But those neglected hundredths in our dates
will make of January a spring-song month
before these circling heights send down such rays
that storms of fortune, so long waited for,
will spin the stern to where the prow is now,
so all the fleet will run a proper course,
and fruit will follow truly from the flower.’
Canto XXX
Maybe, around six thousand miles away,
the sixth hour, close to noon, flares out, while earth
inclines its shadow-cone to rest, near level.
At this same time, the mid-point of the sky
will start, so deep above us, to transform,
and some stars lose their semblance in those depths.
Then brightest Aurora who serves the sun
advances and, dawning, the skies, vista
by vista, are closed till even the loveliest is gone.
In this way, too, the victories that play
for ever round the point that conquered me –
enclosed, it seems, by that which they enclose –
was, little by little, quenched before my gaze.
And so, from seeing nothing – and in love –
I turned my eyes towards Beatrice.
If all that has, till this, been said of her
were now enclosed to form one word of praise,
it would not, even so, fulfil my need.
The beauty I saw, transcending every kind,
is far beyond us here – nor only us.
Its maker, I think, alone could know its joy.
From now on, I’ll admit, I’m overwhelmed,
defeated worse than all before – in comic
or in tragic genre – by what my theme demands.
As sunlight trembles in enfeebled eyes,
calling to mind how sweet to me her smile was,
itself deprives my mind of memory.
Not since the day that I, in our first life,
first saw her face until this living sight,
has song in me been cut so cleanly short.
It is, however, right that I stand down –
as every artist, at the utmost, does –
and no more trace her beauty, forming verse.
And so what then she was I now will leave
to clarions far greater than my trumpet sounds,
and draw my vaunting line towards its end.
As she then was – a guide in word and deed,
her work all done – she spoke again: ‘We’ve left
the greatest of material spheres, rising
to light, pure light of intellect, all love,
the love of good in truth, all happiness,
a happiness transcending every rapture.
Here you will see the two great heavenly ranks,
angels and saints – the saints in countenance
as you, on Judgement Day, will see them stand.’
As lights, when flashing suddenly, disperse
the spirits of the retina, and rob
the eye of seeing even strong, bright things,
so, bright around me, shone a living light
that left me, baby-like, in swaddling weaves
of brilliance, so that nothing showed to me.
‘The love that gives this Heaven its quietness
will always make its saving welcome thus,
to form a candle ready for its flame.’
No sooner had these brief words entered me
than I rose up – as truly I could tell –
above the summit of my natural powers.
New seeing-strength I kindled in myself,
so that no light, however crystalline,
could cause my eyes to close in self-defence.
I saw light form a river in full spate,
fire-dazzle-gilded, flowing through verges
painted afresh in colours of wonderful spring.
And rising from that flood, alive, were sparks
that everywhere alighted on the flowers,
like rubies set in gold encirclements –
then all, as though the perfumes made them drunk,
plunged in that swirling miracle once more.
And yet where one sank in, still more spun out.
‘The fine desire that fires and urges you
to gain still fuller news of all you see,
delights me more, the more the longing swells.
And yet before your thirst is satisfied,
you’ll need to drink these waters to the full.’
Those words were hers, the sunlight of my eyes.
Then following: ‘The river and the glint
of topaz, in and out, the smile of grass – these all are
shadowed prefaces that hint at their own truth.
That does not mean that any is, itself,
unripe, acid or green. The lack is yours.
Your sight as yet cannot move proudly on.’
No baby, waking later from its nap
than normally it would, so hurled itself
face down to mother’s milk as I did now.
To make my eyes, as mirrors, better still,
I bent towards the wave that, flowing there,
will sweep us always onward to in-bettering.
I drank to the arching eaves of my brow,
and then saw all anew, as though that length
of light had now, in form, become a round.
If masqueraders, hidden in their veils,
undress those features (not their own) in which
they’d vanished once, their look seems somehow changed.
So now, it seemed, these flowers and flecks of light
altered, to join and celebrate still more.
And I saw, now made known, both heavenly courts.
Splendour of God! Through you I came to see
triumph exalting in the realm of truth.
Grant me true strength to say what then I saw.
There is, above us there, a light that makes
the All-Creator in creation seen
by those who only seeing Him have peace.
This light became a circle in its form,
extending its circumference so far
as might a belt too generous round the sun.
