Part 40

I saw the daughter of Latona shining Without that shadow, which to me was cause That once I had believed her rare and dense.

The aspect of thy son, Hyperion, Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves Around and near him Maia and Dione.

Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove ’Twixt son and father, and to me was clear The change that of their whereabout they make;

And all the seven made manifest to me How great they are, and eke how swift they are, And how they are in distant habitations.

The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud, To me revolving with the eternal Twins, Was all apparent made from hill to harbour!

Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.

Paradiso: Canto XXIII

Even as a bird, ’mid the beloved leaves, Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood Throughout the night, that hideth all things from us,

Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks And find the food wherewith to nourish them, In which, to her, grave labours grateful are,

Anticipates the time on open spray And with an ardent longing waits the sun, Gazing intent as soon as breaks the dawn:

Even thus my Lady standing was, erect And vigilant, turned round towards the zone Underneath which the sun displays less haste;

So that beholding her distraught and wistful, Such I became as he is who desiring For something yearns, and hoping is appeased.

But brief the space from one When to the other; Of my awaiting, say I, and the seeing The welkin grow resplendent more and more.

And Beatrice exclaimed: “Behold the hosts Of Christ’s triumphal march, and all the fruit Harvested by the rolling of these spheres!”

It seemed to me her face was all aflame; And eyes she had so full of ecstasy That I must needs pass on without describing.

As when in nights serene of the full moon Smiles Trivia among the nymphs eternal Who paint the firmament through all its gulfs,

Saw I, above the myriads of lamps, A Sun that one and all of them enkindled, E’en as our own doth the supernal sights,

And through the living light transparent shone The lucent substance so intensely clear Into my sight, that I sustained it not.

O Beatrice, thou gentle guide and dear! To me she said: “What overmasters thee A virtue is from which naught shields itself.

There are the wisdom and the omnipotence That oped the thoroughfares ’twixt heaven and earth, For which there erst had been so long a yearning.”

As fire from out a cloud unlocks itself, Dilating so it finds not room therein, And down, against its nature, falls to earth,

So did my mind, among those aliments Becoming larger, issue from itself, And that which it became cannot remember.

“Open thine eyes, and look at what I am: Thou hast beheld such things, that strong enough Hast thou become to tolerate my smile.”

I was as one who still retains the feeling Of a forgotten vision, and endeavours In vain to bring it back into his mind,

When I this invitation heard, deserving Of so much gratitude, it never fades Out of the book that chronicles the past.

If at this moment sounded all the tongues That Polyhymnia and her sisters made Most lubrical with their delicious milk,

To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth It would not reach, singing the holy smile And how the holy aspect it illumed.

And therefore, representing Paradise, The sacred poem must perforce leap over, Even as a man who finds his way cut off;