"Since, through his grace, our Emperor wills that thou
Shouldst find thee face to face, before thy death,
In the most secret chamber, with his Counts,
So that, the truth beholden of this court,

Hope, which below there rightfully enamours,
Thereby thou strengthen in thyself and others,
Say what it is, and how is flowering with it

Thy mind, and say from whence it came to thee."
Thus did the second light again continue.

And the Compassionate, who piloted

The plumage of my wings in such high flight,
Did in reply anticipate me thus:

"No child whatever the Church Militant

Of greater hope possesses, as is written
In that Sun which irradiates all our band;
Therefore it is conceded him from Egypt
To come into Jerusalem to see,
Or ever yet his warfare be completed.
The two remaining points, that not for knowledge
Have been demanded, but that he report
How much this virtue unto thee is pleasing,
To him I leave; for hard he will not find them,

Nor of self-praise; and let him answer them;
And may the grace of God in this assist him!"
As a disciple, who his teacher follows,

Ready and willing, where he is expert,
That his proficiency may be displayed,
"Hope," said I, "is the certain expectation
Öf future glory, which is the effect
Of grace divine and merit precedent.
From many stars this light comes unto me;

But he instilled it first into my heart

Who was chief singer unto the chief captain.

'Sperent in te,' in the high Theody

He sayeth, those who know thy name;' and who
Knoweth it not, if he my faith possess?

Thou didst instil me, then, with his instilling

In the Epistle, so that I am full,

And upon others rain again your rain."

While I was speaking, in the living bosom

Of that combustion quivered an effulgence,
Sudden and frequent, in the guise of lightning;

Then breathed: "The love wherewith I am inflamed
Towards the virtue still which followed me
Unto the palm and issue of the field,

40

45

مو

55

70

75

80

Wills that I breathe to thee that thou delight
In her; and grateful to me is thy telling
Whatever things Hope promises to thee."
And I "The ancient Scriptures and the new

The mark establish, and this shows it me,

Of all the souls whom God hath made his friends.

Isaiah saith, that each one garmented

In his own land shall be with twofold garments
And his own land is this delightful life.

Thy brother, too, far more explicitly,

There where he treateth of the robes of white,
This revelation manifests to us."

And first, and near the ending of these words,
"Sperent in te" from over us was heard,
To which responsive answered all the carols.
Thereafterward a light among them brightened,

So that, if Cancer one such crystal had,
Winter would have a month of one sole day.
And as uprises, goes, and enters the dance

A winsome maiden, only to do honour
To the new bride, and not from any failing,
Even thus did I behold the brightened splendour
Approach the two, who in a wheel revolved
As was beseeming to their ardent love.
Into the song and music there it entered ;

And fixed on them my Lady kept her look,
Even as a bride silent and motionless.
"This is the one who lay upon the breast

Of him our Pelican; and this is he
To the great office from the cross elected."
My Lady thus; but therefore none the more

Did move her sight from its attentive gaze
Before or afterward these words of hers.
Even as a man who gazes, and endeavours

To see the eclipsing of the sun a little,
And who, by seeing, sightless doth become,

So I became before that latest fire,

While it was said, "Why dost thou daze thyself
To see a thing which here hath no existence?
Earth in the earth my body is, and shall be

With all the others there, until our number
With the eternal proposition tallies.

With the two garments in the blessed cloister

Are the two lights alone that have ascended:
And this shalt thou take back into your world."

And at this utterance the flaming circle

Grew quiet, with the dulcet intermingling
Of sound that by the trinal breath was made,
As to escape from danger or fatigue

The oars that erst were in the water beaten
Are all suspended at a whistle's sound.
Ah, how much in my mind was I disturbed,
When I turned round to look on Beatrice,
That her I could not see, although I was
Close at her side and in the Happy World!

130

135

CANTO XXVI.

WHILE I was doubting for my vision quenched,
Out of the flame refulgent that had quenched it
Issued a breathing, that attentive made me,
Saying: "While thou recoverest the sense

Öf seeing which in me thou hast consumed,
'Tis well that speaking thou shouldst compensate it.
Begin then, and declare to what thy soul

Is aimed, and count it for a certainty,
Sight is in thee bewildered and not dead;
Because the Lady, who through this divine
Region conducteth thee, has in her look
The power the hand of Ananias had."
I said: "As pleaseth her, or soon or late

Let the cure come to eyes that portals were
When she with fire I ever burn with entered.
The Good, that gives contentment to this Court,
The Alpha and Omega is of all

The writing that love reads me low or loud."

