Part 163

The voice reveals it of the truthful Author, Who says to Moses, speaking of Himself, ‘I will make all my goodness pass before thee.’

Thou too revealest it to me, beginning The loud Evangel, that proclaims the secret Of heaven to earth above all other edict.”

And I heard say: “By human intellect And by authority concordant with it, Of all thy loves reserve for God the highest.

But say again if other cords thou feelest, Draw thee towards Him, that thou mayst proclaim With how many teeth this love is biting thee.”

The holy purpose of the Eagle of Christ Not latent was, nay, rather I perceived Whither he fain would my profession lead.

Therefore I recommenced: “All of those bites Which have the power to turn the heart to God Unto my charity have been concurrent.

The being of the world, and my own being, The death which He endured that I may live, And that which all the faithful hope, as I do,

With the forementioned vivid consciousness Have drawn me from the sea of love perverse, And of the right have placed me on the shore.

The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the garden Of the Eternal Gardener, do I love As much as he has granted them of good.”

As soon as I had ceased, a song most sweet Throughout the heaven resounded, and my Lady Said with the others, “Holy, holy, holy!”

And as at some keen light one wakes from sleep By reason of the visual spirit that runs Unto the splendour passed from coat to coat,

And he who wakes abhorreth what he sees, So all unconscious is his sudden waking, Until the judgment cometh to his aid,

So from before mine eyes did Beatrice Chase every mote with radiance of her own, That cast its light a thousand miles and more.

Whence better after than before I saw, And in a kind of wonderment I asked About a fourth light that I saw with us.

And said my Lady: “There within those rays Gazes upon its Maker the first soul That ever the first virtue did create.”

Even as the bough that downward bends its top At transit of the wind, and then is lifted By its own virtue, which inclines it upward,

Likewise did I, the while that she was speaking, Being amazed, and then I was made bold By a desire to speak wherewith I burned.

And I began: “O apple, that mature Alone hast been produced, O ancient father, To whom each wife is daughter and daughter-in-law,

Devoutly as I can I supplicate thee That thou wouldst speak to me; thou seest my wish; And I, to hear thee quickly, speak it not.”

Sometimes an animal, when covered, struggles So that his impulse needs must be apparent, By reason of the wrappage following it;

And in like manner the primeval soul Made clear to me athwart its covering How jubilant it was to give me pleasure.

Then breathed: “Without thy uttering it to me, Thine inclination better I discern Than thou whatever thing is surest to thee;

For I behold it in the truthful mirror, That of Himself all things parhelion makes, And none makes Him parhelion of itself.

Thou fain wouldst hear how long ago God placed me Within the lofty garden, where this Lady Unto so long a stairway thee disposed.

And how long to mine eyes it was a pleasure, And of the great disdain the proper cause, And the language that I used and that I made.

Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree Not in itself was cause of so great exile, But solely the o’erstepping of the bounds.

There, whence thy Lady moved Virgilius, Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits Made by the sun, this Council I desired;

And him I saw return to all the lights Of his highway nine hundred times and thirty, Whilst I upon the earth was tarrying.