O Beatrice, sweet guide and dear!
She said to me, “That which overcomes thee is a power from which naught defends itself. Here is the Wisdom and the Power that opened the roads between heaven and earth, for which there had already been such long desire.”
As fire from a cloud unlocks itself by dilating, so that it is not contained therein, and against its own nature falls down to earth, so my mind, becoming greater amid those feasts, issued from itself; and what it became cannot remember.
“Open thine eyes and look at what I am; thou hast seen things such that thou art become able to sustain my smile.” I was as one who awakes from a forgotten dream and endeavors in vain to bring it back again to memory, when I heard this invitation, worthy of such gratitude that it is never effaced from the book which records the past. If now all those tongues which Polyhymnia and her sisters made most fat with their sweetest milk should sound to aid me, one would not come to a thousandth of the truth in singing the holy smile and how it made the holy face resplendent. And thus in depicting Paradise the consecrated poem needs must make a leap, even as one who finds his way cut off. But whoso should consider the ponderous theme and the mortal shoulder which therewith is laden would not blame it if under this it tremble. It is no coasting voyage for a little barque, this which the intrepid prow goes cleaving, nor for a pilot who would spare himself.
“Why doth my face so enamour thee that thou turnest not to the fair garden which beneath the rays of Christ is blossoming? Here is the rose,[1] in which the Divine Word became flesh: here are the lilies[2] by whose odor the good way was taken.” Thus Beatrice, and I, who to her counsel was wholly prompt, again betook me unto the battle of the feeble brows.
[1] The Virgin.
[2] The Apostles and Saints. The image is derived from St. Paul (2 Corinthians, ii. 14): “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.” In the Vulgate the words are, “odorem notitiae suae manifestat per nos.”
As my eyes, covered with a shadow, have ere now seen a meadow of flowers in a sunbeam which streamed bright through a rifted cloud, so saw I many throngs of splendors flashed-upon from above with burning rays, without seeing the source of the gleams. O benignant Power which so dost impress them, upwards didst thou exalt thyself to bestow space there for my eyes, which were powerless.[1]
[1] The eyes of Dante, powerless to endure the sight of the glorified body of Christ, when that is withdrawn on high, are able to look upon those whom the light of Christ illumines.
The name of the fair flower which I ever invoke both morning and evening, wholly constrained my mind to gaze upon the greater fire.[1] And when the form and the glory of the living star, which up. there surpasses as here below it surpassed, were depicted in both my eyes, through the mid heavens a torch, formed in a circle in fashion of a crown, descended, and engirt it, and revolved around it. Whatever melody sounds sweetest here below, and to itself most draws the soul, would seem a cloud which, rent apart, thunders, compared with the sound of that lyre wherewith was crowned the beauteous sapphire by which the brightest Heaven is ensapphired. “I am angelic Love, and I circle round the lofty joy which breathes from the bosom which was the hostelry of our desire; and I shall circle, Lady of Heaven, while thou shalt follow thy Son and make the supreme sphere more divine because thou enterest it.” Thus the circling melody sealed itself up, and all the other lights made resound the name of Mary.