Paradise: Canto I. Proem
Proem.--Invocation.--Beatrice and Dante ascend to the
Sphere of Fire.--Beatrice explains the cause of their ascent.
The glory of Him who moves everything penetrates through the
universe, and shines in one part more and in another less. In the
heaven that receives most of its light I have been, and have seen
things which he who descends from thereabove neither knows how
nor is able to recount; because, drawing near to its own
desire,[1] our understanding enters so deep, that the memory
cannot follow. Truly whatever of the Holy Realm I could treasure
up in my mind shall now be the theme of my song.
[1] The innate desire of the soul is to attain the vision of
God.
O good Apollo, for this last labor make me such a vessel of thy
power as thou demandest for the gift of the loved laurel.[1] Thus
far one summit of Parnassus has been enough for me, but now with
both[2] I need to enter the remaining, arena. Enter into my
breast, and breathe thou in such wise as when thou drewest
Marsyas from out the sheath of his limbs. O divine Power, if thou
lend thyself to me so that I may make manifest the image of the
Blessed Realm imprinted within my head, thou shalt see me come to
thy chosen tree, and crown myself then with those leaves of which
the theme and thou will make me worthy. So rarely, Father, are
they gathered for triumph or of Caesar or of poet (fault and
shame of the human wills), that the Peneian leaf[3] should bring
forth joy unto the joyous Delphic deity, whenever it makes any
one to long for it. Great flame follows a little spark: perhaps
after me prayer shall be made with better voices, whereto
Cyrrha[4] may respond.
[1] So inspire me in this labor that I may deserve the gift of
the laurel.
[2] The Muses were fabled to dwell on one peak of Parnassus,
Apollo on the other. At the opening of the preceding parts of his
poem Dante has invoked the Muses only.
[3] Daphne, who was changed to the laurel, was the daughter of
Peneus.
[4] Cyrrha, a city sacred to Apollo, not far from the foot of
Parnassus, and here used for the name of the god himself.
The lamp of the world rises to mortals through different
passages, but from that which joins four circles with three
crosses it issues with better course and conjoined with a better
star, and it tempers and seals the mundane wax more after its own
fashion[1] Almost such a passage had made morning there and
evening here;[2] and there all that hemisphere was white, and the
other part black, when I saw Beatrice turned upon the left side,
and looking into the sun: never did eagle so fix himself upon it.
And even as a second ray is wont to issue from the first, and
mount upward again, like a pilgrim who wishes to return; thus of
her action, infused through the eyes into my imagination, mine
was made, and I fixed my eyes upon the sun beyond our use. Much
is allowed there which here is not allowed to our faculties,
thanks to the place made for the human race as its proper,
abode.[3] Not long did I endure it, nor so little that I did not
see it sparkling round about, like iron that issues boiling from
the fire. And on a sudden,[4] day seemed to be added to day, as
if He who is able had adorned
the heaven with another sun.
[1] In the spring the sun rises from a point on the horizon,
where the four great circles, namely, the horizon, the zodiac,
theequator, and the equinoctial colure, meet, and, cutting each
other, form three crosses. The sun is in the sign of Aries, "a
better star," because the influence of this constellation was
supposed to be benignant, and under it the earth reclothes
itself. It was the season assigned to the Creation, and to the
Annunciation.
[2] There, in the Earthly Paradise; here, on earth. It is the
morning of Thursday, April 123. The hours from the mid-day
preceding to this dawn are undescribed.
[3] The Earthly Paradise, made for man in his original
excellence.
[4] So rapid was his ascent to the sphere of fire, drawn upward
by the eyes of Beatrice.
Beatrice was standing with her eyes wholly fixed on the eternal
wheels, and on her I fixed my eyes from thereabove removed.
Looking at her I inwardly became such as Glaucus[1] became on
tasting of the herb which made him consort in the sea of the
other gods. Transhumanizing cannot be signified in words;
therefore let the example[2] suffice for him to whom grace
reserves experience. If I was only what of me thou didst the last
create,[3] O Love that governest the heavens, Thou knowest, who
with Thy light didst lift me. When the revolution which Thou,
being desired, makest eternal,[4] made me attent unto itself with
the harmony which Thou attunest and modulatest, so much of the
heaven then seemed to me enkindled by the flame of the sun, that
rain or river never made so broad a lake.
[1] A fisherman changed to a sea-god. The story is in Ovid
(Metamorphoses, xiii.).
[2] Just cited, of Glauens.
[3] In the twenty-fifth Canto of Purgatory, Dante has said that
when the articulation of the brain is perfect God breathes into
it a new spirit, the living soul; and he means here that, like
St. Paul caught up into Paradise, he cannot tell "whether in the
body or Out of the body." (2 Corinthians, xii. 3).
[4] The desire to be united with God is the source of the eternal
revolution of the heavens. "The Empyrean . . . is the cause of
the most swift motion of the Primum Mobile. because of the most
ardent desire of every part of the latter to be conjoined with
every part of that most divine quiet heaven."--Convito, 14.
