Dante's Paradiso: Canto VII

Beatrice’s Discourse of the Crucifixion, the Incarnation, the Immortality of the Soul, and the Resurrection of the Body.

"Osanna sanctus Deus Sabaoth,
   Superillustrans claritate tua
   Felices ignes horum malahoth!"

In this wise, to his melody returning,
   This substance, upon which a double light 5
   Doubles itself, was seen by me to sing,

And to their dance this and the others moved,
   And in the manner of swift-hurrying sparks
   Veiled themselves from me with a sudden distance.

Doubting was I, and saying, "Tell her, tell her," 10
   Within me, "tell her," saying, "tell my Lady,"
   Who slakes my thirst with her sweet effluences;

And yet that reverence which doth lord it over
   The whole of me only by B and ICE,
   Bowed me again like unto one who drowses. 15

Short while did Beatrice endure me thus;
   And she began, lighting me with a smile
   Such as would make one happy in the fire:

"According to infallible advisement,
   After what manner a just vengeance justly 20
   Could be avenged has put thee upon thinking,

But I will speedily thy mind unloose;
   And do thou listen, for these words of mine
   Of a great doctrine will a present make thee.

By not enduring on the power that wills 25
   Curb for his good, that man who ne'er was born,
   Damning himself damned all his progeny;

Whereby the human species down below
   Lay sick for many centuries in great error,
   Till to descend it pleased the Word of God 30

To where the nature, which from its own Maker
   Estranged itself, he joined to him in person
   By the sole act of his eternal love.

Now unto what is said direct thy sight;
   This nature when united to its Maker, 35
   Such as created, was sincere and good;

But by itself alone was banished forth
   From Paradise, because it turned aside
   Out of the way of truth and of its life.

Therefore the penalty the cross held out, 40
   If measured by the nature thus assumed,
   None ever yet with so great justice stung,

And none was ever of so great injustice,
   Considering who the Person was that suffered,
   Within whom such a nature was contracted. 45

From one act therefore issued things diverse;
   To God and to the Jews one death was pleasing;
   Earth trembled at it and the Heaven was opened.

It should no longer now seem difficult
   To thee, when it is said that a just vengeance 50
   By a just court was afterward avenged.

But now do I behold thy mind entangled
   From thought to thought within a knot, from which
   With great desire it waits to free itself.

Thou sayest, 'Well discern I what I hear; 55
   But it is hidden from me why God willed
   For our redemption only this one mode.'

Buried remaineth, brother, this decree
   Unto the eyes of every one whose nature
   Is in the flame of love not yet adult. 60

Verily, inasmuch as at this mark
   One gazes long and little is discerned,
   Wherefore this mode was worthiest will I say.

Goodness Divine, which from itself doth spurn
   All envy, burning in itself so sparkles 65
   That the eternal beauties it unfolds.

Whate'er from this immediately distils
   Has afterwards no end, for ne'er removed
   Is its impression when it sets its seal.

Whate'er from this immediately rains down 70
   Is wholly free, because it is not subject
   Unto the influences of novel things.

The more conformed thereto, the more it pleases;
   For the blest ardour that irradiates all things
   In that most like itself is most vivacious. 75

With all of these things has advantaged been
   The human creature; and if one be wanting,
   From his nobility he needs must fall.

'Tis sin alone which doth disfranchise him,
   And render him unlike the Good Supreme, 80
   So that he little with its light is blanched,

And to his dignity no more returns,
   Unless he fill up where transgression empties
   With righteous pains for criminal delights.

Your nature when it sinned so utterly 85
   In its own seed, out of these dignities
   Even as out of Paradise was driven,

Nor could itself recover, if thou notest
   With nicest subtilty, by any way,
   Except by passing one of these two fords: 90

Either that God through clemency alone
   Had pardon granted, or that man himself
   Had satisfaction for his folly made.

Fix now thine eye deep into the abyss
   Of the eternal counsel, to my speech 95
   As far as may be fastened steadfastly!

Man in his limitations had not power
   To satisfy, not having power to sink
   In his humility obeying then,

Far as he disobeying thought to rise; 100
   And for this reason man has been from power
   Of satisfying by himself excluded.

Therefore it God behoved in his own ways
   Man to restore unto his perfect life,
   I say in one, or else in both of them. 105

But since the action of the doer is
   So much more grateful, as it more presents
   The goodness of the heart from which it issues,

Goodness Divine, that doth imprint the world,
   Has been contented to proceed by each 110
   And all its ways to lift you up again;

Nor 'twixt the first day and the final night
   Such high and such magnificent proceeding
   By one or by the other was or shall be;

For God more bounteous was himself to give 115
   To make man able to uplift himself,
   Than if he only of himself had pardoned;

And all the other modes were insufficient
   For justice, were it not the Son of God
   Himself had humbled to become incarnate. 120

Now, to fill fully each desire of thine,
   Return I to elucidate one place,
   In order that thou there mayst see as I do.

Thou sayst: 'I see the air, I see the fire,
   The water, and the earth, and all their mixtures 125
   Come to corruption, and short while endure;

And these things notwithstanding were created;'
   Therefore if that which I have said were true,
   They should have been secure against corruption.

