Divine Comedy: Paradise | Page 7

condescending graciously?To your perception, hands and feet to God?Attributes, nor so means: and holy church?Doth represent with human countenance?Gabriel, and Michael, and him who made?Tobias whole. Unlike what here thou seest,?The judgment of Timaeus, who affirms?Each soul restor'd to its particular star,?Believing it to have been taken thence,?When nature gave it to inform her mold:?Since to appearance his intention is?E'en what his words declare: or else to shun?Derision, haply thus he hath disguis'd?His true opinion. If his meaning be,?That to the influencing of these orbs revert?The honour and the blame in human acts,?Perchance he doth not wholly miss the truth.?This principle, not understood aright,?Erewhile perverted well nigh all the world;?So that it fell to fabled names of Jove,?And Mercury, and Mars. That other doubt,?Which moves thee, is less harmful; for it brings?No peril of removing thee from me.
"That, to the eye of man, our justice seems?Unjust, is argument for faith, and not?For heretic declension. To the end?This truth may stand more clearly in your view,?I will content thee even to thy wish
"If violence be, when that which suffers, nought?Consents to that which forceth, not for this?These spirits stood exculpate. For the will,?That will not, still survives unquench'd, and doth?As nature doth in fire, tho' violence?Wrest it a thousand times; for, if it yield?Or more or less, so far it follows force.?And thus did these, whom they had power to seek?The hallow'd place again. In them, had will?Been perfect, such as once upon the bars?Held Laurence firm, or wrought in Scaevola?To his own hand remorseless, to the path,?Whence they were drawn, their steps had hasten'd back,?When liberty return'd: but in too few?Resolve so steadfast dwells. And by these words?If duly weigh'd, that argument is void,?Which oft might have perplex'd thee still. But now?Another question thwarts thee, which to solve?Might try thy patience without better aid.?I have, no doubt, instill'd into thy mind,?That blessed spirit may not lie; since near?The source of primal truth it dwells for aye:?And thou might'st after of Piccarda learn?That Constance held affection to the veil;?So that she seems to contradict me here.?Not seldom, brother, it hath chanc'd for men?To do what they had gladly left undone,?Yet to shun peril they have done amiss:?E'en as Alcmaeon, at his father's suit?Slew his own mother, so made pitiless?Not to lose pity. On this point bethink thee,?That force and will are blended in such wise?As not to make the' offence excusable.?Absolute will agrees not to the wrong,?That inasmuch as there is fear of woe?From non-compliance, it agrees. Of will?Thus absolute Piccarda spake, and I?Of th' other; so that both have truly said."
Such was the flow of that pure rill, that well'd?From forth the fountain of all truth; and such?The rest, that to my wond'ring thoughts l found.
"O thou of primal love the prime delight!?Goddess! "I straight reply'd, "whose lively words?Still shed new heat and vigour through my soul!?Affection fails me to requite thy grace?With equal sum of gratitude: be his?To recompense, who sees and can reward thee.?Well I discern, that by that truth alone?Enlighten'd, beyond which no truth may roam,?Our mind can satisfy her thirst to know:?Therein she resteth, e'en as in his lair?The wild beast, soon as she hath reach'd that bound,?And she hath power to reach it; else desire?Were given to no end. And thence doth doubt?Spring, like a shoot, around the stock of truth;?And it is nature which from height to height?On to the summit prompts us. This invites,?This doth assure me, lady, rev'rently?To ask thee of other truth, that yet?Is dark to me. I fain would know, if man?By other works well done may so supply?The failure of his vows, that in your scale?They lack not weight." I spake; and on me straight?Beatrice look'd with eyes that shot forth sparks?Of love celestial in such copious stream,?That, virtue sinking in me overpower'd,?I turn'd, and downward bent confus'd my sight.
CANTO V
"If beyond earthly wont, the flame of love?Illume me, so that I o'ercome thy power?Of vision, marvel not: but learn the cause?In that perfection of the sight, which soon?As apprehending, hasteneth on to reach?The good it apprehends. I well discern,?How in thine intellect already shines?The light eternal, which to view alone?Ne'er fails to kindle love; and if aught else?Your love seduces, 't is but that it shows?Some ill-mark'd vestige of that primal beam.
"This would'st thou know, if failure of the vow?By other service may be so supplied,?As from self-question to assure the soul."
Thus she her words, not heedless of my wish,?Began; and thus, as one who breaks not off?Discourse, continued in her saintly strain.?"Supreme of gifts, which God creating gave?Of his free bounty, sign most evident?Of goodness, and in his account most priz'd,?Was liberty of will, the boon wherewith?All intellectual creatures, and them sole?He hath endow'd. Hence now thou mayst infer?Of what high worth the vow, which so is