The Divine Comedy: Paradise
The Divine Comedy: ParadisePARADISECopyright
The Divine Comedy: Paradise
Dante Alighieri
PARADISE
CANTO I. Proem.—Invocation.—Beatrice and Dante ascend to
theSphere of Fire.—Beatrice explains the cause of their
ascent.The glory of Him who moves everything penetrates through the
universe, and shines in one part more and in another less. In the
heaven that receives most of its light I have been, and have seen
things which he who descends from thereabove neither knows how nor
is able to recount; because, drawing near to its own desire,[1] our
understanding enters so deep, that the memory cannot follow. Truly
whatever of the Holy Realm I could treasure up in my mind shall now
be the theme of my song.[1] The innate desire of the soul is to attain the vision of
God.O good Apollo, for this last labor make me such a vessel of
thy power as thou demandest for the gift of the loved laurel.[1]
Thus far one summit of Parnassus has been enough for me, but now
with both[2] I need to enter the remaining, arena. Enter into my
breast, and breathe thou in such wise as when thou drewest Marsyas
from out the sheath of his limbs. O divine Power, if thou lend
thyself to me so that I may make manifest the image of the Blessed
Realm imprinted within my head, thou shalt see me come to thy
chosen tree, and crown myself then with those leaves of which the
theme and thou will make me worthy. So rarely, Father, are they
gathered for triumph or of Caesar or of poet (fault and shame of
the human wills), that the Peneian leaf[3] should bring forth joy
unto the joyous Delphic deity, whenever it makes any one to long
for it. Great flame follows a little spark: perhaps after me prayer
shall be made with better voices, whereto Cyrrha[4] may
respond.[1] So inspire me in this labor that I may deserve the gift
of the laurel.[2] The Muses were fabled to dwell on one peak of Parnassus,
Apollo on the other. At the opening of the preceding parts of his
poem Dante has invoked the Muses only.[3] Daphne, who was changed to the laurel, was the daughter
of Peneus.[4] Cyrrha, a city sacred to Apollo, not far from the foot of
Parnassus, and here used for the name of the god
himself.The lamp of the world rises to mortals through different
passages, but from that which joins four circles with three crosses
it issues with better course and conjoined with a better star, and
it tempers and seals the mundane wax more after its own fashion[1]
Almost such a passage had made morning there and evening here;[2]
and there all that hemisphere was white, and the other part black,
when I saw Beatrice turned upon the left side, and looking into the
sun: never did eagle so fix himself upon it. And even as a second
ray is wont to issue from the first, and mount upward again, like a
pilgrim who wishes to return; thus of her action, infused through
the eyes into my imagination, mine was made, and I fixed my eyes
upon the sun beyond our use. Much is allowed there which here is
not allowed to our faculties, thanks to the place made for the
human race as its proper, abode.[3] Not long did I endure it, nor
so little that I did not see it sparkling round about, like iron
that issues boiling from the fire. And on a sudden,[4] day seemed
to be added to day, as if He who is able had adorned the heaven
with another sun.[1] In the spring the sun rises from a point on the horizon,
where the four great circles, namely, the horizon, the zodiac,
theequator, and the equinoctial colure, meet, and, cutting each
other, form three crosses. The sun is in the sign of Aries, "a
better star," because the influence of this constellation was
supposed to be benignant, and under it the earth reclothes itself.
It was the season assigned to the Creation, and to the
Annunciation.[2] There, in the Earthly Paradise; here, on earth. It is the
morning of Thursday, April 123. The hours from the mid-day
preceding to this dawn are undescribed.[3] The Earthly Paradise, made for man in his original
excellence.[4] So rapid was his ascent to the sphere of fire, drawn
upward by the eyes of Beatrice.Beatrice was standing with her eyes wholly fixed on the
eternal wheels, and on her I fixed my eyes from thereabove removed.
Looking at her I inwardly became such as Glaucus[1] became on
tasting of the herb which made him consort in the sea of the other
gods. Transhumanizing cannot be signified in words; therefore let
the example[2] suffice for him to whom grace reserves experience.
