Authors: Dante
‘Thus down there men are dreaming while they wake,
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believing that they speak the truth. And those
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who don’t believe so share the greater guilt and shame.
‘Down there, when you philosophize, you fail
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to follow one true path, so does the love of show
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preoccupy your mind and carry you away,
‘and even this is tolerated here
with less wrath than when holy Scripture
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is neglected or its doctrines are mistaught.
‘There is no thought among you of the blood it costs
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to sow the world with it, or how acceptable he is
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who humbly makes his way to it.
‘Each strives to gain attention by inventing new ideas,
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expounded by the preachers at some length—
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but the Gospel remains silent.
‘One says that at Christ’s passion the moon turned back
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and interposed itself in such a way
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the sun’s light did not reach below.
‘He lies, for the light chose to hide itself.
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And therefore Spaniards and Indians,
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as well as Jews, could all see that eclipse take place.
‘so that the ignorant flocks return from feeding
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fed on wind. And that they fail
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to see their loss does not excuse them.
‘Christ did not say to His first congregation:
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“Go preach idle nonsense to the world,”
‘And that alone resounded from their lips,
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so that, in their warfare to ignite the faith,
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they used the Gospel as their shield and lance.
‘Now preachers ply their trade with buffoonery and jokes,
their cowls inflating if they get a laugh,
‘But such a bird nests in their hoods
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that, if the people saw it, they would see
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the kind of pardoning to which they give their trust.
‘Because of these such foolishness has grown on earth
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that, with no warrant vouching for its truth,
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they still would flock to any promise.
‘On this Saint Anthony fattens his swine,
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along with many others who are still more swinish,
‘But, since we have digressed enough,
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now turn your eyes to the true road again,
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that the way may be made shorter—and the time.
‘The angelic host mounts by degrees
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to such high numbers, no mortal speech or thought
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could ever count so far,
‘and, if you consider what Daniel reveals,
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you shall see that in his many thousands
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a finite number stays concealed.
‘The Primal Light that irradiates them all
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is received by them in just as many ways
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as there are splendors joined with It.
‘Therefore, since affection follows
the act of conceiving, love’s sweetness glows
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with differing radiance, more brightly or subdued.
‘See now the height and breadth of the Eternal Worth,
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one light, which shines dispersed among
so many mirrors yet remains
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in Itself one, just as It was before.’
PRIMUM MOBILE; EMPYREAN
when, deep in intervening air, above us,
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begins such change that here and there,
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at our depth, a star is lost to sight.
And, as that brightest handmaid of the sun advances,
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the sky extinguishes its lights,
little by little faded from my sight,
so that, compelled by seeing nothing and by love,
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I turned my eyes to gaze on Beatrice.
The beauty that I saw transcends
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all thought of beauty, and I must believe
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that only its maker may savor it all.
I declare myself defeated at this point
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more than any poet, whether comic or tragic,
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was ever thwarted by a topic in his theme,
for, like sunlight striking on the weakest eyes,
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the memory of the sweetness of that smile
But now I must desist in my pursuit,
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no longer following her beauty in my verse,
Thus I leave her to more glorious trumpeting
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than that of my own music, as, laboring on,
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I bring my difficult subject toward its close.
With the voice and bearing of a guide
who has discharged his duty, she began: ‘We have issued
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