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 XX

• When he who sheddeth light on all the world
• so far below our hemisphere descends,
• that daylight fades away on every side,
• the sky, once lighted up by him alone,
• is quickly rendered visible again
• by many lights, whereof one only shines;
• and I this happening in the sky recalled,
• when silent in the blessèd beak became
• the Standard of the world and of its leaders;
• for, brighter far,
• those living lights commenced
• songs which have fled and fallen from my mind.

• O thou sweet Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee,
• how ardent in those flutes didst thou appear,
• whose only breath was that of holy thoughts!

• After those precious and pellucid jewels
• wherewith I saw the sixth great light engemmed,
• had brought to silence their angelic chimes,
• I seemed to hear the murmur of a brook,
• which, flowing limpid down from rock to rock,
• reveals the abundance of its mountain-springs.

• And as a sound takes from a cittern’s neck
• its form, even as the air that enters it
• doth from the vent-hole of a shepherd’s pipe,
• so, all delay of waiting laid aside,
• that murmur of the Eagle mounted up
• along its neck, as if it hollow were.
• A voice it there became, and through its beak
• it issued forth in words, such as the heart
• whereon I wrote them down, was longing for.

• “That part of me which sees, and braves the sun,
• in mortal eagles,” it began again,
• “must now be looked upon attentively,
• for of the fires wherewith I shape me, those
• wherewith the eye is sparkling in my head,
• the highest are of all their ordered grades.

• He that as pupil in the middle shines,
• was once the singer of the Holy Spirit,
• who bore the Ark about from town to town;
• he now knows how deserving was his song,
• so far as it resulted from his will,
• by the reward proportioned to its merit.

• Of five that make a circle for my brow,
• the spirit nearest to my beak was he,
• who comforted the widow for her son;
• he now knows by his personal experience
• of this sweet life and of its opposite,
• how dear it costs one not to follow Christ.

• In the circumference of which I speak,
• he that comes next upon the rising arc,
• delayed his death by genuine repentance;
• he now knows that Eternal Justice brooks
• no change, whenever worthy prayers below
• to-morrow’s make of that which was today’s.

• The one who follows, with the laws and me,
• with good intentions which produced bad fruits,
• made himself Greek by ceding to the Shepherd;
• he now knows that the ill, from his good deed
• derived, is not a cause of harm to him,
• although thereby the world may be destroyed.

• He whom thou seest in the downward arc,
• the William was, for whom that country mourns,
• which weeps because its Charles and Frederick live;
• he now knows how Heaven loves a righteous king,
• and by his splendor’s glow
• reveals it still.

• Who in the erring world below would think
• that Rìpheus the Trojan was the fifth
• among the holy lights which form this curve?
• He now knows many of the things the world
• is impotent to see in Grace Divine,
• although his sight discerneth not its depths.

• Like a young lark which, as it soars through space,
• first sings, and then is silent, satisfied
• with the last sweetness which contented her;

• such seemed to me the image of the seal
• of that Eternal Pleasure, by whose will
• each thing becometh what it is. And though,
• with reference to my doubt, up there I was,
• as glass is to the color which it clothes,
• it could not bear to bide its time in silence;
• but by the very force of its own weight
• urged from my mouth the words, “What things are these?”
• whereat I saw a glorious feast of sparkling.

• Thereafter, with its eye the more enkindled,
• the blessèd Sign, in order not to keep me
• in wondering suspense, replied to me:
• “I see that thou believest all these things,
• because I say them, but dost not see how;
• and therefore, though believed in, they are hidden.
• Thou dost as one who fully knows a thing
• by name, but cannot see just what it is,
• unless another make it manifest.

• Regnum Coelorum suffers violence
• from burning love, and from a living hope,
• which vanquishes the Will Divine; though not
• as man o’ercometh man, but conquers it
• because it willeth to be overcome;
• and so, though vanquished, by its goodness wins.

• The first life in the eyebrow, and the fifth
• cause thee to be amazed, because therewith
• thou see’st the region of the Angels painted.

• They did not issue Gentiles from their bodies,
• as thou dost think, but Christians, with firm faith,
• one in the Feet that were to suffer, one,
• in those that had. For one, to claim his bones,
• came back from Hell, where no one ever wills
• the good again; and this was the reward
• of living hope; of living hope which put
• its trust in prayers addressed to God to raise him,
• that thus his will might have a chance to act.

• The glorious soul I speak of, when the flesh
• had been regained, wherein he stayed not long,
• believed in Him, who had the power to help him;
• and through belief so warmed to genuine love,
• that he was worthy at his second death
• to come to this festivity. The other,
• through grace from so profound a spring distilled,
• that never hath the eye of any creature
• reached its first wave, set all his love below
• on righteousness; hence God, from grace to grace,
• to our redemption which is still to be,
• opened his eyes; he hence believed in it,
• and afterward endured no more the stench
• of Paganism; and for it he rebuked
• those who perverted were. And those three Ladies
• thou sawest at the right wheel of the Car,
• in lieu of baptism, were as sponsors for him
• more than a thousand years ere baptism was.

• O thou Predestination, how remote
• are thy foundations from the sight of those
• who do not see the First Cause as a whole!

• And ye, O mortals, keep yourselves in check,
• when judging men; for we, who God behold,
• know not as yet all those that are elect;
• and pleasant is such ignorance to us,
• because our good is in this good refined,
• that what is willed by God, we also will.”

• Thus, then, by that divinely pictured image,
• to make the shortness of my vision clear,
• a pleasant medicine was granted me.

• And as a skillful cithern player makes
• the string’s vibrations follow a good singer,
• whereby the song acquires more power to please;
• even so, while it was speaking, I recall
• that both those blessèd lights I then beheld,
• as when, in winking, eyes concordant are,
• moving their flamelets to the Eagle’s words.