As does the bird, among beloved branches, →
when, through the night that hides things from us, she →
has rested near the nest of her sweet fledglings
4 and, on an open branch, anticipates
the time when she can see their longed-for faces
and find the food with which to feed them—chore
7 that pleases her, however hard her labors—
as she awaits the sun with warm affection,
steadfastly watching for the dawn to break:
10 so did my lady stand, erect, intent,
turned toward that part of heaven under which →
the sun is given to less haste; so that,
13 as I saw her in longing and suspense,
I grew to be as one who, while he wants
what is not his, is satisfied with hope.
16 But time between one and the other when
was brief—I mean the whens of waiting and
of seeing heaven grow more radiant.
19 And Beatrice said: “There you see the troops →
of the triumphant Christ—and all the fruits
ingathered from the turning of these spheres!”
22 It seemed to me her face was all aflame,
and there was so much gladness in her eyes—
I am compelled to leave it undescribed.
25 Like Trivia—at the full moon in clear skies— →
smiling among the everlasting nymphs
who decorate all reaches of the sky,
28 I saw a sun above a thousand lamps; →
it kindled all of them as does our sun
kindle the sights above us here on earth;
31 and through its living light the glowing Substance →
appeared to me with such intensity—
my vision lacked the power to sustain it.
34 O Beatrice, sweet guide and dear! She said
to me: “What overwhelms you is a Power
against which nothing can defend itself.
37 This is the Wisdom and the Potency →
that opened roads between the earth and Heaven,
the paths for which desire had long since waited.”
40 Even as lightning breaking from a cloud, →
expanding so that it cannot be pent,
against its nature, down to earth, descends,
43 so did my mind, confronted by that feast,
expand; and it was carried past itself—
what it became, it cannot recollect.
46 “Open your eyes and see what I now am; →
the things you witnessed will have made you strong
enough to bear the power of my smile.”
49 I was as one who, waking from a dream
he has forgotten, tries in vain to bring
that vision back into his memory,
52 when I heard what she offered me, deserving
of so much gratitude that it can never
be canceled from the book that tells the past. →
55 If all the tongues that Polyhymnia →
together with her sisters made most rich
with sweetest milk, should come now to assist
58 my singing of the holy smile that lit
the holy face of Beatrice, the truth
would not be reached—not its one-thousandth part.
61 And thus, in representing Paradise, →
the sacred poem has to leap across,
as does a man who finds his path cut off.
64 But he who thinks upon the weighty theme,
and on the mortal shoulder bearing it,
will lay no blame if, burdened so, I tremble:
67 this is no crossing for a little bark— →
the sea that my audacious prow now cleaves—
nor for a helmsman who would spare himself.
70 “Why are you so enraptured by my face
as to deny your eyes the sight of that
fair garden blossoming beneath Christ’s rays? →
73 The Rose in which the Word of God became
flesh grows within that garden; there—the lilies
whose fragrance let men find the righteous way.”
76 Thus Beatrice, and I—completely ready →
to do what she might counsel—once again
took up the battle of my feeble brows.
79 Under a ray of sun that, limpid, streams
down from a broken cloud, my eyes have seen,
while shade was shielding them, a flowered meadow;
82 so I saw many troops of splendors here
lit from above by burning rays of light,
but where those rays began was not in sight.
85 O kindly Power that imprints them thus, →
you rose on high to leave space for my eyes—
for where I was, they were too weak to see You!
88 The name of that fair flower which I always →
invoke, at morning and at evening, drew
my mind completely to the greatest flame.
91 And when, on both my eye-lights, were depicted →
the force and nature of the living star
that conquers heaven as it conquered earth,
94 descending through that sky there came a torch,
forming a ring that seemed as if a crown:
wheeling around her—a revolving garland.
97 Whatever melody most sweetly sounds
on earth, and to itself most draws the soul,
would seem a cloud that, torn by lightning, thunders,
100 if likened to the music of that lyre
which sounded from the crown of that fair sapphire,
the brightest light that has ensapphired heaven.
103 “I am angelic love who wheel around
that high gladness inspired by the womb
that was the dwelling place of our Desire;
106 so shall I circle, Lady of Heaven, until
you, following your Son, have made that sphere →
supreme, still more divine by entering it.”
109 So did the circulating melody,
sealing itself, conclude; and all the other
lights then resounded with the name of Mary.
112 The royal cloak of all the wheeling spheres →
within the universe, the heaven most
intense, alive, most burning in the breath
115 of God and in His laws and ordinance,
was far above us at its inner shore,
so distant that it still lay out of sight
118 from that point where I was; and thus my eyes
possessed no power to follow that crowned flame,
which mounted upward, following her Son.
121 And like an infant who, when it has taken
its milk, extends its arms out to its mother,
its feeling kindling into outward flame,
124 each of those blessed splendors stretched its peak
upward, so that the deep affection each
possessed for Mary was made plain to me.
127 Then they remained within my sight, singing
“Regina coeli” with such tenderness →
that my delight in that has never left me.
130 Oh, in those richest coffers, what abundance
is garnered up for those who, while below,
on earth, were faithful workers when they sowed! →
133 Here do they live, delighting in the treasure →
they earned with tears in Babylonian
exile, where they had no concern for gold.