If I was only what of me thou didst the last create,[3] O Love that
governest the heavens, Thou knowest, who with Thy light didst lift
me. When the revolution which Thou, being desired, makest
eternal,[4] made me attent unto itself with the harmony which Thou
attunest and modulatest, so much of the heaven then seemed to me
enkindled by the flame of the sun, that rain or river never made so
broad a lake.[1] A fisherman changed to a sea-god. The story is in Ovid
(Metamorphoses, xiii.).[2] Just cited, of Glauens.[3] In the twenty-fifth Canto of Purgatory, Dante has said
that when the articulation of the brain is perfect God breathes
into it a new spirit, the living soul; and he means here that, like
St. Paul caught up into Paradise, he cannot tell "whether in the
body or Out of the body." (2 Corinthians, xii. 3).[4] The desire to be united with God is the source of the
eternal revolution of the heavens. "The Empyrean . . . is the cause
of the most swift motion of the Primum Mobile. because of the most
ardent desire of every part of the latter to be conjoined with
every part of that most divine quiet heaven."—Convito,
14.The novelty of the sound and the great light kindled in me a
desire concerning their cause, never before felt with such
acuteness. Whereupon she, who saw me as I see myself, to quiet my
perturbed mind opened her mouth, ere I mine to ask, and began,
"Thou thyself makest thyself dull with false imagining, so that
thou seest not what thou wouldst see, if thou hadst shaken it off.
Thou art not on earth, as thou believest; but lightning, flying
from its proper site, never ran as thou who thereunto[1]
returnest."[1] To thine own proper site,—Heaven, the true home of the
soul.If I was divested of my first doubt by these brief little
smiled- out words, within a new one was I the more enmeshed. And I
said, "Already I rested content concerning a great wonder; but now
I wonder how I can transcend these light bodies." Whereupon she,
after a pitying sigh, directed her eyes toward me, with that look
which a mother turns on her delirious son, and she began, "All
things whatsoever have order among themselves; and this is the form
which makes the universe like to God. Here[1] the high creatures[2]
see the imprint of the eternal Goodness, which is the end for which
the aforesaid rule is made. In the order of which I speak, all
natures are arranged, by diverse lots, more or less near to their
source;[3] wherefore they are moved to diverse ports through the
great sea of being, and each one with an instinct given to it which
may bear it on. This bears the fire upward toward the moon; this is
the motive force in mortal hearts; this binds together and unites
the earth. Nor does this bow shoot forth.[4] Only the created
things which are outside intelligence, but also those which have
understanding and love. The Providence that adjusts all this, with
its own light makes forever quiet the heaven[5] within which that
revolves which hath the greatest speed. And thither now, as to a
site decreed, the virtue of that cord bears us on which directs to
a joyful mark whatever it shoots. True is it, that as the form
often accords not to the intention of the art, because the material
is deaf to respond, so the creature sometimes deviates from this
course; for it has power, though thus impelled, to incline in
another direction (even as the fire of a cloud may be seen to
fall[6]), if the first impetus, bent aside by false pleasure, turn
it earthwards. Thou shouldst not, if I deem aright, wonder more at
thy ascent, than at a stream if from a high mountain it descends to
the base. A marvel it would be in thee, if, deprived of hindrance,
thou hadst sat below, even as quiet in living fire on earth would
be."[1] In this order of the universe.[2] The created beings endowed with souls,—angels and
men.[3] The source of their being, God.[4] This instinct directs to their proper end animate as well
as inanimate things, as the bow shoots the arrow to its
mark.[5] The Empyrean, within which the Primum Mobile, the first
moving heaven, revolves.[6] Contrary to its true nature.Thereon she turned again toward heaven her face.
