Canto XXVII
CANTO XXVII
As Dante successfully completes his examination in faith, hope, and charity, all Paradise breaks into a doxological hymn of praise, and the joyous splendor of the blessed makes it seem as if the whole universe were smiling upon him (1–9). But the failure in the theological virtues of the papacy on earth causes St. Peter to turn red, as if Jupiter had traded colors with Mars, and to denounce the present moral vacancy of that sacred office. Then the whole sky reddens as well, like clouds in the setting sun, and the alteration of Beatrice’s face reminds the Poet of the eclipse at the Crucifixion (10–36). The First Pontiff recalls his successors Linus, Cletus, Sixtus, Pius, Calixtus, and Urban, who suffered martyrdom not for material gain but out of fidelity to the mission of the Church. They certainly did not intend the Church to split into political factions, to war against its own members, or to peddle its influence. Yet, as God once saved Rome through the hand of Scipio Africanus the Elder, St. Peter knows that He will soon deliver the Church as well and charges the Pilgrim to bear this message to earth (37–66). When the First Pope has finished, all the souls appearing in the heaven of the fixed stars ascend back into the Empyrean like snowflakes in an inverted snowstorm. As they pass out of Dante’s sight, Beatrice directs him to look down again, and the Pilgrim’s view sweeps the distance from Cádiz almost to the Phoenician shore. Then, turning away from earth and gazing amorously into his Lady’s incomparable eyes, the Pilgrim finds himself transported by their power into the ninth sphere, the Primum Mobile. Beatrice explains to the disoriented Poet that only the Empyrean heaven of light and love in the Divine Mind encompasses the present sphere, which, revolving with desire for God, imparts its motion and influence to all the others it contains (67–120). The order of the heavenly spheres turned by divine love gives Beatrice occasion to castigate those on earth who seem so easily moved by cupidity, a condition exacerbated by the lack of proper spiritual and temporal leadership. Yet, by the working of the spheres, Divine Providence will soon reverse the course of the wayward human fleet lost at sea (121–148).
1 “To Father, Son, and Holy Spirit too
Be glory!” started all of Paradise,
As its sweet singing held me rapt anew.
4 And that which I beheld seemed in a trice
The universe’s laughter, and in this
—By eyes and ears—my rapture entered twice.
7 (O joy, and O ineffably great bliss!
O life of love and peace in ample store!
O wealth secure from any avarice!)
10 Before my eyes there stood enkindled four
Bright torches, and the one that first came in[631]
Began to shine more brightly than before
13 And turned as Jupiter would then have been
If he and Mars were birds and had besides
Exchanged the plumages upon their skin.[632]
16 The Providence that here for each decides
His turn and office had imposed a hush
Upon the blessèd chorus on all sides
19 When next I heard it said: “If I should flush,
Then marvel not, for, with my speech begun,
You too will see that all these spirits blush.
22 What has he who usurps my place now done,[633]
My place on earth, my place of long ago,
Left vacant in the sight of Christ, God’s Son?
25 He’s made my sepulcher a sewer’s flow[634]
Of blood and stench, so that Perverted One[635]
Who fell from here above is pleased below.”
28 With just the hue with which the facing sun
Paints clouds when morn is young and eve mature,
I witnessed all of Heaven overrun.
31 And as a modest lady who’s secure
Within herself, on hearing someone touch
On others’ faults, grows timidly demure,
34 So Beatrice was changed in face, and such,
I think, was the eclipse the heavens bore
When the Supreme in power suffered much.[636]
37 His words continued as they had before
But with a voice so altered from itself
That thus his semblance was not altered more.
40 “The blood of Linus, Cletus, and myself[637]
Was not to nurture Christ’s own bride, His wife,
So she could be employed for gain of pelf;
43 But for the gaining of this happy life,
First Sixtus, Pius, and Calixtus died,
Then Urban, shedding blood on tearful strife.[638]
46 We did not want Christ’s people to abide,
One part on our successors’ own right hand,
And yet another part on their left side;[639]
49 Nor that the keys consigned to me should stand
As emblem on a banner brought to clash
In warfare waged against a baptized band;[640]
52 Nor this, at which I often blush and flash,
That I should figure on a seal, I mean,[641]
For lying benefits sold off for cash.
