DANTE'S SUBLIME COMEDY: PARADISE: Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1: First Ascent

God’s glory moves and shows the universe

            shining in some parts more, in others less.

            With joy too great for speech I entered Heavens        3

that most receive his light. I must convey

            pale shadows of that holy, blissful state

            which back on earth I treasure in this song.                6

Virgil and the nine Muses helped me write

            of the descent and climb to reach this height.

            Sun-king Apollo, you inspired their aid!                    9

Now I must beg, please give it to me straight –

            turn me into a perfect instrument

            so tuned, the Heavens consent to hear me sing         12

about their grandest things, and crown myself

            with laurels, the one headgear fit for use

            by a true poet or great conqueror.                             15

Their fewness demonstrates in human kind

            a shameful lack of will. If I succeed,

            like spark from which flames leap, some after me    18

may be inspired to write with greater skill.

            The sunrise greets us most days of the year

            from several degrees to North or South.                   21

When solar path touches the other rings

            (equators earthly and celestial,

            ecliptic and the equinoctial)                                      24

four circles make three crosses and so bring

            more harmony, and Summer can begin.

            The sun this morning rose at that good point.           27

When Beatrice looked up at height of noon

            no eagle ever fixed upon the sun

            a gaze as clear, and since reflected rays                    30

           

rebound to source like pilgrims going home,

            twin beams of light now linked her sight and sun.

            I copied her. Eden was made for ease                      33

  

of humankind. There it was possible

            for me to see what here would make me blind.

            Gazing into the solar blaze I saw,                            36

like molten silver splashed from crucible,

            such fountains of tremendous light I thought

that He Who Can had made an extra sun.               39

I saw too Beatrice now looked upon

            the high, eternal, starry, singing wheels

            so lowering my eyes to rest on hers                        42

I heard them too. Eating a magic herb

            changed Glaucus to an ancient Greek sea-god.

            The love-light in the face of Beatrice                      45

transhumaned me in ways I cannot say.

            Of new sensations knowledge cannot speak

            unless it learns new words. Did God lift up            48

my eager mind to his eternal sphere?

            No rain or river filled so vast a lake

            as this whole sky now kindled into flame.              51

The brilliance of its harmony and light

            provoked an appetite to know the cause,

            so she who understood me perfectly                       54

smiling replied before I questioned her,

            “Dullard, do you not see you’ve left the earth?                            

Lightning never flashed faster from a cloud            57

than we ascend to your right place and mine.”

            Her smile and words erased perplexities

            before I found one more. “But why,” said I,           60

“does solid me rise above lighter things?”

            Like mother soothing sickly child she said,

            “Order is God’s first law. All that He made            63

have places in eternal excellence, for which

            in minerals, plants, animals they strive

            instinctively, in people willingly.                            66

When ill will leads astray our souls can’t rest

            until we reach our given place and are

            at last in harmony with all that’s best.                     69

 We are now soaring to our origin

            as naturally as a waterfall

            pours down a cliff. Those who forget their place   72

by choosing base delight, are very like  

materials no artists can use well,

so dump into the midden heaps of Hell.                   75

Guilt cannot weight you. That is why you rise.

            Innocent souls who stay below, defy

            nature and reason, like a static flame.”

Pausing she turned her eyes toward the sky.                      79