Paradiso
St. Buonaventura recounts the Life of St. Dominic. La- ment over the State of the Franciscan Order. The Se- cond Circle. Soon
When the blessed flame finished speaking its final word,
the holy millstone began to turn,
and before it had completed even one full revolution,
another ring enclosed it,
joining motion to motion, song to song—
a song that surpasses our earthly music,
our mortal voices, in those sweet harmonies
as much as original light outshines reflection.
Like two parallel rainbows arcing across delicate clouds,
identical in color, when Juno commands her messenger—
the outer born from the inner,
like the voice of that wandering nymph
whom love consumed as sun consumes mist—
those bows that make people here recall
God's covenant with Noah,
a promise that the world would never again
be covered by flood.
So these twin garlands of eternal roses
surrounded us completely,
the outer circle answering the inner.
After the dancing and all the grand celebration—
the singing and the brilliant flashing
of radiance upon radiance, joyful and tender—
suddenly stopped together, all at once, in perfect harmony
(like eyes that must close and open
together when the will moves them),
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THE SUN—GLORIFIED SOULS
“surrounded us completely, / the outer circle answering the inner. / After the dancing and all the grand celebration—”
from the heart of one of the new lights
came a voice that made me turn toward it
like a compass needle swinging to its star.
And it began: "The love that makes me beautiful
compels me to speak of the other leader,
the one for whom mine has been so well praised here.
Where one is mentioned, the other should be brought forward,
so that as they were united in their warfare,
their glory too might shine together.
Christ's army, which had cost so much to arm again,
moved slowly behind the standard—
uncertain, fearful, reduced to few.
But the Emperor who reigns forever
provided for his endangered host
through grace alone, not because it was worthy.
As has been said, he brought aid to his Bride
with two champions, whose deeds and words
drew the scattered people back together.
In that land where the gentle west wind rises
to open fresh leaves that clothe
Europe in new green,
not far from the beating waves
behind which the sun in its long journey
sometimes hides from every human eye,
stands the blessed city of Calahorra,
protected by the mighty shield
where the Lion is both subject and sovereign.
There was born the passionate lover
of Christian Faith, the consecrated athlete,
kind to his own people, merciless to his enemies.
When his mind was first formed,
it was filled with such vital force
that it made his mother prophetic.
As soon as the marriage was completed
between him and Faith at the baptismal font,
where each endowed the other with salvation,
the woman who had given her consent for him
saw in a dream the wondrous fruit
that would spring from him and his heirs.
So that he might be understood as he truly was,
a spirit descended from this place to name him
with the possessive form of Him
to whom he belonged completely.
He was called Dominic—and of him I speak
as of the farmer Christ chose
to help him in his garden.
He truly seemed Christ's messenger and servant,
for the first love revealed in him
was the first teaching Christ had given.
His nurse would often find him
silent and wakeful on the ground,
as if he meant to say: 'This is why I came.'
O Felix, his father—truly blessed!
O Joanna, his mother—truly favored by God,
if these names mean what they are said to mean!
Not for the worldly success that people strive for now,
following canon lawyers and legal scholars,
but through his hunger for the true bread,
he quickly became so great a teacher
that he began to tend the vineyard
which withers when the keeper proves faithless.
From the Papal See—once more generous
to the righteous poor, not through its own nature
but through him who sat there then and has since declined—
he asked not for the right to give back
two or three coins out of six,
not for any lucrative appointment,
not for 'the tithes that belong to God's poor,'
but for permission to battle the wayward world
for the sake of that seed
from which these twenty-four plants around you grew.
Then with doctrine and determination together,
bearing apostolic authority, he set out
like a torrent bursting from a mountain spring.
His force struck hardest
against heretical offshoots
wherever he met the greatest resistance.
From him flowed many streams
that water the Catholic garden,
making its plantings more alive and strong.
If such was one wheel of the chariot
by which Holy Church defended itself
and won its battle in the field,
the excellence of the other wheel should be
perfectly clear to you—
the one Thomas praised so courteously before I came.
But the track that the highest part
of its rim once made lies abandoned now,
so that where crust once was, now there is mold.
His family, who once walked straight ahead
with their feet following in his footsteps,
have turned around completely,
setting toe where heel should be.
Soon they will learn what harvest
this bad farming yields, when the weeds
complain that the storehouse has been taken from them.
Yet I say this: whoever searches our book
page by page would still find some leaves
where he could read: 'I am as I have always been.'
Such pages will not come from Casale or Acquasparta,
from where men come to the written rule—
one avoiding it, the other narrowing it.
I am the life of Bonaventure of Bagnoregio,
who in great offices always
put aside worldly considerations.
Here are Illuminato and Augustine,
among the first barefoot beggars
who with the cord became friends of God.
Hugh of Saint Victor is here with them,
and Peter Mangiador, and Peter of Spain,
who shines below in his twelve volumes.
Nathan the prophet and John Chrysostom the archbishop,
Anselm and Donatus, who deigned
to put his hand to the first art.
Here is Rabanus, and beside me shines
the Calabrian Abbot Joachim,
gifted with the spirit of prophecy.
The passionate courtesy and wise words
of Brother Thomas moved me
to celebrate so great a champion,
and with me they have moved all this company."