The novelty of the sound and the great light kindled in me a
desire concerning their cause, never before felt with such
acuteness. Whereupon she, who saw me as I see myself, to quiet my
perturbed mind opened her mouth, ere I mine to ask, and began,
"Thou thyself makest thyself dull with false imagining, so that
thou seest not what thou wouldst see, if thou hadst shaken it
off. Thou art not on earth, as thou believest; but lightning,
flying from its proper site, never ran as thou who thereunto[1]
returnest."
[1] To thine own proper site,--Heaven, the true home of the soul.
If I was divested of my first doubt by these brief little smiled-
out words, within a new one was I the more enmeshed. And I said,
"Already I rested content concerning a great wonder; but now I
wonder how I can transcend these light bodies." Whereupon she,
after a pitying sigh, directed her eyes toward me, with that look
which a mother turns on her delirious son, and she began, "All
things whatsoever have order among themselves; and this is the
form which makes the universe like to God. Here[1] the high
creatures[2] see the imprint of the eternal Goodness, which is
the end for which the aforesaid rule is made. In the order of
which I speak, all natures are arranged, by diverse lots, more or
less near to their source;[3] wherefore they are moved to diverse
ports through the great sea of being, and each one with an
instinct given to it which may bear it on. This bears the fire
upward toward the moon; this is the motive force in mortal
hearts; this binds together and unites the earth. Nor does this
bow shoot forth.[4] Only the created things which are outside
intelligence, but also those which have understanding and love.
The Providence that adjusts all this, with its own light makes
forever quiet the heaven[5] within which that revolves which hath
the greatest speed. And thither now, as to a site decreed, the
virtue of that cord bears us on which directs to a joyful mark
whatever it shoots. True is it, that as the form often accords
not to the intention of the art, because the material is deaf to
respond, so the creature sometimes deviates from this course; for
it has power, though thus impelled, to incline in another
direction (even as the fire of a cloud may be seen to fall[6]),
if the first impetus, bent aside by false pleasure, turn it
earthwards. Thou shouldst not, if I deem aright, wonder more at
thy ascent, than at a stream if from a high mountain it descends
to the base. A marvel it would be in thee, if, deprived of
hindrance, thou hadst sat below, even as quiet in living fire on
earth would be."
[1] In this order of the universe.
[2] The created beings endowed with souls,--angels and men.
[3] The source of their being, God.
[4] This instinct directs to their proper end animate as well as
inanimate things, as the bow shoots the arrow to its mark.
[5] The Empyrean, within which the Primum Mobile, the first
moving heaven, revolves.
[6] Contrary to its true nature.
Thereon she turned again toward heaven her face.
Sphere of Fire.--Beatrice explains the cause of their ascent.
The glory of Him who moves everything penetrates through the
universe, and shines in one part more and in another less. In the
heaven that receives most of its light I have been, and have seen
things which he who descends from thereabove neither knows how
nor is able to recount; because, drawing near to its own
desire,[1] our understanding enters so deep, that the memory
cannot follow. Truly whatever of the Holy Realm I could treasure
up in my mind shall now be the theme of my song.
[1] The innate desire of the soul is to attain the vision of
God.
O good Apollo, for this last labor make me such a vessel of thy
power as thou demandest for the gift of the loved laurel.[1] Thus
far one summit of Parnassus has been enough for me, but now with
both[2] I need to enter the remaining, arena. Enter into my
breast, and breathe thou in such wise as when thou drewest
Marsyas from out the sheath of his limbs. O divine Power, if thou
lend thyself to me so that I may make manifest the image of the
Blessed Realm imprinted within my head, thou shalt see me come to
thy chosen tree, and crown myself then with those leaves of which
the theme and thou will make me worthy. So rarely, Father, are
they gathered for triumph or of Caesar or of poet (fault and
shame of the human wills), that the Peneian leaf[3] should bring
forth joy unto the joyous Delphic deity, whenever it makes any
one to long for it. Great flame follows a little spark: perhaps
after me prayer shall be made with better voices, whereto
Cyrrha[4] may respond.
[1] So inspire me in this labor that I may deserve the gift of
the laurel.
[2] The Muses were fabled to dwell on one peak of Parnassus,
Apollo on the other. At the opening of the preceding parts of his
poem Dante has invoked the Muses only.
[3] Daphne, who was changed to the laurel, was the daughter of
Peneus.
[4] Cyrrha, a city sacred to Apollo, not far from the foot of
Parnassus, and here used for the name of the god himself.
The lamp of the world rises to mortals through different
passages, but from that which joins four circles with three
crosses it issues with better course and conjoined with a better
star, and it tempers and seals the mundane wax more after its own
fashion[1] Almost such a passage had made morning there and
evening here;[2] and there all that hemisphere was white, and the
other part black, when I saw Beatrice turned upon the left side,
and looking into the sun: never did eagle so fix himself upon it.
