Part 24

Let not Dame Bertha nor Ser Martin think, Seeing one steal, another offering make, To see them in the arbitrament divine;

For one may rise, and fall the other may.”

Paradiso: Canto XIV

From centre unto rim, from rim to centre, In a round vase the water moves itself, As from without ’tis struck or from within.

Into my mind upon a sudden dropped What I am saying, at the moment when Silent became the glorious life of Thomas,

Because of the resemblance that was born Of his discourse and that of Beatrice, Whom, after him, it pleased thus to begin:

“This man has need (and does not tell you so, Nor with the voice, nor even in his thought) Of going to the root of one truth more.

Declare unto him if the light wherewith Blossoms your substance shall remain with you Eternally the same that it is now;

And if it do remain, say in what manner, After ye are again made visible, It can be that it injure not your sight.”

As by a greater gladness urged and drawn They who are dancing in a ring sometimes Uplift their voices and their motions quicken;

So, at that orison devout and prompt, The holy circles a new joy displayed In their revolving and their wondrous song.

Whoso lamenteth him that here we die That we may live above, has never there Seen the refreshment of the eternal rain.

The One and Two and Three who ever liveth, And reigneth ever in Three and Two and One, Not circumscribed and all things circumscribing,

Three several times was chanted by each one Among those spirits, with such melody That for all merit it were just reward;

And, in the lustre most divine of all The lesser ring, I heard a modest voice, Such as perhaps the Angel’s was to Mary,

Answer: “As long as the festivity Of Paradise shall be, so long our love Shall radiate round about us such a vesture.

Its brightness is proportioned to the ardour, The ardour to the vision; and the vision Equals what grace it has above its worth.

When, glorious and sanctified, our flesh Is reassumed, then shall our persons be More pleasing by their being all complete;

For will increase whate’er bestows on us Of light gratuitous the Good Supreme, Light which enables us to look on Him;

Therefore the vision must perforce increase, Increase the ardour which from that is kindled, Increase the radiance which from this proceeds.

But even as a coal that sends forth flame, And by its vivid whiteness overpowers it So that its own appearance it maintains,

Thus the effulgence that surrounds us now Shall be o’erpowered in aspect by the flesh, Which still to-day the earth doth cover up;

Nor can so great a splendour weary us, For strong will be the organs of the body To everything which hath the power to please us.”

So sudden and alert appeared to me Both one and the other choir to say Amen, That well they showed desire for their dead bodies;

Nor sole for them perhaps, but for the mothers, The fathers, and the rest who had been dear Or ever they became eternal flames.

And lo! all round about of equal brightness Arose a lustre over what was there, Like an horizon that is clearing up.

And as at rise of early eve begin Along the welkin new appearances, So that the sight seems real and unreal,

It seemed to me that new subsistences Began there to be seen, and make a circle Outside the other two circumferences.