Canto XII
CANTO XII
As St. Thomas concludes his discourse, the circle of lights begins to wheel about and soon finds itself enclosed by a second ring of luminous souls, which matches its movements and its singing with perfect harmony so that the two appear like a double rainbow or twin garlands of flowers (1–21). Once the festival of song and dance has ceased, a voice from one of the lights draws Dante’s attention to it like a compass needle to the North Star. This time the speaker is St. Bonaventure, who wishes to return St. Thomas’ kindness by praising the latter’s leader, St. Dominic, as highly as the Angelic Doctor had his founder, St. Francis (22–36). He first tells how God in his grace provided the two champions to rally the weary, timid troops of Christ back from where they had been scattered (37–45). Then he goes on to speak of the prophesied birth of St. Dominic, God’s ardent lover and holy athlete, in Calaruega, Spain (46–60); of his espousal to Faith at the baptismal font (61–66); of his divinely inspired name (67–72); of his Christ-like love of poverty (73–78); and of the blessedness of the parents of such a man (79–81). St. Dominic loved, not the minutiae of Canon Law but the true bread of divine wisdom. Accordingly, he petitioned the Papal See not for special privileges that would enrich him but for permission to combat the enemies of the true faith, rooting up the barren thickets of heresy and watering the fruitful gardens of Catholic doctrine (82–111). If St. Francis represents one wheel of the chariot of the Church, St. Dominic is the other. But just as St. Thomas had criticized his fellow Dominicans, so St. Bonaventure castigates his brother Franciscans, for, far from continuing in the tread marks of the wheel of St. Francis, his disciples now walk backwards rather than following forwards in his footsteps. Those remaining true to his rule are so few as to seem like a single page in a long book, for Matteo d’Acquasparta has relaxed the rule, whereas Ubertino da Casale would tighten it (112–126). To St. Bonaventure’s left stand Illuminato, Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Mangiador, Peter of Spain, Nathan the Prophet, St. John Chrysostom, St. Anselm, Donatus, Rabanus Maurus, and Joachim de Floris, all of whom were inspired by St. Thomas’ praise of St. Francis (127–145).
1 That sacred flame thus took to speaking out
Its final words, and then, not waiting long,
The holy mill began to wheel about.[293]
4 Before it turned full round, another throng
Had come to close it in a roundelay
And matched it move for move and song for song,
7 Which in those pipes as far exceeds, I say,
All that our muses and our sirens do
As primal splendor the reflected ray.
10 As two concentric arcs of equal hue
Will bend across thin clouds through which they run
When Juno bids her handmaid come in view,[294]
13 The outer echoing the inner one
(Just like the voice of her who wandered when
She was consumed by love like mist by sun),[295]
16 And they make people here presage to men
That—as God’s pact with Noah had implied—
The flood will never strike the world again,
19 So did those sempiternal roses ride
Around us in that garland once increased,
And so the outer mimed the one inside.
22 And when the dance and all the splendid feast
Consisting of the song and of the flame,
Bright light with light benign and glad, had ceased
25 Together at one point and with one aim
(As eyes the will has moved are on a par,
And both must close and open up the same),
28 Then from the heart of one new light, not far,
There moved a voice that turned me to its place;
I seemed a needle pointing to a star.
31 He said: “The Love that beautifies my face
Draws me to tell you of another guide,
For whom one spoke of mine with so much grace.
34 We bring one fitly to the other’s side
So that, just as they once fought mate by mate,
Their glories may shine forth as if allied.
37 When troops of Christ, rearmed at costs so great,
Were once behind the banner moving slow,
Their numbers few and in a timid state,
40 Our Emperor, who always rules below,[296]
Provided for His forces in their doubt,
By grace alone, not by their merit, though,
43 So that, as said, His Bride was not without
Two champions whose aid by words and deeds[297]
Would rally back the people from their rout.