The selfsame voice, that taken had from me

The terror of the sudden dazzlement,

To speak still farther put it in my thought;

And said: "In verity with finer sieve

Behoveth thee to sift; thee it behovetn

To say who aimed thy bow at such a target."

And I: "By philosophic arguments,

And by authority that hence descends,
Such love must needs imprint itself in me;

For Good, so far as good, when comprehended
Doth straight enkindle love, and so much greater
As more of goodness in itself it holds;

Then to that Essence (whose is such advantage
That every good which out of it is found
Is nothing but a ray of its own light)

More than elsewhither must the mind be moved
Of every one, in loving, who discerns

The truth in which this evidence is founded.
Such truth he to my intellect reveals

Who demonstrates to me the primal love
Of all the sempiternal substances.

The voice reveals it of the truthful Author,
Who says to Moses, speaking of Himself,

'I will make all my goodness pass before thee.'

Thou too revealest it to me, beginning

The loud Evangel, that proclaims the secret

Of heaven to earth above all other edict."

And I heard say: "By human intellect

And by authority concordant with it,

Of all thy loves reserve for God the highest.

But say again if other cords thou feelest,

The holy purpose of the Eagle of Christ

Draw thee towards Him, that thou mayst proclaim
With how many teeth this love is biting thee."

Not latent was, nay, rather I perceived
Whither he fain would my profession lead.
Therefore I recommenced: "All of those bites

Which have the power to turn the heart to God
Unto my charity have been concurrent.

The being of the world, and my own being,

The death which He endured that I may live,
And that which all the faithful hope, as I do,
With the forementioned vivid consciousness

Have drawn me from the sea of love perverse,
And of the right have placed me on the shore.
The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the garden
Of the Eternal Gardener, do I love
As much as he has granted them of good."
As soon as I had ceased, a song most sweet

Throughout the heaven resounded, and my Lady
Said with the others, "Holy, holy, holy!"
And as at some keen light one wakes from sleep
By reason of the visual spirit that runs
Unto the splendour passed from coat to coat,
And he who wakes abhorreth what he sees,

So all unconscious is his sudden waking,
Until the judgment cometh to his aid,

60

65

70

75

So from before mine eyes did Beatrice

Chase every mote with radiance of her own,
That cast its light a thousand miles and more,
Whence better after than before I saw,

And in a kind of wonderment I asked
About a fourth light that I saw with us.
And said my Lady: "There within those rays
Gazes upon its Maker the first soul
That ever the first virtue did create."
Even as the bough that downward bends its top
At transit of the wind, and then is lifted
By its own virtue, which inclines it upward,
Likewise did I, the while that she was speaking,
Being amazed, and then I was made bold
By a desire to speak wherewith I burned.

And I began: "O apple, that mature

Alone hast been produced, O ancient father,

To whom each wife is daughter and daughter-in-law,

Devoutly as I can I supplicate thee

That thou wouldst speak to me; thou seest my wish;
And I, to hear thee quickly, speak it not."
Sometimes an animal, when covered, struggles

So that his impulse needs must be apparent,
By reason of the wrappage following it;

And in like manner the primeval soul

Made clear to me athwart its covering
How jubilant it was to give me pleasure.
Then breathed: "Without thy uttering it to me,
Thine inclination better I discern

Than thou whatever thing is surest to thee;

For I behold it in the truthful mirror,

That of Himself all things parhelion makes,
And none makes Him parhelion of itself.

Thou fain wouldst hear how long ago God placed me
Within the lofty garden, where this Lady
Unto so long a stairway thee disposed.

And how long to mine eyes it was a pleasure,

And of the great disdain the proper cause,
And the language that I used and that I made,

Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree

115

Not in itself was cause of so great exile,

But solely the o'erstepping of the bounds.

There, whence thy Lady moved Virgilius,

Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits
Made by the sun, this Council I desired;

120