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 XXX

• The sixth hour glows perhaps six thousand miles
• away from us, and now our world inclines
• its shadow to a nearly level bed;
• mid-heaven the while, which lies so deep above us,
• is growing such, that now and then a star
• is lost to our perception here below;
• till, as the brightest handmaid of the sun
• advances further, star by star, the sky,
• even to the fairest, closes to our view.

• Not otherwise the Triumph, which forever
• plays round about the Point which vanquished me,
• and seems contained by what Itself contains,
• little by little faded from my sight;
• my seeing nothing, therefore, and my love
• forced me to look again at Beatrice.

• If what has hitherto been said of her
• were all included in a single praise,
• but little would it serve my present turn.
• The beauty which I then beheld, transcends
• not us alone, but truly I believe
• its Maker only can enjoy it all.

• And herewith I confess myself o’erwhelmed
• more than a tragic or a comic poet
• was ever by a crisis in his theme;
• for as the sun the sight that trembles most,
• so the remembrance of her lovely smile
• deprives my memory of its very self.

• From the first day when I beheld her face
• in this life, till this present sight of it,
• I’ve never ceased from following her in song;
• but now must my pursuit desist from tracing
• her beauty’s progress further in my verse,
• as at his utmost every artist must.

• Such, as I leave her to a louder cry
• than that of mine own trump, which draweth now
• its arduous matter to its closing, she,
• with a quick leader’s mien and voice, resumed:

• “We now have issued from the greatest body
• into the Heaven which is itself pure Light;
• Light intellectual which is full of Love,
• Love of true Goodness which is full of Joy;
• Joy which transcendeth every kind of Pleasure.

• Here both the soldieries of Paradise
• shalt thou behold, and one in that array,
• which at the Final Judgment thou shalt see.”

• Like a quick lightning-flash which scatters so
• the visual faculties that it prevents
• the eye’s reacting to the brightest objects;

• ev’n so a living Light around me shone,
• and left me swathed about by such a veil
• of its effulgence, that I lost my sight.

• “The Love which calms this last heaven always welcomes
• into its midst by greetings such as this,
• and thus adapts the candle to the flame.”

• No sooner had these few brief words of hers
• attained mine inner ear, than I perceived
• that I was being raised above my powers;
• hence, with new sight I so rekindled me,
• that there cannot exist so bright a light
• that now mine eyes could not endure to see it.

• Light in a River’s form I then beheld,
• which glowed refulgently between two banks,
• adorned with wondrous hues of early spring.
• And from this River issued living sparks,
• which settled everywhere among the flowers,
• and looked like rubies set in gold; and then,
• as if intoxicated by its odors,
• into the wondrous River plunged again,
• another coming out, if one went in.

• “The deep desire which now inflameth thee,
• and urges thee to know what thou art seeing,
• the better pleases me, the more it grows.
• But of this water it behooves thee drink,
• before so great a thirst as thine is slaked.”
• So said to me the Sunlight of mine eyes.

• “The River and the topaz lights, which come
• and go,” she added, “and the smiling grass
• are prefaces foreshadowing their truth;
• not that imperfect in themselves they are,
• but that deficiency exists in thee,
• because thy sight is not yet strong enough.”

• There is no little child that turns its face
• so quickly toward its milk, on waking up
• much later than hath been its wont, as I,
• to make far better mirrors of mine eyes,
• leaned over toward the Stream which only flows
• that we therein may be the better made.

• Soon as mine eyelids’ eaves had drunk of it,
• it seemed to me transformed from long to round;
• and then, like folk who under masks have been,
• and different seem from what they were before,
• when once divested of the alien looks,
• wherein their self had disappeared; ev’n so
• the flowers and sparks had changed themselves for me
• into a feast far greater, so that clearly
• I now beheld both Courts of Heaven revealed.

• O Splendor of my God, whereby I saw
• the exalted Triumph of the Realm of Truth,
• give me the power to tell what I perceived!

• There is a Light up yonder, which allows
• its Maker to be seen by every creature
• which only hath its peace in seeing Him;

• and in a circle’s form it spreadeth out
• to such extent, that its circumference
• would be too broad a girdle for the sun.
• Its whole appearance from a ray proceeds
• reflected from the summit of the First
• Moved Sphere, which from it takes its life and potency.

• And as within the water at its base
• a hill reflects itself, as if to see
• its slopes adorned, when rich with leaves and flowers;
• thus, ranged above and all around the Light,
• mirrored on o’er a thousand tiers I saw
• all that of us have yet returned up there.
• And if the lowest row within itself
• gathers so great a light, how great must be
• this Rose’s width in its remotest petals?

• Nor did my vision of its breadth or height
• lose itself in them, but embraced the whole
• extent and inmost nature of this Joy.
• There near, nor far, nor add, nor take away;
• for there where God unmediated rules,
• in no way doth the natural law obtain.

• Into the yellow of the Eternal Rose,
• which outward spreads in tiers, whose fragrance praises
• the Sun which makes an everlasting spring,
• was I, like one who, fain to speak, keeps silent,
• led on by Beatrice, who said to me:
• “Behold how vast the white robed Convent is!

• Behold how wide the circuit of our Town!
• Behold our benches so completely filled,
• that few are now the people longed for here!

• On that great seat, whereon thine eyes are fixed
• by reason of the crown which rests there now,
• or e’er thou sup at this our wedding feast,
• shall sit the soul, august to be below,
• of that great Henry who shall come to set
• Italia straight, ere she shall be prepared.
• The blinding greed which now bewitches you
• hath made you mortals like a child, who, though
• he die of hunger, drives his nurse away.

• And in the sacred Forum such an one
• shall Prefect be, that he’ll not go one road
• with him, in open or in covert ways.
• But in his holy office he will not
• be long endured by God; for hurled he’ll be
• where Simon Magus is for his reward,
• and deeper down shall thrust Alagna’s man.”