Authors: Dante
‘I see indeed, O sacred light,’ I said,
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‘how acts of love, unbidden, serve this court
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in concord with that knowledge which foresees,
‘but it is hard for me to understand
why you alone among your peers
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were foreordained to act upon this charge.’
I had not yet quite finished with my words
when the light began to spin around its core,
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whirling like a quickly turning millstone.
Then the love that was within it spoke:
‘Divine light focuses on me, piercing
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‘Its power, conjoined with my own sight,
raises me so far above myself that I can see
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the Highest Essence, the source from which it flows.
‘And this inflames the joy with which I burn:
for, in the clarity of my sight,
‘Nonetheless, the most enlightened soul in Heaven,
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that seraph who fixes most his eye on God,
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could not produce an answer to your question,
‘for what you ask is hidden in the depths
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of the abyss of God’s eternal law, so that the sight
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of any being He created is cut off from it.
‘And to the mortal world, when you return,
bear this report, so that it shall no more presume
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to set its steps toward such a goal.
‘The mind, here bright, is dimmed by smoke on earth.
Ask yourself, then, how could it do down there
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what it cannot, though Heaven raise it to itself?’
His words so reined me in
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that I withdrew the question, limiting myself
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to asking humbly who he was.
‘Between Italy’s two shores
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and not far distant from your homeland,
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crags rise so high that thunder rolls below them.
‘They form a ridge called Càtria.
A consecrated monastery stands below,
Thus a third time he began,
addressing me, and then went on:
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‘There I became so constant serving God,
‘my simple fare seasoned with olive oil alone,
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that I readily endured the heat and frost,
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content in contemplation.
‘That cloister which used to yield abundant harvest
to these heavens now is barren,
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but soon its barrenness must be revealed.
‘In that place I was known as Peter Damian,
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but Peter the Sinner in the House
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of Our Lady on the Adriatic shore.
‘Little of mortal life on earth was left to me
when I was singled out and dragged to that red hat
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which now is passed from bad to worse.
‘Now our modern shepherds call for one on this side,
one on that, to support them, they are so bloated,
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and one to go before, one to boost them from behind.
‘Their fur-lined mantles hang upon their horses’ flanks
so that two beasts go underneath one skin.
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O patience, what a heavy load you bear!’
As he spoke, I saw more flickering flames
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descend, spinning from rung to rung,
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at every turn more lovely.
They thronged around him and then stopped and raised
a cry so loud that nothing here
could be compared to it—nor could I make it out,
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so did its thunder overwhelm me.
SATURN
Overcome by wonder, I turned to my guide,
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as does a child who always scurries back
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to the one who has his utmost trust.
And she, like a mother, quick in comforting
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her son when he is pale and out of breath
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with a voice that often calmed him in the past,
said: ‘Don’t you understand you are in Heaven?
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Don’t you understand that all of Heaven is holy,
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that all things done here spring from righteous zeal?
‘It should be clear to you just how their song,
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and then my smile, would have confused you,
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since you were so startled by their cry.
‘In it, had you understood their prayers,
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you would already recognize
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the vengeance you shall see before you die.
‘The sword of Heaven never cuts in haste
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nor in delay, but to the one who waits
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in longing or in fear, it well may seem so.
‘Now turn around and see the others,
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for you shall look on many illustrious spirits
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if you but set your gaze to where I say.’
I turned my eyes as she had urged and saw
one hundred little globes that made each other brighter
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in the glittering reflections of one another’s rays.
I was as one who in himself restrains
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the spur of his desire and, fearing to presume,
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dares not pose his question.