Canto II   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Dante and his celestial guide enter the moon. The cause of the spots or shadows, which appear in that body, is explained to him.   
    
    
ALL ye, who in small bark have following sail’d,      
Eager to listen, on the adventurous track      
Of my proud keel, that singing cuts her way,      
Backward return with speed, and your own shores      
Revisit; nor put out to open sea,           5   
Where losing me, perchance ye may remain      
Bewilder’d in deep maze. The way I pass,      
Ne’er yet was run: Minerva breathes the gale;      
Apollo guides me; and another Nine,      
To my rapt sight, the arctic beams reveal.           10   
Ye other few who have outstretch’d the neck      
Timely for food of angels, on which here      
They live, yet never know satiety;      
Through the deep brine ye fearless may put out      
Your vessel; marking well the furrow broad           15   
Before you in the wave, that on both sides      
Equal returns. Those, glorious, who pass’d o’er      
To Colchis, wonder’d not as ye will do,      
When they saw Jason following the plough.      
  The increate perpetual thirst, that draws           20   
Toward the realm of God’s own form, bore us      
Swift almost as the Heaven ye behold.      
  Beatrice upward gazed, and I on her;      
And in such space as on the notch a dart      
Is placed, then loosen’d flies, I saw myself           25   
Arrived, where wonderous thing engaged my sight.      
Whence she, to whom no care of mine was hid,      
Turning to me, with aspect glad as fair,      
Bespake me: “Gratefully direct thy mind      
To God, through whom to this first star 1 we come.”           30   
  Meseem’d as if a cloud had cover’d us,      
Translucent, solid, firm, and polish’d bright,      
Like adamant, which the sun’s beam had smit.      
Within itself the ever-during pearl      
Received us; as the wave a ray of light           35   
Receives, and rests unbroken. If I then      
Was of corporeal frame, and it transcend      
Our weaker thought, how one dimension thus      
Another could endure, which needs must be      
If body enter body; how much more           40   
Must the desire inflame us to behold      
That Essence, which discovers by what means      
God and our nature join’d! There will be seen      
That, which we hold through faith; not shown by proof,      
But in itself intelligibly plain,           45   
E’en as the truth that man at first believes.      
  I answer’d: “Lady! I with thoughts devout,      
Such as I best can frame, give thanks to Him,      
Who hath removed me from the mortal world.      
But tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots           50   
Upon this body, which below on earth      
Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint?”      
  She somewhat smiled, then spake: “If mortals err      
In their opinion, when the key of sense      
Unlocks not, surely wonder’s weapon keen           55   
Ought not to pierce thee: since thou find’st, the wings      
Of reason to pursue the senses’ flight      
Are short. But what thy own thought is, declare.”      
  Then I: “What various here above appears,      
Is caused, I deem, by bodies dense or rare.”           60   
  She then resumed: “Thou certainly wilt see      
In falsehood thy belief o’erwhelm’d, if well      
Thou listen to the arguments which I      
Shall bring to face it. The eighth sphere displays      
Numberless lights, the which, in kind and size,           65   
May be remark’d of different aspects:      
If rare or dense of that were cause alone,      
One single virtue then would be in all;      
Alike distributed, or more, or less.      
Different virtues needs must be the fruits           70   
Of formal principles; and these, save one,      
Will by thy reasoning be destroy’d. Beside,      
If rarity were of that dusk the cause,      
Which thou inquirest, either in some part      
That planet must throughout be void, nor fed           75   
With its own matter; or, as bodies share      
Their fat and leanness, in like manner this      
Must in its volume change the leaves.  2 The first,      
If it were true, had through the sun’s eclipse      
Been manifested, by transparency           80   
Of light, as through aught rare beside effused.      
But this is not. Therefore remains to see      
The other cause: and, if the other fall,      
Erroneous so must prove what seem’d to thee.      
If not from side to side this rarity           85   
Pass through, there needs must be a limit, whence      
Its contrary no further lets it pass.      
And hence the beam, that from without proceeds,      
Must be pour’d back; as colour comes, through glass      
Reflected, which behind it lead conceals.           90   
Now wilt thou say, that there of murkier hue,      
Than, in the other part, the ray is shown,      
By being thence refracted farther back.      
From this perplexity will free thee soon      
Experience, if thereof thou trial make,           95   
The mountain whence your arts derive their streams.      
Three mirrors shalt thou take, and two remove      
From thee alike; and more remote the third,      
Betwixt the former pair, shall meet thine eyes:      
Then turn’d toward them, cause behind thy back           100   
A light to stand, that on the three shall shine,      
And thus reflected come to thee from all.      
Though that, beheld most distant, do not stretch      
A space so ample, yet in brightness thou      
Wilt own it equaling the rest. But now,           105   
As under snow the ground, if the warm ray      
Smites it, remains dismantled of the hue      
And cold, that cover’d it before; so thee,      
Dismantled in thy mind, I will inform      
With light so lively, that the tremulous beam           110   
Shall quiver where it falls. Within the heaven, 3      
Where peace divine inhabits, circles round      
A body, in whose virtue lies the being      
Of all that it contains. The following Heaven,      
That hath so many lights, this being divides,           115   
Through different essences, from it distinct,      
And yet contain’d within it. The other orbs      
Their separate distinctions variously      
Dispose, for their own seed and produce apt.      
Thus do these organs of the world proceed,           120   
As thou beholdest now, from step to step;      
Their influences from above deriving,      
And thence transmitting downward. Mark me well;      
How through this passage to the truth I ford,      
The truth thou lovest; that thou henceforth, alone,           125   
Mayst know to keep the shallows, safe, untold.      
  “The virtue and motion of the sacred orbs,      
As mallet by the workman’s hand, must needs      
By blessed movers 4 be inspired. This Heaven, 5      
Made beauteous by so many luminaries,           130   
From the deep spirit, 6 that moves its circling sphere,      
Its image takes and impress as a seal:      
And as the soul, that dwells within your dust,      
Through members different, yet together form’d,      
In different powers resolves itself; e’en so           135   
The intellectual efficacy unfolds      
Its goodness multiplied throughout the stars;      
On its own unity revolving still.      
Different virtue 7 compact different      
Makes with the precious body it enlivens,           140   
With which it knits, as life in you is knit.      
From its original nature full of joy,      
The virtue mingled through the body shines,      
As joy through pupil of the living eye.      
From hence proceeds that which from light to light           145   
Seems different, and not from dense or rare.      
This is the formal cause, that generates,      
Proportion’d to its power, the dusk or clear.”      
    
Note 1. “This first star.” The moon. [back]   
Note 2. “Change the leaves.” Would, like leaves of parchment, be darker in some parts than in others. [back]   
Note 3. According to our Poet’s system, there are ten Heavens. The Heaven, “where peace divine inhabits,” is the empyrean; the body within it, that “circles round,” is the primum mobile; “the following Heaven,” that of the fixed stars; and “the other orbs” the seven lower Heavens, are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. Thus Milton, “Paradise Lost” b. iii. 481. [back]   
Note 4. “By blessed movers.” By Angels. [back]   
Note 5. “This Heaven.” The Heaven of fixed stars. [back]   
Note 6. “The deep spirit.” The moving Angel. [back]   
Note 7. “Different virtue.” “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star in glory.”—1 Cor. xv. 41

   
Canto III   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—In the moon Dante meets with Piccarda, the sister of Forese, who tells him that this planet is allotted to those, who, after having made profession of chastity and a religious life, had been compelled to violate their vows; and she then points out to him the spirit of the Empress Costanza.   
    
    
THAT sun, 1 which erst with love my bosom warmed,      
Had of fair truth unveil’d the sweet aspect,      
By proof of right, and of the false reproof;      
And I, to own myself convinced and free      
Of doubt, as much as needed, raised my head           5   
Erect for speech. But soon a sight appear’d,      
Which, so intent to mark it, held me fix’d      
That of confession I no longer thought.      
  As through translucent and smooth glass, or wave      
Clear and unmoved, and flowing not so deep           10   
As that its bed is dark, the shape returns      
So faint of our impictured lineaments,      
That, on white forehead set, a pearl as strong      
Comes to the eye; such saw I many a face,      
All stretch’d to speak; from whence I straight conceived,           15   
Delusion 2 opposite to that, which raised,      
Between the man and fountain, amorous flame.      
  Sudden, as I perceived them, deeming these      
Reflected semblances, to see of whom      
They were, I turn’d mine eyes, and nothing saw;           20   
Then turn’d them back, directed on the light      
Of my sweet guide, who, smiling, shot forth beams      
From her celestial eyes. “Wonder not thou,”      
She cried, “at this my smiling, when I see      
Thy childish judgment; since not yet on truth           25   
It rests the foot, but, as it still is wont,      
Makes thee fall back in unsound vacancy.      
True substances are these, which thou behold’st,      
Hither through failure of their vow exiled.      
But speak thou with them; listen, and believe,           30   
That the true light, which fills them with desire,      
Permits not from its beams their feet to stray.”      
  Straight to the shadow, which for converse seem’d      
Most earnest, I address’d me; and began      
As one by over-eagerness perplex’d:           35   
“O spirit, born of joy! who in the rays      
Of life eternal, of that sweetness know’st      
The flavour, which, not tasted, passes far      
All apprehension; me it well would please,      
If thou wouldst tell me of thy name, and this           40   
Your station here.” Whence she with kindness prompt      
And eyes glist’ring with smiles: “Our charity,      
To any wish by justice introduced,      
Bars not the door; no more than She above,      
Who would have all her court be like herself.           45   
I was a virgin sister in the earth;      
And if thy mind observe me well, this form,      
With such addition graced of loveliness,      
Will not conceal me long; but thou wilt know      
Piccarda, 3 in the tardiest sphere thus placed,           50   
Here ’mid these other blessed also blest.      
Our hearts, whose high affections burn alone      
With pleasure from the Holy Spirit conceived,      
Admitted to His order, dwell in joy.      
And this condition, which appears so low,           55   
Is for this cause assign’d us, that our vows      
Were, in some part, neglected and made void.”      
  Whence I to her replied: “Something divine      
Beams in your countenances wondrous fair;      
From former knowledge quite transmitting you.           60   
Therefore to recollect was I so slow.      
But what thou say’st hath to my memory      
Given now such aid, that to retrace your forms      
Is easier. Yet inform me, ye, who here      
Are happy; long ye for a higher place,           65   
More to behold, and more in love to dwell?”      
  She with those other spirits gently smiled;      
Then answer’d with such gladness, that she seem’d      
With love’s first flame to glow: “Brother! our will      
Is, in composure, settled by the power           70   
Of charity, who makes us will alone      
What we possess, and naught beyond desire:      
If we should wish to be exalted more,      
Then must our wishes jar with the high will      
Of Him, who sets us here; which in these orbs           75   
Thou wilt confess not possible, if here      
To be in charity must needs befall,      
And if her nature well thou contemplate.      
Rather it is inherent in this state      
Of blessedness, to keep ourselves within           80   
The Divine Will, by which our wills with His      
Are one. So that as we, from step to step,      
Are placed throughout this kingdom, pleases all,      
Even as our King, who in us plants His will;      
And in His will is our tranquillity:           85   
It is the mighty ocean, whither tends      
Whatever it creates and Nature makes.”      
  Then saw I clearly how each spot in Heaven      
Is Paradise, though with like gracious dew      
The supreme virtue shower not over all.           90   
  But as it chances, if one sort of food      
Hath satiated, and of another still      
The appetite remains, that this is ask’d,      
And thanks for that return’d; e’en so did I,      
In word and motion, bent from her to learn           95   
What web it was, 4 through which she had not drawn      
The shuttle to its point. She thus began:      
“Exalted worth and perfectness of life      
The Lady 5 higher up inshrine in Heaven,      
By whose pure laws upon your nether earth           100   
The robe and veil they wear; to that intent,      
That e’en till death they may keep watch, or sleep,      
With their great Bridegroom, who accepts each vow,      
Which to His gracious pleasure love conforms.      
I from the world, to follow her, when young           105   
Escaped; and, in her vesture mantling me,      
Made promise of the way her sect enjoins.      
Thereafter men, for ill than good more apt,      
Forth snatch’d me from the pleasant cloister’s pale.      
God knows 6 how, after that, my life was framed.           110   
This other splendid shape, which thou behold’st      
At my right side, burning with all the light      
Of this our orb, what of myself I tell      
May to herself apply. From her, like me      
A sister, with like violence were torn           115   
The saintly folds, that shaded her fair brows.      
E’en when she to the world again was brought      
In spite of her own will and better wont,      
Yet not for that the bosom’s inward veil      
Did she renounce. This is the luminary           120   
Of mighty Constance, 7 who from that loud blast,      
Which blew the second 8 over Suabia’s realm,      
That power produced, which was the third and last.”      
  She ceased from further talk, and then began      
“Ave Maria” singing; and with that song           125   
Vanish’d, as heavy substance through deep wave.      
  Mine eye, that, far as it was capable,      
Pursued her, when in dimness she was lost,      
Turn’d to the mark where greater want impell’d      
And bent on Beatrice all its gaze.           130   
But she, as lightning, beam’d upon my looks;      
So that the sight sustain’d it not at first.      
Whence I to question her became less prompt.      
    
