Dante’s Paradiso Canto XXXII
BY DANTE (TRANS. BY MARY JO BANG)
Out of love for what delighted him, that
Contemplative spirit generously assumed the role
Of teacher and began with these holy words:
“The wound that Mary sutured and dressed,
That very pretty one at her feet
Is the one who opened it up and pierced it.
Below her, in the rank established
By the third level of seats,
Rachel, as you can see, is sitting with Beatrice.
Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and Ruth—
Great-grandmother of the singer who, in pain
For his error, cried ‘Have mercy on me’—
You’ll be able to see, as I move from rank to rank,
Descending down through the rose,
Naming each, petal by petal, 15
That from the seventh level down,
As up to it, Hebrew women occupy the seats,
Dividing all the discrete layers of the rose.
Because this is the wall that, according to
The direction their faith in Christ took—forward
Or back—separates the sacred staircase into two.
On this side, where the flower is fully developed
With all its petals, are seated those
Who believed in the coming of Christ;
On the other side, where the semicircles
Are interspersed with vacancies, are seated those
Who realized that Christ had already come.
And as on this side, the way the glorious seat
Of Our Lady Queen of Heaven and the other
Seats below her make such a great divide, 30
So, opposite, does the seat of the great John
Who, ever holy, endured the desert
And martyrdom, and then two years of Hell.
Then, below him, chosen to be the boundary line:
Francis, Benedict, Augustine, and others, circle
By circle, all the way down to here where we are.
Now marvel at the depth of divine foresight,
Given that both ways of having faith
Will fill this garden equally.
And understand that down from the row that cuts
Across the middle of both of the two dividing lines
Are seated—through no merit of their own,
But through that of others, under certain
Conditions—all of those spirits that were absolved
Before they had any real choice. 45
This you can clearly tell by their faces,
As well as by their childish voices,
If you look closely at them and listen.
Now, you’re doubtful, and doubting, you’re staying
Silent, but I’ll undo the strong ties
Your oversubtle thoughts are using to restrain you.
Within the expanse of this realm, it’s not possible
To have a random detail anywhere,
Any more than sadness, or thirst, or hunger,
Because whatever you see here is ordained
By eternal law—the ring corresponds
To the finger precisely.
Therefore, these little ones, hurried as they were
To the true life, are not—sine causa—
More and less excellent among themselves here. 60
The King, through whom this kingdom rests
In so much love and in such delight that
No will dare ask for more,
Creating all minds in His happy image,
Endows them with grace variously,
At His pleasure, and here let the results suffice.
This is clearly and expressly noted for you
In the Holy Scripture in those twin brothers who
Were stirred to anger when still in their mother.
Accordingly, just as hair color is a given,
The highest light will appropriately
Encrown each of them with grace.
Therefore, without any merit based
On their actions, they’re placed in different ranks,
Differing only in their original insightfulness. 75
It was enough in the early ages,
Given their innocence, to have salvation
Based solely on the faith of their parents.
Once the first ages were over, males needed
To gain power for their innocent wings
Through circumcision;
But after the time of grace arrived,
Without the perfect baptism in Christ,
Such innocents were confined to Limbo.
Now look on the face that most resembles Christ,
Because only its brilliance
Can prepare you to see Christ.”
I saw so much joy raining down on her,
Conveyed by those sacred intelligences
Created to fly across that height, 90
That despite everything I’d already seen,
Nothing held me in such wonder,
Nor showed me anything that so resembled God.
Then, that beloved angel that had first gone down
To earth now spread its wings before her,
Singing “Hail Mary, full of grace.”
From every side, the blessed court
Responded in kind to the divine song,
So that all their looks became more serene.
“O sacred father, who solely for my sake
Agree to be down here, leaving the sweet spot
Where, because it’s your lot in life, you sit,
Who’s that angel looking into the eyes
Of our Queen with such joy?
It’s so enamored, it looks like it’s on fire.” 105
Yet again, I appealed to the teaching
Of the one who drew beauty from Mary,
The way the morning star does from the sun.
He said: “As much boldness and elegance
As can be in an angel or a soul are totally
Present in it, and that’s as we’d want it to be,
Because that’s the one who carried the palm frond
Down to Mary, when the Son of God
Needed to take on the burden of our body.
But come now, follow with your eyes
As I go on talking, and note the great patricians
Of this most just and pious empire.
Those two who are seated up there, more blissful
For being so close to the Empress,
Are, more or less, the two roots of this rose. 120
The one beside her to the left, is that father,
Through whose audacious sampling
Humans taste such bitterness.
On the right, you see Saint Peter, that ancient
Holy Church father to whom Christ entrusted
The keys to this lovely flower.
Saint John—the one who, before he died, saw
All the sorrowful times of the beautiful bride
Acquired with the spear and the nails—
Is sitting next to Peter, while at the side of Adam
Is Moses, that leader under whom those thankless,
Fickle, and stubborn people lived on manna.
You see Saint Anne sitting opposite Peter—
So happy to see her daughter, she never
Looks away, even when singing Hosanna. 135
And opposite the first father of the human family
Sits Lucy, who urged your lady to hurry when you,
Looking down, were about to tumble into ruin.
Because time flies and you get sleepy,
We’ll stop here—like a good tailor
Who makes a coat from the cloth they have.
We’ll aim our eyes straight at the Primal Love,
So that, looking toward Him, you’ll penetrate,
As much as possible through His brightness.
Actually, unless you want to risk falling backward,
Wings beating the air, only thinking you’re making
Progress, you need to obtain grace through prayer,
Grace from the one who’s able to help you.
