Binyon's Dante

Laurence Binyon's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Hover over the green Roman numerals for Charles Hall Grandgent's annotations.

The PDF version, with more assured formatting, can be found here.

Paradiso

Canto XIX

The symbolic Eagle speaks with one voice, though representing the many spirits composing it. It addresses Dante, and explains that no mind of mortal is capable of understanding the Divine Justice, and what on earth may seem justice is not so in Heaven. Only true believers in Christ can attain to Paradise; but many who profess Christ are less near to him than some who never heard his name. Follows a denunciation of certain unjust rulers.


BEFORE me in beauty appeared with wings displayed

The image which those souls, all woven in one,

Exulting in their sweet fruition, made.

Each one was as a little ruby stone

Whose core by the sun’s brilliance should be lit

So that reflected in my eyes it shone.

And that which now I must to speech commit

No voice ever communicated, nor

Ink wrote, nor fancy comprehended it.

For I beheld and heard the beak outpour [10]

Words, and his voice was uttering “I” and “My”

When in conception it was “We” and “Our.”

And it began: “Justice and piety

Have raised me into the glory of that state

Which no ambition dareth to outvie.

On earth I have left my memory so great

That ’mid the evil people it is renowned,

Though the example none perpetuate!”

As one may feel in many coals abound

One heat, so from those many loves there went [20]

Out of that image only a single sound.

Then I: “O ye perpetual flowers content

In the eternal gladness! ye who make

Your odours all seem to me one sweet scent,

Breathe on me and break the fast wherewith I ache

And which hath kept me long in hunger lean

Because on earth it found no food to take.

I know that if, as in a mirror seen,

In other realm the divine justice glow,[i]29. “In other realm”: the angelic order of the Thrones, in the sphere of Saturn.

Yours apprehends it with no veil between. [30]

How eager I am to hearken, ye well know,

And what the doubt is and solicitude

Which caused this fast of mine from long ago.”

Like falcon that emerges from the hood

To turn his head, and clap his wings, and preen

His plumes, and show the mettle in his blood,

So looked to me that Emblem which had been

Woven of the praises of divine grace, filled

With songs that Heaven knows and rejoices in.

Then it began: “He who the compass wheeled [40][ii]40. “He who . . .”: God.

Round the world’s edges, and within that space

Mapped out so much, both hidden and revealed,

Could not so deeply His potency impress

On the whole universe, but that His word

Must still remain in infinite excess.

Which proveth that the first proud being erred,[iii]46. “The first proud being”: Lucifer.

In that, creation’s highest, he would not bend

To await the light, and so fell unmatured.[iv]48. “The light”: of grace.

Each lesser nature, then, if thou perpend,

Is a too scant receptacle for that Good [50]

Which is its own measure, and hath no end.

Wherefore our vision, which can be the abode

Of but one ray proceeding from the Mind

With which all things are filled as with a flood,

Cannot have such power in its natural kind

But that it knows its origin to lie[v]56. “Its origin’: the divine Mind.

Far beyond what appears to it defined.

Wherefore the sight that your world liveth by

Penetrates not the eternal justice more

Than into the ocean penetrates the eye; [60]

For though it sees the bottom from the shore,

On the open sea it cannot: none the less

It is there; but the depth conceals the floor.

There is no light save from that perfect peace

Which never is clouded: it is else darkness,

Shadow of the flesh, or poison of its disease.

This glimpse sufficeth of the secret place

Which hath from thee the living Justice hid

Whereof thy questioning ceased not to harass;

For thou didst say: ‘On Indus bank is bred [70]

A man, and there is no one there to tell

Of Christ; no one to write, no one to read:

Good purposes his every act impel,

So far as human faculty perceives,

Without sin in his life, and words as well.

Without faith, unbaptised, the world he leaves.

Where is this justice that condemns the man?

Where is his trespass, if he not believes?”

