Paradiso

Canto I

The ascent to the First Heaven.

The glory of Him who moveth everything¹Doth penetrate the universe, and shine²In one part more and in another less.Within that heaven which most his light receives³Was I, and things beheld which to repeat⁴Nor knows, nor can, who from above descends;Because in drawing near to its desire⁵Our intellect engulfs itself so far,That after it the memory cannot go.Truly whatever of the holy realmI had the power to treasure in my mindShall now become the subject of my song.O good Apollo, for this last emprise⁶Make of me such a vessel of thy powerAs giving the beloved laurel asks!One summit of Parnassus hithertoHas been enough for me, but now with bothI needs must enter the arena left.Enter into my bosom, thou, and breathe⁷As at the time when Marsyas thou didst draw⁸Out of the scabbard of those limbs of his.O power divine, lend’st thou thyself to meSo that the shadow of the blessed realmStamped in my brain I can make manifest,Thou’lt see me come unto thy darling tree,And crown myself thereafter with those leavesOf which the theme and thou shall make me worthy.So seldom, Father, do we gather themFor triumph or of Caesar or of Poet,(The fault and shame of human inclinations,)That the Peneian foliage should bring forthJoy to the joyous Delphic deity,When anyone it makes to thirst for it.A little spark is followed by great flame;Perchance with better voices after meShall prayer be made that Cyrrha may respond!⁹To mortal men by passages diverseUprises the world’s lamp; but by that oneWhich circles four uniteth with three crosses,¹⁰With better course and with a better starConjoined it issues, and the mundane wax¹¹Tempers and stamps more after its own fashion.Almost that passage had made morning thereAnd evening here, and there was wholly white¹²That hemisphere, and black the other part,When Beatrice towards the left-hand sideI saw turned round, and gazing at the sun;Never did eagle fasten so upon it!And even as a second ray is wontTo issue from the first and reascend,Like to a pilgrim who would fain return,Thus of her action, through the eyes infusedIn my imagination, mine I made,And sunward fixed mine eyes beyond our wont.There much is lawful which is here unlawfulUnto our powers, by virtue of the placeMade for the human species as its own.Not long I bore it, nor so little whileBut I beheld it sparkle round aboutLike iron that comes molten from the fire;¹³And suddenly it seemed that day to day¹⁴Was added, as if He who has the powerHad with another sun the heaven adorned.With eyes upon the everlasting wheelsStood Beatrice all intent, and I, on herFixing my vision from above removed,Such at her aspect inwardly becameAs Glaucus, tasting of the herb that made him¹⁵Peer of the other gods beneath the sea.To represent transhumanize in wordsImpossible were; the example, then, sufficeHim for whom Grace the experience reserves.If I was merely what of me thou newly¹⁶Createdst, Love who governest the heaven,Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light!When now the wheel, which thou dost make eternal¹⁷Desiring thee, made me attentive to itBy harmony thou dost modulate and measure,¹⁸Then seemed to me so much of heaven enkindledBy the sun’s flame, that neither rain nor riverE’er made a lake so widely spread abroad.The newness of the sound and the great lightKindled in me a longing for their cause,Never before with such acuteness felt;Whence she, who saw me as I saw myself,To quiet in me my perturbed mind,Opened her mouth, ere I did mine to ask,And she began: “Thou makest thyself so dullWith false imagining, that thou seest notWhat thou wouldst see if thou hadst shaken it off.Thou art not upon earth, as thou believest;But lightning, fleeing its appropriate site,¹⁹Ne’er ran as thou, who thitherward returnest.”If of my former doubt I was divestedBy these brief little words more smiled than spoken,I in a new one was the more ensnared;And said: “Already did I rest contentFrom great amazement; but am now amazedIn what way I transcend these bodies light.”Whereupon she, after a pitying sigh,Her eyes directed tow’rds me with that lookA mother casts on a delirious child;And she began: “All things whate’er they beHave order among themselves, and this is form,That makes the universe resemble God.Here do the higher creatures see the footprintsOf the Eternal Power, which is the endWhereto is made the law already mentioned.In the order that I speak of are inclined²⁰All natures, by their destinies diverse,More or less