Paradiso (15 page)

               
‘So close they nearly share sunset and dawn

               
lie Bougie and the city that I came from.

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Once it made its harbor warm with its own blood.   
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‘Folco the people called me, if they knew   
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my name, and now this heaven   
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is marked by me, as I was marked by it,   
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‘for the daughter of Belus was no more aflame,   
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bringing grief to Sychaeus and to Creusa,

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than I, until the color of my hair began to fade,

               
‘nor was she of Rhodope, who was deceived

               
by Demophoön, nor Alcides,

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when he embraced Iole in his heart.

               
‘Yet here we don’t repent, but smile instead,   
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not at our fault, which comes not back to mind,

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but for that Power which ordered and foresaw.

               
‘Here we contemplate the craft that beautifies   
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such love, and here discern the good

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with which the world above informs the one below.

               
‘However, so that you may leave this sphere   
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with every wish that here has been engendered

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satisfied, I must go on.

               
‘You want to know who occupies this luminescence

               
that scintillates beside me here,

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like a sunbeam gleaming in clear water.

               
‘Know then that within it Rahab is at peace,   
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and, since she is of our number,

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our highest rank receives its seal from her.

               
‘Into this heaven, where the shadow of your world   
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comes to a point, before any other,   
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first in Christ’s triumph, she was taken up.

               
‘Fitting it was indeed to leave her in one heaven,

               
a trophy of the lofty victory

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He gained with both of His two palms,   
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‘because she aided Joshua when he gained   
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his first triumph in the Holy Land—a place

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that hardly touches the memory of the pope.

               
‘Your city, which was planted by him,   
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the first to turn his back upon his Maker

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and from whose envy comes such great distress,

               
‘puts forth and spreads the accursèd flower   
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that has led astray both sheep and lambs,

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for it has made a wolf out of its shepherd.

               
‘For it the Gospels and the lofty doctors   
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are neglected and the Decretals alone are studied,

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as is readily apparent from their margins.

               
‘To it the pope and his cardinals devote themselves,   
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without a single thought for Nazareth,   
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where Gabriel spread out his wings.

               
‘But Vatican hill and other chosen Roman places

               
that became the burial-ground

               
for the solidiery that followed Peter

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will soon be free of this adultery.’

               
Gazing on His Son with the Love   
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the One and the Other eternally breathe forth,

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the inexpressible and primal Power

               
made with such order all things that revolve   
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that he who studies it, in mind and in space,

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cannot but taste of Him.   
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With me, then, reader, raise your eyes   
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up to the lofty wheels, directly to that part

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where the one motion and the other intersect,   
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and from that point begin to gaze in rapture   
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at the Master’s work. He so loves it in Himself

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that never does His eye depart from it.

               
See how from there the oblique circle

               
that bears the planets on it branches off

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to satisfy the world that calls for them.

               
And if their pathway were not thus deflected,   
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many powers in the heavens would be vain

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and quite dead almost every potency on earth.

               
And, if it slanted farther or less far

               
in the upper or the lower hemisphere,

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much would be lacking in the order of the world.

               
Stay on your bench now, reader,   
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thinking of the joy you have but tasted,   
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if, well before you tire, you would be happy.

               
I have set your table. From here on feed yourself,

               
for my attention now resides

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in that matter of which I have become the scribe.   
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Nature’s sublime and greatest minister,   
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who imprints Heaven’s power on the world

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and in his shining measures out our time,

               
in conjunction with the place I note above,   
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was wheeling through those spirals   
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in which he comes forth earlier each day.

               
And I was in it, aware of my ascent

               
no more than one becomes aware   
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of the beginnings of a thought before it comes.

               
It is Beatrice who leads from good   
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to better so suddenly that her action

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has no measurement in time.

               
Whatever I saw within the sun, how shining   
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it must have been, for, when I entered,

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it revealed itself, not by color, but by light.

               
Were I to call on genius, skill, and practice,   
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I could not ever tell how this might be imagined.

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Enough if one believes and longs to see it.

               
And if the powers of our imagination

               
are too earthbound for such height, it is no wonder,

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for eye has never seen light brighter than the sun.

               
So brilliant the fourth family of the highest Father,   
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who forever gives it satisfaction, shone,

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revealing how He breathes and how begets.