CANTO II. Proem.—Ascent to the Moon.—The cause of Spots on
theMoon.—Influence of the Heavens.O ye, who are in a little bark, desirous to listen, following
behind my craft which singing passes on, turn to see again Your
shores; put not out upon the deep; for haply losing me, ye would
remain astray. The water that I sail was never crossed. Minerva
inspires, and Apollo guides me, and nine Muses point out to me the
Bears.Ye other few, who have lifted tip your necks be. times to the
bread of the Angels, oil which one here subsists, but never becomes
sated of it, ye may well put forth your vessel over the salt deep,
keeping my wake before you on the water which turns smooth again.
Those glorious ones who passed over to Colchos wondered not as ye
shall do, when they saw Jason become a ploughman.The concreate and perpetual thirst for the deiform realm was
bearing us on swift almost as ye see the heavens. Beatrice was
looking upward, and I upon her, and perhaps in such time as a
quarrel[1] rests, and flies, and from the notch is unlocked,[2] I
saw myself arrived where a wonderful thing drew my sight to itself;
and therefore she, from whom the working of my mind could not be
hid, turned toward me, glad as beautiful. "Uplift thy grateful mind
to God," she said to me, "who with the first star[3] has conjoined
us."[1] The bolt for a cross-bow.[2] The inverse order indicates the instantaneousness of the
act.[3] The moon.It seemed to me that a cloud had covered us, lucid, dense,
solid, and polished, like a diamond which the sun had struck.
Within itself the eternal pearl had received us, even as water
receives a ray of light, remaining unbroken. If I was body (and
here[1] it is not conceivable how one dimension brooked another,
which needs must be if body enter body) the desire ought the more
to kindle us to see that Essence, in which is seen how our nature
and God were united. There will be seen that which we hold by
faith, not demonstrated, but it will be known of itself like the
first truth which man believes.[2][1] On earth, by mortal faculties.[2] Not demonstrated by argument, but known by direct
cognition, like the intuitive perception of first principles, per
se notu.I replied, "My Lady, devoutly to the utmost that I can, do I
thank him who from the mortal world has removed me. But tell me
what are the dusky marks of this body, which there below on earth
make people fable about Cain?"[1][1] Fancying the dark spaces on the surface of the moon to
represent Cain carrying a thorn-bush for the fire of his
sacrifice.She smiled somewhat, and then she said, "If the opinion of
mortals errs where the key of sense unlocks not, surely the shafts
of wonder ought not now to pierce thee, since thou seest that the
reason following the senses has short wings. But tell me what thou
thyself thinkest of it." And I, "That which here above appears to
us diverse, I believe is caused by rare and dense bodies." And she,
"Surely enough thou shalt see that thy belief is submerged in
error, if then listenest well to the argument that I shall make
against it. The eighth sphere[1] displays to you many lights, which
may be noted of different aspects in quality and quantity. If rare
and dense effected all this,[2] one single virtue, more or less or
equally distributed, would be in all. Different virtues must needs
be fruits of formal principles;[3] and by thy reckoning, these, all
but one, would be destroyed. Further, if rarity were the cause of
that darkness of which you ask, either this planet would be thus
deficient of its matter through and through, or else as a body
distributes the fat and the loan, so this would interchange the
leaves in its volume. If the first were the case, it would be
manifest in the eclipses of the sun, by the shining through of the
light, as when it is poured out upon any other rare body. This is
not so; therefore we must look at the other, and if it happen that
I quash this other, thy opinion will be falsified. If it be that
this rare passes not through,[4] there needs must be a limit,
beyond which its contrary allows it not to pass further; and thence
the ray from another body is poured back, just as color returns
through a glass which hides lead behind itself. Now thou wilt say
that the ray shows itself dimmer there than in the other parts, by
being there reflected from further back. From this objection
experiment, which is wont to be the fountain to the streams of your
arts, may deliver thee, if ever thou try it. Thou shalt take three
mirrors, and set two of them at an equal distance from thee, and
let the other, further removed, meet thine eyes between the first
two. Turning toward them, cause a light to be placed behind thy
back, which may illumine the three mirrors, and return to thee
thrown back front all. Although the more distant image reach thee
not so great in quantity, thou wilt then see how it cannot but be
