Between two viands, equally removed
And tempting, a free man would die of hunger
Ere either he could bring unto his teeth.
So would a lamb between the ravenings
Of two fierce wolves stand fearing both alike; 5
And so would stand a dog between two does.
Hence, if I held my peace, myself I blame not,
Impelled in equal measure by my doubts,
Since it must be so, nor do I commend.
I held my peace; but my desire was painted 10
Upon my face, and questioning with that
More fervent far than by articulate speech.
Beatrice did as Daniel had done
Relieving Nebuchadnezzar from the wrath
Which rendered him unjustly merciless, 15
And said: "Well see I how attracteth thee
One and the other wish, so that thy care
Binds itself so that forth it does not breathe.
Thou arguest, if good will be permanent,
The violence of others, for what reason 20
Doth it decrease the measure of my merit?
Again for doubting furnish thee occasion
Souls seeming to return unto the stars,
According to the sentiment of Plato.
These are the questions which upon thy wish 25
Are thrusting equally; and therefore first
Will I treat that which hath the most of gall.
He of the Seraphim most absorbed in God,
Moses, and Samuel, and whichever John
Thou mayst select, I say, and even Mary, 30
Have not in any other heaven their seats,
Than have those spirits that just appeared to thee,
Nor of existence more or fewer years;
But all make beautiful the primal circle,
And have sweet life in different degrees, 35
By feeling more or less the eternal breath.
They showed themselves here, not because allotted
This sphere has been to them, but to give sign
Of the celestial which is least exalted.
To speak thus is adapted to your mind, 40
Since only through the sense it apprehendeth
What then it worthy makes of intellect.
On this account the Scripture condescends
Unto your faculties, and feet and hands
To God attributes, and means something else; 45
And Holy Church under an aspect human
Gabriel and Michael represent to you,
And him who made Tobias whole again.
That which Timaeus argues of the soul
Doth not resemble that which here is seen, 50
Because it seems that as he speaks he thinks.
He says the soul unto its star returns,
Believing it to have been severed thence
Whenever nature gave it as a form.
Perhaps his doctrine is of other guise 55
Than the words sound, and possibly may be
With meaning that is not to be derided.
If he doth mean that to these wheels return
The honour of their influence and the blame,
Perhaps his bow doth hit upon some truth. 60
This principle ill understood once warped
The whole world nearly, till it went astray
Invoking Jove and Mercury and Mars.
The other doubt which doth disquiet thee
Less venom has, for its malevolence 65
Could never lead thee otherwhere from me.
That as unjust our justice should appear
In eyes of mortals, is an argument
Of faith, and not of sin heretical.
But still, that your perception may be able 70
To thoroughly penetrate this verity,
As thou desirest, I will satisfy thee.
If it be violence when he who suffers
Co-operates not with him who uses force,
These souls were not on that account excused; 75
For will is never quenched unless it will,
But operates as nature doth in fire
If violence a thousand times distort it.
Hence, if it yieldeth more or less, it seconds
The force; and these have done so, having power 80
Of turning back unto the holy place.
If their will had been perfect, like to that
Which Lawrence fast upon his gridiron held,
And Mutius made severe to his own hand,
It would have urged them back along the road 85
Whence they were dragged, as soon as they were free;
But such a solid will is all too rare.
And by these words, if thou hast gathered them
As thou shouldst do, the argument is refuted
That would have still annoyed thee many times. 90
But now another passage runs across
Before thine eyes, and such that by thyself
Thou couldst not thread it ere thou wouldst be weary.
I have for certain put into thy mind
That soul beatified could never lie, 95
For it is near the primal Truth,
And then thou from Piccarda might'st have heard
Costanza kept affection for the veil,
So that she seemeth here to contradict me.
Many times, brother, has it come to pass, 100
That, to escape from peril, with reluctance
That has been done it was not right to do,
E'en as Alcmaeon (who, being by his father
Thereto entreated, his own mother slew)
Not to lose pity pitiless became. 105
At this point I desire thee to remember
That force with will commingles, and they cause
That the offences cannot be excused.
Will absolute consenteth not to evil;
But in so far consenteth as it fears, 110
If it refrain, to fall into more harm.
