English Edition, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
| 1 | WHILE I was doubting for my vision quenched, |
| 2 | Out of the flame refulgent that had quenched it |
| 3 | Issued a breathing, that attentive made me, |
| 4 | Saying: While thou recoverest the sense |
| 5 | Of seeing which in me thou hast consumed, |
| 6 | ‘Tis well that speaking thou shouldst compensate it. |
| 7 | Begin then, and declare to what thy soul |
| 8 | Is aimed, and count it for a certainty, |
| 9 | Sight is in thee bewildered and not dead; |
| 10 | Because the Lady, who through this divine |
| 11 | Region conducteth thee, has in her look |
| 12 | The power the hand of Ananias had. |
| 13 | I said: As pleaseth her, or soon or late |
| 14 | Let the cure come to eyes that portals were |
| 15 | When she with fire I ever burn with entered. |
| 16 | The Good, that gives contentment to this Court, |
| 17 | The Alpha and Omega is of all |
| 18 | The writing that love reads me low or loud. |
| 19 | The selfsame voice, that taken had from me |
| 20 | The terror of the sudden dazzlement, |
| 21 | To speak still farther put it in my thought; |
| 22 | And said: In verity with finer sieve |
| 23 | Behoveth thee to sift; thee it behovetn |
| 24 | To say who aimed thy bow at such a target. |
| 25 | And I: By philosophic arguments, |
| 26 | And by authority that hence descends, |
| 27 | Such love must needs imprint itself in me; |
| 28 | For Good, so far as good, when comprehended |
| 29 | Doth straight enkindle love, and so much greater |
| 30 | As more of goodness in itself it holds; |
| 31 | Then to that Essence (whose is such advantage |
| 32 | That every good which out of it is found |
| 33 | Is nothing but a ray of its own light) |
| 34 | More than elsewhither must the mind be moved |
| 35 | Of every one, in loving, who discerns |
| 36 | The truth in which this evidence is founded. |
| 37 | Such truth he to my intellect reveals |
| 38 | Who demonstrates to me the primal love |
| 39 | Of all the sempiternal substances. |
| 40 | The voice reveals it of the truthful Author, |
| 41 | Who says to Moses, speaking of Himself, |
| 42 | ‘I will make all my goodness pass before thee.’ |
| 43 | Thou too revealest it to me, beginning |
| 44 | The loud Evangel, that proclaims the secret |
| 45 | Of heaven to earth above all other edict. |
| 46 | And I heard say: By human intellect |
| 47 | And by authority concordant with it, |
| 48 | Of all thy loves reserve for God the highest. |
| 49 | But say again if other cords thou feelest, |
| 50 | Draw thee towards Him, that thou mayst proclaim |
| 51 | With how many teeth this love is biting thee. |
| 52 | The holy purpose of the Eagle of Christ |
| 53 | Not latent was nay, rather I perceived |
| 54 | Whither he fain would my profession lead. |
| 55 | Therefore I recommenced: All of those bites |
| 56 | Which have the power to turn the heart to God |
| 57 | Unto my charity have been concurrent. |
| 58 | The being of the world, and my own being, |
| 59 | The death which He endured that I may live, |
| 60 | And that which all the faithful hope, as I do, |
| 61 | With the forementioned vivid consciousness |
| 62 | Have drawn me from the sea of love perverse, |
| 63 | And of the right have placed me on the shore. |
| 64 | The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the garden |
| 65 | Of the Eternal Gardener, do I love |
| 66 | As much as he has granted them of good. |
| 67 | As soon as I had ceased, a song most sweet |
| 68 | Throughout the heaven resounded, and my Lady |
| 69 | Said with the others, Holy, holy, holy! |
| 70 | And as at some keen light one wakes from sleep |
| 71 | By reason of the visual spirit that r ms |
| 72 | Unto the splendour passed from coat to coat, |
| 73 | And he who wakes abhorreth what he sees, |
| 74 | So all unconscious is his sudden waking, |
| 75 | Until the judgment cometh to his aid, |
| 76 | So from before mine eyes did Beatrice |
| 77 | Chase every mote with radiance of her own, |
| 78 | That cast its light a thousand miles and more. |
| 79 | Whence better after than before I saw, |
| 80 | And in a kind of wonderment I asked |
| 81 | About a fourth light that I saw with us. |
| 82 | And said my Lady: There within those rays |
| 83 | Gazes upon its Maker the first soul |
| 84 | That ever the first virtue did create. |
| 85 | Even as the bough that downward bends its top |
| 86 | At transit of the wind, and then is lifted |
| 87 | By its own virtue, which inclines it upward, |
| 88 | Likewise did I, the while that she was speaking, |
| 89 | Being amazed, and then I was made bold |
| 90 | By a desire to speak wherewith I burned. |
| 91 | And I began: O apple, that mature |
| 92 | Alone hast been produced, O ancient father, |
| 93 | To whom each wife is daughter and daughter-in-law, |
| 94 | Devoutly as I can I supplicate thee |
| 95 | That thou wouldst speak to me; thou seest my wish; |
| 96 | And I, to hear thee quickly, speak it not. |
| 97 | Sometimes an animal, when covered, struggles |
| 98 | So that his impulse needs must be apparent, |
| 99 | By reason of the wrappage following it; |
| 100 | And in like manner the primeval soul |
| 101 | Made clear to me athwart its covering |
| 102 | How jubilant it was to give me pleasure. |
| 103 | Then breathed: Without thy uttering it to me, |
| 104 | Thine inclination better I discern |
| 105 | Than thou whatever thing is surest to thee; |
| 106 | For I behold it in the truthful mirror, |
| 107 | That of Himself all things parhelion makes, |
| 108 | And none makes Him parhelion of itself |
| 109 | Thou fain wouldst hear how long ago God placed me |
| 110 | Within the lofty garden, where this Lady |
| 111 | Unto so long a stairway thee disposed. |
| 112 | And how long to mine eyes it was a pleasure, |
| 113 | And of the great disdain the proper cause, |
| 114 | And the language that I used and that I made. |
| 115 | Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree |
| 116 | Not in itself was cause of so great exile, |
| 117 | But solely the o’erstepping of the bounds. |
| 118 | There, whence thy Lady moved Virgilius, |
| 119 | Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits |
| 120 | Made by the sun, this Council I desired; |
| 121 | And him I saw return to all the lights |
| 122 | Of his highway nine hundred times and thirty, |
| 123 | Whilst I upon the earth was tarrying. |
| 124 | The language that I spake was quite extinct |
| 125 | Before that in the work interminable |
| 126 | The people under Nimrod were employed; |
| 127 | For nevermore result of reasoning |
| 128 | (Because of human pleasure that doth change, |
| 129 | Obedient to the heavens) was durable. |
| 130 | A natural action is it that man speaks; |
| 131 | But whether thus or thus, doth nature leave |
| 132 | To your own art, as seemeth best to you. |
| 133 | Ere I descended to the infernal anguish, |
| 134 | El was on earth the name of the Chief Good, |
| 135 | From whom comes all the joy that wraps me round |
| 136 | Eli he then was called, and that is proper, |
| 137 | Because the use of men is like a leaf |
| 138 | On bough, which goeth and another cometh. |
| 139 | Upon the mount that highest o’er the wave |
| 140 | Rises was I, in life or pure or sinful, |
| 141 | From the first hour to that which is the second, |
| 142 | As the sun changes quadrant, to the sixth. |