Canto X
CANTO X
In order to mark a new beginning, Dante asks his reader to gaze up at the point where the celestial equator and ecliptic intersect and to consider the marvelous order with which the primal Good (the Father), led by Wisdom (the Son), and moved by Love (the Holy Spirit), created the heavens so as to exercise the most beneficent influence on man (1–27). The Pilgrim has now risen instantaneously with Beatrice to the sun, where the souls of the wise become visible, not by a difference of color, but by a greater, though indescribable, intensity of light. It is their privilege to behold the Father’s eternal generation of the Son and their spiration of the Spirit (28–51). As Beatrice exhorts her charge to render thanks to Divine Providence for the grace accorded him, the Poet is filled with such love for God that he momentarily loses sight of his Lady (52–63). The spirits of the wise then form a crown of lights around Beatrice and Dante, like the halo around the moon on a humid night, and sing with such surpassing beauty that any attempt to describe it would be no better than dumb silence. Having circled around the two, like maidens in a roundelay, these solar lights now pause as one of them feels compelled by charity to answer the Pilgrim’s unasked question about their identities (64–93). The speaker is none other than Thomas Aquinas, who in turn presents Albertus Magnus, Gratian, Peter Lombard, Solomon, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Paulus Orosius, Boethius, Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede, Richard of St. Victor, and Siger de Brabant (94–138). Then, like the workings of a clock whose chimes summon the faithful to morning prayer, the luminous circle resumes its dance and song of otherworldly sweetness (139–148).
1 While gazing on His Son with all the Love
That both of them breathe forth eternally,
The primal Good beyond all speech above
4 Made all that wheels through mind and space to be
With such an order that the one who peers
At it must taste of Him to some degree.
7 Now lift your vision to the lofty spheres
With me, O Reader, straight up to that part
Where one high motion through the other steers,[244]
10 And start to revel in the Master’s art,
Which lies in Him who loves it as a gem
From which He never lets His eyes depart.
13 See how, oblique, as branching from a stem,
That circle bears the planets on ahead[245]
To satisfy the world that calls on them.
16 For if their course were not aslant instead,
Much virtue in the heavens would be vain
And here most every potency lie dead;
19 And if it were to part from its straight lane,
Now more, now less, both hemispheres would lack
Much order found within the world’s domain.
22 Stay on your bench now, Reader, and think back
On that which you have tasted of your share
If you’d be glad before you tire and slack.
25 Sup for yourself for I’ve laid out the fare;
The matter making me its scribe for you
Has wrested to itself my total care.
28 The greatest minister of Nature, who[246]
Imprints celestial worth on earthly clay
And measures with its light what times ensue,
31 Was wheeling through its spirals where it lay
Within the sign I’ve mentioned to present
Itself to us yet earlier each day.
34 And I was with it but to my ascent
No more alert than one would be aware
Of any thought before its own event.
37 It’s Beatrice who guides me up the stair
From good to better with so swift a flight
Her act does not extend through time up there.
40 And how they must have been themselves most bright
Who in the sun, when I had crossed its sill,
Appeared not by their color but by light!
43 Were I to call on genius, art, and skill,
My words could never image it, but one
May yet believe and long to see it still.
46 And if our fancy is too low to run
To such a height, the marvel is not great
For eye has never gone beyond the sun.
49 And such was this fourth family’s estate,
Whom the High Father sates and to its ranks
Shows how He may breathe forth and generate.
52 And Beatrice began: “Give thanks, give thanks
To Him, the Sun of angels, by whose grace
You’ve sailed to this perceptible sun’s banks.”
55 Man’s heart was never ready to embrace
Devotions, yielding unto God its all
And offering thanksgivings, so apace
58 As I was in my answer to her call;
I set such love on Him that Beatrice,
Eclipsed, fell in oblivion—which fall
61 Did not displease her, for she smiled at this,
So that the splendor of her smiling eyes
Split off towards many things one mental bliss.
64 I saw more living, dazzling lights arise
As we to center, they to crown, had grown,
All yet more sweet in voice than bright in guise.
67 Thus girt, Latona’s girl at times is shown,[247]
As when a mist so saturates the air
That it retains the thread that makes her zone.
70 Some gems are found so precious and so fair
In Heaven’s court, from which I have just come,
That one can’t take them from the kingdom there,
73 And of these was the song those splendors hum.
So he who dons no wings to reach that goal
May wait for tidings of it from the dumb!
76 Those singing suns ablaze began to roll
Three times around us both and to advance
Like stars that circle near to each fixed pole;
79 They seemed like maids not loosed yet from the dance,
Who stop in silence, listening till they
Can catch new notes. And then I heard by chance
82 One light begin within: “Because the ray
Of grace by which is lit the love that’s true
And which expands by loving all it may
85 Is so resplendent, multiplied in you,
And leads you up that ladder’s each degree,
Where none descends except to mount anew,
88 A soul would be no more at liberty
To disallow your thirst its flask of wine
Than water would to flow no more to sea.
91 You wish to know what blooming plants entwine
Your lovely Maid with wreaths of loving gaze,
Who strengthens you to rise through skies divine.
94 I was a lamb of those blest sheep who graze
On roads that Dominic has led us by,[248]
Where one is fattened if one never strays.
97 And Albert of Cologne is here quite nigh,[249]
My master and my brother, on the right;
And Thomas of Aquino then am I.[250]
100 If you would know what others here unite,
Just come around this blessèd wreath awhile
And follow on my speaking with your sight.
103 The next flame issues out of Gratian’s smile,[251]
Who to both courts lent aid so erudite
That it has pleased all Paradise in style.
106 And as the next who gilds our choir, I cite
That Peter who gave treasures from his wit[252]
To Holy Church, just like the widow’s mite.[253]
109 The fifth light, that most beautiful here lit,[254]
Respires with such a love that all around
The world below men thirst for news of it.
112 It holds a lofty mind where such profound
Sagacity is placed—if truth be true—
None other rising to its sight is found.
115 Beside it see that candle’s shining hue[255]
Whose vision in the flesh most deeply joyed
In angel ministries and natures too.
118 The flamelet smiling next to it deployed[256]
Defenses for the Christian times and ways
In Latin works Augustine once employed.
121 And now, if you have drawn behind my praise
Your mental eye from light to light, you should
Already be athirst for this eighth blaze.
124 This blest soul, joyous, seeing every good, [257]
Still makes the lying world full manifest
To everyone who’s heard and understood.
127 Cieldauro holds the frame they would divest
This exile and this martyr of before
He came to be within this peace at rest.
130 See next the flaming breath of Isidore[258]
And those of Bede and Richard, who below[259]
In contemplation was a man and more.
133 Your look, returning from the final glow,
Beholds a spirit who in weighty thought
Had mourned that death should come to him so slow.
136 In endless light here Siger is upcaught,[260]
Who on Straw Street had lectured, and by whom
Truths syllogized were enviably wrought.”
139 Then, like a clock that calls us from our room
At just the hour the Bride of God arrives[261]
And, for His love, sings matins to her Groom[262]
142 When one part and the other draws and drives,
While sounding chimes with such sweet notes that in
The ready spirit love swells up and thrives,
145 Just so I saw that wheel of glory spin
And render voice to voice with such sweet sound
And harmony that none is known akin,
148 Save there where joys eternally abound.