Paradiso: Canto XXVI
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While I was doubting for my vision quenched,
Out of the flame refulgent
that had
quenched it
Issued a
breathing,
that attentive made me,
Saying: "While thou
recoverest the sense
Of seeing which in me thou hast
consumed,
'Tis well that speaking thou shouldst
compensate it.
Begin then, and
declare to what thy
soul
Is aimed, and
count it for a
certainty,
Sight is in thee bewildered and not
dead;
Because the Lady, who through this
divine
Region
conducteth thee, has in
her look
The power the hand of
Ananias had."
I said: "As
pleaseth her, or soon or late
Let the cure come to eyes that
portals were
When she with fire I ever burn with
entered.
The
Good, that gives
contentment to this
Court,
The Alpha and
Omega is of
all
The writing that love
reads me low or
loud."
The selfsame voice, that taken had from me
The terror of the sudden
dazzlement,
To speak still farther put it in my thought;
And said: "In verity with finer sieve
Behoveth thee to sift; thee it
behoveth
To say who aimed thy bow at such a
target."
And I: "By
philosophic arguments,
And by authority that
hence descends,
Such love must needs
imprint itself in me;
For Good, so far as good, when
comprehended
Doth
straight enkindle love, and so much
greater
As more of goodness in itself it
holds;
Then to that
Essence (whose is such
advantage
That every good which out of it is found
Is nothing but a ray of its own light)
More than
elsewhither must the mind be
moved
Of every one, in loving, who discerns
The truth in which this evidence is
founded.
Such truth he to my
intellect reveals
Who
demonstrates to me the
primal love
Of all the
sempiternal substances.
The voice reveals it of the truthful
Author,
Who says to
Moses, speaking of
Himself,
'I will make all my
goodness pass before thee.'
Thou too
revealest it to me, beginning
The loud
Evangel, that proclaims the secret
Of heaven to earth above all other edict."
And I heard say: "By human
intellect
And by authority concordant with it,
Of all thy loves reserve for
God the highest.
But say again if other cords thou
feelest,
Draw thee
towards Him, that thou mayst
proclaim
With how many teeth this love is
biting thee."
The holy purpose of the
Eagle of Christ
Not latent was, nay, rather I perceived
Whither he fain would my
profession lead.
Therefore I recommenced: "All of those bites
Which have the power to turn the heart to
God
Unto my
charity have been
concurrent.
The being of the world, and my own being,
The death which
He endured that I may live,
And that which all the
faithful hope, as I do,
With the
forementioned vivid consciousness
Have drawn me from the sea of love
perverse,
And of the right have placed me on the
shore.
The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the
garden
Of the
Eternal Gardener, do I love
As much as he has granted them of
good."
As soon as I had
ceased, a song most sweet
Throughout the
heaven resounded, and my Lady
Said with the others, "
Holy,
holy,
holy!"
And as at some keen
light one wakes from
sleep
By reason of the
visual spirit that runs
Unto the
splendour passed from
coat to coat,
And he who wakes
abhorreth what he sees,
So all
unconscious is his sudden waking,
Until the
judgment cometh to his aid,
So from before mine eyes did
Beatrice
Chase every mote with
radiance of her own,
That
cast its light a
thousand miles and more.
Whence better after than before I saw,
And in a kind of
wonderment I asked
About a fourth light that I saw with us.
And said
my Lady: "
There within those rays
Gazes upon its
Maker the
first soul
That ever the first virtue did create."
Even as the bough that downward bends its top
At transit of the wind, and then is
lifted
By its own virtue, which
inclines it upward,
Likewise did I, the while that she was speaking,
Being amazed, and then I was made bold
By a desire to speak wherewith I
burned.
And I began: "O
apple, that mature
Alone hast been
produced, O
ancient father,
To whom each wife is
daughter and daughter-in-law,
Devoutly as I can I
supplicate thee
That thou wouldst speak to me; thou seest my wish;
And I, to hear thee quickly, speak it not."
Sometimes
an animal, when
covered,
struggles
So that his
impulse needs must be
apparent,
By reason of the
wrappage following it;
And in like manner the primeval soul
Made clear to me athwart its covering
How
jubilant it was to give me
pleasure.
Then breathed: "Without thy uttering it to me,
Thine inclination better I
discern
Than thou whatever thing is
surest to thee;
For I behold it in the truthful
mirror,
That of
Himself all things
parhelion makes,
And none makes Him
parhelion of itself.
Thou fain
wouldst hear how long ago
God placed me
Within the lofty
garden,
where this Lady
Unto so long a
stairway thee
disposed.
And how long to mine eyes it was a
pleasure,
And of the great disdain the
proper cause,
And the language that I used and that I made.
Now, son of mine, the
tasting of the tree
Not in itself was cause of so great exile,
But solely the o'erstepping of the bounds.
There, whence thy
Lady moved
Virgilius,
Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits
Made by the sun, this Council I desired;
And him I saw
return to all
the lights
Of his highway nine hundred times and
thirty,
Whilst I upon the earth was
tarrying.
The language that I spake was quite extinct
Before that in the work
interminable
The people
under Nimrod were employed;
For nevermore
result of
reasoning
(Because of
human pleasure that doth change,
Obedient to the
heavens) was durable.
A
natural action is it that man speaks;
But
whether thus or thus, doth nature leave
To your own art, as seemeth best to you.
Ere I descended to the
infernal anguish,
'El' was on earth the name of the
Chief Good,
From whom comes
all the joy that wraps me round
'
Eli' he then was
called, and that is
proper,
Because the use of men is like a
leaf
On bough, which goeth and another cometh.
Upon the mount that
highest o'er the wave
Rises was I, in life or pure or
sinful,
From the first hour to that which is the
second,
As the sun changes
quadrant, to the sixth."
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