The Divine Comedy Volume Iii Part 18

CANTO XXIX. Discourse of Beatrice concerning the creation and nature of the Angels.--She reproves the presumption and foolishness of preachers.

When both the children of Latona, covered by the Ram and by the Scales, together make a zone of the horizon,[1] as long as from the moment the zenith holds them in balance, till one and the other, changing their hemisphere, are unbalanced from that girdle, soloing, with her countenance painted with a smile, was Beatrice silent, looking fixedly upon the Point which had overcome me. Then she began: "I speak, and I ask not what thou wishest to hear, for I have seen it where every WHERE and every WHEN are centred. Not for the gain of good unto Himself, which cannot be, but that His splendor might, in resplendence, say, Subsisto; in His own eternity, outside of time, outside of every other limit, as pleased Him, the Eternal Love disclosed Himself in new loves. Nor before, as if inert, did He lie; for the going forth of G.o.d upon these waters had proceeded neither before nor after.[2] Form and matter, conjoined and simple, came forth to existence which had no defect, as three arrows from a three-stringed bow; and as in gla.s.s, in amber, or in crystal a ray s.h.i.+nes so that there is no interval between its coining and its complete existence, so the triform effect[3] rayed forth from its Lord into its. existence all at once, without discrimination of beginning. Order was concreate, and established for the substances, and those were top of the world in which pure act was produced.[4] Pure potency held the lowest part;[5] in the middle such a bond unites potency with act, that it is never unbound.[6]

Jerome has written to you of the Angels, created a long tract of centuries before the rest of the world was made. But this truth[7] is written on many pages by the writers of the that Holy Spirit: and thou wilt thyself discover it, if thou watchest well for it; and even the reason sees it somewhat, for it would not admit that the motors could be so long without their perfection.[8] Now thou knowest where and when these loves were elected, and how; so that three flames of thy desire are already quenched.

[1] When at the spring equinox, the sun being in the sign of Aries or the Ram, and the moon in that of Libra or the Scales, opposite to each other on the horizon, the one just rising and the other setting, they seem as if held for a moment in a balance which hangs from the zenith.

[2] In eternity there is no before or after; time had no existence till the creation, and has relevancy only to created things.

[3] Pure form, pure matter, and form conjoined with matter.

[4] The substances created purely active, to exercise action upon others, were the angels.

[5] The substances purely pa.s.sive, capable potentially only of submitting to the action of others, are the material things without intelligence.

[6] The substances in which potency and act are united are the creatures endowed with bodies and souls.

[7] The truth here set forth (contrary to Jerome's a.s.sertion), the creation of the Angels was contemporaneous with that of the creation of the rest of the Universe of which they were the Intelligences.

[8] Without scope for their action as movers of the spheres.

One would not reach to twenty, in counting, so quickly as a part of the Angels disturbed the subject of your elements.[1] The rest remained and began this art which thou beboldest, with such great delight that they never cease from circling. The origin of the fall was the accursed pride of him whom thou hast seen opprest by all the weights of the world. Those whom thou seest here were modest in grateful recognition of the goodness which had made them ready for intelligence so great; wherefore their vision was exalted with illuminant grace and with their merit, so that they have full and steadfast will. And I wish that thou doubt not, but be certain, that to receive grace is meritorious in proportion as the affection is open to it.

[1] The earth.

"Henceforth, if my words have been harvested, thou canst contemplate sufficiently round about this consistory without other a.s.sistance. But because on earth it is taught in your schools that the angelic nature is such that it understands, and remembers, and wills, I will speak further, in order that thou mayest see the truth pure, which there below is mixed, through the equivocation in such like teaching. These substances, from the time that they were glad in the face of G.o.d, have not turned their sight from it, from which nothing is concealed. Therefore they have not their vision interrupted by a new object, and therefore do not need because of divided thought to recollect.[1]

So that there below men dream when not asleep, believing and not believing to speak truth; but in the one is more fault and more shame.[2] Ye below go not along one path in philosophizing; so much do the love of appearance[3] and the thought of it transport you; and yet this is endured hereabove with less indignation than when the divine Scripture is set aside, or when it is perverted.

Men think not there how much blood it costs to sow it in the world, and how much he pleases who humbly keeps close to its side. Every one strives for appearance, and makes his own inventions, and those are discoursed of by the preachers, and the Gospel is silent. One says that the moon turned back at the pa.s.sion of Christ and interposed herself, so that the light of the sun reached not down; and others that the light hid itself of its own accord, so that this eclipse answered for the Spaniards and for the Indians as well as for the Jews. Florence hath not so many Lapi and Bindi[4] as there are fables such as these shouted the year long from the pulpits, on every side; so that the poor flocks, who have no knowledge, return from the pasture fed with wind; and not seeing the harm does not excuse them. Christ did not say to his first company, 'Go, and preach idle stories to the world,' but he gave to them the true foundation; and that alone sounded in their cheeks, so that in the battle for kindling of the faith they made s.h.i.+eld and lance of the Gospel. Now men go forth to preach with jests and with buffooneries, and provided only there is a good laugh the cowl puffs up, and nothing more is required. But such a bird is nesting in the tail of the hood, that if the crowd should see it, they would see the pardon in which they confide; through which such great folly has grown on earth, that, without proof of any testimony, men would flock to every indulgence. On this the pig of St. Antony fattens, and others also, who are far more pigs, paying with money that has no stamp of coinage.

[1] The angels, looking always upon G.o.d, to whom all things are present, have no need of memory.

[2] Many of the doctrines of men on earth axe like dreams, because they have no foundation in truth; and while some honestly believe in them, there are others, who, though not believing, still teach these doctrines as truth.

[3] Of making a good show.

[4] Common nicknames in Florence; Lapo is from Jacopo, Bindo from Ildebrando.

"But because we have digressed enough, turn back thine eyes now toward the straight path, so that the way be shortened with the time. This nature[1] so extends in number, that never was there speech or mortal concept that could go so far. And if thou considerest that which is revealed by Daniel thou wilt see that in his thousands[2] a determinate number is concealed. The primal light that irradiates it all is received in it by as many modes as are the splendors with which the light pairs itself.[3]

Wherefore, since the affection follows upon the act[4] that conceives, in this nature the sweetness of love diversely glows and warms. Behold now the height and the breadth of the Eternal Goodness, since it has made for itself so many mirrors on which it is broken, One in itself remaining as before."

[1] The Angels.

[2] "Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him."--Daniel, vii. 10.

[3] No two angels are precisely alike in their vision of G.o.d.

[4] Since love follows on knowledge through vision.

CANTO x.x.x. 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 pa.s.s 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 body[1] to the Heaven[2] 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 encompa.s.ses. 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 G.o.d, 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 circ.u.mference 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 quant.i.ty and the quality of that joy. There near and far nor add nor take away; for where G.o.d immediately governs the natural law is of no relevancy.

[1] The Primum Mobile.