Notes.
13 Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s
dream, allaying his anger and saving the lives of the augurs (Daniel 2:1-45).
24 Plato’s Timaeus pictured the
souls pre-existing in the stars and waiting for birth; after their life on earth they
return to the stars. Such a doctrine, Beatrice shows, would grant too much influence to
the stars and destroy free will (ll. 27-63).
29 The two Johns are the Baptist and the
Evangelist.
43 Dante is referring to a passage in Genesis
XVII, as interpreted by St. Augustine.
48 The third archangel is Raphael who
restored Tobit’s sight (Tobit 11:1-15).
64 The second problem involves the
inviolability of the will and the amount of freedom in forced actions.
83 Saint Lawrence died a martyr on the grill
in 258, and Mucius Scaevola, a Roman hero, put his arm into the fire set to execute him.
103 Alcmaeon revenged his mother’s
treachery of having his father Amphiaraus sent to a sure death in the siege
of Thebes by taking
her life (see Purgatorio XII, ll. 49-51, and note). |
|
-
Between two equidistant and delicious foods
- A man
with a free choice would starve to death
-
Before he might bring either to his mouth;
-
- So
would a lamb stand still between the cravings
- 5
Of two fierce wolves, in equal fear of both;
- So
would a hound stand still between two deer.
-
- I
don’t then blame myself if I kept silent,
-
Pulled equally in both ways by my doubts,
- Nor,
since it had to be, do I praise myself.
-
- 10
I held my peace, but my desire was painted
- Upon
my face, together with my question,
- In
warmer colors than if framed in words.
-
-
Beatrice now did what Daniel once had done
- When
he freed Nebuchadnezzar from the wrath
- 15
Which had caused him to be unjustly cruel,
-
- And
she said, "I clearly see how this and that
-
Desire draws you so that your eagerness
-
Entangles itself and then it cannot breathe.
-
-
"You reason: ‘If the will remains resolved,
- 20
By what right does another’s violence
-
Reduce the measure of my full reward?’
-
-
"Again you are thrown into doubt because
- The
souls seem to return up to the stars
- In
accordance with the doctrine taught by Plato.
-
- 25
"These are the questions that weigh equally
- Upon
your will: and so I shall first treat
- The
one that is most poisonous for you.
-
-
"The seraphim who are closest to God,
-
Moses, Samuel, and either John —
- 30
Choose whom you will — and even Mary
-
-
"Do not have their seats in any other heaven
- Than
do these spirits who appeared to you,
- Nor
have they more or fewer years in being,
-
-
"But all make the first circle beautiful,
- 35
And yet share the sweet life in different ways
- By
feeling the eternal breath diversely.
-
-
"They show themselves here, not because this sphere
- Is
assigned to them, but to give a sign
- Of
this celestial state which is least lofty.
-
- 40
"So must the human mind be spoken to,
- Since
only through the senses can it grasp
- What
then is fitted to the intellect.
-
-
"That is the reason Scripture condescends
- To
your capacity, attributing
- 45
Feet and hands to God, without meaning it;
-
-
"And Holy Church represents for you
- With
human features Gabriel and Michael
- And
the one who made Tobit’s vision sound.
-
-
"What Timaeus argues about the soul
- 50
Does not resemble what we witness here,
- Since
he seems to take what he says as truth.
-
-
"He states the soul returns to its own star,
-
Believing it to have been cut from it
- When
nature gave it to be the body’s form.
-
- 55
"But his opinion may be at variance
- With
what his words express, and should be taken
- To
have a meaning not for us to scorn.
-
-
"If he means that the honor and the blame of
- Their
influence returns to their gyrations,
- 60
Perhaps his bow has hit upon some truth.
-
-
"This principle, misunderstood, once so
-
Misled almost the whole world that it strayed
- In
naming Jove and Mercury and Mars.
-
-
"The other doubt disturbing you is less
- 65
Poisonous because its malice could not
- Lead
you somewhere else away from me.
-
-
"For our justice to appear unjust
- In
eyes of mortal men is argument
- For
faith and not for wicked heresy.
-
- 70
"But since your intelligence is capable
- Of
fully penetrating to this truth,
- I
will content you, just as you desire.
-
-
"If it be violence when the sufferer
-
Contributes nothing to what forces him,
- 75
These souls had no excuse on that account.
-
-
"For will that is unwilling can’t be quenched,
- But
stands as nature does within the flame
-
Though violence twist it in a thousand ways.
-
-
"For should it bend itself much or little,
- 80
If follows force: as did these souls when they
- Had
power to escape back to the cloister.
-
-
"If their will had remained perfectly whole,
- Like
that which held Saint Lawrence on the grill
- And
made Mucius hold his hand in the fire,
-
- 85
"It would have urged them back, no sooner freed,
- Along
the road where they were dragged away,
- But
such a steadfast will is all too rare.
-
-
"And by my words, if you have garnered them
- As
you should do, the argument is quashed
- 90
That would have many more times troubled you.
-
-
"But now before your path another pass
-
Confronts your eyes, so strait that by yourself
- You
would not get through without growing weary.
-
-
"I have for certain impressed on your mind
- 95
That the souls in bliss can never lie
- Since
they are always close to the First Truth;
-
-
"And then you could learn later from Piccarda
- That
Constance kept up her love for the veil,
- So
that in this she seems to contradict me.
-
- 100
"Often before, brother, it has happened
- That
men unwillingly, to flee from danger,
- Have
done things that they ought not to have done:
-
-
"Like Alcmaeon who, at his father’s bidding,
- Took
his own mother’s life and, so as not
- 105
To fail in piety, was pitiless.
-
-
"At this point I want you to understand
- That
force mingles with the will, and they
- So
act that there is no excuse for wrongs.
-
-
"Absolute will does not agree to wrong,
- 110
But out of fear that, by withholding, worse
-
Trouble may befall, the will consents.
-
-
"So when Piccarda spoke about this matter,
- She
meant the absolute will, and I the other,
- So
that what both of us said was the truth."
-
- 115
Such rippling issued from the sacred stream
- Out
of the fountain from which all truth wells up,
- Such
that it calmed one longing and the other.
-
-
"O loved of the First Lover, O divine one,"
- I
said then, "you whose speech flows over me
- 120
And warms me so that more and more I live,
-
-
"Not all the depth of my love is sufficient
- To
give you grace for grace in my return:
- But
may the One who sees and can — make answer.
-
-
"I clearly see our intellect may never
- 125
Be sated unless that Truth shines upon it
-
Beyond which no truth has a further range.
-
-
"In that it rests, like a wild beast in its den,
- The
instant it has reached it — and reach it can,
-
Otherwise all longing would be futile.
-
- 130
"For this cause questions spring up like new shoots
- At
the foot of truth, and this it is in nature
- That
drives us to the heights from ridge to ridge.
-
-
"This urge invites me, this emboldens me,
- Lady,
to question you with reverence
- 135
About another truth obscure to me.
-
-
"I want to know, can people compensate
- For
broken vows with other goods, so as
- Not
to weigh too lightly in your scales?"
-
-
Beatrice looked at me with eyes so filled
- 140
With sparks of love and so heavenly
- That
my powers, overwhelmed, broke loose,
-
- And,
eyes cast down, I almost lost myself.
|
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