When now the wheel, which thou dost make eternal By harmony thou dost modulate and measure, By the sun's flame, that neither rain nor river What thou wouldst see if thou hadst shaken it off. But lightning, fleeing its appropriate site, Ne'er ran as thou, who thitherward returnest." If of my former doubt I was divested By these brief little words more smiled than spoken, And said: 66 Already did I rest content From great amazement; but am now amazed Her eyes directed tow'rds me with that look Have order among themselves, and this is form, All natures, by their destinies diverse, O'er the great sea of being; and each one With instinct given it which bears it on. This bears away the fire towards the moon; This is in mortal hearts the motive power; Without intelligence this bow shoots forth, The Providence that regulates all this Makes with its light the heaven forever quiet, And thither now, as to a site decreed, Bears us away the virtue of that cord Accords not with the intention of the art, So likewise from this course doth deviate Sometimes the creature, who the power possesses, (In the same wise as one may see the fire Thou shouldst not wonder more, if well I judge, At thine ascent, than at a rivulet From some high mount descending to the lowland. Marvel it would be in thee, if deprived Of hindrance, thou wert seated down below, As if on earth the living fire were quiet." Thereat she heavenward turned again her face. 125 130 138 £40 CANTO II. O YE, who in some pretty little boat, Eager to listen, have been following Behind my ship, that singing sails along, Turn back to look again upon your shores; Do not put out to sea, lest peradventure, In losing me, you might yourselves be lost. The sea I sail has never yet been passed; Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo, And Muses nine point out to me the Bears. Ye other few who have the neck uplifted Betimes to th' bread of Angels upon which One liveth here and grows not sated by it, Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you Upon the water that grows smooth again. Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be, When Jason they beheld a ploughman made! The con-created and perpetual thirst For the realm deiform did bear us on," And in such space perchance as strikes a bolt Drew to itself my sight; and therefore she Said unto me: "Fix gratefully thy mind On God, who unto the first star has brought us." It seemed to me a cloud encompassed us, Luminous, dense, consolidate and bright As adamant on which the sun is striking. Into itself did the eternal pearl Receive us, even as water doth receive A ray of light, remaining still unbroken. If I was body, (and we here conceive not How one dimension tolerates another, Which needs must be if body enter body,) More the desire should be enkindled in us That essence to behold, wherein is seen How God and our own nature were united. There will be seen what we receive by faith, Not demonstrated, but self-evident In guise of the first truth that man believes. I made reply: "Madonna, as devoutly As most I can do I give thanks to Him But tell me what the dusky spots may be Upon this body, which below on earth And I: "What seems to us up here diverse, Lights many the eighth sphere displays to you If this were caused by rare and dense alone, Of formal principles; and these, save one, Besides, if rarity were of this dimness 65 The cause thou askest, either through and through Or else, as in a body is apportioned The fat and lean, so in like manner this Were it the former, in the sun's eclipse It would be manifest by the shining through And if it chance the other I demolish, There needs must be a limit, beyond which Even as a colour cometh back from glass, The which behind itself concealeth lead. Now thou wilt say the sunbeam shows itself More dimly there than in the other parts, If e'er thou try it, which is wont to be The image most remote, there shalt thou see Thee, thus remaining in thy intellect, Revolves a body, in whose virtue lies All the distinctions which they have within them As thou perceivest now, from grade to grade; Unto the truth thou wishest, that hereafter As from the artisan the hammer's craft, From the Intelligence profound, which turns it, And even as the soul within your dust Through members different and accommodated So likewise this Intelligence diffuses Virtue diverse doth a diverse alloyage Make with the precious body that it quickens, The mingled virtue through the body shines, Appeareth different, not from dense and rare: This is the formal principle that produces, According to its goodness, dark and bright.” |