Canto XXXII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—St. Bernard shows him, on their several thrones, the other blessed souls, of both the Old and New Testament; explains to him that their places are assigned them by grace, and not according to merit; and, lastly, tells him that if he would obtain power to descry what remained of the heavenly vision, he must unite with him in supplication to Mary.   
    
    
FREELY the sage, though wrapt in musings high,      
Assumed the teacher’s part, and mild began:      
“The wound, that Mary closed, she 1 open’d first,      
Who sits so beautiful at Mary’s feet.      
The third in order, underneath her, lo!           5   
Rachel with Beatrice: Sarah next;      
Judith; Rebecca; and the gleaner-maid,      
Meek ancestress 2 of him, who sang the songs      
Of sore repentance in his sorrowful mood.      
All, as I name them, down from leaf to leaf,           10   
Are, in gradation, throned on the rose.      
And from the seventh step, successively,      
Adown the breathing tresses of the flower,      
Still doth the file of Hebrew dames proceed.      
For these are a partition wall, whereby           15   
The sacred stairs are sever’d, as the faith      
In Christ divides them. On this part, where blooms      
Each leaf in full maturity, are set      
Such as in Christ, or e’er He came, believed.      
On the other, where an intersected space           20   
Yet shows the semicircle void, abide      
All they, who look’d to Christ already come      
And as our Lady on her glorious stool,      
And they who on their stools beneath her sit,      
This way distinction make; e’en so on his,           25   
The mighty Baptist that way marks the line      
(He who endured the desert, and the pains      
Of martyrdom, and, for two years, 3 of Hell,      
Yet still continued holy), and beneath,      
Augustin; 4 Francis; 5 Benedict; 6 and the rest,           30   
Thus far from round to round. So Heaven’s decree      
Forecasts, this garden equally to fill,      
With faith in either view, past or to come.      
Learn too, that downward from the step, which cleaves,      
Midway, the twain compartments, none there are           35   
Who place obtain for merit of their own,      
But have through others’ merit been advanced,      
On set conditions; spirits all released,      
Ere for themselves they had the power to chuse.      
And, if thou mark and listen to them well,           40   
Their childish looks and voice declare as much.      
  “Here, silent as thou art, I know thy doubt;      
And gladly will I loose the knot, wherein      
Thy subtile thoughts have bound thee. From this realm      
Excluded, chance no entrance here may find;           45   
No more than hunger, thirst, or sorrow can.      
A law immutable hath stablish’d all;      
Nor is there aught thou seest, that doth not fit,      
Exactly, as the finger to the ring.      
It is not, therefore, without cause, that these           50   
O’erspeedy comers to immortal life,      
Are different in their shares of excellence.      
Our Sovran Lord, that settleth this estate      
In love and in delight so absolute,      
That wish can dare no further, every soul,           55   
Created in His joyous sight to dwell,      
With grace, at pleasure, variously endows.      
And for a proof the effect may well suffice.      
And ’tis moreover most expressly mark’d      
In holy Scripture, where the twins are said           60   
To have struggled in the womb. Therefore, as grace      
Inweaves the coronet, so every brow      
Weareth its proper hue of orient light.      
And merely in respect to his prime gift,      
Not in reward of meritorious deed,           65   
Hath each his several degree assign’d.      
In early times with their own innocence      
More was not wanting than the parents’ faith,      
To save them: those first ages past, behoved      
That circumcision in the males should imp           70   
The flight of innocent wings: but since the day      
Of grace hath come, without baptismal rites      
In Christ accomplish’d, innocence herself      
Must linger yet below. Now raise thy view      
Unto the visage most resembling Christ:           75   
For, in her splendour only, shalt thou win      
The power to look on Him.” Forthwith I saw      
Such floods of gladness on her visage shower’d,      
From holy spirits, winging that profound;      
That, whatsoever I had yet beheld,           80   
Had not so much suspended me with wonder,      
Or shown me such similitude of God.      
And he, who had to her descended, once,      
On earth, now hail’d in Heaven; and on poised wing,      
“Ave, Maria, Gratia Plena,” sang:           85   
To whose sweet anthem all the blissful court,      
From all parts answering, rang: that holier joy      
Brooded the deep serene. “Father revered!      
Who deign’st, for me, to quit the pleasant place      
Wherein thou sittest, by eternal lot;           90   
Say, who that Angel is, that with such glee      
Beholds our Queen, and so enamour’d glows      
Of her high beauty, that all fire he seems.”      
  So I again resorted to the lore      
Of my wise teacher, he, whom Mary’s charms           95   
Embellish’d, as the sun the morning star;      
Who thus in answer spake: “In him are summ’d,      
Whate’er of buxomness and free delight      
May be in spirit, or in Angel, met:      
And so beseems: for that he bare the palm           100   
Down unto Mary, when the Son of God      
Vouchsafed to clothe Him in terrestial weeds.      
Now let thine eyes wait heedful on my words;      
And note thou of this just and pious realm      
The chiefest nobles. Those, highest in bliss,           105   
The twain, on each hand next our Empress throned,      
Are as it were two roots unto this rose:      
He to the left, the parent, whose rash taste      
Proves bitter to his seed; and, on the right,      
That ancient father of the holy Church,           110   
Into whose keeping Christ did give the keys      
Of this sweet flower; near whom behold the seer, 7      
That, ere, he died, saw all the grievous times      
Of the fair bride, who with the lance and nails      
Was won. And, near unto the other, rests           115   
The leader, under whom, on manna, fed      
The ungrateful nation, fickle and perverse.      
On the other part, facing to Peter, lo!      
Where Anna sits, so well content to look      
On her loved daughter, that with moveless eye           120   
She chants the loud hosanna: while, opposed      
To the first father of your mortal kind,      
Is Lucia, 8 at whose hest thy lady sped,      
When on the edge of ruin closed thine eye.      
  “But (for the vision hasteneth to an end)           125   
Here break we off, as the good workman doth,      
That shapes the clock according to the cloth;      
And to the Primal Love our ken shall rise;      
That thou mayst penetrate the brightness, far      
As sight can bear thee. Yet, alas! in sooth           130   
Beating thy pennons, thinking to advance,      
Thou backward fall’st. Grace then must first be gain’d;      
Her grace, whose might can help thee. Thou in prayer      
Seek her: and, with affection, whilst I sue,      
Attend, and yield me all thy heart.” He said;           135   
And thus the saintly orison began.      
    
