Part 36

They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest, Gentiles, but Christians in the steadfast faith Of feet that were to suffer and had suffered.

For one from Hell, where no one e’er turns back Unto good will, returned unto his bones, And that of living hope was the reward,—

Of living hope, that placed its efficacy In prayers to God made to resuscitate him, So that ’twere possible to move his will.

The glorious soul concerning which I speak, Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay, Believed in Him who had the power to aid it;

And, in believing, kindled to such fire Of genuine love, that at the second death Worthy it was to come unto this joy.

The other one, through grace, that from so deep A fountain wells that never hath the eye Of any creature reached its primal wave,

Set all his love below on righteousness; Wherefore from grace to grace did God unclose His eye to our redemption yet to be,

Whence he believed therein, and suffered not From that day forth the stench of paganism, And he reproved therefor the folk perverse.

Those Maidens three, whom at the right-hand wheel Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptism More than a thousand years before baptizing.

O thou predestination, how remote Thy root is from the aspect of all those Who the First Cause do not behold entire!

And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrained In judging; for ourselves, who look on God, We do not know as yet all the elect;

And sweet to us is such a deprivation, Because our good in this good is made perfect, That whatsoe’er God wills, we also will.”

After this manner by that shape divine, To make clear in me my short-sightedness, Was given to me a pleasant medicine;

And as good singer a good lutanist Accompanies with vibrations of the chords, Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires,

So, while it spake, do I remember me That I beheld both of those blessed lights, Even as the winking of the eyes concords,

Moving unto the words their little flames.

Paradiso: Canto XXI

Already on my Lady’s face mine eyes Again were fastened, and with these my mind, And from all other purpose was withdrawn;

And she smiled not; but “If I were to smile,” She unto me began, “thou wouldst become Like Semele, when she was turned to ashes.

Because my beauty, that along the stairs Of the eternal palace more enkindles, As thou hast seen, the farther we ascend,

If it were tempered not, is so resplendent That all thy mortal power in its effulgence Would seem a leaflet that the thunder crushes.

We are uplifted to the seventh splendour, That underneath the burning Lion’s breast Now radiates downward mingled with his power.

Fix in direction of thine eyes the mind, And make of them a mirror for the figure That in this mirror shall appear to thee.”

He who could know what was the pasturage My sight had in that blessed countenance, When I transferred me to another care,

Would recognize how grateful was to me Obedience unto my celestial escort, By counterpoising one side with the other.

Within the crystal which, around the world Revolving, bears the name of its dear leader, Under whom every wickedness lay dead,

Coloured like gold, on which the sunshine gleams, A stairway I beheld to such a height Uplifted, that mine eye pursued it not.

Likewise beheld I down the steps descending So many splendours, that I thought each light That in the heaven appears was there diffused.