For God more bounteous was himself to give
To make man able to uplift himself,
Than if he only of himself had pardoned;
And all the other modes were insufficient
For justice, were it not the Son of God
Himself had humbled to become incarnate.
Now, to fill fully each desire of thine,

Return I to elucidate one place,

In order that thou there mayst see as I do. Thou sayst: I see the air, I see the fire, The water, and the earth, and all their mixtures

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Come to corruption, and short while endure; And these things notwithstanding were created'; Therefore if that which I have said were true, They should have been secure against corrup

tion.

The Angels, brother, and the land sincere

In which thou art, created may be called Just as they are in their entire existence; But all the elements which thou hast named,

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And all those things which out of them are

made,

By a created virtue are informed.

Created was the matter which they have;
Created was the informing influence

Within these stars that round about them go.
The soul of every brute and of the plants
By its potential temperament attracts
The ray and motion of the holy lights;
But your own life immediately inspires
Supreme Beneficence, and enamors it
So with herself, it evermore desires her.

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And thou from this mayst argue furthermore
Your resurrection, if thou think again

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How human flesh was fashioned at that time When the first parents both of them were made."

CANTO VIII.

The world used in its peril to believe
That the fair Cypria delirious love
Rayed out, in the third epicycle turning;
Wherefore not only unto her paid honor
Of sacrifices and of votive cry

The ancient nations in the ancient error,
But both Dione honored they and Cupid,
That as her mother, this one as her son,
And said that he had sat in Dido's lap ;
And they from her, whence I beginning take,
Took the denomination of the star

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That wooes the sun, now following, now in front.

I was not ware of our ascending to it;

But of our being in it gave full faith

My Lady whom I saw more beauteous grow.

And as within a flame a spark is seen,

And as within a voice a voice discerned,

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When one is steadfast, and one comes and goes, Within that light beheld I other lamps

Move in a circle, speeding more and less,
Methinks in measure of their inward vision.
From a cold cloud descended never winds,
Or visible or not, so rapidly

They would not laggard and impeded seem
To any one who had those lights divine

Seen come towards us, leaving the gyration

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Begun at first in the high Seraphim.'

And behind those that most in front appeared
Sounded" Osanna!" so that never since
To hear again was I without desire.
Then unto us more nearly one approached,
And it alone began: "We all are ready
Unto thy pleasure, that thou joy in us.
We turn around with the celestial Princes,
One gyre and one gyration and one thirst,
To whom thou in the world of old didst say,

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Ye who, intelligent, the third heaven are moving' ; And are so full of love, to pleasure thee A little quiet will not be less sweet." After these eyes of mine themselves had offered 40 Unto my Lady reverently, and she

Content and certain of herself had made them, Back to the light they turned, which so great promise

Made of itself, and "Say, who art thou? was My voice, imprinted with a great affection.

Oh how and how much I beheld it grow

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With the new joy that superadded was Unto its joys, as soon as I had spoken! Thus changed, it said to me: "The world possessed

me

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Short time below; and, if it had been more, Much evil will be which would not have been. My gladness keepeth me concealed from thee, Which rayeth round about me, and doth hide

me

Like as a creature swathed in its own silk. Much didst thou love me, and thou hadst good rea

son;

For had I been below, I should have shown thee Somewhat beyond the foliage of my love. That left-hand margin, which doth bathe itself

In Rhone, when it is mingled with the Sorgue, Me for its lord awaited in due time,

And that horn of Ausonia, which is towned

With Bari, with Gaeta and Catona, Whence Tronto and Verde in the sea disgorge. Already flashed upon my brow the crown

Of that dominion which the Danube waters After the German borders it abandons ; And beautiful Trinacria, that is murky

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65

"Twixt Pachino and Peloro, (on the gulf Which greatest scath from Eurus doth receive,) Not through Typhoeus, but through nascent sul

phur,

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Would have awaited her own monarchs still, Through me from Charles descended and from Rudolph,

If evil lordship, that exasperates ever

The subject populations, had not moved
Palermo to the outcry of Death! death!'

And if my brother could but this foresee,
The greedy poverty of Catalonia

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Straight would he flee, that it might not molest

him ;

For verily 't is needful to provide,

Through him or other, so that on his bark

Already freighted no more freight be placed.

His nature, which from liberal covetous
Descended, such a soldiery would need

As should not care for hoarding in a chest."
Because I do believe the lofty joy

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Thy speech infuses into me, my Lord, Where every good thing doth begin and end Thou seest as I see it, the more grateful

Is it to me; and this too hold I dear,

That gazing upon God thou dost discern it. 98 Glad hast thou made me; so make clear to me, Since speaking thou hast stirred me up to doubt, How from sweet seed can bitter issue forth." This I to him; and he to me: “If I

Can show to thee a truth, to what thou askest 95 Thy face thou 'lt hold as thou dost hold thy back. The Good which all the realm thou art ascending Turns and contents, maketh its providence To be a power within these bodies vast; And not alone the natures are foreseen

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Within the mind that in itself is perfect, But they together with their preservation. For whatsoever thing this bow shoots forth Falls foreordained unto an end foreseen, Even as a shaft directed to its mark. If that were not, the heaven which thou dost walk Would in such manner its effects produce, That they no longer would be arts, but ruins. This cannot be, if the Intelligences

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That keep these stars in motion are not maimed, And maimed the First, who hath not made them

perfect.

Wilt thou this truth have clearer made to thee?"
And I: "Not so; for 't is impossible
That nature tire, I see, in what is needful."
Whence he again: "Now say, would it be worse
For men on earth were they not citizens?"

Line 111. And maimed the First that has not made them perfect

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