And I: “The ancient Scriptures and the new
The mark establish, and this shows it me,Of all the souls whom God hath made his friends.
Isaiah saith, that each one garmentedIn his own land shall be with twofold garments,And his own land is this delightful life.
Thy brother, too, far more explicitly,There where he treateth of the robes of white,This revelation manifests to us.”
And first, and near the ending of these words,“Sperent in te” from over us was heard,To which responsive answered all the carols.
Thereafterward a light among them brightened,So that, if Cancer one such crystal had,Winter would have a month of one sole day.
And as uprises, goes, and enters the danceA winsome maiden, only to do honourTo the new bride, and not from any failing,
Even thus did I behold the brightened splendourApproach the two, who in a wheel revolvedAs was beseeming to their ardent love.
Into the song and music there it entered;And fixed on them my Lady kept her look,Even as a bride silent and motionless.
“This is the one who lay upon the breastOf him our Pelican; and this is heTo the great office from the cross elected.”
My Lady thus; but therefore none the moreDid move her sight from its attentive gazeBefore or afterward these words of hers.
Even as a man who gazes, and endeavoursTo see the eclipsing of the sun a little,And who, by seeing, sightless doth become,
So I became before that latest fire,While it was said, “Why dost thou daze thyselfTo see a thing which here hath no existence?
Earth in the earth my body is, and shall beWith all the others there, until our numberWith the eternal proposition tallies.
With the two garments in the blessed cloisterAre the two lights alone that have ascended:And this shalt thou take back into your world.”
And at this utterance the flaming circleGrew quiet, with the dulcet interminglingOf sound that by the trinal breath was made,
As to escape from danger or fatigueThe oars that erst were in the water beatenAre all suspended at a whistle’s sound.
Ah, how much in my mind was I disturbed,When I turned round to look on Beatrice,That her I could not see, although I was
Close at her side and in the Happy World!
Paradiso: Canto XXVI
While I was doubting for my vision quenched,Out of the flame refulgent that had quenched itIssued a breathing, that attentive made me,
Saying: “While thou recoverest the senseOf seeing which in me thou hast consumed,’Tis well that speaking thou shouldst compensate it.
Begin then, and declare to what thy soulIs aimed, and count it for a certainty,Sight is in thee bewildered and not dead;
Because the Lady, who through this divineRegion conducteth thee, has in her lookThe power the hand of Ananias had.”
I said: “As pleaseth her, or soon or lateLet the cure come to eyes that portals wereWhen she with fire I ever burn with entered.
The Good, that gives contentment to this Court,The Alpha and Omega is of allThe writing that love reads me low or loud.”
The selfsame voice, that taken had from meThe terror of the sudden dazzlement,To speak still farther put it in my thought;
And said: “In verity with finer sieveBehoveth thee to sift; thee it behovethTo say who aimed thy bow at such a target.”
And I: “By philosophic arguments,And by authority that hence descends,Such love must needs imprint itself in me;
For Good, so far as good, when comprehendedDoth straight enkindle love, and so much greaterAs more of goodness in itself it holds;
Then to that Essence (whose is such advantageThat every good which out of it is foundIs nothing but a ray of its own light)
More than elsewhither must the mind be movedOf every one, in loving, who discernsThe truth in which this evidence is founded.
Such truth he to my intellect revealsWho demonstrates to me the primal loveOf all the sempiternal substances.
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, beginningThe loud Evangel, that proclaims the secretOf heaven to earth above all other edict.”
And I heard say: “By human intellectAnd 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 proclaimWith how many teeth this love is biting thee.”