The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

once made the harbour hot.1400
Folco that people called me unto whom1401
My name was known; and now with me this heaven
Imprints itself, as I did once with it;
For more the daughter of Belus never burned,1402
Offending both Sichaeus and Creusa,
Than I, so long as it became my locks,
Nor yet that Rodophean, who deluded1403
Was by Demophoon, nor yet Alcides,1404
When Iole he in his heart had locked.
Yet here is no repenting, but we smile,1405
Not at the fault, which comes not back to mind,
But at the power which ordered and foresaw.
Here we behold the art that doth adorn1406
With such affection, and the good discover
Whereby the world above turns that below.
But that thou wholly satisfied mayst bear
Thy wishes hence which in this sphere are born,
Still farther to proceed behoveth me.
Thou fain wouldst know who is within this light
That here beside me thus is scintillating,
Even as a sunbeam in the limpid water.
Then know thou, that within there is at rest
Rahab, and being to our order joined,1407
With her in its supremest grade ’tis sealed.
Into this heaven, where ends the shadowy cone1408
Cast by your world, before all other souls
First of Christ’s triumph was she taken up.1409
Full meet it was to leave her in some heaven,
Even as a palm of the high victory
Which he acquired with one palm and the other,1410
Because she favored the first glorious deed1411
Of Joshua upon the Holy Land,1412
That little stirs the memory of the Pope.
Thy city, which an offshoot is of him1413
Who first upon his Maker turned his back,
And whose ambition is so sorely wept,
Brings forth and scatters the accursed flower1414
Which both the sheep and lambs hath led astray
Since it has turned the shepherd to a wolf.
For this the Evangel and the mighty Doctors1415
Are derelict, and only the Decretals
So studied that it shows upon their margins.
On this are Pope and Cardinals intent;
Their meditations reach not Nazareth,
There where his pinions Gabriel unfolded;1416
But Vatican and the other parts elect
Of Rome, which have a cemetery been
Unto the soldiery that followed Peter
Shall soon be free from this adultery.” Canto X

The Fourth Heaven, or that of the Sun, where are seen the spirits of theologians and fathers of the Church⁠—St. Thomas Aquinas.

Looking into his Son with all the Love1417
Which each of them eternally breathes forth,1418
The Primal and unutterable Power
Whate’er before the mind or eye revolves
With so much order made, there can be none
Who this beholds without enjoying Him.
Lift up then, Reader, to the lofty wheels
With me thy vision straight unto that part
Where the one motion on the other strikes,1419
And there begin to contemplate with joy
That Master’s art, who in himself so loves it
That never doth his eye depart therefrom.
Behold how from that point goes branching off
The oblique circle, which conveys the planets,1420
To satisfy the world that calls upon them;
And if their pathway were not thus inflected,1421
Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain,
And almost every power below here dead.
If from the straight line distant more or less
Were the departure, much would wanting be
Above and underneath of mundane order.
Remain now, Reader, still upon thy bench,
In thought pursuing that which is foretasted,
If thou wouldst jocund be instead of weary.
I’ve set before thee; henceforth feed thyself,
For to itself diverteth all my care
That theme whereof I have been made the scribe.
The greatest of the ministers of nature,1422
Who with the power of heaven the world imprints
And measures with his light the time for us,
With that part which above is called to mind1423
Conjoined, along the spirals was revolving,1424
Where each time earlier he presents himself;
And I was with him; but of the ascending
I was not conscious, saving as a man
Of a first thought is conscious ere it come;
And Beatrice, she who is seen to pass
From good to better, and so suddenly
That not by time her action is expressed,
How lucent in herself must she have been!
And what was in the sun, wherein I entered,
Apparent not by color but by light,
I, though I call on genius, art, and practice,
Cannot so tell that it could be imagined;
Believe one can, and let him long to see it.
And if our fantasies too lowly are
For altitude so great, it is no marvel,
Since o’er the sun was never eye could go.1425
Such in this place was the fourth family
Of the high Father, who forever sates it,
Showing how he breathes forth and how begets.1426
And Beatrice began: “Give thanks, give thanks
Unto the Sun of Angels, who to this
Sensible one has raised thee by his grace!”
Never was heart of mortal so disposed
To worship, nor to give itself to God
With all its gratitude was it so ready,
As at those words did I myself become;
And all my love was so absorbed in Him,
That in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed.
Nor this displeased her; but she smiled at it
So that the splendor of her laughing eyes
My single mind on many things divided.
Lights many saw I, vivid and triumphant,
Make us a centre and themselves a circle,
More sweet in voice than luminous in aspect.
Thus girt about the daughter of Latona1427
We sometimes see, when pregnant is the air,
So that it holds the thread which makes her zone.
Within the court of Heaven, whence I return,
Are many jewels found, so fair