Divine Comedy: Paradise | Page 9

of the yellow key;
And every permutation deem as foolish,?If in the substitute the thing relinquished,?As the four is in six, be not contained.
Therefore whatever thing has so great weight?In value that it drags down every balance,?Cannot be satisfied with other spending.
Let mortals never take a vow in jest;?Be faithful and not blind in doing that,?As Jephthah was in his first offering,
Whom more beseemed to say, 'I have done wrong,?Than to do worse by keeping; and as foolish?Thou the great leader of the Greeks wilt find,
Whence wept Iphigenia her fair face,?And made for her both wise and simple weep,?Who heard such kind of worship spoken of.'
Christians, be ye more serious in your movements;?Be ye not like a feather at each wind,?And think not every water washes you.
Ye have the Old and the New Testament,?And the Pastor of the Church who guideth you?Let this suffice you unto your salvation.
If evil appetite cry aught else to you,?Be ye as men, and not as silly sheep,?So that the Jew among you may not mock you.
Be ye not as the lamb that doth abandon?Its mother's milk, and frolicsome and simple?Combats at its own pleasure with itself."
Thus Beatrice to me even as I write it;?Then all desireful turned herself again?To that part where the world is most alive.
Her silence and her change of countenance?Silence imposed upon my eager mind,?That had already in advance new questions;
And as an arrow that upon the mark?Strikes ere the bowstring quiet hath become,?So did we speed into the second realm.
My Lady there so joyful I beheld,?As into the brightness of that heaven she entered,?More luminous thereat the planet grew;
And if the star itself was changed and smiled,?What became I, who by my nature am?Exceeding mutable in every guise!
As, in a fish-pond which is pure and tranquil,?The fishes draw to that which from without?Comes in such fashion that their food they deem it;
So I beheld more than a thousand splendours?Drawing towards us, and in each was heard:?"Lo, this is she who shall increase our love."
And as each one was coming unto us,?Full of beatitude the shade was seen,?By the effulgence clear that issued from it.
Think, Reader, if what here is just beginning?No farther should proceed, how thou wouldst have?An agonizing need of knowing more;
And of thyself thou'lt see how I from these?Was in desire of hearing their conditions,?As they unto mine eyes were manifest.
"O thou well-born, unto whom Grace concedes?To see the thrones of the eternal triumph,?Or ever yet the warfare be abandoned
With light that through the whole of heaven is spread?Kindled are we, and hence if thou desirest?To know of us, at thine own pleasure sate thee."
Thus by some one among those holy spirits?Was spoken, and by Beatrice: "Speak, speak?Securely, and believe them even as Gods."
"Well I perceive how thou dost nest thyself?In thine own light, and drawest it from thine eyes,?Because they coruscate when thou dost smile,
But know not who thou art, nor why thou hast,?Spirit august, thy station in the sphere?That veils itself to men in alien rays."
This said I in direction of the light?Which first had spoken to me; whence it became?By far more lucent than it was before.
Even as the sun, that doth conceal himself?By too much light, when heat has worn away?The tempering influence of the vapours dense,
By greater rapture thus concealed itself?In its own radiance the figure saintly,?And thus close, close enfolded answered me
In fashion as the following Canto sings.
Paradiso: Canto VI
"After that Constantine the eagle turned?Against the course of heaven, which it had followed?Behind the ancient who Lavinia took,
Two hundred years and more the bird of God?In the extreme of Europe held itself,?Near to the mountains whence it issued first;
And under shadow of the sacred plumes?It governed there the world from hand to hand,?And, changing thus, upon mine own alighted.
Caesar I was, and am Justinian,?Who, by the will of primal Love I feel,?Took from the laws the useless and redundant;
And ere unto the work I was attent,?One nature to exist in Christ, not more,?Believed, and with such faith was I contented.
But blessed Agapetus, he who was?The supreme pastor, to the faith sincere?Pointed me out the way by words of his.
Him I believed, and what was his assertion?I now see clearly, even as thou seest?Each contradiction to be false and true.
As soon as with the Church I moved my feet,?God in his grace it pleased with this high task?To inspire me, and I gave me wholly to it,
And to my Belisarius I commended?The arms, to which was heaven's right hand so joined?It was a signal that I should repose.
Now here to the first question terminates?My answer; but the character thereof?Constrains me to continue with a sequel,
In order that thou see with how great reason?Men move against the standard sacrosanct,?Both who appropriate and who oppose it.
Behold how great a power has made it worthy?Of reverence, beginning