And around Beatrice three several times
It whirled itself with so divine a song,
My fantasy repeats it not to me;
Therefore the pen skips, and I write it not,

Since our imagination for such folds,

Much more our speech, is of a tint too glaring.

"O holy sister mine, who us implorest

With such devotion, by thine ardent love

Thou dost unbind me from that beautiful sphere !"
Thereafter, having stopped, the blessed fire

Unto my Lady did direct its breath,
Which spake in fashion as I here have said.
And she: "O light eterne of the great man

To whom our Lord delivered up the keys
He carried down of this miraculous joy,
This one examine on points light and grave,

As good beseemeth thee, about the Faith
By means of which thou on the sea didst walk.
If he love well, and hope well, and believe,

From thee 'tis hid not; for thou hast thy sight
There where depicted everything is seen.
But since this kingdom has made citizens

By means of the true Faith, to glorify it
'Tis well he have the chance to speak thereof."
As baccalaureate arms himself, and speaks not
Until the master doth propose the question,
To argue it, and not to terminate it,

So did I arm myself with every reason,

While she was speaking, that I might be ready
For such a questioner and such profession.
"Say, thou good Christian; manifest thyself;

What is the Faith?" Whereat I raised my brow
Unto that light wherefrom was this breathed forth.

Then turned I round to Beatrice, and she

Prompt signals made to me that I should pour
The water forth from my internal fountain.
"May grace, that suffers me to make confession,"
Began I, "to the great centurion,

Cause my conceptions all to be explicit!"

And I continued: "As the truthful pen,

Father, of thy dear brother wrote of it,
Who put with thee Rome into the good way,

Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,
And evidence of those that are not seen;
And this appears to me its quiddity."

Then heard I: "Very rightly thou perceivest,
If well thou understandest why he placed it
With substances and then with evidences."
And I thereafterward: "The things profound,
That here vouchsafe to me their apparition,
Unto all eyes below are so concealed,
That they exist there only in belief,

Upon the which is founded the high hope,
And hence it takes the nature of a substance.

And it behoveth us from this belief

To reason without having other sight,
And hence it has the nature of evidence."
Then heard I: "If whatever is acquired

Below by doctrine were thus understood,
No sophist's subtlety would there find place."
Thus was breathed forth from that enkindled love;
Then added: "Very well has been gone over
Already of this coin the alloy and weight;

But tell me if thou hast it in thy purse?"

And I: "Yes, both so shining and so round,
That in its stamp there is no peradventure."
Thereafter issued from the light profound

That there resplendent was: "This precious jewel,
Upon the which is every virtue founded,

Whence hadst thou it ?"

And I "The large outpouring

Of Holy Spirit, which has been diffused
Upon the ancient parchments and the new,

A syllogism is, which proved it to me

With such acuteness, that, compared therewith,
All demonstration seems to me obtuse."
And then I heard: "The ancient and the new

Postulates, that to thee are so conclusive,

Why dost thou take them for the word divine?"
And I: "The proofs, which show the truth to me,
Are the works subsequent, whereunto Nature
Ne'er heated iron yet, nor anvil beat."
'Twas answered me: "Say, who assureth thee

That those works ever were? the thing itself
That must be proved, nought else to thee affirms it."

"Were the world to Christianity converted,"

I said, "withouten miracles, this one
Is such, the rest are not its hundredth part;
Because that poor and fasting thou didst enter
Into the field to sow there the good plant,
Which was a vine and has become a thorn!"

QQ

And at this utterance the flaming circle

Grew quiet, with the dulcet intermingling
Of sound that by the trinal breath was made,

As to escape from danger or fatigue

The oars that erst were in the water beaten
Are all suspended at a whistle's sound.
Ah, how much in my mind was I disturbed,

When I turned round to look on Beatrice,
That her I could not see, although I was
Close at her side and in the Happy World!

130

135

CANTO XXVI.

WHILE I was doubting for my vision quenched,
Out of the flame refulgent that had quenched it
Issued a breathing, that attentive made me,
Saying: "While thou recoverest the sense

Of seeing which in me thou hast consumed,

'Tis well that speaking thou shouldst compensate it.

