Shocked, in amazement, like a little boy who always runs back to the one in whom he trusts the most, so I turned to my guide;
3
and she, just like a mother quick to help her pale and breathless son by giving him her voice whose calmness always reassures,
6
said, “Don’t you know that you are up in Heaven, and don’t you know that all is holy here and every act here springs from righteous zeal?
9
Imagine had they sung or had I smiled, what would have happened to you then, if now you are so shaken by a single cry?
12
If you had heard the prayer within their shout you now would know the vengeance yet to come, though you will witness it before you die.
15
The sword of Here on High cuts not in haste nor is it slow—except as it appears to those who wait for it in hope or fear.
18
But now turn your attention to the rest; if you allow my words to guide your eyes, many illustrious spirits you will see. ”
21
As she directed me I turned my eyes and saw hundreds of little globes of fire growing in beauty through each other’s light.
24
I stood there like the anxious man restrained, forced to hold back the thrust of his desire, longing to ask while fearing to offend;
27
and then the largest and the brightest one among those pearls came forward to fulfill my silent longing to know who he was.
30
Then from inside it I heard words: “If you could see, as I do, with what love we burn, you would have shared your silent thought with us.
33
But rather than to cause you some delay in reaching your high goal, I shall reply directly to the question you hold back.
36
The summit of that mountain on whose slope Cassino lies was once inhabited by people with perverse and false beliefs;
39
I was the first to carry up to them the name of Him Who brought down to the earth that truth which gives mankind the strength to rise;
42
such grace shone down on me that I reclaimed all the surrounding towns, converting them from pagan worship that seduced the world.
45
These other flames were all contemplatives, men who were kindled by the warmth that breeds the flowers and the fruits of holiness.
48
28. The “largest and the brightest one” is the spirit of St. Benedict, founder of monasticism in the Western Church.
37-39. Monte Cassino, which overlooks the Liri Valley, is approximately halfway between Naples and Rome. The town of Cassino is located at the mountain’s base.
Here is Macarius and Romuald, here are my brothers who kept to the cloisters, and, never roaming, kept a steadfast heart. ”
51
And I to him: “The love you have shown me in speaking this way and the good intentions I truly see glowing in all your fire
54
allow my confidence to open wide: it grows, unfolding petals like a rose warmed by the sun, till now it is full blown:
57
therefore, I pray you father, please tell me, assure me: do I have sufficient grace to see the unveiled image of your face?”
60
Whereon he said: “Brother, your high desire shall be fulfilled in the last sphere, for there not only mine but every wish comes true;
63
for there, and only there, is every wish become a perfect, ripe, entire one, there where each part is always where it was:
66
that sphere is in no space, it has no pole, and since our ladder reaches to that height, its full extent is stolen from your sight.
69
It was the patriarch Jacob who saw our ladder stretch to touch the final height, the time he dreamed of it so thronged with angels.
72
49. Several saints arc known by the name Macarius, the two most famous being St. Macarius the Elder (301-391), also called the Egyptian, and St. Macarius the Younger of Alexandria (d. 404). Both were disciples of St. Anthony, St. Macarius the Younger directed the activities of five thousand monks, and is known as the founder of Eastern monasticism. As such, he can be viewed as the counterpart of St. Benedict, and is probably the saint to which Dante refers in this sphere. Born ca. 950 in Ravenna of the Onesti family, Romuald founded the Order of Camaldoli, or reformed Benedictines.
70-72. Jacob “dreamed that a ladder was set upon the ground with its top reaching to heaven; angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (Genesis 28:12).
But now no man will lift a foot from earth and try to climb it, and my Rule is worth the wasted parchment it is written on.
75
The walls that used to be our abbey cells are dens for beasts now, and the cowls monks wear are just so many sacks of rotting meal.
78
The greed of usury, however gross, offends God less than does that holy fruit which drives the hungry hearts of monks insane;
81
for what the Church has in its keeping should be for the poor who ask it in God’s name, not for the families of monks—or worse.
84
The flesh of mortals is so weak: on earth a good beginning does not last as long as the oak’s springing to the acorn’s birth.
87
Peter built his without silver or gold, and I constructed mine with prayer and fast while Francis, his convent, with humbleness;
90
if you examine each one’s origins, then look again at what became of it, you see the white has withered into dark.
93
Yet Jordan’s waters at the will of God flowed backward and the Sea fled—miracles far greater than if God now helped His Church. ”
96
These were his words to me; then he drew back into his company whose flames closed in, and like a whirlwind, they were swept on high.
99
With a mere gesture my sweet lady sped me up behind them, up the ladder’s rungs, my nature conquered by her greater power.