Note 1. “That sun.” Beatrice. [back]   
Note 2. “Delusion.” “An error the contrary to that of Narcissus; because he mistook a shadow for a substance; I, a substance for a shadow.” [back]   
Note 3. “Piccarda.” The sister of Corso Donati, and of Forese, whom we have seen in the Purgatory, Canto xxiv. Petrarch has been supposed to allude to this lady in his “Triumph of Chastity,” v. 160, etc. [back]   
Note 4. “What vow of religious life it was that she had been hindered from completing, had been compelled to break.” [back]   
Note 5. St. Clare, the foundress of the order called after her. She was born at Assisi, in 1193, and died in 1253. [back]   
Note 6. Rodolfo da Tossignano, Hist. Seraph. Relig., relates the following legend of Piccarda: “Her brother Corso, inflamed with rage against his virgin sister, having joined with him Farinata, an infamous assassin, and twelve other abandoned ruffians, entered the monastery by a ladder, and carried away his sister forcibly to his own house; and then tearing off her religious habit, compelled her to go in a secular garment to her nuptials. Before the spouse of Christ came together with her new husband, she knelt down before a crucifix and recommended her virginity to Christ. Soon after her whole body was smitten with leprosy; in a few days, through the divine disposal, she passed with a palm of virginity to the Lord. [back]   
Note 7. Daughter of Ruggieri, King of Sicily, who being taken by force out of a monastery was married to the Emperor Henry VI and by him was mother of Frederick II. She was fifty years old or more at the time, and “because it was not credited that she could have a child at that age, she was delivered in a pavilion, and it was given out that any lady, who pleased, was at liberty to see her.” [back]   
Note 8. Henry VI, son of Frederick I, was the second emperor of the house of Suabia; and his son Frederick II “the third and last.”

Canto IV   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—While they still continue in the moon, Beatrice removes certain doubts which Dante had conceived respecting the place assigned to the blessed, and respecting the will absolute or conditional. He inquires whether it is possible to make satisfaction for a vow broken.   
    
    
BETWEEN two kinds of food, both equally      
Remote and tempting, first a man might die      
Of hunger, ere he one could freely chuse.      
E’en so would stand a lamb between the maw      
Of two fierce wolves, in dread of both alike:           5   
E’en so between two deer a dog would stand.      
Wherefore, if I was silent, fault nor praise      
I to myself impute; by equal doubts      
Held in suspense; since of necessity      
It happen’d. Silent was I, yet desire           10   
Was painted in my looks; and thus I spake      
My wish more earnestly than language could.      
  As Daniel, 1 when the haughty king he freed      
From ire, that spurr’d him on to deeds unjust      
And violent; so did Beatrice then.           15   
  “Well I discern,” she thus her words address’d,      
“How thou art drawn by each of these desires; 2      
So that thy anxious thought is in itself      
Bound up and stifled, nor breathes freely forth.      
Thou arguest: if the good intent remain;           20   
What reason that another’s violence      
Should stint the measure of my fair desert?      
  “Cause too thou find’st for doubt, in that it seems,      
That spirits to the stars, as Plato 3 deem’d,      
Return. These are the questions which thy will           25   
Urge equally; and therefore I, the first,      
Of that 4 will treat which hath the more of gall. 5      
Of Seraphim 6 he who is most enskied,      
Moses and Samuel, and either John      
Chuse which thou wilt, nor even Mary’s self,           30   
Have not in any other Heaven their seats,      
Than have those spirits which so late thou saw’st;      
Nor more or fewer years exist; but all      
Make the first circle 7 beauteous, diversely      
Partaking of sweet life, as more or less           35   
Afflation of eternal bliss pervades them.      
Here were they shown thee, not that fate assigns      
This for their sphere, but for a sign to thee      
Of that celestial furthest from the height.      
Thus needs, that ye may apprehend, we speak:           40   
Since from things sensible alone ye learn      
That, which, digested rightly, after turns      
To intellectual. For no other cause      
The Scripture, condescending graciously      
To your perception, hands and feet to God           45   
Attributes, nor so means: and holy Church      
Doth represent with human countenance      
Gabriel, and Michael, and him who made      
Tobias whole. Unlike what here thou seest,      
The judgment of Timæus, who affirms           50   
Each soul restored to its particular star;      
Believing it to have been taken thence,      
When nature gave it to inform her mold:      
Yet to appearance his intention is      
Not what his words declare: and so to shun           55   
Derision, haply thus he hath disguised      
His true opinion. If his meaning be,      
That to the influencing of these orbs revert      
The honour and the blame in human acts,      
Perchance he doth not wholly miss the truth.           60   
This principle, not understood aright,      
Erewhile perverted well-nigh all the world;      
So that it fell to fabled names of Jove,      
And Mercury, and Mars. That other doubt,      
Which moves thee, is less harmful; for it brings           65   
No peril of removing thee from me.      
“That, to the eye of man, 8 our justice seems      
Unjust, is argument for faith, and not      
For heretic declension. But, to the end      
This truth 9 may stand more clearly in your view,           70   
I will content thee even to thy wish.      
  “If violence be, when that which suffers, nought      
Consents to that which forceth, not for this      
These spirits stood exculpate. For the will,      
That wills not, still survives, unquench’d, and doth,           75   
As nature doth in fire, though violence      
Wrest it a thousand times; for, if it yield      
Or more or less, so far it follows force.      
And thus did these, when they had power to seek      
The hallow’d place again. In them, had will           80   
Been perfect, such as once upon the bars      
Held Laurence 10 firm, or wrought in Scævola      
To his own hand remorseless; to the path,      
Whence they were drawn, their steps had hasten’d back,      
When liberty return’d: but in too few,           85   
Resolve, so stedfast, dwells. And by these words,      
If duly weigh’d, that argument is void,      
Which oft might have perplex’d thee still. But now      
Another question thwarts thee, which, to solve,      
Might try thy patience without better aid.           90   
I have, no doubt, instill’d into thy mind,      
That blessed spirit may not lie; since near      
The source of primal truth it dwells for aye:      
And thou mightst after of Piccarda learn      
That Constance held affection to the veil;           95   
So that she seems to contradict me here.      
Not seldom, brother, it hath chanced for men      
To do what they had gladly left undone;      
Yet, to shun peril, they have done amiss:      
E’en as Alcmæon, at his father’s 11 suit           100   
Slew his own mother; 12 so made pitiless,      
Not to lose pity. On this point bethink thee,      
That force and will are blended in such wise      
As not to make the offence excusable.      
Absolute will agrees not to the wrong;           105   
But inasmuch as there is fear of woe      
From non-compliance, it agrees. Of will 13      
Thus absolute, Piccarda spake, and I      
Of the other; so that both have truly said.”      
  Such was the flow of that pure rill, that well’d           110   
From forth the fountain of all truth; and such      
The rest, that to my wandering thoughts I found.      
  “O thou, of primal love the prime delight,      
Goddess!” I straight replied, “whose lively words      
Still shed new heat and vigour through my soul;           115   
Affection fails me to requite thy grace      
With equal sum of gratitude: be His      
To recompense, who sees and can reward thee.      
Well I discern, that by that Truth 14 alone      
Enlighten’d, beyond which no truth may roam,           120   
Our mind can satisfy her thirst to know:      
Therein she resteth, e’en as in his lair      
The wild beast, soon as she hath reach’d that bound.      
And she hath power to reach it; else desire      
Were given to no end. And thence doth doubt           125   
Spring, like a shoot, around the stock of truth;      
And it is nature which, from height to height,      
On to the summit prompts us. This invites,      
This doth assure me, Lady! reverently      
To ask thee of another truth, that yet           130   
Is dark to me. I fain would know, if man      
By other works well done may so supply      
The failure of his vows, that in your scale      
They lack not weight.” I spake; and on me straight      
Beatrice look’d, with eyes that shot forth sparks           135   
Of love celestial, in such copious stream,      
That, virtue sinking in me overpower’d,      
I turn’d; and downward bent, confused, my sight.      
    
Note 1. “Daniel.” See Dan. ii. Beatrice did for Dante what Daniel did for Nebuchadnezzar, when he freed the King from the uncertainty respecting his dream, which had enraged him against the Chaldeans. See Hell, Canto xiv. [back]   
Note 2. His desire to have each of the doubts, which Beatrice mentions, resolved. [back]   
Note 3. “Plato.” Plato, Timæus, v. ix. p. 326. “The Creator, when he had framed the universe, distributed to the stars an equal number of souls, appointing to each soul its several star.” [back]   
Note 4. “Of that.” Plato’s opinion. [back]   
Note 5. Which is the more dangerous. [back]   
Note 6. She first resolves his doubt whether souls do not return to their own stars, as he had read in the Timæus of Plato. Angels, then, and beatified spirits, she declares, dwell all and eternally together, only partaking more or less of the divine glory, in the empyrean; although, in condescension to human understanding, they appear to have different spheres allotted to them. [back]   
Note 7. “The first circle.” The empyrean. [back]   
Note 8. “That the ways of divine justice are often inscrutable to man, ought rather to be a motive to faith than an inducement to heresy.” [back]   
Note 9. “This truth.” That it is no impeachment of God’s justice, if merit be lessened through compulsion of others, without any failure of good intention on the part of the meritorious. After all, Beatrice ends by admitting that there was a defect in the will, which hindered Constance and the others from seizing the first opportunity of returning to the monastic life. [back]   
Note 10. Martyr of the third century. [back]   
Note 11. “His father’s.” Amphiaraüs. [back]   
Note 12. “His own mother.” Eriphyle. [back]   
Note 13. “Of will.” What Piccarda asserts of Constance, that she retained her affection to the monastic life, is said absolutely and without relation to circumstances; and that, which I affirm, is spoken of the will conditionally and respectively: so that “both have truly said.” [back]   
Note 14. The light of divine truth.

Canto V   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The question proposed in the last Canto is answered. Dante ascends with Beatrice to the planet Mercury, which is the second heaven; and here he finds a multitude of spirits, one of whom offers to satisfy him of anything he may desire to know from them.   
    
