The Divine Comedy Volume Iii Part 17

[3] John XXII., who came to the Papacy in 1316, was a native of Cahors; his immediate predecessor, Clement V., 1305-1314, was a Gascon. The pa.s.sage is one of those which shows that this portion of the poem was in hand during the last years of Dante's life.

[4] In midwinter, when the sun is in Capricorn.

Even as our air snows down flakes of frozen vapors, when the horn of the Goat of heaven touches the sun,[1] so, upward, I saw the aether become adorned, and flaked with the triumphant vapors[2]

that had made sojourn there with us. My sight was following their semblances, and followed, till the intermediate s.p.a.ce by its greatness pre. vented it from pa.s.sing further onward. Whereon my Lady, who saw me disengaged from upward heeding, said to me, "Cast down thy sight, and look how thou hast revolved."

[1] The spirits.

Since the hour when I had first looked, I saw that I had moved through the whole are which the first climate makes from its middle to its end;[1] so that I saw beyond Cadiz the mad track of Ulysses, and near on this side the sh.o.r.e[2] on which Europa became a sweet burden. And more of the site of this little threshing-floor would have been discovered to me, but the sun was proceeding beneath my feet, a sign and more removed.[3]

[1] From Dante's first look downward from the Heavens, at the end of Canto XXII, to the present moment, he had moved over the arc which the first climate describes from its middle to its end. The old geographers divided the earth into seven zones, called climates, by circles parallel to the equator. The first climate extended twenty degrees to the north of the equator. The sign of the Gemini, in which Dante was revolving in the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, is in the zone of the Heavens corresponding to the first climate. As each climate extended on the habitable hemisphere for one hundred and eighty degrees, the arc from its middle to its end would be of ninety degrees, comprised between Jerusalem and Cadiz, and the time required for pa.s.sing through it would be six hours, one fourth of the diurnal revolution of the Heavens.

[2] The sh.o.r.e of Phoenicia, whence Europa was carried off by Jupiter.

[3] The Sun in Aries was separated by Taurus from Gemini; hence not all of the hemisphere of the earth seen from Gemini was illuminated by the sun, which was some three hours in advance.

My enamoured mind, that ever dallies with my Lady, was more than ever burning to bring back my eyes to her. And if nature has made bait in human flesh, or art in its paintings, to catch the eyes in order to possess the mind, all united would seem naught compared to the divine pleasure which shone upon me when I turned me to her smiling face. And the virtue with which the look indulged me, tore me from the fair nest of Leda,[1] and impelled me to the swiftest heaven.[2]

[1] From Gemini, the constellation of Castor and Pollux, the twin sons of Leda.

[2] The Primum Mobile, or Crystalline Heaven.

Its parts, most living and lofty, are so uniform that I cannot tell which of them Beatrice chose for a place for me. But she, who saw my desire, began, smiling so glad that G.o.d seemed to rejoice in her countenance, "The nature of the world[1] which quiets the centre, and moves all the rest around it, begins here as from its, starting-point. And this heaven has no other Where than the Divine Mind, in which the love that revolves it is kindled, and the virtue which it rains down. Light and love enclose it with one circle, even as this does the others, and of that cincture He who girds it is the sole Intelligence.[2] The motion of this heaven is not marked out by another, but the others are measured by this, even as ten by a half and by a fifth.[3] And how time can hold its roots in such a flower-pot, and in the others its leaves, may now be manifest to thee.

[1] The world of the revolving Heavens.

[2] The Angelic Intelligences move the lower Heavens, but of the Empyrean G.o.d himself is the immediate governor.

[3] The reversal of magnitudes makes this image obscure. The motion of the Crystalline Heaven, the swiftest of all, determines the slower motions of the Heavens below it, and divides them; as five and two divide ten. The fixed unit of time is the day which is established by the revolution of the Primum Mobile.

