The Battle of Darkness and Light - Джон Мильтон

Скачать книгу

and this shows it me,

       Of all the souls whom God hath made his friends.

      Isaiah saith, that each one garmented

       In his own land shall be with twofold garments,

       And his own land is this delightful life.

      Thy brother, too, far more explicitly,

       There where he treateth of the robes of white,

       This revelation manifests to us."

      And first, and near the ending of these words,

       "Sperent in te" from over us was heard,

       To which responsive answered all the carols.

      Thereafterward a light among them brightened,

       So that, if Cancer one such crystal had,

       Winter would have a month of one sole day.

      And as uprises, goes, and enters the dance

       A winsome maiden, only to do honour

       To the new bride, and not from any failing,

      Even thus did I behold the brightened splendour

       Approach the two, who in a wheel revolved

       As was beseeming to their ardent love.

      Into the song and music there it entered;

       And fixed on them my Lady kept her look,

       Even as a bride silent and motionless.

      "This is the one who lay upon the breast

       Of him our Pelican; and this is he

       To the great office from the cross elected."

      My Lady thus; but therefore none the more

       Did move her sight from its attentive gaze

       Before or afterward these words of hers.

      Even as a man who gazes, and endeavours

       To see the eclipsing of the sun a little,

       And who, by seeing, sightless doth become,

      So I became before that latest fire,

       While it was said, "Why dost thou daze thyself

       To see a thing which here hath no existence?

      Earth in the earth my body is, and shall be

       With all the others there, until our number

       With the eternal proposition tallies.

      With the two garments in the blessed cloister

       Are the two lights alone that have ascended:

       And this shalt thou take back into your world."

      And at this utterance the flaming circle

       Grew quiet, with the dulcet intermingling

       Of sound that by the trinal breath was made,

      As to escape from danger or fatigue

       The oars that erst were in the water beaten

       Are all suspended at a whistle's sound.

      Ah, how much in my mind was I disturbed,

       When I turned round to look on Beatrice,

       That her I could not see, although I was

      Close at her side and in the Happy World!

      XXVI. St. John examines Dante on Charity. Dante's Sight. Adam.

       Table of Contents

      While I was doubting for my vision quenched,

       Out of the flame refulgent that had quenched it

       Issued a breathing, that attentive made me,

      Saying: "While thou recoverest the sense

       Of seeing which in me thou hast consumed,

       'Tis well that speaking thou shouldst compensate it.

      Begin then, and declare to what thy soul

       Is aimed, and count it for a certainty,

       Sight is in thee bewildered and not dead;

      Because the Lady, who through this divine

       Region conducteth thee, has in her look

       The power the hand of Ananias had."

      I said: "As pleaseth her, or soon or late

       Let the cure come to eyes that portals were

       When she with fire I ever burn with entered.

      The Good, that gives contentment to this Court,

       The Alpha and Omega is of all

       The writing that love reads me low or loud."

      The selfsame voice, that taken had from me

       The terror of the sudden dazzlement,

       To speak still farther put it in my thought;

      And said: "In verity with finer sieve

       Behoveth thee to sift; thee it behoveth

       To say who aimed thy bow at such a target."

      And I: "By philosophic arguments,

       And by authority that hence descends,

       Such love must needs imprint itself in me;

      For Good, so far as good, when comprehended

       Doth straight enkindle love, and so much greater

       As more of goodness in itself it holds;

      Then to that Essence (whose is such advantage

       That every good which out of it is found

       Is nothing but a ray of its own light)

      More than elsewhither must the mind be moved

       Of every one, in loving, who discerns

       The truth in which this evidence is founded.

      Such truth he to my intellect reveals

       Who demonstrates to me the primal love

       Of all the sempiternal substances.

      The voice reveals it of the truthful Author,

       Who says to Moses, speaking of Himself,

       'I will make all my goodness pass before thee.'

      Thou too revealest it to me, beginning

       The loud Evangel, that proclaims the secret

       Of heaven to earth above all other edict."

      And I heard say: "By human intellect

       And by authority concordant with it,

       Of all thy loves reserve for God the highest.

      But say again if other cords thou feelest,

       Draw thee towards Him, that thou mayst proclaim

       With how many teeth this love is biting thee."

      The holy purpose of the Eagle of Christ

       Not latent was, nay, rather I perceived

       Whither he fain would my profession lead.

      Therefore I recommenced: "All of those bites

       Which have the power to turn the heart to God

       Unto my charity have been concurrent.

      The being of the world, and my own being,

       The death which He endured that I may live,

       And that which all the faithful hope, as I do,

      With the forementioned vivid consciousness

      

Скачать книгу