    
“IF beyond earthly wont, 1 the flame of love      
Illume me, so that I o’ercome thy power      
Of vision, marvel not: but learn the cause      
In that perfection of the sight, which, soon      
As apprehending, hasteneth on to reach           5   
The good it apprehends. I well discern,      
How in thine intellect already shines      
The light eternal, which to view alone      
Ne’er fails to kindle love; and if aught else      
Your love seduces, ’tis but that it shows           10   
Some ill-mark’d vestige of that primal beam.      
  “This wouldst thou know: if failure of the vow      
By other service may be so supplied,      
As from self-question to assure the soul.”      
  Thus she her words, not heedless of my wish,           15   
Began; and thus, as one who breaks not off      
Discourse, continued in her saintly strain.      
“Supreme of gifts, 2 which God, creating, gave      
Of His free bounty, sign most evident      
Of goodness, and in His account most prized           20   
Was liberty of will; the boon, wherewith      
All intellectual creatures, and them sole,      
He hath endow’d. Hence now thou mayst infer      
Of what high worth the vow, which so is framed      
That when man offers, God well-pleased accepts:           25   
For in the compact between God and him,      
This treasure, such as I describe it to thee,      
He makes the victim; and of his own act.      
What compensation therefore may he find?      
If that, whereof thou hast oblation made,           30   
By using well thou think’st to consecrate,      
Thou wouldst of theft do charitable deed.      
Thus I resolve thee of the greater point.      
  “But forasmuch as holy Church, herein      
Dispensing, seems to contradict the truth           35   
I have discover’d to thee, yet behoves      
Thou rest a little longer at the board,      
Ere the crude aliment which thou hast ta’en,      
Digested fitly, to nutrition turn.      
Open thy mind to what I now unfold;           40   
And give it inward keeping. Knowledge comes      
Of learning well retain’d, unfruitful else.      
  “This sacrifice, in essence, of two things      
Consisteth: one is that, whereof ’tis made;      
The covenant, the other 3. For the last,           45   
It ne’er is cancel’d, if not kept: and hence      
I spake, erewhile, so strictly of its force.      
For this it was enjoin’d the Israelites 4, [change      
Though leave were given them, as thou know’st, to      
The offering, still to offer. The other part,           50   
The matter and the substance of the vow,      
May well be such, as that, without offence,      
It may for other substance be exchanged.      
But, at his own discretion, none may shift      
The burden on his shoulders; unreleased           55   
By either key, 5 the yellow and the white.      
Nor deem of any change, as less than vain,      
If the last bond 6 be not within the new      
Included, as the quatre in the six.      
No satisfaction therefore can be paid           60   
For what so precious in the balance weighs,      
That all in counterpoise must kick the beam.      
Take then no vow at random: ta’en, with faith      
Preserve it; yet not bent, as Jephthah once,      
Blindly to execute a rash resolve,           65   
Whom better it had suited to exclaim,      
‘I have done ill,’ than to redeem his pledge      
By doing worse: or, not unlike to him      
In folly, that great leader of the Greeks;      
Whence, on the altar, Iphigenia mourn’d           70   
Her virgin beauty, and hath since made mourn      
Both wise and simple, even all, who hear      
Of so fell sacrifice. Be ye more staid,      
O Christians! not, like feather, by each wind      
Removable; nor think to cleanse yourselves           75   
In every water. Either testament,      
The old and new, is yours: and for your guide,      
The shepherd of the Church. Let this suffice      
To save you. When by evil lust enticed,      
Remember ye be men, not senseless beasts;           80   
Nor let the Jew, who dwelleth in your streets,      
Hold you in mockery. Be not, as the lamb,      
That, fickle wanton, leaves its mother’s milk,      
To dally with itself in idle play.”      
  Such were the words that Beatrice spake:           85   
These ended, to that region, where the world      
Is liveliest, full of fond desire she turn’d.      
  Though mainly prompt new question to propose,      
Her silence and changed look did keep me dumb.      
And as the arrow, ere the cord is still,           90   
Leapeth unto its mark; so on we sped      
Into the second realm. There I beheld      
The dame, so joyous, enter, that the orb      
Grew brighter at her smiles; and, if the star      
Were moved to gladness, what then was my cheer,           95   
Whom nature hath made apt for every change!      
  As in a quiet and clear lake the fish,      
If aught approach them from without, do draw      
Toward it, deeming it their food; so drew      
Full more than thousand splendours toward us;           100   
And in each one was heard: “Lo! one arrived      
To multiply our loves!” and as each came,      
The shadow, streaming forth effulgence new,      
Witness’d augmented joy. Here, Reader! think,      
If thou didst miss the sequel of my tale,           105   
To know the rest how sorely thou wouldst crave;      
And thou shalt see what vehement desire      
Possess’d me, soon as these had met my view,      
To know their state. “O born in happy hour!      
Thou, to whom grace vouchsafes, or e’er thy close           110   
Of fleshly warfare, to behold the thrones      
Of that eternal triumph; know, to us      
The light communicated, which through Heaven      
Expatiates without bound. Therefore, if aught      
Thou of our beams wouldst borrow for thine aid,           115   
Spare not; and, of our radiance, take thy fill.”      
  Thus of those piteous spirits one bespake me;      
And Beatrice next: “Say on; and trust      
As unto gods.”—“How in the light supreme      
Thou harbour’st, and from thence the virtue bring’st,           120   
That, sparkling in thine eyes, denotes thy joy,      
I mark; but, who thou art, am still to seek;      
Or wherefore, worthy spirit! for thy lot      
This sphere 7 assign’d, that oft from mortal ken      
Is veil’d by other’s beams.” I said; and turn’d           125   
Toward the lustre, that with greeting kind      
Erewhile had hail’d me. Forthwith, brighter far      
Than erst, it wax’d: and, as himself the sun      
Hides through excess of light, when his warm gaze 8      
Hath on the mantle of thick vapours prey’d;           130   
Within its proper ray the saintly shape      
Was, through increase of gladness, thus conceal’d;      
And, shrouded so in splendour, answer’d me,      
E’en as the tenour of my song declares.      
    
Note 1. “If beyond earthly wont.” Dante having been unable to sustain the splendor of Beatrice, as we have seen at the end of the last Canto, she tells him to attribute her increase of brightness to the place in which they were. [back]   
Note 2. “Supreme of gifts.” So in the “De Monarchiâ,” lib. i. pp. 107 and 108. “If then the judgment altogether move the appetite, and is in no wise prevented by it, it is free. But if the judgment be moved by the appetite in any way preventing it, it cannot be free: because it acts not of itself, but is led captive by another. And hence it is that brutes cannot have free judgment, because their judgments are always prevented by appetite. And hence it may also appear manifest that intellectual substances, whose wills are immutable, and likewise souls separated from the body, and departing from it well and holily, lose not the liberty of choice on account of the immutability of the will, but retain it most perfectly and powerfully. This being discerned, it is again plain that this liberty, or principle of all our liberty, is the greatest good conferred on human nature by God; because by this very thing we are here made happy, as men; by this we are elsewhere happy, as divine beings.” [back]   
Note 3. The one, the substance of the vow, as of a single life, or of keeping fast; the other, the compact. [back]   
Note 4. See Lev. c. xii. and xxvii. [back]   
Note 5. Purgatory, Canto ix. 108. [back]   
Note 6. If the thing substituted be not more precious than the thing released. [back]   
Note 7. “This sphere.” The planet Mercury, which being nearest to the sun, is oftenest hidden by that luminary. [back]   
Note 8. “When his warm gaze.” When the sun has dried up the vapors that shaded his brightness.

Canto VI   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The spirit, who had offered to satisfy the inquiries of Dante, declares himself to be the Emperor Justinian; and after speaking of his own actions, recounts the victories, before him, obtained under the Roman Eagle. He then informs our Poet that the soul of Romeo the pilgrim is in the same star.   
    
    
“AFTER that Constantine the eagle turn’d 1      
Against the motions of the Heaven, that roll’d      
Consenting with its course, when he of yore,      
Lavinia’s spouse, was leader of the flight;      
A hundred years twice told and more, 2 his seat           5   
At Europe’s extreme point, 3 the bird of Jove      
Held, near the mountains, whence he issued first;      
There under shadow of his sacred plumes      
Swaying the world, till through successive hands      
To mine he came devolved. Cæsar I was           10   
And am Justinian; destined by the will      
Of that prime love, whose influence I feel,      
From vain excess to clear the incumber’d laws. 4      
Or e’er that work engaged me, I did hold      
In Christ one nature only; 5 with such faith           15   
Contented. But the blessed Agapete, 6      
Who was chief shepherd, he with warning voice      
To the true faith recall’d me. I believed      
His words: and what he taught, now plainly see,      
As thou in every contradiction seest           20   
The true and false opposed. Soon as my feet      
Were to the Church reclaim’d, to my great task,      
By inspiration of God’s grace impell’d,      
I gave me wholly; and consign’d mine arms      
To Belisarius, with whom Heaven’s right hand           25   
Was link’d in such conjointment, ’twas a sign      
That I should rest. To thy first question thus      
I shape mine answer, which were ended here,      
But that its tendency doth prompt perforce      
To some addition; that thou well mayst mark,           30   
What reason on each side they have to plead,      
By whom that holiest banner is withstood,      
Both who pretend its power 7 and who oppose. 8      
  “Beginning from that hour, when Pallas died      
To give it rule, behold the valorous deeds           35   
Have made it worthy reverence. Not unknown      
To thee, how for three hundred years and more      
It dwelt in Alba, up to those fell lists      
Where, for its sake, were met the rival three; 9      
Nor aught unknown to thee, which it achieved           40   
Down 10 from the Sabines’ wrong to Lucrece’ woe,      
With its seven kings conquering the nations round;      
Nor all it wrought, by Roman worthies borne      
’Gainst Brennus and the Epirot prince, 11 and hosts      
Of single chiefs, or states in league combined           45   
Of social warfare: hence, Torquatus stern,      
And Quintius 12 named of his neglected locks,      
The Decii, and the Fabii hence acquired      
Their fame, which I with duteous zeal embalm.      
By it the pride of Arab hordes 13 was quell’d,           50   
When they, led on by Hannibal, o’erpass’d      
The Alpine rocks, whence glide thy currents, Po!      
Beneath its guidance, in their prime of days      
Scipio and Pompey triumph’d; and that hill 14      
Under whose summit 15 thou didst see the light,           55   
Rued its stern bearing. After, near the hour, 16      
When Heaven was minded that o’er all the world      
His own deep calm should brood, to Cæsar’s hand      
Did Rome consign it; and what then it wrought 17      
From Var unto the Rhine, saw Isere’s flood,           60   
Saw Loire and Seine, and every vale, that fills      
The torrent Rhone. What after that it wrought,      
When from Ravenna it came forth, and leap’d      
The Rubicon, was of so bold a flight,      
That tongue nor pen may follow it. Toward Spain           65   
It wheel’d its bands, then toward Dyrrachium smote,      
And on Pharsalia, with so fierce a plunge,      
E’en the warm Nile was conscious to the pang;      
Its native shores Antandros, and the streams      
Of Simois revisited, and there           70   
Where Hector lies; then ill for Ptolemy      
His pennons shook again; lightening thence fell      
On Juba, and the next, upon your west,      
At sound of the Pompeian trump, return’d.      
  “What following, and in its next bearer’s gripe, 18           75   
It wrought, is now by Cassius and Brutus      
Bark’d of in Hell; and by Perugia’s sons,      
And Modena’s, was mourn’d. Hence weepeth still      
Sad Cleopatra, who pursued by it,      
Took from the adder black and sudden death.           80   
With him it ran e’en to the Red Sea coast;      
With him composed the world to such a peace,      
That of his temple Janus barr’d the door.      
  “But all the mighty standard yet had wrought,      
And was appointed to perform thereafter,           85   
Throughout the mortal kingdom which it sway’d,      
Falls in appearance dwindled and obscured,      
If one with steady eye and perfect thought      
On the third Cæsar 19 look; for to his hands,      
The living Justice, in whose breath I move,           90   
Committed glory, e’en into his hands,      
To execute the vengeance of its wrath.      
  “Hear now, and wonder at, what next I tell.      
After with Titus it was sent to wreak      
Vengeance for vengeance of the ancient sin.           95   
And, when the Lombard tooth, with fang impure,      
Did gore the bosom of the holy Church,      
Under its wings, victorious Charlemain 2020      
Sped to her rescue. Judge then for thyself      
Of those, whom I erewhile accused to thee,           100   
What they are, and how grievous their offending,      
Who are the cause of all your ills. The one 2121      
Against the universal ensign rears      
The yellow lilies; 2222 and with partial aim,      
That, to himself, the other 2323 arrogates:           105   
So that ’tis hard to see who most offends.      
Be yours, ye Ghibellines, to veil your hearts      
Beneath another standard: ill is this      
Follow’d of him, who severs it and justice:      
And let not with his Guelfs the new-crown’d Charles           110   
Assail it; 24 but those talons hold in dread,      
Which from a lion of more lofty port      
Have rent the casing. Many a time ere now      
The sons have for the sire’s transgression wail’d:      
Nor let him trust the fond belief, that Heaven           115   
Will truck its armour for his lilied shield.      
  “This little star is furnish’d with good spirits,      
Whose mortal lives were busied to that end,      
That honour and renown might wait on them:      
And, when desires 25 thus err in their intention,           120   
True love must needs ascend with slacker beam.      
But it is part of our delight, to measure      
Our wages with the merit; and admire      
The close proportion. Hence doth heavenly justice      
Temper so evenly affection in us,           125   
It ne’er can warp to any wrongfulness.      
Of diverse voices is sweet music made:      
So in our life the different degrees      
Render sweet harmony among these wheels.      
  “Within the pearl, that now encloseth us,           130   
Shines Romeo’s light, 26 whose goodly deed and fair      
Met ill acceptance. But the Provençals,      
That were his foes, have little cause for mirth.      
Ill shapes that man his course, who makes his wrong      
Of other’s worth. Four daughters 27 were there born           135   
To Raymond Berenger; and every one      
Became a queen: and this for him did Romeo,      
Though of mean state and from a foreign land.      
Yet envious tongues incited him to ask      
A reckoning of that just one, who return’d           140   
Twelve fold to him for ten. Aged and poor      
He parted thence: and if the world did know      
The heart he had, begging his life by morsels,      
’Twould deem the praise, it yields him, scantly dealt.”      
    