46 In that part where sweet Zephyr first proceeds[298]
To open up new leaves so that the span
Of Europe is revested with its weeds,[299]
49 Not far from crashing waves behind whose van
The sun above, when its long flight is quit,
Will sometimes hide itself from every man,
52 We see the happy Calaroga sit,[300]
Protected by the mighty shield where those
Two lions lie that govern and submit.[301]
55 The Christian faith’s most ardent lover rose[302]
Within that town—a holy athlete, aye,
One kind to every friend, but harsh to foes.
58 His mind was filled, when first created, by
So great a living force that, still inside
His mother’s womb, he made her prophesy.[303]
61 Then, after he as groom and Faith as bride
Had been espoused at sacred fonts to share
A common weal as dowry on each side,
64 The lady who assented for him there
Saw in a dream the wondrous fruit upstored
To come from him and from his every heir.[304]
67 But that his name and being might accord,
A spirit, who descended from this height,
Named him by the possessive of the Lord,[305]
70 His All, and called him Dominic. I cite
Him as the very husbandman whom Christ
Would choose to help Him heal His garden’s blight.
73 He seemed a messenger and friend of Christ,
For his first love, made manifest, was for
That very counsel given first by Christ.[306]
76 His nurse would often find him on the floor,
Awake and still, as if to state his creed:
“For this I have been sent”; and on that score
79 His father is ‘Felice’ now indeed,[307]
His mother is ‘Giovanna,’ which has been[308]
Interpreted to mean just what we read!
82 Not for the world for which men labor in
The Ostian’s or in Taddeo’s way,[309]
But loving the true manna, he within
85 Short time was such a teacher that they say
He started round the vineyard since a vine
Whose keeper fails will wither straight-away.
88 He begged the seat that once was more benign
To righteous poor (in him who holds the See,
Not in itself—for he has crossed the line),[310]
91 Not to dispense for six but two or three,
Nor for the tithes that to God’s poor are due,
Nor for the wealth of some first vacancy,
94 But for permission to combat anew
The erring world for that seed which would sprout
The four and twenty plants surrounding you.[311]
97 Then with his doctrine, with a will made stout,
With apostolic office, forth went he—
A torrent that a lofty spring shoots out!
100 His onslaught struck the scrubs of heresy
And with the greatest vigor came to drive
Where men resisted the most stubbornly.
103 From him the diverse streams would yet derive
That water Catholic gardens near and far,
So that their saplings are the more alive.
106 And if one wheel was such upon that car
In which the Holy Church made her defense
And healed afield her civil war’s deep scar,
109 The other must be plain to you and hence
Its excellence, of which our Thomas told
Before I came, in so polite a sense.
112 The tread, though, is abandoned where there rolled
The outer rim on that great wheel’s attack,
So where there once was crust there now is mold.[312]
115 His family, which, stepping in his track,
Set out aright, has been so turned around
The forward foot now moves to that in back.
118 And soon the evil tillage will be found
To yield its harvest when the tares begin
Complaining that the barns are closed all round.
121 Yet should you rummage page for page within
Our tome, you’d find a leaf, I must admit,
Where you would read: ‘I am what I have been.’
124 It would not be of those who read our writ
Like Acquasparta’s or Casale’s kind,[313]
So that one flees, the other narrows it.
127 Now I am Bonaventure’s living mind,[314]
From Bagnoregio, who in office trod
So as to put the left-hand cares behind.[315]
130 These were the first to join the poor unshod,
Illuminato and Augustine here,[316]
Who by the cord became the friends of God.
133 Hugh of St. Victor too with them is near,[317]
With Mangiador and Spano in the arc,[318]
Who in twelve books below is shining clear;
136 Then Prophet Nathan, and the Patriarch[319]
Chrysostom, Anselm, and Donatus, who[320]
Set hand to grammar’s art; and with them mark
139 Rabanus. A Calabrian men knew[321]
As Abbot Joachim shines at my side,[322]
Endowed with a prophetic spirit too.
142 Warm courtesy and modest language plied
By Brother Thomas have incited me
To praise a paladin so dignified,[323]
145 And with me they have moved this company.”[324]