No sooner had the blessed flame begun →
to speak its final word than the millstone →
of holy lights began to turn, but it
4 was not yet done with one full revolution
before another ring surrounded it,
and motion matched with motion, song with song—
7 a song that, sung by those sweet instruments, →
surpasses so our Muses and our Sirens
as firstlight does the light that is reflected.
10 Just as, concentric, like in color, two →
rainbows will curve their way through a thin cloud
when Juno has commanded her handmaid,
13 the outer rainbow echoing the inner,
much like the voice of one—the wandering nymph— →
whom love consumed as sun consumes the mist
16 (and those two bows let people here foretell, →
by reason of the pact God made with Noah,
that flood will never strike the world again):
19 so the two garlands of those everlasting
roses circled around us, and so did
the outer circle mime the inner ring.
22 When dance and jubilation, festival
of song and flame that answered flame, of light
with light, of gladness and benevolence,
25 in one same instant, with one will, fell still
(just as the eyes, when moved by their desire,
can only close and open in accord),
28 then from the heart of one of the new lights
there came a voice, and as I turned toward it,
I seemed a needle turning to the polestar;
31 and it began: “The love that makes me fair
draws me to speak about the other leader →
because of whom my own was so praised here.
34 Where one is, it is right to introduce
the other: side by side, they fought, so may
they share in glory and together gleam.
37 Christ’s army, whose rearming cost so dearly, →
was slow, uncertain of itself, and scanty
behind its ensign, when the Emperor →
40 who rules forever helped his ranks in danger— →
only out of His grace and not their merits.
And, as was said, He then sustained His bride, →
43 providing her with two who could revive
a straggling people: champions who would
by doing and by preaching bring new life.
46 In that part of the West where gentle zephyr →
rises to open those new leaves in which
Europe appears reclothed, not far from where,
49 behind the waves that beat upon the coast,
the sun, grown weary from its lengthy course,
at times conceals itself from all men’s eyes—
52 there, Calaroga, blessed by fortune, sits →
under the aegis of the mighty shield
on which the lion loses and prevails.
55 Within its walls was born the loving vassal →
of Christian faith, the holy athlete, one
kind to his own and harsh to enemies;
58 no sooner was his mind created than →
it was so full of living force that it,
still in his mother’s womb, made her prophetic.
61 Then, at the sacred font, where Faith and he →
brought mutual salvation as their dowry,
the rites of their espousal were complete.
64 The lady who had given the assent →
for him saw, in a dream, astonishing
fruit that would spring from him and from his heirs.
67 And that his name might echo what he was, →
a spirit moved from here to have him called
by the possessive of the One by whom
70 he was possessed completely. Dominic
became his name; I speak of him as one →
whom Christ chose as the worker in His garden. →
73 He seemed the fitting messenger and servant →
of Christ: the very first love that he showed
was for the first injunction Christ had given.
76 His nurse would often find him on the ground,
alert and silent, in a way that said:
‘It is for this that I have come.’ Truly,
79 his father was Felice and his mother →
Giovanna if her name, interpreted,
is in accord with what has been asserted.
82 Not for the world, for which men now travail
along Taddeo’s way or Ostian’s, →
but through his love of the true manna, he →
85 became, in a brief time, so great a teacher
that he began to oversee the vineyard →
that withers when neglected by its keeper.
88 And from the seat that once was kinder to →
the righteous poor (and now has gone astray,
not in itself, but in its occupant),
91 he did not ask to offer two or three →
for six, nor for a vacant benefice,
nor decimas, quae sunt pauperum Dei—
94 but pleaded for the right to fight against
the erring world, to serve the seed from which
there grew the four-and-twenty plants that ring you.
97 Then he, with both his learning and his zeal, →
and with his apostolic office, like
a torrent hurtled from a mountain source,
100 coursed, and his impetus, with greatest force,
struck where the thickets of the heretics
offered the most resistance. And from him
103 there sprang the streams with which the catholic →
garden has found abundant watering,
so that its saplings have more life, more green.
106 If such was one wheel of the chariot →
in which the Holy Church, in her defense,
taking the field, defeated enemies
109 within, then you must see the excellence
of him—the other wheel—whom Thomas praised
so graciously before I made my entry.
112 And yet the track traced by the outer rim →
of that wheel is abandoned now—as in
a cask of wine when crust gives way to mold.
115 His family, which once advanced with steps
that followed his footprints, has now turned back:
its forward foot now seeks the foot that lags.
118 And soon we are to see, at harvest time, →
the poor grain gathered, when the tares will be
denied a place within the bin—and weep.
121 I do admit that, if one were to search →
our volume leaf by leaf, he might still read
one page with, ‘I am as I always was’;
124 but those of Acquasparta or Casale
who read our Rule are either given to
escaping it or making it too strict.
127 I am the living light of Bonaventure →
of Bagnorea; in high offices
I always put the left-hand interests last.
130 Illuminato and Augustine are here; →
they were among the first unshod poor brothers
to wear the cord, becoming friends of God.
133 Hugh of St. Victor, too, is here with them; →
Peter of Spain, who, with his twelve books, glows →
on earth below; and Peter Book-Devourer, →
136 Nathan the prophet, Anselm, and Chrysostom →
the Metropolitan, and that Donatus →
who deigned to deal with that art which comes first. →
139 Rabanus, too, is here; and at my side →
shines the Calabrian Abbot Joachim, →
who had the gift of the prophetic spirit.