Paradiso (28 page)
Authors: Dante
[David]
(as singer of the Holy Spirit)
[Trajan]
(as humble servant of a widow)
[Hezekiah]
(as penitent king)
[Constantine]
(his way to Heaven paved with good intention)
William the Good
of Sicily (mourned as a just ruler)
Ripheus
the Trojan (now he truly knows divine grace)”;
Gregory
and his rebirth,
When he who floods the whole world with his light
→
sinks steadily from sight within our hemisphere
3
until the day is spent on every side,
the sky, lit up before by him alone,
suddenly sparkles with a multitude of lights
I was reminded of this alteration in the sky
when the emblem of the world and of its lords
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9
ceased speaking from within its blessèd beak,
and all those living lights, shining
still more bright, began their songs
12
that slip, and fade, and fall from memory.
O sweet love, mantled in a smile,
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how ardent did you sound within those pipes,
15
filled with the breath of holy thoughts alone!
Once the bright and precious stones of the sixth light,
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which scintillated in their setting there,
it seemed to me I heard the murmur of a stream,
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its waters falling crystal clear from rock to rock,
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revealing the abundance of its source above.
And as a sound is given shape
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at the neck of the lute or by the wind
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forced through the vent-holes of a bagpipe,
so, holding me no longer in suspense,
the murmur of the eagle issued through its neck
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as though it had been hollowed out.
There it became a voice and, coming from the beak,
it formed the words my heart was waiting for,
‘The part of me that, in mortal eagles,
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sees and endures the sun, you now must watch
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with fixed attention,’ were its words to me,
‘for, from the flames from which I take my form,
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those that make my eye shine so brightly in my head,
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those are the very highest spirits in their ranks.
‘He that blazes as the pupil with a central spark
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was the one who sang the praises of the Holy Ghost
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and brought the ark from town to town.
‘Now he knows the merit of his song,
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insofar as it derived from his own thought,
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by the fit reward he now enjoys.
‘Of the five who arc to form my eyebrow,
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the one who is closest to my beak
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consoled the widow when she lost her son.
‘Now he knows how dear the cost, should one fail
to follow Christ, since he has lived
‘And he that follows on the arc of which I speak,
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there on its upward curve, delayed his death
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by offering up his true repentance.
‘Now he knows God’s irrevocable decree
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remains unaltered even when a worthy prayer postpones
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what might occur on earth today until tomorrow.
‘The next one there, with good intent that bore bad fruit,
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turned Greek, along with both the laws and me,
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thus yielding his position to the shepherd.
‘Now he knows that the evil which derived
from his good act does him no harm,
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even if it brought the world to ruin.
‘And the one you see on the downward arc was William,
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for whom those lands lament which weep in woe
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because of living Charles and living Frederick.
‘Now he knows how Heaven is moved by love
for a righteous king, as the effulgence
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of his aspect still makes plain.
‘Who in the erring world below would think
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that Trojan Ripheus should be the fifth
‘Now he knows much the world cannot discern
of heavenly grace, although his sight
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cannot make out the bottom of this sea.’
Like the lark that soars in air,
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first singing, then silent, content and rejoicing
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in the final joyous sweetness of its song,
such did that image seem to me, the very imprint
of the eternal Beauty, by whose will
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all things become that which they truly are.
And even though I was as clear in my perplexity
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as color shows through glass that covers it,
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my question could not bear to wait its turn in silence,
but, by the pressure of its weight,
forced from my lips: ‘What are these things I see?’
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For there I saw a glittering revelry of lights.
And then, its eye lit up with greater brilliance,
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the blessèd emblem, to set me free
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from suspense and wonder, gave its answer:
‘I see that you believe these things because I say them
but fail to see, how, though you believe them,
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they came to pass, because their cause is hidden.
‘
Regnum celorum
suffers violence
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from fervent love and living hope.
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These conquer the very will of God,
‘not as man may master man, but conquer it
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because it would be conquered, and,
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once conquered, itself conquers by its goodness.
‘The first living soul in the eyebrow and the fifth
make you wonder to find them adorning
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the dwelling-place of angels.
‘They left their bodies not as gentiles
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but as Christians, firm in their beliefs, the one
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before, the other after, the piercing of His feet.
‘For from Hell, where no one may return
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to righteous will, the one came back into his bones—
‘the living hope that furnished power to the prayers
addressed to God to raise him from the dead
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so that his will might find its moving force.