The Angels, brother, and the land sincere 130
   In which thou art, created may be called
   Just as they are in their entire existence;

But all the elements which thou hast named,
   And all those things which out of them are made,
   By a created virtue are informed. 135

Created was the matter which they have;
   Created was the informing influence
   Within these stars that round about them go.

The soul of every brute and of the plants
   By its potential temperament attracts 140
   The ray and motion of the holy lights;

But your own life immediately inspires
   Supreme Beneficence, and enamours it
   So with herself, it evermore desires her.

And thou from this mayst argue furthermore 145
   Your resurrection, if thou think again
   How human flesh was fashioned at that time

When the first parents both of them were made."

NOTES

1 - 1

“Hosanna, holy God of Sabaoth, illuminating with thy brightness the happy fires of these realms.”

Dante is still in the planet Mercury, which receives from the sun six times more light and heat than the Earth.

5 - 5

By Substance is here meant spirit, or angel; the word having the sense of Subsistence. See Canto XXIII. Note 58.

7 - 7

The rapidity of the motion of the flying spirits is beautifully expressed in these lines.

10 - 10

Namely, the doubt in his mind.

14 - 14

Bice, or Beatrice.

17 - 17

Convito III. 8: “And in these two places I say these pleasures appear, saying, In her eyes and in her sweet smile; which two places by a beautiful similitude may be called balconies of the Lady who inhabits the edifice of the body, that is, the Soul; since here, although as if veiled, she often shows herself. She shows herself in the eyes so manifestly, that he who looks carefully can recognize her present passion. Hence, inasmuch as six passions are peculiar to the human soul, of which the Philosopher makes mention in his Rhetoric, that is, grace, zeal, mercy, envy, love, and shame, with none of these can the Soul be impassioned, without its semblance coming to the window of the eyes, unless it be kept within by great effort. Hence one of old plucked out his eyes, so that his inward shame might not appear outwardly, as Statius the poet relates of Theban OEdipus, when he says, that in eternal night he hid his shame accursed. She shows herself in the mouth, as color behind glass. And what is laughter but a coruscation of the delight of the soul, that is, a light appearing outwardly, as it exists within? And therefore it behoveth man to show his soul in moderate joy, to laugh moderately with dignified severity, and with slight motion of the arms; so that the Lady who then shows herself, as has been said, may appear modest, and not dissolute. Hence the Book of the Four Cardinal Virtues commands us, 'Let thy laughter be without cachinnation, that is to say, without cackling like a hen.' Ah, wonderful laughter of my Lady, that never was perceived but by the eye!”

20 - 20

Referring back to Canto VI. 92; –

“To do vengeance
Upon the vengeance of the ancient sin.”

27 - 27

Milton, Par. Lost, I. 1, the story

“Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.”

36 - 36

Sincere in the sense of pure.

65 - 65

Plato, Timaeus, Davis's Tr., X.: “Let us declare then on what account the framing Artificer settled the formation of this universe. He was good; and in the good envy is never engendered about anything whatever. Hence, being free from this, he desired that all things should as much as possible resemble himself.”

Also Milton, Par. Lost I. 259: –

“The Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy.”

And again, VIII, 491: –

“Thou hast fulfilled
Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign,
Giver of all things fair! but fairest this
Of all thy gifts! nor enviest.”

67 - 67

Dante here discriminates between the direct or immediate inspirations of God, and those influences that come indirectly through the stars. In the Convito, VII. 3, he says: “The goodness of God is received in one manner by disembodied substances, that is, by the Angels (who are without material grossness, and as it were diaphanous on account of the purity of their form), and in another manner by the human soul, which though in one part it is free from matter, in another is impeded by it; (as a man who is wholly in the water, except his head, of whom it cannot be said he is wholly in the water nor wholly out of it;) and in another manner by the animals, whose soul is all absorbed in matter, but somewhat ennobled; and in another manner by the metals, and in another by the earth; because it is the most material, and therefore the most remote from and the most inappropriate for the first most simple and noble virtue, which is solely intellectual, that is, God.”

And in Canto XXIX. 136: –

“The primal light, that all irradiates,
By modes as many is received therein,
As are the splendors wherewith it is mated.”

76 - 76

Convito VII. 3: “Between the angelic nature, which is an intellectual thing, and the human soul there is no step, but they are both almost continous in the order of gradation..... Thus we are to suppose and firmly to believe, that a man may be so noble, and of such lofty condition, that he shall be almost an angel.”

130 - 130

The Angels, and the Heavens, and the human soul, being immediately inspired by God, are immutable and indestructible. But the elements and the souls of brutes and plants are controlled by the stars, and are mutable and perishable.

142 - 142

See Purg. XVI. 85: –

“Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it
Before it is, like to a little girl
Weeping and laughing in her childish sport,
Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows,
Save that, proceeding from a joyour Maker,
Gladly it turns to that which gives it
pleasure.”

And also Purg. XXV. 70: –

“The primal Motor turns to it well pleased
At so great art of nature, and inspires
A spirit new with virtue all replete.”