Now men go forth with jests and drolleries To preach, and if but well the people laugh, The hood puffs out, and nothing more is asked. But in the cowl there nestles such a bird, That, if the common people were to see it, They would perceive what pardons they confide in, For which so great on earth has grown the folly, That, without proof of any testimony, And many others, who are worse than pigs, But since we have digressed abundantly, Turn back thine eyes forthwith to the right path, So that the way be shortened with the time. This nature doth so multiply itself In numbers, that there never yet was speech Nor mortal fancy that can go so far. And if thou notest that which is revealed By Daniel, thou wilt see that in his thousands Number determinate is kept concealed. The primal light, that all irradiates it, 115 121 125 130 135 By modes as many is received therein, As are the splendors wherewith it is mated. Hence, inasmuch as on the act conceptive 140 145 CANTO XXX. PERCHANCE six thousand miles remote from us Is glowing the sixth hour, and now this world When the mid-heaven begins to make itself So deep to us, that here and there a star And as advances bright exceedingly The handmaid of the sun, the heaven is closed Plays round about the point that vanquished me, Little by little from my vision faded; Whereat to turn mine eyes on Beatrice My seeing nothing and my love constrained me. If what has hitherto been said of her Were all concluded in a single praise, Scant would it be to serve the present turn. 5 10 15 Not only does the beauty I beheld Transcend ourselves, but truly I believe Its Maker only may enjoy it all. Vanquished do I confess me by this passage More than by problem of his theme was ever For as the sun the sight that trembles most, 20 25 has ne'er been severed; 30 The sequence of my song From following her beauty with my verse, As every artist at his uttermost. Such as I leave her to a greater fame Than any of my trumpet, which is bringing Its arduous matter to a final close, With voice and gesture of a perfect leader She recommenced: "We from the greatest body Light intellectual replete with love, Love of true good replete with ecstasy, Ecstasy that transcendeth every sweetness. 35 40 Here shalt thou see the one host and the other Of Paradise, and one in the same aspects Which at the final judgment thou shalt see." Even as a sudden lightning that disperses The visual spirits, so that it deprives The eye of impress from the strongest objects And left me swathed around with such a veil To make the candle ready for its flame." An entrance found, than I perceived myself To be uplifted over my own power, And I with vision new rekindled me, Such that no light whatever is so pure But that mine eyes were fortified against it. And light I saw in fashion of a river Fulvid with its effulgence, 'twixt two banks Depicted with an admirable Spring. Out of this river issued living sparks, And on all sides sank down into the flowers, |