The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

How shall I write that from that cross there glowed a vision of Christ? 105 What metaphor is worthy of that sight?

But whoso takes his cross and follows Christ will pardon me what I leave here unsaid when he sees that great dawn that rays forth Christ.

You will come to learn how bitter as salt and stone is the bread of others, how hard the way that goes 60 up and down stairs that never are your own.

Down through that world of endless bitter sighs, 113 and on the mountain from whose flowering crown I was uplifted by my lady’s eyes, 115 and then through Heaven from ray to living ray, I have learned much that would, were it retold, offend the taste of many alive today.

O lovely star, how rich a diadem shown forth to let me understand our justice flows to us from the heaven you begem.

On earth the mind is smoke; here, it is fire. How can it do there what it cannot do even when taken into heaven’s choir?”

O glorious constellation! O lamp imbued with great powers, to whose influence I ascribe all my genius, however it may be viewed!

“Therefore, before you enter further here look down and see how vast a universe I have put beneath your feet, bright sphere on sphere.

My eyes went back through the seven spheres below, 134 and I saw this globe, so small, so lost in space, 135 I had to smile at such a sorry show.

And turning there with the eternal Twins, 152 I saw the dusty little threshing ground that makes us ravenous for our mad sins, saw it from mountain crest to lowest shore. 155 Then I turned my eyes to Beauty’s eyes once more.

faith is the substance of what we hope to see 65 and the argument for what we have not seen.

And I reply: I believe in one God, loved, desired by all creation, sole, eternal, who moves the turning Heavens, Himself unmoved.

This is the beginning, the spark shot free that gnaws and widens into living flame, and, like a star in Heaven, shines in me.”

From many stars this light descends to me, but it was first distilled into my heart by the ultimate singer of Ultimate Majesty.

for nothing of the mind is beyond change: man’s inclination answers to the stars and ranges as the starry courses range.

We never meant that men of Christian life 47 should sit part on the right, part on the left of our successors, steeled for bloody strife. 49 Nor that the keys consigned into my hand 50 should fly as emblems from a flag unfurled against the baptized in a Christian land.

This heaven does not exist in any place 110 but in God’s mind, where burns the love that turns it and the power that rains to it from all of space.

Nor did He lie asleep before the Word 20 sounded above these waters; ‘before’ and ‘after’ 21 did not exist until His voice was heard.

Christ did not say to His first congregation: 110 ‘Go and preach twaddle to the waiting world.’ 111 He gave them, rather, holy truth’s foundation. That, and that only, was the truth revealed by those who fought and died to plant the faith. They made the Gospel both their sword and shield.

Consider then how lofty and how wide is the excellence of the Eternal Worth which in so many mirrors can divide 145 Its power and majesty forevermore, Itself remaining One, as It was before.”

“The Love that keeps this Heaven ever the same greets all who enter with such salutation, 54 and thus prepares the candle for His flame.”

Like living flame their faces seemed to glow. 14 Their wings were gold. And all their bodies shone 15 more dazzling white than any earthly snow.

for throughout all the universe God’s ray enters all things according to their merit, and nothing has the power to block its way.

what did I feel on reaching such a goal from human to blest, from time to eternity, 39 from Florence to a people just and whole—

Infinite order rules in this domain. Mere accidence can no more enter in than hunger can, or thirst, or grief, or pain. 55 All you see here is fixed by the decree of the eternal law, and is so made that the ring goes on the finger perfectly.

Not only does thy sweet benignity flow out to all who beg, but oftentimes thy charity arrives before the plea.

Now comes this man who from the final pit of the universe up to this height has seen, one by one, the three lives of the spirit.

I saw within Its depth how It conceives all things in a single volume bound by Love, of which the universe is the scattered leaves; 88 substance, accident, and their relation so fused that all I say could do no more 90 than yield a glimpse of that bright revelation.

O Light Eternal fixed in Itself alone, 125 by Itself alone understood, which from Itself loves and glows, self-knowing and self-known;

Here my powers rest from their high fantasy, but already I could feel my being turned— instinct and intellect balanced equally 145 as in a wheel whose motion nothing jars— by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.