You who follow in your eager little boats,
listening behind my ship that sails singing,
turn back now to see your own shores again.
Don't venture out to sea—if you lose me,
you might lose yourselves forever.
5
The waters I navigate have never been crossed before.
Minerva fills my sails, Apollo guides me,
and nine Muses point out the stars.
8
But you few others who have lifted your heads early
toward the bread of angels—
that food which sustains life here without ever satisfying—
you may launch your vessels on the deep salt sea,
keeping always in my wake
on waters that smooth themselves again behind me.
14
Those heroes who sailed to Colchos
felt less wonder than you will
when they saw Jason transformed into a plowman.
17
The eternal thirst born within us
for God's realm carried us forward
almost as swiftly as your eyes behold the heavens.
20
Beatrice gazed upward, and I gazed at her.
In perhaps the time it takes
for an arrow to strike and fly
and release itself from the bowstring,
I found myself arrived where something wondrous
drew my sight completely.
26
She from whom no thought of mine
could ever be hidden
turned to me, radiant and beautiful:
"Focus your mind in gratitude on God,
who has brought us to the first star."
31
It seemed a cloud surrounded us—
luminous, dense, solid, and brilliant
as diamond struck by sunlight.
The eternal pearl received us into itself
as water receives a ray of light
while remaining unbroken.
37
If I was still flesh—and here we cannot understand
how one dimension can tolerate another,
which must happen when body enters body—
this should kindle in us even greater desire
to see that essence where we'll witness
how our human nature was united with God's.
43
There we will see what here we take on faith,
not as something demonstrated
but self-evident as the first truth
that every person believes.
47
I replied: "My Lady, as devoutly
as I possibly can, I give thanks to Him
who has lifted me from the mortal world.
But tell me—what are those dark patches
on this sphere, which down on earth
make people tell that fable about Cain?"
53
She smiled a little, then said:
"When mortal opinion goes astray
where the key of the senses cannot unlock truth,
the arrows of wonder should not pierce you now,
since you can see that reason's wings are short
when it follows only the senses.
But tell me what you think about it yourself."
60
And I said: "What appears different to us here
is caused, I believe, by matter that is rare or dense."
62
"You will see your belief truly drowned in error,"
she replied, "if you listen carefully
to the argument I will make against it.
65
The eighth sphere displays many lights to you
which can be noted as different
in both quality and quantity.
If rare and dense matter alone caused this,
then only one power would exist in all of them—
distributed more or less, or equally.
71
Different powers must come from different
formal principles, and all but one of these
would be destroyed by your reasoning.
74
Besides, if rarity caused the dimness you ask about,
then either this planet would be thin with matter
all the way through,
or else, as fat and lean alternate in a body,
this sphere would alternate its layers similarly.
79
If the first were true, it would show
during a solar eclipse
by light shining through
as it does through anything thin.
This doesn't happen, so we must examine the second option—
and if I demolish that one too,
your opinion will be proven false.
86
If this rarity didn't go all the way through,
there would have to be a boundary
beyond which its opposite
prevents further passage,
and from there foreign light would be reflected back
just as color returns from glass
that conceals lead behind it.
93
Now you might say the sunbeam appears
dimmer there than in other parts
because it's reflected from farther back.
But experiment can free you from this reply—
you should try it, since experiment
is the source of your sciences.
99
Take three mirrors and place two
at equal distances from you,
with the third farther back between them.
Turn toward these mirrors and place
a light behind your back
to illuminate all three
and reflect back to you.
Though the most distant image
won't be as large,
you'll see it shines with equal brightness.
109
Now, just as the foundation of snow,
when touched by warm rays,
is left bare of both
its former color and its coldness,
so you, left bare in your understanding,
I will inform with such living light
that it will sparkle as you look at it.
116
Within the heaven of divine peace
revolves a sphere in whose power lies
the existence of everything it contains.
The following heaven, with its many stars,
divides this existence among diverse essences
that are separate from it yet contained within it.
The other spheres, through various differences,
direct all their internal distinctions
toward their purposes and effects.
125
These organs of the universe proceed,
as you now see, from level to level,
receiving from above and acting below.
128
Watch carefully how I move through this place
toward the truth you seek, so that afterward
you can navigate these waters alone.
131
The power and motion of the sacred spheres
must flow from their blessed movers
like skill flows from the craftsman to the hammer.
The heaven made beautiful by so many lights
takes its image from the deep Intelligence that turns it
and makes itself a seal of that image.
137
Just as the soul spreads itself through your flesh
via different organs adapted
to different faculties,
so this Intelligence diffuses
its multiplied power among the stars
while revolving in its unity.
143
Each different power makes a different compound
with the precious body it animates,
binding with it as life binds with you.
From the joyful nature from which it flows,
this mingled power shines through the body
like happiness shining through a living eye.
149
From this comes whatever appears different
from light to light—
not from dense and rare matter.
This is the formal principle that produces,
according to its excellence, the dark and bright."
154