Authors: Dante
Then, a joy to hear and a joy to see,
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the spirit added to what first he said
Nor did he hide his thoughts from me by choice
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but by necessity, for his conceptions
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were set beyond our mortal limit.
And when his bow of ardent love
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relaxed enough to let his speech descend
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down toward the limits of our intellect,
the first thing I could understand was:
‘May you be blessed, Threefold and One,
‘you have satisfied, my son, within this light
from which I speak to you by grace of her
‘You think your thoughts flow into mine through Him
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who is the First, as from the number one
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will radiate the five and six, if one is known.
‘For that reason you do not ask me who I am
nor why I seem to you more filled with joy
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than any other in this happy throng.
‘And you are right, for the humble and the mighty
up here in this life gaze into the mirror
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in which before you think them, thoughts shine clear.
‘But, that the sacred love, which keeps me watching
with enduring vision and makes me thirst
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with sweet desire, may be more happily fulfilled,
‘let your voice resound sure, bold, and joyful,
to proclaim the will, proclaim the desire,
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for which my answer is already set.’
I turned to Beatrice, who had heard
before I spoke and smiled a sign
And I began: ‘Love and intelligence,
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once the prime Equality appeared to you,
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then became yours in equal measure,
‘since that Sun that lit your way and made you warm
distributes both its heat and light so evenly
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that all comparisons fall short.
‘But for mortals, as you well know,
the will to act and the power to carry through
‘so that I, who am mortal, feel in myself
this inequality and thus can only offer thanks
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for your paternal welcome with my heart.
‘But I implore you, living topaz
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set into this priceless ornament,
‘O bough of my tree, in whom I have rejoiced
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even in expectation, I was your root.’
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Such was the preface of his words to me.
Then: ‘He from whom your house derives its name
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and who for a hundred years and more
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has circled the mountain on its lowest bank
‘was your great-grandfather and my son.
It is most fitting that you shorten
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his long and weary labor with your prayers.
‘Florence, within the circle of her ancient walls
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from which she still hears tierce and nones,
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dwelled then in peace, temperate and chaste.
‘No bracelet, no tiara did she wear,
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no embroidered gown, no waistband
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more striking to the eye than was its wearer.
‘Nor did a newborn daughter make her father fear,
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for marriage age and dowry were not yet extreme,
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the one too low, the other one too high.
‘No houses then stood uninhabited,
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nor had Sardanapalus as yet arrived
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to show what might be done behind closed doors.
‘Not yet did your Uccellatoio surpass
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in splendor Montemario but, exceeding
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in its rise, it shall surpass it in its fall.
‘I saw Bellincion Berti wear a belt of leather
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and plain bone, and saw his lady step back
‘And I saw one of the Nerli and a del Vecchio
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both content with wearing simple, unlined skins,
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their ladies busy with their spindles and their flax.
‘O fortunate women! Each knew for certain
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where she would be buried, nor was any yet
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forsaken in her bed at France’s call.
‘One kept eager watch upon the cradle,
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using sounds and words that first delight
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fathers and mothers when they soothe their child.
‘Another, while drawing the wool from its spool,
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would delight her household with the tales
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of Troy, Fiesole, and Rome.
‘A Cianghella or a Lapo Salterello,
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in those days would have caused the same surprise
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as now would Cincinnatus or Cornelia.
‘It was to a municipal life so peaceful
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and so fair, to a citizenry so loyal,
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to so sweet a place to live,
‘that Mary gave me when invoked with cries
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of childbirth, and in your ancient Baptistry,
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I was at once Cacciaguida and a Christian.
‘Moronto was my brother, as was Eliseo.
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My wife came from the valley of the Po,
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and from her you took the surname that you bear.
‘Later, I became a partisan of Emperor Conrad,
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who girded me to be his knight
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once, with my faithful service, I had won his favor.
‘I followed him to oppose the iniquity
of that false creed whose people, by the failure
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of your shepherds, usurp your right.
‘There was I freed by that foul race
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from all the snares of the deceitful world—
the love of which corrupts so many souls—
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and came from being martyred to this peace.’
MARS