavens, like that which the daughter of Minos made, when she felt the frost of death,[4] and one to have its rays within the other, and both to revolve in such manner that one should go first and the other after; and he will have as it were the shadow of the true constellation, and of the double dance, which was circling the point where I was; because it is as much beyond our wont as the motion of the heaven which outspeeds all the rest is swifter than the movement of the Chiana.[5] There was sung riot Bacchus, not Paean, but three Persons in a divine nature, and it and the human in one Person. The singing and the revolving completed each its measure, and those holy lights gave attention to us, making themselves happy from care to care.[6] [1] To form an idea of the brightness of the two circles of spirits, let the reader imagine fifteen of the brightest separate stars, joined with the seven stars of the Great Bear, and with the two brightest of the Lesser Bear, to form two constellations like Ariadne's Crown, and to revolve one within the other, one following the movement of the other. [2] Charles's Wain, the Great Bear, which never sets. [3] The Lesser Bear may be imagined as having the shape of a horn, of which the small end is near the pole of the heavens around which the Primum Mobile revolves. [4] When Ariadne died of grief because of her desertion by Theseus, her garland was changed into the constellation known as Ariadne's Crown. [5] The Chiana is one of the most sluggish of the streams of Tuscany. [6] Rejoicing in the change from dance and song to tranquillity for the sake of giving satisfaction to Dante. Then the light in which the marvellous life of the poor man of God had been narrated to me broke the silence among those concordant deities, and said, “Since one straw is threshed, since its seed is now garnered, sweet love invites me to beat out the other. Thou believest that in the breast, wherefrom the rib was drawn to form the beautiful cheek whose taste costs dear to all the world, and in that which, pierced. by the lance, both after and before made such satisfaction that it overcomes the balance of all sin, whatever of light it is allowed to human nature to have was all infused. by that Power which made one and the other; and therefore thou wonderest at that which I said above, when I told that the good which in the fifth light is inclosed had no second. Now open thine eyes to that which I answer to thee, and thou wilt see thy belief and my speech become in the truth as the centre in a circle. “That which dies not and that which can die are naught but the splendor of that idea which in His love our Lord God brings to birth;[1] for that living Light which so proceeds from its Lucent Source that It is not disunited from It, nor from the Love which with them is intrined, through Its own bounty collects Its radiance, as it were mirrored, in nine subsistences, Itself eternally remaining one. Thence It descends to the ultimate potentialities, downward from act to act, becoming such that finally It makes naught save brief contingencies: and these contingencies I understand. to be the generated things which the heavens in their motion produce with seed and without.[2] The wax of these, and that which moulds it, are not of one mode, and therefore under the ideal stamp it shines now more now less;[3] whence it comes to pass that one same plant in respect to species bears better or worse fruit, and that ye are born with diverse dispositions. If the wax were exactly worked,[4] and the heavens were supreme in their power, the whole light of the seal would be apparent. But nature always gives it defective,[5] working like the artist who has the practice of his art and a hand that trembles. Nevertheless if the fervent Love disposes and imprints the clear Light of the primal Power, complete perfection is acquired here.[6] Thus of old the earth was made worthy of the complete perfection of the living being;[7] thus was the Virgin made impregnate;[8] so that I commend thy opinion that human nature never was, nor will be, what it was in those two persons. [1] The creation of things eternal and things temporal alike is the splendid manifestation of the idea which the triune God, in His love, generated. The living light in the Son, emanating from its lucent source in the Father, in union with the love of the Holy Spirit, the three remaining always one, pours out its radiance through the nine orders of the Angelic Hierarchy, who distribute it by means of the Heavens of which they axe the Intelligences. [2] Through the various movements and conjunctions of the Heavens, the creative light descends to the lowest elements, producing all the varieties of contingent things. [3] The material of contingent or temporal things, and the influences which shape them, are of various sort, so that the splendor of the Divine idea is visible in them in different degree. [4] If the material were always fit to receive the impression. [5] Nature, the second Cause, never transmits the whole of the Creative light. [6] If, however, the first Cause acts directly,—the fervent Love imprinting the clear