I. But Gregory[3] afterward separated from him; wherefore, so soon as

he opened his eyes in this Heaven, he smiled at himself. And if a mortal proffered on earth so much of secret truth, I would not have thee wonder, for he who saw it hereabove[4] disclosed it to him, with much else of the truth of these circles.” [1] At the autumnal equinox, the time of frosts, Aries is the sign in which the night rises. [2] The Areopagite. See Canto X. [3] The Pope, St. Gregory, who differs slightly from Dionysius in his arrangement of the Heavenly host. [4] St. Paul, supposed to have communicated to his disciple the knowledge which he gained when caught up to Heaven. See 2 Cor., xii. 2. CANTO XXIX. Discourse of Beatrice concerning the creation and nature of the Angels.—She reproves the presumption and foolishness of preachers. When both the children of Latona, covered by the Ram and by the Scales, together make a zone of the horizon,[1] as long as from the moment the zenith holds them in balance, till one and the other, changing their hemisphere, are unbalanced from that girdle, soloing, with her countenance painted with a smile, was Beatrice silent, looking fixedly upon the Point which had overcome me. Then she began: “I speak, and I ask not what thou wishest to hear, for I have seen it where every WHERE and every WHEN are centred. Not for the gain of good unto Himself, which cannot be, but that His splendor might, in resplendence, say, Subsisto; in His own eternity, outside of time, outside of every other limit, as pleased Him, the Eternal Love disclosed Himself in new loves. Nor before, as if inert, did He lie; for the going forth of God upon these waters had proceeded neither before nor after.[2] Form and matter, conjoined and simple, came forth to existence which had no defect, as three arrows from a three-stringed bow; and as in glass, in amber, or in crystal a ray shines so that there is no interval between its coining and its complete existence, so the triform effect[3] rayed forth from its Lord into its. existence all at once, without discrimination of beginning. Order was concreate, and established for the substances, and those were top of the world in which pure act was produced.[4] Pure potency held the lowest part;[5] in the middle such a bond unites potency with act, that it is never unbound.[6] Jerome has written to you of the Angels, created a long tract of centuries before the rest of the world was made. But this truth[7] is written on many pages by the writers of the that Holy Spirit: and thou wilt thyself discover it, if thou watchest well for it; and even the reason sees it somewhat, for it would not admit that the motors could be so long without their perfection.[8] Now thou knowest where and when these loves were elected, and how; so that three flames of thy desire are already quenched. [1] When at the spring equinox, the sun being in the sign of Aries or the Ram, and the moon in that of Libra or the Scales, opposite to each other on the horizon, the one just rising and the other setting, they seem as if held for a moment in a balance which hangs from the zenith. [2] In eternity there is no before or after; time had no existence till the creation, and has relevancy only to created things. [3] Pure form, pure matter, and form conjoined with matter. [4] The substances created purely active, to exercise action upon others, were the angels. [5] The substances purely passive, capable potentially only of submitting to the action of others, are the material things without intelligence. [6] The substances in which potency and act are united are the creatures endowed with bodies and souls. [7] The truth here set forth (contrary to Jerome's assertion), the creation of the Angels was contemporaneous with that of the creation of the rest of the Universe of which they were the Intelligences. [8] Without scope for their action as movers of the spheres. One would not reach to twenty, in counting, so quickly as a part of the Angels disturbed the subject of your elements.[1] The rest remained and began this art which thou beboldest, with such great delight that they never cease from circling. The origin of the fall was the accursed pride of him whom thou hast seen opprest by all the weights of the world. Those whom thou seest here were modest in grateful recognition of the goodness which had made them ready for intelligence so great; wherefore their vision was exalted with illuminant grace and with their merit, so that they have full and steadfast will. And I wish that thou doubt not, but be certain, that to receive grace is meritorious in proportion as the affection is open to it. [1] The earth. “Henceforth, if my words have been harvested, thou canst contemplate sufficiently round about this consistory without other assistance. But because on earth it is taught in your schools that the angelic nature is such that it understands, and remembers, and wills, I will speak further, in order that thou mayest see the truth pure, which there below is mixed, through the equivocation in such like teaching. These substances, from the time that they were glad in the face of God, have not turned their sight from it, from which nothing is concealed. Therefore they have not their vision interrupted by a new object, and therefore do not need because of divided thought to recollect.[1] So that there below men dream when not asleep, believing and not believing to speak truth; but in the one is more fault and more shame.