Paradiso: Canto XXVI
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."