Note 1. Eve. [back]   
Note 2. Ruth, the ancestress of David. [back]   
Note 3. The time that elapsed between the death of the Baptist and his redemption by the death of Christ. [back]   
Note 4. Bishop of Hippo, fourth century. See also Canto x. 117. [back]   
Note 5. “Francis.” See Canto xi. [back]   
Note 6. “Benedict.” See Canto xxii. [back]   
Note 7. St. John. [back]   
Note 8. See Hell, Canto ii. 97, and Purgatory, Canto ix. 50

   
Canto XXXIII   
    
    
ARGUMENT.—St. Bernard supplicates the Virgin Mary that Dante may have grace given him to contemplate the brightness of the Divine Majesty, which is accordingly granted; and Dante then himself prays to God for ability to show forth some part of the celestial glory in his writings. Lastly, he is admitted to a glimpse of the great mystery; the Trinity, and the Union of Man with God.   
    
    
“O VIRGIN MOTHER, daughter of thy Son!      
Created beings all in lowliness      
Surpassing, as in height above them all;      
Term by the eternal counsel pre-ordain’d;      
Ennobler of thy nature, so advanced           5   
In thee, that its great Maker did not scorn,      
To make Himself his own creation;      
For in thy womb rekindling shone the love      
Reveal’d, whose genial influence makes now      
This flower to germin in eternal peace:           10   
Here thou to us, of charity and love,      
Art, as the noon-day torch; and art, beneath,      
To mortal men, of hope a living spring.      
So mighty art thou, Lady, and so great,      
That he, who grace desireth, and comes not           15   
To thee for aidance, fain would have desire      
Fly without wings. Not only him, who asks,      
Thy bounty succours; but doth freely oft      
Forerun the asking. Whatsoe’er may be      
Of excellence in creature, pity mild,           20   
Relenting mercy, large munificence,      
Are all combined in thee. Here kneeleth one,      
Who of all spirits hath review’d the state,      
From the world’s lowest gap unto this height.      
Suppliant to thee he kneels, imploring grace           25   
For virtue yet more high, to lift his ken      
Toward the bliss supreme. And I, who ne’er      
Coveted sight, more fondly, for myself,      
Than now for him, my prayers to thee prefer,      
(And pray they be not scant), that thou wouldst drive           30   
Each cloud of his mortality away,      
Through thine own prayers, that on the sovran joy      
Unveil’d he gaze. This yet, I pray thee, Queen,      
Who canst do what thou wilt; that in him thou      
Wouldst, after all he hath beheld, preserve           35   
Affection sound, and human passions quell.      
Lo! where, with Beatrice, many a saint      
Stretch their clasp’d hands, in furtherance of my suit.”      
  The eyes, that Heaven with love and awe regards,      
Fix’d on the suitor, witness’d, how benign           40   
She looks on pious prayers: then fasten’d they      
On the everlasting light, wherein no eye      
Of creature, as may well be thought, so far      
Can travel inward. I, meanwhile, who drew      
Near to the limit, where all wishes end,           45   
The ardour of my wish (for so behoved)      
Ended within me. Beckoning smiled the sage,      
That I should look aloft: but, ere he bade,      
Already of myself aloft I look’d;      
For visual strength, refining more and more,           50   
Bare me into the ray authentical      
Of sovran light. Thenceforward, what I saw,      
Was not for words to speak, nor memory’s self      
To stand against such outrage on her skill.      
  As one, who from a dream awaken’d, straight,           55   
All he hath seen forgets; yet still retains      
Impression of the feeling in his dream;      
E’en such am I: for all the vision dies,      
As ’twere, away; and yet the sense of sweet,      
