The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• The Trinity of Love
• Preface
• Paradiso I
• Paradiso Ii
• Paradiso Iii
• Paradiso Iv
• Paradiso V
• Paradiso Vi
• Paradiso Vii
• Paradiso Viii
• Paradiso Ix
• Paradiso X
• Paradiso Xi
• Paradiso Xii
• Paradiso Xiii
• Paradiso Xiv
• Paradiso Xv
• Paradiso Xvi
• Paradiso Xvii
• Paradiso Xviii
• Paradiso Xix
• Paradiso Xx
• Paradiso Xxi
• Paradiso Xxii
• Paradiso Xxiii
• Paradiso Xxiv
• Paradiso Xxv
• Paradiso Xxvi
• Paradiso Xxvii
• Paradiso Xxviii
• Paradiso Xxix
• Paradiso Xxx
• Paradiso Xxxi
• Paradiso Xxxii
• Paradiso Xxxiii

PARADISO XII

• As soon as e’er the blessèd flame had voiced
• its final word, the holy wheel began
• to whirl; and in its circling had not moved
• around completely, ere another wheel
• enclosed it in a ring, and each to each
• matched with its own its motions and its songs;
• songs which, in those sweet pipes, as far surpass
• our Muses and our Sirens, as a primal
• splendor surpasses one reflected from it.

• As when, both parallel and like in hue,
• two rainbows o’er a tender cloud are drawn,
• when Juno issues orders to her maid,
• the outer being from the inner born,
• as is the speaking of that wandering nymph,
• whom love consumed as mists are by the sun;
• and cause folk here, by reason of the pact
• which God with Noah made, to prophesy
• about the world, that it will not again
• be flooded; so, of those eternal roses
• the two wreaths turned around us there, and so
• the outer with the inmost harmonized.

• After the dance and great high feast of song,
• and flaming interplay of light with light
• in joyful happiness and tender love,
• had of a sudden and with one accord
• grown quiet, even as eyes do, which must close
• and open at the will of what attracts them;
• out of the heart of one of those new lights
• a voice came forth, as to its ‘where’ I turned,
• which made me seem a needle to its star.

• And it began: “The love which lends me beauty,
• draws me to talk about that other Leader,
• for whose sake mine is so well talked of here.
• Where one is, right it is to introduce
• the other; so that, since they fought together,
• their glories likewise may together shine.

• Christ’s host, which cost so much to arm anew,
• was slowly, timidly, and small in numbers
• moving behind its Standard, when the Emperor
• who ever reigns, provided, of His Grace
• alone, for His endangered host, and not
• because of its deserts; and helped His Bride,
• as it hath here been said, with champions twain,
• through whom, because of what they did and said,
• the people who had strayed away returned.

• In those parts where sweet Zephyr’s breezes rise
• to open spring-time’s foliage, wherewithal
• Europe is seen to clothe herself again,

• not very distant from the beating waves,
• behind which, through his long career, the sun
• conceals himself at times from every one,
• fortunate Calaroga hath her seat,
• guarded by that great shield, in which the lion
• both subjugates, and is subdued. Therein
• the amorous lover of the Christian Faith
• was born, the holy athlete, well disposed
• toward those he loved, and toward his foes severe;
• and even at its creation was his mind
• with such live virtue filled, that in his mother
• it caused her to become a prophetess.
• After the spousal ’tween the Faith and him
• had at the sacred font been held, where each
• with mutual health had dowered each, the lady
• who answered for him in a dream, beheld
• the wondrous fruit, that was to come from him
• and from his heirs. And that he might by name
• be what he was, a spirit went from hence,
• to give him the possessive of the One
• who wholly owned him.
• Dominic he was called;
• and of him as the husbandman I speak,
• whom Christ, to help him in His garden, chose.
• He truly seemed Christ’s messenger and servant,
• because the first love which appeared in him,
• was for the primal counsel given by Christ.

• Often was he discovered by his nurse
• lying awake and silent on the ground,
• as if he meant thereby: ‘I came for this.’
• O Felix, of a truth, his father was!
• O truly Joan, his mother, if it mean
• what it is said to, when interpreted!
• Not for the world’s sake, for which men now toil,
• following the man of Ostia, and Taddèo,
• but for the love of spirit-food, so great
• a teacher did he shortly make himself,
• that he began to go about the vineyard,
• which withers soon, if idle be the vintner;
• and of the Chair, which to the righteous poor
• was formerly more kind, not through its own,
• but through the fault of him who, sitting there,
• degenerates, he asked not for the right
• to give or two or three for six, nor yet
• the income of the earliest vacancy,
• nor even the tithes, which to God’s poor belong;
• but leave to fight against the erring world
• for that seed’s sake, whereof plants twenty-four
• are girding thee. With doctrine thereupon,
• and will, to apostolic sanction joined,
• he started, like a torrent by a high
• source urged, and on all stocks heretical
• his onset smote, and ever there most strongly,
• where strongest the resistance was. From him

• there afterward flowed divers streams, wherewith
• the garden Catholic is watered so,
• that all the fresher are its tender shrubs.

• If such was one wheel of the Car, whereby
• the Holy Church, herself defending, won
• the civil struggle in her own domain,
• the other’s excellence should certainly
• be very plain to thee, concerning whom
• Thomas so courteous was, ere I appeared.
• And yet the rut, formed by the highest part
• of its circumference, so forsaken is,
• that there where crust was, now is mould. His household,
• which started out aright, and kept their feet
• upon his footprints, hath so turned around,
• that that which is in front now treads on what
• was once behind; and this will soon be seen
• by the bad culture’s harvest, when the tares
• will of their loss of granaries complain.
• And yet I say that one who, page by page,
• should search our book, would still some paper find,
• where he could read: ‘What I was wont to be,
• I am;’ but from Casale he ’ll not come,
• nor yet from Acquasparta, whence such men
• approach the rule, that one evades, and one
• contracts its scope. Bonaventura’s life
• am I, of Bagnoregio, who in great
• positions set sinister cares behind.

• Here are Illuminàto and Aùgustin,
• who were among the first bare-footed poor,
• and, corded, made themselves the friends of God.
• Hugh of St. Victor here among them is,
• and Peter Mangiadòr, and Peter of Spain,
• who in a dozen books still shines on earth;
• Nathan the prophet, and metropolitan
• Chrysòstom, Anselm, aye, and that Donatus,
• who to the first art deigned to set his hand;
• Raban is here; and at my side is shining
• the abbot of Calabria, Joachim,
• who with prophetic spirit was endowed.

• The flaming courtesy of brother Thomas
• and his discerning speech have moved me thus
• to celebrate so great a paladin,
• and with me likewise moved this company.”