The Divine Comedy Volume Iii Part 6

The greatest minister of nature, which imprints the world with the power of the heavens, and with its light measures the time for us, in conjunction with that region called to mind above, was circling through the spirals in which from day to day he earlier presents himself.[1] And I was with him; but of the ascent I was not aware, otherwise than as a man is aware, before his first thought, of its coming. Beatrice is she who thus conducts from good to better so swiftly that her act extends not through time.

[1] In that spiral course in which, according to the Ptolemaic system, the sun pa.s.ses from the equator to the tropic of Cancer, rising earlier every day.

How lucent of itself must that have been which, within the sun where I entered, was appareiit not by color but by light! Though I should call on genius, art, and use, I could not tell it so that it could ever be imagined; but it may be believed, and sight of it longed for. And if our fancies are low for such loftiness, it is no marvel, for beyond the sun was never eye could go.

Such[1] was here the fourth family of the High Father, who always satisfies it, showing how He breathes forth, and how He begets.[2] And Beatrice began, "Thank, thank thou the Sun of the Angels, who to this visible one has raised thee by His grace." Heart of mortal was never so disposed to devotion, and so ready, with its own entire pleasure, to give itself to G.o.d, as I became at those words; and all my love was so set on Him that Beatrice was eclipsed in oblivion. It displeased her not; but she so smiled thereat that the splendor of her smiling eyes divided upon many things my singly intent mind.

[1] So lucent, brighter than the sun.

[2] Showing himself in the Holy Spirit and in the Son.

I saw many living and surpa.s.sing effulgences make a centre of us, and make a crown of themselves, more sweet in voice than shining in aspect. Thus girt we sometimes see the daughter of Latona, when the air is pregnant so that it holds the thread which makes the girdle.[1] In the court of Heaven, wherefrom I return, are found many jewels so precious and beautiful that they cannot be brought from the kingdom, and of these was the song of those lights. Who wings not himself so that he may fly up thither, let him await the tidings thence from the dumb.

[1] When the air is so full of vapor that it forms a halo.

After those burning suns, thus singing, had circled three times round about us, like stars near fixed poles, they seemed to me as ladies not loosed from a dance, but who stop silent, listening till they have caught the new notes. And within one I heard begin, "Since the ray of grace, whereby true love is kindled, and which thereafter grows multiplied in loving, so shines on thee that it conducts thee upward by that stair upon which, without reascending, no one descends, he who should deny to thee the wine of his flask for thy thirst, would not be more at liberty than water which descends not to the sea.[1] Thou wishest to know with what plants this garland is enflowered, which, round about her, gazes with delight upon the, beautiful Lady who strengthens thee for heaven. I was of the lambs of the holy flock[2] which Dominic leads along the way where one fattens well if he stray not.[3]

This one who is nearest to me on the right was my brother and master; and he was Albert of Cologne,[4] and I Thomas of Aquino.

If thus of all the rest thou wishest to be informed, come, following my speech, with thy sight circling around upon the blessed chaplet. That next flaming issues from the smile of Gratian, who so a.s.sisted one court and the other that it pleases in Paradise.[5] The next, who at his side adorns our choir, was that Peter who, like the poor woman, offered his treasure to Holy Church.[6] The fifth light, which is most beautiful among us,[7]

breathes from such love, that all the world there below is greedy to know tidings of it.[8] Within it is the lofty mind, wherein wisdom so profound was put, that, if the truth is true, to see so much no second has arisen.[9] At his side thou seest the light of that candle, which, below in the flesh, saw most inwardly the angelic nature, and its ministry.[10] In the next little light smiles that advocate of the Christian times, with whose discourse Augustine provided himself.[11] Now if thou leadest the eye of the mind, following my praises, from light to light, thou remainest already thirsting for the eighth. Therewithin, through seeing every good, the holy soul rejoices which makes the deceit of the world manifest to whoso hears him well.[12] The body whence it was hunted out lies below in Cieldauro,[13] and from martyrdom and from exile it came unto this peace. Beyond thou seest flaming the burning breath of Isidore, of Bede, and of Richard who in contemplation was more than man.[14] The one from whom thy look returns to me is the light of a spirit to whom in grave thoughts death seemed to come slow. It is the eternal light of Sigier,[15] who reading in the Street of Straw syllogized truths which were hated."