Note 1. Constantine, in transferring the seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, carried the eagle, the imperial ensign, from the west to the east. Æneas, on the contrary, had, with better augury, moved along with the sun’s course, when he passed from Troy to Italy. [back]   
Note 2. “A hundred years twice told and more.” The Emperor Constantine entered Byzantium in 324; and Justinian began his reign in 527. [back]   
Note 3. “At Europe’s extreme point.” Constantine being situated at the extreme of Europe, and on the borders of Asia, near those mountains in the neighborhood of Troy, from whence the first founders of Rome had emigrated. [back]   
Note 4. The code of laws was abridged and reformed by Justinian. [back]   
Note 5. Justinian is said to have been a follower of heretical opinions held by Eutyches, “who taught that in Christ there was but one nature, viz., that of the incarnate Word.” Maclaine’s Mosheim. [back]   
Note 6. “Agapete.” “Agapetus, Bishop of Rome, whose Scheda Regia, addressed to the Emperor Justinian, procured him a place among the wisest and most judicious writers of this country.” Ibid. [back]   
Note 7. The Ghibellines. [back]   
Note 8. The Guelfs. [back]   
Note 9. The Horatii and Curiatii. [back]   
Note 10. “From the rape of the Sabine women to the violation of Lucretia.” [back]   
Note 11. King Pyrrhus. [back]   
Note 12. Quintius Cincinnatus. [back]   
Note 13. The Arabians seem to be put for the barbarians in general. [back]   
Note 14. “That hill.” The city of Fiesole, which was sacked by the Romans after the defeat of Catiline. [back]   
Note 15. “Under whose summit.” “At the foot of which is situated Florence, thy birth-place.” [back]   
Note 16. “Near the hour.” Of our Saviour’s birth. [back]   
Note 17. “What then it wrought.” In the following fifteen lines the Poet has comprised the exploits of Julius Cæsar, for which, and for the allusions in the greater part of this speech of Justinian’s, I must refer my reader to the history of Rome. [back]   
Note 18. With Augustus Cæsar. [back]   
Note 19. “The third Cæsar.” The eagle in the hand of Tiberius, the third of the Cæsars, outdid all its achievements, both past and future, by becoming the instrument of that mighty and mysterious act of satisfaction made to the divine justice in the crucifixion of our Lord. [back]   
Note 20. “Charlemain.” Dante could not be ignorant that the reign of Justinian was long prior to that of Charlemagne; but the spirit of the former emperor is represented, both in this instance and in what follows, as conscious of the events that had taken place after his own time. [back]   
Note 21. “The one.” The Guelf party. [back]   
Note 22. The French ensign. [back]   
Note 23. The Ghibelline party. [back]   
Note 24. “Charles.” The commentators explain this to mean Charles II, King of Naples and Sicily. Is it not more likely to allude to Charles of Valois, son of Philip III of France, who was sent for, about this time, into Italy by Pope Boniface, with the promise of being made Emperor? See G. Villani, lib. viii. cap. xlii. [back]   
Note 25. When honour and fame are the chief motives to action, the love for Heaven must become less fervent. [back]   
Note 26. After he had long been faithful steward to Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, and last of the house of Barcelona, who died 1245, when an account was required from him of the revenues which his master had lavishly disbursed, he demanded the little mule, the staff, and the scrip, with which he had first entered into the Count’s service, a stranger pilgrim from the shrine of St. James, in Galicia, and parted as he came. [back]   
Note 27. Of the four daughters of Raymond, Margaret, the eldest, was married to Louis IX of France; Eleanor to Henry III of England; Sancha to Richard, Henry’s brother, and King of the Romans; and the youngest, Beatrix, to Charles I, King of Naples and Sicily, and brother to Louis.

   
Canto VII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—In consequence of what had been said by Justinian, who together with the other spirits has now disappeared, some doubts arise in the mind of Dante respecting the human redemption. These difficulties are fully explained by Beatrice.   
    
    
“HOSANNA 1 Sanctus Deus Sabaoth,      
Superillustrans claritate tuâ      
Felices ignes horum malahoth.”      
Thus chanting saw I turn that substance bright, 2      
With fourfold lustre to its orb again,           5   
Revolving; and the rest, unto their dance,      
With it, moved also; and, like swiftest sparks,      
In sudden distance from my sight were veil’d.      
  Me doubt possess’d; and “Speak,” it whisper’d me,      
“Speak, speak unto thy lady; that she quench           10   
Thy thirst with drops of sweetness.” Yet blank awe,      
Which lords it o’er me, even at the sound      
Of Beatrice’s name, did bow me down      
As one in slumber held. Not long that mood      
Beatrice suffer’d; she, with such a smile,           15   
As might have made one blest amid the flames, 3      
Beaming upon me, thus her words began:      
“Thou in thy thought art pondering (as I deem,      
And what I deem is truth) how just revenge      
Could be with justice punish’d: from which doubt           20   
I soon will free thee; so thou mark my words;      
For they of weighty matter shall possess thee.      
Through suffering not a curb upon the power      
That will’d in him, to his own profiting,      
That man, who was unborn, 4 condemn’d himself;           25   
And, in himself, all, who since him have lived,      
His offspring: whence, below, the human kind      
Lay sick in grievous error many an age;      
Until it pleased the Word of God to come      
Amongst them down, to His own person joining           30   
The nature from its Maker far estranged,      
By the mere act of His eternal love.      
Contemplate here the wonder I unfold:      
The nature with its Maker thus conjoin’d,      
Created first was blameless, pure and good;           35   
But, through itself alone, was driven forth      
From Paradise, because it had eschew’d      
The way of truth and life, to evil turn’d.      
Ne’er then was penalty so just as that      
Inflicted by the Cross, if thou regard           40   
The nature in assumption doom’d; ne’er wrong      
So great, in reference to Him, who took      
Such nature on Him, and endured the doom.      
So different effects 5 flow’d from one act:      
For by one death God and the Jews were pleased;           45   
And Heaven was open’d, though the earth did quake.      
Count it not hard henceforth, when thou dost hear      
That a just vengeance 6 was, by righteous court,      
Justly revenged. But yet I see thy mind,      
By thought on thought arising, sore perplex’d;           50   
And, with how vehement desire, it asks      
Solution of the maze. What I have heard,      
Is plain, thou sayst: but wherefore God this way      
For our redemption chose, eludes my search.      
  “Brother! no eye of man not perfected,           55   
Nor fully ripen’d in the flame of love,      
May fathom this decree. It is a mark,      
In sooth, much aim’d at, and but little kenn’d:      
And I will therefore show thee why such way      
  Was worthiest. The celestial Love, that spurns           60   
All envying in its bounty, in itself      
With such effulgence blazeth, as sends forth      
All beauteous things eternal. What distils      
Immediate thence, no end of being knows;      
Bearing its seal immutably imprest.           65   
Whatever thence immediate falls, is free,      
Free wholly, uncontrollable by power      
Of each thing new: by such conformity      
More grateful to its Author, whose bright beams,      
Though all partake their shining, yet in those           70   
Are liveliest, which resemble Him the most.      
These tokens of pre-eminence 7 on man      
Largely bestow’d, if any of them fail,      
He needs must forfeit his nobility,      
No longer stainless. Sin alone is that,           75   
Which doth disfranchise him, and make unlike      
To the Chief Good; for that its light in him      
Is darken’d. And to dignity thus lost      
Is no return; unless, where guilt makes void,      
He for ill pleasure pay with equal pain.           80   
Your nature, which entirely in its seed      
Transgress’d, from these distinctions fell, no less      
Than from its state in Paradise; nor means      
Found of recovery (search all methods out      
As strictly as thou may) save one of these,           85   
The only fords were left through which to wade:      
Either, that God had of His courtesy      
Released him merely; or else, man himself      
For his own folly by himself atoned.      
  “Fix now thine eye, intently as thou canst,           90   
On the everlasting counsel; and explore,      
Instructed by my words, the dread abyss.      
  “Man in himself had ever lack’d the means      
Of satisfaction, for he could not stoop      
Obeying, in humility so low,           95   
As high, he, disobeying, thought to soar:      
And, for this reason, he had vainly tried,      
Out of his own sufficiency to pay      
The rigid satisfaction. Then behoved      
That God should by His own ways lead him back           100   
Unto the life, from whence he fell, restored;      
By both His ways, I mean, or one alone. 8      
But since the deed is ever prized the more,      
The more the doer’s good intent appears;      
Goodness celestial, whose broad signature           105   
Is on the universe, of all its ways      
To raise ye up, was fain to leave out none.      
Nor aught so vast or so magnificent,      
Either for Him who gave or who received,      
Between the last night and the primal day,           110   
Was or can be. For God more bounty show’d,      
Giving Himself to make man capable      
Of his return to life, than had the terms      
Been mere and unconditional release.      
And for His justice, every method else           115   
Were all too scant, had not the Son of God      
Humbled Himself to put on mortal flesh.      
  “Now, to content thee fully, I revert;      
And further in some part 9 unfold my speech,      
That thou mayst see it clearly as myself.           120   
  “I see, thou sayst, the air, the fire I see,      
The earth and water, and all things of them      
Compounded, to corruption turn, and soon      
Dissolve. Yet these were also things create.      
Because, if what were told me, had been true,           125   
They from corruption had been therefore free.      
  “The Angels, O my brother! and this clime      
Wherein thou art, impassable and pure,      
I call created, even as they are      
In their whole being. But the elements,           130   
Which thou hast named, and what of them is made,      
Are by created virtue inform’d: create,      
Their substance; and create, the informing virtue      
In these bright stars, that round them circling move.      
The soul of every brute and of each plant,           135   
The ray and motion of the sacred lights,      
Draw from complexion with meet power endued.      
But this our life the Eternal Good inspires      
Immediate, and enamours of itself;      
So that our wishes rest for ever here.           140   
  “And hence thou mayst by inference conclude      
Our resurrection certain, if thy mind      
Consider how the human flesh was framed,      
When both our parents at the first were made.”      
    
