The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (essential books to read TXT) 📕

teacher, he, whom Mary’s charms Embellish’d, as the sun the morning star; Who thus in answer spake: “In him are summ’d, Whatever of buxomness and free delight May be in Spirit, or in angel, met: And so beseems: for that he bare the palm Down unto Mary, when the Son of God Vouchsaf’d to clothe him in terrestrial weeds.

Now let thine eyes wait heedful on my words, And note thou of this just and pious realm The chiefest nobles. Those, highest in bliss, The twain, on each hand next our empress thron’d, Are as it were two roots unto this rose.

He to the left, the parent, whose rash taste Proves bitter to his seed; and, on the right, That ancient father of the holy church, Into whose keeping Christ did give the keys Of this sweet flow’r: near whom behold the seer, That, ere he died, saw all the grievous times Of the fair bride, who with the lance and nails Was won. And, near unto the other, rests The leader, under whom on manna fed Th’ ungrateful nation, fickle and perverse.

On th’ other part, facing to Peter, lo!

Where Anna sits, so well content to look On her lov’d daughter, that with moveless eye She chants the loud hosanna: while, oppos’d To the first father of your mortal kind, Is Lucia, at whose hest thy lady sped, When on the edge of ruin clos’d thine eye.

“But (for the vision hasteneth so an end) Here break we off, as the good workman doth, That shapes the cloak according to the cloth: And to the primal love our ken shall rise; That thou mayst penetrate the brightness, far As sight can bear thee. Yet, alas! in sooth Beating thy pennons, thinking to advance, Thou backward fall’st. Grace then must first be gain’d; Her grace, whose might can help thee. Thou in prayer Seek her: and, with affection, whilst I sue, Attend, and yield me all thy heart.” He said, And thus the saintly orison began.

 

CANTO XXXIII

 

“O virgin mother, daughter of thy Son, Created beings all in lowliness

Surpassing, as in height, above them all, Term by th’ eternal counsel pre-ordain’d, Ennobler of thy nature, so advanc’d In thee, that its great Maker did not scorn, Himself, in his own work enclos’d to dwell!

For in thy womb rekindling shone the love Reveal’d, whose genial influence makes now This flower to germin in eternal peace!

Here thou to us, of charity and love, Art, as the noonday torch: and art, beneath, To mortal men, of hope a living spring.

So mighty art thou, lady! and so great, That he who grace desireth, and comes not To thee for aidance, fain would have desire Fly without wings. Nor only him who asks, Thy bounty succours, but doth freely oft Forerun the asking. Whatsoe’er may be Of excellence in creature, pity mild, Relenting mercy, large munificence, Are all combin’d in thee. Here kneeleth one, Who of all spirits hath review’d the state, From the world’s lowest gap unto this height.

Suppliant to thee he kneels, imploring grace For virtue, yet more high to lift his ken Toward the bliss supreme. And I, who ne’er Coveted sight, more fondly, for myself, Than now for him, my prayers to thee prefer, (And pray they be not scant) that thou wouldst drive Each cloud of his mortality away;

That on the sovran pleasure he may gaze.

This also I entreat of thee, O queen!

Who canst do what thou wilt! that in him thou Wouldst after all he hath beheld, preserve Affection sound, and human passions quell.

Lo! Where, with Beatrice, many a saint Stretch their clasp’d hands, in furtherance of my suit!”

The eyes, that heav’n with love and awe regards, Fix’d on the suitor, witness’d, how benign She looks on pious pray’rs: then fasten’d they On th’ everlasting light, wherein no eye Of creature, as may well be thought, so far Can travel inward. I, meanwhile, who drew Near to the limit, where all wishes end, The ardour of my wish (for so behooved), Ended within me. Beck’ning smil’d the sage, That I should look aloft: but, ere he bade, Already of myself aloft I look’d;

For visual strength, refining more and more, Bare me into the ray authentical

Of sovran light. Thenceforward, what I saw, Was not for words to speak, nor memory’s self To stand against such outrage on her skill.

As one, who from a dream awaken’d, straight, All he hath seen forgets; yet still retains Impression of the feeling in his dream; E’en such am I: for all the vision dies, As ‘t were, away; and yet the sense of sweet, That sprang from it, still trickles in my heart.

Thus in the sun-thaw is the snow unseal’d; Thus in the winds on flitting leaves was lost The Sybil’s sentence. O eternal beam!

(Whose height what reach of mortal thought may soar?) Yield me again some little particle Of what thou then appearedst, give my tongue Power, but to leave one sparkle of thy glory, Unto the race to come, that shall not lose Thy triumph wholly, if thou waken aught Of memory in me, and endure to hear The record sound in this unequal strain.

Such keenness from the living ray I met, That, if mine eyes had turn’d away, methinks, I had been lost; but, so embolden’d, on I pass’d, as I remember, till my view Hover’d the brink of dread infinitude.

O grace! unenvying of thy boon! that gav’st Boldness to fix so earnestly my ken On th’ everlasting splendour, that I look’d, While sight was unconsum’d, and, in that depth, Saw in one volume clasp’d of love, whatever The universe unfolds; all properties Of substance and of accident, beheld, Compounded, yet one individual light The whole. And of such bond methinks I saw The universal form: for that whenever I do but speak of it, my soul dilates Beyond her proper self; and, till I speak, One moment seems a longer lethargy, Than five-and-twenty ages had appear’d To that emprize, that first made Neptune wonder At Argo’s shadow darkening on his flood.