Light of the primal Power,—there can be no imperfection in the created thing; it answers to the Divine idea. [7] Thus, by the immediate operation of the Creator, the earth of which Adam was formed was made the perfect material for the f ormation of the creature with a living soul. [8] In like manner, by the direct act of the Creator. “Now, if I should not proceed further, 'Then how was this man without peer?' would thy words begin. But, in order that that which is not apparent may clearly appear, consider who he was, and the occasion which moved him to request, when it was said to him, 'Ask.' I have not so spoken that thou canst not clearly see that he was a king, who asked for wisdom, in order that he might be a worthy king; not to know the number of the motors here on high, or if necesse with a contingent ever made necesse;[1] non si est dare primum motum esse,[2] or if in the semicircle a triangle can be made so that it should not have one right angle.[3] Wherefore if thou notest this and what I said, a kingly prudence is that peerless seeing, on which the arrow of ray intention strikes.[4] And if thou directest clear eyes to the 'has arisen' thou wilt see it has respect only to kings, who are many, and the good are few. With this distinction[5] take thou my saying, and thus it can stand with that which thou believest of the first father, and of our Delight.[6] And let this be ever as lead to thy feet, to make thee move slow as a weary man, both to the YES and to the NO which thou seest not; for he is very low among the fools who affirms or denies without distinction, alike in the one and in the other case: because it happens, that oftentimes the current opinion bends in false direction, and then the inclination binds the understanding. Far more than vainly does he leave the bank, since he returns not such as be sets out, who fishes for the truth, and has not the art;[7] and of this are manifest proofs to the world Parmenides, Melissus, Bryson,[8] and many others who went on and knew not whither. So did Sabellius, and Arius,[9] and those fools who were as swords unto the Scriptures in making their straight faces crooked. Let not the people still be too secure in judgment, like him who reckons up the blades in the field ere they are ripe. For I have seen the briar first show itself stiff and wild all winter long, then bear the rose upon its top. And I have seen a bark ere now ran straight and swift across the sea through all its course, to perish at last at entrance of the harbor. Let not dame Bertha and master Martin, seeing one rob, and another make offering, believe to see them within the Divine counsel:[10] for the one may rise and the other may fall.” [1] If from two premises, one necessary and one contingent, a necessary conclusion is to be deduced. [2] “If a prime motion is to be assumed,” that is, a motion not the effect of another. [3] He did not ask through idle curiosity to know the number of the Angels; nor for the solution of a logical puzzle, nor for that of a question in metaphysics, or of a problem in geometry. [4] If thou understandest this comment on my former words, to see so much no second has arisen,” my meaning will be clear that his vision was unmatched in respect to the wisdom which it behoves a king to possess. [5] Thus distinguishing, it is apparent that Solomon is not brought into comparison, in respect to perfection of wisdom, with Adam or with Christ. [6] Christ. [7] Because he returns not only empty-handed, but with his mind perverted. [8] Heathen philosophers who went astray in seeking for the truth. [9] Sabellius denied the Trinity, Arius denied the Consubstantiality of the word. [10] To understand the mystery of predestination. CANTO XIV. At the prayer of Beatrice, Solomon tells of the glorified body of the blessed after the Last Judgment.—Ascent to the Heaven of Mars.—Souls of the Soldiery of Christ in the form of a Cross with the figure of Christ thereon.—Hymn of the Spirits. From the centre to the rim, and so from the rim to the centre, the water in a round vessel moves, according as it is struck from without or within. This which I say fell suddenly into my mind when the glorious life of Thomas became silent, because of the similitude which was born of his speech and that of Beatrice, whom after him it pleased thus to begin,[1] “This man has need, and he tells it not to you, neither with his voice nor as yet in thought, of going to the root of another truth. Tell him if the light wherewith your substance blossoms will remain with you eternally even as it is now; and if it remain, tell how, after you shall be again made visible, it will be possible that it hurt not your sight.”