Canto XX

When he who all the world illuminates¹Out of our hemisphere so far descendsThat on all sides the daylight is consumed,²The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled,Doth suddenly reveal itself again³By many lights, wherein is one resplendent.And came into my mind this act of heaven,When the ensign of the world and of its leadersHad silent in the blessed beak become;Because those living luminaries all,By far more luminous, did songs beginLapsing and falling from my memory.O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee,How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear,That had the breath alone of holy thoughts!After the precious and pellucid crystals,With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld,Silence imposed on the angelic bells,I seemed to hear the murmuring of a riverThat clear descendeth down from rock to rock,Showing the affluence of its mountaintop.And as the sound upon the cithern’s neckTaketh its form, and as upon the ventOf rustic pipe the wind that enters it,Even thus, relieved from the delay of waiting,That murmuring of the eagle mounted upAlong its neck, as if it had been hollow.There it became a voice, and issued thenceFrom out its beak, in such a form of wordsAs the heart waited for wherein I wrote them.“The part in me which sees and bears the sunIn mortal eagles,” it began to me,“Now fixedly must needs be looked upon;For of the fires of which I make my figure,Those whence the eye doth sparkle in my headOf all their orders the supremest are.He who is shining in the midst as pupil⁴Was once the singer of the Holy Spirit,Who bore the ark from city unto city;Now knoweth he the merit of his song,In so far as effect of his own counsel,⁵By the reward which is commensurate.Of five, that make a circle for my brow,He that approacheth nearest to my beak⁶Did the poor widow for her son console;Now knoweth he how dearly it doth costNot following Christ, by the experienceOf this sweet life and of its opposite.He who comes next in the circumference⁷Of which I speak, upon its highest arc,Did death postpone by penitence sincere;⁸Now knoweth he that the eternal judgmentSuffers no change, albeit worthy prayerMaketh below tomorrow of today.The next who follows, with the laws and me,⁹Under the good intent that bore bad fruit¹⁰Became a Greek by ceding to the pastor;Now knoweth he how all the ill deducedFrom his good action is not harmful to him,Although the world thereby may be destroyed.And he, whom in the downward arc thou seest,Guglielmo was, whom the same land deplores¹¹That weepeth Charles and Frederick yet alive;Now knoweth he how heaven enamoured isWith a just king; and in the outward showOf his effulgence he reveals it still.Who would believe, down in the errant world,That e’er the Trojan Ripheus in this round¹²Could be the fifth one of the holy lights?Now knoweth he enough of what the worldHas not the power to see of grace divine,Although his sight may not discern the bottom.”Like as a lark that in the air expatiates,¹³First singing and then silent with contentOf the last sweetness that doth satisfy her,Such seemed to me the image of the imprintOf the eternal pleasure, by whose willDoth everything become the thing it is.And notwithstanding to my doubt I wasAs glass is to the color that invests it,To wait the time in silence it endured not,But forth from out my mouth, “What things are these?”Extorted with the force of its own weight;Whereat I saw great joy of coruscation.Thereafterward with eye still more enkindledThe blessed standard made to me reply,To keep me not in wonderment suspended:“I see that thou believest in these thingsBecause I say them, but thou seest not how;So that, although believed in, they are hidden.Thou doest as he doth who a thing by nameWell apprehendeth, but its quiddity¹⁴Cannot perceive, unless another show it.Regnum coelorum suffereth violence¹⁵From fervent love, and from that living hopeThat overcometh the Divine volition;Not in the guise that man o’ercometh man,But conquers it because it will be conquered,And conquered conquers by benignity.The first life of the eyebrow and the fifth¹⁶Cause thee astonishment, because with themThou seest the region of the angels painted.They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest,Gentiles, but Christians in the steadfast faithOf feet that were to suffer and had suffered.¹⁷For one from Hell, where no one e’er turns back¹⁸Unto good will, returned unto his bones,And that of living hope was the reward—Of living hope, that placed its efficacyIn prayers to God made to resuscitate him,So that ’twere possible to move his will.¹⁹The glorious soul concerning which I speak,²⁰Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay,Believed in Him who had the power to aid it;And, in believing, kindled to such fireOf genuine love, that at the second deathWorthy it was to come unto this joy.The other one, through grace, that from so deep²¹A fountain wells that never hath the eyeOf any creature reached its primal wave,Set all his love below on righteousness;Wherefore from grace to grace did God uncloseHis eye to our redemption yet to be,Whence he believed therein, and suffered notFrom that day forth the stench of paganism,And he reproved therefor the folk perverse.Those Maidens three, whom at the right-hand wheel²²Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptismMore than a thousand years before baptizing.O thou predestination, how remote²³Thy root is from the aspect of all thoseWho the First Cause do not behold entire!And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrainedIn judging; for ourselves, who look on God,We do not know as yet all the elect;And sweet to us is such a deprivation,Because our good in this good is made perfect,That whatsoe’er God wills, we also will.”After this manner by that shape divine,To make clear in me my shortsightedness,Was given to me a pleasant medicine;And as good singer a good lutanistAccompanies with vibrations of the chords,Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires,So, while it spake, do I remember meThat I beheld both of those blessed lights,Even as the winking of the eyes concords,Moving unto the words their little flames.