LITMIR.BIZ

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from me with a sudden distance.

      Doubting was I, and saying, "Tell her, tell her,"

       Within me, "tell her," saying, "tell my Lady,"

       Who slakes my thirst with her sweet effluences;

      And yet that reverence which doth lord it over

       The whole of me only by B and ICE,

       Bowed me again like unto one who drowses.

      Short while did Beatrice endure me thus;

       And she began, lighting me with a smile

       Such as would make one happy in the fire:

      "According to infallible advisement,

       After what manner a just vengeance justly

       Could be avenged has put thee upon thinking,

      But I will speedily thy mind unloose;

       And do thou listen, for these words of mine

       Of a great doctrine will a present make thee.

      By not enduring on the power that wills

       Curb for his good, that man who ne'er was born,

       Damning himself damned all his progeny;

      Whereby the human species down below

       Lay sick for many centuries in great error,

       Till to descend it pleased the Word of God

      To where the nature, which from its own Maker

       Estranged itself, he joined to him in person

       By the sole act of his eternal love.

      Now unto what is said direct thy sight;

       This nature when united to its Maker,

       Such as created, was sincere and good;

      But by itself alone was banished forth

       From Paradise, because it turned aside

       Out of the way of truth and of its life.

      Therefore the penalty the cross held out,

       If measured by the nature thus assumed,

       None ever yet with so great justice stung,

      And none was ever of so great injustice,

       Considering who the Person was that suffered,

       Within whom such a nature was contracted.

      From one act therefore issued things diverse;

       To God and to the Jews one death was pleasing;

       Earth trembled at it and the Heaven was opened.

      It should no longer now seem difficult

       To thee, when it is said that a just vengeance

       By a just court was afterward avenged.

      But now do I behold thy mind entangled

       From thought to thought within a knot, from which

       With great desire it waits to free itself.

      Thou sayest, 'Well discern I what I hear;

       But it is hidden from me why God willed

       For our redemption only this one mode.'

      Buried remaineth, brother, this decree

       Unto the eyes of every one whose nature

       Is in the flame of love not yet adult.

      Verily, inasmuch as at this mark

       One gazes long and little is discerned,

       Wherefore this mode was worthiest will I say.

      Goodness Divine, which from itself doth spurn

       All envy, burning in itself so sparkles

       That the eternal beauties it unfolds.

      Whate'er from this immediately distils

       Has afterwards no end, for ne'er removed

       Is its impression when it sets its seal.

      Whate'er from this immediately rains down

       Is wholly free, because it is not subject

       Unto the influences of novel things.

      The more conformed thereto, the more it pleases;

       For the blest ardour that irradiates all things

       In that most like itself is most vivacious.

      With all of these things has advantaged been

       The human creature; and if one be wanting,

       From his nobility he needs must fall.

      'Tis sin alone which doth disfranchise him,

       And render him unlike the Good Supreme,

       So that he little with its light is blanched,

      And to his dignity no more returns,

       Unless he fill up where transgression empties

       With righteous pains for criminal delights.

      Your nature when it sinned so utterly

       In its own seed, out of these dignities

       Even as out of Paradise was driven,

      Nor could itself recover, if thou notest

       With nicest subtilty, by any way,

       Except by passing one of these two fords:

      Either that God through clemency alone

       Had pardon granted, or that man himself

       Had satisfaction for his folly made.

      Fix now thine eye deep into the abyss

       Of the eternal counsel, to my speech

       As far as may be fastened steadfastly!

      Man in his limitations had not power

       To satisfy, not having power to sink

       In his humility obeying then,

      Far as he disobeying thought to rise;

       And for this reason man has been from power

       Of satisfying by himself excluded.

      Therefore it God behoved in his own ways

       Man to restore unto his perfect life,

       I say in one, or else in both of them.

      But since the action of the doer is

       So much more grateful, as it more presents

       The goodness of the heart from which it issues,

      Goodness Divine, that doth imprint the world,

       Has been contented to proceed by each

       And all its ways to lift you up again;

      Nor 'twixt the first day and the final night

       Such high and such magnificent proceeding

       By one or by the other was or shall be;

      For God more bounteous was himself to give

       To make man able to uplift himself,

       Than if he only of himself had pardoned;

      And all the other modes were insufficient

       For justice, were it not the Son of God

       Himself had humbled to become incarnate.

      Now, to fill fully each desire of thine,

       Return I to elucidate one place,

       In order that thou there mayst see as I do.

      Thou sayst: 'I see the air, I see the fire,

       The water, and the earth, and all their mixtures

      

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