Part 151

Even as above her nest goes circling round The stork when she has fed her little ones, And he who has been fed looks up at her,

So lifted I my brows, and even such Became the blessed image, which its wings Was moving, by so many counsels urged.

Circling around it sang, and said: “As are My notes to thee, who dost not comprehend them, Such is the eternal judgment to you mortals.”

Those lucent splendours of the Holy Spirit Grew quiet then, but still within the standard That made the Romans reverend to the world.

It recommenced: “Unto this kingdom never Ascended one who had not faith in Christ, Before or since he to the tree was nailed.

But look thou, many crying are, ‘Christ, Christ!’ Who at the judgment shall be far less near To him than some shall be who knew not Christ.

Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn, When the two companies shall be divided, The one for ever rich, the other poor.

What to your kings may not the Persians say, When they that volume opened shall behold In which are written down all their dispraises?

There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert, That which ere long shall set the pen in motion, For which the realm of Prague shall be deserted.

There shall be seen the woe that on the Seine He brings by falsifying of the coin, Who by the blow of a wild boar shall die.

There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst, Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad That they within their boundaries cannot rest;

Be seen the luxury and effeminate life Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian, Who valour never knew and never wished;

Be seen the Cripple of Jerusalem, His goodness represented by an I, While the reverse an M shall represent;

Be seen the avarice and poltroonery Of him who guards the Island of the Fire, Wherein Anchises finished his long life;

And to declare how pitiful he is Shall be his record in contracted letters Which shall make note of much in little space.

And shall appear to each one the foul deeds Of uncle and of brother who a nation So famous have dishonoured, and two crowns.

And he of Portugal and he of Norway Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too, Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice.

O happy Hungary, if she let herself Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy, If with the hills that gird her she be armed!

And each one may believe that now, as hansel Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta Lament and rage because of their own beast,

Who from the others’ flank departeth not.”

Paradiso: Canto XX

When he who all the world illuminates Out of our hemisphere so far descends That on all sides the daylight is consumed,

The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled, Doth suddenly reveal itself again By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.

And came into my mind this act of heaven, When the ensign of the world and of its leaders Had silent in the blessed beak become;

Because those living luminaries all, By far more luminous, did songs begin Lapsing and falling from my memory.

O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee, How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear, That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!

After the precious and pellucid crystals, With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld, Silence imposed on the angelic bells,

I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river That clear descendeth down from rock to rock, Showing the affluence of its mountain-top.