of equal brightness.[1] The heaven of the fixed stars.[2] If all this difference were caused merely by difference
in rarity and density.[3] The stars exert various influences; hence their
differences, from which the variety of their influence proceeds,
must be caused by different formal principles or intrinsic
causes.[4] Extends not through the whole substance of the
moon."Now, as beneath the blows of the warm rays that which lies
under the snow remains bare both of the former color[1] and the
cold, thee, thus remaining in thy intellect, will I inform with
light so living that it shall tremble in its aspect to
thee.[2][1] The color of the snow.[2[My argument has removed the error which covered thy mind,
and nov I will tell thee the true cause of the variety in the
surface of the moon."Within the heaven of the divine peace revolves a body, in
whose virtue lies the being of all that it contains.[1] The
following heaven[2] which has so many sights, distributes that
being through divers essences[3] from it distinct, and by it
contained. The other spheres, by various differences, dispose the
distinctions which they have within themselves unto their ends and
their seeds.[4] These organs of the world thus proceed, as thou now
seest, from grade to grade; for they receivefrom above, and operate
below. Observe me well, how I advance through this place to the
truth which thou desirest, so that hereafter thou mayest know to
keep the ford alone. The motion and the virtue of the holy spheres
must needs be inspired by blessed motors, as the work of the hammer
by the smith. And the heaven, which so many lights make beautiful,
takes its image from the deep Mind which revolves it, and makes
thereof a seal. And as the soul within your dust is diffused
through different members, and conformed to divers potencies, so
the Intelligence[5] displays its own goodness multiplied through
the stars, itself circling upon its own unity. Divers virtue makes
divers alloy with the precious body that it quickens, in which,
even as life in you, it is bound. Because of the glad nature
whence, it flows, the virtue mingled through the body shines,[6] as
gladness through the living pupil. From this,[7] comes whatso seems
different between light and light, not from dense and rare; this is
the formal principle which produces, conformed unto its goodness,
the dark and the bright."[1] Within the motionless sphere of the Empyrean revolves
that of the Primum Mobile, from whose virtue, communicated to it
from the Empyrean, all the inferior spheres contained within it
derive their special mode of being.[2] The heaven of the Fixed Stars.[3] Through the planets, called essences because each has a
specific mode of being.[4] "The rays of the heavens are the way by which their
virtue descends to the things below."—Convito, ii. 7.[5] Which moves the heavens.[6] The brightness of the stars comes from the joy which
radiates through them.[7] From the divers virtue making divers alloy.
CANTO III. The Heaven of the Moon.—Spirits whose vows had been
broken.—Piccarda Donati.—The Empress Constance.
That sun which first had heated my breast with love, proving and
refuting, had uncovered to me the sweet aspect of fair truth; and
I, in order to confess myself corrected and assured so far as was
needful, raised my head more erect to speak. But a vision appeared
which held me to itself so close in order to be seen, that of my
confession I remembered not.As through transparent and polished glasses, or through clear
and tranquil waters, not so deep that their bed be lost, the
lineaments of our faces return so feebly that a pearl on a white
brow comes not less readily to our eyes, so I saw many faces eager
to speak; wherefore I ran into the error contrary to that which
kindled love between the man and the fountain.[1] Suddenly, even as
I became aware of them, supposing them mirrored semblances, I
turned my eyes to see of whom they were; and I saw nothing; and I
turned them forward again, straight into the light of the sweet
guide who, smiling, was glowing in her holy eyes. "Wonder not
because I smile," she said to me, "at thy puerile thought, since
thy foot trusts itself not yet upon the truth, but turns thee, as
it is wont, to emptiness. True substances are these which thou
seest, here relegated through failure in their vows. Therefore
speak with them, and hear, and believe; for the veracious light
which satisfies them allows them not to turn their feet from
itself."[1] Narcissus conceived the image to be a true face; Dante
takes the real faces to be mirrored semblances.And I directed me to the shade that seemed most eager to
speak, and I began, even like a man whom too strong wish confuses,
"O well-created spirit, who in the rays of life eternal tastest the
sweetness, which untasted never is understood, it will be gracious
to me, if thou contentest me with thy name, and with your destiny."
