The Portable Dante (74 page)

And then, its eye more radiant than ever, the blessed emblem answered me at once rather than keep me wondering in suspense:

“I see that you believe these things are true because I say them, but you see not how; thus, though they are believed, their truth is hid.

You do as one who apprehends a thing by name, but cannot see its quiddity unless someone explains it for his sake.

Regnum celorum
suffers violence gladly from fervent love, from vibrant hope —only these powers can defeat God’s will:

not in the way one man conquers another, for That will wills its own defeat, and so defeated it defeats through its own mercy.

The first soul of the eyebrow and the fifth cause you to wonder as you see this realm of the angelic host adorned with them.

They did not leave their bodies, as you think, as pagans, but as Christians with firm faith in feet that suffered and in feet that would.

One came from Hell (where there is no return to righteous will) back to his flesh and bones, and this was the reward for living hope;

the living hope that fortified the prayer made unto God that he be brought to life so that his will might be set free to choose.

This glorious soul, having regained the flesh in which it dwelt but a short space of time, believed in Him Who had the power to save;

and his belief kindled in him such fire of the true love that at his second death he was allowed to join our festival.

The other soul, by means of grace that wells up from a spring so deep that no man’s eye has ever plumbed the bottom of its source,

devoted all his love to righteousness, and God, with grace on grace, opened his eyes to our redemption and he saw the light,

and he believed in this; from that time on he could not bear the stench of pagan creed, and warned all its perverse practitioners.

He was baptized more than a thousand years before baptism was—and those three ladies you saw at the right wheel were his baptism.

Predestination! Oh, how deeply hid your roots are from the vision of all those who cannot see the Primal Cause entire!

You men who live on earth, be slow to judge, for even we who see God face to face still do not know the list of His elect,

but we find this defect of ours a joy, since in this good perfected is our good; for whatsoever God wills we will too. ”

Thus, with these words did the supernal sign administer to me sweet medicine to remedy the shortness of my sight.

And as a good lute-player will accord his quivering strings to a good singer’s voice making his song all the more beautiful,

so, as the eagle spoke, I can recall seeing the holy lights of those two souls (as if two blinking eyes were synchronized)

quiver in perfect timing with the words.

By now I had my eyes fixed once again upon my lady’s face, and with my eyes, my mind, which was oblivious of all else.

She was not smiling, but, “Were I to smile, ” she said to me, “what Semele became you would become, burned to a heap of ashes:

my beauty, as you have already seen, becomes more radiant with every step of the eternal palace that we climb,

and if it were not tempered, such effulgence would strike your sight the way a bolt of lightning shatters the leafy branches of a tree.

We have ascended to the Seventh Light which underneath the Lion’s blazing breast sheds down its radiance mingled with his might.

Now back your eyes with an attentive mind; make of them perfect mirrors for the shape that in this mirror shall appear to you. ”

If one could understand with what delight my eyes were feeding on that blessed face when I, at her command, turned them away,

then he would know how much joy it gave me to be obedient to my heavenly guide, were he to weigh one joy against the other.

Within the crystal which still bears the name, as it goes round the world, of that dear king under whose rule all evil was extinct,

I saw—color of gold as it reflects the sun—a ladder gleaming in the sky, stretching beyond the reaches of my sight.

And I saw coming down the golden rungs so many splendors that I thought the heavens were pouring out the light of every star.

As crows, obedient to instinctive ways, will flock together at the break of day to warm their frigid feathers in the sky,

some flying far away not to return, some coming back to where they started from, some staying where they were, wheeling about,

just such a rush of movement happened here, with all that sparkling having flocked as one, and then alighted on a chosen rung.

A splendor from the sparkling nearest us became so bright that I said to myself, “I see the love for me with which you glow,

but she, who teaches me the how and when to speak and not to speak, keeps still, so I, against my will, do well not asking now. ”

Then she who saw my silence in the sight of Him whose vision can behold all things said to me: “Satisfy your deep desire. ”

“I know I am not worthy in myself to have an answer from you, ” I began, “but for the sake of her who gives me leave

to speak, O blessed life, hidden within your happiness, I pray you, let me know, what is it made you come so close to me,

and tell me why Heaven’s sweet symphony is silent here in this sphere while below in all the rest its pious strains resound. ”

“Your hearing is but mortal like your sight, ” he said. “There is no singing here just as there is no smile on Beatrice’s face.

Only to welcome you with words and light with which my soul is mantled do I come this far down on the sacred ladder’s steps;

nor was it greater love that prompted me: as much and even more love burns above— you see it in the flaming lights up there.

But that deep charity which urges us to serve the wisdom governing the world assigns each soul his task, as you can see. ”

“O holy lamp, ” I said, “I clearly see how in this court a love entirely free gladly obeys Eternal Providence;

what I find hard to understand is this: why you alone among your fellow souls have been predestined for this special task. ”

I had not finished speaking when the light just like a millstone at full speed began to spin around its inner luminance;

and then the love that was inside it said: “A ray of God’s light focuses on me and penetrates the light enwombing me,

whose force once joined to that of my own sight lifts me above myself until I see the Primal Source from which such might is milked.

From this derives the joy with which I burn; the clearness of my flame will ever match my clarity of spiritual vision.

Yet even heaven’s most illumined soul, that Seraph who sees God with keenest eye, could not explain what you have asked to know.

The truth you seek to fathom lies so deep in the abyss of the eternal law, it is cut off from every creature’s sight.

And tell the mortal world when you return what I told you, so that no man presume to try to reach a goal as high as this.

The mind that shines here smolders down on earth; how, then, can it accomplish down below what it cannot even once it reaches heaven?”

I put aside that question which his words had so proscribed me from and only dared, with humble voice, to ask him who he was.

“Between two shores of Italy, not far from your own birthplace, rise great crags so high that thunder sounds from far below their peaks;

they form a humpback ridge called Catria below which stands a holy hermitage once dedicated to God’s praise alone. ”

Thus he began his third address to me, and then went on to say: “There I became so steadfast in God’s service that I lived

on nothing but plain foods in olive oil, suffering gladly heat and cold all year, content in only thoughts contemplative.

That cloister once produced for all these heavens harvests of souls, but now it is so barren, and soon its decadence must be exposed.

There I was known as Peter Damian— Peter the Sinner in Our Lady’s house that lies along the Adriatic shore.

Little of mortal life remained to me when I was called and forced to wear the Hat which seems to pass only from bad to worse.

Lean and barefooted Cephas came, and came the mighty vessel of the Holy Spirit, both taking food wherever it was offered.

Your modern pastors need all kinds of help: one here, one there, to lead, to prop and hold up their behinds—they are so full of food;

their flowing cloaks cover the horse they ride: two beasts beneath one hide appear to move! O Heaven’s Patience, what you must endure!”

As he spoke these last words, I saw more flames descending, whirling rung to rung, and they grew lovelier with every whirl they made.

Around this light they came to rest, and then, in one voice all those lights let out a cry the sound of which no one on earth has heard—

nor could I hear their words for all the thunder.