[1] He would be restrained against his nature, as water prevented from flowing down to the sea.

[2] Of the Order of St. Dominic.

[3] Where one acquires spiritual good, if he be not distracted by the allurement of worldly things.

[4] The learned Doctor, Albertus Magnus.

[5] Gratian was an Italian Benedictine monk, who lived in the 12th century, and compiled the famous work known as the Decretum Gratiani, composed of texts of Scripture, of the Canons of the Church, of Decretals of the Popes, and of extracts from the Fathers, designed to show the agreement of the civil and ecclesiastical law,--a work pleasing in Paradise because promoting concord between the two authorities.

[6] Peter Lombard, a theologian of the 12th century, known as Magister Sententiarum, from his compilation of extracts relating to the doctrines of the Church, under the t.i.tle of Sententiarum Libri IV. In the proem to his work he says that he desired, "like the poor widow, to cast something from his penury into the treasury of the Lord."

[7] Solomon.

[8] It was matter of debate whether Solomon was among the blessed or the d.a.m.ned.

[9] "Lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee."--1 Kings, iii. 12.

[10] Dionysius the Areopagite, the disciple of St. Paul (Acts, xvii. 34), to whom was falsely ascribed a book of great repute, written in the fourth century, " On the Celestial Hierarchy."

[11] Paulus Orosius, who wrote his History against the Pagans, at the request of St. Augustine, to defend Christianity from the charge brought against it by the Gentiles of being the source of the calamities which had befallen the Roman world. His work might be regarded as a supplement to St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei.

[12] Boethins, statesman and philosopher. whose work, De Consolatione Philosophiae, was one of the books held in highest esteem by Dante.

[13] Boethius, who was put to death in Pavia, in 524, was buried in the church of S. Pietro in Ciel d' Oro--St. Peter's of the Golden Ceiling.

[14] Isidore, bishop of Seville, died 636; the Venerable Bede, died 735; Richard, prior of the Monastery of St. Victor, at Paris, a mystic of the 12th century; all eminent theologians.

[15] Sigier of Brabant, who lectured, applying logic to questions in theology, at Paris, in the 13th century, in the Rue du Fouarre.

Then, as a horologe which calls us at the hour when the Bride of G.o.d[1] rises to sing matins to her Bridegroom that he may love her, in which the one part draws and urges the other, sounding ting! ting! with such sweet note that the well-disposed spirit swells with love, so saw I the glorious wheel move, and render voice to voice in concord and in sweetness which cannot be known save there where joy becomes eternal.

[1] The Church.

CANTO XI. The Vanity of worldly desires,--St. Thomas Aquinas undertakes to solve two doubts perplexing Dante.--He narrates the life of St. Francis of a.s.sisi.

O insensate care of mortals, how defective are those syllogisms which make thee downward beat thy wings! One was going after the Laws, and one after the Aphorisms,[1] and one following the priesthood, and one to reign by force or by sophisms, and one to rob, and one to civic business; one, involved in pleasure of the flesh, was wearying himself, and one was giving himself to idleness, when I, loosed from all these things, with Beatrice, was thus gloriously received on high in Heaven.

[1] The Aphorisms of Hippocrates, meaning here, the study of medicine.

When each[1] had returned unto that point of the circle at which it was at first, it stayed, as a candle in a candlestick. And within that light which first had spoken to me I heard, as smiling it began, making itself more clear, "Even as I am resplendent with its radiance, so, looking into the Eternal Light, I apprehend whence thou drawest the occasion of thy thoughts. Thou art perplexed, and hast the wish that my speech be bolted again in language so open and so plain that it may be level to thy sense, where just now I said, 'where well one fattens,' and there where I said, 'the second has not been born;'

and here is need that one distinguish well.

[1] Each of the lights which had encircled. Beatrice and Dante.