Whereon she promptly, and with smiling eyes, "Our charity locks not
its door to a just wish, more than that which wills that all its
court be like itself. I was in the world a virgin sister,[1] and if
thy mind well regards, my being more beautiful will not conceal me
from thee; but thou wilt recognize that I am Piccarda,[2] who,
placed here with these other blessed Ones, am blessed in the
slowest sphere. Our affections, which are inflamed only in the
pleasure of the Holy Spirit, rejoice in being formed according to
His order;[3] and this allotment, which appears so low, is forsooth
given to us, because our vows were neglected or void in some part."
Whereon I to her, In your marvellous aspects there shines I know
not what divine which transmutes you from our first conceptions;
therefore I was not swift in remembering; but now that which you
say to me assists me, so that refiguring is plainer to me. But tell
me, ye who are happy here, do ye desire a highher place, in order
to see more, or to make yourselves more friends?" With those other
shades she first smiled a little; then answered me so glad, that
she seemed to burn in the first fire of love, "Brother, virtue of
charity[4] quiets our will, and makes us wish only for that which
we have, and for aught else makes us not thirsty. Should we desire
to be higher up, our desires would be discordant with the will of
Him who assigns us to this place, which thou wilt see is not
possible in these circles, if to be in charity is here necesse,[5]
and if its nature thou dost well consider. Nay, it is essential to
this blessed existence to hold ourselves within the divine will,
whereby our very wills are made one. So that as we are, from stage
to stage throughout this realm, to all the realm is pleasing, as to
the King who inwills us with His will. And His will is our peace;
it is that sea whereunto is moving all that which It creates and
which nature makes."[1] A nun, of the order of St. Clare.[2] The sister of Corso Donati and of Forese: see Purgatory,
Canto XXIII. It may not be without intention that the first blessed
spirit whom Dante sees in Paradise is a relative of his own wife,
Gemma dei Donati.[3] Rejoice in whatever grade of bliss is assigned to thern
in that order of the universe which is the form that makes it like
unto God.[4] Charity here means love, the love of God.[5] Of necessity; the Latin word being used for the rhyme's
sake. "Mansionem Deus haber non potest ubi charitas non est" B.
Alberti Magni, De adhoerendo Deo, c. xii.Clear was it then to me, how everywhere in Heaven is
Paradise, although the grace of the Supreme Good rains not there in
one measure.But even as it happen, if one food sates, and for another the
appetite still remains, that this is asked for, and that declined
with thanks; so did I, with gesture and with speech, to learn from
her, what was the web whereof she did not draw the shuttle to the
head.[1] "Perfect life and high merit in-heaven a lady higher up,"
she said to me, "according to whose rule, in your world below,
there are who vest and veil themselves, so that till death they may
wake and sleep with that Spouse who accepts every vow which love
conforms unto His pleasure. A young girl, I fled from the world to
follow her, and in her garb I shut myself, and pledged me to the
pathway of her order. Afterward men, more used to ill than good,
dragged me forth from the sweet cloister;[2] and God knows what
then my life became. And this other splendor, which shows itself to
thee at my right side, and which glows with all the light of our
sphere, that which I say of me understands of herself.[3] A sister
was she; and in like manner from her head the shadow of the sacred
veils was taken. But after she too was returned unto the world
against her liking and against good usage, from the veil of the
heart she was never unbound.[4] This is the light of the great
Constance,[5] who from the second wind of Swabia produced the third
and the last power."[1] To learn from her what was the vow which she did not
fulfil.[2] According to the old commentators, her brother Corso
forced Piccarda by violence to leave the convent, in order to make
a marriage which he desired for her.[3] Her experience was similar to that of
Piccarda.[4] She remained a nun at heart.[5] Constance, daughter of the king of Sicily, Roger 1.;
married, in 1186, to the Emperor, Henry VI., the son of Frederick
Barbarossa, and father of Frederick II, who died in 1250, the last
Emperor of his line.Thus she spoke to me, and then began singing "Ave Maria," and
Singing vanished, like a heavy thing through deep water. My sight,
that followed her so far as was possible, after it lost her turned
to the mark of greater desire, and wholly rendered itself to
Beatrice; but she so flashed upon my gaze that at first the sight
endured it not: and this made me more slow in
questioning.