Now who art thou with a judge’s eyes to scan,

On thy bench sitting a thousand miles away, [80]

This case with the short sight of a mere span?

For him who would engage me in subtle play,

Were not the Scripture beyond all appeal,[vi]83. If you mortals had not the Bible to guide you, there would be no end to your sophistries.

This were fine cause for doubt to say its say.

O minds gross as of brutes! The Primal Will,

In itself good, to its own self, which is

The Sovereign Good, forever cleaveth still,

All then is just which is attuned to this;

To no created good does it adhere,

But from its radiance is that good’s increase.” [90]

As just above her nest circles in air

The stork, after her youngling brood is fed,

And as the one she has fed looks up to her,

So did (while I too lifted up my head)

The blessed image move its wings amain,

Urged by so many wills together wed.

Wheeling, it sang, and said: “Like this my strain

To thee who understandest not a word,

The eternal judgment is to mortal men.”

When those bright fires of the Holy Spirit stirred [100]

No more, that ensign of the empery

Which made the Romans by the world revered

Spoke once again: “None ever rose to see

This realm who had not the belief in Christ

After or before the nailing on the tree.

But look! how many are crying: ‘Christ! Christ!’

Who at the day of judgment shall be far

Less near to him than such as knew not Christ.

The Ethiop such Christians will not spare

When the assembled companies divide, [110]

The one forever rich, the one stript bare.

How shall the Persians challenge your kings’ pride

When they shall see that volume, wherein stand

Recorded their dispraises, opened wide!

There shall be seen ’mid the acts of Albert’s hand[vii]115-116. “Albert”: of Austria. “That one”: the devastation of Bohemia in 1304. “The accusing pen”: of the recording angel.

That one which soon shall move the accusing pen,

Whereby Prague’s kingdom shall be desert land.

There shall be seen the woe which he on Seine,[viii]118-120. Philip the Fair, who had debased the coinage of the realm, died from a fall occasioned by a wild boar.

By making the false coinage, is to bring,

Who by the tusk of wild boar shall be slain. [120]

There shall be seen the ambition maddening

With thirst so quenchless Englishman and Scot,[ix]122. The wars of Edward I and Edward II against the Scots.

Whose frontiers content not either king;

Seen too the soft lascivious lives that rot

Both him of Spain and of Bohemia him[x]125. Ferdinand IV of Castile and Wenceslaus IV.

Who never has known virtue and wills it not;

Seen too the cripple of Jerusalem,[xi]127-129. Charles I of Naples, titular king of Jerusalem. “With an M”: one thousand.

His goodness noted with a One, whereas

The adverse page is noted with an M;

Seen too the avarice and the craven ways [130]

Of him who rules the Isle of Fire, the isle[xii]131. Frederick of Aragon, king of Sicily.

Whereon the old Anchises closed his days;

And to underscore how paltry he is and vile,

His record in contracted letters writ

Shall on a small space all the matter pile.

And all shall know what foul deeds they commit,

His uncle and brother, such deeds as deflower[xiii]137. James, king of Majorca and Minorca, and James II of Aragon.

A race so famous and two crowns with it.

And he of Portugal, he of Norway’s power[xiv]139-140. Dionysius of Portugal and Haakon of Norway. The king of “Rascia”—a state made up of parts of Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia—was a certain Stephen Ouros, who counterfeited the Venetian ducat.

Shall be known there, and he of Rascia, who [140]

Saw coin of Venice in an evil hour.

O happy Hungary, if her strength but grew

Her maimers to defy! Happy Navarre,

If round her she her mountain rampart drew![xv]144. If she could make the Pyrenees a bulwark against France.

And none should doubt what presages prepare

For Nicosia and Famagusta woes,[xvi]146. “Nicosia and Famagusta”: two towns in Cyprus, which are already bewailing their dissolute king, Henry II of Lusignan.

Who groan even now at him they have to bear,

This beast, who step by step with the others goes.”


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