Paradiso
Piccarda Donati and the Empress Constance. The Heaven of the Moon: Souls who broke their Vows.
That Sun which once warmed my heart with love
had revealed to me the sweet face
of beautiful truth,
through both proof and refutation.
And so that I might declare myself
both convinced and confident,
I raised my head higher—
I straightened myself to speak as was proper,
but a vision appeared that drew me so close
I forgot my intended confession entirely.
As faces reflect back through polished glass
or clear, still water—not so deep
that the bottom disappears—
returning our features so faintly
that a white pearl upon a forehead
comes no less quickly to our sight,
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THE MOON
“comes no less quickly to our sight,”
so I saw many faces eager to speak.
I made the opposite error of the man
who fell in love with his own reflection.
The moment I noticed them,
thinking they were mirror images,
I turned to see who stood behind me
and saw nothing, then looked forward again
into the light of my sweet guide,
who smiled with kindling in her holy eyes.
"Don't be surprised," she said to me,
"that I smile at your childish mistake.
You still don't trust your foot upon the truth
but turn, as usual, toward emptiness.
These are true souls that you behold,
exiled here for breaking sacred vows.
Speak with them, listen and believe—
the true light that gives them peace
will not let them turn their feet away."
I directed myself toward the shade
who seemed most eager to speak,
beginning like one overwhelmed by desire:
"O well-created spirit, who tastes
the sweetness of eternal life's rays—
sweetness never understood until tasted—
it would be gracious if you would satisfy me
with both your name and your condition here."
Promptly, with laughing eyes, she replied:
"Our love never shuts its doors
against a righteous wish, any more than He
who wills His entire court to be like Him.
I was a virgin sister in the world,
and if your mind contemplates me well,
my greater beauty will not hide me from you—
you'll recognize that I am Piccarda,
placed here among these other blessed souls,
blessed in the slowest sphere.
All our affections, inflamed alone
by the Holy Spirit's pleasure,
rejoice to be formed in His order.
This assignment that appears so low
is given to us because our vows
were neglected and left partly unfulfilled."
I said to her: "In your miraculous appearance
something divine shines that I cannot name,
transforming you from our first understanding.
That's why I was slow to remember,
but what you tell me now helps so much
that recognition becomes easier.
But tell me—you who are happy in this place—
do you desire a higher station,
to see more or to make yourselves more beloved?"
First she smiled a little with the other shades,
then answered me so full of joy
she seemed to burn with love's first fire:
"Brother, the virtue of love quiets our will,
making us wish only for what we have
and thirst for nothing more.
If we aspired to greater heights,
our longings would clash
with the will of Him who places us here—
which you'll see finds no room in these circles
if dwelling in love is necessary here,
and if you consider well love's nature.
Indeed, it's essential to this blessed existence
to remain within the divine will,
so that our very wishes become one.
Thus, as we stand station above station
throughout this realm, the whole realm is pleased,
as is the King who makes His will our will.
And His will is our peace—the sea
toward which everything moves
that He creates and nature makes."
Then it became clear how everywhere
in heaven is Paradise, though the grace
of the highest good doesn't rain equally.
But as it happens when one food satisfies
while longing for another remains,
so we ask for one thing and decline another with thanks—
so I did, with gesture and word,
to learn from her what web it was
where she failed to draw the shuttle to the end.
"A perfect life and high merit placed in heaven
a lady above us," she said, "by whose rule
people in your world dress and veil themselves
to watch and sleep until death
beside that Spouse who accepts every vow
that love shapes to His pleasure.
To follow her, I fled the world as a girl
and enclosed myself in her habit,
pledging myself to her order's path.
Then men more accustomed to evil than good
tore me from that sweet cloister—
God knows what my life became after.
This other splendor revealing herself
at my right side, kindled
with all our sphere's illumination,
shares what I say of myself—
she too was a nun, and likewise
the sacred veil's shadow was taken from her head.
But when she too was returned to the world
against her will and proper custom,
she never removed the veil from her heart.
This is the radiance of great Constance,
who from Swabia's second wind
brought forth the third and final power."
She spoke thus to me, then began
singing "Ave Maria," and while singing
vanished like something heavy through deep water.
My sight followed her as long as possible,
and when I lost her, turned back
toward the target of greater desire,
wholly returning to Beatrice.
But she flashed such lightning into my eyes
that at first my sight couldn't bear it,
and this made me slower in my questioning.