[2] [1] St. Thomas had spoken from his place in the ring which formed a circle around Beatrice and Dante; Beatrice now was speaking from the centre where she stood. [2] The souls of the blessed are hidden in the light which emanates from them; after the resurrection of the body they will become visible, but then how will the bodily eyes endure such brightness? As, when urged and drawn by greater pleasure, those who are dancing in a ring with one accord lift their voice and gladden their motions, so, at that prompt and devout petition, the holy circles showed new joy in their turning and in their marvellous melody. Whoso laments because man dies here in order to live thereabove, has not seen here the refreshment of the eternal rain. That One and Two and Three which ever lives, and ever reigns in Three and Two and One, uncircumscribed, and circumscribing everything, was thrice sung by each of those spirits with such a melody that for every merit it would be a just reward. And I heard in the divinest light of the small circle a modest voice,[1] perhaps such as was that of the Angel to Mary, make answer, “As long as the festival of Paradise shall be, so long will our love radiate around us such a garment. Its brightness follows our ardor, the ardor our vision, and that is great in proportion as it receives of grace above its own worth. When the glorious and sanctified flesh shall be put on us again, our persons will be more pleasing through being all complete; wherefore whatever of gratuitous light the Supreme Good gives us will be increased,—light which enables us to see him; so that our vision needs must increase, our ardor increase which by that is kindled, our radiance increase which comes from this. But even as a coal which gives forth flame, and by a vivid glow surpasses it, so that it defends its own aspect,[2] thus this effulgence, which already encircles us, will be vanquished in appearance by the flesh which all this while the earth covers. Nor will so great a light be able to fatigue us, for the organs of the body will be strong for everything which shall have power to delight us.” So sudden and ready both one and the other choir seemed to me in saying “Amen,” that truly they showed desire for their dead bodies, perhaps not only for themselves, but also for their mothers, for their fathers, and for the others who were dear before they became sempiternal flames. [1] Probably that of Solomon, who in the tenth Canto is said to be “the light which is the most beautiful among us.” [2] The coal is seen glowing through the flame. And lo! round about, of a uniform brightness, arose a lustre, outside that which was there, like an horizon which is growing bright. And even as at rise of early evening new appearances begin in the heavens, so that the sight seems and seems not true, it seemed to me that there I began to see new subsistences, and a circle forming outside the other two circumferences. O true sparkling of the Holy Spirit, how sudden and glowing it became to mine eyes, which, vanquished, endured it not! But Beatrice showed herself to me so beautiful and smiling that she must be left among those sights which have not followed my memory. Thence my eyes regained power to raise themselves again, and I saw myself alone with my Lady transferred to higher salvation.[1] That I was more uplifted I perceived clearly by the fiery smile of the star, which seemed to me ruddier than its wont. With all my heart and with that speech which is one in all men,[2] I made to God a holocaust such as was befitting to the new grace; and the ardor of the sacrifice was not yet exhausted in my breast when I knew that offering had been accepted and propitious; for with such great glow and such great ruddiness splendors appeared to me within two rays, that I said, “O Helios,[3] who dost so array them!” [1] To a higher grade of blessedness, that of the Fifth Heaven. [2] The unuttered voice of the soul. [3] Whether Dante forms this word from the Hebrew Eli (my God), or adopts the Greek {Greek here} (sun), is uncertain. Even as, marked out by less and greater lights, the Galaxy so whitens between the poles of the world that it indeed makes the wise to doubt,[1] thus, constellated in the depth of Mars, those rays made the venerable sign which joinings of quadrants in a circle make. Here my memory overcomes my genius, for that Cross was flashing forth Christ, so that I know not to find worthy comparison. But be who takes his cross and follows Christ will yet excuse me for that which I omit, when in that brightness he beholds Christ gleaming. [1] “Concerning the GaJaxy philosophers have held different opinions.”—Convito, 115. From horn to horn[1] and between the top and the base lights were moving, brightly scintillating as they met together and in their passing by. Thus here[2] are seen, straight and athwart, swift and slow, changing appearance, the atoms of bodies, long and short, moving through the sunbeam, wherewith sometimes the shade is striped which people contrive with skill and art for their protection. And as a viol or harp, strung in harmony of many strings, makes a sweet tinkling to one by whom the tune is not caught, thus from the lights which there appeared to me a melody was gathered through the Cross, which rapt me without understanding of the hymn. Truly was I aware that it was of holy praise, because there came to me “Arise and conquer!” as unto one who understands not, and yet bears. I was so enamoured therewith that until then had not been anything which had fettered me with such sweet bonds. Perchance my word appears too daring, in setting