Note 1. “Hosanna.” “Hosanna holy God of Sabaoth, abundantly illumining with thy brightness the blessed fires of these kingdoms.” [back]   
Note 2. Justinian. [back]   
Note 3. So Giusto de’ Conti. [back]   
Note 4. Adam. [back]   
Note 5. The death of Christ was pleasing to God, inasmuch as it satisfied the divine justice; and to the Jews, because it gratified their malignity; and while Heaven opened for joy at man’s ransom, the earth trembled through compassion for its Maker. [back]   
Note 6. The punishment of Christ by the Jews, although just as far as regarded the human nature assumed by Him, and so a righteous vengeance of sin, yet being unjust as regards the divine nature, was itself justly revenged on the Jews by the destruction of Jerusalem. [back]   
Note 7. The before-mentioned gifts of immediate creation by God, independence on secondary causes, and consequent similitude and agreeableness to the Divine Being, all at first conferred on man. [back]   
Note 8. Either by mercy and justice united or by mercy alone. [back]   
Note 9. She reverts to that part of her discourse where she had said that what proceeds immediately from God “no end of being knows.” She then proceeds to tell him that the elements, which, though he knew them to be created, he yet saw dissolved, received their form not immediately from God, but from a virtue or power created by God; that the soul of brutes and plants is in like manner drawn forth by the stars with a combination of those elements meetly tempered. “di complession potenziata”; but that the angels and the heavens may be said to be created in that very manner in which they exist, without any intervention of agency.

   
Canto VIII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The Poet ascends with Beatrice to the third heaven, the planet Venus; and here finds the soul of Charles Martel, King of Hungary, who had been Dante’s friend on earth, and who now, after speaking of the realms to which he was heir, unfolds the cause why children differ in disposition from their parents.   
    
    
THE WORLD 1 was, in its day of peril dark,      
Wont to believe the dotage of fond love,      
From the fair Cyprian deity, who rolls      
In her third epicycle, shed on men      
By stream of potent radiance: therefore they           5   
Of elder time, in their old error blind,      
Not her alone with sacrifice adored      
And invocation, but like honours paid      
To Cupid and Dione, deem’d of them      
Her mother, and her son, him whom they feign’d           10   
To sit in Dido’s bosom: and from her,      
Whom I have sung preluding, borrow’d they      
The appellation of that star, which views      
Now obvious, and now averse, the sun.      
  I was not ware that I was wafted up           15   
Into its orb; but the new loveliness,      
That graced my lady, gave me ample proof      
That we had enter’d there. And as in flame      
A sparkle is distinct, or voice in voice      
Discern’d, when one its even tenour keeps,           20   
The other comes and goes; so in that light      
I other luminaries saw, that coursed      
In circling motion, rapid more or less,      
As their eternal vision each impels.      
  Never was blast from vapour charged with cold,           25   
Whether invisible to eye or no,      
Descended with such speed, it had not seem’d      
To linger in dull tardiness, compared      
To those celestial lights, that toward us came,      
Leaving the circuit of their joyous ring,           30   
Conducted by the lofty Seraphim.      
And after them, who in the van appear’d,      
Such an Hossana sounded as hath left      
Desire, ne’er since extinct in me, to hear      
Renew’d the strain. Then, parting from the rest,           35   
One near us drew, and sole began: “We all      
Are ready at thy pleasure, well disposed      
To do thee gentle service. We are they      
To whom thou in the world erewhile didst sing;      
‘O ye! whose intellectual ministry           40   
Moves the third Heaven:’ and in one orb we roll,      
One motion, one impulse, with those who rule      
Princedoms in Heaven; yet are of love so full,      
That to please thee ’twill be as sweet to rest.”      
  After mine eyes had with meek reverence           45   
Sought the celestial guide, and were by her      
Assured, they turn’d again unto the light,      
Who had so largely promised; and with voice      
That bare the lively pressure of my zeal,      
“Tell who ye are,” I cried. Forthwith it grew           50   
In size and splendour, through augmented joy;      
And thus it answer’d: “A short date, below,      
The world possess’d me. 2 Had the time been more,      
Much evil, that will come, had never chanced.      
My gladness hides thee from me, which doth shine           55   
Around, and shroud me, as an animal      
In its own silk enswathed. Thou lovedst me well, 3      
And hadst good cause; for had my sojourning      
Been longer on the earth, the love I bare thee      
Had put forth more than blossoms. The left bank, 4           60   
That Rhone, when he hath mix’d with Sorga, laves,      
In me its lord expected, and that horn      
Of fair Ausonia, 5 with its boroughs old,      
Bari, and Croton, and Gaeta piled,      
From where the Trento disembogues his waves           65   
With Verde mingled, to the salt-sea flood.      
Already on my temples beam’d the crown,      
Which gave me sovereignty over the land 6      
By Danube wash’d, whenas he strays beyond      
The limits of his German shores. The realm,           70   
Where, on the gulf by stormy Eurus lash’d,      
Betwixt Pelorus and Pachynian heights,      
The beautiful Trinacria 7 lies in gloom,      
(Not through Typhœus, 8 but the vapoury cloud      
Bituminous upsteam’d), that too did look           75   
To have its sceptre wielded by a race      
Of monarchs, sprung through me from Charles and Rodolph, 9      
Had not ill-lording, 10 which doth desperate make      
The people ever, in Palermo raised      
The shout of ‘death,’ re-echoed loud and long.           80   
Had but my brother’s foresight 11 kenn’d as much,      
He had been warier, that the greedy want      
Of Catalonia might not work his bale.      
And truly need there is that he forecast,      
Or other for him, lest more freight be laid           85   
On his already over-laden bark.      
Nature in him, from bounty fallen to thrift,      
Would ask the guard of braver arms, than such      
As only care to have their coffers fill’d.”      
  “My liege! it doth enhance the joy thy words           90   
Infuse into me, mighty as it is,      
To think my gladness manifest to thee,      
As to myself, who own it, when thou look’st      
Into the source and limit of all good,      
There, where thou markest that which thou dost speak,           95   
Thence prized of me the more. Glad thou hast made me:      
Now make intelligent, clearing the doubt      
Thy speech hath raised in me; for much I muse,      
How bitter can spring up, 12 when sweet is sown.”      
  I thus inquiring; he forthwith replied:           100   
“If I have power to show one truth, soon that      
Shall face thee, which thy questioning declares      
Behind thee now conceal’d. The Good, 13 that guides      
And blessed makes this realm which thou dost mount,      
Ordains its providence to be the virtue           105   
In these great bodies: nor the natures only      
The all-perfect Mind provides for, but with them      
That which preserves them too; for naught, that lies      
Within the range of that unerring bow,      
But is as level with the destined aim,           110   
As ever mark to arrow’s point opposed.      
Were it not thus, these Heavens, thou dost visit,      
Would their effect so work, it would not be      
Art, but destruction; and this may not chance,      
If the intellectual powers, that move these stars,           115   
Fail not, and who, first faulty made them, fail.      
Wilt thou this truth more clearly evidenced?”      
  To whom I thus: “It is enough: no fear,      
I see, lest nature in her part should tire.”      
  He straight rejoin’d: “Say, were it worse for man,           120   
If he lived not in fellowship on earth?”      
  “Yea,” answer’d I; “nor here a reason needs.”      
  “And may that be, if different estates      
Grow not of different duties in your life?      
Consult your teacher, 14 and he tells you ‘no.’”           125   
  Thus did he come, deducing to this point,      
And then concluded: “For this cause behoves,      
The roots, from whence your operations come,      
Must differ. Therefore one is Solon born;      
Another, Xerxes; and Melchisedec           130   
A third; and he a fourth, whose airy voyage      
Cost him his son. 15 In her circuitous course,      
Nature, that is the seal to mortal wax,      
Doth well her art, but no distinction owns      
’Twixt one or other household. Hence befals           135   
That Esau is so wide of Jacob: hence      
Quirinus 16 of so base a father springs,      
He dates from Mars his lineage. Were it not      
That Providence celestial overruled,      
Nature, in generation, must the path           140   
Traced by the generator still pursue      
Unswervingly. Thus place I in thy sight      
That, which was late behind thee. But, in sign      
Of more affection for thee, ’tis my will      
Thou wear this corollary. Nature ever,           145   
Finding discordant fortune, like all seed      
Out of its proper climate, thrives but ill.      
And were the world below content to mark      
And work on the foundation nature lays,      
I would not lack supply of excellence.           150   
But ye perversely to religion strain      
Him, who was born to gird on him the sword,      
And of the fluent phraseman make your king:      
Therefore your steps have wander’d from the path.”      
    
Note 1. The Poet, on his arrival at the third Heaven, tells us that the world, in its days of heathen darkness, believed the influence of sensual love to proceed from the star, to which, under the name of Venus, they paid divine honors; as they worshipped the supposed mother and son of Venus, under the names of Dione and Cupid. [back]   
Note 2. The spirit now speaking is Charles Martel, crowned King of Hungary, and son of Charles II, King of Naples and Sicily, to which throne, dying in his father’s lifetime, he did not succeed. The evil, that would have been prevented by the longer life of Charles Martel, was that resistance which his brother Robert, King of Sicily, who succeeded him, made to the Emperor Henry VII. [back]   
Note 3. Charles Martel might have been known to our Poet at Florence, whither he came to meet his father in 1259, the year of his death. G. Villani says that “he remained more than twenty days in Florence, waiting for his father, King Charles, and his brothers.” Lib. vii. cap. xiii. His brother Robert, King of Naples, was the friend of Petrarch. [back]   
Note 4. “The left bank.” Provence. [back]   
Note 5. The kingdom of Naples. [back]   
Note 6. “The land.” Hungary. [back]   
Note 7. Sicily; so called from its three promontories of which Pachynus and Pelorus, here mentioned, are two. [back]   
Note 8. The giant, whom Jupiter overwhelmed under Mount Ætna, whence he vomited forth smoke and flame. [back]   
Note 9. “Sicily would be still ruled by monarchs, descended through me from Charles I and Rodolph I, the former my grandfather, King of Naples and Sicily; the latter, Emperor of Germany, my father-in-law;” both celebrated in the “Purgatory,” Canto vii. [back]   
Note 10. If the ill-conduct of our governors in Sicily had not excited the people to that dreadful massacre at the Sicilian vespers in consequence of which the kingdom fell into the hands of Peter III of Arragon, in 1282. [back]   
Note 11. He seems to tax his brother Robert with employing necessitous and greedy Catalonians to administer the affairs of his kingdom. [back]   
Note 12. “How a covetous son can spring from a liberal father.” Yet that father has himself been accused of avarice in the “Purgatory,” Canto xx. 78; though his general character was that of a bounteous prince. [back]   
Note 13. The Supreme Being uses these spheres as the intelligent instruments of His providence in the conduct of terrestrial natures; so that these natures cannot but be conducted aright, unless these heavenly bodies should themselves fail from not having been made perfect at first, or the Creator of them should fail. To this Dante replies, that Nature, he is satisfied, thus directed must do her part. Charles Martel then reminds him that he had learned from Aristotle that human society requires a variety of conditions, and consequently a variety of qualifications in its members. Accordingly, men are born with different powers and capacities, caused by the influence of the heavenly bodies at the time of their nativity; on which influence, and not on their parents, those powers and capacities depend. Charles Martel adds, by way of corollary, that the want of observing their natural bent, in the destination of men to their several offices in life, is the occasion of much of the disorder that prevails in the world. [back]   
Note 14. Aristotle, De Rep., lib. iii. cap. 4: Since a state is made up of members differing from one another (for even as an animal, in the first instance, consists of soul and body; and the soul, of reason and desire; and a family, of man and woman; and property, of master and slave; in like manner a state consists both of all these, and besides these of other dissimilar kinds); it necessarily follows that the excellence of all the members of the state cannot be one and the same. [back]   
Note 15. Dædalus. [back]   
Note 16. “Quirinus.” Romulus, born of so obscure a father that his parentage was attributed to Mars.

