Paradiso -- Canto XXVII
Saint Peter on the Church, the Primum Mobile
"Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!"
The whole of paradise at once poured forth,
So sweet a song I felt inebriated.
What I saw seemed to me to be a smile
5 Of the universe, so that my intoxication
Came over me from hearing and from sight.
O gladness! O ineffable elation!
O life entirely filled with love and peace!
O riches, free from every other longing!
10 Before my eyes stood the four burning torches,
And that splendor which had approached me first
Began to blaze more brilliantly than all.
And it became in its appearance such
As Jupiter would look if he and Mars
15 Were birds and had exchanged each other’s feathers.
The providence which there assigns to each
Its services and functions had imposed
Silence on the blest choir on every side,
When I heard, "If I now change my color,
20 Do not be surprised, for as I speak
You shall see all these souls change color too.
"The man who down on earth usurps my place,
My place, the place which at this time is vacant
Within the sight of the true Son of God,
25 "Has made my burial-place a sewer for
Blood and filth so rank the Evil One
Who fell from here delights himself down there."
That color which at evening and at daybreak
Paints clouds in sunlight from the far horizon
30 I then saw cover over the whole heaven.
And as a modest woman who will stay
Self-assured, but at another’s failing
Becomes upset while only hearing of it,
So Beatrice changed her looks, and such was once,
35 As I believe, the eclipse in the sky
At the hour when the highest Power suffered.
Then he continued talking in a voice
So wholly different from its former self
That his appearance could not have changed as much:
40 "The spouse of Christ was not reared on my blood
Or on the blood of Linus and of Cletus
That she might be employed for gaining gold,
"But for the gaining of this happy life
Have Sixtus, Pius, Calixtus and Urban,
45 Shed their blood after shedding many tears.
"It never was our purpose that one part
Of the Christian people should sit on the right
Of our successors, and others on the left;
"Nor that the keys entrusted to my keeping
50 Should have become the emblem on a banner
Borne into battle against baptized brethren;
"Nor that I should be stamped upon a seal
For selling false and venal privileges:
For these things I blush red and flare up often.
55 "Rapacious wolves disguised in shepherds’ clothing
Are seen from here on high in all the pastures.
O watch of God, why do you lie unstirred?
"Men of Cahors and Gascony make ready
To drink our blood: O wonderful beginning,
60 To what a worthless ending must you fall!
"But the high providence which, with Scipio,
Guarded for Rome the glory of the world,
As I conceive, will quickly come to help.
"And you, my son, who by your mortal weight
65 Must once more go below, open your mouth,
And do not hide what I have not kept hidden!"
Just as our atmosphere, at the season when
The horn of heaven’s goat abuts the sun,
Drops snowflakes downward with its frozen mists,
70 So I saw then the upper air adorned,
Snowflaking upward with triumphant mists
That for a while had stayed on with us there.
My eyes kept tracking their appearances
And tracked them till the space between became
75 So vast that it prevented passing onward.
At that my lady, finding my sight freed
From staring upward, said to me, "Bend down
Your gaze, and look how far you have spun around!"
From the hour when I’d looked down earlier,
80 I saw that I had turned through the whole arc
Of the first zone from midpoint to its end:
So far off, past Cadiz, I saw the mad
Course of Ulysses and, nearer to the shore,
Where Europa proved herself so sweet to carry.
85 And still more of this little threshing-floor
Would have been shown to me, but that the sun
Outran me, a sign or more, beneath my feet.
My mind in love, which always lovingly
Attends my lady, more than ever burned
90 To have my eyes return to look in hers:
And if nature or art ever fashioned lures
To catch the eyes so to possess the mind,
In human flesh or in its portraiture,
All of these charms combined would seem as nothing
95 Beside the divine delight that beamed on me
When I turned myself to her smiling face.
And the power that her look bestowed on me
Plucked me out of Leda’s lovely nest
And hurled me to the swiftest of the heavens.
100 The regions of this quickest highest heaven
Are all so uniform I cannot tell
Which spot among them Beatrice chose for me.
But she, who saw my longing, started speaking,
Smiling the while with such deep happiness
105 That God seemed shining in her face for joy:
"The nature of the universe which holds
The center still and whirls the spheres around it
Takes from this region here its starting-point.
"And here this heaven has no other where
110 Than in God’s mind, where there flames up the love
That spins it, and the power it pours down.
"Light and love enclose it in one circle
As it does all the rest, and this enclosing
He alone who circles it can comprehend.
115 "Its motion is not measured by another’s,
But this sphere sets the others into motion,
As ten is factored into five and two.
"And how time hides its roots in such a planter
While spreading down its leaves to other spheres
120 Should now be plainly evident to you.
"O greed, you submerge mortals in your depths
So far below that no one has the power
To raise his eyes above the surging waves!
"The will blooms vigorously in human beings,
125 But then the endless, drenching downpour changes
The healthy plums into infested fruit.
"Faith and innocence are only found
In little children; then both fly away
Before the cheeks begin to sprout with whiskers.
130 "Someone, while still a lisping infant, fasts,
But later, when his tongue is loosed for speech,
Swallows all sorts of food through all of Lent.
"Another lisper loves and listens to
His mother, but later, when his speech flows free,
135 He only longs to see her dead and buried.
"So she, the lovely daughter of the Sun,
At the first glance of him who brings the day
And leaves the evening, turns her white skin black.
"You, that you may not be surprised at this,
140 Think how on earth there is no one to govern,
So that the human family goes astray.
"But before January drops from winter
By one day lost in every hundred years
Below, these towering spheres shall so beam out
145 "That a turnabout in season, long expected,
Shall spin the ships around from stern to prow
So that the fleet will run in a straight course,
"And wholesome fruit shall follow from the blossoms."