lower the pleasure from the beautiful eyes, gazing into which my desire has repose. But he who considers that the living seals[3] of every beauty have more effect the higher they are, and that I there had not turned round to those eyes, can excuse me for that whereof I accuse myself in order to excuse myself, and see that I speak truth; for the holy pleasure is not here excluded, because it becomes the purer as it mounts. [1] From arm to arm of the cross. [2] On earth. [3] The Heavens, which are “the seal of mortal wax” (Canto VIII.), increase in power as they are respectively nearer the Empyrean, so that the joy in each, as it is higher up, is greater than in the heavens below. To this time Dante had felt no joy equal to that afforded him by this song. But a still greater joy awaited him in the eyes of Beatrice, to which, since he entered the Fifth Heaven, he had not turned, but which there, as elsewhere, were to afford the supreme delight. CANTO XV. Dante is welcomed by his ancestor, Cacciaguida.—Cacciaguida tells of his family, and of the simple life of Florence in the old days. A benign will, wherein the love which righteously inspires always manifests itself, as cupidity does in the evil will, imposed silence on that sweet lyre, and quieted the holy strings which the right hand of heaven slackens and draws tight. How unto just petitions shall those substances be deaf, who, in order to give me wish to pray unto them, were concordant in silence? Well is it that be endlessly should grieve who, for the love of thing which endures not eternally, despoils him of that love. As, through the tranquil and pure evening skies, a sudden fire shoots from time to time, moving the eyes which were at rest, and seems to be a star which changes place, except that from the region where it is kindled nothing is lost, and it lasts short while, so, from the arm which extends on the right, to the foot of that Cross, ran a star of the constellation which is resplendent there. Nor from its ribbon did the gem depart, but through the radial strip it ran along and seemed like fire behind alabaster. Thus did the pious shade of Anchises advance (if our greatest Muse merits belief), when in Elysium he perceived. his son.[1] [1] “And he (Anchises), when he saw Aeneas advancing to meet him over the grass, stretched forth both hands eagerly, and the tears poured down his cheeks, and he cried out, 'Art thou come at length?”—Aeneid, vi. 684-7. “O sanguis meus! o superinfusa gratia Dei! sicut tibi, cui bis unquam coeli janua reclusa?”[1] Thus that light; whereat I gave heed to it; then I turned my sight to my Lady, and on this side and that I was wonderstruck; for within her eyes was glowing such a smile, that with my own I thought to touch the depth of my grace and of my Paradise. [1] “O blood of mine! O grace of God poured from above! To whom, as to thee, was ever the gate of Heaven twice opened?” Then, gladsome to hear and to see, the spirit joined to his beginning things which I understood not, he spoke so profoundly. Nor did he hide himself to me by choice, but by necessity, for his conception was set above the mark of mortals. And when the bow of his ardent affection was so relaxed that his speech descended towards the mark of our understanding, the first thing that was understood by me was, “Blessed be Thou, Trinal, and One who in my offspring art so courteous.” And he went on, “Grateful and long hunger, derived from reading in the great vouime where white or dark is never changed,[1] thou hast relieved, my son, within this light in which I speak to thee, thanks to Her who clothed thee with plumes for the lofty flight. Thou believest that thy thought flows to me from that which is first; even as from the unit, if that be known, ray out the five and six. And therefore who I am, and why I appear to thee more joyous than any other in this glad crowd, thou askest me not. Thou believest the truth; for the less and the great of this life gaze upon the mirror in which, before thou thinkest, thou dost display thy thought. But in order that the sacred Love, in which I watch with perpetual sight, and which makes me thirst with sweet desire, may be fulfilled the better, let thy voice, secure, bold, and glad, utter the wish, utter the desire, to which my answer is already decreed.” [1] In the mind of God, in which there is no change. I turned me to Beatrice, and she heard before I spoke, and smiled to me a sign which made the wings to my desire grow: and I began thus: “When the first Equality appeared to you, the affection and the intelligence became of one weight for each of you; because the Sun which illumined and warmed you is of such equality in its heat and in its light that all similitudes are defective. But will and discourse in mortals, for the reason which is manifest to you, are diversely feathered in their wings.