Paradiso
Canto II
From the sphere of fire Dante and Beatrice rise to the Heaven of the Moon with unimaginable speed, like the flight of a bolt from a crossbow. (The movements are described in inverted order to suggest its instantaneous swiftness.) They enter the pearl-like substance of the moon; and Dante wonders how, still in the body, he can penetrate into it—a mystery like the union of divine and human nature in Christ. He now asks Beatrice the cause of the spots in the moon, first giving the explanation he had hitherto maintained, that they are due to density and rarity. Beatrice refutes his error and then gives the true account. Each sphere is quickened and governed by the Intelligence presiding over it; and the Intelligence of the eighth heaven distributes its influence among the fixed stars. But this influence is modified by the character of the bodies it enters; hence the variation in degree of brilliance among the stars; hence also the brightness and dimness in the moon.
In refuting Dante’s explanation Beatrice enforces theory by experiment, the modern method, here praised as the fountainhead of the arts. This is remarkable in a medieval poem.
O YE, EMBARKED in a small skiff, who long
To listen, having followed on its way
My boat, that goes continuing in song,
Turn again home to sight of shore and bay!
Trust not the deep; for peradventure there
By losing me ye might be left astray.
The sea I sail none yet did ever dare.
Minerva wafts, Apollo leads me on,
And the nine Muses show me either Bear.[i]9. “Either Bear’: the constellations of the Great and Little Bear, by which sailors are guided.
Ye other few, who have raised your necks for boon [10]
Of the angels’ bread betimes, given to sustain[ii]11. “The angels’ bread”: sacred knowledge.
The life lived here (and surfeit none hath known),
Ye well may trust your bark to the salt main,
Keeping the furrow of my keel, before
The wake behind it is smoothed out again.
The glorious ones that fared to Colchis shore,[iii]16-18. The Argonauts were amazed to see Jason compel two monstrous bulls to draw a plough.
When they saw Jason ply the ploughman’s trade,
Stood marvelling much; but ye shall marvel more.
The inborn thirst, which never is allayed,
For the God-moulded realm, bore us on high [20]
Swift almost as ye see heaven’s motion made.
Beatrice was gazing up; on her gazed I.
Perhaps in such space as a bolt is spent
And flies and from the peg is loosed to fly,
I saw me arriving where a marvel bent
My sight all to itself: and she, because
Nothing from her was hidden of my intent,
Turned—and her joy like to her beauty was—
To me, and “Turn to God in thanks,” she said,
“Who with the first star hath united us.” [30][iv]30. “The first star’: the moon.
It seemed a cloud all round about us spread,
Luminous, dense, compact, and burnished bright,
Like diamond with a sunbeam on it shed.
The everlasting pearl enclosed us quite
Within itself, as water of a well
Receives, remaining whole, a ray of light.
If I was body,—and on earth none could tell
How one substance another can admit,
Which must be, if body into body steal—
The more in us should longing’s flame be lit [40]
To see that Essence wherein we perceive[v]41. In the “Essence” of Christ the human and the divine nature are miraculously united (see the Argument).
How our nature and God in one were knit.
There shall be seen that unto which we cleave
By faith, not proven in argument; self-shown
As is the simple truth that all believe.
“My Lady,” I answered, “more devoutly none
Could thank Him, and I thank Him yet again,
Who hath removed me from yon mortal zone.
But tell me, what are those dark spots that stain
This body, which down there on the earth’s floor [50]
Make folk to fable of the burden of Cain?”
She smiled a little, and then said: “If the lore
Of mortals err in its imagining,
Where sense hath no key to unlock the door,
Truly the barb of wonder should not sting
Thy mind henceforth, since, following after sense,[vi]56. “Following after sense”: since even under the guidance of the senses.
Reason, thou see’st, hath all too short a wing.
