The glory of Him who moves all things
penetrates through the universe and shines
forth in one place more and less elsewhere.
     In the heaven that receives most of his light
have I been, and I have seen things that
one who comes down from there cannot
remember and cannot utter,
     for as it draws near to its desire, our intellect goes
so deep that the memory cannot follow it.
     Nevertheless, as much of the holy kingdom
as I was able to treasure up in my mind will
now become the matter of my song.
     O good Apollo, for this last labor make me
such a vessel for your power as you require to
bestow the beloved laurel.
     Until now one peak of Parnassus has been
enough for me, but now with both of them
I must enter upon what of the field remains:
     come into my breast and breathe there, as when you
drew Marsyas forth from the sheath of his members.
     O divine power, if you lend so much of yourself to
me that I may make manifest the shadow of the blessed
kingdom that is stamped within my head,
     you will see me come to the foot of your beloved
tree, and crown myself with the leaves of which the
subject and you will make me worthy.
     So seldom, Father, are they gathered for
the triumph of emperor or poet--such is the
guilt and shame of human desires--
     that the Peneian leaf should give birth to
gladness in the happy Delphic deity, when it
makes any one thirst for it.
     A tiny spark can result in a great flame:
perhaps, following after me, with better
voices, other will pray so that Cyrrha will reply.
     The lantern of the world rises to mortals
through divers outlets, but from the one that
joins four circles with three crosses
     it comes forth with better course and joined
to better stars, and it tempers and seals the
waxy world more to its manner.
     Such an outlet, or one near it, had made
morning there, and evening here, and there
the hemisphere was all white, and this one black,
     when I saw Beatrice turned to her left and
looking into the sun: eagle never fixed its
sight there so.
     And as a second ray will spring forth from a
first, mounting upward like a pilgrim that
wishes to return home:
     so my act patterned itself on hers, infused
through my eyes into my imagination, and
I fixed my eyes on the sun beyond our won't.
     Much is permitted there that is not permitted
to our faculties here, thanks to the
place,created to be the home of the human race.
     I did not endure it long, nor yet so little that
I did not see it emitting sparks all around, like
iron come forth boiling from the fire,
     and suddenly day seemed to be added to
day, as if the Almighty had adorned the sky
with another sun.
     Beatrice was all fixed on the eternal wheels
with her eyes, and I fixed my eyes on her,
removing them from the heights.
     Gazing at her I became within what
Glaucus became tasting the herb that made
him a consort of the other gods in the sea.
     To signify transhumanizing per verba is
impossible; therefore let the comparison
suffice for those to whom grace reserves the experience.
     If I was solely that part of me which you
created last, O Love who govern the heavens,
you know, for you raised me up with your light.
     When the wheeling that you make sempiternal, by
being desired, drew my attention with the harmony
that you temper and distinguish,
     so much of the sky seemed to be on fire
with the flame of the sun then, that rain or
river never made so extended a lake.
     The wonder of the sound and the great
light kindled a desire in me to know their
cause, never before felt with such sharpness.
     Therefore she, who saw me as I do myself,
in order to quiet my laboring spirit, before I
could ask opened her lips
     and began: "You are making yourself swell
with false imagining, so that you do not see
what shaking it off would show.
     You are not on earth as you believe, but
lightning, fleeing its proper place, never sped
so fast as you, going back to yours."
     If I was divested of my first doubt by her
smiling brief words, I was tangled even more
in a new one,
     and I said: "Satisfied just now, requievi
from great wonder, but now I marvel how I
can rise up through these light bodies."
     Wherefore she, after a pitying sigh,
directed her eyes at me with the expression
that a mother has over a delirious child,
and began; "All things whatsoever have
order among themselves, and this is a form
that makes the universe resemble God.
     here the high creatures see the footprint of
the eternal Worth, the end to which is created
the order just touched upon.
     In the order of which I speak, all natures
incline in their divers lots, closer to their origin
or more distant from it;
     thus they move toward different ports over
the great sea of being, each with an instinct
given it to carry it.
     This carries fire on up toward the moon,
this is the driving force in mortal hearts, this
compresses and unites the earth;
     nor does this bow propel on the creatures
deprived of intelligence, but also those that
have intelligence and love.
     The Providence that sets all this in order
ever stills with its light the heaven where that
other revolves that has the greatest haste;
     and now thither, as to a decreed goal, we are
carried by the power of that bowstring which
aims toward a happy target all that it looses.
     It is true that, just as form often does not
accord with the intention of art, because the
material is deaf to respond,
     so at times from this course the creature
departs that has the power to swerve, so
driven, in some other direction;
     and, just as one can see fire fall downward
from a cloud, so the creature's first impetus
drives it to earth, if deflected by false pleasure.
     You should not wonder at your ascent, if I
judge well, otherwise than at a stream when
from a high mountains it descends to the base.
     It would be a marvel in you if, free from
impediment, you had remained below, as if,
on earth, living fire should be motionless."
     Then she turned her eyes back toward the heavens.