Paradiso: Canto II
O Ye, who in some
pretty little boat,
Eager
to listen, have been following
Behind my ship, that singing sails along,
Turn back to look
again upon your shores;
Do
not put out to sea, lest peradventure,
In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.
The sea I sail has
never yet been passed;
Minerva
breathes, and pilots me Apollo,
And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.
Ye other few who
have the neck uplifted
Betimes
to th' bread of Angels upon which
One liveth here and grows not sated by it,
Well may you launch
upon the deep salt-sea
Your
vessel, keeping still my wake before you
Upon the water that grows smooth again.
Those glorious ones
who unto Colchos passed
Were
not so wonder-struck as you shall be,
When Jason they beheld a ploughman made!
The con-created and
perpetual thirst
For
the realm deiform did bear us on,
As swift almost as ye the heavens behold.
Upward gazed
Beatrice, and I at her;
And
in such space perchance as strikes a bolt
And flies, and from the notch unlocks itself,
Arrived I saw me
where a wondrous thing
Drew
to itself my sight; and therefore she
From whom no care of mine could be concealed,
Towards me turning,
blithe as beautiful,
Said
unto me: "Fix gratefully thy mind
On God, who unto the first star has brought us."
It seemed to me a
cloud encompassed us,
Luminous,
dense, consolidate and bright
As adamant on which the sun is striking.
Into itself did the
eternal pearl
Receive
us, even as water doth receive
A ray of light, remaining still unbroken.
If I was body, (and
we here conceive not
How
one dimension tolerates another,
Which needs must be if body enter body,)
More the desire
should be enkindled in us
That
essence to behold, wherein is seen
How God and our own nature were united.
There will be seen
what we receive by faith,
Not
demonstrated, but self-evident
In guise of the first truth that man believes.
I made reply:
"Madonna, as devoutly
As
most I can do I give thanks to Him
Who has removed me from the mortal world.
But tell me what
the dusky spots may be
Upon
this body, which below on earth
Make people tell that fabulous tale of Cain?"
Somewhat she
smiled; and then, "If the opinion
Of
mortals be erroneous," she said,
"Where'er the key of sense doth not unlock,
Certes, the shafts
of wonder should not pierce thee
Now,
forasmuch as, following the senses,
Thou seest that the reason has short wings.
But tell me what
thou think'st of it thyself."
And
I: "What seems to us up here diverse,
Is caused, I think, by bodies rare and dense."
And she: "Right
truly shalt thou see immersed
In
error thy belief, if well thou hearest
The argument that I shall make against it.
Lights many the
eighth sphere displays to you
Which
in their quality and quantity
May noted be of aspects different.
If this were caused
by rare and dense alone,
One
only virtue would there be in all
Or more or less diffused, or equally.
Virtues diverse
must be perforce the fruits
Of
formal principles; and these, save one,
Of course would by thy reasoning be destroyed.
Besides, if rarity
were of this dimness
The
cause thou askest, either through and through
This planet thus attenuate were of matter,
Or else, as in a
body is apportioned
The
fat and lean, so in like manner this
Would in its volume interchange the leaves.
Were it the former,
in the sun's eclipse
It
would be manifest by the shining through
Of light, as through aught tenuous interfused.
This is not so;
hence we must scan the other,
And
if it chance the other I demolish,
Then falsified will thy opinion be.
But if this rarity
go not through and through,
There
needs must be a limit, beyond which
Its contrary prevents the further passing,
And thence the
foreign radiance is reflected,
Even
as a colour cometh back from glass,
The which behind itself concealeth lead.
Now thou wilt say
the sunbeam shows itself
More
dimly there than in the other parts,
By being there reflected farther back.
From this reply
experiment will free thee
If
e'er thou try it, which is wont to be
The fountain to the rivers of your arts.
Three mirrors shalt
thou take, and two remove
Alike
from thee, the other more remote
Between the former two shall meet thine eyes.
Turned towards
these, cause that behind thy back
Be
placed a light, illuming the three mirrors
And coming back to thee by all reflected.
Though in its
quantity be not so ample
The
image most remote, there shalt thou see
How it perforce is equally resplendent.
Now, as beneath the
touches of warm rays
Naked
the subject of the snow remains
Both of its former colour and its cold,
Thee thus remaining
in thy intellect,
Will
I inform with such a living light,
That it shall tremble in its aspect to thee.
Within the heaven
of the divine repose
Revolves
a body, in whose virtue lies
The being of whatever it contains.
The following
heaven, that has so many eyes,
Divides
this being by essences diverse,
Distinguished from it, and by it contained.
The other spheres,
by various differences,
All
the distinctions which they have within them
Dispose unto their ends and their effects.
Thus do these
organs of the world proceed,
As
thou perceivest now, from grade to grade;
Since from above they take, and act beneath.
Observe me well,
how through this place I come
Unto
the truth thou wishest, that hereafter
Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford
The power and
motion of the holy spheres,
As
from the artisan the hammer's craft,
Forth from the blessed motors must proceed.
The heaven, which
lights so manifold make fair,
From
the Intelligence profound, which turns it,
The image takes, and makes of it a seal.
And even as the
soul within your dust
Through
members different and accommodated
To faculties diverse expands itself,
So likewise this
Intelligence diffuses
Its
virtue multiplied among the stars.
Itself revolving on its unity.
Virtue diverse doth
a diverse alloyage
Make
with the precious body that it quickens,
In which, as life in you, it is combined.
From the glad
nature whence it is derived,
The
mingled virtue through the body shines,
Even as gladness through the living pupil.
From this proceeds
whate'er from light to light
Appeareth
different, not from dense and rare:
This is the formal principle that produces,
According to its
goodness, dark and bright."