   
Canto IX   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—The next spirit who converses with our Poet in the planet Venus is the amorous Cunizza. To her succeeds Folco, or Folques, the Provençal bard, who declares that the soul of Rahab the harlot is there also; and then, blaming the Pope for his neglect of the Holy Land, prognosticates some reverse to the papal power.   
    
    
AFTER solution of my doubt, thy Charles,      
O fair Clemenza, 1 of the treachery 2 spake,      
That must befal his seed; but, “Tell it not,”      
Said he, “and let the destined years come round.”      
Nor may I tell thee more, save that the meed           5   
Of sorrow well-deserved shall quit your wrongs.      
  And now the visage of that saintly light 3      
Was to the sun, that fills it, turn’d again,      
As to the good, whose plenitude of bliss      
Sufficeth all. O ye misguided souls!           10   
Infatuate, who from such a good estrange      
Your hearts, and bend your gaze on vanity,      
Alas for you!—And lo! toward me, next,      
Another of those splendent forms approach’d,      
That, by its outward brightening, testified           15   
The will it had to pleasure me. The eyes      
Of Beatrice, resting, as before,      
Firmly, upon me, manifested forth      
Approval of my wish. “And O,” I cried,      
“Blest spirit! quickly be my will perform’d;           20   
And prove thou to me, 4 that my inmost thoughts      
I can reflect on thee.” Thereat the light,      
That yet was new to me, from the recess,      
Where it before was singing, thus began,      
As one who joys in kindness: “In that part 5           25   
Of the depraved Italian land, which lies      
Between Rialto and the fountain springs      
Of Brenta and of Piava, there doth rise,      
But to no lofty eminence, a hill,      
From whence erewhile a firebrand did descend,           30   
That sorely shent the region. From one root      
I and it sprang; my name on earth Cunizza: 6      
And here I glitter, for that by its light      
This star o’ercame me. Yet I naught repine, 7      
Nor grudge myself the cause of this my lot:           35   
Which haply vulgar hearts can scarce conceive.      
  “This 8 jewel, that is next me in our Heaven,      
Lustrous and costly, great renown hath left,      
And not to perish, ere these hundred years      
Five times 9 absolve their round. Consider thou,           40   
If to excel be worthy man’s endeavour,      
When such life may attend the first. 10 Yet they      
Care not for this, the crowd 11 that now are girt      
By Adice and Tagliamento, still      
Impenitent, though scourged. The hour is near 12           45   
When for their stubbornness, at Padua’s marsh      
The water shall be changed, that laves Vicenza.      
And where Cagnano meets with Sile, one 13      
Lords it, and bears his head aloft, for whom      
The web 14 is now a-warping. Feltro 15 too           50   
Shall sorrow for its godless shepherd’s fault,      
Of so deep stain, that never, for the like,      
Was Malta’s 16 bar unclosed. Too large should be      
The skillet 17 that would hold Ferrara’s blood,      
And wearied he, who ounce by ounce would weigh it,           55   
The which this priest, 18 in show of party-zeal,      
Courteous will give; nor will the gift ill suit      
The country’s custom. We descry above      
Mirrors, ye call them Thrones, from which to us      
Reflected shine the judgments of our God:           60   
Whence these our sayings we avouch for good.”      
  She ended; and appear’d on other thoughts      
Intent, re-entering on the wheel she late      
Had left. That other joyance meanwhile wax’d      
A thing to marvel at, in splendour glowing,           65   
Like choicest ruby stricken by the sun.      
For, in that upper clime, effulgence 19 comes      
Of gladness, as here laughter: and below,      
As the mind saddens, murkier grows the shade.      
  “God seeth all: and in Him is thy sight,”           70   
Said I, “blest spirit! Therefore will of His      
Cannot to thee be dark. Why then delays      
Thy voice to satisfy my wish untold;      
That voice, which joins the inexpressive song,      
Pastime of Heaven, the which those Ardours sing,           75   
That cowl them with six shadowing wings 20 outspread?      
I would not wait thy asking, wert thou known      
To me, as thoroughly I to thee am known.”      
  He, forthwith answering, thus, his words began:      
“The valley of waters, 21 widest next to that 22           80   
Which doth the earth engarland, shapes its course,      
Between discordant shores, 23 against the sun      
Inward so far, it makes meridian 24 there,      
Where was before the horizon. Of that vale      
Dwelt I upon the shore, ’twixt Ebro’s stream           85   
And Macra’s, 25 that divides with passage brief      
Genoan bounds from Tuscan. East and west      
Are nearly one to Begga 26 and my land      
Whose haven 27 erst was with its own blood warm.      
Who knew my name, were wont to call me Folco;           90   
And I did bear impression of this Heaven, 28      
That now bears mine: for not with fiercer flame      
Glow’d Belus’ daughter, 29 injuring alike      
Sichæus and Creusa, than did I,      
Long as it suited the unripen’d down           95   
That fledged my cheek; nor she of Rhodope, 30      
That was beguiled of Demophoon;      
Nor Jove’s son, 31 when the charms of Iole      
Were shrined within his heart. And yet there bides      
No sorrowful repentance here, but mirth,           100   
Not for the fault, (that doth not come to mind,)      
But for the virtue, whose o’erruling sway      
And providence have wrought thus quaintly. Here      
The skill is look’d into, that fashioneth      
With such effectual working, and the good           105   
Discern’d, accruing to the lower world      
From this above, But fully to content      
Thy wishes all that in this sphere have birth,      
Demands my further parle. Inquire thou wouldst,      
Who of this light is denizen, that here           110   
Beside me sparkles, as the sunbeam doth      
On the clear wave. Know then, the soul of Rahab 32      
Is in that gladsome harbour; to our tribe      
United, and the foremost rank assign’d.      
She to this Heaven, 33 at which the shadow ends           115   
Of your sublunar world, was taken up,      
First, in Christ’s triumph, of all soul redeem’d:      
For well behoved, that, in some part of Heaven,      
She should remain a trophy, to declare      
The mighty conquest won with either palm; 34           120   
For that she favour’d first the high exploit      
Of Joshua on the Holy Land, whereof      
The Pope 35 recks little now. Thy city, plant      
Of him, 36 that on his Maker turn’d the back,      
And of whose envying so much woe hath sprung,           125   
Engenders and expands the cursed flower, 37      
That hath made wander both the sheep and lambs,      
Turning the shepherd to a wolf. For this,      
The Gospel and great teachers laid aside,      
The decretals, 38 as their stuff margins show,           130   
Are the sole study. Pope and Cardinals,      
Intent on these, ne’er journey but in thought      
To Nazareth, where Gabriel oped his wings.      
Yet it may chance, ere long, the Vatican, 39      
And other most selected parts of Rome,           135   
That were the grave of Peter’s soldiery,      
Shall be deliver’d from the adulterous bond.”      
    
Note 1. Daughter of Charles Martel, and second wife of Louis X of France. [back]   
Note 2. “The treachery.” He alludes to the occupation of the Kingdom of Sicily by Robert, in exclusion of his brother’s son Carobert, or Charles Robert, the rightful heir. [back]   
Note 3. Charles Martel. [back]   
Note 4. The thoughts of all created minds being seen by the Deity, and all that is in the Deity being the object of vision to beatified spirits, such spirits must consequently see the thoughts of all created minds. Dante, therefore, requests of the spirit, who now approaches him, a proof of this truth with regard to his own thoughts. See v. 70. [back]   
Note 5. Between Rialto in the Venetian territory, and the sources of the rivers Brenta and Piava, is situated a castle called Romano, the birthplace of the famous tyrant Ezzolino or Azzolino, the brother of Cunizza, who is now speaking. See Hell, Canto xii. v. 110. [back]   
Note 6. “Cunizza.” The adventures of Cunizza, overcome by the influence of her star, are related by the chronicler Rolandino, of Padua. She eloped from her first husband, Richard of St. Boniface, in the company of Sordello, with whom she is supposed to have cohabited before her marriage: then lived with a soldier of Trevigi, whose wife was living at the same time in the same city; and, on his being murdered by her brother the tyrant, was by her brother married to a nobleman of Braganzo: lastly, when he also had fallen by the same hand, she after her brother’s death, was again, wedded in Verona. [back]   
Note 7. “I am not dissatisfied that I am not allotted a higher place.” [back]   
Note 8. “This.” Folco of Genoa, a celebrated Provençal poet, commonly termed Folques of Marseilles, of which place he was perhaps bishop. [back]   
Note 9. The 500 years are elapsed. [back]   
Note 10. When the mortal life of man may be attended by so lasting and glorious a memory, which is a kind of second life. [back]   
Note 11. The people who inhabited the country bounded by the Tagliamento to the east and Adice to the west. [back]   
Note 12. Cunizza foretells the defeat of Giacopo da Carrara and the Paduans, by Can Grande, at Vicenza, on September 18, 1314. [back]   
Note 13. “One.” She predicts also the fate of Riccardo da Camino, who is said to have been murdered at Trevigi (where the rivers Sile and Cagnano meet) where he was engaged in playing at chess. [back]   
Note 14. “The web.” The net, or snare, into which he is destined to fall. [back]   
Note 15. The Bishop of Feltro having received a number of fugitives from Ferrara, who were in opposition to the Pope, under a promise of protection, afterward gave them up; so that they were reconducted to that city, and the greater part of them there put to death. [back]   
Note 16. “Malta’s.” A tower, either in the citadel of Padua, which, under the tyranny of Ezzolino, had been “with many a foul and midnight murder fed”; or (as some say) near a river of the same name, that falls into the Lake of Bolsena, in which the Pope was accustomed to imprison such as had been guilty of an irremissible sin. [back]   
Note 17. “The skillet.” The blood shed could not be contained in such a vessel, if it were of the usual size. [back]   
Note 18. The bishop, who, to show himself a zealous partisan of the Pope, had committed the above-mentioned act of treachery. The commentators are not agreed as to his name. Troya calls him Alessandro Novello, and relates the circumstances at full. [back]   
Note 19. As joy is expressed by laughter on earth, so is it by an increase of splendor in Paradise; and, on the contrary, grief is betokened in Hell by augmented darkness. [back]   
Note 20. “Above it stood the seraphims; each one had six wings.”—Is. vi. 2. [back]   
Note 21. The Mediterranean Sea. [back]   
Note 22. “That.” The great ocean. [back]   
Note 23. Europe and Africa. [back]   
Note 24. “Meridian.” Extending to the east, the Mediterranean at last reaches the coast of Palestine, which is on its horizon when it enters the Straits of Gibraltar. [back]   
Note 25. Ebro, a river to the west, and Macra, a river to the east, of Genoa, where Folco was born; others think that Marseilles, and not Genoa, is here described; and then Ebro must be understood of the river in Spain. [back]   
Note 26. “Begga.” A place in Africa. [back]   
Note 27. Alluding to the slaughter of the Genoese by the Saracens in 936. [back]   
Note 28. The planet Venus, by which Folco declares himself to have been formerly influenced. [back]   
Note 29. “Belus’ daughter.” Dido. [back]   
Note 30. “She of Rhodope.” Phyllis. [back]   
Note 31. “Jove’s son.” Hercules. [back]   
Note 32. “Rahab.” Heb. xi. 31. [back]   
Note 33. “This planet of Venus, at which the shadow of the earth ends (Almagest) writes Ptolemy.”—Vellutello. [back]   
Note 34. By both hands nailed to the cross. [back]   
Note 35. “Who cares not that the Holy Land is in the possession of the Saracens.” [back]   
Note 36. “Of him.” Of Satan. [back]   
Note 37. The coin of Florence, the florin; the covetous desire of which has excited the Pope to so much evil. [back]   
Note 38. “The decretals.” The canon law. So in the “De Monarchâ,” lib. iii. p. 137: “There are also a third set, whom they call Decretalists. These, alike ignorant of theology and philosophy, relying wholly on their decretals (which I indeed esteem not unworthy of reverence), in the hope I suppose of obtaining for them a paramount influence, derogate from the authority of the empire. Nor is this to be wondered at, when I have heard one of them impudently maintaining, that traditions are the foundation of the faith of the Church.” [back]   
Note 39. He alludes either to the death of Pope Boniface VIII or to the coming of the Emperor Henry VII into Italy; or else to the transfer of the Holy See from Rome to Avignon, which took place in the pontificate of Clement V.

