[4] Divine song.
While I was speaking, within the living bosom of that burning a flash was trembling, sudden and intense, in the manner of lightning. Then it breathed, “The love wherewith I still glow toward the virtue which followed me far as the palm, and to the issue of the field, wills that breathe anew to thee, that thou delight in it; and it is my pleasure, that thou tell that which Hope promises to thee.” And I, “The new and the old Scriptures set up the sign, and it points this out to me. Of the souls whom God hath made his friends, Isaiah says that each shall be clothed in his own land with a double garment,[1] and his own land is this sweet life. And thy brother, far more explicitly, there where he treats of the white robes, makes manifest to us this revelation.”[2]
[1] “Therefore in their land they shall possess the double”—(Isaiah, 1xi. 7); the double vesture of the glorified natural body and of the spiritual body.
[2] Revelation, vii.
And first, close on the end of these words, “Sperent in te” was heard from above us, to which all the carols made answer. Then among them a light became so bright that, if the Crab had one such crystal, winter would have a month of one sole day.[1] And as a glad maiden rises and goes and enters in the dance, only to do honor to the new bride, and not for any fault,[2] so saw I the brightened splendor come to the two who were turning in a wheel, such as was befitting to their ardent love. It set itself there into the song and into the measure, and my Lady kept her gaze upon them, even as a bride, silent and motionless. “This is he who lay upon the breast of our Pelican,[3] and from upon the cross this one was chosen to the great office.”[4] Thus my Lady, nor yet moved she her look from its fixed attention after than before these words of hers. As is he who gazes and endeavors to see the sun eclipsed a little, who through seeing becomes sightless, so did I become in respect to that last fire, till it was said, “Why dost thou dazzle thyself in order to see a thing which has no place here?[5] On earth my body is earth; and it will be there with the others until our number corresponds with the eternal purpose.[6] With their two garments in the blessed cloister are those two lights alone which ascended:[7] and this thou shalt carry back unto your world.”
[1] If Cancer, which rises at sunset in early winter, had a star as bright as this, the night would be light as day.
[2] Not for vanity, or love of, display.
[3] A common type of Christ during the Middle Ages, because of the popular belief that the pelican killed its brood, and then revived them with its blood.
[4] “Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother!”—John, xix. 27.
[5] Dante seeks to see whether St. John is present in body as well as soul; his curiosity having its source in the words of the Gospel: “Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? . . . Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die.”—John, xxi. 22, 23.