CANTO XXIII. The Triumph of Christ.

CANTO XXIV. St. Peter examines Dante concerning Faith, and
approves his answer.

CANTO XXV. St. James examines Dante concerning Hope.--St. John
appears,with a brightness so dazzling as to deprive Dante, for
the time, of sight.

CANTO XXVI. St. John examines Dante concerning Love.--Dante's
sight restored.--Adam appears, and answers questions put to him
by Dante.

CANTO XXVII. Denunciation by St. Peter of his degenerate
successors.--Dante gazes upon the Earth.--Ascent of Beatrice and
Dante to the Crystalline Heaven.--Its nature.--Beatrice rebukes
the covetousness of mortals.

CANTO XXVIII. The Heavenly Hierarchy.

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

CANTO XXX. Ascent to the Empyrean.--The River of Light.--The
celestial Rose.--The seat of Henry VII.--The last words of
Beatrice.

CANTO XXXI. The Rose of Paradise.--St. Bernard.--Prayer to
Beatrice.--The glory of the Blessed Virgin.

CANTO XXXII. St. Bernard describes the order of the Rose, and
points out many of the Saints.--The children in Paradise.--The
angelic festival.--The patricians of the Court of Heaven.

CANTO XXXIII. Prayer to the Virgin.--The Beatific Vision.--The
Ultimate Salvation.




PARADISE

CANTO I. Proem.--Invocation.--Beatrice and Dante ascend to the
Sphere of Fire.--Beatrice explains the cause of their ascent.

The glory of Him who moves everything penetrates through the
universe, and shines in one part more and in another less. In the
heaven that receives most of its light I have been, and have seen
things which he who descends from thereabove neither knows how
nor is able to recount; because, drawing near to its own
desire,[1] our understanding enters so deep, that the memory
cannot follow. Truly whatever of the Holy Realm I could treasure
up in my mind shall now be the theme of my song.

[1] The innate desire of the soul is to attain the vision of
God.


O good Apollo, for this last labor make me such a vessel of thy
power as thou demandest for the gift of the loved laurel.[1] Thus
far one summit of Parnassus has been enough for me, but now with
both[2] I need to enter the remaining, arena. Enter into my
breast, and breathe thou in such wise as when thou drewest
Marsyas from out the sheath of his limbs. O divine Power, if thou
lend thyself to me so that I may make manifest the image of the
Blessed Realm imprinted within my head, thou shalt see me come to
thy chosen tree, and crown myself then with those leaves of which
the theme and thou will make me worthy. So rarely, Father, are
they gathered for triumph or of Caesar or of poet (fault and
shame of the human wills), that the Peneian leaf[3] should bring
forth joy unto the joyous Delphic deity, whenever it makes any
one to long for it. Great flame follows a little spark: perhaps
after me prayer shall be made with better voices, whereto
Cyrrha[4] may respond.

[1] So inspire me in this labor that I may deserve the gift of
the laurel.

[2] The Muses were fabled to dwell on one peak of Parnassus,
Apollo on the other. At the opening of the preceding parts of his
poem Dante has invoked the Muses only.

[3] Daphne, who was changed to the laurel, was the daughter of
Peneus.

[4] Cyrrha, a city sacred to Apollo, not far from the foot of
Parnassus, and here used for the name of the god himself.



The lamp of the world rises to mortals through different
passages, but from that which joins four circles with three
crosses it issues with better course and conjoined with a better
star, and it tempers and seals the mundane wax more after its own
fashion[1] Almost such a passage had made morning there and
evening here;[2] and there all that hemisphere was white, and the
other part black, when I saw Beatrice turned upon the left side,
and looking into the sun: never did eagle so fix himself upon it.
And even as a second ray is wont to issue from the first, and


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