Paradiso: Canto II

O YE who follow me in little boat
On this my voyage, eager still to hear.
Behind my ship that sings as she doth float,

Turn now and look where yet your shores appear;
Into the wide sea put not out, lest ye,
Me losing, should have not whereby to steer.

Where I sail on none yet hath tracked the sea;
Breeze doth Minerva give, Apollo lead,
And Muses nine point out the Bears to me.

Ye other few, who stretched your necks indeed
Betimes in seeking for the angels' bread.
Whereon, though still unsated, here we feed.

Through the deep sea your voyage may be sped
Right well, if ye will keep my furrowed way
Upon the water, now more smoothly spread.

Those heroes old, who sailed where Colchos lay,
Wondered not half so much as ye will do.
When they a ploughman's part saw Jason play.

The concreate thirst, which lasts the ages through,
Of that realm deiform upbore us high,
Swift as the heavens which ye revolving view;

And Beatrice upward looked, and I
On her; and, e'en in such time as in air
The bolt fixed in the cross-bow forth doth fly,

I saw myself arrived where wonder rare
Drew my gaze on it. Wherefore she — from whom
I could not hide one thought of anxious care —

Turned to me in her beauty's joyous bloom.
Raise thankful heart to God," she said, " who thus
In the first planet hath for us found room."

It seemed as though a cloud had covered us.
Translucent, solid, dense, and full of light,
Like diamond struck by sunbeam glorious;

Within itself that pearl eternal, bright.
Received us, as a pool receives a ray,
Nor doth its mirror-surface disunite.

If I a body was — and here no way
We know two solids in one space may fare.
As needs if body into body stray —

So much the more should strong desire appear
To see that Essence in the which is seen
How with man's nature God His own can share.

There shall we see what here by faith hath been
By us received unproved, but then shall be
Self-witnessed, as first truths man's credence win.

I made reply: "Dear Lady, gratefully
With all my soul my thanks to Him I give
Who from that mortal world hath lifted me:

But tell me what those dark spots we perceive
In this same body are, which down below
Make common folk the tale of Cain believe."

She smiled a little, and then said: '' If so
The thoughts of mortals are in error found,
Where key of sense fails through the wards to go,

No shafts of wonder should thy soul astound,
Since now thou dost perceive that, following sense.
The wings of reason move in narrowest bound.

But tell me what to thy intelligence
They seem." And I: " The varied aspect here
Is caused, I deem, by bodies rare and dense."

And she: " That thought of thine shall soon appear
In falsehood sunk, if thou wilt list to me
While I my adverse reasonings bid thee hear.

In the eighth sphere full many an orb we see
Which, in their quale and their quantum too,
'Of many a diverse kind and aspect be.

If rare and dense alone all this could do,
Then would be found in all one power alone,
In measure more or less proportioned true.

Virtues diverse are as the product known
Of formal causes, and, save one, all these
Would be on that hypothesis overthrown.

Again, if those dark spots thy vision sees
Were caused, as thou deem'st, by their rarity.
Either this orb throughout were ill at ease,

Its matter thinned, or, as in bodies lie
The fat and lean in layers, so would this
A change of pages in its book supply;

And it were seen, on that hypothesis.
Transparent in the sun's eclipse, as when
Through rarer bodies light transmitted is.

This is not so, and we may reason then
Of that thy second premiss, which, if I
Confute, thy view will false appear to men.

If through the whole pass not this rarity,
Then must there be a boundary from whence
Its opposite permits no passing by;

And so the foreign rays, reflected thence,
Are as the colours mirrored from a glass,
Which hides a leaden surface from our sense.

Now, thou wilt say that there more dim doth pass
The sunbeam than from any other place,
As further back reflected in the mass.

But that objection shall give way apace
Before experience, if thou wilt it prove,
To which, as fount, all streams of art you trace.

Take thou three mirrors, two of them remove
From thee at equal distance, and the last
Between the two, and further from them, move;

And turned towards them let a light be cast,
Behind thy back, upon those mirrors three.
So that from all reflected rays are passed.

Then, though the light which furthest stands from thee
May not with them in magnitude compete.
Yet will it shine in brightness equally. ''

Now, as before the sun's rays in their heat
The substance of the snow is naked seen,
Stript both of hue and cold that erst did meet.

So thee, to thy pure reason left, I mean
To fill with such a clear and living light,"
That it shall dazzle thee with radiant sheen.

Within the heaven where peace divine its site
Hath found, revolves a body whose content
In all its power from that heaven draws its might.

Next this the heaven, which is with stars besprent,"
This power through divers natures doth divide,
Distinguished from it, yet within it pent.

The other spheres, in series varying wide.
All things with several qualities endow.
Each, e'en in germ, to its true end applied,

These organs of the world move onward so,
As thou see'st now, degree upon degree.
Swayed from above and swaying those below.

Look well on me, how I am leading thee
Up to the truth which thou dost crave to learn,
That thou to cross the ford alone may'st see.

These powers and motions of the spheres that turn.
As the smith wields the hammer's ponderous might,
Must needs wheel on, by blessed Movers borne.

And that same heaven, made fair by many a light,
From the high Mind that doth its motion sway,
The image takes, and with its seals aright.

And, as your soul, within its house of clay,
Through different members, severally designed
To different powers, still finds its separate way,

So spreads its goodness that supremest Mind,
Through all the stars in phases manifold,
Revolving still in unity defined;

And diverse virtues diverse compounds mould
With bodies precious which they animate,
Wherein, as life in you, their place they hold.

Through the glad nature which doth radiate.
The infused virtue shines through body bright.
As gladness doth your eyes illuminate.

Hence comes it that there seems 'twixt light and light
This variance, and not from dense and rare:
This is the formal cause which works in might,

Proportioned to its goodness, dull or clear."