"O covetousness,[1] which whelms mortals beneath thee, so that no one has power to withdraw his eyes from out thy waves! Well.

blossoms the will in men, but the continual rain converts the true plums into wildings. Faith and innocence are found only in children; then both fly away ere yet the cheeks are covered. One, so long as he stammers, fasts, who afterward, when his tongue is loosed, devours whatever food under whatever moon; and one, while stammering, loves his mother and listens to her, who, when speech is perfect, desires then to see her buried. So the skin of the fair daughter of him who brings morning and leaves evening, white in its first aspect, becomes black.[2] Do thou, in order that thou make not marvel, reflect that on earth there is no one who governs; wherefore the human family is gone astray. But ere January be all un-wintered by that hundredth part which is down there neglected,[3] these supernal circles shall so roar that the storm which is so long awaited shall turn the sterns round to where the prows are, so that the fleet shall run straight, and true fruit shall come after the flower."

[1] The connection of the ideas presented in what precedes with this denunciation of covetousness, or selfishness, is not at first apparent. But the transition is not unnatural, from the consideration of the Heaven which pours down Divine influence, to the thought of the engrossment of men in the pursuit of their selfish and transitory ends, in which they are blinded to heavenly and eternal good.

[2] Both the order of the words and the meaning of this sentence axe obscure.

[3] Before January falls in spring, owing to the lack of correctness in the calendar, by which the year is lengthened by about a day in each century. It is as if the poet said,--Before a thousand years shall pa.s.s; meaning,--Within short while.

CANTO XXVIII. The Heavenly Hierarchy.

After she who imparadises my mind had disclosed the truth counter to the present life of wretched mortals, as he, who is lighted by a candle from behind, sees its flame in a mirror before he has it in sight or in thought, and turns round to see if the gla.s.s tell him the truth, and sees that it accords with it as the note with its measure;[1] I thus my memory recollects that I did, looking into the beautiful eyes, wherewith Love made the cord to ensnare me.[2] And when I turned, and mine were touched by that which is apparent in that revolving sphere whenever one gazes fixedly on its gyration, I saw a Point which was raying out light so keen that the sight on which it blazes must needs close because of its intense keenness. And whatso star seems smallest here would seem a moon if placed beside it, as star with star is placed. Perhaps as near as a halo seems to girdle the light which paints it, when the vapor that bears it is most dense, at such distance round the Point a circle of fire was whirling so swiftly that it would have surpa.s.sed that motion which with most speed girds the world; and this was by another circ.u.mcinct, and that by the third, and the third then by the fourth, by the fifth the fourth, and then by the sixth the fifth. Thereon the seventh followed, so spread now in compa.s.s that the messenger of Juno entire[3] would be narrow to contain it. So the eighth and the ninth; and each was moving more slowly, according as it was in number more distant from the first.[4] And that one had the clearest flame from which the Pure Spark was least distant; I believe because it partakes more of It. My Lady, who saw me deeply suspense in doubt, said, "On that Point Heaven and all nature are dependent. Gaze on that circle which is most conjoined to It, and know that its motion is so swift because of the burning love whereby it is spurred." And I to her, "If the world were set in the order which I see in those wheels, that which is propounded to me would have satisfied me; but in the world of sense the revolutions may be seen so much the more divine as they are more remote from the centre.[5] Wherefore if my desire is to have end in this marvellous and angelic temple, which has for confine only love and light, I need yet to hear why the example and the exemplar go not in one fashion, because I by myself contemplate this in vain." "If thy fingers are insufficient for such a knot, it is no wonder, so hard has it become through not being tried." Thus my Lady; then she said, "Take that which I shall tell thee, if thou wouldest be satisfied, and make subtle thy wit about it. The corporeal circles[6] are wide and narrow according to the more or less of virtue which is spread through all their parts. Greater goodness must make greater welfare; the greater body, if it has its parts equally complete, contains greater welfare. Hence this one,[7]

which sweeps along with itself all the rest of the universe, corresponds to the circle[8] which loves most, and knows most.

