Ascent to the Empyrean. — The River of Light. — The celestial Rose. — The seat of Henry VII. — The last words of Beatrice.
The sixth hour is glowing perhaps six thousand miles distant from us, and this world now inclines its shadow almost to a level bed, when the mid heaven, deep above us, begins to become such that some one star loses its show so far as to this depth;1 and as the brightest handmaid of the sun comes farther on, so the heaven is closed from light to light, even to the most beautiful. Not otherwise the Triumph, that plays forever round the Point which vanquished me, seeming enclosed by that which it encloses, little by little to my sight was extinguished;2 wherefore my seeing nothing, and my love constrained me to turn with my eyes to Beatrice. If what has been said of her so far as here were all included in a single praise, it would be little to furnish out this turn. The beauty which I saw transcends measure not only by us, but truly I believe that its Maker alone can enjoy it all.
1 When it is noon, — the sixth hour, — six thousand miles away from us to the east, it is about daybreak where we are; the shadow of the earth lies in the plane of vision, and with the growing light the stars one after another become invisible at this depth, that is, to one on earth.
2 Losing itself in the light which streams from the Divine point.
By this pass I concede myself vanquished more than ever comic or tragic poet was overcome by crisis of his theme. For as the sun does to the sight which trembles most, even so remembrance of the sweet smile deprives my mind of its very self. From the first day that I saw her face in this life, even to this look, the following with my song has not been interrupted for me, but now needs must my pursuit desist from further following her beauty in my verse, as at his utmost every artist.
Such, as I leave her to a greater heralding than that of my trumpet, which is bringing its arduous theme to a close, with act and voice of a trusty leader she began again. “We have issued forth from the greatest body1 to the Heaven2 which is pure light: light intellectual full of love, love of true good, full of joy; joy which transcends every sweetness. Here thou shalt see one and the other host of Paradise;3 and the one in those aspects which thou shalt see at the Last Judgment.”
1 The Primum Mobile, the greatest of the material spheres of the universe.
2 The Empyrean.
3 The spirits of the redeemed who fought against the temptations of the world, and the good angels who fought against the rebellious; and here the souls in bliss will be seen in their bodily shapes.
As a sudden flash which scatters the spirits of the sight so that it deprives the eye of the action of the strongest objects,1 thus a vivid light shone round about me, and left me swathed with such a veil of its own effulgence that nothing was visible to me.
1] So that the clearest objects produce no effect upon the eye.
“The Love which quieteth this Heaven always welcomes to itself with such a salutation, in order to make the candle ready for its flame.” No sooner had these brief words come within me than I comprehended that I was surmounting above my own power; and I rekindled me with a new vision, such that no light is so pure that my eyes had not sustained it. And I saw light in form of a river, bright with effulgence, between two banks painted with a marvellous spring. Out of this stream were issuing living sparks, and on every side were setting themselves in the flowers, like rubies which gold encompasses. Then, as if inebriated by the odors, they plunged again into the wonderful flood, and as one was entering another was issuing forth.
“The high desire which now inflames and urges thee to have knowledge concerning that which thou seest, Pleases me the more the more it swells, but thou must needs drink of this water before so great a thirst, in thee be slaked.” Thus the Sun of my eyes said to me; thereon she added, “The stream, and the topazes which enter and issue, and the smiling of the herbage, are foreshadowing prefaces of their truth;1 not that these things are in themselves immature,2 but there is defect on thy part who hast not yet vision so lofty.”
1 The stream, the sparks, the flowers are not such in reality as they seem to be; they are but images foreshadowing the truth.
2 The things show themselves as they are, but the eyes cannot yet see them correctly.
There is no babe who so hastily springs with face toward the milk, if he awake much later than his wont, as I did, to make better mirrors yet of my eyes, stooping to the wave which flows in order that one may be bettered in it. And even as the eaves of my eyelids drank of it, so it seemed to me from its length to become round. Then as folk who have been under masks, who seem other than before, if they divest themselves of the semblance not their own in which they disappeared, thus for me the flowers and the sparks were changed into greater festival, so that I saw both the Courts of Heaven manifest.
O splendor of God, by means of which I saw the high triumph of the true kingdom, give me power to tell how I saw it!
Light is thereabove which makes the Creator visible to that creature which has its peace only in seeing Him; and it is extended in a circular figure so far that its circumference would be too wide a girdle for the sun. Its whole appearance is made of a ray reflected from the summit of the First Moving Heaven,1 which therefrom takes its life and potency. And as a hill mirrors itself in water at its base, as if to see itself adorned, rich as it is with verdure and with flowers, so ranged above the light, round and round about, on more than a thousand seats, I saw mirrored all who of us have returned on high. And if the lowest row gather within itself so great a light, how vast is the spread of this rose in its outermost leaves! My sight lost not itself in the breadth and in the height, but took in all the quantity and the quality of that joy. There near and far nor add nor take away; for where God immediately governs the natural law is of no relevancy.
1 The Primum Mobile.
Into the yellow of the sempiternal rose, which spreads wide, rises in steps, and is redolent with odor of praise unto the Sun that makes perpetual spring, Beatrice, like one who is silent and wishes to speak, drew me, and said, “Behold, how vast is the convent of the white stoles!1 See our city, how wide its circuit! See our benches so full that few people are now awaited here. On that great seat, on which thou holdest thine eye because of the crown which already is set above it, ere thou suppest at this wedding feast will sit the soul (which below will be imperial) of the high Henry who, to set Italy straight, will come ere she is ready.2 The blind cupidity which bewitches you has made you like the little child who dies of hunger, and drives away his nurse. And such a one will then be prefect in the divine forum that openly or covertly he will not go with him along one road;3 but short while thereafter shall he be endured by God in the holy office; for he shall be thrust down for his deserts, there where Simon Magus is, and shall make him of Anagna go lower.”
1 “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment.” — Revelation, iii. 5.
2 Henry VII., Emperor 1308, crowned at Milan 1311, died 1313.
3 The Pope Clement V. ostensibly supported the Emperor Henry VII. in his Italian expedition, but secretly manoeuvred against him. He died in 1314, eight months after the death of Henry. Beatrice here condemns him to the third bolgia of the eighth circle of Hell, whither he was to follow Boniface VIII., — him of Anagna, — and push him deeper in the hole where the simoniacal Popes were punished, Cf. Hell, XIX.