All that appears is made there by a ray
reflected from the curve of that First Sphere
which draws its life and movings from that light.
It is as though the incline of some hill
were mirrored in a lake below, as if
to view itself adorned in flower and richest green.
Above that light, and standing round, I saw
a thousand tiers or more as mirrorings
of those of ours who’ve now returned up there.
Imagine, when the least of all these grades
could gather to itself so great a light,
how great the wealth is at the rose’s fringe.
My eyes, despite such breadth and altitude,
were not confused or blurred but took all in –
the kind and sum of this light-heartedness.
Nothing’s gained here or lost by ‘near’ and ‘far’.
For where God rules without some means between,
the law of nature bears no weight at all.
Into the gold of that now-always rose,
which grows from arc to arc, dilates and breathes
the scent of praise to always-springtime Sun,
she drew me – Beatrice – like someone
yearning, while silent, to say: ‘The wonder!
Look there, how great this white-caped gathering is!
Our city, look! And see how wide it sweeps.
The honoured places – look! – they’re almost full,
and few we long to see are still to come.
Your eyes are fixed upon a single throne,
drawn by the crown already set on that.
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And long before you join this marriage feast,
the soul will sit – imperial in the world –
of noble Arrigo, who came to rule
an Italy unready for him yet.
The blind cupidity bewitching you
has made you all akin to little brats
who – famished, dying – still beat off their nurse.
And in the Sacred Forum one presides
whose public and whose covert deeds will not
accord or travel in a single groove.
But not for long. God will not suffer him
to keep that sacred role. He’ll soon be flung
where Simon Magus gets what he deserves.
The Anagnese Pope will sink still further down.’
Canto XXXII
Heart-whole in pleasure, the contemplative
freely took on himself the teacher’s role,
beginning thus the holy words he spoke:
‘The gash that Mary healed and soothed with oil
was opened first, and then made worse, by her
who sits, so beautiful, at Mary’s feet.
Ranked in the order that the third thrones form,
below Eve, Rachel sits. And then along
from Rachel, as you see, is Beatrice.
Sara, Rebecca, Judith and the one
who bore the mother of the man who sang,
mourning his fault, the “Miserere mei”.
Descending step to step, you see all these
as I, in giving each her name, proceed,
now travelling down this rose from leaf to leaf.
And downward from the seventh of these tiers
(as down to that) the Hebrew women come,
dividing all the curls within that flower.
And these (according to the way their faith
in Christ looked back or forth) here form the wall
that separates the sacred steps in two.
On that side, where the flower is fully grown,
with all its petals at their full extent,
sit those who showed belief in Christ to come.
There on the other side, where unfilled space
still intersects the hemispheres, are those
who turned their countenance to Christ now come.
And where, on this side, there’s the glorious throne
of Heaven’s own Lady and, below, those seats
that, under hers, divide the rose in two,
so, too, across from that, there sits great John.
That saint bore desert and cruel martyrdom,
then, after – till Christ came – two years in Hell;
And under him, elected to divide,
Saint Francis, Benedict, Augustine, too,
with others down to here, from rank to rank.
Look up in wonder at God’s providence.
He’ll fill this garden to the same extent
with those who kept the faith in these two ways.
Know, too, that from the rung that, midway, strikes
the line that marks these two divisions off,
no one will sit by merit of their own –
of others, rather, where conditions hold.
For all of these are spirits loosed from earth
before they, truly, could conceive free choice.
And this, if you will look and listen hard,
will be entirely clear to you. Just note
their faces. Hear, as well, their children-voice.
Now you’re in doubt and, doubting, do not speak.
But I shall disentangle this tight knot,
which your own subtle reasonings have tied.
Within the broad expanse of all this realm
there cannot be a single point that’s chance,
nor any hunger, thirst or misery.
For all that you may see is here decreed
by God’s eternal law. Hence, right and fit,
all corresponds as finger to a ring.
And so it is that, not without good cause,
these children – sped too soon to this true life –
are in their excellences less and more.
The king, through whom this kingdom is at peace,
in such great love, and in such pure delight,
that nothing in our wills dare aim so high,
creating, in his look of happiness,
all minds, bestowed, as he best pleased, his grace
in different ways. The outcome says enough.
