CANTO XX.

WHEN he who all the world illuminates
Out of our hemisphere so far descends
That on all sides the daylight is consumed,
The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled,
Doth suddenly reveal itself again

By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.
And came into my mind this act of heaven,

When the ensign of the world and of its leaders
Had silent in the blessed beak become;

Because those living luminaries all,

By far more luminous, did songs begin
Lapsing and falling from my memory.

O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee,
How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear,
That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!
After the precious and pellucid crystals,

With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld,
Silence imposed on the angelic bells,

I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river

That clear descendeth down from rock to rock,
Showing the affluence of its mountain-top.
And as the sound upon the cithern's neck

Taketh its form, and as upon the vent
Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it,
Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting,
That murmuring of the eagle mounted up
Along its neck, as if it had been hollow.
There it became a voice, and issued thence

From out its beak, in such a form of words
As the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.
"The part in me which sees and bears the sun
In mortal eagles," it began to me,
"Now fixedly must needs be looked upon;
For of the fires of which I make my figure,

Those whence the eye doth sparkle in
Of all their orders the supremest are.
He who is shining in the midst as pupil
Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit,
Who bore the ark from city unto city;

my

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Now knoweth he the merit of his song,

In so far as effect of his own counsel,
By the reward which is commensurate.
Of five, that make a circle for my brow,

He that approacheth nearest to my beak
Did the poor widow for her son console ;
Now knoweth he how dearly it doth cost
Not following Christ, by the experience
Of this sweet life and of its opposite.
He who comes next in the circumference

Of which I speak, upon its highest arc,
Did death postpone by penitence sincere ;
Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment

Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer
Maketh below to-morrow of to-day.
The next who follows, with the laws and me,

Under the good intent that bore bad fruit
Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor;
Now knoweth he how all the ill deduced

From his good action is not harmful to him, Although the world thereby may be destroyed. And he, whom in the downward arc thou seest,

Guglielmo was, whom the same land deplores
That weepeth Charles and Frederick yet alive;
Now knoweth he how heaven enamoured is

With a just king; and in the outward show
Of his effulgence he reveals it still.

Who would believe, down in the errant world,

That e'er the Trojan Ripheus in this round
Could be the fifth one of the holy lights?
Now knoweth he enough of what the world

Has not the power to see of grace divine,
Although his sight may not discern the bottom."

Like as a lark that in the air expatiates,

First singing and then silent with content
Of the last sweetness that doth satisfy her,

Such seemed to me the image of the imprint
Of the eternal pleasure, by whose will
Doth everything become the thing it is.
And notwithstanding to my doubt I was

As glass is to the colour that invests it,

To wait the time in silence it endured not,

But forth from out my mouth, "What things are these?"
Extorted with the force of its own weight;

Whereat I saw great joy of coruscation.

Thereafterward with eye still more enkindled

The blessed standard made to me reply,
To keep me not in wonderment suspended :
"I see that thou believest in these things

Because I say them, but thou seest not how;
So that, although believed in, they are hidden.
Thou doest as he doth who a thing by name
Well apprehendeth, but its quiddity
Cannot perceive, unless another show it.
Regnum cœlorum suffereth violence

From fervent love, and from that living hope
That overcometh the Divine volition;
Not in the guise that man o'ercometh man,

But conquers it because it will be conquered,
And conquered conquers by benignity.
The first life of the eyebrow and the fifth

Cause thee astonishment, because with them
Thou seest the region of the angels painted.
They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest,
Gentiles, but Christians in the steadfast faith
Of feet that were to suffer and had suffered.
For one from Hell, where no one e'er turns back
Unto good will, returned unto his bones,
And that of living hope was the reward,—
Of living hope, that placed its efficacy

In prayers to God made to resuscitate him,
So that 'twere possible to move his will.
The glorious soul concerning which I speak,

Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay,
Believed in Him who had the power to aid it;

And, in believing, kindled to such fire

Of genuine love, that at the second death
Worthy it was to come unto this joy.

The other one, through grace, that from so deep
A fountain wells that never hath the eye
Of any creature reached its primal wave,

Set all his love below on righteousness;

Wherefore from grace to grace did God unclose
His eye to our redemption yet to be,

Whence he believed therein, and suffered not

From that day forth the stench of paganism, And he reproved therefor the folk perverse. Those Maidens three, whom at the right-hand wheel Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptism More than a thousand years before baptizing.

O thou predestination, how remote

Thy root is from the aspect of all those
Who the First Cause do not behold entire !
And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrained
In judging; for ourselves, who look on God,
We do not know as yet all the elect;
And sweet to us is such a deprivation,

Because our good in this good is made perfect,
That whatsoe'er God wills, we also will."
After this manner by that shape divine,

To make clear in me my short-sightedness,
Was given to me a pleasant medicine;

And as good singer a good lutanist

Accompanies with vibrations of the chords,
Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires,

So, while it spake, do I remember me

That I beheld both of those blessed lights,

Even as the winking of the eyes concords,

Moving unto the words their little flames.

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CANTO XXI.

ALREADY on my Lady's face mine eyes
Again were fastened, and with these my mind,
And from all other purpose was withdrawn ;
And she smiled not; but "If I were to smile,"

She unto me began, "thou wouldst become
Like Semele, when she was turned to ashes.
Because my beauty, that along the stairs

Of the eternal palace more enkindles,
As thou hast seen, the farther we ascend,
If it were tempered not, is so resplendent

That all thy mortal power in its effulgence
Would seem a leaflet that the thunder crushes.

We are uplifted to the seventh splendour,

That underneath the burning Lion's breast
Now radiates downward mingled with his power.

Fix in direction of thine eyes the mind,

And make of them a mirror for the figure That in this mirror shall appear to thee." He who could know what was the pasturage My sight had in that blessed countenance, When I transferred me to another care,

Would recognize how grateful was to me
Obedience unto my celestial escort,

By counterpoising one side with the other.
Within the crystal which, around the world
Revolving, bears the name of its dear leader,
Under whom every wickedness lay dead,
Coloured like gold, on which the sunshine gleams,
A stairway I beheld to such a height
Uplifted, that mine eye pursued it not.
Likewise beheld I down the steps descending

So many splendours, that I thought each light
That in the heaven appears was there diffused.
And as accordant with their natural custom

The rooks together at the break of day
Bestir themselves to warm their feathers cold;
Then some of them fly off without return,

Others come back to where they started from,
And others, wheeling round, still keep at home;

Such fashion it appeared to me was there
Within the sparkling that together came,
As soon as on a certain step it struck,
And that which nearest unto us remained

Became so clear, that in my thought I said, "Well I perceive the love thou showest me ; But she, from whom I wait the how and when

Of speech and silence, standeth still; whence I
Against desire do well if I ask not."

She thereupon, who saw my silentness

In the sight of Him who seeth everything,
Said unto me, "Let loose thy warm desire."

And I began: "No merit of my own

Renders me worthy of response from thee; But for her sake who granteth me the asking, Thou blessed life that dost remain concealed

In thy beatitude, make known to me

The cause which draweth thee so near my side;
And tell me why is silent in this wheel

The dulcet symphony of Paradise,
That through the rest below sounds so devoutly."

"Thou hast thy hearing mortal as thy sight,"

It answer made to me; "they sing not here,
For the same cause that Beatrice has not smiled.

Thus far adown the holy stairway's steps

Have I descended but to give thee welcome
With words, and with the light that mantles me;