The Portable Dante (63 page)

but I can quickly free your mind from doubt. Now listen well, for what I have to say contains the doctrine of important truths.

Because for his own good, he would not let his will be curbed, the man who knew no birth, damning himself, damned all his progeny;

therefore, the human race lay sick below within their error for long centuries, until the Word of God chose to descend:

there, moved by His unselfish Love alone, He took unto Himself, in His Own Being, that nature which had wandered from its maker.

Now listen to my reasoning: once joined with its First Cause, this nature was (as it had been when first created) pure and good;

but by itself alone, by its own act, having abandoned truth and the true life, out of God’s holy garden it was chased.

Then, if the Crucifixion can be judged as punishment of that nature assumed, no penalty could bite with greater justice,

just as none could be judged as more unjust, considering the Person who endured it with whom that other nature was combined.

Thus, one event produced different effects: God and the Jews both pleased by this one death for which earth shook and Heaven opened wide.

Now it should not be difficult for you to understand the concept of just vengeance being avenged in time by just decree.

But now I see your mind is all entangled with one thought and another, and you wait with eagerness for me to loose the knot.

You say: ‘I clearly understand your words, but why God did not choose some other way for our redemption still remains unclear. ’

The reason, brother, for that choice lies buried from all men’s eyes until their inner sight has grown to ripeness in the warmth of love;

nevertheless, since men have always aimed their arrows at this mark they rarely strike, I shall explain why this choice was the best.

Divine Goodness, which from Itself rejects all envy, sparkles so, that It reveals the eternal beauties burning in Itself.

That which derives directly from His Being from then on is eternal, for His seal, once it is stamped, can never be effaced.

That which derives directly from His Being is wholly free, not subject to the law of secondary things. Created thus,

it most resembles Him, most pleases Him; the Sacred Flame which lights all of creation burns brightest in what is most like Himself.

These are the gifts with which humanity was privileged; and if it fails in one of these, it must fall from its noble state.

Sin is the only power that takes away man’s freedom and his likeness to True Good, and makes him shine less brightly in Its light;

nor can he win back his lost dignity unless the void left by that sin be filled by just amends paid for illicit joy.

Your nature, when it sinned once and for all in its first root, was exiled from these honors, as it was dispossessed of Paradise;

nor could mankind recover what was lost, as you will see if you think carefully, except by crossing one of these two fords:

either that God, simply through clemency, should give remission, or that man himself, to pay his debt of folly, should atone.

Now fix your eyes on the infinity of the Eternal Counsel; listen well, as well as you are able, to my words.

Given his limits, man could never make amends: never in his humility could man, obedient too late, descend

as far as once, in disobedience, he tried to climb, and this is why mankind alone could not make his amends to God.

Thus, it remained for God, in His own ways (his ways, I mean, in one of them or both), to bring man back to his integrity:

But since the deed gratifies more the doer, the more it manifests the innate goodness of the good heart from which it springs—so, then,

that Everlasting Goodness which has set its imprint on the world was pleased to use all of Its means to raise you up once more.

Between the final night and the first day no act so lofty, so magnificent was there, or shall there be, by either way,

for God, Who gave Himself, gave even more so that mankind might raise itself again, than if He simply had annulled the debt;

and any other means would have been less than Justice, if God’s only Son had not humbled Himself to take on mortal flesh.

But now, to satisfy all your desires I go back to explain a certain point so that you may perceive it as I do.

You think: ‘I see that fire, I see that air, that water, earth, and all which they compose last but a little while, and then decay;

and yet all of these are of God’s creation, and so if what you said before is true, should they not be secure against decay?

The angels, brother, and all this pure space around us, were created—all agree— just as they are, unchanging and entire;

the elements, however, that you named and all those things produced from them are given their form by powers that are themselves created.

Created was the matter they contain, created, too, was the informing power within the constellations circling them.

The soul of every animal and plant is drawn from a potentiated complex by the stars’ rays and by their sacred motion,

but the Supreme Beneficence breathes forth your life directly, filling it with love for Him Whom it desires evermore.

From what I have just said you may infer your resurrection, if you will recall how human flesh first came into its being,

when our first parents came into the world. ”

The world once dangerously believed the lovely Cyprian, whirling in third epicycle, rayed down her frenzied beams of love on man,

so that the ancients in their ancient error offered their sacrifice and votive cries to honor her and not just her alone:

Dione too they honored, as her mother, and Cupid as her son who they believed had nestled once in Dido’s loving lap.

And from that goddess who begins my canto they took the name and gave it to the star which woos the sun at both its nape and brow.

I was not conscious of ascending there, but that I was within the sphere, I knew, for now my lady was more beautiful.

Even as sparks are visible in fire, and as within a voice a voice is heard, one note sustained, while others rise and fall,

so I saw lights revolving in that light, their movements slow or swift, each, I suppose, according to how clearly it sees God.

From chilly clouds no seen or unseen winds ever shot down to earth with such rapidity as not to seem slow-motioned, cumbersome,

to any one who saw those holy lights approaching us, abandoning the dance begun among the lofty Seraphim;

and from the foremost ranks of light I heard “Hosanna” sung in tones so marvelous, my soul still yearns to hear that sound again.

Then one came closer and announced to us: “We all are ready here to do your pleasure; we want you to have fullest joy of us.

We circle in one orbit, with one rhythm, in one desire with those heavenly Princes whom once you called upon from down on earth:

’O
you whose intellect spins Heaven’s third sphere, ’
We are so full of love that, if you wish, we happily will stop awhile for you. ”

I raised my eyes with reverence to meet my lady’s light, who with her eyes bestowed on me all her assurance and her joy;

then to that light who had so generously offered himself, I turned again: “Who are you?” I said, my voice vibrant with tenderness.

How that light glowed and grew more beautiful from those few words of mine as it took on new happiness upon its happiness!

Radiant, it spoke: “The time I spent on earth was very brief; if my life had been longer, much evil that will be would not have been.

My happiness which wraps me in its glow conceals me from you: I am swathed in bliss just like the worm that spins itself in silk.

You loved me greatly once, you had good cause; had I not died so soon, you would have seen more than the first leaves of my love for you.

The left bank, washed by waters of the Rhone when this has mingled with the River Sorgue, was waiting for me to become its lord;

as did the region of Ausonia’s horn, bound by Catona, Bari, and Gaeta whence Tronto and the Verde turn to sea.

Already was reflected on my brow the bright crown of the land the Danube bathes once it has left behind the German shores.

And on the gulf most plagued by the Sirocco lying between Pachymus and Pelorus darkened by sulphur fumes, not by what some

believe to be the monster Typhoeus, beautiful Sicily would still have looked to have its kings through me from Charles and Rudolph,

if evil rule, which always alienates those subject to it, had not moved Palermo to cry out in its streets, ‘Death, death to them!’