near unto their origin;Hence they move onward unto ports diverseO’er the great sea of being; and each oneWith instinct given it which bears it on.This bears away the fire towards the moon;This is in mortal hearts the motive power;This binds together and unites the earth.Nor only the created things that areWithout intelligence this bow shoots forth,But those that have both intellect and love.The Providence that regulates all this²¹Makes with its light the heaven forever quiet,²²Wherein that turns which has the greatest haste.And thither now, as to a site decreed,Bears us away the virtue of that cordWhich aims its arrows at a joyous mark.True is it, that as oftentimes the formAccords not with the intention of the art,Because in answering is matter deaf,So likewise from this course doth deviateSometimes the creature, who the power possesses,Though thus impelled, to swerve some other way,(In the same wise as one may see the fireFall from a cloud,) if the first impetusEarthward is wrested by some false delight.Thou shouldst not wonder more, if well I judge,At thine ascent, than at a rivuletFrom some high mount descending to the lowland.Marvel it would be in thee, if deprivedOf hindrance, thou wert seated down below,As if on earth the living fire were quiet.”²³Thereat she heavenward turned again her face.

Dante’s theory of the universe is the old one, which made the earth a stationary central point, around which all the heavenly bodies revolved; a theory, that, according to Milton, Paradise Lost, VIII 15, astonished even Adam in Paradise:— “When I behold this goodly frame, this world, / Of heaven and earth consisting, and compute / Their magnitudes; this earth, a spot, a grain, / An atom, with the firmament compared / And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll / Spaces incomprehensible (for such / Their distance argues, and their swift return / Diurnal), merely to officiate light / Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot, / One day and night; in all their vast survey / Useless besides; reasoning I oft admire, / How Nature, wise and frugal, could commit / Such disproportions, with superfluous hand / So many nobler bodies to create, / Greater so manifold, to this one use, / For aught appears, and on their orbs impose / Such restless revolution day by day / Repeated; while the sedentary earth, / That better might with far less compass mov / Served by more noble than herself, attains / Her end without least motion, and receives, / As tribute, such a sumless journey brought / Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light— / Speed, to describe whose swiftness number fails.” The reply that Raphael makes to “our general ancestor,” may be addressed to every reader of the Paradiso:— “Whether the sun, predominant in heaven, / Rise on the earth, or earth rise on the sun; / He from the east his flaming road begin, / Or she from west her silent course advance, / With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps / On her soft axle; while she paces even, / And bears thee soft with the smooth air along; / Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid.” Thus, taking the earth as the central point, and speaking of the order of the Ten Heavens, Dante says, Convito, II 4:— “The first is that where the Moon is; the second is that where Mercury is; the third is that where Venus is; the fourth is that where the Sun is; the fifth is that where Mars is; the sixth is that where Jupiter is; the seventh is that where Saturn is; the eighth is that of the Stars; the ninth is not visible, save by the motion mentioned above, and is called by many the Crystalline; that is, diaphanous, or wholly transparent. Beyond all these, indeed, the Catholics place the Empyrean Heaven; that is to say, the Heaven of flame, or luminous; and this they suppose to be immovable, from having within itself, in every part, that which its matter demands. And this is the cause why the Primum Mobile has a very swift motion; from the fervent longing which each part of that ninth heaven has to be conjoined with that Divinest Heaven, the Heaven of Rest, which is next to it, it revolves therein with so great desire, that its velocity is almost incomprehensible; and quiet and peaceful is the place of that supreme Deity, who alone doth perfectly see himself.” Of the symbolism of these Heavens he says, Convito, II 14:— “As narrated above, the seven Heavens nearest to us are those of the Planets; and above these are two movable Heavens, and one