Hence when Piccarda uses this expression,
She meaneth the will absolute, and I
The other, so that both of us speak truth."
Such was the flowing of the holy river 115
That issued from the fount whence springs all truth;
This put to rest my wishes one and all.
"O love of the first lover, O divine,"
Said I forthwith, "whose speech inundates me
And warms me so, it more and more revives me, 120
My own affection is not so profound
As to suffice in rendering grace for grace;
Let Him, who sees and can, thereto respond.
Well I perceive that never sated is
Our intellect unless the Truth illume it, 125
Beyond which nothing true expands itself.
It rests therein, as wild beast in his lair,
When it attains it; and it can attain it;
If not, then each desire would frustrate be.
Therefore springs up, in fashion of a shoot, 130
Doubt at the foot of truth; and this is nature,
Which to the top from height to height impels us.
This doth invite me, this assurance give me
With reverence, Lady, to inquire of you
Another truth, which is obscure to me. 135
I wish to know if man can satisfy you
For broken vows with other good deeds, so
That in your balance they will not be light."
Beatrice gazed upon me with her eyes
Full of the sparks of love, and so divine, 140
That, overcome my power, I turned my back
And almost lost myself with eyes downcast.
NOTES
1 - 1
The Heaven of the Moon continued.
2 - 2
Montaigne says: “If any one should place us between the bottle and the bacon (entre la bouteille et le jambon), with an equal appetite for food and drink, there would doubtless be no remedy but to die of thirst and hunger.”
6 - 6
Ovid, Met., V., Maynwaring's Tr.: –
“As when a hungry tiger near him hears
Two lowing herds, awhile he both forbears;
Nor can his hopes of this or that renounce,
So strong he lusts to prey on both at once.”
9 - 9
“A similitude,” says Venturi, “of great poetic beauty, but of little philosophic soundness.”
13 - 13
When he recalled and interpreted the forgotten dream of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, ii. 10: “The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter; therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean. And it is a rare thing that the king requireth: and there is none other that can show it before the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”
24 - 24
Plato, Timaeus, Davis's Tr., says: “And after having thus framed the universe, he allotted to it souls equal in number to the stars, inserting each in each.....And he declared also, that after living well for the time appointed to him, each one should once more return to the habitation of his associate star, and spend a blessed and suitable existence.”
26 - 26
The word “thrust,” pontano, is here used in its architectural sense, as in Inf. XXXII. 3. There it is literal, here figurative.
28 - 28
Che più s'india, that most in – God's himself. As in Canto IX. 81, S'io m'intuassi come tu t'immii,“ if I could in-thee myself as thou dost in-me thyself”; and other expressions of a similar kind.
42 - 42
The dogma of the Peripatetics, that nothing is in Intellect which was not first in Sense.
48 - 48
Raphael, “the affable arch-angel,” of whom Milton says, Par. Lost, V. 220: –
Raphael, the sociable spirit, that deigned
To travel with Tobias, and secured
His marriage with the seven-times-wedded maid.“
See Tobit xii. 14: ”And now God hath sent me to heal thee and Sara thy daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the Holy One.“
It must be remarked, however, that it was Tobit, and not Tobias, who was cured of his blindness.
49 - 49
Plato's Dialogue, entitled Timaeus, the name of the philosopher of Locri.
51 - 51
Plato means it literally, and the Scriptures figuratively.
54 - 54
When it was infused into the body, or the body became informed with it.
Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., 1., Quaest. LXXVI. 1, says: ”Form is that by which a thing is....This principle therefore, by which we first think, whether it be called intellect, or intellectual soul, is the form of the body.“
And Spencer, Hymne in Honour of Beautie, says: –
”For of the soule the bodie forme doth take,
For soule is forme and doth the bodie make.“
63 - 63
Joachim di Flora, Dante's ”Calabrian Abbot Joachim,“ the mystic of the twelfth century, says in his Exposition of the Apocalypse: ”The deceived Gentiles believed that the planets to which they gave the names of Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Mars, the Moon, and the Sun, were gods.“
64 - 64
Stated in line 20: –
”The violence of others, for what reason
Doth it decrease the measure of my merit?“
83 - 83
St. Lawrence. In Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, 11. 156, his martyrdom is thus described: –
”The satellites of the tyrant, hearing that the treasures of
the church had been confided to Lawrence, carried him before
the tribunal, and he was questioned, but replied not one
word; therefore he was put into a dungeon, under the charge
of a man named Hippolytus, whom with his whole family he
converted to the faith of Christ, and baptized; and when he
was called again before the Prefect, and required to say
where the treasures were concealed, he answered that in
three days he would show them. The third day being come,
St. Lawrence gathered together the sick and the poor, to
whom he had dispensed alms, and, placing them before the
Perfect, said, “Behold, here are the treasures of Christ's
Church.' Upon this the Prefect, thinking he was mocked, fell
into a great rage, and ordered St. Lawrence to be tortured
till he had made known where the treasures were concealed;
but no suffering could subdue the patience and constancy of
the holy martyr. Then the Prefect commanded that he should
be carried by night to the baths of Olympias, near the villa
of Sallust the historian, and that a new kind of torture
should be prepared for him, more strange and cruel than had
ever entered into the heart of a tyrant to conceive; for he
ordered him to be stretched on a sort of bed, formed of iron
bars in the manner of a gridiron, and a fire to be lighted
beneath, which should gradually consume his body to ashes:
and the executioners did as they were commanded kindling the
fire and adding coals from time to time, so that the victim
was in a manner roasted alive; and those who were present
looked on with horror, and wondered at the cruelty of the
Prefect, who could condemn to such torments a youth of such
fair person and courteous and gentle bearing, and all for
the lust of gold.”
84 - 84
Plutarch thus relates the story of Mutius Scaevola, Dryden's Tr.:–
“The story of Mutius is variously given; we, like others,
must follow the commonly received statement. He was a man
endowed with every virtue, but most eminent in war; and
resolving to kill Porsenna, attired himself in the Tuscan
habit, and using the Tuscan language, came to the camp, and
approaching the seat where the king sat amongst his nobles,
but not certainly knowing the king, and fearful to inquire,
drew out his sword, and stabbed one who he thought had most
the appearance of king. Mutius was taken in the act, and
whilst he was under examination, a pan of fire was brought
to the king, who intended to sacrifice; Mutius thrust his
right hand into the flame, and whist it burnt stood looking
at Porsenna with a steadfast and undaunted countenance;
Porsenna at last in admiration dismissed him, and returned
his sword, reaching it from his seat: Mutius received it in
his left hand, which occasioned the name of Scaevola,
left-handed, and said, 'I have overcome the terrors of
Porsenna, yet am vanquished by his generosity, and gratitude
obliges me to disclose what no punishment could extort'; and
assured him then, that three hundred Romans, all of the same
resolution, lurked about his camp only waiting for an
opportunity; he, by lot appointed to the enterprise, was not
sorry that he had miscarried in it, because so brave and
good a man deserved rather to be a friend to the Romans than
an enemy.”
103 - 103
Alcmaeon, who slew his mother Eriphyle to avenge his father Amphiaraüs the soothsayer. See Purg. XII. Note 50.
Ovid, Met., IX.: –
“The son shall bathe his hands in parent's blood
And in one act be both unjust and good.”
118 - 118
Beatrice, beloved of God; “that blessed Beatrice, who lives in heaven with the angels and on earth with my soul.”
131 - 131
Lessing, Theol. Schrift., I. 108: “If God held all Truth shut up in his right hand, and in his left only the ever restless instinct for Truth,...and said to me, Choose! I should humbly fall down at his left, and say, Father, give! Pure Truth is for Thee alone!”
139 - 139
It must not be forgotten, that Beatrice is the symbol of Divine Wisdom. Dante says, Convito, III. 15: “In her countenance appear things which display some of the pleasures of Paradise”; and notes particularly “the eyes and smile.” He then adds: “And here it should be known that the eyes of Wisdom are its demonstrations, by which the truth is most clearly seen; and its smile the persuasions, in which is displayed the interior light of Wisdom under a veil; and in these two things is felt the exceeding pleasure of beatitude, which is the chief good in Paradise. This pleasure cannot exist in anything here below, except in beholding these eyes and this smile.”