And this, expressed and clear in Holy Writ,
is noted in the case of those two twins
who, in their mother’s womb, were moved to wrath.
It follows from the colour of their hair
to what degree of grace the highest light
encrowns most fittingly the head of each.
Therefore, with no regard to how they act,
these are placed here in differing degrees
by difference only of their first sharp sight.
In earliest times, it used to be enough,
to gain salvation, that with innocence
parental faith alone should be conjoined.
Then, when these early epochs were complete,
all males were circumcised to win them powers
appropriate to their wings of innocence.
But, later, when the age of grace arrived,
such innocence – when baptism in Christ
was not fulfilled – was bound on Hell’s first rim.
Return now. See that face resembling Christ
closer than all. For that bright light alone
can make you wholly fit to look on Christ.’
I saw such happiness rain down on her,
borne by those holy intellects – made first
to fly with wings across that heavenly height –
that nothing I had ever seen before
had brought my wondering eyes to such a poise,
nor shown so much to me of how God looks.
And that first angel-love, descending there,
was singing – wings extended in her sight –
‘Ave Maria gratia plena’.
There answered this the sacred cantilene
from every region of the happy court.
At which, their faces showed the more serene.
‘O holy father, who for me could bear
to be down here and leave that lovely place
where, as eternally decreed, you sit,
which is that angel who, with such delight,
looks at our Queen and gazes in her eyes
so deep in love he seems to be on fire?’
I went, in this way, back to learn from him
of one who drew his beauty from Maria,
as, from the sun, the morning star draws light.
‘All prowess, charm and elegance of heart
as may appear in angels or men’s souls
is found in him, and we all wish it so.
For he it is who carried down the palm
to Mary when the only Son of God
chose to take on the weight of human form.
But come now, note and follow with your eyes,
as I go speaking, all the noble sires
of this supremely true imperium.
These two who sit above – the happiest,
in being nearest to the Empress throne –
are as the double root-stock of this rose.
He who sits next in justice, to her left,
is that first father through whose reckless taste
the human species tasted so much gall.
There on the right you see the honoured sire
of Holy Church to whom Christ left in trust
the keys to this most delicate of flowers.
And he who saw, before he came to die,
the heavy times of that beloved bride,
first won upon the Cross with lance and nails,
sits next to him, and next to
him now rests
that lord beneath whose guidance there once lived
a race ungrateful, shifting, obstinate.
Across from Peter, as you see, sits Anne,
so happy as she wonders at her child
she does not move her eyes to sing “Hosannah”.
And facing Adam, father of our tribe,
Lucia sits. When you, in ruin, bent your brows,
Lucia moved that donna to your aid.
But since your time of slumber races by,
at this point we shall end, as tailors do –
who skilfully make skirts from little cloth.
And turn your eyes towards the Primal Love,
so that, in looking there, your eye should pierce
as far as possible His dazzling light.
But lest it be, perhaps, on your frail wings,
thinking you rise beyond, you sink back down,
it’s best that, praying for the gift of grace,
you beg for grace from her who can assist.
And here you’ll follow me with such good heart
that from my words your feelings won’t depart.’
And so he now began his holy prayer.
Canto XXXIII
‘Virgin and mother, daughter of your son,
greater than all in honour and humility,
you are the point that truth eternally
is fixed upon. And you have made the nature
of the human being proud. Its maker, then,
did not disdain to make himself his making.
Love, in your womb, was fanned to fire again.
And here, in this eternal peace, the warmth of love
has brought the Rose to germinate and bloom.
You are, for us, the noon-time torch of love.
You are, among those mortals there below,
the clearest fountain of their living hopes.
You are, in dignity and power, Our Lady.
All who, in wanting grace, do not seek help
from you, might wish to soar yet lack the wings.
Nor in your kindness do you give your aid
to those alone who ask, but often run,
before they ask, to them in generous freedom.
In you is pity, in you compassion,
in you all-giving power. All good in you
is gathered up that creature form can bear.
This man is one who, from the deepest void
in all the universe, has seen thus far,
and one by one, all lives in spirit mode.
To you, a suppliant, he comes, and asks
that, by your grace, he gains the strength to rise
in sight more still to greet the final peace.
I never burned for visions of my own
more than I do that he might see. To you
I offer all my prayers – praying my prayers