[2] On earth.
[3] The Heavens, which are “the seal of mortal wax” (Canto VIII.), increase in power as they are respectively nearer the Empyrean, so that the joy in each, as it is higher up, is greater than in the heavens below. To this time Dante had felt no joy equal to that afforded him by this song. But a still greater joy awaited him in the eyes of Beatrice, to which, since he entered the Fifth Heaven, he had not turned, but which there, as elsewhere, were to afford the supreme delight.
CANTO XV.
Dante is welcomed by his ancestor, Cacciaguida.—Cacciaguida tells of his family, and of the simple life of Florence in the old days.
A benign will, wherein the love which righteously inspires always manifests itself, as cupidity does in the evil will, imposed silence on that sweet lyre, and quieted the holy strings which the right hand of heaven slackens and draws tight. How unto just petitions shall those substances be deaf, who, in order to give me wish to pray unto them, were concordant in silence? Well is it that be endlessly should grieve who, for the love of thing which endures not eternally, despoils him of that love.
As, through the tranquil and pure evening skies, a sudden fire shoots from time to time, moving the eyes which were at rest, and seems to be a star which changes place, except that from the region where it is kindled nothing is lost, and it lasts short while, so, from the arm which extends on the right, to the foot of that Cross, ran a star of the constellation which is resplendent there. Nor from its ribbon did the gem depart, but through the radial strip it ran along and seemed like fire behind alabaster. Thus did the pious shade of Anchises advance (if our greatest Muse merits belief), when in Elysium he perceived. his son.[1]
[1] “And he (Anchises), when he saw Aeneas advancing to meet him over the grass, stretched forth both hands eagerly, and the tears poured down his cheeks, and he cried out, 'Art thou come at length?”—Aeneid, vi. 684-7.
“O sanguis meus! o superinfusa gratia Dei! sicut tibi, cui bis unquam coeli janua reclusa?”[1] Thus that light; whereat I gave heed to it; then I turned my sight to my Lady, and on this side and that I was wonderstruck; for within her eyes was glowing such a smile, that with my own I thought to touch the depth of my grace and of my Paradise.
[1] “O blood of mine! O grace of God poured from above! To whom, as to thee, was ever the gate of Heaven twice opened?”
Then, gladsome to hear and to see, the spirit joined to his beginning things which I understood not, he spoke so profoundly. Nor did he hide himself to me by choice, but by necessity, for his conception was set above the mark of mortals. And when the bow of his ardent affection was so relaxed that his speech descended towards the mark of our understanding, the first thing that was understood by me was, “Blessed be Thou, Trinal, and One who in my offspring art so courteous.” And he went on, “Grateful and long hunger, derived from reading in the great vouime where white or dark is never changed,[1] thou hast relieved, my son, within this light in which I speak to thee, thanks to Her who clothed thee with plumes for the lofty flight. Thou believest that thy thought flows to me from that which is first; even as from the unit, if that be known, ray out the five and six. And therefore who I am, and why I appear to thee more joyous than any other in this glad crowd, thou askest me not. Thou believest the truth; for the less and the great of this life gaze upon the mirror in which, before thou thinkest, thou dost display thy thought. But in order that the sacred Love, in which I watch with perpetual sight, and which makes me thirst with sweet desire, may be fulfilled the better, let thy voice, secure, bold, and glad, utter the wish, utter the desire, to which my answer is already decreed.”