Paradiso (10 page)

               
so I saw more than a thousand splendors

               
drawing toward us, and from each was heard:

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‘Oh, here is one who will increase our loves!’   
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And as these shades approached,

               
each one of them seemed filled with joy,   
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so brilliant was the light that shone from them.

               
Merely consider, reader, if what I here begin   
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went on no farther, how keen would be

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your anguished craving to know more.

               
But you shall see for yourself what great desire

               
I felt to hear about their state from them

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as soon as they appeared to me.

               
‘O spirit born for bliss, whom grace allows   
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to see the thrones of the eternal triumph   
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before you leave the battlefield,

               
‘we are on fire with the light that fills all Heaven.   
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And so, if you would like us to enlighten you,

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content yourself as you desire.’

               
This came to me from one of those good spirits.

               
And Beatrice began: ‘Speak, speak with confidence,   
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having faith in them as you would trust in gods.’

               
‘I clearly see you nest in your own light,   
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and that you flash it from your eyes,

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because it sparkles when you smile.

               
‘But I know not who you are, nor why,   
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worthy soul, you take your rank here from the sphere

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most veiled from mortals in another’s rays,’   
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I said, addressing myself to the radiance   
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that had been first to speak,

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which then became more brilliant than before.

               
As the sun, once its heat has gnawed away

               
the dense and tempering vapors,

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hides itself in its own excess of light,

               
so, with increasing joy, the holy form

               
concealed itself from me within its rays

               
and, thus concealed, it made response   
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in the very manner that the next song sings.

               
‘Once Constantine reversed the eagle’s flight,   
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counter to the course of heaven it had followed   
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behind that ancient who took Lavinia to wife,

               
‘for two hundred years and more the bird of God   
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remained at Europe’s borders,

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near the mountains from which it first came forth.

               
‘There it ruled the world beneath the shadow   
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of its sacred wings, passing from hand to hand   
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and, changing in this way, at last came into mine.

               
‘Caesar I was and am Justinian,   
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who, by will of the Primal Love I feel,   
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pruned from the laws what was superfluous and vain.

               
‘Before I had set my mind to that hard task   
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I believed Christ had but a single nature,

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and not a second, and was content in that belief.

               
‘But the blessèd Agapetus,

               
the most exalted of our shepherds,

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brought me to the true faith with his words.

               
‘I believed him. What he held by faith   
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I now see just as clearly as you understand

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that any contradiction is both false and true.

               
‘As soon as my footsteps moved at the Church’s side,   
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it pleased God, in His grace, to grant me inspiration

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in the noble task to which I wholly gave myself,

               
‘entrusting my weapons to Belisarius,   
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with whom Heaven’s right hand was so conjoined

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it was a sign for me to give them up.

               
‘Here, then, ends my reply to your first question,

               
but its nature still constrains me

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to follow up with something further   
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‘so that you may consider if with reason some rebel   
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against that sacred standard, both those opposed

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and those who take it as their own.

               
‘Consider how much valor has made it worthy   
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of reverence, beginning with the hour   
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when Pallas gave his life to give it sway.

               
‘You know it made its home in Alba   
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for three hundred years and more until, at last,

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again for its sake, three made war on three.

               
‘And you know what it accomplished under seven kings,   
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from the wrongs done Sabine women to Lucretia’s woes,

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conquering the nearby people all around.

               
‘You know what it accomplished when it was held aloft   
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by the noble Romans against Brennus, against Pyrrhus,

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against the other kingdoms and republics,   
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‘so that Torquatus, Quintius—named   
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for his unkempt locks—the Decii, the Fabii:   
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all achieved the fame that I am glad to keep.   
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‘It brought the pride of Arabs low   
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when they followed Hannibal along the Alpine crags

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from which, O river Po, you fall.

               
‘Under it triumphed youthful Scipio and Pompey,   
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and to that hill beneath which you were born

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it seemed indeed a bitter sight.   
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‘Then, as the time approached when Heaven willed   
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to bring the world to its own state of peace,

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Caesar, by the will of Rome, laid hold on it.

               
‘And what it accomplished, from the Var to the Rhine,

               
the Isère and the Loire and the Seine beheld,

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as did all the valleys that supply the Rhone.

               
‘What it accomplished when it issued from Ravenna   
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and leapt the Rubicon was such a flight

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that neither tongue nor pen could follow it.

               
‘Toward Spain it wheeled in arms,

               
then toward Durazzo, and smote Pharsalia,   
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thus bringing grief to the tepid waters of the Nile.

               
‘Antandros and the Simois, where it had set out,

               
it saw again, and the place where Hector lies.

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Then it roused itself—at Ptolemy’s expense.   
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‘From there, like lightning, it fell on Juba,

               
then turned toward the region to your west,

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where it heard the sound of Pompey’s trumpet.