[2] Ye below go not along one path in philosophizing; so much do the love of appearance[3] and the thought of it transport you; and yet this is endured hereabove with less indignation than when the divine Scripture is set aside, or when it is perverted. Men think not there how much blood it costs to sow it in the world, and how much he pleases who humbly keeps close to its side. Every one strives for appearance, and makes his own inventions, and those are discoursed of by the preachers, and the Gospel is silent. One says that the moon turned back at the passion of Christ and interposed herself, so that the light of the sun reached not down; and others that the light hid itself of its own accord, so that this eclipse answered for the Spaniards and for the Indians as well as for the Jews. Florence hath not so many Lapi and Bindi[4] as there are fables such as these shouted the year long from the pulpits, on every side; so that the poor flocks, who have no knowledge, return from the pasture fed with wind; and not seeing the harm does not excuse them. Christ did not say to his first company, 'Go, and preach idle stories to the world,' but he gave to them the true foundation; and that alone sounded in their cheeks, so that in the battle for kindling of the faith they made shield and lance of the Gospel. Now men go forth to preach with jests and with buffooneries, and provided only there is a good laugh the cowl puffs up, and nothing more is required. But such a bird is nesting in the tail of the hood, that if the crowd should see it, they would see the pardon in which they confide; through which such great folly has grown on earth, that, without proof of any testimony, men would flock to every indulgence. On this the pig of St. Antony fattens, and others also, who are far more pigs, paying with money that has no stamp of coinage. [1] The angels, looking always upon God, to whom all things are present, have no need of memory. [2] Many of the doctrines of men on earth axe like dreams, because they have no foundation in truth; and while some honestly believe in them, there are others, who, though not believing, still teach these doctrines as truth. [3] Of making a good show. [4] Common nicknames in Florence; Lapo is from Jacopo, Bindo from Ildebrando. “But because we have digressed enough, turn back thine eyes now toward the straight path, so that the way be shortened with the time. This nature[1] so extends in number, that never was there speech or mortal concept that could go so far. And if thou considerest that which is revealed by Daniel thou wilt see that in his thousands[2] a determinate number is concealed. The primal light that irradiates it all is received in it by as many modes as are the splendors with which the light pairs itself.[3] Wherefore, since the affection follows upon the act[4] that conceives, in this nature the sweetness of love diversely glows and warms. Behold now the height and the breadth of the Eternal Goodness, since it has made for itself so many mirrors on which it is broken, One in itself remaining as before.” [1] The Angels. [2] “Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.”—Daniel, vii. 10. [3] No two angels are precisely alike in their vision of God. [4] Since love follows on knowledge through vision. CANTO XXX. Ascent to the Empyrean.—The River of Light.—The celestial Rose.—The seat of Henry VII.—The last words of Beatrice. The sixth hour is glowing perhaps six thousand miles distant from us, and this world now inclines its shadow almost to a level bed, when the mid heaven, deep above us, begins to become such that some one star loses its show so far as to this depth;[1] and as the brightest handmaid of the sun comes farther on, so the heaven is closed from light to light, even to the most beautiful. Not otherwise the Triumph, that plays forever round the Point which vanquished me, seeming enclosed by that which it encloses, little by little to my sight was extinguished;[2] wherefore my seeing nothing, and my love constrained me to turn with my eyes to Beatrice. If what has been said of her so far as here were all included in a single praise, it would be little to furnish out this turn. The beauty which I saw transcends measure not only by us, but truly I believe that its Maker alone can enjoy it all. [1] When it is noon,—the sixth hour,—six thousand miles away from us to the east, it is about daybreak where we are; the shadow of the earth lies in the plane of vision, and with the growing light the stars one after another become invisible at this depth, that is, to one on earth. [2] Losing itself in the light which streams from the Divine point. By this pass I concede myself vanquished more than ever comic or tragic poet was overcome by crisis of his theme. For as the sun does to the sight which trembles most, even so remembrance of the sweet smile deprives my mind of its very self. From the first day that I saw her face in this life, even to this look, the following with my song has not been interrupted for me, but now needs must my pursuit desist from further following her beauty in my verse, as at his utmost every artist. Such, as I leave her to a greater heralding than that of my trumpet, which is bringing its arduous theme to a close, with act and voice of a trusty leader she began again. “We have issued forth from the greatest body[1] to the Heaven[2] which is pure light: light intellectual full of love, love of true good, full of joy; joy which transcends every sweetness. Here thou shalt see one and the other host of Paradise;[3] and the one in those aspects which thou shalt see at the Last Judgment.” [1] The Primum Mobile, the greatest of the material spheres of the universe. [2] The Empyrean. [3] The spirits of the redeemed who fought against the temptations of the world, and the good angels who fought against the rebellious; and here the souls in bliss will be seen in their bodily shapes. As