The Earthly Paradise. — Reproachful discourse of Beatrice, amid confession of Dante. — Passage of Lethe. — Appeal of the Virtues to Beatrice. — Her Unveiling.
“O thou who art on the further side of the sacred river,” turning her speech with the point to me, which only by the edge had seemed to me keen, she began anew, going on without delay, “say, say, if this is true: to so great an accusation it behoves that thine own confession be conjoined.” My power was so confused, that the voice moved, and became extinct before it could be released by its organs. A little she bore it; then she said, “What thinkest thou? Reply to me; for the sad memories in thee are not yet injured by the water.”1 Confusion and fear together mingled forced such a “Yes” from out my mouth, that the eyes were needed for the understanding of it.
1 Are still vivid, not yet obliterated by the water of Lethe.
As a cross-bow breaks its cord and its bow when it shoots with too great tension, and with less force the shaft hits the mark, so did I burst under that heavy load, pouring forth tears and sighs, and the voice slackened along its passage. Whereupon she to me, “Within those desires of mine1 that were leading thee to love the Good beyond which there is nothing whereto man may aspire, what trenches running traverse, or what chains didst thou find, for which thou wert obliged thus to abandon the hope of passing onward? And what enticements, or what advantages on the brow of the others were displayed,2 for which thou wert obliged to court them?” After the drawing of a bitter sigh, hardly had I the voice that answered, and the lips with difficulty gave it form. Weeping, I said, “The present things with their false pleasure turned my steps, soon as your face was hidden.” And she: “Hadst thou been silent, or hadst thou denied that which thou dost confess, thy fault would be not less noted, by such a Judge is it known. But when the accusation of the sin, bursts from one’s own cheek, in our court the wheel turns itself back against the edge. But yet, that thou mayst now bear shame for thy error, and that another time, hearing the Sirens, thou mayst be stronger, hay aside the seed of weeping, and listen; so shalt thou hear how in opposite direction my buried flesh ought to have moved thee. Never did nature or art present to thee pleasure such as the fair limbs wherein I was enclosed; and they are scattered in earth. And if the supreme pleasure thus failed thee through my death, what mortal thing ought then to have drawn thee into its desire? Forsooth thou oughtest, at the first arrow of things deceitful, to have risen up, following me who was no longer such. Nor should thy wings have weighed thee downward to await more blows, either girl or other vanity of so brief a use. The young little bird awaits two or three; but before the eyes of the full-fledged, the net is spread in vain, the arrow shot.”
1 Inspired by me.
2 The false pleasures of the world.
As children, ashamed, dumb, with eyes upon the ground, stand listening and conscience-stricken and repentant, so was I standing. And she said, “Since through hearing thou art grieved, lift up thy beard, and thou shalt receive more grief in seeing.” With less resistance is a sturdy oak uprooted by a native wind, or by one from the land of Iarbas,1 than I raised up my chin at her command; and when by the beard she asked for my eyes, truly I recognized the venom of the argument.2 And as my face stretched upward, my sight perceived that those primal creatures were resting from their strewing, and my eyes, still little assured, saw Beatrice turned toward the animal that is only one person in two natures.3 Beneath her veil and beyond the stream she seemed to me more to surpass her ancient self, than she surpassed the others here when she was here. So pricked me there the nettle of repentance, that of all other things the one which most turned me aside unto its love became most hostile to me.4
1 From Numidia, of which Iarbas was king.
2 Because indicating the lack of that wisdom which should pertain to manhood.
3 The griffon.
4 That object which had most seduced me from the love of Beatrice was now the most hateful to me.
Such contrition stung my heart that I fell overcome; and what I then became she knows who afforded me the cause.
Then, when my heart restored my outward faculties, I saw above me the lady whom I had found alone,1 and she was saying, “Hold me, hold me.” She had drawn me into the stream up to the throat, and dragging me behind was moving upon the water light as a shuttle. When I was near the blessed shore, “Asperges me”2 I heard so sweetly that I cannot remember it, far less can write it. The beautiful lady opened her arms, clasped my head, and plunged me in where it behoved that I should swallow the water.3 Then she took me, and, thus bathed, brought me within the dance of the four beautiful ones,4 and each of them covered me with her arm. “Here we are nymphs, and in heaven we are stars: ere Beatrice had descended to the world we were ordained unto her for her handmaids. We will head thee to her eyes; but in the joyous light which is within them, the three yonder who deeper gaze shall make keen thine own.”5 Thus singing, they began; and then to the breast of the griffon they led me with them, where Beatrice was standing turned toward us. They said, “See that thou sparest not thy sight: we have placed thee before the emeralds whence Love of old drew his arrows upon thee.” A thousand desires hotter than flame bound my eyes to the relucent eyes which only upon the griffon were standing fixed. As the sun in a mirror, not otherwise the twofold animal was gleaming therewithin, now with one, now with another mode.6 Think, Reader, if I marvelled when I saw the thing stand quiet in itself, while in its image it was transmuting itself.
1 Matilda.
2 The first words of the seventh verse of the fifty-first Psalm: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”
3 The drinking of the waters of Lethe which obliterate the memory of sin.
4 The four Cardinal Virtues.
5 The Cardinal Virtues lead up to Theology, or the knowledge of Divine things, but the Evangelic Virtues are needed to penetrate within them.
6 Mode of being, — the divine and the human.
While, full of amazement and glad, my soul was tasting that food which, sating of itself, causes hunger for itself, the other three, showing themselves in their bearing of loftier order, came forward dancing to their angelic melody. “Turn, Beatrice, turn thy holy eyes,” was their song, “upon thy faithful one, who to see thee has taken so many steps. For grace do us the grace that thou unveil to hum thy mouth, so that he may discern the second beauty which thou concealest.”1
1 “The eyes of Wisdom are her demonstrations by which one sees the truth most surely; and her smile is her persuasions in which the interior light of Wisdom is displayed without any veil; and in these two is felt that loftiest pleasure of Beatitude, which is the chief good in Paradise.” — Convito, iii 15.
Oh splendor of living light eternal! Who hath become so pallid under the shadow of Parnassus, or hath so drunk at its cistern, that he would not seem to have his mind encumbered, trying to represent thee as thou didst appear there where in harmony the heaven overshadows thee when in the open air thou didst thyself disclose?