And even as a second ray is wont to issue from the first, and
mount upward again, like a pilgrim who wishes to return; thus of
her action, infused through the eyes into my imagination, mine
was made, and I fixed my eyes upon the sun beyond our use. Much
is allowed there which here is not allowed to our faculties,
thanks to the place made for the human race as its proper,
abode.[3] Not long did I endure it, nor so little that I did not
see it sparkling round about, like iron that issues boiling from
the fire. And on a sudden,[4] day seemed to be added to day, as
if He who is able had adorned
the heaven with another sun.
[1] In the spring the sun rises from a point on the horizon,
where the four great circles, namely, the horizon, the zodiac,
theequator, and the equinoctial colure, meet, and, cutting each
other, form three crosses. The sun is in the sign of Aries, "a
better star," because the influence of this constellation was
supposed to be benignant, and under it the earth reclothes
itself. It was the season assigned to the Creation, and to the
Annunciation.
[2] There, in the Earthly Paradise; here, on earth. It is the
morning of Thursday, April 123. The hours from the mid-day
preceding to this dawn are undescribed.
[3] The Earthly Paradise, made for man in his original
excellence.
[4] So rapid was his ascent to the sphere of fire, drawn upward
by the eyes of Beatrice.
Beatrice was standing with her eyes wholly fixed on the eternal
wheels, and on her I fixed my eyes from thereabove removed.
Looking at her I inwardly became such as Glaucus[1] became on
tasting of the herb which made him consort in the sea of the
other gods. Transhumanizing cannot be signified in words;
therefore let the example[2] suffice for him to whom grace
reserves experience. If I was only what of me thou didst the last
create,[3] O Love that governest the heavens, Thou knowest, who
with Thy light didst lift me. When the revolution which Thou,
being desired, makest eternal,[4] made me attent unto itself with
the harmony which Thou attunest and modulatest, so much of the
heaven then seemed to me enkindled by the flame of the sun, that
rain or river never made so broad a lake.
[1] A fisherman changed to a sea-god. The story is in Ovid
(Metamorphoses, xiii.).
[2] Just cited, of Glauens.
[3] In the twenty-fifth Canto of Purgatory, Dante has said that
when the articulation of the brain is perfect God breathes into
it a new spirit, the living soul; and he means here that, like
St. Paul caught up into Paradise, he cannot tell "whether in the
body or Out of the body." (2 Corinthians, xii. 3).
[4] The desire to be united with God is the source of the eternal
revolution of the heavens. "The Empyrean . . . is the cause of
the most swift motion of the Primum Mobile. because of the most
ardent desire of every part of the latter to be conjoined with
every part of that most divine quiet heaven."--Convito, 14.
The novelty of the sound and the great light kindled in me a
desire concerning their cause, never before felt with such
acuteness. Whereupon she, who saw me as I see myself, to quiet my
perturbed mind opened her mouth, ere I mine to ask, and began,
"Thou thyself makest thyself dull with false imagining, so that
thou seest not what thou wouldst see, if thou hadst shaken it
off. Thou art not on earth, as thou believest; but lightning,
flying from its proper site, never ran as thou who thereunto[1]
returnest."
[1] To thine own proper site,--Heaven, the true home of the soul.
If I was divested of my first doubt by these brief little smiled-
out words, within a new one was I the more enmeshed. And I said,
"Already I rested content concerning a great wonder; but now I
wonder how I can transcend these light bodies." Whereupon she,
after a pitying sigh, directed her eyes toward me, with that look
which a mother turns on her delirious son, and she began, "All
things whatsoever have order among themselves; and this is the
form which makes the universe like to God. Here[1] the high
creatures[2] see the imprint of the eternal Goodness, which is
the end for which the aforesaid rule is made. In the order of
which I speak, all natures are arranged, by diverse lots, more or
less near to their source;[3] wherefore they are moved to diverse
ports through the great sea of being, and each one with an
instinct given to it which may bear it on. This bears the fire
upward toward the moon; this is the motive force in mortal
hearts; this binds together and unites the earth. Nor does this
bow shoot forth.[4] Only the created things which are outside
intelligence, but also those which have understanding and love.
The Providence that adjusts all this, with its own light makes
forever quiet the heaven[5] within which that revolves which hath
the greatest speed. And thither now, as to a site decreed, the
virtue of that cord bears us on which directs to a joyful mark
whatever it shoots. True is it, that as the form often accords
not to the intention of the art, because the material is deaf to
respond, so the creature sometimes deviates from this course; for
it has power, though thus impelled, to incline in another
direction (even as the fire of a cloud may be seen to fall[6]),
if the first impetus, bent aside by false pleasure, turn it
earthwards. Thou shouldst not, if I deem aright, wonder more at
thy ascent, than at a stream if from a high mountain it descends
to the base. A marvel it would be in thee, if, deprived of
hindrance, thou hadst sat below, even as quiet in living fire on
earth would be."
[1] In this order of the universe.
[2] The created beings endowed with souls,--angels and men.
[3] The source of their being, God.
[4] This instinct directs to their proper end animate as well as
inanimate things, as the bow shoots the arrow to its mark.
[5] The Empyrean, within which the Primum Mobile, the first
moving heaven, revolves.
[6] Contrary to its true nature.
Thereon she turned again toward heaven her face.
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