[1] Wherefore I, who am mortal, feel myself in this inequality,[2] and therefore I give not thanks, save with my heart, for thy paternal welcome. Truly I beseech thee, living topaz that dost ingem this precious jewel, that thou make me content with thy name?” “O leaf of mine, in whom, while only awaiting, I took pleasure, I was thy root.” Such a beginning he, answering, made to me. Then he said to me: “He from whom thy family is named,[3] and who for a hundred years and more has circled the mountain on the first ledge, was my son and was thy great-grandsire. Truly it behoves that thou shorten for him his long fatigue with thy works. Florence, within the ancient circle wherefrom she still takes both tierce and nones,[4] was abiding in sober and modest peace. She had not necklace nor coronal, nor dames with ornamented shoes, nor girdle which was more to be looked at than the person. Not yet did the daughter at her birth cause fear to the father, for the time and dowry did not evade measure on this side and that.[5] She had not houses void of families;[6] Sardanapalus had not yet arrived[7] there to show what can be done in a chamber. Not yet by your Uccellatoio was Montemalo surpassed, which, as it has been surpassed in its rise, shall be so in its fall.[8] I saw Bellineoin Berti[9] go girt with leather and bone,[10] and his dame come from her mirror without a painted face. And I saw them of the Nerli, and them of the Vecchio,[11] contented with the uncovered skin,[12] and their dames with the spindle and the distaff. O fortunate women! Every one was sure of her burial place;[13] and as yet no one was deserted in her bed for France.[14] One over the cradle kept her careful watch, and, comforting, she used the idiom which first amuses fathers and mothers. Another, drawing the tresses from her distaff, told tales to her household of the Trojans, and of Fiesole, and of Rome.[15] A Cianghella,[16] a Lapo Salterello would then have been held as great a marvel as Cincinnatus or Cornelia would be now. [1] But will and the discourse of reason, corresponding to affection and intelligence, are unequal in mortals, owing to their imperfection. [2] Which makes it impossible for me to give full expression to my gratitude and affection. [3] Alighiero, from whom, it would appear from his station in Purgatory, Dante inherited the sin of pride, as well as his name. [4] The bell of the church called the Badia, or Abbey, which stood within the old walls of Florence, rang daily the hours for worship, and measured the time for the Florentines. Tierce is the first division of the canonical hours of the day, from six to nine; nones, the third, from twelve to three. [5] They were not married so young as now, nor were such great dowries required for them. [6] Palaces too large for their occupants, built for ostentation. [7] The luxury and effeminacy of Sardanapalus were proverbial. [8] Not yet was the view from Montemalo, or Monte Mario, of Rome in its splendor surpassed by that of Florence from the height of Uccellatoio; and the fall of Florence shall be greater even than that of Rome. [9] Bellincion Berti was “an honorable citizen of Florence,” says Giovanni Villani; “a noble soldier,” adds Benvenuto da Imola. He was father of the “good Gualdrada.” See Hell, XVI. [10] With a plain leathern belt fastened with a clasp of bone. [11] Two ancient and honored families. [12] Clothed in garments of plain dressed skin not covered with cloth. [13] Not fearing to die in exile. [14] Left by her husband seeking fortune in France, or other for. eign lands. [15] These old tales may be read in the first book of Villani's Chronicle. [16] “Mulier arrogantissima et intolerabilis . . . multum lubrice vixit,” says Benvenuto da Imola, who describes Lapo Salterello as temerarius et pravus civis, vir litigiosus et linguosus.” “To such a tranquil, to such a beautiful life of citizens, to such a trusty citizenship, to such a sweet inn, Mary, called on with loud cries,[1] gave me; and in your ancient Baptistery I became at once a Christian and Cacciaguida. Moronto was my brother, and Eliseo; my dame came to me from the valley of the Po, and thence was thy surname. Afterward I followed the emperor Conrad.[2] and he belted me of his soldiery,[3] so much by good deeds did I come into his favor. Following him I went against the iniquity of that law[4] whose people usurp your right,[5] though fault of the shepherd. There by that base folk was I released from the deceitful world, the love of which pollutes many souls, and I came from martyrdom to this peace.” [1] The Virgin, called on in the pains of childbirth. [2] Conrad III. of Suabia. In 1143 he joined in the second Crusade. [3] Made me a belted knight. [4] The law of Mahomet. [5] The Holy Land, by right belonging to the Christians. CANTO XVI. The boast of blood.—Cacciaguida continues his discourse concerning the old and the new Florence. O thou small nobleness of our blood! If thou makest folk glory in thee down here, where our affection languishes, it will nevermore be a marvel to me; for there, where appetite is not perverted, I mean in Heaven, I myself gloried in thee. Truly art thou a cloak which quickly shortens, so that, if day by day it be not pieced, Time goeth round about it with his shears. With the YOU,[1] which Rome first tolerated, in which her family least perseveres,[2] my words began again. Whereat Beatrice, who was a little withdrawn,[3] smiling, seemed like her[4] who coughed at the first fault that is written of Guenever. I began, “You are my father, you give me all confidence to speak; you lift me so that I am more than I. Through so many streams is my mind filled with gladness that it makes of itself a joy, in that it can bear this and not burst.