The Divine Comedy Volume Ii Part 18

[1] From Numidia, of which Iarbas was king.

[2] Because indicating the lack of that wisdom which should pertain to manhood.

[3] The griffon.

[4] That object which had most seduced me from the love of Beatrice was now the most hateful to me.

Such contrition stung my heart that I fell overcome; and what I then became she knows who afforded me the cause.

Then, when my heart restored my outward faculties, I saw above me the lady whom I had found alone,[1] and she was saying, "Hold me, hold me." She had drawn me into the stream up to the throat, and dragging me behind was moving upon the water light as a shuttle.

When I was near the blessed sh.o.r.e, "Asperges me"[2] I heard so sweetly that I cannot remember it, far less can write it. The beautiful lady opened her arms, clasped my head, and plunged me in where it behoved that I should swallow the water.[3] Then she took me, and, thus bathed, brought me within the dance of the four beautiful ones,[4] and each of them covered me with her arm.

"Here we are nymphs, and in heaven we are stars: ere Beatrice had descended to the world we were ordained unto her for her handmaids. We will head thee to her eyes; but in the joyous light which is within them, the three yonder who deeper gaze shall make keen thine own."[5] Thus singing, they began; and then to the breast of the griffon they led me with them, where Beatrice was standing turned toward us. They said, "See that thou sparest not thy sight: we have placed thee before the emeralds whence Love of old drew his arrows upon thee." A thousand desires hotter than flame bound my eyes to the relucent eyes which only upon the griffon were standing fixed. As the sun in a mirror, not otherwise the twofold animal was gleaming therewithin, now with one, now with another mode.[6] Think, Reader, if I marvelled when I saw the thing stand quiet in itself, while in its image it was trans.m.u.ting itself.

[1] Matilda.

[2] The first words of the seventh verse of the fifty-first Psalm: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

[3] The drinking of the waters of Lethe which obliterate the memory of sin.

[4] The four Cardinal Virtues.

[5] The Cardinal Virtues lead up to Theology, or the knowledge of Divine things, but the Evangelic Virtues are needed to penetrate within them.

[6] Mode of being,--the divine and the human.

While, full of amazement and glad, my soul was tasting that food which, sating of itself, causes hunger for itself, the other three, showing themselves in their bearing of loftier order, came forward dancing to their angelic melody. "Turn, Beatrice, turn thy holy eyes," was their song, "upon thy faithful one, who to see thee has taken so many steps. For grace do us the grace that thou unveil to hum thy mouth, so that he may discern the second beauty which thou concealest."[1]

[1] "The eyes of Wisdom are her demonstrations by which one sees the truth most surely; and her smile is her persuasions in which the interior light of Wisdom is displayed without any veil; and in these two is felt that loftiest pleasure of Beat.i.tude, which is the chief good in Paradise."--Convito, iii 15.

Oh splendor of living light eternal! Who hath become so pallid under the shadow of Parna.s.sus, or hath so drunk at its cistern, that he would not seem to have his mind enc.u.mbered, trying to represent thee as thou didst appear there where in harmony the heaven overshadows thee when in the open air thou didst thyself disclose?

CANTO x.x.xII. The Earthly Paradise.--Return of the Triumphal procession.--The Chariot bound to the Mystic Tree.--Sleep of Dante.--His waking to find the Triumph departed.--Transformation of the Chariot.--The Harlot and the Giant.

So fixed and intent were mine eyes to relieve their ten years'

thirst, that my other senses were all extinct: and they themselves, on one side and the other, had a wall of disregard, so did the holy smile draw them to itself with the old net; when perforce my sight was turned toward my left by those G.o.ddesses,[1] because I heard from them a "Too fixedly."[2] And the condition which exists for seeing in eyes but just now smitten by the sun caused me to be some time without sight. But when the sight reshaped itself to the little (I say to the little, in respect to the great object of the sense wherefrom by force I had removed myself), I saw that the glorious army had wheeled upon its right flank, and was returning with the sun and with the seven flames in its face.

[1] The three heavenly Virtues.

[2] "Thou lookest too fixedly; thou hast yet other duties than contemplation."

