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 XXVIII

• After the truth against the present life
• of wretched mortals had been shown to me
• by her who lifts my mind to Paradise,
• as in a mirror he perceives its flame,
• who from behind is lighted by a torch,
• before he has it in his sight or thought,
• and turns around to notice if the glass
• have told the truth, and sees that it accords
• therewith, as with its music’s time a song;
• so likewise now my memory recalls
• that I did, as I gazed in those fair eyes,
• whence Love had made a cord to capture me.

• And as I turned around, and mine were touched
• by that which in that sphere becomes apparent,
• whene’er one looks intently at its center,
• a Point I saw, which rays out light so keen
• that eyes which it enkindles needs must close
• by reason of its great intensity;
• and any star that from down here seems smallest,
• would seem to be a moon, if set beside it,
• as at each other’s side the stars are set.

• Perhaps as near as e’er a halo seems
• to gird the light around, which colors it,
• when densest is the air which gives it form;
• a ring of fire was whirling round the Point
• so swiftly, that it would have overcome
• the motion which most quickly girds the world;
• and by another this was girt around,
• that by a third, as this one by a fourth,
• then by a fifth the fourth, and by a sixth
• the fifth. The seventh came next, outside of these
• so widely spread, that Juno’s messenger,
• full circled, were too narrow to contain it.
• Like these the eighth ring and the ninth; and each
• more slowly moved, as in its order’s number
• it whirled at greater distance from the first;
• and that one had the clearest flame of all,
• whence the Pure Spark least distant was, because,
• I think, it most in-truths itself therein.

• My Lady, who profoundly lost in thought
• beheld me, said to me: “On yonder Point
• Heaven and the whole of Nature are dependent.
• Look at the circle most conjoined to It;
• and know thou that it moves so rapidly
• because spurred onward by its burning love.”

• And I to her: “If ordered were the world
• as I perceive it is in yonder wheels,
• what is before me set had sated me;

• but in the world of sense all revolutions
• may be perceived to be the more divine
• as from the center they are more remote;
• hence, if my longing is to be appeased
• in this mirific and angelic temple,
• whose only boundaries are light and love,
• ’t is fit that I hear further why the example
• and its exemplar do not correspond;
• for by myself I think on this in vain.”

• “No wonder is it, if for such a knot
• thy fingers insufficient are, so hard
• hath it become, through lack of being tried!”

• My Lady thus; she then continued: “Take
• what I shall tell thee, wouldst thou sated be;
• and on it subtly concentrate thy mind.
• The embodied circles wide or narrow are,
• according to the more or less of virtue
• distributed through all their several parts.
• A greater goodness makes for greater weal;
• a greater body greater weal bespeaks,
• if all its parts are perfect equally.
• Hence that which with itself sweeps onward all
• the universe remaining, corresponds
• to yonder circle which most loves and knows.
• If, then, thou stretch thy measure round the virtue,
• not round the appearance, of the substances
• which seem arranged in circles to thy sight,

• thou ’lt see a marvelous conformity
• of more to larger and of less to smaller,
• in every heaven, to its Intelligence.”

• Even as the hemisphere of air remains
• resplendent and serene, when Boreas blows
• out of the cheek, from which he mildest proves,
• whereby the fog which troubled it before,
• is cleansed and cleared, until the welkin smiles
• upon us with the charms of all its wards;
• even such did I become, when once my Lady
• had with her clear reply provided me,
• and, like a star in heaven, the truth was seen.

• And when her words had ceased, not otherwise
• doth iron when still boiling scintillate,
• than yonder circles sparkled. Every spark
• followed its Kindler; and so many were they,
• that their whole number far more thousands counts,
• than ever did the doubling of the chess.

• From choir to choir I heard Hosanna sung
• to that Fixed Point which holds them at the ‘where,’
• and ever will, where they have always been.

• And she who in my mind my doubtful thoughts
• was seeing, said: “The primal rings have shown
• the Seraphs to thee, and the Cherubim.
• Thus swiftly do they heed their bonds, to make them
• as like the Point as may be, and as like It
• they can be, as their vision is sublime.

• Those other loves that round about them move,
• Thrones of the Countenance Divine are called,
• and for this reason end the primal triad.
• And thou shouldst know that all of them are happy,
• according as their vision plumbs the Truth,
• wherein all understanding is at rest.
• From this it may be seen how blessedness
• is founded on the faculty which sees,
• and not on that which loves and follows after;
• the measure of this vision is the merit,
• which both of Grace and of good will is born;
• such, then, is their advance from grade to grade.

• The second triad which, like that above,
• produces buds in this eternal spring,
• whose foliage no nocturnal Aries spoils,
• sings endlessly its vernal song of praise
• to three sweet melodies, which sound in three
• orders of joy, wherewith it trines itself.
• Three goddesses are in that hierarchy;
• the Dominations first, the Virtues next;
• the third one is the Order of the Powers.

• Then, in the last two dancing choirs but one,
• with Principalities Archangels whirl;
• the last is wholly of Angelic Joys.

• All these Angelic orders upward look,
• and downward so prevail, that all to God
• attracted are, and all in turn attract.

• And Dionysius with such great desire
• gave himself up to contemplate these orders,
• that he both named and graded them as I;
• but with him, later, Gregory disagreed,
• and hence, as soon as ever in this heaven
• he oped his eyes, at his own self he smiled.

• Nor would I have thee wonder that on earth
• a mortal should disclose a truth so secret,
• for he who saw it here, revealed it to him,
• with many other truths about these rings.”