As the bough that bends its top at passing of the wind, and then
lifts itself by its own virtue which raises it, so did I, in
amazement, the while she was speaking; and then a desire to
speak, wherewith I was burning, gave me again assurance, and I
began, "O Apple, that alone wast produced mature, O ancient
Father, to whom every bride is daughter and daughter-in-law,
devoutly as I can, I supplicate thee that thou speak to me; thou
seest my wish, and in order to hear thee quickly, I do not tell
it."

Sometimes an animal, which is covered up, so stirs, that his
desire must needs become apparent through the corresponding
movement which that which wraps him makes; and in like manner the
first soul made evident to me, through its covering, how gladly
it came to do me pleasure. Then it breathed, "Without its being
uttered to me by thee, I better discern thy wish, than thou
whatever thing is most certain to thee; because I see it in the
truthful mirror which makes of Itself a likeness of other tbings,
while nothing makes for It a likeness of Itself.[1] Thou wouldst
hear how long it is since God placed me in the lofty garden where
this Lady disposed thee for so long a stairway; and how long it
was a delight to my eyes; and the proper cause of the great
wrath; and the idiom which I used and which I made. Now, my son,
the tasting of the tree was not by itself the cause of so long an
exile, but only the overpassing of the bound. There whence thy
Lady moved Virgil, I longed for this assembly during four
thousand three hundred and two revolutions of the sun; and while
I was on earth I saw him return to all the lights of his path
nine hundred and thirty times. The tongue which I spoke was all
extinct long before the people of Nimrod attempted their
unaccomplishable work; for never was any product of the
reason (because of human liking, which alters, following the
heavens) durable for ever.[2] A natural action it is for man to
speak; but, thus or thus, nature then leaves for you to do
according as it pleases you. Before I descended to the infernal
anguish, the Supreme Good, whence comes the gladness that swathes
me, was on earth called I; EL it was called afterwards;[3] and
that must needs be,[4] for the custom of mortals is as a leaf on
a branch, which goes away and another comes. On the mountain
which rises highest from the wave I was, with pure life and
sinful, from the first hour to that which, when the sun changes
quadrant, follows the sixth hour."[5]

[1] All things are seen in God as if reflected in a mirror; but
nothing can reflect an image of God. "In the eternal Idea, as in
a glass, the works of God are more perfectly seen than in
themselves. . . . But it is impossible for a thing created to
represent that which is increated."--John Norton, The Orthodox
Evangelist, 1554, p. 332.

[2] Speech, a product of human reason, changes according to the
pleasure of main, which alters from time to time under the
influence of the heavens.

[3] God was known in the primitive language by the sacred and
mystical symbol I or J, the Hebrew letter Jod; afterwards by the
term El: the first answering to Jehovah, the second to Elohim.

[4] Such change in the name was inevitable, because of the
changing customs of thought and speech.

[5] Adam's stay in the Earthly Paradise on the summit of the
mount of Purgatory was thus a little more than six hours; the sun
changes quadrant with every six hours.



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.

"To the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit be glory," all
Paradise began, so that the sweet song was inebriating me. That
which I was seeing seemed to me a smile of the Universe; for
my inebriation was entering through the hearing and through the
sight. O joy! O ineffable gladness! O life entire of love and of
peace! O riches secure, without longing![1]

[1] Which leave nothing for desire.


Before my eyes the four torches were standing enkindled, and that
which
had come first began to make itself more vivid, and in its
semblance be
came such as Jove would become, if be and Mars were birds, and
should
interchange feathers.[1] The Providence which here apportions
turn and
office, had imposed silence on the blessed choir on every
side, when I heard, "If I change color, marvel not; for, while I
speak,
thou shalt see all these change color. He who on earth usurps my
place,
my place, my place, which is vacant in the presence of the Son of
God,
has made of my burial-place a sewer of blood and of stench,
wherewith the
Perverse One who fell from here above, below there is placated."


<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 |