"The Providence which governs the world with that counsel, in which every created vision is vanquished ere it reach the depth, in order that the bride[1] of Him, who with loud cries espoused her with His blessed blood, might go toward her beloved, secure in herself and also more faithful to Him, ordained two princes in her favor, who on this side and that should be to her for guides.

The one was all seraphic in ardor,[2] the other, through wisdom, was a splendor of cherubic light[3] on earth. Of the one I will speak, because both are spoken of in praising one, whichever be taken, for unto one end were their works.

[1] The Church.

[2] St. Francis of a.s.sisi

[3] St. Dominic.

"Between the Tupino and the water[1] which descends from the hill chosen by the blessed Ubaldo, hangs the fertile slope of a high mountain, wherefrom Perugia at Porta Sole[2] feeleth cold and heat, while behind it Nocera and Gualdo weep because of their heavy yoke.[3] On that slope, where it most breaks its steepness, rose a Sun upon the world, as this one sometimes does from the Ganges. Therefore let him who talks of that place not say Ascesi,[4] for he would speak short, but Orient,[5] if be would speak properly. He was not yet very far from his rising when he began to make the earth feel some comfort from his great virtue.

For, still a youth, he ran to strife[6] with his father for a lady such as unto whom, even as unto death, no one unlocks the gate of pleasure; and before his spiritual court et coram patre[7] to her he had himself united; thereafter from day to day he loved her more ardently. She, deprived of her first husband,[8] for one thousand and one hundred years and more, despised and obscure, had stood without wooing till he came;[9]

nor had it availed[10] to hear, that he, who caused fear to all the world, found her at the sound of his voice secure with Amyclas;[11] nor had it availed to have been constant and bold, so that where Mary remained below, she wept with Christ upon the cross. But that I may not proceed too obscurely, take henceforth in my diffuse speech Francis and Poverty for these lovers. Their concord and their glad semblances made love, and wonder, and sweet regard to be the cause of holy thoughts;[12] so that the venerable Bernard first bared his feet,[13] and ran following such great peace, and, running, it seemed to him that he was slow. Oh unknown riches! oh fertile good! Egidius bares his feet and Sylvester bares his feet, following the bridegroom; so pleasing is the bride. Then that father and that master goes on his way with his lady, and with that family which the humble cord was now girding.[14] Nor did baseness of heart weigh down his brow at being son of Pietro Bernardone,[15] nor at appearing marvellously despised; but royally he opened his bard intention to Innocent, and received from bim the first seal for his Order.[16] After the poor people had increased behind him, whose marvellous life would be better sung in glory of the heavens, the holy purpose of this archimandrite[17] was adorned with a second crown by the Eternal Spirit, through Honorius.[18] And when, through thirst for martyrdom, he had preached Christ and the rest who followed him in the proud presence of the Sultan,[19] and because he found the people too unripe for conversion, and in order not to stay in vain, had returned to the fruit of the Italian gra.s.s,[20] on the rude rock,[21] between the Tiber and the Arno, he took from Christ the last seal,[22] which his limbs bore for two years. When it pleased Him, who had allotted him to such great good, to draw him up to the reward which he had gained in making himself abject, he commended his most dear lady to his brethren as to rightful heirs, and commanded them to love her faithfully; and from her lap, his ill.u.s.trious soul willed to depart, returning to its realm, and for his body he willed no other bier.[23]

[1] The Chia.s.si, which flows from the hill chosen for his hermitage by St. Ubaldo.

[2] The gate of Perugia, which fronts Monte Subasio, on which a.s.sisi lies, some fifteen miles to the south.

[3] Towns, southeast of a.s.sisi, oppressed by their rulers.

[4] So the name a.s.sisi was sometimes spelled, and here with a play on ascesi (I have risen).

[5] As the sun at the vernal equinox, the sacred season of the Creation and the Resurrection, rises in the due east or orient, represented in the geographical system of the time by the Ganges, so the place where this new Sun of righteousness arose should be called Orient.

[6] Devoting himself to poverty against his father's will.

[7] Before the Bishop of a.s.sisi, and "in presence of his father," he renounced his worldly possessions.