LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

Have drawn me from the sea of love perverse,

       And of the right have placed me on the shore.

      The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the garden

       Of the Eternal Gardener, do I love

       As much as he has granted them of good."

      As soon as I had ceased, a song most sweet

       Throughout the heaven resounded, and my Lady

       Said with the others, "Holy, holy, holy!"

      And as at some keen light one wakes from sleep

       By reason of the visual spirit that runs

       Unto the splendour passed from coat to coat,

      And he who wakes abhorreth what he sees,

       So all unconscious is his sudden waking,

       Until the judgment cometh to his aid,

      So from before mine eyes did Beatrice

       Chase every mote with radiance of her own,

       That cast its light a thousand miles and more.

      Whence better after than before I saw,

       And in a kind of wonderment I asked

       About a fourth light that I saw with us.

      And said my Lady: "There within those rays

       Gazes upon its Maker the first soul

       That ever the first virtue did create."

      Even as the bough that downward bends its top

       At transit of the wind, and then is lifted

       By its own virtue, which inclines it upward,

      Likewise did I, the while that she was speaking,

       Being amazed, and then I was made bold

       By a desire to speak wherewith I burned.

      And I began: "O apple, that mature

       Alone hast been produced, O ancient father,

       To whom each wife is daughter and daughter-in-law,

      Devoutly as I can I supplicate thee

       That thou wouldst speak to me; thou seest my wish;

       And I, to hear thee quickly, speak it not."

      Sometimes an animal, when covered, struggles

       So that his impulse needs must be apparent,

       By reason of the wrappage following it;

      And in like manner the primeval soul

       Made clear to me athwart its covering

       How jubilant it was to give me pleasure.

      Then breathed: "Without thy uttering it to me,

       Thine inclination better I discern

       Than thou whatever thing is surest to thee;

      For I behold it in the truthful mirror,

       That of Himself all things parhelion makes,

       And none makes Him parhelion of itself.

      Thou fain wouldst hear how long ago God placed me

       Within the lofty garden, where this Lady

       Unto so long a stairway thee disposed.

      And how long to mine eyes it was a pleasure,

       And of the great disdain the proper cause,

       And the language that I used and that I made.

      Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree

       Not in itself was cause of so great exile,

       But solely the o'erstepping of the bounds.

      There, whence thy Lady moved Virgilius,

       Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits

       Made by the sun, this Council I desired;

      And him I saw return to all the lights

       Of his highway nine hundred times and thirty,

       Whilst I upon the earth was tarrying.

      The language that I spake was quite extinct

       Before that in the work interminable

       The people under Nimrod were employed;

      For nevermore result of reasoning

       (Because of human pleasure that doth change,

       Obedient to the heavens) was durable.

      A natural action is it that man speaks;

       But whether thus or thus, doth nature leave

       To your own art, as seemeth best to you.

      Ere I descended to the infernal anguish,

       'El' was on earth the name of the Chief Good,

       From whom comes all the joy that wraps me round

      'Eli' he then was called, and that is proper,

       Because the use of men is like a leaf

       On bough, which goeth and another cometh.

      Upon the mount that highest o'er the wave

       Rises was I, in life or pure or sinful,

       From the first hour to that which is the second,

      As the sun changes quadrant, to the sixth."

      XXVII. St. Peter's reproof of bad Popes. The Ascent to the Ninth Heaven, the 'Primum Mobile.'

       Table of Contents

      "Glory be to the Father, to the Son,

       And Holy Ghost!" all Paradise began,

       So that the melody inebriate made me.

      What I beheld seemed unto me a smile

       Of the universe; for my inebriation

       Found entrance through the hearing and the sight.

      O joy! O gladness inexpressible!

       O perfect life of love and peacefulness!

       O riches without hankering secure!

      Before mine eyes were standing the four torches

       Enkindled, and the one that first had come

       Began to make itself more luminous;

      And even such in semblance it became

       As Jupiter would become, if he and Mars

       Were birds, and they should interchange their feathers.

      That Providence, which here distributeth

       Season and service, in the blessed choir

       Had silence upon every side imposed.

      When I heard say: "If I my colour change,

       Marvel not at it; for while I am speaking

       Thou shalt behold all these their colour change.

      He who usurps upon the earth my place,

       My place, my place, which vacant has become

       Before the presence of the Son of God,

      Has of my cemetery made a sewer

       Of blood and stench, whereby the Perverse One,

       Who fell from here, below there is appeased!"

      With the same colour which, through sun adverse,

       Painteth the clouds at evening or at morn,

       Beheld I then the whole of heaven suffused.

      And

Скачать книгу