[5] Tell me then, beloved first source of me, who were your ancestors, and what were the years that were numbered in your boyhood. Tell me of the sheepfold of St. John,[6] how large it was then, and who were the people within it worthy of the highest seats.” [1] The plural pronoun, used as a mark of respect. This usage was introduced in the later Roman Empire. [2] The Romans no longer show respect to those worthy of it. [3] Beatrice stands a little aside, theology having no part in this colloquy. She smiles, not reproachfully, at Dante's vainglory. [4] The Dame de Malehault, who coughed at seeing the first kiss given by Lancelot to Guenever. The incident is not told in any of the printed versions of the Romance of Lancelot, but it has been found by Mr. Paget Toynbee in several of the manuscripts. [5] Rejoices that it has capacity to endure such great joy. [6] Florence, whose patron saint was St. John the Baptist. As a coal quickens to flame at the blowing of the winds, so I saw that light become resplendent at my blandishments, and as it became more beautiful to my eyes, so with voice more dulcet and soft, but not with this modern speech, it said to me, “From that clay on which Ave was said, unto the birth in which my mother, who. now is sainted, was lightened of me with whom she was burdened, this fire had come to its Lion[1] five hundred, fifty, and thirty times to reinflame itself beneath his paw.[2] My ancestors and I were born in the place where the last ward is first found by him who runs in your annual game.[3] Let it suffice to hear this of my elders. Who they were, and whence they came thither, it is more becoming to leave untold than to recount. [1]—Mars As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's breast.—Maud, part III. The Lion is the sign Leo in the Zodiac, appropriate to Mars by supposed conformity of disposition. [2] Five hundred and eighty revolutions of Mars are accomplished in a little more than ten hundred and ninety years. [3] The place designated was the boundary of the division of the city called that of “the Gate of St. Peter,” where the Corso passes by the Mercato Vecchio or Old Market. The races were run along the Corso on the 24th June, the festival of St. John the Baptist. “All those able to bear arms who at that time were there, between Mars and the Baptist,[1] were the fifth of them who are living. But the citizenship, which is now mixed with Campi and with Certaldo and with Figghine,[2] was to be seen pure in the lowest artisan. Oh, how much better it would be that those folk of whom I speak were neighbors, and to have your confine at Galluzzo and at Trespiano,[3] than to have them within, and to endure the stench of the churl of Aguglione,[4] and of him of Signa, who already has his eye sharp for barratry! [1] Between the Ponte Vecchio, at the head of which stood the statue of Mars, and the Baptistery,—two points marking the circuit of the ancient walls. [2] Small towns not far from Florence, from which, as from many others, there had been emigration to the thriving city, to the harm of its own people. [3] It would have been better to keep these people at a distance, as neighbors, and to have narrow bounds for the territory of the city. [4] The churl of Aguglione was, according to Benvenuto da Imola, a lawyer named Baldo, “qui fuit magnus canis.” He became one of the priors of Florence in 1311. He of Signa is supposed to have been one Bonifazio, who, says Buti, “sold his favors and offices.” “If the people which most degenerates in the world[1] had not been as a stepdame unto Caesar, but like a mother benignant to her son, there is one now a Florentine[2] who changes money and traffics, who would have returned to Simifonti, there where his grandsire used to go begging. Montemurlo would still belong to its Counts, the Cerchi would be in the parish of Acone, and perhaps the Buondelmonti in Valdigreve.[3] The confusion of persons has always been the beginning of the harm of the city, as in the body the food which is added.[4] And a blind bull falls more headlong than the blind lamb; and oftentimes one sword cuts more and better than five. If thou regardest Luni and Urbisaglia,[5] how they have gone, and how Chiusi and Sinigaglia are going their way after them, to hear how families are undone will not appear to thee a strange thing or a bard, since cities have their term.[6] Your things all have their death even as ye; but it is concealed in some that last long, while lives are short. And as the revolution of the heaven of the Moon covers and uncovers the shores without a pause, so fortune does with Florence. Wherefore what I shall tell of the high Florentines, whose fame is hidden by time, should not appear to thee a marvellous thing. I saw the Ughi, and I saw the Catellini, Filippi, Greci, Ormanni, and Alberichi, even in their decline, illustrious citizens; and I saw, as great as they were old, with those of the Sannella, those of the Area, and Soldanieri, and Ardinghi, and Bostiebi.