Paradise, Canto XXVII

"Glory be to the Father, to the Son,

And Holy Ghost!" all Paradise began,

So that the melody inebriate made me.

What I beheld seemed unto me a smile

Of the universe; for my inebriation

Found entrance through the hearing and the sight.

O joy! O gladness inexpressible!

O perfect life of love and peacefulness!

O riches without hankering secure!

Before mine eyes were standing the four torches

Enkindled, and the one that first had come

Began to make itself more luminous;

And even such in semblance it became

As Jupiter would become, if he and Mars

Were birds, and they should interchange their feathers.

That Providence, which here distributeth

Season and service, in the blessed choir

Had silence upon every side imposed.

When I heard say: "If I my colour change,

Marvel not at it; for while I am speaking

Thou shalt behold all these their colour change.

He who usurps upon the earth my place,

My place, my place, which vacant has become

Before the presence of the Son of God,

Has of my cemetery made a sewer

Of blood and stench, whereby the Perverse One,

Who fell from here, below there is appeased!"

With the same colour which, through sun adverse,

Painteth the clouds at evening or at morn,

Beheld I then the whole of heaven suffused.

And as a modest woman, who abides

Sure of herself, and at another's failing,

From listening only, timorous becomes,

Even thus did Beatrice change countenance;

And I believe in heaven was such eclipse,

When suffered the supreme Omnipotence;

Thereafterward proceeded forth his words

With voice so much transmuted from itself,

The very countenance was not more changed.

"The spouse of Christ has never nurtured been

On blood of mine, of Linus and of Cletus,

To be made use of in acquest of gold;

But in acquest of this delightful life

Sixtus and Pius, Urban and Calixtus,

After much lamentation, shed their blood.

Our purpose was not, that on the right hand

Of our successors should in part be seated

The Christian folk, in part upon the other;

Nor that the keys which were to me confided

Should e'er become the escutcheon on a banner,

That should wage war on those who are baptized;

Nor I be made the figure of a seal

To privileges venal and mendacious,

Whereat I often redden and flash with fire.

In garb of shepherds the rapacious wolves

Are seen from here above o'er all the pastures!

O wrath of God, why dost thou slumber still?

To drink our blood the Caorsines and Gascons

Are making ready. O thou good beginning,

Unto how vile an end must thou needs fall!

But the high Providence, that with Scipio

At Rome the glory of the world defended,

Will speedily bring aid, as I conceive;

And thou, my son, who by thy mortal weight

Shalt down return again, open thy mouth;

What I conceal not, do not thou conceal."

As with its frozen vapours downward falls

In flakes our atmosphere, what time the horn

Of the celestial Goat doth touch the sun,

Upward in such array saw I the ether

Become, and flaked with the triumphant vapours,

Which there together with us had remained.

My sight was following up their semblances,

And followed till the medium, by excess,

The passing farther onward took from it;

Whereat the Lady, who beheld me freed

From gazing upward, said to me: "Cast down

Thy sight, and see how far thou art turned round."

Since the first time that I had downward looked,

I saw that I had moved through the whole arc

Which the first climate makes from midst to end;

So that I saw the mad track of Ulysses

Past Gades, and this side, well nigh the shore

Whereon became Europa a sweet burden.

And of this threshing-floor the site to me

Were more unveiled, but the sun was proceeding

Under my feet, a sign and more removed.

My mind enamoured, which is dallying

At all times with my Lady, to bring back

To her mine eyes was more than ever ardent.

And if or Art or Nature has made bait

To catch the eyes and so possess the mind,

In human flesh or in its portraiture,

All joined together would appear as nought

To the divine delight which shone upon me

When to her smiling face I turned me round.

The virtue that her look endowed me with

From the fair nest of Leda tore me forth,

And up into the swiftest heaven impelled me.

Its parts exceeding full of life and lofty

Are all so uniform, I cannot say

Which Beatrice selected for my place.

But she, who was aware of my desire,

Began, the while she smiled so joyously

That God seemed in her countenance to rejoice:

"The nature of that motion, which keeps quiet

The centre and all the rest about it moves,

From hence begins as from its starting point.

And in this heaven there is no other Where

Than in the Mind Divine, wherein is kindled

The love that turns it, and the power it rains.

Within a circle light and love embrace it,

Even as this doth the others, and that precinct

He who encircles it alone controls.

Its motion is not by another meted,

But all the others measured are by this,

As ten is by the half and by the fifth.

And in what manner time in such a pot

May have its roots, and in the rest its leaves,

Now unto thee can manifest be made.

O Covetousness, that mortals dost ingulf

Beneath thee so, that no one hath the power

Of drawing back his eyes from out thy waves!

Full fairly blossoms in mankind the will;

But the uninterrupted rain converts

Into abortive wildings the true plums.

Fidelity and innocence are found

Only in children; afterwards they both

Take flight or e'er the cheeks with down are covered.

One, while he prattles still, observes the fasts,

Who, when his tongue is loosed, forthwith devours

Whatever food under whatever moon;

Another, while he prattles, loves and listens

Unto his mother, who when speech is perfect

Forthwith desires to see her in her grave.

Even thus is swarthy made the skin so white

In its first aspect of the daughter fair

Of him who brings the morn, and leaves the night.

Thou, that it may not be a marvel to thee,

Think that on earth there is no one who governs;

Whence goes astray the human family.

Ere January be unwintered wholly

By the centesimal on earth neglected,

Shall these supernal circles roar so loud

The tempest that has been so long awaited

Shall whirl the poops about where are the prows;

So that the fleet shall run its course direct,

And the true fruit shall follow on the flower."