Begin then, and declare to what thy soul

Is aimed, and count it for a certainty, Sight is in thee bewildered and not dead; Because the Lady, who through this divine Region conducteth thee, has in her look The power the hand of Ananias had."

I said:

"As pleaseth her, or soon or late
Let the cure come to eyes that portals were
When she with fire I ever burn with entered.
The Good, that gives contentment to this Court,
The Alpha and Omega is of all

The writing that love reads me low or loud."

The selfsame voice, that taken had from me

The terror of the sudden dazzlement,

To speak still farther put it in my thought;

And said: "In verity with finer sieve

Behoveth thee to sift; thee it behoveth

Το say who aimed thy bow at such a target."

And I: "By philosophic arguments,

And by authority that hence descends,
Such love must needs imprint itself in me;

For Good, so far as good, when comprehended

Doth straight enkindle love, and so much greater
As more of goodness in itself it holds;

30

Then to that Essence (whose is such advantage
That every good which out of it is found
Is nothing but a ray of its own light)
More than elsewhither must the mind be moved
Of every one, in loving, who discerns

The truth in which this evidence is founded.
Such truth he to my intellect reveals

Who demonstrates to me the primal love
Of all the sempiternal substances.

The voice reveals it of the truthful Author,
Who says to Moses, speaking of Himself,

'I will make all my goodness pass before thee.'

Thou too revealest it to me, beginning

The loud Evangel, that proclaims the secret
Of heaven to earth above all other edict."

And I heard say: "By human intellect

And by authority concordant with it,

35

40

45

Of all thy loves reserve for God the highest.

But say again if other cords thou feelest,

Draw thee towards Him, that thou mayst proclaim
With how many teeth this love is biting thee."

50

The holy purpose of the Eagle of Christ

Not latent was, nay, rather I perceived
Whither he fain would my profession lead.
Therefore I recommenced: "All of those bites

Which have the power to turn the heart to God
Unto my charity have been concurrent.

The being of the world, and my own being,

The death which He endured that I may live,
And that which all the faithful hope, as I do,

With the forementioned vivid consciousness

Have drawn me from the sea of love perverse,
And of the right have placed me on the shore.
The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the garden
Of the Eternal Gardener, do I love
As much as he has granted them of good."

As soon as I had ceased, a song most sweet

Throughout the heaven resounded, and my Lady
Said with the others, "Holy, holy, holy!"
And as at some keen light one wakes from sleep
By reason of the visual spirit that runs
Unto the splendour passed from coat to coat,
And he who wakes abhorreth what he sees,
So all unconscious is his sudden waking,
Until the judgment cometh to his aid,

So from before mine eyes did Beatrice

Chase every mote with radiance of her own,
That cast its light a thousand miles and more.
Whence better after than before I saw,

And in a kind of wonderment I asked
About a fourth light that I saw with us.
"There within those rays
Gazes upon its Maker the first soul

And said my Lady:

That ever the first virtue did create.”
Even as the bough that downward bends its top
At transit of the wind, and then is lifted
By its own virtue, which inclines it upward,
Likewise did I, the while that she was speaking,
Being amazed, and then I was made bold
By a desire to speak wherewith I burned.

And I began: "O apple, that mature

Alone hast been produced, O ancient father,

To whom each wife is daughter and daughter-in-law,
Devoutly as I can I supplicate thee

That thou wouldst speak to me; thou seest my wish ;
And I, to hear thee quickly, speak it not."
Sometimes an animal, when covered, struggles
So that his impulse needs must be apparent,
By reason of the wrappage following it;

And in like manner the primeval soul

Made clear to me athwart its covering
How jubilant it was to give me pleasure.

Then breathed: "Without thy uttering it to me,
Thine inclination better I discern

Than thou whatever thing is surest to thee;

105

For I behold it in the truthful mirror,

That of Himself all things parhelion makes,
And none makes Him parhelion of itself.

Thou fain wouldst hear how long ago God placed me
Within the lofty garden, where this Lady
Unto so long a stairway thee disposed.

And how long to mine eyes it was a pleasure,

And of the great disdain the proper cause,
And the language that I used and that I made.

Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree

115

Not in itself was cause of so great exile,

But solely the o'erstepping of the bounds.

There, whence thy Lady moved Virgilius,

Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits
Made by the sun, this Council I desired;

120