| |
| NO longer, than what time Latona’s twins | |
| Cover’d of Libra and the fleecy star, | |
| Together both, girding the horizon hang; | |
| In even balance, from the zenith poised; | |
| Till from that verge, each, changing hemisphere, | 5 |
| Part the nice level; e’en so brief a space | |
| Did Beatrice’s silence hold. A smile | |
| Sat painted on her cheek; and her fix’d gaze | |
| Bent on the point, at which my vision fail’d: | |
| When thus, her words resuming, she began: | 10 |
| “I speak, nor what thou wouldst inquire demand; | |
| For I have mark’d it, where all time and place | |
| Are present. Not for increase to Himself | |
| Of good, which may not be increased, but forth | |
| To manifest His glory by its beams; | 15 |
| Inhabiting His own eternity, | |
| Beyond time’s limit or what bound soe’er | |
| To circumscribe His being; as He will’d, | |
| Into new natures, like unto Himself, | |
| Eternal Love unfolded. Nor before, | 20 |
| As if in dull inaction, torpid, lay. | |
| For, not in process of before or aft, | |
| Upon these waters moved the Spirit of God. | |
| Simple and mix’d, both form and substance, forth | |
| To perfect being started, like three darts | 25 |
| Shot from a bow three-corded. And as ray | |
| In crystal, glass, and amber, shines entire, | |
| E’en at the moment of its issuing; thus | |
| Did, from the eternal Sovran, beam entire | |
| His threefold operation, at one act | 30 |
| Produced coeval. Yet, in order, each | |
| Created his due station knew: those highest, | |
| Who pure intelligence were made; mere power, | |
| The lowest; in the midst, bound with strict league, | |
| Intelligence and power, unsever’d bond. | 35 |
| Long tract of ages by the Angels past, | |
| Ere the creating of another world, | |
| Described on Jerome’s pages, 1 thou hast seen. | |
| But that what I disclose to thee is true, | |
| Those penmen, 2 whom the Holy Spirit moved | 40 |
| In many a passage of their sacred book, | |
| Attest; as thou by diligent search shalt find: | |
| And reason, 3 in some sort, discerns the same, | |
| Who scarce would grant the heavenly ministers, | |
| Of their perfection void, so long a space. | 45 |
| Thus when and where these spirits of love were made, | |
| Thou know’st, and how: and, knowing, hast allay’d | |
| Thy thirst, which from the triple question 4 rose. | |
| Ere one had reckon’d twenty, e’en so soon, | |
| Part of the Angels fell: and in their fall, | 50 |
| Confusion to your elements ensued. | |
| The others kept their station: and this task, | |
| Whereon thou look’st, began, with such delight, | |
| That they surcease not ever, day nor night, | |
| Their circling. Of that fatal lapse the cause | 55 |
| Was the curst pride of him, whom thou hast seen | |
| Pent with the world’s incumbrance. Those, whom here | |
| Thou seest, were lowly to confess themselves | |
| Of His free bounty, who had made them apt | |
| For ministeries so high: therefore their views | 60 |
| Were, by enlightening grace and their own merit, | |
| Exalted; so that in their will confirm’d | |
| They stand, nor fear to fall. For do not doubt, | |
| But to receive the grace, which Heaven vouchsafes, | |
| Is meritorious, even as the soul | 65 |
| With prompt affection welcometh the guest. | |
| Now, without further help, if with good heed | |
| My words thy mind have treasured, thou henceforth | |
| This consistory round about mayst scan, | |
| And gaze thy fill. But, since thou hast on earth | 70 |
| Heard vain disputers, reasoners in the schools, | |
| Canvass the angelic nature, and dispute | |
| Its powers of apprehension, memory, choice; | |
| Therefore, ’tis well thou take from me the truth, | |
| Pure and without disguise; which they below, | 75 |
| Equivocating, darken and perplex. | |
| “Know thou, that, from the first, these substances, | |
| Rejoicing in the countenance of God, | |
| Have held unceasingly their view, intent | |
| Upon the glorious vision, from the which | 80 |
| Nought absent is nor hid: where then no change | |
| Of newness, with succession, interrupts, | |
| Remembrance, there, needs none to gather up | |
| Divided thought and images remote. | |
| “So that men, thus at variance with the truth, | 85 |
| Dream, though their eyes be open; reckless some | |
| Of error; others well aware they err, | |
| To whom more guilt and shame are justly due. | |
| Each the known track of sage philosophy | |
| Deserts, and has a bye-way of his own: | 90 |
| So much the restless eagerness to shine, | |
| And love of singularity prevail. | |
| Yet this, offensive as it is, provokes | |
| Heaven’s anger less, than when the Book of God | |
| Is forced to yield to man’s authority, | 95 |
| Or from its straightness warp’d: no reckoning made | |
| What blood the sowing of it in the world | |
| Has cost; what favour for himself he wins, | |
| Who meekly clings to it. The aim of all | |
| Is how to shine: e’en they, whose office is | 100 |
| To preach the Gospel, let the Gospel sleep, | |
| And pass their own inventions off instead. | |
| One tells, how at Christ’s suffering the wan moon | |
| Bent back her steps, and shadow’d o’er the sun | |
| With intervenient disk, as she withdrew: | 105 |
| Another, how the light shrouded itself | |
| Within its tabernacle, and left dark | |
| The Spaniard, and the Indian, with the Jew. | |
| Such fables Florence in her pulpit hears, | |
| Bandied about more frequent, than the names | 110 |
| Of Bindi and of Lapi 5 in her streets. | |
| The sheep, meanwhile, poor witless ones, return | |
| From pasture, fed with wind: and what avails | |
| For their excuse, they do not see their harm? | |
| Christ said not to His first conventicle, | 115 |
| ‘Go forth and preach impostures to the world,’ | |
| But gave them truth to build on; and the sound | |
| Was mighty on their lips: nor needed they, | |
| Beside the Gospel, other spear or shield, | |
| To aid them in their warfare for the faith. | 120 |
| The preacher now provides himself with store | |
| Of jests and gibes; and, so there be no lack | |
| Of laughter, while he vents them, his big cowl | |
| Distends, and he has won the meed he sought: | |
| Could but the vulgar catch a glimpse the while | 125 |
| Of that dark bird which nestles in his hood, | |
| They scarce would wait to hear the blessing said, | |
| Which now the dotards hold in such esteem, | |
| That every counterfeit, who spreads abroad | |
| The hands of holy promise, finds a throng | 130 |
| Of credulous fools beneath. Saint Anthony | |
| Fattens with this his swine, 6 and others worse | |
| Than swine, who diet at his lazy board, | |
| Paying with unstampt metal 7 for their fare, | |
| “But (for we far have wander’d) let us seek | 135 |
| The forward path again; so as the way | |
| Be shorten’d with the time. No mortal tongue, | |
| Nor thought of man, hath ever reach’d so far, | |
| That of these natures he might count the tribes. | |
| What Daniel 8 of their thousands hath reveal’d, | 140 |
| With finite number, infinite conceals. | |
| The fountain, at whose source these drink their beams, | |
| With light supplies them in as many modes, | |
| As there are splendours that it shines on: each | |
| According to the virtue it conceives, | 145 |
| Differing in love and sweet affection. | |
| Look then how lofty and how huge in breadth | |
| The eternal Might, which, broken and dispersed | |
| Over such countless mirrors, yet remains | |
| Whole in itself and one, as at the first.” | 150 |