CANTO IV. Doubts of Dante, respecting the justice of Heaven and the
abode of the blessed, solved by Beatrice.—Question of Dante as to
the possibility of reparation for broken vows.
Between two viands, distant and attractive in like measure, a free
man would die of hunger, before he would bring one of them to his
teeth. Thus a lamb would stand between two ravenings of fierce
wolves, fearing equally; thus would stand a dog between two does.
Hence if, urged by my doubts in like measure, I was silent, I blame
not myself; nor, since it was necessary, do I commend.I was silent, but my desire was depicted on my face, and the
questioning with that far more fervent than by distinct speech.
Beatrice did what Daniel did, delivering Nebuchadnezzar from anger,
which had made him unjustly cruel, and said, "I see clearly how one
and the other desire draws thee, so that thy care so binds itself
that it breathes not forth. Thou reasonest, 'If the good will
endure, by what reckoning doth the violence of others lessen for me
the measure of desert?' Further, it gives thee occasion for doubt,
that the souls appear to return to the stars, in accordance with
the opinion of Plato.[1] These are the questions that thrust
equally upon thy wish; and therefore I will treat first of that
which hath the most venom.[2][1] Plato, in his Timaeus (41, 42), says that the creator of
the universe assigned each soul to a star, whence they were to be
sown in the vessels of time. " He who lived well during his
appointed time was to return to the star which was his habitation,
and there he would have a blessed and suitable existence." Dante's
doubt has arisen from the words of Piccarda, which implied that her
station was in the sphere of the Moon.[2] The conception that the souls after death had their abode
in the stars would be a definite heresy, and hence far more
dangerous than a question concerning the justice of Heaven, for
such a question might be consistent with entire faith in that
justice."Of the Seraphim he who is most in God, Moses, Samuel, and
whichever John thou wilt take, I say, and even Mary, have not their
seats in another heaven than those spirits who just now appeared to
thee, nor have they more or fewer years for their existence; but
all make beautiful the first circle, and have sweet life in
different measure, through feeling more or less the eternal
breath.[1] They showed themselves here, not because this sphere is
allotted to them, but to afford sign of the celestial condition
which is least exalted. To speak thus is befitting to your mind,
since only by objects of the sense doth it apprehend that which it
then makes worthy of the understanding. For this reason the
Scripture condescends to your capacity, and attributes feet and
hands to God, while meaning otherwise; and Holy Church represents
to you with human aspect Gabriel and Michael and the other who made
Tobias whole again.[2] That which Timaeus, reasons of the souls is
not like this which is seen here, since it seems that he thinks as
he says. He says that the soul returns to its own star, believing
it to have been severed thence, when nature gave it as the form.[3]
And perchance his opinion is of other guise than his words sound,
and may be of a meaning not to be derided. If he means that the
honor of their influence and the blame returns to these wheels,
perhaps his bow hits on some truth. This principle, ill understood,
formerly turned awry almost the whole world, so that it ran astray
in naming Jove, Mercury, and Mars.[4][1] The abode of all the blessed is the Empyrean,—the first
circle, counting from above; but there are degrees in blessedness,
each spirit enjoying according to its capacity; no one is conscious
of any lack.[2] The archangel Raphael.[3] The intellectual soul is united with the body as its
substantial form. That by means of which anything performs its
functions (operatur) is its form. The soul is that by which the
body lives, and hence is its form.—Summa Theol., I. lxxvi. 1, 6,
7.[4] The belief in the influence of the stars led men to
assign to them divine powers, and to name their gods after
them.