Divine Comedy: Paradise | Page 6

wont to be
The fountain to the rivers of your arts.
Three mirrors shalt thou take, and two remove
Alike from thee, the
other more remote
Between the former two shall meet thine eyes.
Turned towards these, cause that behind thy back
Be placed a light,
illuming the three mirrors
And coming back to thee by all reflected.
Though in its quantity be not so ample
The image most remote, there
shalt thou see
How it perforce is equally resplendent.
Now, as beneath the touches of warm rays
Naked the subject of the
snow remains
Both of its former colour and its cold,
Thee thus remaining in thy intellect,
Will I inform with such a living
light,
That it shall tremble in its aspect to thee.
Within the heaven of the divine repose
Revolves a body, in whose
virtue lies
The being of whatever it contains.
The following heaven, that has so many eyes,
Divides this being by
essences diverse,
Distinguished from it, and by it contained.
The other spheres, by various differences,
All the distinctions which

they have within them
Dispose unto their ends and their effects.
Thus do these organs of the world proceed,
As thou perceivest now,
from grade to grade;
Since from above they take, and act beneath.
Observe me well, how through this place I come
Unto the truth thou
wishest, that hereafter
Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford
The power and motion of the holy spheres,
As from the artisan the
hammer's craft,
Forth from the blessed motors must proceed.
The heaven, which lights so manifold make fair,
From the
Intelligence profound, which turns it,
The image takes, and makes of
it a seal.
And even as the soul within your dust
Through members different
and accommodated
To faculties diverse expands itself,
So likewise this Intelligence diffuses
Its virtue multiplied among the
stars.
Itself revolving on its unity.
Virtue diverse doth a diverse alloyage
Make with the precious body
that it quickens,
In which, as life in you, it is combined.
From the glad nature whence it is derived,
The mingled virtue
through the body shines,
Even as gladness through the living pupil.
From this proceeds whate'er from light to light
Appeareth different,
not from dense and rare:
This is the formal principle that produces,
According to its goodness, dark and bright."
Paradiso: Canto III
That Sun, which erst with love my bosom warmed,
Of beauteous
truth had unto me discovered,
By proving and reproving, the sweet

aspect.
And, that I might confess myself convinced
And confident, so far as
was befitting,
I lifted more erect my head to speak.
But there appeared a vision, which withdrew me
So close to it, in
order to be seen,
That my confession I remembered not.
Such as through polished and transparent glass,
Or waters crystalline
and undisturbed,
But not so deep as that their bed be lost,
Come back again the outlines of our faces
So feeble, that a pearl on
forehead white
Comes not less speedily unto our eyes;
Such saw I many faces prompt to speak,
So that I ran in error
opposite
To that which kindled love 'twixt man and fountain.
As soon as I became aware of them,
Esteeming them as mirrored
semblances,
To see of whom they were, mine eyes I turned,
And nothing saw, and once more turned them forward
Direct into the
light of my sweet Guide,
Who smiling kindled in her holy eyes.
"Marvel thou not," she said to me, "because
I smile at this thy puerile
conceit,
Since on the truth it trusts not yet its foot,
But turns thee, as 'tis wont, on emptiness.
True substances are these
which thou beholdest,
Here relegate for breaking of some vow.
Therefore speak with them, listen and believe;
For the true light,
which giveth peace to them,
Permits them not to turn from it their
feet."
And I unto the shade that seemed most wishful
To speak directed me,
and I began,
As one whom too great eagerness bewilders:

"O well-created spirit, who in the rays
Of life eternal dost the
sweetness taste
Which being untasted ne'er is comprehended,
Grateful 'twill be to me, if thou content me
Both with thy name and
with your destiny."
Whereat she promptly and with laughing eyes:
"Our charity doth never shut the doors
Against a just desire, except as
one
Who wills that all her court be like herself.
I was a virgin sister in the world;
And if thy mind doth contemplate
me well,
The being more fair will not conceal me from thee,
But thou shalt recognise I am Piccarda,
Who, stationed here among
these other blessed,
Myself am blessed in the slowest sphere.
All our affections, that alone inflamed
Are in the pleasure of the Holy
Ghost,
Rejoice at being of his order formed;
And this allotment, which appears so low,
Therefore is given us,
because our vows
Have been neglected and in some part void."
Whence I to her: "In your miraculous aspects
There shines I know not
what of the divine,
Which doth transform you from our first
conceptions.
Therefore I was not swift in my remembrance;
But what thou tellest
me now aids me so,
That the refiguring is easier to me.
But