Canto II

by Dante

　　O Ye, who in some pretty little boat,

　　   Eager to listen, have been following

　　   Behind my ship, that singing sails along,

　　Turn back to look again upon your shores;

　　   Do not put out to sea, lest peradventure,

　　   In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.

　　The sea I sail has never yet been passed;

　　   Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,

　　   And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.

　　Ye other few who have the neck uplifted

　　   Betimes to th' bread of Angels upon which

　　   One liveth here and grows not sated by it,

　　Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea

　　   Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you

　　   Upon the water that grows smooth again.

　　Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed

　　   Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be,

　　   When Jason they beheld a ploughman made!

　　The con-created and perpetual thirst

　　   For the realm deiform did bear us on,

　　   As swift almost as ye the heavens behold.

　　Upward gazed Beatrice, and I at her;

　　   And in such space perchance as strikes a bolt

　　   And flies, and from the notch unlocks itself,

　　Arrived I saw me where a wondrous thing

　　   Drew to itself my sight; and therefore she

　　   From whom no care of mine could be concealed,

　　Towards me turning, blithe as beautiful,

　　   Said unto me: "Fix gratefully thy mind

　　   On God, who unto the first star has brought us."

　　It seemed to me a cloud encompassed us,

　　   Luminous, dense, consolidate and bright

　　   As adamant on which the sun is striking.

　　Into itself did the eternal pearl

　　   Receive us, even as water doth receive

　　   A ray of light, remaining still unbroken.

　　If I was body, (and we here conceive not

　　   How one dimension tolerates another,

　　   Which needs must be if body enter body,)

　　More the desire should be enkindled in us

　　   That essence to behold, wherein is seen

　　   How God and our own nature were united.

　　There will be seen what we receive by faith,

　　   Not demonstrated, but self-evident

　　   In guise of the first truth that man believes.

　　I made reply: "Madonna, as devoutly

　　   As most I can do I give thanks to Him

　　   Who has removed me from the mortal world.

　　But tell me what the dusky spots may be

　　   Upon this body, which below on earth

　　   Make people tell that fabulous tale of Cain?"

　　Somewhat she smiled; and then, "If the opinion

　　   Of mortals be erroneous," she said,

　　   "Where'er the key of sense doth not unlock,

　　Certes, the shafts of wonder should not pierce thee

　　   Now, forasmuch as, following the senses,

　　   Thou seest that the reason has short wings.

　　But tell me what thou think'st of it thyself."

　　   And I: "What seems to us up here diverse,

　　   Is caused, I think, by bodies rare and dense."

　　And she: "Right truly shalt thou see immersed

　　   In error thy belief, if well thou hearest

　　   The argument that I shall make against it.

　　Lights many the eighth sphere displays to you

　　   Which in their quality and quantity

　　   May noted be of aspects different.

　　If this were caused by rare and dense alone,

　　   One only virtue would there be in all

　　   Or more or less diffused, or equally.

　　Virtues diverse must be perforce the fruits

　　   Of formal principles; and these, save one,

　　   Of course would by thy reasoning be destroyed.

　　Besides, if rarity were of this dimness

　　   The cause thou askest, either through and through

　　   This planet thus attenuate were of matter,

　　Or else, as in a body is apportioned

　　   The fat and lean, so in like manner this

　　   Would in its volume interchange the leaves.

　　Were it the former, in the sun's eclipse

　　   It would be manifest by the shining through

　　   Of light, as through aught tenuous interfused.

　　This is not so; hence we must scan the other,

　　   And if it chance the other I demolish,

　　   Then falsified will thy opinion be.

　　But if this rarity go not through and through,

　　   There needs must be a limit, beyond which

　　   Its contrary prevents the further passing,

　　And thence the foreign radiance is reflected,

　　   Even as a colour cometh back from glass,

　　   The which behind itself concealeth lead.

　　Now thou wilt say the sunbeam shows itself

　　   More dimly there than in the other parts,

　　   By being there reflected farther back.

　　From this reply experiment will free thee

　　   If e'er thou try it, which is wont to be

　　   The fountain to the rivers of your arts.

　　Three mirrors shalt thou take, and two remove

　　   Alike from thee, the other more remote

　　   Between the former two shall meet thine eyes.

　　Turned towards these, cause that behind thy back

　　   Be placed a light, illuming the three mirrors

　　   And coming back to thee by all reflected.

　　Though in its quantity be not so ample

　　   The image most remote, there shalt thou see

　　   How it perforce is equally resplendent.

　　Now, as beneath the touches of warm rays

　　   Naked the subject of the snow remains

　　   Both of its former colour and its cold,

　　Thee thus remaining in thy intellect,

　　   Will I inform with such a living light,

　　   That it shall tremble in its aspect to thee.

　　Within the heaven of the divine repose

　　   Revolves a body, in whose virtue lies

　　   The being of whatever it contains.

　　The following heaven, that has so many eyes,

　　   Divides this being by essences diverse,

　　   Distinguished from it, and by it contained.

　　The other spheres, by various differences,

　　   All the distinctions which they have within them

　　   Dispose unto their ends and their effects.

　　Thus do these organs of the world proceed,

　　   As thou perceivest now, from grade to grade;

　　   Since from above they take, and act beneath.

　　Observe me well, how through this place I come

　　   Unto the truth thou wishest, that hereafter

　　   Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford

　　The power and motion of the holy spheres,

　　   As from the artisan the hammer's craft,

　　   Forth from the blessed motors must proceed.

　　The heaven, which lights so manifold make fair,

　　   From the Intelligence profound, which turns it,

　　   The image takes, and makes of it a seal.

　　And even as the soul within your dust

　　   Through members different and accommodated

　　   To faculties diverse expands itself,

　　So likewise this Intelligence diffuses

　　   Its virtue multiplied among the stars.

　　   Itself revolving on its unity.

　　Virtue diverse doth a diverse alloyage

　　   Make with the precious body that it quickens,

　　   In which, as life in you, it is combined.

　　From the glad nature whence it is derived,

　　   The mingled virtue through the body shines,

　　   Even as gladness through the living pupil.

　　From this proceeds whate'er from light to light

　　   Appeareth different, not from dense and rare:

　　   This is the formal principle that produces,

　　According to its goodness, dark and bright."