Therefore, if thou compa.s.sest thy measure round the virtue, not round the seeming of the substances which appear circular to thee, thou wilt see in each heaven a marvellous agreement with its Intelligence, of greater to more and of smaller to less."[9]

[1] As the note of the song with the measure of the verse.

[2] The eyes of Beatrice reflected, as a mirror, the light which shone from G.o.d.

[3] The full circle of Iris, or the rainbow.

[4] These circles of fire are the nine orders of Angels.

[5] The planetary spheres partake more of the divine nature, and move more swiftly, in proportion to their distance from the earth, their centre.

[6] The planetary spheres.

[7] The ninth sphere.

[8] Of the angelic hierarchy.

[9] The greater heaven corresponds to the angelic circle of the Intelligences which love G.o.d most and know most of Him; the smaller to that of those which love and know least.

As the hemisphere of the air remains splendid and serene when Boreas blows from that cheek wherewith he is mildest,[1] whereby the mist which first troubled it is cleared and dissolved, so that the heaven smiles to us with the beauties of all its flock, so I became after my Lady had provided me with her clear answer, and, like a star in heaven, the truth was seen.

[1] When Boreas blows the north wind more from the west than from the east.

And after her words had stopped, not otherwise does molten iron throw out sparks than the circles sparkled. Every scintillation followed its flame,[1] and they were so many that their number, was of more thousands than the doubling of the chess. I heard Hosaimah sung from choir to choir to the fixed Point that holds them, and will forever hold them, at the Ubi[2] in which they have ever been. And she, who saw the dubious thoughts within my mind, said, "The first circles have shown to thee the Seraphim and the Cherubim. Thus swiftly they follow their own bonds,[3] in order to liken themselves to the Point so far as they can, and they can so far as they are exalted to see. Those other loves, which go round about them, are called Thrones of the divine aspect, because they terminated the first triad.[4] And thou shouldst know that all have delight in proportion as their vision penetrates into the True in which every understanding is at rest.

Hence may be seen how beat.i.tude is founded on the act which sees, not on that which loves, which follows after. And merit, which grace and good will bring forth, is the measure of this seeing; thus is the progress from grade to grade.

[1] The innumerable sparks each moved in accord with the gyration of its flaming circle. The doubling of the chess alludes to the story that the inventor of the game asked, as his reward from the King of Persia, a grain of wheat for the first square of the board, two for the second, and so on to the last or sixty-fourth square. The number reached by this process of duplication extends to twenty figures.

[2] The WHERE, the appointed place.

[3] The course of their respective circles to which they are bound.

[4] "Throni elevantur ad hoc quod Deum familiariter in seipsis recipiant."--Summa Theol., I, cviii. 6.

"The next triad that thus buds in this sempiternal spring which the nightly Aries despoils not,[1] perpetually sing their spring song of Hosannah with three melodies, which sound in the three orders of joy wherewith it is threefold. In this hierarchy are the three Divinities, first Dominations, and then the Virtues; the third order is of Powers. Then, in the two penultimate dances, the Princ.i.p.alities and Archangels circle; the last is wholly of Angelic sports. These orders are all upward gazing, and downward prevail, so that toward G.o.d they all are drawn, and they all draw. And Dionysius[2] with such great desire set himself to contemplate these orders, that he named and divided them, as I.

But Gregory[3] afterward separated from him; wherefore, so soon as he opened his eyes in this Heaven, he smiled at himself. And if a mortal proffered on earth so much of secret truth, I would not have thee wonder, for he who saw it hereabove[4] disclosed it to him, with much else of the truth of these circles."

[1] At the autumnal equinox, the time of frosts, Aries is the sign in which the night rises.

[2] The Areopagite. See Canto X.

[3] The Pope, St. Gregory, who differs slightly from Dionysius in his arrangement of the Heavenly host.

[4] St. Paul, supposed to have communicated to his disciple the knowledge which he gained when caught up to Heaven. See 2 Cor., xii. 2.