With fixed heed, suspense and motionless, Wond’ring I gaz’d; and admiration still Was kindled, as I gaz’d. It may not be, That one, who looks upon that light, can turn To other object, willingly, his view.

For all the good, that will may covet, there Is summ’d; and all, elsewhere defective found, Complete. My tongue shall utter now, no more E’en what remembrance keeps, than could the babe’s That yet is moisten’d at his mother’s breast.

Not that the semblance of the living light Was chang’d (that ever as at first remain’d) But that my vision quickening, in that sole Appearance, still new miracles descry’d, And toil’d me with the change. In that abyss Of radiance, clear and lofty, seem’d methought, Three orbs of triple hue clipt in one bound: And, from another, one reflected seem’d, As rainbow is from rainbow: and the third Seem’d fire, breath’d equally from both. Oh speech How feeble and how faint art thou, to give Conception birth! Yet this to what I saw Is less than little. Oh eternal light!

Sole in thyself that dwellst; and of thyself Sole understood, past, present, or to come!

Thou smiledst; on that circling, which in thee Seem’d as reflected splendour, while I mus’d; For I therein, methought, in its own hue Beheld our image painted: steadfastly I therefore por’d upon the view. As one Who vers’d in geometric lore, would fain Measure the circle; and, though pondering long And deeply, that beginning, which he needs, Finds not; e’en such was I, intent to scan The novel wonder, and trace out the form, How to the circle fitted, and therein How plac’d: but the flight was not for my wing; Had not a flash darted athwart my mind, And in the spleen unfolded what it sought.

Here vigour fail’d the tow’ring fantasy: But yet the will roll’d onward, like a wheel In even motion, by the Love impell’d, That moves the sun in heav’n and all the stars.

 

NOTES TO PARADISE

 

CANTO 1

 

Verse 12. Benign Apollo.] Chaucer has imitated this invention very closely at the beginning of the Third Booke of Fame.

 

If, divine vertue, thou

Wilt helpe me to shewe now

That in my head ymarked is,

*

Thou shalt see me go as blive

Unto the next laurer I see,

And kisse it for it is thy tree

Now entre thou my breast anone.

 

v. 15. Thus for.] He appears to mean nothing more than that this part of his poem will require a greater exertion of his powers than the former.

 

v. 19. Marsyas.] Ovid, Met. 1. vi. fab. 7. Compare Boccaccio, II Filocopo, 1. 5. p. 25. v. ii. Ediz. Fir. 1723. “Egli nel mio petto entri,” &c. - “May he enter my bosom, and let my voice sound like his own, when he made that daring mortal deserve to come forth unsheathed from his limbs. “

v. 29. Caesar, or bard.] So Petrarch, Son. Par. Prima.

 

Arbor vittoriosa e trionfale,

Onor d’imperadori e di poeti.

 

And Spenser, F. Q. b. i. c. 1. st. 9, The laurel, meed of mighty conquerours And poets sage.

 

v. 37. Through that.] “Where the four circles, the horizon, the zodiac, the equator, and the equinoctial colure, join; the last threeintersecting each other so as to form three crosses, as may be seen in the armillary sphere.”

 

v. 39. In happiest constellation.] Aries. Some understand the planetVenus by the “miglior stella “

 

v. 44. To the left.] Being in the opposite hemisphere to ours, Beatrice that she may behold the rising sun, turns herself to the left.

 

v. 47. As from the first a second beam.] “Like a reflected sunbeam,” which he compares to a pilgrim hastening homewards.

 

Ne simil tanto mal raggio secondo

Dal primo usci.

Filicaja, canz. 15. st. 4.

 

v. 58. As iron that comes boiling from the fire.] So Milton, P. L. b. iii. 594.

—As glowing iron with fire.

 

v. 69. Upon the day appear’d.

 

—If the heaven had ywonne,

All new of God another sunne.

Chaucer, First Booke of Fame

 

E par ch’ agginuga un altro sole al cielo.

Ariosto, O F. c. x. st. 109.

 

Ed ecco un lustro lampeggiar d’ intorno Che sole a sole aggiunse e giorno a giorno.

Manno, Adone. c. xi. st. 27.

 

Quando a paro col sol ma piu lucente L’angelo gli appari sull; oriente

Tasso, G. L. c. i.

 

-Seems another morn

Ris’n on mid-noon.

Milton, P. L. b. v. 311.

 

Compare Euripides, Ion. 1550. [GREEK HERE]

66. as Glaucus. ] Ovid, Met. 1. Xiii. Fab. 9

 

v. 71. If.] “Thou O divine Spirit, knowest whether 1 had not risen above my human nature, and were not merely such as thou hadst then, formed me.”

 

v. 125. Through sluggishness.]

Perch’ a risponder la materia e sorda.

 

So Filicaja, canz. vi. st 9.

Perche a risponder la discordia e sorda “The workman hath in his heart a purpose, he carrieth in mind the whole form which his work should have; there wanteth not him skill and desire to bring his labour to the best effect, only the matter, which he hath to work on is unframeable.” Hooker’s Eccl.

Polity, b. 5. 9.

 

CANTO II

 

v. 1. In small bark.]

 

Con la barchetta mia cantando in rima Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xxviii.

 

Io me n’andro con la barchetta mia, Quanto l’acqua comporta un picciol legno Ibid.

 

v. 30. This first star.] the moon v. 46. E’en as the truth.] Like a truth that does not need demonstration, but is self-evident.”

 

v. 52. Cain.] Compare