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

horn1524
That in the point beginneth of the axis
Round about which the primal wheel revolves⁠—
To have fashioned of themselves two signs in heaven,
Like unto that which Minos’ daughter made,1525
The moment when she felt the frost of death;
And one to have its rays within the other,
And both to whirl themselves in such a manner
That one should forward go, the other backward;
And he will have some shadowing forth of that
True constellation and the double dance
That circled round the point at which I was;
Because it is as much beyond our wont,
As swifter than the motion of the Chiana1526
Moveth the heaven that all the rest outspeeds.1527
There sang they neither Bacchus, nor Apollo,
But in the divine nature Persons three,
And in one person the divine and human.
The singing and the dance fulfilled their measure,
And unto us those holy lights gave need,
Growing in happiness from care to care.
Then broke the silence of those saints concordant
The light in which the admirable life1528
Of God’s own mendicant was told to me,
And said: “Now that one straw is trodden out1529
Now that its seed is garnered up already,
Sweet love invites me to thresh out the other.
Into that bosom, thou believest, whence1530
Was drawn the rib to form the beauteous cheek
Whose taste to all the world is costing dear,
And into that which, by the lance transfixed,1531
Before and since, such satisfaction made
That it weighs down the balance of all sin,
Whate’er of light it has to human nature
Been lawful to possess was all infused
By the same power that both of them created;
And hence at what I said above dost wonder,
When I narrated that no second had
The good which in the fifth light is enclosed.1532
Now ope thine eyes to what I answer thee,
And thou shalt see thy creed and my discourse
Fit in the truth as centre in a circle.
That which can die, and that which dieth not,1533
Are nothing but the splendor of the idea
Which by his love our Lord brings into being;
Because that living Light, which from its fount1534
Effulgent flows, so that it disunites not
From Him nor from the Love in them intrined,
Through its own goodness reunites its rays1535
In nine subsistences, as in a mirror,
Itself eternally remaining One.
Thence it descends to the last potencies,1536
Downward from act to act becoming such
That only brief contingencies it makes;
And these contingencies I hold to be1537
Things generated, which the heaven produces
By its own motion, with seed and without.
Neither their wax, nor that which tempers it,1538
Remains immutable, and hence beneath
The ideal signet more and less shines through;
Therefore it happens, that the selfsame tree
After its kind bears worse and better fruit,
And ye are born with characters diverse.
If in perfection tempered were the wax,1539
And were the heaven in its supremest virtue,
The brilliance of the seal would all appear;
But nature gives it evermore deficient,
In the like manner working as the artist,
Who has the skill of art and hand that trembles.
If then the fervent Love, the Vision clear,1540
Of primal Virtue do dispose and seal,
Perfection absolute is there acquired.
Thus was of old the earth created worthy
Of all and every animal perfection;
And thus the Virgin was impregnate made;
So that thine own opinion I commend,
That human nature never yet has been,
Nor will be, what it was in those two persons.
Now if no farther forth I should proceed,
‘Then in what way was he without a peer?’1541
Would be the first beginning of thy words.
But, that may well appear what now appears not,
Think who he was, and what occasion moved him
To make request, when it was told him, ‘Ask.’1542
I’ve not so spoken that thou canst not see
Clearly he was a king who asked for wisdom,
That he might be sufficiently a king;
’Twas not to know the number in which are
The motors here above, or if necesse1543
With a contingent e’er necesse make,1544
Non si est dare primum motum esse,1545
Or if in semicircle can be made
Triangle so that it have no right angle.1546
Whence, if thou notest this and what I said,1547
A regal prudence is that peerless seeing1548
In which the shaft of my intention strikes.
And if on ‘rose’ thou turnest thy clear eyes,
Thou’lt see that it has reference alone
To kings who’re many, and the good are rare.
With this distinction take thou what I said,
And thus it can consist with thy belief
Of the first father and of our Delight.
And lead shall this be always to thy feet,
To make thee, like a weary man, move slowly
Both to the Yes and No thou seest not;
For very low among the fools is he
Who affirms without distinction, or denies,
As well in one as in the other case;
Because it happens that full often bends
Current opinion in the false direction,
And then the feelings bind the intellect.
Far more than uselessly he leaves the shore,
(Since he returneth not the same he went,)
Who fishes for the truth, and has no skill;
And in the world proofs manifest thereof
Parmenides, Melissus, Brissus are,1549
And many who went on and knew not whither;
Thus did Sabellius, Arius, and those fools1550
Who have been even as swords unto the Scriptures1551
In rendering distorted their straight faces.
Nor yet shall people be too confident
In judging, even as he is who doth count
The corn in field or ever it