That sprang from it, still trickles in my heart.           60   
Thus in the sun-thaw is the snow unseal’d;      
Thus in the winds on flitting leaves was lost      
The Sibyl’s sentence. O eternal beam! [soar?]      
(Whose height what reach of mortal thought may      
Yield me again some little particle           65   
Of what Thou then appearedst; give my tongue      
Power, but to leave one sparkle of Thy glory,      
Unto the race to come, that shall not lose      
Thy triumph wholly, if Thou waken aught      
Of memory in me, and endure to hear           70   
The record sound in this unequal strain.      
  Such keenness from the living ray I met,      
That, if mine eyes had turn’d away, methinks,      
I had been lost; but, so embolden’d, on      
I pass’d, as I remember, till my view           75   
Hover’d the brink of dread infinitude.      
  O grace, unenvying of Thy boon! that gavest      
Boldness to fix so earnestly my ken      
On the everlasting splendour, that I look’d,      
While sight was unconsumed, and, in that depth,           80   
Saw in one volume clasp’d of love, whate’er      
The universe unfolds; all properties      
Of substance and of accident, beheld,      
Compounded, yet one individual light      
The whole. And of such bond methinks I saw           85   
The universal form; for that whene’er      
I do but speak of it, my soul dilates      
Beyond her proper self; and, till I speak,      
One moment seems a longer lethargy,      
Than five-and-twenty ages had appear’d           90   
To that emprize, that first made Neptune wonder      
At Argo’s shadow darkening on his flood.      
  With fixed heed, suspense and motionless,      
Wondering I gazed; and admiration still      
Was kindled as I gazed. It may not be,           95   
That one, who looks upon that light, can turn      
To other object, willingly, his view.      
For all the good, that will may covet, there      
Is summ’d; and all, elsewhere defective found,      
Complete. My tongue shall utter now, no more           100   
E’en what remembrance keeps, than could the babe’s      
That yet is moisten’d at his mother’s breast.      
Not that the semblance of the living light      
Was changed, (that ever as at first remain’d),      
But that my vision quickening, in that sole           105   
Appearance, still new miracles descried,      
And toil’d me with the change. In that abyss      
Of radiance, clear and lofty, seem’d, methought,      
Three orbs of triple hue, clipt in one bound: 1      
And, from another, one reflected seem’d,           110   
As rainbow is from rainbow: and the third      
Seem’d fire, breathed equally from both. O speech!      
How feeble and how faint art thou, to give      
Conception birth. Yet this to what I saw      
Is less than little. O eternal Light!           115   
Sole in Thyself that dwell’st; and of Thyself      
Sole understood, past, present, or to come;      
Thou smiledst, on that circling, 2 which in Thee      
Seem’d as reflected splendour, while I mused;      
For I therein, methought, in its own hue           120   
Beheld our image painted: steadfastly      
I therefore pored upon the view. As one,      
Who versed in geometric lore, would fain      
Measure the circle; and, though pondering long      
And deeply, that beginning, which he needs,           125   
Finds not: e’en such was I, intent to scan      
The novel wonder, and trace out the form,      
How to the circle fitted, and therein      
How placed: but the flight was not for my wing;      
Had not a flash darted athwart my mind,           130   
And, in the spleen, unfolded what it sought.      
  Here vigour fail’d the towering fantasy:      
But yet the will roll’d onward, like a wheel      
In even motion, by the Love impell’d,      
That moves the sun in Heaven and all the stars.           135   
    