a sudden flash which scatters the spirits of the sight so that it deprives the eye of the action of the strongest objects,[1] thus a vivid light shone round about me, and left me swathed with such a veil of its own effulgence that nothing was visible to me. 1] So that the clearest objects produce no effect upon the eye. “The Love which quieteth this Heaven always welcomes to itself with such a salutation, in order to make the candle ready for its flame.” No sooner had these brief words come within me than I comprehended that I was surmounting above my own power; and I rekindled me with a new vision, such that no light is so pure that my eyes had not sustained it. And I saw light in form of a river, bright with effulgence, between two banks painted with a marvellous spring. Out of this stream were issuing living sparks, and on every side were setting themselves in the flowers, like rubies which gold encompasses. Then, as if inebriated by the odors, they plunged again into the wonderful flood, and as one was entering another was issuing forth. “The high desire which now inflames and urges thee to have knowledge concerning that which thou seest, Pleases me the more the more it swells, but thou must needs drink of this water before so great a thirst, in thee be slaked.” Thus the Sun of my eyes said to me; thereon she added, “The stream, and the topazes which enter and issue, and the smiling of the herbage, are foreshadowing prefaces of their truth;[1] not that these things are in themselves immature,[2] but there is defect on thy part who hast not yet vision so lofty.” [1] The stream, the sparks, the flowers are not such in reality as they seem to be; they are but images foreshadowing the truth. [2] The things show themselves as they are, but the eyes cannot yet see them correctly. There is no babe who so hastily springs with face toward the milk, if he awake much later than his wont, as I did, to make better mirrors yet of my eyes, stooping to the wave which flows in order that one may be bettered in it. And even as the eaves of my eyelids drank of it, so it seemed to me from its length to become round. Then as folk who have been under masks, who seem other than before, if they divest themselves of the semblance not their own in which they disappeared, thus for me the flowers and the sparks were changed into greater festival, so that I saw both the Courts of Heaven manifest. O splendor of God, by means of which I saw the high triumph of the true kingdom, give me power to tell how I saw it! Light is thereabove which makes the Creator visible to that creature which has its peace only in seeing Him; and it is extended in a circular figure so far that its circumference would be too wide a girdle for the sun. Its whole appearance is made of a ray reflected from the summit of the First Moving Heaven,[1] which therefrom takes its life and potency. And as a hill mirrors itself in water at its base, as if to see itself adorned, rich as it is with verdure and with flowers, so ranged above the light, round and round about, on more than a thousand seats, I saw mirrored all who of us have returned on high. And if the lowest row gather within itself so great a light, how vast is the spread of this rose in its outermost leaves! My sight lost not itself in the breadth and in the height, but took in all the quantity and the quality of that joy. There near and far nor add nor take away; for where God immediately governs the natural law is of no relevancy. [1] The Primum Mobile. Into the yellow of the sempiternal rose, which spreads wide, rises in steps, and is redolent with odor of praise unto the Sun that makes perpetual spring, Beatrice, like one who is silent and wishes to speak, drew me, and said, “Behold, how vast is the convent of the white stoles![1] See our city, how wide its circuit! See our benches so full that few people are now awaited here. On that great seat, on which thou holdest thine eye because of the crown which already is set above it, ere thou suppest at this wedding feast will sit the soul (which below will be imperial) of the high Henry who, to set Italy straight, will come ere she is ready.[2] The blind cupidity which bewitches you has made you like the little child who dies of hunger, and drives away his nurse. And such a one will then be prefect in the divine forum that openly or covertly he will not go with him along one road;[3] but short while thereafter shall he be endured by God in the holy office; for he shall be thrust down for his deserts, there where Simon Magus is, and shall make him of Anagna go lower.” [1] “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment.”—Revelation, iii. 5. [2] Henry VII., Emperor 1308, crowned at Milan 1311, died 1313. [3] The Pope Clement V. ostensibly supported the Emperor Henry VII. in his Italian expedition, but secretly manoeuvred against him. He died in 1314, eight months after the death of Henry. Beatrice here condemns him to the third bolgia of the eighth circle of Hell, whither he was to follow Boniface VIII.,—him of Anagna,—and push him deeper in the hole where the simoniacal Popes were punished, Cf. Hell, XIX. CANTO XXXI. The Rose of Paradise.—St. Bernard.—Prayer to Beatrice.