| |
| ALL ye, who in small bark have following sail’d, | |
| Eager to listen, on the adventurous track | |
| Of my proud keel, that singing cuts her way, | |
| Backward return with speed, and your own shores | |
| Revisit; nor put out to open sea, | 5 |
| Where losing me, perchance ye may remain | |
| Bewilder’d in deep maze. The way I pass, | |
| Ne’er yet was run: Minerva breathes the gale; | |
| Apollo guides me; and another Nine, | |
| To my rapt sight, the arctic beams reveal. | 10 |
| Ye other few who have outstretch’d the neck | |
| Timely for food of angels, on which here | |
| They live, yet never know satiety; | |
| Through the deep brine ye fearless may put out | |
| Your vessel; marking well the furrow broad | 15 |
| Before you in the wave, that on both sides | |
| Equal returns. Those, glorious, who pass’d o’er | |
| To Colchis, wonder’d not as ye will do, | |
| When they saw Jason following the plough. | |
| The increate perpetual thirst, that draws | 20 |
| Toward the realm of God’s own form, bore us | |
| Swift almost as the Heaven ye behold. | |
| Beatrice upward gazed, and I on her; | |
| And in such space as on the notch a dart | |
| Is placed, then loosen’d flies, I saw myself | 25 |
| Arrived, where wonderous thing engaged my sight. | |
| Whence she, to whom no care of mine was hid, | |
| Turning to me, with aspect glad as fair, | |
| Bespake me: “Gratefully direct thy mind | |
| To God, through whom to this first star 1 we come.” | 30 |
| Meseem’d as if a cloud had cover’d us, | |
| Translucent, solid, firm, and polish’d bright, | |
| Like adamant, which the sun’s beam had smit. | |
| Within itself the ever-during pearl | |
| Received us; as the wave a ray of light | 35 |
| Receives, and rests unbroken. If I then | |
| Was of corporeal frame, and it transcend | |
| Our weaker thought, how one dimension thus | |
| Another could endure, which needs must be | |
| If body enter body; how much more | 40 |
| Must the desire inflame us to behold | |
| That Essence, which discovers by what means | |
| God and our nature join’d! There will be seen | |
| That, which we hold through faith; not shown by proof, | |
| But in itself intelligibly plain, | 45 |
| E’en as the truth that man at first believes. | |
| I answer’d: “Lady! I with thoughts devout, | |
| Such as I best can frame, give thanks to Him, | |
| Who hath removed me from the mortal world. | |
| But tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots | 50 |
| Upon this body, which below on earth | |
| Give rise to talk of Cain in fabling quaint?” | |
| She somewhat smiled, then spake: “If mortals err | |
| In their opinion, when the key of sense | |
| Unlocks not, surely wonder’s weapon keen | 55 |
| Ought not to pierce thee: since thou find’st, the wings | |
| Of reason to pursue the senses’ flight | |
| Are short. But what thy own thought is, declare.” | |
| Then I: “What various here above appears, | |
| Is caused, I deem, by bodies dense or rare.” | 60 |
| She then resumed: “Thou certainly wilt see | |
| In falsehood thy belief o’erwhelm’d, if well | |
| Thou listen to the arguments which I | |
| Shall bring to face it. The eighth sphere displays | |
| Numberless lights, the which, in kind and size, | 65 |
| May be remark’d of different aspects: | |
| If rare or dense of that were cause alone, | |
| One single virtue then would be in all; | |
| Alike distributed, or more, or less. | |
| Different virtues needs must be the fruits | 70 |
| Of formal principles; and these, save one, | |
| Will by thy reasoning be destroy’d. Beside, | |
| If rarity were of that dusk the cause, | |
| Which thou inquirest, either in some part | |
| That planet must throughout be void, nor fed | 75 |
| With its own matter; or, as bodies share | |
| Their fat and leanness, in like manner this | |
| Must in its volume change the leaves. 2 The first, | |
| If it were true, had through the sun’s eclipse | |
| Been manifested, by transparency | 80 |
| Of light, as through aught rare beside effused. | |
| But this is not. Therefore remains to see | |
| The other cause: and, if the other fall, | |
| Erroneous so must prove what seem’d to thee. | |
| If not from side to side this rarity | 85 |
| Pass through, there needs must be a limit, whence | |
| Its contrary no further lets it pass. | |
| And hence the beam, that from without proceeds, | |
| Must be pour’d back; as colour comes, through glass | |
| Reflected, which behind it lead conceals. | 90 |
| Now wilt thou say, that there of murkier hue, | |
| Than, in the other part, the ray is shown, | |
| By being thence refracted farther back. | |
| From this perplexity will free thee soon | |
| Experience, if thereof thou trial make, | 95 |
| The mountain whence your arts derive their streams. | |
| Three mirrors shalt thou take, and two remove | |
| From thee alike; and more remote the third, | |
| Betwixt the former pair, shall meet thine eyes: | |
| Then turn’d toward them, cause behind thy back | 100 |
| A light to stand, that on the three shall shine, | |
| And thus reflected come to thee from all. | |
| Though that, beheld most distant, do not stretch | |
| A space so ample, yet in brightness thou | |
| Wilt own it equaling the rest. But now, | 105 |
| As under snow the ground, if the warm ray | |
| Smites it, remains dismantled of the hue | |
| And cold, that cover’d it before; so thee, | |
| Dismantled in thy mind, I will inform | |
| With light so lively, that the tremulous beam | 110 |
| Shall quiver where it falls. Within the heaven, 3 | |
| Where peace divine inhabits, circles round | |
| A body, in whose virtue lies the being | |
| Of all that it contains. The following Heaven, | |
| That hath so many lights, this being divides, | 115 |
| Through different essences, from it distinct, | |
| And yet contain’d within it. The other orbs | |
| Their separate distinctions variously | |
| Dispose, for their own seed and produce apt. | |
| Thus do these organs of the world proceed, | 120 |
| As thou beholdest now, from step to step; | |
| Their influences from above deriving, | |
| And thence transmitting downward. Mark me well; | |
| How through this passage to the truth I ford, | |
| The truth thou lovest; that thou henceforth, alone, | 125 |
| Mayst know to keep the shallows, safe, untold. | |
| “The virtue and motion of the sacred orbs, | |
| As mallet by the workman’s hand, must needs | |
| By blessed movers 4 be inspired. This Heaven, 5 | |
| Made beauteous by so many luminaries, | 130 |
| From the deep spirit, 6 that moves its circling sphere, | |
| Its image takes and impress as a seal: | |
| And as the soul, that dwells within your dust, | |
| Through members different, yet together form’d, | |
| In different powers resolves itself; e’en so | 135 |
| The intellectual efficacy unfolds | |
| Its goodness multiplied throughout the stars; | |
| On its own unity revolving still. | |
| Different virtue 7 compact different | |
| Makes with the precious body it enlivens, | 140 |
| With which it knits, as life in you is knit. | |
| From its original nature full of joy, | |
| The virtue mingled through the body shines, | |
| As joy through pupil of the living eye. | |
| From hence proceeds that which from light to light | 145 |
| Seems different, and not from dense or rare. | |
| This is the formal cause, that generates, | |
| Proportion’d to its power, the dusk or clear.” | |