motionless over all. To the first seven correspond the seven sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium; that is, Grammar, Dialectics, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astrology. To the eighth, that is, to the starry sphere, Natural Science, called Physics, corresponds, and the first science, which is called Metaphysics; and to the ninth sphere corresponds Moral Science; and to the Heaven of Rest, the Divine Science, which is called Theology.” The details of these correspondences will be given later in their appropriate places. These Ten Heavens are the heavens of the Paradiso; nine of them revolving about the earth as a central point, and the motionless Empyrean encircling and containing all. In the first Heaven, or that of the Moon, are seen the spirits of those who, having taken monastic vows, were forced to violate them. In the second, or that of Mercury, the spirits of those whom desire of fame incited to noble deeds. In the third, or that of Venus, the spirits of Lovers. In the fourth, or that of the Sun, the spirits of Theologians and Fathers of the Church. In the fifth, or that of Mars, the spirits of Crusaders and those who died for the true Faith. In the sixth, or that of Jupiter, the spirits of righteous Kings and Rulers. In the seventh, or that of Saturn, the spirits of the Contemplative. In the eighth, or that of the Fixed Stars, the Triumph of Christ. In the ninth, or Primum Mobile, the Angelic Hierarchies. In the tenth, or the Empyrean, is the Visible Presence of God. It must be observed, however, that the lower spheres, in which the spirits appear, are not assigned them as their places or dwellings. They show themselves in these different places only to indicate to Dante the different degrees of glory which they enjoy, and to show that while on earth they were under the influence of the planets in which they here appear. Dante expressly says, in Canto IV 28:— “He of the Seraphim most absorbed in God, / Moses, and Samuel, and whichever John / Thou mayst select, I say, and even Mary, / Have not in any other heaven their thrones / Than have those spirits that just appeared to thee, / Nor of existence more or fewer years; / But all make beautiful the primal circle, / And have sweet life in different degrees, / By feeling more or less the eternal breath. / They showed themselves here, not because allotted / This sphere has been to them, but to give sign / Of the celestial which is least exalted.” The threefold main division of the Paradiso, indicated by a longer prelude, or by a natural pause in the action of the poem, is:—1. From Canto I to Canto X 2. From Canto X to Canto XXIII 3. From Canto XXIII to the end. ↩
Wisdom of Solomon 1:7:— “For the spirit of the Lord filleth the world”; and Ecclesiasticus 42:16:— “The sun that giveth light looketh upon all things, and the work thereof is full of the glory of the Lord.” ↩
The Empyrean. Milton, Paradise Lost, III 57:— “From the pure Empyrean where he sits / High throned above all highth.” ↩
2 Corinthians 12:2:— “I knew a man in Christ about fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I can not tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth:) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” ↩
Convito, III 2:— “Hence the human soul, which is the noblest form of those created under heaven, receiveth more of the divine nature than any other. … And inasmuch as its being depends upon God, and is preserved by him, it naturally desires and wishes to be united with God, in order to strengthen its being.” And again, Convito, III 6:— “Each thing chiefly desireth its own perfection, and in it quieteth every desire, and for it is each thing desired. And this is the desire which always maketh each delight seem insufficient; for in this life is no delight so great that it can satisfy the thirst of the soul, so that the desire I speak of shall not remain in our thoughts.” ↩
Chaucer, House of Fame, III 1:— “God of science and of light, / Apollo! thorough thy grete might / This litel last boke now thou gye. / ⋮ / And if that divine virtue thou / Wilte helpen me to showen now / That in my hed ymarked is, / ⋮ / Thou shalt yse me go as blive / Unto the next laurer I se, / And kysse it for it is thy tre. / Nowe entre in my Brest anone.” ↩
Chaucer, Ballade in Commendacion of Our Ladie, 12:— “O winde of grace! now blowe unto my saile; / O auriate licour of Clio! to write / My penne enspire, of that I woll indite.” ↩
Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI, Croxall’s Tr.:— “When straight another pictures to their view / The Satyr’s fate, whom angry Phoebus slew; / Who, raised with high conceit, and puffed with pride, / At his own pipe the skilful God defied. / Why do you tear me from myself, he cries? / Ah, cruel! must my skin be made the prize? / This for a silly pipe? he roaring said, / Meanwhile the skin from off his limbs was flayed.” And Chaucer, House of Fame, 139, changing the sex of Marsyas:— “And Mercia that lost hire skinne, / Bothe in the face, bodie, and chinne, / For that she would envyen, lo! / To pipen bette than Apollo.” ↩
A town at the foot of Parnassus, dedicated to Apollo, and here used for Apollo. Chaucer, Quene Annelida and False Arcite, 15:— “Be favorable eke thou, Polymnia! / On Parnassus that, with thy susters glade / By Helicon, and not ferre from Cirrha, / Singed, with voice memoriall, in the shade / Under the laurer, which that maie not fade.” ↩
That point of the horizon where the sun rises at the equinox; and where the Equator, the Zodiac, and the equinoctial Colure meet, and form each a cross with the Horizon. ↩
The world is as wax, which the sun softens and stamps with his seal. ↩
“This word almost,” says Buti, “gives us to understand that it was not the exact moment when the sun enters Aries.” ↩
Milton, Paradise Lost, III 593:— “Not all parts like, but all alike informed / With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire.” ↩
Milton, Paradise Lost, V 310:— “Seems another morn / Risen on mid-noon.” ↩
Glaucus, changed to a sea-god by eating of the salt-meadow grass. Ovid, Metamorphoses, XIII, Rowe’s Tr.:— “Restless I grew, and every place forsook, / And still upon the seas I bent my look. / Farewell forever! Farewell, land! I said; / And plunged amidst the waves my sinking head. / The gentle powers, who that low empire keep, / Received me as a brother of the deep; / To Tethys, and to Ocean old, they pray / To purge my mortal earthy parts away.” “As Glaucus,” says Buti, “was changed from a fisherman to a sea-god by tasting of the grass that had that power, so the human soul, tasting of things divine, becomes divine.” ↩
Whether I were spirit only. 2 Corinthians 12:3:— “Whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth.” One of the questions which exercised the minds of the Fathers and the Schoolmen was, whether the soul were created before the body or after it. Origen, following Plato, supposes all souls to have been created at once, and to await their bodies. Thomas Aquinas combats this opinion, Summa Theologica, I Quaest. CXVIII 3, and maintains, that “creation and infusion are simultaneous in regard to the soul.” This seems also to be Dante’s belief. See Purgatorio XXV 70:— “The primal Motor turns to it well pleased / At so great art of nature, and inspires / A spirit new, with virtue all replete.” ↩
It is a doctrine of Plato that the heavens are always in motion, seeking the Soul of the World, which has no determinate place, but is everywhere diffused. See also note 1202. ↩
The music of the spheres. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, V 1:— “Look, how the floor of heaven / Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; / There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st, / But in his motion like an angel sings, / Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins: / Such harmony is in immortal souls; / But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay / Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.” And Milton, Hymn on Christ’s Nativity:— “Ring out, ye crystal spheres, / Once bless our human ears, / If ye have power to touch our senses so; / And let your silver chime / Move in melodious time; / And let the bass of Heaven’s deep organ blow; / And, with your ninefold harmony, / Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.” Rixner, Handbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, I 100, speaking of the ten heavens, or the Lyre of Pythagoras, says:— “These ten celestial spheres are arranged among themselves in an order so mathematical and musical, that is so harmonious, that the sphere of the fixed stars, which is above the sphere of Saturn, gives forth the deepest tone in the music of the universe (the World-Lyre strung with ten strings), and that of the Moon the highest.” Cicero, in his Vision of Scipio, inverts the tones. He says, Edmonds’s Tr.:— “Which as I was gazing at in amazement, I said, as I recovered myself, from whence proceed