But tell me what thine own intelligence
Conceives.” And “What appears diverse,” said I,
“Is caused, I think, by bodies rare or dense.” [60]
And she: “Indeed thou'lt see thy guess to lie
Submerged in error, if thou give good ear
To the argument I shall oppose it by.
Many are the lights displayed in the eighth sphere,[vii]64. “The eighth sphere” is that of the fixed stars.
Which both in quality and in magnitude
May be observed a diverse look to wear.
If this from dense and rare alone ensued,
All with one virtue, equal less or more
In distribution, would be found imbued.
But needs must be that diverse virtues flower [70]
From formal principles; and these, save one,[viii]71. “Formal principles”: inherent characters.
Would on thy reasoning wholly lose their power.
Further, did rareness cause the spots alone
Of which thou askest, either in some part were
This planet starving of its matter shown,
Or, as in a body is disposed each layer
Of fat and lean, so in its volume it
Would have leaves interchanging here and there.
Were the first true, it would be seen transmit[ix]79. “Were the first true . . .”: if the layers did extend through the moon, we should see the sun shining through them at the time of a solar eclipse.
In his eclipse the light from the sun’s face, [80]
As when his beams any rare body hit.
This is not so. Take then the other case;
And if it chance that I refute this too,
Thy supposition tumbles from its base.
If this rare quality extend not through,[x]85. If the layers did not extend, the dense matter would reflect the light.
There must be a limit where its opposite
Forbiddeth it to pierce the residue;
And thence that other’s ray pours back its light
Like colour from the glass returning, where
It keeps the lead behind it out of sight. [90]
Now thou wilt say that the ray showeth here
More dim than what from the other parts is sent
Because from further back reflected there.
From this objection may experiment
Deliver thee, if thou its virtue try,
(Source wherefrom stream the arts that you invent).
Take three mirrors; and set two equally
At distance from thyself; and let the last,
Further removed, between these front thine eye.
Turned towards them, have a light behind thee placed, [100]
Illumining the mirrors, all the three;
And back to the eye from each it will be cast.
Though the more distant image come to thee
Less great in magnitude, thou wilt behold
How of an equal brightness it must be.
Now, as the element that goes to mould
The snow, beneath warm beams is left in loss
Both of the former whiteness and the cold,
Thee in thine intellect left naked thus
I mean to inform with living light that glows [110]
Before thee sparkling as a bright star does.
Within the heaven of the divine repose
Circles a body, in whose virtue lies[xi]113. The “body” which revolves inside the Empyrean is the Primum Mobile, from which all the rest of the world derives its special mode of being.
The being of all that its confines enclose.
The following heaven, which has so many eyes,[xii]115. “The following heaven”: the starry sphere.
Portions that being through divers essences
Distinct from it, though it must all comprise.
The other wheels by various differences
Dispose the inborn characters they show
Unto their ends and fruitful purposes. [120]
These organs of the universe, then, go
From grade to grade, as now thou see’st is done,
For from above they take, but work below.
Note well how through this passage I have gone
Advancing to the truth, thy heart’s desire,
That thou may’st henceforth keep the ford alone.
Perforce the blessed Movers must inspire,
As do the craftsman’s purposes his tool,
The virtue and motion of each holy gyre.
The heaven so many lights make beautiful [130]
Receives the image, and makes thereof its seal,
From the deep mind that is its motion’s rule.
And as the soul which in your dust ye feel
Through members differing and conformed thereby
To divers powers, is thus diffused piecemeal,
So does the Intelligence display on high
Its goodness, multiplied through stars, while round
It rolls itself on its own unity.
And diverse virtue makes diverse compound
With the precious body into which it flows, [140]
Wherewith, as life in you, it is close-bound.
Because of the glad nature whence it grows
The mingled virtue through the body beams
As gladness through the living pupil shows.
From this comes, not from dense and rare, what seems
The difference you see ’twixt light and light.
This is the formal principle that schemes,
Conformed to its own goodness, dim and bright.”