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 XXVII

• “Glory to Father, Son and Holy Ghost!”
• all Paradise in such a way began,
• that its sweet song intoxicated me.
• What I was seeing seemed to me a smile
• as of the Universe; for through both sight
• and hearing my intoxication entered.

• O joy! O gladness inexpressible!
• O life by love and peace completely filled!
• O wealth no longer longed for, but assured!

• Before mine eyes the torches four remained
• on fire, and that which was the first to come,
• began to grow more luminous; and such
• in its appearance it became, as Jove
• would come to be, if he and Mars were birds,
• and interchanged the plumage of their wings.

• The Providence, which there above assigns
• both turn and office, silence had imposed
• upon the blessèd choir on every side,
• when “If I change my color, marvel not”;
• I heard him say, “for ev’n while I am speaking,
• thou shalt behold all these change color, too.

• He who on earth usurps my place, my place,
• my place, which in the sight
• of God’s own Son
• is vacant, of my burial ground hath made
• a sewer of blood and stench; whereby the Pervert,
• who fell from hence, is there below appeased.”

• The whole of Heaven I then beheld o’erspread
• with that same hue which colors clouds both morn
• and evening, when the sun lies opposite;
• and as a modest lady, who feels sure
• of her own self, but at another’s fault,
• on merely hearing of it, timid grows;
• so Beatrice changed her appearance then,
• and such as hers, I think, was Heaven’s eclipse,
• what time the Sovereign Power suffered pain.

• Thereat his words proceeded in a voice
• so changed from what had been its wonted self,
• that his appearance had no further changed:

• “The Bride of Christ was not by my blood fed,
• nor by the blood of Linus, nor by that
• of Cletus, to be used for gain of gold;
• but for the winning of this happy life,
• both Sixtus, Pius, Urban and Calixtus
• after much lamentation shed their blood.
• ’T was not our purpose that upon the right
• of our successors one part of the folk
• of Christ should sit, and on the left another;

• nor that the Keys bestowed in trust on me,
• should on a banner come to be an emblem,
• and warfare wage on those that were baptized;
• nor I become an image on a seal
• for privileges venal and deceptive,
• which often make me blush and flame with wrath.
• Rapacious wolves disguised in shepherds’ clothes
• are seen in all the pastures from up here.
• Vengeance of God, why art thou quiet still?
• Men of Cahors and Gascons even now
• prepare to drink our blood. O good beginning,
• to what vile ending thou art doomed to fall!
• But that high Providence, which saved for Rome,
• through Scipio’s help, the glory of the world,
• will quickly succor her, as I conceive;
• and thou, my son, who, for thy mortal weight
• art to return below, open thy mouth,
• and hide not that which I do not conceal!”

• Ev’n as our atmosphere lets fall great flakes
• of frozen vapor, when the horn of heaven’s
• she-Goat is in conjunction with the sun;
• so I beheld the sky grow beautiful
• and upward flaked with those triumphant flames
• which for a while had sojourned with us there.

• My sight was following their forms, and followed,
• till the mid space, by reason of its vastness,
• prevented it from passing further on.

• Thereat the Lady who had seen that freed
• I was from gazing up, said: “Lower now
• thine eyes, and see how far thou hast revolved.”

• I saw that since the hour when I had first
• looked downward, I had moved through all the arc
• the first of climates makes from mid to end;
• past Cadiz, hence, Ulysses’ insane track
• I saw, and nearly to the seashore where
• Europa made herself so sweet a load.
• And of this little threshing-floor, much more
• would have been shown me; but the sun was circling
• beneath my feet, a sign or more removed.

• And my enamored mind, which in my Lady
• always takes pleasure, more than ever now
• was burning to restore mine eyes to her.
• And if or art or Nature e’er made baits
• in human flesh or in its painted forms,
• to catch men’s eyes, and capture thus their minds,
• they all together would seem naught, compared
• to that divine delight which on me shone,
• when to her smiling face I turned around;
• the virtue, therefore, which that look vouchsafed,
• removed me from fair Leda’s lovely nest,
• and urged me on into the swiftest heaven.

• Its nearest and its most exalted parts
• are all so uniform, I cannot tell
• which Beatrice selected as my place.

• But she who saw my wish began to speak,
• and smiled so happily, that God appeared
• to be rejoicing in her countenance:

• “The nature of the world, which quiet holds
• the center, and around it moves the rest,
• beginneth here as from its starting-point.
• And this heaven hath no other ‘where’ than in
• the Mind Divine, where kindled is the Love
• which turns it, and the Power itself rains down.
• One circle’s Light and Love encircle it,
• as it the other heavens; and He alone
• this precinct understands, who girdeth it.
• Its motion is not measured by another,
• but all the others are by this, as ten
• is measured by its half and by its fifth.
• And now how time in such a flowerport
• can have its hidden roots, and in the rest
• its leaves, hereafter can be manifest to thee.”

• O thou Cupidity, that ’neath thyself
• dost sink all mortals so, that none avails
• out of thy waters to withdraw his eyes!
• The will in human beings blossoms well,
• but constant rains turn into blighted fruit
• the genuine plums.
• And faith and innocence
• are found in children only, but take flight,
• before their cheeks are covered up with hair.

• While still a prattler, one observeth fasts,
• who later, when his tongue is free, devours,
• under whatever moon, whatever food;
• and one who, while still lisping, loves
• and harkens to his mother, later on
• when speaking well, would see her in her grave.
• Thus in the Primal Sight becometh black
• the white face of the lovely child of him,
• who brings the morn and leaves the eventide.
• And that thou marvel not at this, recall
• that there is none on earth who rules; and hence
• the human family goes thus astray.
• And yet ere January’s month become
• wholly unwintered, through the hundredth part
• neglected there below, these upper spheres
• shall roar so, that the storm so long foreseen
• will turn the sterns to where the prows are now,
• so that the fleet will run its course aright,
• and good fruit follow on the blossom’s flower.”