Canto II
CANTO II
Dante the Poet exhorts those of his readers who have not acquired some measure of philosophical and theological wisdom to turn back to familiar shores and those who are so prepared to follow close in his wake lest they be lost in the deep. Inspired by Minerva, Apollo, and the Muses, he will now relate a journey more amazing than Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece (1–18). The bowstring of desire thrusts Dante and Beatrice into the moon, whose rarefied matter seems to envelop the two like a dense and brilliant cloud. Being wondrously received into the lunar body, like a ray of light into water, ignites the Pilgrim’s desire to behold the even more miraculous hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in Christ (19–45). Taking advantage of his present position, he inquires about the spots on the moon’s surface and voices his opinion that they result from the greater density or rarity of its matter (46–65). This seemingly trivial question affords Beatrice the opportunity to discourse on the divine order of the universe. But first she refutes the Pilgrim’s erroneous belief with an argument from the qualitative differences produced by the stellar influences (64–72) and from physical evidence (73–93) that can be confirmed by experiment (94–105). Dante’s Teacher then explains that, from His abode in the Empyrean, God imparts a power to the Primum Mobile, the ninth sphere of the material heavens, which communicates it to the eighth sphere, that of the fixed stars. The latter differentiates and distributes this power to the seven planetary spheres, each receiving it from above and transmitting it below with further differentiations, until it produces its effects in the sublunar realm (106–126). This process of reception and transmission is effected by the angelic intelligences, who impress upon the spheres their virtue and motion in a way similar to that in which the soul quickens the body. By blending with the celestial bodies they move, their power shines forth now more brightly, now more dimly, from sphere to sphere and within a given planet, according to the different degrees of angelic bounty and the individual qualities of the celestial bodies (127–148).
1 O you who in your wish to hear my song
Have followed in your little boat a way
Behind my ship, which, singing, comes along,
4 Turn back to see your shores again, I say;
Do not set out to sea for it may be
That, losing me, you would be left astray.
7 The waves I’m taking are untraveled sea;
Minerva breathes, Apollo guides my wit,[28]
Nine Muses, too, point out the Bears to me.[29]
10 You other few who raised your necks a bit
To eat of angels’ bread, on which some men[30]
Here live but are not satisfied by it,
13 You may indeed commit your vessel then
To this deep brine, but hold my furrow fast,
Ahead of waters that turn smooth again.
16 Those men of glory, those who once had passed
To Colchis and saw Jason plow the ground,[31]
Weren’t so amazed as you shall be at last.
19 The inborn and persistent thirst that’s found
For God’s own realm bore us away to fly[32]
As quickly as you see the skies turn round.
22 I gazed on Beatrice, and she on high;
In less time than the arrow leaves the string,
And flies, and strikes, perhaps, I saw that I[33]
25 Had reached a place in which a wondrous thing[34]
Would draw my sight to it, and therefore she
From whom I cannot hide the cares I bring
28 Turned round to me, as fair as full of glee;
“Show God,” she said, “a grateful mind, my son;
He’s joined us to this star, the first you see.”[35]
31 It seemed a cloud enveloped us, and one[36]
That was quite solid, polished, dense, and bright,
Just like a diamond smitten by the sun.
34 The everlasting pearl now took us right[37]
Up in itself, like waters that receive,
Remaining yet intact, a ray of light.
37 If I was body (here we can’t conceive
How one dimension bears one more in it,
As must be, if two bodies interweave),
40 Then so much more should our desire be lit
To see that Essence in which one perceives
How God and human nature interknit.[38]
43 We’ll there see that to which by faith one cleaves,
Not demonstrated, but as known per se,
Just like the primal truth that man believes.[39]
46 “My Lady, most devoutly as I may,”
I answered her, “I offer thanks to Him
Who raised me from the mortal world today.