—The glory of the Blessed Virgin. In form then of a pure white rose the holy host was shown to me, which, in His own blood, Christ made His bride. But the other,[1] which, flying, sees and sings the glory of Him who enamours it, and the goodness which made it so great, like a swarm of bees which one while are among the flowers and anon return to the place where their work gets its savor, were descending into the great flower which is adorned with so many leaves, and thence rising up again to where their love always abides. Their faces all were of living flame, and their wings of gold, and the rest so white that no snow reaches that extreme. When they descended into the flower, from bench to bench, they imparted somewhat of the peace and of the ardor which they acquired as they fanned their sides. Nor did the interposing of such a flying plenitude between what was above and the flower impede the sight and the splendor; for the divine light penetrates through the universe, according as it is worthy, so that naught can be an obstacle to it. This secure and joyous realm, thronged with aneient and with modern folk, had all its look and love upon one mark. [1] The angelic host. O Trinal Light, which in a single star, scintillating on their sight, so satisfies them, look down here upon our tempest! If the Barbarians, coming from a region such that every day it is covered by Helice,[1] revolving with her son of whom she is fond, when they beheld Rome and her arduous work, were wonderstruck, what time Lateran rose above mortal things,[2] I, who to the divine from the human, to the eternal from the temporal, had come, and from Florence to a people just and sane, with what amazement must I have been full! Surely what with it and the joy I was well pleased not to hear, and to stand mute. And as a pilgrim who is refreshed in the temple of his vow in looking round, and hopes now to report how it was, so, journeying through the living light, I carried my eyes over the ranks, now up, now down, and now circling about. I saw faces persuasive to love, beautified by the light of Another and by their own smile, and actions ornate with every dignity. [1] The nymph Callisto or Helice bore to Zeus a son, Arcas; she was metamorphosed by Hera into a bear, and then transferred to Heaven by Jupiter as the constellation of the Great Bear, while her son was changed into the constellation of Aretophylax or Bootes. In the far north these constellations remain always above the horizon. [2] When Rome was mistress of the world, and the Lateran the seat of imperial or papal power. My look had now comprehended the general form of Paradise as a whole, and on no part yet my sight was fixed; and I turned me with re-enkindled wish to ask my Lady about things concerning which my mind was in suspense. One thing I was meaning, and another answered me; I was thinking to see Beatrice, and I saw an old man, robed like the people in glory. His eyes and his cheeks were overspread with benignant joy, in pious mien such as befits a tender father. And, “Where is she?” on a sudden said I. Whereon he, “To terminate thy desire, Beatrice urged me from my place, and if thou lookest up to the third circle from the highest step, thou wilt again see her upon the throne which her merits have allotted to her.” Without answering I lifted up my eyes, and saw her as she made for herself a crown, reflecting from herself the eternal rays. From that region which thunders highest up no mortal eye is so far distant, in whatsoever sea it loses itself the lowest,[1] as there from Beatrice was my sight. But this was naught to me, for her image did not descend to me blurred by aught between. [1] From the highest region of the air to the lowest depth of the sea. “O Lady, in whom my hope is strong, and who, for my salvation, didst endure to leave thy footprints in Hell, of all those things which I have seen, I recognize by thy power and by thy goodness the grace and the virtue. Thou hast drawn me from servitude to liberty by all those ways, by all the modes whereby thou hadst the power to do this. Guard thou in me thine own magnificence so that my soul, which thou hast made whole, may, pleasing to thee, be unloosed from the body.” Thus I prayed; and she, so distant, smiled, as it seemed, and looked at me; then turned to the eternal fountain. And the holy old man, “In order that thou mayest complete perfectly,” he said, “thy journey, whereto prayer and holy love sent me, fly with thy eyes through this garden; for seeing it will prepare thy look to mount further through the divine radiance. And the Queen of Heaven, for whom I burn wholly with love, will grant us every grace, because I am her faithful Bernard.”[1] [1] St. Bernard, to whom, because of his fervent devotion to her, the Blessed Virgin had deigned to show herself during his life. As is he who comes perchance from Croatia to see our Veronica,[1] who is not satisfied by its ancient fame, but says in thought, while it is shown, “My Lord Jesus Christ, true God, now was your semblance like to this?” such was I, gazing on the living charity of him who, in this world, in contemplation, tasted of that peace. [1] The likeness of the Saviour miraculously impressed upon the kerchief presented to him by a holy woman, on his way to Calvary, wherewith to wipe the sweat and dust from his face, and now religiously preserved at Rome, and shown at St. Peter's, on certain holydays. “Son of Grace, this glad existence,” began he, “will not be known to thee holding thine eyes only below here at the bottom, but look on the circles even to the most remote, until thou seest upon her seat the Queen to whom this realm is subject and devoted.” I lifted up my eyes; and as at morning the eastern parts of the horizon surpass that where the sun declines, thus, as if going with my eyes from valley to mountain, I saw a part on the extreme verge vanquishing in light all the other front. And even as there where the pole which Phaeton guided ill is awaited,[1] the flame is brighter, and on this side and that the light grows less, so that pacific oriflamme was vivid at the middle, and on each side in equal measure the flame slackened. And at that mid