Goodness, since it has made for itself so many mirrors on which
it is broken, One in itself remaining as before."

[1] The Angels.

[2] "Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand
times ten thousand stood before him."--Daniel, vii. 10.

[3] No two angels are precisely alike in their vision of God.

[4] Since love follows on knowledge through vision.



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

The sixth hour is glowing perhaps six thousand miles distant from
us, and this world now inclines its shadow almost to a level bed,
when the mid heaven, deep above us, begins to become such that
some one star loses its show so far as to this depth;[1] and as
the brightest handmaid of the sun comes farther on, so the heaven
is closed from light to light, even to the most beautiful. Not
otherwise the Triumph, that plays forever round the Point which
vanquished me, seeming enclosed by that which it encloses, little
by little to my sight was extinguished;[2] wherefore my seeing
nothing, and my love constrained me to turn with my eyes to
Beatrice. If what has been said of her so far as here were all
included in a single praise, it would be little to furnish out
this turn. The beauty which I saw transcends measure not only by
us, but truly I believe that its Maker alone can enjoy it all.

[1] When it is noon,--the sixth hour,--six thousand miles away
from us to the east, it is about daybreak where we are; the
shadow of the earth lies in the plane of vision, and with the
growing light the stars one after another become invisible at
this depth, that is, to one on earth.

[2] Losing itself in the light which streams from the Divine
point.


By this pass I concede myself vanquished more than ever comic or
tragic poet was overcome by crisis of his theme. For as the sun
does to the sight which trembles most, even so remembrance of the
sweet smile deprives my mind of its very self. From the first day
that I saw her face in this life, even to this look, the
following with my song has not been interrupted for me, but now
needs must my pursuit desist from further following her beauty in
my verse, as at his utmost every artist.

Such, as I leave her to a greater heralding than that of my
trumpet, which is bringing its arduous theme to a close, with act
and voice of a trusty leader she began again. "We have issued
forth from the greatest body[1] to the Heaven[2] which is pure
light: light intellectual full of love, love of true good, full
of joy; joy which transcends every sweetness. Here thou shalt see
one and the other host of Paradise;[3] and the one in those
aspects which thou shalt see at the Last Judgment."

[1] The Primum Mobile, the greatest of the material spheres of
the universe.

[2] The Empyrean.

[3] The spirits of the redeemed who fought against the
temptations of the world, and the good angels who fought against
the rebellious; and here the souls in bliss will be seen in their
bodily shapes.


As a sudden flash which scatters the spirits of the sight so that
it deprives the eye of the action of the strongest objects,[1]
thus a vivid light shone round about me, and left me swathed with
such a veil of its own effulgence that nothing was visible to me.

1] So that the clearest objects produce no effect upon the eye.


"The Love which quieteth this Heaven always welcomes to itself
with such a salutation, in order to make the candle ready for its
flame." No sooner had these brief words come within me than I
comprehended that I was surmounting above my own power; and I
rekindled me with a new vision, such that no light is so pure
that my eyes had not sustained it. And I saw light in form of a
river, bright with effulgence, between two banks painted with a
marvellous spring. Out of this stream were issuing living sparks,
and on every side were setting themselves in the flowers, like
rubies which gold encompasses. Then, as if inebriated by the
odors, they plunged again into the wonderful flood, and as one
was entering another was issuing forth.

"The high desire which now inflames and urges thee to have
knowledge
concerning that which thou seest, Pleases me the more the more it
swells,
but thou must needs drink of this water before so great a thirst,
in thee
be slaked." Thus the Sun of my eyes said to me; thereon she


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