Paradiso
St. Peter's reproof of bad Popes. The Ascent to the Ninth Heaven, the Primum Mobile.
What I saw seemed to me like
the universe itself smiling—
my intoxication found its way in
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THE HEAVEN OF THE FIXED STARS
“What I saw seemed to me like / the universe itself smiling— / my intoxication found its way in”
**Canto XXVII**
Through hearing and through sight—O joy! O inexpressible gladness!
O perfect life of love and peace! O riches secure, without longing!
Before my eyes stood the four torches ablaze,
and the one that had come first
began to glow more luminous still,
becoming in appearance what Jupiter would be
if he and Mars were birds
exchanging their bright feathers.
That Providence which here assigns
both season and service to the blessed choir
had imposed silence on every side,
when I heard these words:
"Do not marvel if I change color—
for while I speak, you will see
all of these souls change their hue as well.
He who usurps my place on earth—
my place, my place, my place!—
which stands vacant before the Son of God,
has made my cemetery a sewer
of blood and stench,
satisfying the Perverse One who fell from here."
With that same color which paints the clouds
at evening or at dawn when the sun opposes them,
I saw all of heaven suffused.
And like a modest woman who remains
confident in herself, yet grows fearful
merely from hearing of another's shame,
so Beatrice changed her countenance—
and I believe such eclipse occurred in heaven
when the supreme Power suffered on the cross.
Then his words continued
with a voice so transformed from itself
that his very face was not more altered:
"Christ's bride was never nurtured
on my blood, on Linus's and Cletus's,
to be used for acquiring gold,
but for acquiring this delightful life
Sixtus and Pius, Urban and Callixtus
shed their blood after much weeping.
We never intended that Christian people
should sit divided—some on the right hand
of our successors, some on the left,
nor that the keys entrusted to me
should become heraldry on a banner
waging war against the baptized,
nor that I should be made the seal's figure
on privileges both corrupt and false—
which makes me blush and flash with fire.
From up here we see rapacious wolves
in shepherds' clothing throughout all the pastures!
O wrath of God, why do you still slumber?
The Cahorsines and Gascons prepare
to drink our blood. O noble beginning,
to what vile end you must fall!
But that high Providence which with Scipio
defended the world's glory at Rome
will swiftly bring aid, as I conceive.
And you, my son, who by your mortal weight
must return below again—open your mouth!
What I do not conceal, do not conceal yourself."
As our atmosphere falls downward
in frozen flakes when the horn
of the celestial Goat touches the sun,
so upward I saw the ether rise,
flaked with triumphant vapors
that had remained there with us.
My sight followed their forms upward
until the intervening space, grown excessive,
prevented further vision.
Then my Lady, seeing me freed
from gazing up, said to me:
"Cast down your sight and see how far you've turned."
From the first time I had looked down,
I saw I had moved through the entire arc
that the first climate makes from middle to end,
so that I saw Ulysses' mad track
beyond Gibraltar, and nearly to the shore
where Europa became love's sweet burden.
More of this threshing floor would have been revealed,
but the sun was moving beneath my feet,
a full constellation and more away.
My enamored mind, which always dallies
with my Lady, burned more ardently than ever
to bring my eyes back to her.
If Art or Nature ever made a lure
to capture eyes and possess the mind—
in human flesh or in its portraiture—
all joined together would seem nothing
beside the divine delight that shone upon me
when I turned to her smiling face.
The power her look bestowed on me
tore me from Leda's beautiful nest
and thrust me up into the swiftest heaven.
Its parts, so full of life and lofty,
are all so uniform I cannot say
which place Beatrice chose for me.
But she, aware of my desire,
began with such joyous smile
that God seemed to rejoice in her face:
"The nature of the motion that keeps still
the center while all the rest revolves around it
begins here as from its starting point.
In this heaven there is no other place
than in the Divine Mind, where kindles
the love that turns it and the power it rains down.
Light and love embrace it in a circle,
as it embraces all the others,
and only He who encircles it understands that boundary.
Its motion is not measured by another's,
but all the others are measured by this one,
as ten is measured by its half and fifth.
How time can have its roots in such a vessel
and its leaves in all the rest
can now be made clear to you.
O Covetousness, you engulf mortals
so deeply beneath you that none has power
to lift his eyes above your waves!
The will blossoms beautifully in mankind,
but unceasing rain converts
the true plums into rotted fruit.
Faith and innocence are found
only in children—then both take flight
before down covers their cheeks.
One child still lisping observes the fasts
who later, when his tongue is free,
devours any food in any season.
Another child still babbling loves
and obeys his mother,
who when he speaks perfectly
longs to see her buried.
So the white skin grows dark
in the first appearance of fair Dawn,
daughter of him who brings morning and leaves night.
That this may not amaze you,
consider that on earth no one governs—
which is why the human family goes astray.
But before January is completely removed from winter
by that hundredth part neglected on earth,
these celestial circles will roar so loud
that the long-awaited tempest
will spin the ships' sterns where their prows should be,
so the fleet will run its true course
and genuine fruit will follow the flower."