DANTE'S SUBLIME COMEDY: PARADISE: Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33: Prayer and Answer

“O Virgin Mother, daughter of your son!

            Lowly, yet raised higher than anyone!

            goal of all human striving, you are she                  3

ennobling humanity, because He

            who made mankind chose to be made by you.

            The love that was rekindled in your womb            6

had warmth enough to let this Heaven bloom

            in endless peace where you are now our sun

            always at height of noon. To the souls here           9

you are incarnate charity, to those on earth

            a well of living hope. Lady so great

            that those seeking Grace without your aid            12

may as well aspire to fly without wings.

            Your kindness not only aids those who ask;

            sometimes it anticipates our prayer.                     15

Your mercy, pity, generosity

            unite in all the good that people need.

            This man was sent up from the depths of Hell,    18

seeing the lives of spirits, one by one,

            and now he begs your kindness for the strength

            to bear salvation’s last enlightenment.                  21

I never sought that vision for myself

            yet join my plea with his to strengthen it.

            I pray you, clean his sight off mortal stains          24

making his vision fit for such delight,

and afterwards I pray that you will keep

his heart pure – curb his human appetite.              27

Many more Heavenly souls share in this

prayer of mine, including Beatrice.”

The eyes God loved and his son reverenced         30

fixed on the supplicant and plainly showed

she loved devoted prayer, then she looked

to the fixed point of light that only she                33

could penetrate with undimmed eye. By now

I had reached the end of all desire,

did not want another thing, but Bernard              36

with a smile told me to look up. I did

            and found my sight, now purified, entered

the lofty beam which is the one true light.           39

and from that time I parted company

with memory and speech. It seemed a dream

of passion that remains when dreamers wake     42

yet can’t recall visions inspiring them.

            That has become my state. Only a few

sweet drops stayed in my memory of it.             45

The rest is lost as tears are lost in rain

            or thaw washes away footsteps in snow.

            O light supreme, more than conceivable            48

by mortal mind, grant mine again some part

            of what you let me see, and give my tongue

            some power to leave a gleam of glory                51

for my readers yet to come. Please give back

            a little to my memory, lending

            these words force to convey your victory.         54

So piercing was the splendour of that ray

            I am convinced that had I looked away

            even an instant, it had blinded me,                     57

but I sustained it till my looking reached

            the central goodness. Bless abounding Grace!

            You let me dare to face infinite light                 60

so long that my whole mind was lost in You!

            The scattered pages of the universe

            were in that deepness, with its substances,        63

its accidents, connections, unified

            and bound by love into a single book.

            God by His light creates complexity,                66

yet all appeared one good grand simple shape

            in writing which I feel my joy expand!

            One moment gazing on that light seemed more  69

than the twenty five centuries of years

            since Argonauts launched the first sailing ship.

I could not look elsewhere. Exactly there           72

  

I saw the objects of all will. What is

            outside it is defective: all within

            perfectly made. Dear reader, know these words  75

tell even less of what I can recall

            than if my infant tongue still sucked a breast.

            The living light remained the same, but I            78

began to change. My strengthened sight saw more,

            for in the profound clear ground of light

            appeared three circles, different colours,              81

the same size. Two reflected each other

            as rainbows do, the third took fire from them.

            This blethering, alas, cannot convey                    84

what things I saw in that Eternal Light

            fulfilling, knowing, loving its sweet self

            in one reflecting, circling Trinity,                       87

for as my eyes dwelled there I seemed to see

            a human form. Like the geometer

            battering his brain in vain to see how                 90

circle could be squared, I tried to think or feel

            how such an image could eternally

            persist in light. The wings of my fancy              93

could not fly so far until, in a flash,

            I saw desire and will resembled now

            a finely balanced wheel being turned by

love that moves the sun and every star.                          97