these sounds so strong, and yet so sweet, that fill my ears? ‘The melody,’ replies he, ‘which you hear, and which, though composed in unequal time, is nevertheless divided into regular harmony, is effected by the impulse and motion of the spheres themselves, which, by a happy temper of sharp and grave notes, regularly produces various harmonic effects. Now it is impossible that such prodigious movements should pass in silence; and nature teaches that the sounds which the spheres at one extremity utter must be sharp, and those on the other extremity must be grave; on which account, that highest revolution of the star-studded heaven, whose motion is more rapid, is carried on with a sharp and quick sound; whereas this of the moon, which is situated the lowest, and at the other extremity, moves with the gravest sound. For the earth, the ninth sphere, remaining motionless, abides invariably in the innermost position, occupying the central spot in the universe. “ ‘Now these eight directions, two of which have the same powers, effect seven sounds, differing in their modulations, which number is the connecting principle of almost all things. Some learned men, by imitating this harmony with strings and vocal melodies, have opened a way for their return to this place; as all others have done, who, endued with preeminent qualities, have cultivated in their mortal life the pursuits of heaven. “ ‘The ears of mankind, filled with these sounds, have become deaf, for of all your senses it is the most blunted. Thus, the people who live near the place where the Nile rushes down from very high mountains to the parts which are called Catadupa, are destitute of the sense of hearing, by reason of the greatness of the noise. Now this sound, which is effected by the rapid rotation of the whole system of nature, is so powerful that human hearing can not comprehend it, just as you cannot look directly upon the sun, because your sight and sense are overcome by his beams.’ ” ↩
The region of fire. Brunetto Latini, Tresor, Ch. CVIII:— “After the zone of the air is placed the fourth element. This is an orb of fire without any moisture, which extends as far as the moon, and surrounds this atmosphere in which we are. And know that above the fire is first the moon, and the other stars, which are all of the nature of fire.” ↩
Milton, Paradise Lost, V 469:— “One Almighty is, from whom / All things proceed, and up to him return, / If not depraved from good; created all / Such to perfection, one first matter all, / Endued with various forms, various degrees / Of substance, and, in things that live, of life; / But more refined, more spiritous, and pure, / As nearer to him placed, or nearer tending / Each in their several active spheres assigned, / Till body up to spirit work, in bounds / Proportioned to each kind. So from the root / Springs lighter the green stalk; from thence the leaves / More aery; last, the bright consummate flower / Spirits odorous breathes: flowers and their fruit, / Man’s nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed, / To vital spirits aspire, to animal, / To intellectual; give both life and sense, / Fancy and understanding: whence the soul / Reason receives, and reason is her being, / Discursive or intuitive.” ↩
Filicaja’s beautiful sonnet on Providence is thus translated by Leigh Hunt:— “Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face, / Yearns towards her little children from her seat, / Gives one a kiss, another an embrace, / Takes this upon her knees, that on her feet; / And while from actions, looks, complaints, pretences, / She learns their feelings and their various will, / To this a look, to that a word, dispenses, / And, whether stern or smiling, loves them still;— / So Providence for us, high, infinite, / Makes our necessities its watchful task, / Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants, / And even if it denies what seems our right, / Either denies because ’t would have us ask, / Or seems but to deny, or in denying grants.” ↩
The Empyrean, within which the Primum Mobile revolves “with so great desire that its velocity is almost incomprehensible.” ↩
Convito, III 2:— “The human soul, ennobled by the highest power, that is by reason, partakes of the divine nature in the manner of an eternal Intelligence; because the soul is so ennobled by that sovereign power, and denuded of matter, that the divine light shines in it as in an angel; and there fore man has been called by the philosophers a divine animal.” ↩