Paradiso -- Canto XV
Cacciaguida
Gracious will — in which true-breathing love
Always reveals itself, as evil greed
Resolves itself into a grudging will—
Hushed to silence the sweet-sounding lyre
5 And stilled the sacred strings that the right hand
Of heaven either slackens or sets tight.
How shall these beings be deaf to just prayers
Who, to prompt me in my petitioning them,
With one accord fell mute and left their music?
10 Rightly should he endlessly lament
Who, for the love of what does not endure
Forever, robs himself of that true love.
As through the quiet cloudless evening sky
There shoots from time to time a sudden flame,
15 Shifting the eyes that had stared steadily,
And it seems that a star is changing place,
Except that where it flares no star is missing
And that it lasts for only a short instant:
So from the right-hand tip down to the foot
20 Of that bright cross there darted out a star
Of the resplendent constellation’s circle.
Nor did that jewel tumble from its ribbon,
But ran its course along the radial line
And looked like fire seen through alabaster.
25 With like affection did Anchises’ shade
Reach out (if we may trust our greatest muse)
When, in Elysium, he saw his son.
"O blood of mine! O overbrimming grace
Of God! For whom was ever heaven’s gate
30 Thrown open twice, as it has been for you?"
So spoke that light, and I gave it my attention.
Then I turned my gaze once more to my lady
And I was awestruck on one side and the other
Since her eyes were ablaze with such a smile
35 That I thought with my eyes I’d touched the limit
Of all my grace and all my paradise.
Then, a pure joy for listening and for sight,
The spirit added to his earlier words
Things past my grasp, his speech was so profound.
40 Nor did he hide his sense from me by choice,
But of necessity, because his thoughts
Were far above the mark of mortal mind.
But when the bow of his burning affection
Was so relaxed that what he said flew downward
45 Toward the target of our intellect,
This was the first thing that I understood:
"Blessed are you, both Three and One, who show
Such favor to the seed of my descendants."
And he went on, "You have assuaged, my son,
50 Within this light through which I speak to you,
The long and cherished hunger which derived
"From reading the great book where black and white
Are never changed: for this I give her thanks
Who clothed you with the wings for this high flight.
55 "For you believe that your thoughts flow to me
From Him who is the First, as five and six,
If one is known, derive from unity.
"And, therefore, who I am and why I seem
To you more joyful than the other spirits
60 In this gay throng, you do not ask of me.
"And you believe the truth, for least and greatest
In this life always gaze into that mirror
Where you reveal your thoughts before you think.
"But that the holy love in which I watch
65 With ceaseless vision, and which makes me thirst
With sweet desire, may sooner be fulfilled,
"Let your own voice, assured and bold and glad,
Ring out your will, ring out your heart’s desire,
To which my answer is already ordered!"
70 I turned to Beatrice, and before I spoke
She heard me, and she smiled me her assent
Which made the wings of my desire grow.
Then I began, "Love and intelligence,
When the First Equality appeared to you,
75 Became in all of you equally balanced
"Because the Sun that illumined and warmed you
Has such equality of heat and light
That all analogies fall short of it.
"But mortal wishes and abilities,
80 For reasons that are evident to you,
Do not have equal feathers in their wings.
"I who am mortal feel myself in this same
Imbalance, so that only with my heart
May I give thanks for your paternal welcome.
85 "I do, however, beg you, living topaz
That flames within this precious diadem,
To satisfy my longing with your name."
"O leaf of mine, in whom I found my pleasure
Only awaiting you: I was your root."
90 In this way he began his answer to me,
Then said, "The man from whom your family name
Comes down, and who a hundred years or more
Had trudged around the first ledge of the mountain,
"Was my son, and your own grandfather’s father.
95 Surely it is right that you should shorten
By your good works his long laborious trial.
"Florence within her ancient rounded walls
From which she still hears tierce and nones toll out
Lived in peace, her people chaste and sober.
100 "There were no necklaces, no coronets,
No lace-embroidered gowns, no silken girdles,
Meant to be looked at rather than the person.
"Nor did the daughter at her birth yet cause
Fear to her father, for her age and dowry
105 Had not run to excesses either way.
"No houses stood vacated by their families.
No Sardanapalus had yet arrived
To show what can be acted in one’s chamber.
"Not yet had Montemalo been surpassed
110 By your Uccellatoio which in rising,
Passed it, so shall it pass it in its fall.
"I saw Bellincione Berti belted
In simple bone and leather, while his wife
Stepped from her mirror with her face unpainted.
115 "I saw the lords of Nerli and of Vecchio
Content to wear a coat of plain-dressed skins,
And their wives ply the spindle and the flax.
"O happy women, each of them assured
Of her own burial spot, and none abandoned
120 Yet in her bed because of trips to France!
"One kept a constant watch to mind the cradle
And soothingly employed that infant speech
Fathers and mothers first delight in using.
"Another, as she drew threads from the distaff,
125 Would tell her family household the old stories
Concerning Troy and Rome and Fiesole.
"Then Lapo Salterello and Cianghella
Would have been held as strange a marvel as
Are Cincinnatus and Cornelia now.
130 "To such a restful and a lovely life
Among the citizens, to such a loyal
Community, to such a cordial home,
"Mary presented me, called by loud prayers:
And I became, in your old baptistery,
135 At once a Christian and a Cacciaguida.
"Moronto and Eliseo were my brothers;
My wife came from the valley of the Po,
And from that place your surname is derived.
"I later served the Emperor Conrad,
140 And with his knighthood he invested me,
So highly I won favor by good deeds.
"I followed him to fight against the evil
Religion of those people who usurp,
By your shepherd’s negligence, your rightful lands.
145 "There finally falling to that filthy horde,
I gained release from that deceitful world,
The love of which debases many souls,
"And to this peace I came from martyrdom."