Canto X   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Their next ascent carries them into the sun, which is the fourth heaven. Here they are encompassed with a wreath of blessed spirits, twelve in number. Thomas Aquinas, who is one of these, declares the names and endowments of the rest.   
    
    
LOOKING into His First-Born with the Love,      
Which breathes from both eternal, the first Might      
Ineffable, wherever eye or mind      
Can roam, hath in such order all disposed,      
As none may see and fail to enjoy. Raise, then,           5   
O reader! to the lofty wheels, with me,      
Thy ken directed to the point, 1 whereat      
One motion strikes on the other. There begin      
Thy wonder of the mighty Architect,      
Who loves His work so inwardly, His eye           10   
Doth ever watch it. See, how thence oblique 2      
Brancheth the circle, where the planets roll      
To pour their wished influence on the world;      
Whose path not bending thus, in Heaven above 3      
Much virtue would be lost, and here on earth           15   
All power well-nigh extinct; or, from direct      
Were its departure distant more or less,      
I’ the universal order, great defect      
Must, both in Heaven and here beneath, ensue.      
  Now rest thee, reader! on thy bench, and muse           20   
Anticipative of the feast to come      
So shall delight make thee not feel thy toil.      
Lo! I have set before thee; for thyself      
Feed now: the matter I indite, henceforth      
Demands entire my thought. Join’d with the part, 4           25   
Which late we told of, the great minister 5      
Of nature that upon the world imprints      
The virtue of the Heaven, and doles out      
Time for us with his beam, went circling on      
Along the spires, 6 where 7 each hour sooner comes;           30   
And I was with him, weetless of ascent,      
But as a man,  8 that weets his thought, ere thinking.      
  For Beatrice, she who passeth on      
So suddenly from good to better, time      
Counts not the act, oh then how great must needs           35   
Have been her brightness! What there was i’ th’ sun,      
(Where I had enter’d,) not through change of hue,      
But light transparent—did I summon up      
Genius, art, practice—I might not so speak,      
It should be e’er imagined: yet believed           40   
It may be, and the sight be justly craved.      
And if our fantasy fail of such height,      
What marvel, since no eye above the sun      
Hath ever travel’d? Such are they dwell here,      
Fourth family 9 of the Omnipotent Sire,           45   
Who of His Spirit and of His Offspring 10 shows;      
And holds them still enraptured with the view.      
And thus to me Beatrice: “Thank, oh thank      
The Sun of Angels, Him, who by His grace      
To this perceptible hath lifted thee.”           50   
  Never was heart in such devotion bound,      
And with complacency so absolute      
Disposed to render up itself to God,      
As mine was at those words: and so entire      
The love for Him, that held me, it eclipsed           55   
Beatrice in oblivion. Nought displeased      
Was she, but smiled thereat so joyously,      
That of her laughing eyes the radiance brake      
And scatter’d my collected mind abroad.      
  Then saw I a bright band, in liveliness           60   
Surpassing, who themselves did make the crown,      
And us their centre: yet more sweet in voice,      
Than, in their visage, beaming. Cinctured thus,      
Sometime Latona’s daughter we behold,      
When the impregnate air retains the thread           65   
That weaves her zone. In the celestial court,      
Whence I return, are many jewels found,      
So dear and beautiful, they cannot brook      
Transporting from that realm: and of these lights      
Such was the song. 11 Who doth not prune his wing           70   
To soar up thither, let him 12 look from thence      
For tidings from the dumb. When, singing thus,      
Those burning suns had circled round us thrice,      
As nearest stars around the fixed pole;      
Then seem’d they like to ladies, from the dance           75   
Not ceasing, but suspense, in silent pause,      
Listening, till they have caught the strain anew:      
Suspended so they stood: and, from within,      
Thus heard I one, who spake: “Since with its beam      
The Grace, whence true love lighteth first his flame,           80   
That after doth increase by loving, shines      
So multiplied in thee, it leads thee up      
Along this ladder, down whose hallow’d steps      
None e’er descend, and mount them not again;      
Who from his phial should refuse thee wine           85   
To slake thy thirst, no less constrained 13 were,      
Than water flowing not unto the sea.      
Thou fain wouldst hear, what plants are these, that bloom      
In the bright garland, which, admiring, girds      
This fair dame round, who strengthens thee for Heaven.           90   
I, then, 14 was of the lambs, that Dominic      
Leads, for his saintly flock, along the way      
Where well they thrive, not swoln with vanity.      
He, nearest on my right hand, brother was,      
And master to me: Albert of Cologne 15           95   
Is this; and, of Aquinum, Thomas 16 I.      
If thou of all the rest wouldst be assured,      
Let thine eye, waiting on the words I speak,      
In circuit journey round the blessed wreath.      
That next resplendence issues from the smile           100   
Of Gratian, 17 who to either forum 18 lent      
Such help, as favour wins in Paradise.      
The other, nearest, who adorns our quire,      
Was Peter, 19 he that with the widow gave      
To holy Church his treasure. The fifth light, 20           105   
Goodliest of all, is by such love inspired,      
That all your world craves tidings of his doom. 21      
Within, there is a lofty light, endow’d      
With sapience so profound, if truth be truth,      
That with a ken of such wide amplitude           110   
No second hath arisen. Next behold      
That taper’s radiance, 22 to whose view was shown,      
Clearliest, the nature and the ministry      
Angelical, while yet in flesh it dwelt.      
In the other little light serenely smiles           115   
That pleader 23 for the Christian temples, he,      
Who did provide Augustin of his lore.      
Now, if thy mind’s eye pass from light to light,      
Upon my praises following, of the eighth 24      
Thy thirst is next. The saintly soul, that shows           120   
The world’s deceitfulness, to all who hear him,      
Is, with the sight of all the good that is,      
Blest there. The limbs, whence it was driven, lie      
Down in Cieldauro; 25 and from martyrdom      
And exile came it here. Lo! further on,           125   
Where flames the arduous spirit of Isidore; 26      
Of Bede; 27 and Richard, 28 more than man, erewhile,      
In deep discernment. Lastly this, from whom      
Thy look on me reverteth, was the beam      
Of one, whose spirit, on high musings bent,           130   
Rebuked the lingering tardiness of death.      
It is the eternal light of Sigebert 29      
Who ’scaped not envy, when of truth he argued,      
Reading in the straw-litter’d street.”  30 Forthwith,      
As clock, that calleth up the spouse of God 31           135   
To win her Bridegroom’s love at matin’s hour,      
Each part of other fitly drawn and urged,      
Sends out a tinkling sound, of note so sweet,      
Affection springs in well-disposed breast;      
Thus saw I move the glorious wheel; thus heard           140   
Voice answering voice, so musical and soft,      
It can be known but where day endless shines.      
    
Note 1. To that part of heaven where the equinoctial circle and the Zodiac intersect each other, where the common motion of the heavens from east to west may be said to strike with greatest force against the motion proper to the planets, and this repercussion, as it were, is here the strongest, because the velocity of each is increased to the utmost by their respective distances from the poles. [back]   
Note 2. “Oblique.” The Zodiac. [back]   
Note 3. If the planets did not preserve that order in which they move, they would not receive nor transmit their due influences; and if the Zodiac were not thus oblique; if toward the north it either passed or went short of the tropic of Cancer, or else toward the south it passed, or went short of the tropic of Capricorn, it would not divide the seasons as it now does. [back]   
Note 4. The intersection of the equinoctial circle and the Zodiac. [back]   
Note 5. “Minister.” The sun. [back]   
Note 6. According to Dante, as the earth is motionless, the sun passes by a spiral motion, from one tropic to another. [back]   
Note 7. “Where.” In which the sun rises earlier every day after the vernal equinox. [back]   
Note 8. “But as a man.” That is, he was quite insensible of it. [back]   
Note 9. “Fourth family.” The inhabitants of the sun, the fourth planet. [back]   
Note 10. The procession of the third and the generation of the second person in the Trinity. [back]   
Note 11. The song of these spirits was like a jewel so highly prized that the exportation of it is prohibited by law. [back]   
Note 12. Let him not expect intelligence of that place, for it surpasses direction. [back]   
Note 13. “The rivers might as easily cease to flow toward the sea, as we could deny thee thy request.” [back]   
Note 14. “I was of the Dominican order.” [back]   
Note 15. Albertus Magnus was born at Laugingen, in Thuringia, in 1193, and studied at Paris and at Padua; at the latter place he entered into the Dominican order. He then taught theology in various parts of Germany, and particularly at Cologne. Thomas Aquinas was his favorite pupil In 1260 he reluctantly accepted the bishopric of Ratisbon, and in two years after resigned it, and returned to his cell in Cologne, where the remainder of his life was passed in superintending the school, and in composing his voluminous works on divinity and natural science. He died in 1280. [back]   
Note 16. Thomas Aquinas, of whom Bucer is reported to have said, “Take but Thomas away, and I will overturn the Church of Rome:; and whom Hooker terms “the greatest among the school divines”—(“Eccl. Pol.” b. iii. section 9), was born of noble parents, who anxiously but vainly endeavored to divert him from a life of celibacy and study. He died in 1274, at the age of forty-seven. [back]   
Note 17. “Gratian.” Gratian, a Benedictine monk belonging to the convent of St. Felix and Nabor, at Bologna, and by birth a Tuscan, composed, about the year 1130, for the use of the schools, an abridgement or epitome of canon law, drawn from the letters of the pontiffs, the decrees of councils and the writings of the ancient doctors. [back]   
Note 18. “To either forum.” By reconciling the civil with the canon law. [back]   
Note 19. “Peter.” Pietro Lombardo was of obscure origin, nor is the place of his birth in Lombardy ascertained. With a recommendation from the Bishop of Lucca to St. Bernard, he went into France to continue his studies; and for that purpose remained some time at Rheims, whence he proceeded to Paris. Here his reputation was so great that Philip, brother of Louis VII, being chosen Bishop of Paris, resigned that dignity to Pietro, whose pupil he had been. He held his bishopric only one year, and died 1160. His “Liber Sententiarum” is highly esteemed. It contains a system of scholastic theology, much more complete than any which had been yet seen. [back]   
Note 20. “The fifth light.” Solomon. [back]   
Note 21. “His doom.” It was a common question, it seems, whether Solomon were saved or no. [back]   
Note 22. St. Dionysius, the Areopagite. “The famous Grecian fanatic, who gave himself out for Dionysius the Areopagite, disciple of St. Paul, and who, under the protection of this venerable name, gave laws and instructions to those that were desirous of raising their souls above all human things, in order to unite them to their great source by sublime contemplation, lived most probably in the fourth century.” Maclaine’s Mosheim. [back]   
Note 23. “That pleader.” In the fifth century, Paulus Orosius “acquired a considerable degree of reputation by the history he wrote to refute the cavils of the Pagans against Christianity, and by his books against the Pelagians and Priscillianists.” Ibid. [back]   
Note 24. Boëtius, whose book “de Consolatione Philosophiæ,” excited so much attention during the Middle Ages, was born about 470. “In 524 he was cruelly put to death by Theodoric, either on real or pretended suspicion of his being engaged in a conspiracy.” Della Lett. Ital. [back]   
Note 25. “Cieldauro.” Boëtius was buried at Pavia, in the monastery of St. Pietro in Ciel d’Oro. [back]   
Note 26. He was Archbishop of Seville during forty years, and died in 635. [back]   
Note 27. “Bede.” Bede, whose virtues obtained him the appellation of the Venerable, was born in 672, at Wearmouth and Jarrow in the bishopric of Durham, and died at Jarrow in 735. Invited to Rome by Pope Sergius I, he preferred passing almost the whole of his life in the seclusion of a monastery. [back]   
Note 28. Richard of St. Victor, a native either of Scotland or Ireland, was canon and prior of the monastery of that name at Paris; and died in 1173. “He was at the head of the Mystics in this century; and his treatise, entitled the “Mystical Ark,” which contains as it were the marrow of this kind of theology, was received with the greatest avidity.” Maclaine’s Mosheim. [back]   
Note 29. A monk of the Abbey of Gemblours, in high repute at the end of the eleventh, and beginning of the twelfth century. [back]   
Note 30. The name of a street in Paris; the “Rue de Fouarre.” [back]   
Note 31. The Church.

