As a lady who is dancing turns with feet close to the ground and to each other, and hardly sets foot before foot, she turned herself on the red and on the yellow flowerets toward me, not otherwise than a virgin who lowers her modest eyes, and made my prayers content, approaching so that the sweet sound came to me with its meaning. Soon as she was there where the grasses are now bathed by the waves of the fair stream, she bestowed on me the gift of lifting her eyes. I do not believe that so great a light shone beneath the lids of Venus, transfixed by her son, beyond all his custom. She was smiling upon the opposite right bank, gathering with her hands more colors which that high land brings forth without seed. The stream made us three paces apart; but the Hellespont where Xerxes passed it—a curb still on all human pride—endured not more hatred from Leander for swelling between Sestos and Abydos, than that from me because it opened not then. “Ye are new come,” she began, “and, perchance, why I smile mu this place chosen for human nature as its nest, some doubt holds you marvelling; but the psalm ‘Delectasti’[1] affords light which may uncloud your understanding.And thou who art in front, and didst pray to me, say, if else thou wouldst hear, for I came ready for every question of thine, so far as may suffice.” “The water,” said I, “and the sound of the forest, impugn within me recent faith in something that I heard contrary to this.” Whereon she, “I will tell, how from its own cause proceeds that which makes thee wonder; and I will clear away the mist which strikes thee.
[1] Psalm xcii. 4. “Delectasti me, Domine, in factura tua, et in operibus mannuum tuarum exultabo.” “For thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work; I will triumph in the works of thy hands.”
“The supreme Good, which itself alone is pleasing to itself, made man good, and for good, and gave this place for earnest to him of eternal peace. Through his own default he dwelt here little while; through his own default to tears and to toil he changed honest laughter and sweet play. In order that the disturbance, which the exhalations of the water and of the earth (which follow so far as they can the heat) produce below, might not make any war on man, this mountain rose so high toward heaven, and is free from them from the point where it is locked in.[1] Now because the whole air revolves in circuit with the primal revolution,[2] if its circle be not broken by some projection, upon this height, which is wholly disengaged in the living air, this motion strikes, and makes the wood, since it is dense, resound; and the plant being struck hath such power that with its virtue it impregnates the breeze, and this then in its whirling scatters it around: and the rest of the earth, according as it is fit in itself, or through its sky, conceives and brings forth divers trees of divers virtues. It should not seem a marvel then on earth, this being heard, when some plant, without manifest seed, there takes hold. And thou must know that the holy plain where thou art is full of every seed, and has fruit in it which yonder is not gathered. The water which thou seest rises not from a vein restored by vapor which the frost condenses, like a stream that gains and loses breath, but it issues from a fountain constant and sure, which by the will of God regains as much as, open on two sides, it pours forth. On this side it descends with virtue that takes from one the memory of sin; on the other it restores that of every good deed. Here Lethe, so on the other side Eunoe it is called; and it works not if first it be not tasted on this side and on that. To all other savors this is superior.
[1] Above the level of the gate through which Purgatory is entered, as Statius has already explained (Canto XXI), the vapors of earth do not rise.
[2] With the movement given to it by the motions of the heavens.
“And, though thy thirst may be fully sated even if I disclose no more to thee, I will yet give thee a corollary for grace; nor do I think my speech may be less dear to thee, if beyond promise it enlarge itself with thee. Those who in ancient time told in poesy of the Age of Gold, and of its happy state, perchance upon Parnassus dreamed of this place: here was the root of mankind innocent; here is always spring, and every fruit; this is the nectar of which each tells.”
I turned me back then wholly to my Poets, and saw that with a smile they had heard the last sentence; then to the beautiful Lady I turned my face.
CANTO XXIX.
The Earthly Paradise.—Mystic Procession or Triumph of the Church.
Singing like a lady enamored, she, at the ending of her words, continued: “Beati, quorum tecta sunt peccata;”[1] and, like nymphs who were wont to go solitary through the sylvan shades, this one desiring to see and that to avoid the sun, she moved on then counter to the stream, going up along the bank, and I at even pace with her, following her little step with little. Of her steps and mine were not a hundred, when the banks both like gave a turn, in such wise that toward the east I faced again. Nor thus had our way been long, when the lady wholly turned round to me, saying, “My brother, look and listen.” And lo! a sudden lustre ran from all quarters through the great forest, so that it put me in suspect of lightning. But because the lightning ceases even as it comes, and this, hasting, became more and more resplendent, in my thought I said, “What thing is this?” And a sweet melody ran through the luminous air; whereupon a righteous zeal caused me to blame the temerity of Eve, that, there, where time earth and the heavens were obedient, the woman only, and but just now formed, did not endure to stay under any veil; under which if she had devoutly stayed I should have tasted those ineffable delights before, and for a longer time. While I was going on and such first fruits of the eternal pleasure, all enrapt, and still desirous of more joys, in front of us the air under the green branches became like a blazing fire, and the sweet sound was now heard as a song.