DANTE'S SUBLIME COMEDY: PARADISE: Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2: Moon Sphere

Some folk in little boats follow my ship

            because they like the story in my song.

            Let them turn back toward the shore they know            3

unless their craft is strong. I now go far

            over a sea no poet crossed before.

            Minerva fills my sails. Apollo steers.                             6

The Muses indicate each guiding star.

            If you are of the few like me who seek

            the bread that feeds but never satisfies,                          9

you too may launch your vessel on this sea

            using my wake as guide. The Argonauts,

            those heroes voyaging for the Golden Fleece,               12

when they saw armed men springing from the soil

            after their captain ploughed down dragon teeth

            were not as much amazed as you will be.                      15

Our inborn thirst for God’s sufficiency

kept Beatrice intent on upper skies,

            me intent on her eyes, so up we went                             18

as swiftly as we looked, until halted                                              

by a wonderful sight. It stopped us short

as a struck target ends an arrow flight.                            21

“Now praise God for His generosity!

            This star is nearest earth,” said happily

            that fairest one who understood my mind.                      24

I saw what lower down could not exist.

            Luminous mist enclosed us now inside

            a diamond-hard and perfect shining pearl,                      27

yet we could move in it as easily

            as light rays pass through water in a glass

            without a change of character in each.                            30

For one or more bodies to occupy

            an equally dense body easily

            defies earth’s common sense. In Paradise                       33

  

it was satisfies any intelligence.

“Lady,” said I, “my gratitude to He

            who saves us from death’s grip will never cease,           36

but why, when viewed from where most people live,                 

has this pure moon a spotted face? Some say

they can make out Cain and his thornbush there.”         39

Amused she said, “Wits stray when seeking laws

for what they cannot touch. Please tell me now

            what you think the cause?” “Varied density?”               42

I suggested. “Looking through dirty air?”

            “No,” said she. “God has made all the Heavens

            equally good. Air here is free from dirt,                        45

and though bodies of light inside these skies

            differ in sizes, colours, faculties,

            their densities do not. On summer days                        48

most things appear equally clear at noon.

            At night when you see bodies in one sphere

            what you mistake for spots are smaller lights                              

contrasted with more bright, as in the moon.”                          52