Canto XI   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—Thomas Aquinas enters at large into the life and character of St. Francis; and then solves one of two difficulties, which he perceived to have risen in Dante’s mind from what he had heard in the last Canto.   
    
    
O FOND anxiety of mortal men!      
How vain and inconclusive arguments      
Are those, which make thee beat thy wings below.      
For statutes one, and one for aphorisms 1      
Was hunting; this the priesthood follow’d; that,           5   
By force or sophistry, aspired to rule;      
To rob, another; and another sought,      
By civil business, wealth; one, moiling, lay      
Tangled in net of sensual delight;      
And one to wistless indolence resign’d;           10   
What time from all these empty things escaped,      
With Beatrice, I thus gloriously      
Was raised aloft, and made the guest of Heaven.      
  They of the circle to that point, each one,      
Where erst it was, had turn’d; and steady glow’d,           15   
As candle in his socket. Then within      
The lustre, 2 that erewhile bespake me, smiling      
With merer gladness, heard I thus begin:      
  “E’en as His beam illumes me, so I look      
Into the Eternal Light, and clearly mark           20   
Thy thoughts, from whence they rise. Thou art in doubt,      
And wouldst, that I should bolt my words afresh      
In such plain open phrase, as may be smooth      
To thy perception, where I told thee late      
That ‘well they thrive’; 3 and that ‘no second such 4           25   
Hath risen,’ which no small distinction needs.      
  “The Providence, that governeth the world,      
In depth of counsel by created ken      
Unfathomable, to the end that she, 5      
Who with loud cries was ’spoused in precious blood,           30   
Might keep her footing toward her well-beloved, 6      
Safe in herself and constant unto Him,      
Hath two ordain’d, who should on either hand      
In chief escort her: one, 7 seraphic all      
In fervency; for wisdom upon earth,           35   
The other, 8 splendour of cherubic light.      
I but of one will tell: he tells of both,      
Who one commendeth, which of them soe’er      
Be taken: for their deeds were to one end.      
  “Between Tupino, 9 and the wave that falls           40   
From blest Ubaldo’s chosen hill, there hangs      
Rich slope of mountain high, whence heat and cold 10      
Are wafted through Perugia’s eastern gate:      
And Nocera with Gualdo, in its rear,      
Mourn for their heavy yoke. 11 Upon that side,           45   
Where it doth break its steepness most, arose      
A sun upon the world, as duly this      
From Ganges doth: therefore let none, who speak      
Of that place, say Ascesi; for its name      
Were lamely so deliver’d; but the East,           50   
To call things rightly, be it henceforth styled.      
He was not yet much distant from his rising,      
When his good influence ’gan to bless the earth.      
A dame, 12 to whom none openeth pleasure’s gate      
More than to death, was, ’gainst his father’s will, 13           55   
His stripling choice: and he did make her his,      
Before the spiritual court, 14 by nuptial bonds,      
And in his father’s sight: from day to day,      
Then loved her more devoutly. She, bereaved      
Of her first Husband, 15 slighted and obscure,           60   
Thousand and hundred years and more, remain’d      
Without a single suitor, till he came.      
Nor aught avail’d, that, with Amyclas, 16 she      
Was found unmoved at rumour of his voice,      
Who shook the world: nor aught her constant boldness,           65   
Whereby with Christ she mounted on the Cross,      
When Mary stay’d beneath. But not to deal      
Thus closely with thee longer, take at large      
The lovers’ titles—Poverty and Francis.      
Their concord and glad looks, wonder and love,           70   
And sweet regard gave birth to holy thoughts,      
So much, that venerable Bernard 17 first      
Did bare his feet, and, in pursuit of peace      
So heavenly, ran, yet deem’d his footing slow.      
O hidden riches! O prolific good!           75   
Egidius 18 bares him next, and next Sylvester, 19      
And follow, both, the bridegroom: so the bride      
Can please them. Thenceforth goes he on his way,      
The father and the master, with his spouse,      
And with that family, whom now the cord 20           80   
Girt humbly: nor did abjectness of heart      
Weigh down his eyelids, for that he was son      
Of Pietro Bernardone, 21 and by men      
In wondrous sort despised. But royally      
His hard intention he to Innocent 22           85   
Set forth; and, from him, first received the seal      
On his religion. Then, when numerous flock’d      
The tribe of lowly ones, that traced his steps,      
Whose marvellous life deservedly were sung      
In heights empyreal; through Honorius’ 23 hand           90   
A second crown, to deck their Guardian’s virtues,      
Was by the eternal Spirit inwreathed: and when      
He had, through thirst of martyrdom, stood up      
In the proud Soldan’s presence, 24 and there preach’d      
Christ and His followers, but found the race           95   
Unripen’d for conversion; back once more      
He hasted (not to intermit his toil)      
And reap’d Ausonian lands. On the hard rock, 25      
’Twixt Arno and the Tiber, he from Christ      
Took the last signet,  26 which his limbs two years           100   
Did carry. Then, the season come that He,      
Who to such good had destined him, was pleased      
To advanced him to the meed, which he had earn’d      
By his self-humbling; to his brotherhood,      
As their just heritage, he gave in charge           105   
His dearest lady: 27 and enjoin’d their love      
And faith to her; and, from her bosom, will’d      
His goodly spirit should move forth, returning      
To its appointed kingdom; nor would have      
His body 28 laid upon another bier.           110   
  “Think now of one, who were a fit colleague      
To keep the bark of Peter, in deep sea,      
Helm’d to right point; and such our Patriarch 29 was.      
Therefore who follow him as he enjoins,      
Thou mayst be certain, take good lading in.           115   
But hunger of new viands tempts his flock; 30      
So that they needs into strange pastures wide      
Must spread them: and the more remote from him      
The stragglers wander, so much more they come      
Home, to the sheep-fold, destitute of milk.           120   
There are of them, in truth, who fear their harm,      
And to the shepherd cleave; but these so few,      
A little stuff may furnish out their cloaks.      
  “Now, if my words be clear; if thou have ta’en      
Good heed; if that, which I have told, recall           125   
To mind; thy wish may be in part fulfill’d:      
For thou wilt see the plant from whence they split; 31      
And he shall see, who girds him, what that means,      
‘That well they thrive, not swoln with vanity.’”      
    
Note 1. The study of medicine. [back]   
Note 2. The spirit of Thomas Aquinas. [back]   
Note 3. See the last Canto, v. 93. [back]   
Note 4. See the last Canto, v. III. [back]   
Note 5. “She.” The Church. [back]   
Note 6. Jesus Christ. [back]   
Note 7. “One.” St. Francis. [back]   
Note 8. “The other.” St. Dominic. [back]   
Note 9. Thomas Aquinas describes the birthplace of St. Francis, between Tupino, a rivulet near Assisi, or Ascesi, where the saint was born in 1182, and Chiascio, a stream that rises in a mountain near Agobbio, chosen by St. Ubaldo for his retirement. [back]   
Note 10. Cold from the snow, and heart from the reflection of the sun. [back]   
Note 11. Vellutello understands this of the vicinity of the “mountain” to Nocera and Gualdo; and Venturi of the heavy impositions laid on those places by the Perugians. [back]   
Note 12. In the under church of St. Francis, Assisi, is a picture painted by Giotto from this subject. It is considered one of the artist’s best works. See Kugler’s “Handbook of the History of Painting, translated by a lady.” Lond. 1842, p. 48. [back]   
Note 13. In opposition to the wishes of his natural father. [back]   
Note 14. He made a vow of poverty in the presence of the bishop and of his natural father. [back]   
Note 15. “Her first Husband.” Christ. [back]   
Note 16. Lucan makes Cæsar exclaim, on witnessing the secure poverty of the fisherman Amyclas:—
           “O happy poverty! thou greatest good   
Bestow’d by Heaven, but seldom understood!   
Here nor the cruel spoiler seeks his prey,   
Nor ruthless armies take their dreadful way.” etc.—Rowe.   
 [back]   
Note 17. Of Quintavalle; one of the first followers of the saint. [back]   
Note 18. “Egidius.” The third of his disciples, who died in 1262. His work, entitled “Verba Aurea,” was published in 1534, at Antwerp. [back]   
Note 19. Another of his earliest associates. [back]   
Note 20. “Whom now the cord.” St. Francis bound his body with a cord, in sign that it required, like a beast, to be led by a halter. [back]   
Note 21. A man in an humble station of life at Assisi. [back]   
Note 22. Pope Innocent III. [back]   
Note 23. “Honorius.” His successor Honorius III, who granted certain privileges to the Franciscans. [back]   
Note 24. The Soldan of Egypt, before whom St. Francis is said to have preached. [back]   
Note 25. Mt. Alverna in the Apennines. [back]   
Note 26. “The last signet.” Alluding to the stigmata, or marks resembling the wounds of Christ, said to have been found on the saint’s body. [back]   
Note 27. “His dearest lady.” Poverty. [back]   
Note 28. He forbade any funeral pomp to be observed at his burial; and, as it is said, ordered that his remains should be deposited in a place where criminals were executed and interred. [back]   
Note 29. St. Dominic, to whose order Thomas Aquinas belonged. [back]   
Note 30. “His flock.” The Dominicans. [back]   
Note 31. “The rule of their order, which the Dominicans neglect to observe.