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 XXIX

Beatrice enlightens Dante on various points that troubled him. He learns from her that the creation was not a temporal process: God revealed Himself in eternity. Pure “act” (the angels), pure potentiality (matter), and the two united in the material heavens, all came into being simultaneously. Jerome erred in supposing that the angels were created long before the rest of the universe. In contrast with the pure vision of the angels, preachers on earth cloud the minds of their hearers with pedantic questions and trivial inventions.


WHEN both Latona’s children, covered by[i]1-6. At the vernal equinox, at dawn and at sunset. the sun and the moon (“Latona’s children”) are exactly balanced for an instant on opposite sides of the horizon.

The Ram and by the Scales, together make

One complete girdle of the horizon sky,

Not longer than the one and the other take,

Poised from the zenith, ere they disunite

That girdle, and both their hemisphere forsake,

Beatrice held her peace with smile alight

Upon her features and eyes fixèd clear

Upon the Point which had o’erwhelmed my sight.

Then she: “I ask not what thou long’st to hear, [10]

But tell thee; I can all thy longing name

Here, where is centred every when and where.[ii]12. God is the centre of all our conceptions of space and time.

Not increase of His own good to proclaim

(Which is not possible) but that His own

Splendour might in resplendence say I Am;

In His eternity, where time is none,

Nor aught of limitation else, He chose

That in new loves the eternal Love be shown.[iii]18. “In new loves”: in the creation of the angels.

Nor, ere that, lay He dulled as in repose;

For not before nor after, thou must know, [20]

Did God move on the waters as they rose.

Into existence, which no flaw could show,

Form and its matter, simple or mixt withal,[iv]23. The angels, the earth, and the heavens (see the Argument).

Sprang, as three arrows from a three-stringed bow.

And as in glass, in amber, or crystal,

A ray of light will instantly pervade

The whole without one moment's interval,

So its Sire’s threefold operation rayed

Into its being, entire, immediate,

With no distinction of beginning made. [30]

And with the substances was concreate

Order, and welded with them; and these crowned[v]32-34. “And these crowned . . .”: at the top were the angels, which are pure intelligence. “Mere potency” is characteristic of brute matter.

The world in which pure act was animate.

In the lowest place mere potency was found;

Between them, potency was twined with act

In withies that may never be unwound.

From Jerome you have heard of a long tract[vi]37. “From Jerome . . .”: see the Argument.

Of time, wherein the angels’ ranks appeared,

While all else of the universe yet lacked;

But what I tell hath many a page averred [40]

(Keep watch, and thou thyself the truth shall feel)

Of those whose pens the Holy Spirit stirred.

Reason also may perceive it in some deal,

Which would not grant that for so long an age

The Movers should of their completion fail.[vii]45. “The Movers”: the angels.

Now, where these Loves were chosen, at what stage,

And how, thou know’st; so that a triple flame

Of thy desire already I assuage.

Nor could one count till he to twenty came[viii]49. The rebellious angels fell before one could count to twenty; the others accepted grace.

So soon as of the angels did one part [50]

Disturb your matter’s elemental frame.

The rest remained; and then began this art

Which thou perceivest, in such joy immerst

That never from their circlings they dispart.

The Fall had its beginning in the accurst

Arrogance of him whom thou didst see compressed.[ix]56. “Of him’: Satan.

With all the world’s weights down upon him forced.

Those thou see’st here were humble, and thus confessed

The Goodness that empowered them to aspire

To be with so great understanding blest; [60]

Therefore their vision was exalted higher

With grace illumining and their own desert,

So that they have their will firm and entire.

Nor must thou doubt what I for sure assert

That to receive grace is desert indeed

In measure as ’tis taken to the heart.

On this consistory now thy thought may feed

In contemplation, if my science fills

Thy garner full, without ulterior aid.

But since the fashion of your schools instils [70]

The doctrine that the angelic nature’s kind

Is such as understands, remembers, wills,

I will speak on, that pure into thy mind

The truth may come, which there below hath been

Dimmed, and with ambiguities entwined.

These beings, since they first had joy therein,

On God’s face have their constant vision kept,

Wherefrom nothing is hidden or unseen.

Hence no new object comes to intercept[x]79-81. Nothing ever intervenes between their minds and the image of all things in God.

Their sight; nor need they single memories, [80]

Dividing thought, ever to recollect;

So that-on earth men dream with open eyes,

Some in good faith, some unbelieving; and they

Are those on whom reproach the heavier lies.

Your speculation keeps not the one way

Down there; so far desire for prominence

Transports you and the craving for display.

Yet even this to Heaven is less offence

And more endurable than when Holy Writ

Is cast aside or wrested from its sense. [90]

They think not how much blood the sowing of it

In the world cost, nor what blessèd reward

Is theirs, who humbly to its rule submit.

Each vies with the other to bring out a hoard

Of fond inventions, which the preachers take

And furbish: of the Gospel not a word.

One says the moon returned upon her track[xi]97-102. To explain the darkness at the Crucifixion, some say that the moon left its course to make an eclipse; the truth is that the sun hid its own rays.

At the passion of Christ, and hid from view

The sun, whose light was thus from earth held back;

And lieth, for the light itself withdrew, [100]

So that the darkness of eclipse made fear

Spaniard and Indian even as the Jew.

Lapo and Bindo are names not commoner

In Florence than the fables preached in turn

From pulpit after pulpit, year by year,

So that the sheep, who know nothing, return

From pasture fed with wind; yet are not they

Excused because their loss they never learn.

Christ to His first assembly did not say:

‘To proclaim trifles go ye forth a-field, [110]

But gave them truth to build on, day by day.

That and that only filled their mouths, and pealed

To battle for the faith, their glorious work,

In which the Gospel was both spear and shield.

Now they go forth to preach with quip and quirk,

And if a good laugh they contrive to win,

The puffed hood covers a contented smirk.

But the cowl hideth such a bird within[xii]118. “Such a bird”: the devil, waiting for the preacher's soul.

That, if the crowd could see it as it is,

They'd see what pardon they confided in; [120]

Through which this folly on earth hath such increase

That without warrant of authority

They rush to catch at any promises.

Therewith grows fat the pig of Antony,[xiii]124. “The pig of Antony”: the degenerate monks of the order of St. Antony, who is generally represented with a hog under his feet.

And others too of yet more swinish kind,

Paying with money unstampt by the die.

Enough of this digression! Turn thy mind

Back to the main path, that the way we go

Be shortened with the time to us assigned.

The angelic nature mounts in number so [130]

Past measure, that no speech was ever skilled,

Nor mortal thought, to cast so far a throw;

And if thou note what Daniel has revealed,[xiv]133. Dan. 7:10: “Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.”

Thou wilt perceive that the determinate

Number is in his myriads concealed.

The primal light whose beams irradiate

This nature, is absorbed through avenues[xv]137. Every angel constituting a species by itself, no two perceive God alike.

Many as the splendours whereto it is mate;

And since on the mind’s vision love ensues,

That sweetness glows within them fiery-bright [140]

Or warm, according to the mode they use.

See now the Eternal Virtue’s breadth and height,

Since it hath made itself so vast a store

Of mirrors upon which to break its light,

Remaining in itself one, as before.”


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