49 But tell what markings make this body dim,
Which down below has caused the earthly flock
To give the tale of Cain a fable’s trim?”[40]
52 She smiled a bit and said: “If errors block
A mortal man’s opinion of such things
There where the key of sense can not unlock,
55 You should not now be pricked by wonder’s stings
Since, even when you follow after sense,
You recognize that reason has short wings.
58 But tell me what you think of it; commence.”
And I: “That which below seems different
I think is made by bodies rare and dense.”
61 “You certainly shall see your confident
Belief submersed in error, if you hear
Quite well,” she said, “my counter-argument.
64 For many lights are shown in that eighth sphere,[41]
And they in quality and quantity
May all have diverse aspects that appear.
67 If rare or dense alone makes this to be,
One virtue to them all we must impute,
Allotted more, or less, or equally.
70 All diverse virtues, which must be the fruit
Of formal principles, would come to rack,
Except for one of them, as you compute.[42]
73 What’s more, if rarity should cause the black
Of which you’re asking, either through and through
In proper matter would this planet lack,
76 Or it would alternate between the two
As lean and fat within a body rest
Or just as, in a book, the pages do.[43]
79 In your first case, this would be manifest
Each time eclipses of the sun are spied,
For light shines through the rarer matter best.[44]
82 This is not so, and thus the other side
Must be explored; if I refute it, though,
Your first opinion will be falsified.[45]
85 Now if the rare does not pass through it, know
That there must be a term beyond whose bed
Its opposite, the dense, won’t let it go.
88 From there sun rays would be cast back instead
Just as a color also would have been
Through glass that hides, in back, a sheet of lead.[46]
91 Such rays are shown, your answer may begin,
More dimly there than in another part
Because reflected from much farther in.[47]
94 Experimenting (if you’d only start)
Would free you, if this cavil should arise—
It is the fount that feeds the streams of art.
97 Set up two mirrors so that each one lies
At equal length from you; still farther let
A third between the former meet your eyes.
100 When turned to them, behind your back have set
A light enkindling them, and one whose aim
Returns from all three mirrors it has met.
103 Although the farthest image of the flame
May not so large in size attain your gaze,
You’ll see its brightness has to be the same.[48]
106 Now, as beneath the blow of warmer rays
The substrate of the snow is left stripped bare
Of both the hue and cold it first displays,[49]
109 So, with your intellect thus stripped, I dare
Inform you with a living light that glows
So lively it will quiver as you stare.
112 Within the heaven of divine repose
Revolves a body in whose force will lie[50]
The being of all things its bounds enclose.
115 The sphere that follows with so much to spy[51]
Spreads being out through essences diverse,[52]
Distinct from—yet contained by—such a sky.
118 The other spheres in varied ways disperse[53]
Distinctions they contain so they may sow
Their seeds and reach their ends. The universe[54]
121 Has organs such as these, which therefore go[55]
From grade to grade, as you have just been shown,
For from above they take and act below.
124 See well now how I journey through this zone
Up to the very truth of your desires
So you’ll know how to hold the ford alone.
127 The holy movers’ corps perforce inspires,[56]
Like smiths who ply the hammer’s art with zeal,
The might and motion of the holy gyres.
130 And so, from that deep mind which makes it wheel,[57]
The sphere which many lights adorn takes just[58]
The stamp of which it then becomes the seal.
133 And as the soul that dwells within your dust
Has been diffused through different limbs and there
Conforms to diverse potencies, so must
136 Each high Intelligence unfold to share
Its bounty, which the stars have multiplied,
Revolving on itself in oneness where,
139 By mixing, diverse virtues are allied
With precious, quickened bodies, and to those,[59]
As life is bound within you, they are tied.
142 Glad nature is the source from which each flows;
Thus, through these bodies mingled virtues flare
As through a living pupil gladness shows.
145 From these there come—and not from dense and rare—
The differences from light to light we mark;
Such are the formal principles that bear,
148 According to their goodness, bright and dark.”[60]