Paradiso
Canto XXI
Dante and Beatrice ascend into the seventh heaven. This is the heaven of Saturn, where are those who passed their lives in holy contemplation. Dante discerns a ladder, the top of which is out of sight, on which are spirits descending and ascending. One of these is the soul of Peter Damian, who tells Dante about his life of retirement and austerity before, in his last years, against his wish, he was made a Cardinal. He contrasts the luxurious habits of the clergy with the simple lives of the Apostles.
MY LADY’s face once more had occupied
My eyes, and with them all my mind was turned
Rapt from the thought of anything beside.
She did not smile. “Were I to smile,” she warned,
“Thou would’st be as Semele, when her eyes’ desire[i]5-6. “Semele,” having insisted on beholding her lover, Jupiter, in all his heavenly majesty, was burned to ashes by his splendor.
She had, and straightway was to ashes burned;
Because my beauty, which from stair to stair
Of the eternal palace flames afresh,
As thou hast seen, the more it mounteth higher,
Were it not tempered, would upon thee flash [10]
So that thy mortal senses in that light
Would be as boughs beneath the thunder’s crash.
We have risen to the seventh splendour’s height
Which underneath the burning Lion’s breast[ii]14. “The burning Lion”: the constellation of Leo.
Rays its beams downward, mingled with his might.
Behind thine eyes let thy mind also rest,
And make them to be mirrors of the thing
Which in this mirror thou encounterest.”[iii]18. “This mirror”: Saturn.
He who should know what was the pasturing
My sight had in her look beatified, [20]
When I turned now to a new soliciting,
Would, weighing one against the other side,
Recognise what delight twas to adhere
To the command of my celestial Guide.
Within the crystal’s ever-circling sphere—
Named after its bright regent, him whose reign[iv]26. “Its bright regent” is Saturn, who ruled in the Golden Age.
Made wickedness to die and disappear,—
Coloured like gold which flashes back again
The sun, I saw a ladder stand, that seemed
So high that the eye followed it in vain. [30]
Moreover on the rungs descending gleamed
So many splendours that each several star
From heaven, methought, collected thither, streamed.
As rooks, after their natural habit, fare
Forth all together at beginning day
To warm their feathers chilled by the night air;
Then some, without returning, wing away,
Some to the boughs they have their nests among
Return, and others circling make a stay;
Such a behaviour had that sparkling throng, [40]
It seemed to me, coming in bands abreast,
Soon as they lighted on a certain rung.
And that one which most near to us came to rest
Became so bright that I said in my thought:
“I see the love to me thou signallest;
But she who ‘how’ and ‘when’ to me hath taught
For speaking and for silence, stayeth still;
Therefore, though fain, I do well to ask naught.”
Then she, my silence being visible
To her, through sight of Him who seèth all, [50]
Said to me: “Now thy warm desire fulfil.”
And I began: “My merit is too small
To be accounted worthy of thy reply;
But for her sake who suffereth this, O soul,
O blessed life, who hidden in thy joy
Abidest, make thou known to me the cause
That brings thee to a place to me so nigh;
And say why in this circling wheel is pause
From the sweet symphony of Paradise[v]59. “Symphony”: the hymns sung in the preceding spheres.
Which through the others so devoutly rose.” [60]
“Thou hast,” he answered, “mortal ears and eyes.
For the same reason no voice singeth here
That thou hast seen no smile in Beatrice.
Down the rungs thus far of the sacred stair
I have descended but to make thee glad
With speech and with the glowing light I wear.
Nor did more love a greater fervour add;
For equal love, or greater, burns above,
As in these flaming lustres is displayed;
But the high charity which prompts our love [70]
To serve the sovereign purpose, doth assign
To each its office, as thine eyes can prove.”
“O sacred lamp,” I said, “I well divine
How in this court free love sufficeth you
For following Heaven’s fore-ordained design.
But this is where I cannot find the clue;
Why to this office the eternal power
Predestined thee of all this retinue.”
I had not come to the last word before
The light made of its centre an axle-tree [80]
And whirled like a swift mill-stone round that core.
The love which was within it answered: “See,
A divine light with pressure like a sting
Penetrates through this which embowels me,
The virtue of which, my vision strengthening,
Lifts me above myself to contemplate
The Supreme Essence, its far source and spring.
Thence comes the rapture that I radiate;
For to my vision, in measure as ’tis clear,
The clearness of my flame I match and mate. [90]
But that soul which is most illumined here
In heaven, that seraph of most fixed regard
On God, could not content thee in thy desire,
Since what thou askest lies so deep in ward
Of the eternal ordinance’s abyss
That from created vision it is barred.
When thou returnest to the world, take this
Monition, that it never more presume
To set foot to invade such mysteries:
The mind, which here shines, there is thick with fume; [100]
Consider therefore how below it could
What it could not, though Heaven should it illume.”
The stricture of his words had so subdued
My questioning, that from all else I refrained
Save the asking who he was, in humble mood.
“Between the two shores of Italian land
Rise crags, not far from thy birth-place, so high[vi]107-109. “Crags”: the northern part of the Apennines. “Catria’: a spur between Urbino and Gubbio.
That far above the thunder’s noise they stand,
Shaped to a hump called Catria; and thereby
Is found a hallowed hermitage below [110]
Where there was worship only of Deity.”
His third discourse to me he opened so,
And then, continuing: “Here, on God intent,
So stedfast in his service did I grow
That with but the olive’s juice for nutriment
I passed serene through heat and frost, being filled
With contemplative thought, therein content.
That cloister used abundantly to yield
Souls to these heavens: now ’tis so bare and mean,
That soon its emptiness must be revealed. [120]
In that place was I Peter Damian,
And in Our Lady’s house on the Adrian shores[vii]122. The monastery of Santa Maria, near Ravenna.
Peter the Sinner had I also been.
Little was left me of my mortal course
When I was called and dragged unto the hat[viii]125. “The hat’: the cardinal’s hat.
Which ever is passed down from. bad to worse.
Barefoot and lean came Cephas, came the great[ix]127-128. “Cephas”: St. Peter. “The great Vessel”: St. Paul.
Vessel of the Holy Spirit, glad to sup
At whatsoever inn they halted at.
Pastors to-day need one to hold them up [130]
On this side and on that, and one to lead
(So heavy are they), and one behind to prop.
They have their palfreys with long mantles hid,
So that two beasts go under the one hide:
O Patience, what endurance dost thou need!”
As he was speaking, more flames I espied
From rung to rung, each whirling round, descend,
Their beauty in their revolving magnified.
About this one they came, and made an end
Of motion, uttering a cry profound [140]
Like nothing here; nor could I comprehend,
Since all my sense was in the thunder drowned.