102
Down here on earth where men go up or down by natural means, there never was a speed to match the motion of my wings up here.
105
Reader, as I hope ever to return here to this holy triumph for whose sake, I weep my sins and beat my breast—no quicker
108
could you have pulled your finger from a flame and thrust it in, than I caught sight and was already in the sign that follows Taurus.
111
O glorious constellation! O mighty stars pregnant with holy power which is the source of all of whatever genius may be mine,
114
in company with you there rose and set He who is father of all mortal life when I drew my first breath of Tuscan air;
117
and then, when that grace was bestowed on me to enter the great sphere that makes you turn, to your own zone of stars I was assigned!
120
To you devoutly my soul breathes its prayer to grant it strength enough for what is now the hardest phase to reach the journey’s end.
123
“You are so close to final blessedness, ” said Beatrice, “that you now must keep your eyes unclouded and your vision keen;
126
and so, before insiding further here, look down and see how vast a universe I have already put beneath your feet,
129
so that your heart, knowing the utmost joy, may greet that host of the Triumphant who come in joy through this ethereal round.
132
My vision travelled back through all the spheres, through seven heavens, and then I saw our globe; it made me smile, it looked so paltry there.
135
115-116. The sun was rising and setting in Gemini (May 21-June 21) when Dante was born in 1265. The precise day of Dante’s birth, however, is not known.
I hold that mind as best that holds our world for least, and I
consider truly wise the man who turns his thoughts to other things.
138
I saw Latona’s daughter glowing full without those shadows which had led me once to think that she was rare and dense in parts.
141
On your son’s face, Hyperion, my eyes could gaze, and I saw, circling close to him, how Maia and Dione’s children move;
144
From there I saw the tempering of Jove between his son and sire—and it was clear how they could change position in their course.
147
All seven at one time were visible: I saw how vast they were, how swift they spun, and all the distances between the spheres;
150
as for the puny threshing-ground that drives us mad—I, turning with the timeless Twins, saw all of it, from hilltops to its shores.
153
Then, to the eyes of beauty my eyes turned.
139-141. Latona’s daughter is the moon, or Diana, sired by Jupiter.
142-143. Hyperion, one of the Titans, was father of Helios, the Sun god in earliest Greek mythology (called Sol by the Romans). For the first time in the poem the Pilgrim can bear to look into the sun, an indication of his growth in vision and understanding.
144. Maia, the daughter of Atlas, produced Mercury by Jupiter. Dione’s child was Venus. All of these references are to the parents of gods for whom heavenly bodies were named.
145-147. Jove’s son was Mars and his sire Saturn. Jove (Jupiter) is referred to as “tempering” because of its location in the planetary system: It is between the heat of Mars and the cold of Saturn.
CANTO XXIII
NOW IN THE sphere of the fixed stars Beatrice is anxiously waiting for something to appear. Before long the sky begins to lighten and Beatrice announces the arrival of the Church Triumphant. Looking up, the Pilgrim sees the light of Christ shining on the whole assembly, and he is so transfixed and transported by the sight of Him that he can no longer remember what he did at that point. The Pilgrim can now look upon the smiling face of Beatrice, and when he does, he is forced to admit that her beauty defies description. Beatrice tells him to look again at the Triumph of Christ. By this time Christ has ascended, but His splendid light shines down on everyone from above as the Pilgrim fixes his eyes on the brightest of the remaining lights, the Virgin Mary, who is crowned by a torch borne by an angel who circles the Virgin summoning her to follow her Son to the highest sphere. They ascend while all the souls of the Church, their arms stretched towards the heavens, begin to sing with unforgettable beauty the hymn Regina celi.
As a bird quiet among the leaves she loves sits on the nest of her beloved young all through the night that hides things from our sight,
3
anxious to look upon her longed-for ones, eager to go in search of food for them (her heavy labors she performs with joy),
6
foretelling daybreak from an open bough, she waits there for the sun with glowing love, her gaze fixed on the birth of a new day—
9
just so my lady waited, vigilant, intense, as she looked at that part of Heaven beneath which the sun’s movement seems so slow;
12
then I, who saw her poised in longing there, became like one who wishes he had more and lets his hope feed on anticipation.
15
But time between the when was quick to pass— I mean the when of waiting and beholding the heavens growing bright and brighter still.
18
And Beatrice said: “Behold the hosts of Christ in triumph, and see all the fruit harvested from the turning of these spheres. ”
21
I saw her face aflame with so much light, her eyes so bright with holy happiness, that I shall have to leave it undescribed.