Note 1. “Three orbs of triple hue, clipt in one bound.” The Trinity. This passage may be compared to what Plato, in his second Epistle, enigmatically says of a first, second, and third, and of the impossibility that the human soul should attain to what it desires to know of them, by means of anything akin to itself. [back]   
Note 2. “That circling.” The second of the circles, “Light of Light,” in which he dimly beheld the mystery of the Incarnation.

Glossary   
   
Adveur, opposite.
Afflation, the act of blowing upon, or the state of being blown upon.
Agnized, acknowledged; recognized; learnt.

Backening, hindering.
Besteads, profits.
Bewraying, discovering, betraying.
Brachs, female hounds; dogs that pursue their prey by the scent.
Burgein, bud, put forth branches.

Champain, flat, open country.
Charlemain, Charlemagne: Charles the Great.
Chuses, chooses.
Cirque, a circle; an encircling cliff.
Cittern, a musical instrument, like a guitar, but strung with wire instead of gut.
Cloked, concealed; disguised; contradicted.
Cope, head-covering; summit; canopy.
Curule-chair, among the Romans a chair of state reserved under the Republic for officers of high dignity, hence called “curule magistrates.”
Cyon, scion.

Doddered, overgrown with dodder, or slender, twining, leafless parasites, involving and destroying the whole plant on which they grow.
Dispred, expanded.

Empery, empire, sovereignty, dominion.
Emprize, undertaking of great import and risk.
Erst, formerly.

Featly, dexterously; nimbly.
Fardel, burden.
Foison, outpouring; abundance.
Foss, moat; ditch; depression; chasm.
Frore, frozen; frosty.

Germain, related.
Gleed, spark.
Governance, the art of governing.
Grot, grotto; crypt; hidden chamber.
Gyres, circles.

Hight, called; named.
Holm, holly; oak-holm.

Indurated, hardened; obdurate.

Jocund, cheerful; care-free.

Ken, sub. attention, understanding; v. recognize, apprehend.

Lea, meadow.
Limn’d, painted; drawn; illuminated.
List, Purg., c. 18, 1. 59, please; Purg., c. 23, 1. 48, listen to.
Losel, a lazy vagabond; a scoundrel.

Meed, reward, in both bad and good sense.
Mickle, much; great.

Nathless, none the less.

Omnific, all-creating.

Pallet, couch; resting place.
Practic, practical skill; i. e., proof.
Primy, flourishing; in its prime.
Proem, preface; introduction.
Propension, inclination.

Quaternion, composed of four, as in Purg., c. 33, l. 3, the four virgins.
Quatre, four.
Quire, choir; company.
Quiresters, choristers; singing birds.

Ramp, leap; spring; bound.
Reaves, bereaves.
Rere, rear; backward.
Rereward, to the rear.
Rivage, river bank; shore; coast.

Sempiternal, having beginning, but no end; everlasting.
Septentrion, northern.
Sheret, hurt; damaged.
Sicklies, makes sick.
Sigil-mark, seal; signature; an occult sign, mark, or character.
Sith, since; afterwards.
Sithence, since; seeing that.
Swerd, sword.

Tent, prove; sound; tempt; try.
Tetchy, peevish; irritable.
Tilth, that which is tilled; or the act of tilling.
Tinct, tinged; colored.
Tourneying, competing (or turning, varying?).
Transpicuous, transparent.
Trinal, threefold.
Trine, threefold.
Twyfold, twofold.

Unweeting, unwitting; unconscious.

Vaward, vanward; to the front.
Vermeil dyed the mulberry, etc., the story as told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, the blood of Pyramis dyed the white mulberry a dark tint or purple hue.
Vermeil-tinctured, vermilion-tinged or rosy colored.
Verrey, verry, same as vaire, a term in heraldry denoting green-tinctured.
Visive, visual.

Wain, sub. Charles’ wain-churl’s or farmer’s wagon, the seven brightest stars of the constellation Great Bear, which has been called a wagon or “wain” since the time of Homer; v., to carry.
Waymenting, bewailing; lamentation.
Whenas, when; whereas; while.
Whilom, once; formerly.
Wons, lives; dwells.