55 Rapacious wolves in shepherd’s garb are seen
From here through all the pastures where they slink;
O why, defense of God, still lie serene?
58 The Gascons, Cahorsines, prepare to drink[642]
Our blood on earth; O good beginning, woe!
To what a vicious ending must you sink?
61 As lofty Providence with Scipïo[643]
Preserved the glory of the world for Rome,
So It will soon lend succor, as I know.
64 My son, who through your mortal weight will roam
Again below, make wide your mouth and note:
What I’ve not hidden do not hide at home.”
67 And just as when the horn of heaven’s Goat
Has touched the sun above and now the air[644]
Flakes frozen vapors, which will downwards float,[645]
70 I saw the ether thus adorned made fair:
Triumphant vapors, flaking, upwards sped,
On having made their sojourn with us there.
73 My vision trailed their semblances, which fled
Till there was so much space between involved
It kept my sight from passing on ahead.
76 At that, My Lady, seeing me absolved
From further looking upwards, told me: “Bend
Your sight and see how far you have revolved.”
79 And from the time my gaze would first descend,[646]
I saw that I had moved through that whole arc
The first of climates makes from mid to end;[647]
82 I saw the mad course of Ulysses’ bark
Past Cádiz, but not quite the shore from where
Europa, made sweet burden, would embark.[648]
85 More of the little threshing floor we share
Would have been seen, had not beneath my feet
The sun moved on a sign and more, aflare.[649]
88 My mind in love, which ever will entreat
My Lady, burning more than ever, pined
To bring my eyes to hers again to meet.
91 All baits that art or Nature has designed
(Be they in human flesh or portraits wrought)
To lure the eye and thus possess the mind
94 Would, all together, have compared as naught
With that divine delight which glowed so clear
When to her smiling face I turned, upcaught.
97 The power that her look had lent me here
Had drawn me out of Leda’s lovely nest[650]
And thrust me up to Heaven’s swiftest sphere.[651]
100 Its parts, most living and most high, possessed
Such uniformity I cannot tell
Which place for me my Beatrice thought best.
103 But she, on seeing my desire quite well,
Began to smile with such a happy face
It seemed to be where God’s own gladness fell:
106 “The nature of the universe of space
—Which stills its center, turning what remains—[652]
Commences here as from its starting-place.
109 No other ‘Where’ than God’s own mind contains[653]
This heaven, and enkindled here are found
The love that turns it and the force it rains.
112 Both light and love thus circle it around
As it the rest; and this engirding art
He comprehends alone by whom they’re bound.
115 No other sets what course its motions chart;
By this is measured all the other lot
As ten is by its half and its fifth part.[654]
118 How time has roots in such a flowerpot
And leaves within the others may emerge
More manifestly now for you than not.[655]
121 O you, cupidity, who so submerge
Mere mortals in your depths that each succumbs
And cannot lift his eyes above your surge!
124 The will blooms well in men until there comes
The constant drenching of the rains to wreak
A sorry blight upon the soundest plums.
127 The faith and innocence still found in meek
And little children, fleeing, will have passed
Before a beard has covered up the cheek.
130 While one still has a lisp, he keeps the fast;
But when his tongue is freed, that one will crave
Devouring, any month, all food amassed.
133 And towards their mothers lispers will behave
With love and heed; when speech no more will lack,
They then desire to see them in the grave.
136 And thus the white-complexioned skin turns black
At one’s first sighting of the lovely maid
Of him who leaves at dusk and brings dawn back.[656]
139 That by such things you may not be dismayed,
Think that on earth there’s none to rule and why
The human family has therefore strayed.
142 Once January is unwintered by
The hundredth parts neglected by earth’s men,[657]
These spheres will long ago have shined on high
145 So that the long-awaited fortune then
Will have inverted sterns to prows en route
To let the fleet start running straight again;
148 Then from the blossom shall come forth good fruit.”