24
As in the clearness of a fullmooned sky Trivia smiles among eternal nymphs who paint the depths of Heaven everywhere,
27
I saw, above a myriad of lights, one Sun that lit them all, even as our sun illuminates the stars of his domain;
30
and through its living light there poured the glow of its translucent substance, bright, so bright that my poor eyes could not endure the sight.
33
O Beatrice, loving guide, sweet one! She answered: “That which overcomes you now is strength against which nothing has defense.
36
Within it dwell the wisdom and the power that opened between Heaven and earth the road mankind for ages longed for ardently. ”
39
As fire when it expands within a cloud must soon explode because it has no space, and, though against its nature, crash to earth,
42
so my mind there amid so rich a feast began to swell until it broke its bounds, and what became of it, it does not know.
45
“Open your eyes, look straight into my face! Such things have you been witness to that now you have the power to endure my smile. ”
48
25-27. Trivia is another name for Diana, the goddess of the moon.
As one just shaken from a dreamy sleep who having dreamed has now forgotten all and strives in vain to bring it back to mind,
51
so I was hearing her self-offering, an invitation that can never be erased within the book of my past life.
54
If at this moment all the tongues of verse, which Polyhymnia and her sisters nourished with their sweet milk, sang to assist my art,
57
their singing would not come to one one-thousandth part of the truth about her sacred smile nor how it set her holy face aglow;
60
so I find that my consecrated poem describing Paradise will have to make a leap, like one who finds his road is blocked.
63
Now bear in mind the weight of my poem’s theme, think of the mortal shoulders it rests on, and do not blame me if I stagger here:
66
this stretch of sea my vessel’s prow now dares to cut is no place for a little boat nor for a captain who would spare himself.
69
“Why are you so enamored of my face that you do not turn to the lovely garden flowering in the radiance of Christ?
72
There is the Rose in which the Word of God took on the flesh, and there the lilies are whose fragrance led mankind down the good path. ”
75
Thus Beatrice. And I, eager to serve her every wish, surrendered once again my frail eyes to the battle of the light.
78
56. Polyhymnia is the Muse of songs to the gods, and her “sisters” are all the other Muses.
Sometimes on cloudy days my eyes have seen a ray of pure sunlight come streaming through the broken clouds and light a field of flowers,
81
just so I saw there hosts of countless splendors struck from above by ardent rays of love, but could not see the source of such a blaze.
84
O Mighty Force that seals them with such light, You raised yourself on high so that my eyes, powerless in your presence, might perceive.
87
The sound of that sweet flower’s name, the one I pray to night and day, drew all my soul into the vision of that flame of flames;
90
and when both of my eyes revealed to me how rich and glorious was that living star that reigns in Heaven, as it had reigned on Earth,
93
down from Heaven’s height there came a flaming torch shaped in a ring, as if it were a crown, that spun around the glory of her light.
96
The sweetest sounding notes enrapturing a man’s soul here below would sound just like a clap of thunder crashing from a cloud
99
compared to the melodious tones that poured from the sweet lyre crowning the lovely sapphire whose grace ensapphires the heaven’s brightest sphere:
102
“I am angelic love encompassing the joy supreme who breathed from out the womb which was the place
where our Desire dwelt,
105
92. The “living star” is Mary, who in the liturgy of the Church is referred to as the “Morning Star” as well as the “Star of the Sea. ”
94-96. The “flaming torch” is probably the loving flame of the Angel Gabriel. His shaping of a ring in the form of a crown around the “glory of her light” is symbolic of the Annunciation.
105. Here Desire is Christ.
and I shall circle you, Heavenly Lady while you follow your Son, to highest heaven and with your presence make it more divine. ”
108
With this the circling melody was sealed, and all the other lights within that sphere sang out the Blessed Virgin Mary’s name.
111
The regal mantle folding itself round the turning spheres, and nearest to the breath and ways of God it burns and quickens most,
114
was curving round us with its inner shore at such a distance that from where I stood as yet there was no sign that it was there;
117
and so my mortal eyes did not have strength enough to see the crowned flame as it rose, higher and higher, following her son.
120
And as an infant after it has suckled will raise its arms up searching for its mother, expressing all the love with which it glows,
123
so I saw all those radiances stretch their flame on high, thus making clear to me how deep their love, how much they cherished Mary.
126
There they remained suspended in my sight singing “Regina celi” in tones so sweet, the joy of it will never leave my mind.
129
O what abundant grace is stored up here inside those richest coffers who below in our world sowed the land with their good seed!
132
Herein they truly live and they enjoy the wealth their tears had won for them while they in Babylonian exile scorned all gold.