LITMIR.BIZ

      And hence at what I said above dost wonder,

       When I narrated that no second had

       The good which in the fifth light is enclosed.

      Now ope thine eyes to what I answer thee,

       And thou shalt see thy creed and my discourse

       Fit in the truth as centre in a circle.

      That which can die, and that which dieth not,

       Are nothing but the splendour of the idea

       Which by his love our Lord brings into being;

      Because that living Light, which from its fount

       Effulgent flows, so that it disunites not

       From Him nor from the Love in them intrined,

      Through its own goodness reunites its rays

       In nine subsistences, as in a mirror,

       Itself eternally remaining One.

      Thence it descends to the last potencies,

       Downward from act to act becoming such

       That only brief contingencies it makes;

      And these contingencies I hold to be

       Things generated, which the heaven produces

       By its own motion, with seed and without.

      Neither their wax, nor that which tempers it,

       Remains immutable, and hence beneath

       The ideal signet more and less shines through;

      Therefore it happens, that the selfsame tree

       After its kind bears worse and better fruit,

       And ye are born with characters diverse.

      If in perfection tempered were the wax,

       And were the heaven in its supremest virtue,

       The brilliance of the seal would all appear;

      But nature gives it evermore deficient,

       In the like manner working as the artist,

       Who has the skill of art and hand that trembles.

      If then the fervent Love, the Vision clear,

       Of primal Virtue do dispose and seal,

       Perfection absolute is there acquired.

      Thus was of old the earth created worthy

       Of all and every animal perfection;

       And thus the Virgin was impregnate made;

      So that thine own opinion I commend,

       That human nature never yet has been,

       Nor will be, what it was in those two persons.

      Now if no farther forth I should proceed,

       'Then in what way was he without a peer?'

       Would be the first beginning of thy words.

      But, that may well appear what now appears not,

       Think who he was, and what occasion moved him

       To make request, when it was told him, 'Ask.'

      I've not so spoken that thou canst not see

       Clearly he was a king who asked for wisdom,

       That he might be sufficiently a king;

      'Twas not to know the number in which are

       The motors here above, or if 'necesse'

       With a contingent e'er 'necesse' make,

      'Non si est dare primum motum esse,'

       Or if in semicircle can be made

       Triangle so that it have no right angle.

      Whence, if thou notest this and what I said,

       A regal prudence is that peerless seeing

       In which the shaft of my intention strikes.

      And if on 'rose' thou turnest thy clear eyes,

       Thou'lt see that it has reference alone

       To kings who're many, and the good are rare.

      With this distinction take thou what I said,

       And thus it can consist with thy belief

       Of the first father and of our Delight.

      And lead shall this be always to thy feet,

       To make thee, like a weary man, move slowly

       Both to the Yes and No thou seest not;

      For very low among the fools is he

       Who affirms without distinction, or denies,

       As well in one as in the other case;

      Because it happens that full often bends

       Current opinion in the false direction,

       And then the feelings bind the intellect.

      Far more than uselessly he leaves the shore,

       (Since he returneth not the same he went,)

       Who fishes for the truth, and has no skill;

      And in the world proofs manifest thereof

       Parmenides, Melissus, Brissus are,

       And many who went on and knew not whither;

      Thus did Sabellius, Arius, and those fools

       Who have been even as swords unto the Scriptures

       In rendering distorted their straight faces.

      Nor yet shall people be too confident

       In judging, even as he is who doth count

       The corn in field or ever it be ripe.

      For I have seen all winter long the thorn

       First show itself intractable and fierce,

       And after bear the rose upon its top;

      And I have seen a ship direct and swift

       Run o'er the sea throughout its course entire,

       To perish at the harbour's mouth at last.

      Let not Dame Bertha nor Ser Martin think,

       Seeing one steal, another offering make,

       To see them in the arbitrament divine;

      For one may rise, and fall the other may."