Follow me with devotion, so your heart
Doesn’t wander off from what I’m saying.” 150
And he began this holy prayer:
Dante’s Paradiso Canto XXXIII
BY DANTE (TRANS. BY MARY JO BANG)
“Virgin Mother, daughter of your Son,
More humble and higher than every creature,
Fixed ending of eternal forethought,
You are the one who so ennobled human nature
That its Maker didn’t disdain
To make Himself His own made thing.
Within your womb was reignited the flame
Of love—in the heat of which this flower
Was able to germinate in eternal peace.
To us up here, you’re the noonday sun of love,
And down below among mortals,
You’re an inexhaustible wellspring of hope.
Lady, you are so great and so powerful
That whoever wants grace and doesn’t turn
To you, their desire wants to fly without wings. 15
Your loving-kindness not only
Gives comfort to those who ask, but often
Expansively anticipates the asking.
In you mercy, in you pity, in you lavish
Generosity, in you is gathered together
Whatever is good in any creature;
Now this one who, from the bottommost pit
Of the universe all the way up to here, has seen
The disembodied spirits, one after another,
Beseeches you, by your grace, for as much power
As will enable him to lift himself even higher
With his eyes toward the ultimate salvation.
And I, who never burned more for my own vision
Than I do for his—I offer you all my prayers,
And pray that they don’t fall short, 30
That you would uncouple every cloud
Of his mortality from him with your prayers,
So that the Highest Beauty may be disclosed to him.
More I beg you, Queen of Heaven, you
Who can do whatever you wish: may he keep
His affections pure after having seen so much.
May your oversight control his human passions—
Look at Beatrice, with so many other blessed,
Clasping their hands for my prayers to you!”
Those eyes, beloved and revered by God,
Fixed on the one who prayed, showed us
How welcome devout prayers are to her.
They then turned straight to the Eternal Light,
Into which no eye—don’t ever believe otherwise—
Of any being can penetrate with so much clarity. 45
And while I was nearing the end
Of all desiring—as I had to—within me,
The heat of my desire reached its limit.
Bernard smiled and gestured to me
To look upward, although I was already
On my own doing what he wanted—
Because my sight, becoming purified,
Was entering more and more into the beam
Of the brightest light that is in itself true.
From then on, my vision was greater than words
Can express: it bows out at such a sight,
Then memory bows out at the over-the-topness,
Like someone who sees in a dream, and after
The dream, an imprint of the feeling remains,
But the rest can’t be brought back to mind. 60
That’s me exactly, since my vision almost totally
Breaks off, and yet, distilled in my heart
Is the sweetness that was born of it.
So is the snow unsealed in the sun;
So in the wind that lifts the featherweight leaves
Was the Sibyl’s prophecy lost.
O Supreme Light—elevated so far above
Human comprehension—bring back
To my memory a little of how You appeared,
And make my language so powerful
That it might leave just one single spark
Of Your glory to future generations,
Since, by returning somewhat to my memory
And echoing a little in these verses,
Your victory will be better conceived. 75
I believe that, because of the brilliance
Of the bright ray I submitted to, I would
Have been lost if I’d turned my eyes from it.
I’m reminded that it was because of that
That I gained more courage to hold on,
Until I came eye to eye with Infinite Worth.
O abundant Grace, by which I presumed
To fix my eyes so intently on the Eternal Light
That I exhausted all my sight there!
I saw within its triune depths,
Lovingly bound in one volume, the fascicles
That are scattered throughout the universe—
Substances and accidents and their interactions—
Almost as if fused together in such a way
That what I’m describing is pure undivided light. 90
I do believe that I perceived the universal form
Of this bond, because just saying this,
I feel a greater sense of intense joy.
That single instant is more a blank to me than
The twenty-five centuries since the feat that made
Neptune marvel at the shadow of the Argo.
Just so, my mind, in total suspense,
Was staring—fixed, motionless, and intent—
Set ever more on fire by the continuous looking.
The way one becomes in that light,
It’s impossible that they’d ever consent
To turn themselves from that to any other sight.
For the good, which is the object of the will,
Is all contained in it, and whatever is perfect
In there is defective outside it. 105
Now my speech, even about what I do remember,
Will be more at a loss than a baby
Whose tongue is still wet from the breast.
Not because there was more than one simple
Semblance in that living light I was staring at—
It always is as it was before—
But as my looking was making my sight stronger,
That single semblance, as I was being changed,
Was transforming itself to me.
The profound and clear essence of that
Sublime light appeared to me as three circles
Of three colors and of one magnitude.
One circle seemed to be reflected by the other,
Like rainbow by rainbow, and the third
Seemed like fire, breathed out equally by both. 120
Oh, how limited speech is, how listless compared
To what I conceived! and that, to what I saw—
It’s not enough to even say it’s “a little.”
O Eternal Light, You who alone exist within
Yourself, who alone know Yourself, and self-known
And knowing, love and smile on Yourself!
That circling which, as I conceived it,
Appeared in You as reflected light,
After my eyes had studied it for some time,
Seemed to me—within itself, in its own color—
To be painted with our human image,
So that my sight was totally immersed in it.
Like the geometer who gives their all
To squaring the circle, and still can’t uncover,
Through reasoning, the principle they need: 135
That’s how I was at that new sight:
Wanting to see how the image fit the circle
And how it in-wheres itself there.
But my own wings weren’t up to that,
Had it not been that my mind was suddenly
Struck by a bolt from the blue and I got my wish.
At that, the plug was pulled on my lofty fantasy:
But my desire and will were already being turned,
Just like the wheel that is equally moved,
By the love that moves the sun and the other stars.
