I saw the daughter of Latona shining

Without that shadow, which to me was cause
That once I had believed her rare and dense.

The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,

Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves
Around and near him Maia and Dione.

Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove

'Twixt son and father, and to me was clear
The change that of their whereabout they make;

And all the seven made manifest to me

How great they are, and eke how swift they are,

And how they are in distant habitations.

The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,
To me revolving with the eternal Twins,
Was all apparent made from hill to harbor!
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.

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CANTO XXIII.

VEN as a bird, 'mid the beloved leaves,

EVEN

Quiet upon the nest of her sweet brood

Throughout the night, that hideth all things from us, Who, that she may behold their longed-for looks

And find the food wherewith to nourish them, In which, to her, grave labors grateful are, Anticipates the time on open spray

And with an ardent longing waits the sun, Gazing intent as soon as breaks the dawn: Even thus my Lady standing was, erect

And vigilant, turned round towards the zone
Underneath which the sun displays less haste;
So that beholding her distraught and wistful,

Such I became as he is who desiring
For something yearns, and hoping is appeased.
But brief the space from one When to the other;
Of my awaiting, say I, and the seeing

The welkin grow resplendent more and more.

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And Beatrice exclaimed: "Behold the hosts

Of Christ's triumphal march, and all the fruit
Harvested by the rolling of these spheres!"
It seemed to me her face was all aflame;

And eyes she had so full of ecstasy

That I must needs pass on without describing.
As when in nights serene of the full moon
Smiles Trivia among the nymphs eternal

Who paint the firmament through all its gulfs,
Saw I, above the myriads of lamps,

A Sun that one and all of them enkindled,
E'en as our own doth the supernal sights,

And through the living light transparent shone
The lucent substance so intensely clear
Into my sight, that I sustained it not.

O Beatrice, thou gentle guide and dear!

To me she said: "What overmasters thee

A virtue is from which naught shields itself.

There are the wisdom and the omnipotence

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That oped the thoroughfares 'twixt heaven and earth,
For which there erst had been so long a yearning."

As fire from out a cloud unlocks itself,

Dilating so it finds not room therein,

And down, against its nature, falls to earth,

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So did my mind, among those aliments

Becoming larger, issue from itself,

And that which it became cannot remember. 45

"Open thine eyes, and look at what I am :

Thou hast beheld such things, that strong enough

Hast thou become to tolerate my smile."

I was as one who still retains the feeling

Of a forgotten vision, and endeavors

In vain to bring it back into his mind,
When I this invitation heard, deserving

Of so much gratitude, it never fades
Out of the book that chronicles the past.
If at this moment sounded all the tongues
That Polyhymnia and her sisters made
Most lubrical with their delicious milk,

To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth

It would not reach, singing the holy smile
And how the holy aspect it illumed.
And therefore, representing Paradise,

The sacred poem must perforce leap over,
Even as a man who finds his way cut off;
But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme,

And of the mortal shoulder laden with it,
Should blame it not, if under this it tremble.

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It is no passage for a little boat

This which goes cleaving the audacious prow,

Nor for a pilot who would spare himself. "Why doth my face so much enamor thee,

That to the garden fair thou turnest not,

Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?

There is the Rose in which the Word Divine

Became incarnate; there the lilies are

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By whose perfume the good way was discovered." 75 Thus Beatrice; and I, who to her counsels

Was wholly ready, once again betook me

Unto the battle of the feeble brows.

As in the sunshine, that unsullied streams

Through fractured cloud, ere now a meadow of flowers

Mine eyes with shadow covered o'er have seen,

So troops of splendors manifold I saw

Illumined from above' with burning rays, Beholding not the source of the effulgence. 0 power benignant that dost so imprint them! Thou didst exalt thyself to give more scope

There to mine eyes, that were not strong enough.

The name of that fair flower I e'er invoke

Morning and evening utterly enthralled
My soul to gaze upon the greater

fire.

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