Paradiso: Canto II
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O Ye, who in some pretty little
boat,
Eager to listen, have been following
Behind my
ship, that singing
sails along,
Turn back to look again upon your shores;
Do not put out to sea, lest
peradventure,
In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.
The sea I sail has never yet been passed;
Minerva breathes, and pilots me
Apollo,
And
Muses nine point out to me the
Bears.
Ye other few who have the neck uplifted
Betimes to th' bread of Angels upon which
One liveth here and grows not sated by it,
Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea
Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you
Upon the
water that grows smooth again.
Those
glorious ones who unto
Colchos passed
Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be,
When
Jason they beheld a ploughman made!
The con-created and
perpetual thirst
For the realm
deiform did bear us on,
As swift almost as ye the heavens behold.
Upward gazed
Beatrice, and I at her;
And in such space perchance as strikes a bolt
And flies, and from the notch unlocks itself,
Arrived I saw me where
a wondrous thing
Drew to itself my sight; and therefore she
From whom no care of mine could be
concealed,
Towards me turning, blithe as beautiful,
Said unto me: "Fix
gratefully thy mind
On
, who unto the first star has brought us."
It seemed to me a cloud
encompassed us,
Luminous, dense,
consolidate and bright
As adamant on which the sun is
striking.
Into itself did the eternal pearl
Receive us, even as water doth receive
A ray of light, remaining still unbroken.
If I was
body, (and we here conceive not
How one
dimension tolerates another,
Which needs must be if body enter body,)
More the desire should be enkindled in us
That essence to behold, wherein is seen
How
and our own
nature were united.
There will be seen what we
receive by faith,
Not demonstrated, but self-evident
In guise of the first truth that man
believes.
I made reply: "
Madonna, as
devoutly
As most I can do I give thanks to
Him
Who has removed me from the mortal
world.
But tell me what the dusky spots may be
Upon this body, which below on earth
Make people tell that fabulous
tale of
Cain?"
Somewhat she smiled; and then, "If the opinion
Of mortals be
erroneous," she said,
"Where'er the key of sense doth not unlock,
Certes, the shafts of wonder should not pierce thee
Now, forasmuch as, following the senses,
Thou seest that the reason has short wings.
But tell me what thou think'st of it thyself."
And I: "What seems to us up here diverse,
Is caused, I think, by bodies
rare and
dense."
And she: "Right truly shalt thou see immersed
In error thy belief, if well thou hearest
The
argument that I shall make against it.
Lights many the eighth sphere displays to you
Which in their
quality and quantity
May noted be of aspects
different.
If this were caused by
rare and
dense alone,
One only
virtue would there be in all
Or more or less diffused, or equally.
Virtues diverse must be perforce the
fruits
Of
formal principles; and these, save one,
Of course would by thy
reasoning be
destroyed.
Besides, if rarity were of this dimness
The cause thou askest, either through and through
This planet thus attenuate were of matter,
Or else, as in a body is
apportioned
The
fat and
lean, so in like manner this
Would in its volume interchange the leaves.
Were it the former, in the sun's eclipse
It would be manifest by the shining through
Of light, as through aught
tenuous interfused.
This is not so; hence we must scan the other,
And if it chance the other I
demolish,
Then
falsified will thy opinion be.
But if this rarity go not through and through,
There needs must be a limit, beyond which
Its contrary prevents the further passing,
And thence the
foreign radiance is reflected,
Even as a
colour cometh back from glass,
The which behind itself
concealeth lead.
Now thou wilt say the sunbeam shows itself
More dimly there than in the other parts,
By being there
reflected farther back.
From this reply
experiment will free thee
If e'er thou try it, which is wont to be
The
fountain to the
rivers of your
arts.
Three
mirrors shalt thou take, and two remove
Alike from thee, the other more remote
Between the former two shall meet thine eyes.
Turned towards these, cause that behind thy back
Be placed a light, illuming the three mirrors
And coming back to thee by all reflected.
Though in its quantity be not so ample
The image most
remote, there shalt thou see
How it perforce is equally
resplendent.
Now, as beneath the
touches of warm rays
Naked the subject of the snow remains
Both of its former
colour and its cold,
Thee thus
remaining in thy
intellect,
Will I inform with such a living light,
That it shall tremble in its aspect to thee.
Within the heaven of the divine repose
Revolves a
body, in whose
virtue lies
The being of whatever it contains.
The following heaven, that has so many eyes,
Divides this being by essences diverse,
Distinguished from it, and by it contained.
The other spheres, by various differences,
All the
distinctions which they have within them
Dispose unto their ends and their effects.
Thus do these organs of the world proceed,
As thou perceivest now, from
grade to grade;
Since from above they take, and act
beneath.
Observe me well, how through this place I come
Unto the truth thou wishest, that hereafter
Thou mayst alone know how to keep the
ford
The power and motion of the
holy spheres,
As from the
artisan the
hammer's craft,
Forth from the blessed motors must proceed.
The heaven, which lights so manifold make fair,
From the
Intelligence profound, which turns it,
The image takes, and makes of it a seal.
And even as the soul within your dust
Through members different and accommodated
To
faculties diverse expands itself,
So likewise this
Intelligence diffuses
Its
virtue multiplied among the stars.
Itself revolving on its
unity.
Virtue diverse doth a
diverse alloyage
Make with the precious body that it quickens,
In which, as life in you, it is
combined.
From the glad nature whence it is derived,
The
mingled virtue through the body shines,
Even as gladness through the living pupil.
From this proceeds whate'er from light to light
Appeareth different, not from dense and rare:
This is the formal principle that produces,
According to its
goodness,
dark and
bright."
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