[7] Over the gate which at present is laden with new felony[8] of such weight that soon there will be jettison from the bark,[9] were the Ravignani, from whom the Count Guido is descended,[10] and whosoever since has taken the name of the high Bellincione. He of the Pressa knew already bow one needs to rule, and Galigaio already had in his house the gilded hilt and pummel.[11] Great were already the column of the Vair,[12] the Sacchetti, Giuochi, Fifanti, and Barucci, and Galli, and they who blush for the bushel.[13] The stock from which the Calfucci sprang was already great, and already the Sizii. and Arrigucci had been drawn to curule chairs.[14] Oh how great did I see those who have been undone by their pride![15] and the balls of gold[16] made Florence flourish with all their great deeds. So did the fathers of those who always,when your church is vacant, become fat, staying in consistory.[17] The overweening race which is as a dragon behind him who flies, and to him who shows tooth or purse is gentle as a lamb,[18] already was coming up, but from small folk, so that it pleased not Ubertin Donato that his father-in-law should afterwards make him their relation.[19] Already had Caponsacco descended into the market place down from Fiesole, and already was Giuda a good citizen, and Infangato.[20] I will tell a thing incredible and true: into the little circle one entered by a gate which was named for those of the Pear.[21] Every one who bears the beautiful ensign of the great baron[22] whose name and whose praise the feast of Thomas revives, from him had knighthood and privilege; although to-day he who binds it with a border unites himself with the populace.[23] Already there were Gualterotti and Importuni; and Borgo[24] would now be more quiet, if they had gone hung for new neighbors. The house of which was born your weeping,[25] through its just indignation which has slain you, and put an end to your glad living, was honored, both itself and its consorts. O Buondelmonte, how ill didst thou flee its nuptials through the persuasions of another! [26] Many would be glad who now are sorrowful, if God had conceded thee to the Ema[27] the first time that thou camest to the city. But it behoved that Florence in her last peace should offer a victim to that broken stone which guards the bridge.[28] [1] If the clergy had not quarrelled with the Emperor, bringing about factions and disturbances in the world. [2] “I have not discovered who this is,” says Buti. [3] The Conti Guidi had been compelled to sell to the Florentines their stronghold of Montemurlo, because they could not defend it from the Pistoians. The Cerchi and the Buondelmonti had been forced by the Florentine Commune to give up their fortresses and to take up their abode in the city, where they became powerful, and where the bitterness of intestine discord and party strife had been greatly enhanced by their quarrels. [4] Food added to that already in process of digestion. [5] Cities once great, now fallen. [6] Cities longer-lived than families. [7] All once great families, but now extinct, or fallen. [8] Above the gate of St. Peter rose the walls of the abode of the Cerchi, the head of the White faction. [9] The casting overboard was the driving out of the leaders of the Whites in 1302. [10] The Count Guido married Gualdrada, the daughter of Bellincione Berti. [11] Symbols of knighthood; the use of gold in their accoutrements being reserved for knights. [12] The family of the Pigli, whose scatcheon was, in heraldic terms, gules, a pale, vair; in other words, a red shield divided longitudinally by a stripe of the heraldic representation of the fur called vair. [13] The Chiaramontesi, one of whom in the old days, being the officer in charge of the sale of salt for the Commune, had cheated both the Commune and the people by using a false measure. See Purgatory, Canto XII. [14] To high civic office. [15] The Uberti, the great family of which Farinata was the most renowned member. [16] The Lamberti, who bore golden balls on their shields. [17] The Visdomini, patrons of the Bishopric of Florence, who, after the death of a bishop, by deferring the appointment of his successor grew fat on the episcopal revenues. [18] The Adimari. Benvenuto da Imola reports that one Boccacino Adimari, after Dante's banishment, got possession of his property, and always afterward was his bitter enemy. [19] Ubertin Donato married a daughter of Bellincion Berti, and was displeased that her sister should afterwards be given to one of the Adimari. [20] There seems to be a touch of humor in these three names of “Head in bag,” “Judas,” and “Bemired.” [21] The Peruzzi, who bore the pear as a charge upon their scutcheon. The incredible thing may have been that the people were so simple and free from jealousy as to allow a public gate to bear the name of a private family. The “little circle” was the circle of the old walls. [22] Hugh, imperial vicar of Tuscany in the time of Otho II. and Otho