The Moon, Beatrice and the Dark Spots
O you who are seated in your little skiffs,
Zealous to listen, following in the wake
Behind my ship that singing plows her way,
Turn back to look again on your own shores:
5 Don’t put out on the high seas, for, perhaps,
In losing me you may run far adrift!
The flood I take was never coursed before.
Minerva blows, Apollo pilots me,
And the nine Muses point me out the Bears.
10 You other few who stretched your necks on high
In time to taste the bread of angels which
People here feed on, but never have their fill,
You well may put your boat out on the deep
By staying in the furrow of my wake
15 Before the water flows back smooth again.
Those glorious men who sailed the sea to Colchis,
When they saw Jason turned into a plowman,
Were not as thunderstruck as you shall be.
The inborn, boundless thirst for that kingdom
20 Created in God’s image swept us onward
Almost as swiftly as the skies you see.
Beatrice gazed upward and I gazed on her;
And in the time perhaps it takes an arrow
To strike the bull’s-eye, fly, and leave the bow,
25 I saw myself arrived at a thing of wonder
Which drew my sight to it, and therefore she
From whom my close concerns could not be hidden
Turned toward me, as glad as she was lovely,
And said, "Direct your mind with thanks to God
30 Who here has made us one with the first star."
I thought we were enveloped in a cloud,
Shining, solid, dense, and highly polished
As a diamond struck by the sun would be.
The timeless pearl took us inside itself
35 In the same way that water can receive
A ray of light while it remains intact.
If I was body (and here we can’t conceive
How one dimension can contain another,
Which has to be when body enters body),
40 All the more should longing then inflame us
To see that Essence in which we may see
How our own nature and God join in one.
There shall be seen what we now hold by faith:
Not proven to us, but known on its own,
45 Like the first truths believed by human beings.
I answered, "My lady, with the best devotion
That I can summon, I here give thanks to Him
Who has raised me up out of the mortal world.
"But tell me what those dark traces are
50 Upon this body, which down there on earth
Cause people to tell stories about Cain?"
She smiled a little, and then said to me,
"If the opinion of men errs in matters
Which the key of our senses won’t unlock,
55 "Surely wonder’s arrows should not pierce you
From this point on, since even when you follow
The senses, you see that reason’s wings fall short.
"But tell me what you think to be the cause?"
And I: "What differences here appear to us
60 I think result from rare and denser bodies."
And she: "Surely you’ll see that your thinking
Is sunk in falsehood, if you listen well
To the argument that I shall give against it.
"The eighth sphere shows to you a myriad
65 Of lights which by intensity and number
Are manifestly different in appearance.
"If ‘rare and dense’ alone could have caused
All this, one single power, more or less
Allotted equally, would be in all.
70 "These different powers have to be the fruits
Of formal principles which, with one exception,
Would by your way of thinking be destroyed.
"Again, were rarity the reason for
The dark you ask about, either this planet
75 Would lack material from place to place,
"Or else, just as the lean and fat are layered
Throughout the body, so its density
Would alternate like pages in a book.
"The first, if it were true, would be made plain
80 In the sun’s eclipse, by light shining through,
As when it strikes rare bodies of all sorts.
"This is not so: we must then view the other
Alternative, and if I prove that wrong,
Your theory will be shown to be untrue.
85 "For if rare matter does not riddle through,
There must be a limit where the opposite
Density prevents its passing farther;
"And so the sun’s rays would be reflected back,
Just as the color glances off the mirror
90 That has lead backing to seal it from behind.
"Now you will say that the ray shows up dimmer
On one place than on other areas
Since it’s reflected there from farther back.
"From this objection — should you care to try —
95 You can be set free by experiment
Which is the source for the rivers of your arts.
"Take up three mirrors, and set two of them
Equally far from you, and farther still
Let the third meet your eyes between the two.
100 "Facing toward them, have a light placed at
Your back, so that it shines in the three mirrors
And comes to you reflected in them all.
"Although the farther image may not look
As large to you, you will observe that there
105 It shines with equal brightness as the others.
"Now, as beneath the strokes of warming sunbeams
The undersurface of the snow lies bare
Both of its former color and its coldness,
"So, with your intellect swept bare,
110 I will inform you with light so alive
That it will shimmer as you look on it.
"Deep in the heaven of divine peace
There whirls a body in whose power rests
The being of all things that it contains.
115 "The heaven after it, with brilliant stars,
Distributes this being to different essences,
Distinct from it and yet contained within it.
"The other circles by various degrees
Dispose the separate powers in themselves
120 To their own proper ends and propagation.
"These organs of the universe proceed,
As you now see, from grade to grade, obtaining
Their power from above and acting downward.
"Pay close attention now to how I travel
125 Through this passage to the truth you long for,
So that you’ll learn to cross the ford alone.
"The motion and the power of sacred spheres
Must be inspired by angelic movers,
Just as the hammer’s art is by the smith.
130 "And that heaven which myriad lights make lovely
Takes its image from the deep Mind that turns it
And of that image makes itself the seal.
"And as the soul within this dust of yours
Has been diffused throughout the different members
135 To suit each one to some distinctive function,
"So the Intelligence deals out its goodness
By multiplying itself among the stars
As it revolves on its own unity.
"Varying power makes up various mixtures
140 With the precious bodies which it enlivens
And in which it is bound like life in you.
"Because of the glad nature from which it flows,
This mingled power shines out through the body
As gladness does in the eye’s lively pupil.
145 "From this power comes the apparent difference
Between light and light, not from dense and rare:
This is the formal principle which produces,
"In proportion to its goodness, the dark and bright."
