When he who graces all the world with light →
has sunk so far below our hemisphere
that on all sides the day is spent, the sky,
4 which had been lit before by him alone,
immediately shows itself again
with many lights reflecting one same source,
7 and I remembered this celestial course
when, in the blessed beak, the emblem of
the world and of its guardians fell silent;
10 for then all of those living lights grew more
resplendent, but the songs that they began
were labile—they escape my memory.
13 O gentle love that wears a smile as mantle,
how ardent was your image in those torches
filled only with the breath of holy thoughts!
16 After the precious, gleaming jewels with which
the sixth of Heaven’s heavens was engemmed
had ended their angelic song in silence,
19 I seemed to hear the murmur of a torrent
that, limpid, falls from rock to rock, whose flow
shows the abundance of its mountain source.
22 Even as sound takes shape at the lute’s neck,
and even as the wind that penetrates
the blow-hole of the bagpipe, so—with no
25 delay—that murmur of the Eagle rose
straight up, directly through its neck as if
its neck were hollow; and that murmuring
28 became a voice that issued from its beak,
taking the shape of words desired by →
my heart—and that is where they were transcribed.
31 “Now you must watch—and steadily—that part →
of me that can, in mortal eagles, see
and suffer the sun’s force,” it then began
34 to say to me, “because, of all the flames
from which I shape my form, those six with which
the eye in my head glows hold highest rank.
37 He who gleams in the center, my eye’s pupil— →
he was the singer of the Holy Spirit,
who bore the ark from one town to another;
40 now he has learned the merit will can earn— →
his song had not been spurred by grace alone,
but his own will, in part, had urged him on.
43 Of those five flames that, arching, form my brow,
he who is nearest to my beak is one
who comforted the widow for her son; →
46 now he has learned the price one pays for not →
following Christ, through his experience
of this sweet life and of its opposite.
49 And he whose place is next on the circumference →
of which I speak, along the upward arc,
delayed his death through truthful penitence;
52 now he has learned that the eternal judgment →
remains unchanged, though worthy prayer below
makes what falls due today take place tomorrow.
55 The next who follows—one whose good intention →
bore evil fruit—to give place to the Shepherd,
with both the laws and me, made himself Greek;
58 now he has learned that, even though the world
be ruined by the evil that derives
from his good act, that evil does not harm him.
61 He whom you see—along the downward arc— →
was William, and the land that mourns his death,
for living Charles and Frederick, now laments;
64 now he has learned how Heaven loves the just
ruler, and he would show this outwardly
as well, so radiantly visible.
67 Who in the erring world below would hold
that he who was the fifth among the lights
that formed this circle was the Trojan Ripheus? →
70 Now he has learned much that the world cannot
discern of God’s own grace, although his sight
cannot divine, not reach its deepest site.”
73 As if it were a lark at large in air, →
a lark that sings at first and then falls still,
content with final sweetness that fulfills,
76 such seemed to me the image of the seal →
of that Eternal Pleasure through whose will
each thing becomes the being that it is.
79 And though the doubt I felt there was as plain →
as any colored surface cloaked by glass,
it could not wait to voice itself, but with
82 the thrust and weight of urgency it forced
“Can such things be?” out from my lips, at which
I saw lights flash—a vast festivity.
85 And then the blessed sign—its eye grown still
more bright—replied, that I might not be kept
suspended in amazement: “I can see
88 that, since you speak of them, you do believe
these things but cannot see how they may be;
and thus, though you believe them, they are hidden.
91 You act as one who apprehends a thing
by name but cannot see its quiddity →
unless another set it forth to him.
94 Regnum celorum suffers violence →
from ardent love and living hope, for these
can be the conquerors of Heaven’s Will;
97 yet not as man defeats another man:
the Will of God is won because It would
be won and, won, wins through benevolence.
100 You were amazed to see the angels’ realm.
adorned with those who were the first and fifth →
among the living souls that form my eyebrow.
103 When these souls left their bodies, they were not
Gentiles—as you believe—but Christians, one
with firm faith in the Feet that suffered, one
106 in Feet that were to suffer. One, from Hell, →
where there is no returning to right will,
returned to his own bones, as the reward
109 bestowed upon a living hope, the hope
that gave force to the prayers offered God
to resurrect him and convert his will.
112 Returning briefly to the flesh, that soul
in glory—he of whom I speak—believed
in Him whose power could help him and, believing,
115 was kindled to such fire of true love
that, when he died a second death, he was
worthy to join in this festivity.
118 The other, through the grace that surges from →
a well so deep that no created one
has ever thrust his eye to its first source.
121 below, set all his love on righteousness,
so that, through grace on grace, God granted him
the sight of our redemption in the future;
124 thus he, believing that, no longer suffered
the stench of paganism and rebuked
those who persisted in that perverse way.
127 More than a thousand years before baptizing, →
to baptize him there were the same three women
you saw along the chariot’s right-hand side.
130 How distant, o predestination, is →
your root from those whose vision does not see
the Primal Cause in Its entirety!
133 And, mortals, do take care—judge prudently:
for we, though we see God, do not yet know →
all those whom He has chosen; but within
136 the incompleteness of our knowledge is
a sweetness, for our good is then refined
in this good, since what God wills, we too will.”
139 So, from the image God Himself had drawn,
what I received was gentle medicine;
and I saw my shortsightedness plainly.
142 And as a lutanist accompanies—
expert—with trembling strings, the expert singer,
by which the song acquires sweeter savor,
145 so, while the Eagle spoke—I can remember—
I saw the pair of blessed lights together,
like eyes that wink in concord, move their flames