As under its s.h.i.+elds to save itself a troop turns and wheels with its banner, before it all can change about, that soldiery of the celestial realm which was in advance had wholly gone past us before its front beam[1] had bent the chariot round. Then to the wheels the ladies returned, and the griffon moved his blessed burden, in such wise however that no feather of him shook. The beautiful lady who had drawn me at the ford, and Statius and I were following the wheel which made its...o...b..t with the smaller arc. So walking through the lofty wood, empty through fault of her who trusted to the serpent, an angelic song set the time to our steps. Perhaps an arrow loosed from the bow had in three flights reached such a distance as we had advanced, when Beatrice descended. I heard "Adam!" murmured by all:[2] then they circled a plant despoiled of flowers and of other leaf.a.ge on every bough.[3] Its branches, which so much the wider spread the higher up they are,[4] would be wondered at for height by the Indians in their woods.

[1] Its pole.

[2] In reproach of him who had in disobedience tasted of the fruit of this tree.

[3] After the sin of Adam the plant was despoiled of virtue till the coming of Christ.

[4] The branches of the tree of knowledge spread widest as they are nearest to the Divine Source of truth.

"Blessed art thou, Griffon, that thou dost not break off with thy beak of this wood sweet to the taste, since the belly is ill racked thereby."[1] Thus around the st.u.r.dy tree the others cried; and the animal of two natures: "So is preserved the seed of all righteousness."[2] And turning to the pole that he had drawn, he dragged it to the foot of the widowed trunk, and that which was of it[3] he left bound to it.

[1] "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."--Romans, v. 19.

[2] "That as sin had reigned unto deaths, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ, our Lord."--Id., v. 21.

[3] This pole, the mystic type of the cross of Christ, supposed to have been made of the wood of this tree.

As our plants, when the great light falls downward mingled with that which s.h.i.+nes behind the celestial Carp,[1] become swollen, and then renew themselves, each in its own color, ere the sun yoke his coursers under another star, so disclosing a color less than of roses and more than of violets, the plant renewed itself, which first had its boughs so bare.[2] I did not understand the hymn, and it is not sung here,[3] which that folk then sang, nor did I hear the melody to the end.

[1] In this spring, when the Sun is in Aries, the sign which follows that of the Pisces here termed the Carp.

[2] This tree, after the death of Christ, still remains this symbol of the knowledge of good and of evil, as well as this sign of obedience to the Divine Will. Its renewal with flowers and foliage seems to he the image at once of the revelation of Divine truth through Christ, and of his obedience unto death.

[3] On earth.

If I could portray how the pitiless eyes[1] sank to slumber, while hearing of Syrinx, the eyes to which too much watching cost so dear, hike a painter who paints from a model I would depict how I fell asleep; but whoso would, let him be one who can picture slumber well.[2] Therefore I pa.s.s on to when I awoke, and say that a splendor rent for me the veil of sleep, and a call, "Arise, what doest thou?"

[1] The hundred eyes of Argus, who, when watching Io, fell asleep while listening to the tale of the loves of Pan and Syrinx, and was then slain by Mercury.

[2] The sleep of Dante may signify the impotency of human reason to explain the mysteries of redemption.

As, to see some of the flowerets of the apple-tree[1] which makes the Angels greedy of its fruit,[2] and makes perpetual bridal feasts in Heaven,[3] Peter and John and James were led,[4] and being overcome, came to themselves at the word by which greater slumbers[5] were broken, and saw their band diminished alike by Moses and Elias, and the raiment of their Master changed, so I came to myself, and saw that compa.s.sionate one standing above me, who first had been conductress of my steps along the stream; and all in doubt I said, "Where is Beatrice?" And she, "Behold her under the new leaf.a.ge sitting upon its root. Behold the company that surrounds her; the rest are going on high behind the griffon, with sweeter song and more profound."[6] And if her speech was more diffuse I know not, because already in my eyes was she who from attending to aught else had closed me in. Alone she was sitting upon the bare ground, like a guard left there of the chariot which I had seen bound by the biform animal. In a circle the seven Nymphs were making of themselves an enclosure for her, with those lights in their hands that are secure from Aquilo and from Auster.[7]

[1] "As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the suns."--The Song of Solomon, ii. 3.

[2] The full glory of Christ in Heaven.

[3] The marriage supper of the Lamb--Revelation, xix. 9.

[4] The transfiguration--Matthew, xvii. 1-8.

[5] Those of the dead called back to life by Jesus.

[6] Christ having ascended, Beatrice, this type of Theology, is left by the chariot, the type of the Church on earth.

[7] From the north wind or the south; that is, from any earthly blast.