Notes.
3 Matilda sings a line in Latin, Beati
quorum tecta sunt peccata, taken in part from Psalm 31(32):1.
37 The poet here invokes the Muses as
Christian virgins. Helicon (l. 40) is the mountain sacred to Apollo and the nine Muses,
and Urania (l. 41) is the Muse of astronomy and heavenly things.
43 The procession approaches: it is a pageant
of the Church in time from the Old Covenant to the New, from creation to the end of the
world. The chariot is the Church drawn by the griffin (half eagle, half lion), Christ, God
and Man. In the order of their appearance, the seven golden candlesticks stand for the
seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, piety,
and fear of the Lord); the twenty-four elders represent the books of the Old Testament;
the four creatures symbolize the Four Gospels; the three women on the right of the chariot
are the theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) and the four to the left are the
cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance); the seven men behind
represent the rest of the New Testament writings: Acts, Epistles of Saint Paul, Catholic
Epistles of Saints Peter, John, James, and Jude, and last of all the Apocalypse of Saint
John. See Introduction.
78 The sash of Delia or Diana is the lunar
halo; Apollo’s bow is the rainbow.
85 Dante paraphrases two biblical sources:
Luke 1:28 and 42, and Judith 15:18.
95 Argus, with his hundred eyes, was beheaded
by Jupiter, and his eyes given to the peacock (Metamorphoses
I, 625-629).
105 In the Apocalypse, John pictures the four
creatures with six wings (4:6-9), and in Ezekiel, the four cherubim have four
wings (1:4-14).
115 Publius Scipio Africanus the younger
defeated Carthage in 146 B.C. and entered Rome in triumph; his father, Scipio Africanus
the Elder, who conquered Hannibal in 202 B.C., may also be intended. Augustus is the title
bestowed on Octavian, the first emperor (63 B.C.-14 A.D.), by the senate and the Roman
people.
118 Another reference to Phaethon’s
abortive attempt to drive Apollo’s sun chariot (see Inferno XVII, l. 107, and
Canto IV, l. 72).
132 The three-eyed woman is Prudence, who
sees past, present, and future.
136 Saint Luke, author of Acts, was said to
be a physician, a follower of Hippocrates, the father of medicine.
139 Saint Paul is often represented carrying
a sharp sword, symbol of the word of God. |
|
-
Singing like a woman who is in love,
- She
— after finishing her speech — continued,
-
"Blessed are they whose sins are covered over!"
-
- And
just as nymphs who used to roam alone
- 5
Through woodland shadows, one solicitous
- To
see the sun, another to avoid it,
-
- So
she then moved, walking along the bank,
-
Against the stream, and I kept pace with her,
-
Following her short steps with my short ones.
-
- 10
Between us we’d not gone a hundred steps,
- When
both banks turned a bend at the same angle,
- In
such a way that I once more faced east.
-
- And
we had not yet gone far on our way
- When
the lady turned around full-face,
- 15
Saying to me, "My brother, watch and listen!"
-
- And
look! a sudden glowing brightness coursed
-
Throughout the lofty forest on all sides,
- So
that at first I thought it must be lightning.
-
- But
since as soon as lightning comes it goes,
- 20
While this light, glowing brighter, lasted brightly,
- I
asked within my mind, "What thing is this?"
-
- And a
sweet-sounding melody ran through
- The
light-filled air; at that, a holy zeal
- Made
me reproach the impudence of Eve,
-
- 25
In that, where earth and heaven were obedient,
- A
solitary woman, just then formed,
- Would
not endure the veil before her eyes:
-
- Had
she but stayed devout beneath that veil,
- I
could have tasted — and for much more time —
- 30
These ineffable delights before this moment.
-
- While
I walked on among so many first fruits
- Of
everlasting pleasure, all in raptures,
- And
longing for still deeper happiness,
-
- Ahead
of us, beneath the greening boughs,
- 35
The air became just like a blazing fire,
- And
now the sweet sound could be heard as song.
-
- O
Virgins, sacrosanct, if for your sake
-
I’ve ever endured fastings, cold, or vigils,
-
Occasion spurs me now to claim reward!
-
- 40
Now Helicon should pour its streams for me,
-
Urania should help me with her choir
- To
put in verse things difficult to ponder.
-
- A
short way farther on, we seemed to see
- Seven
golden trees, a false impression
- 45
Caused by the vast space between the trees and us;
-
- But
when I had come up so close to them
- That
the broad likenesses which fool the senses
- Did
not let distance blur their true details,
-
- The
power which forms matter for the reason
- 50
Made out that they in fact were candlesticks
- And
that the voices sang the word "Hosanna."
-
- Atop
that beautiful arrangement flamed
- Light
far more brilliant than the mid-month moon
- At
midnight in a calm and cloudless sky.
-
- 55
I turned around, all full of wonderment,
- To my
good Virgil, but he answered me
- With
a look no less bewildered than my own.
-
- Then
I returned my gaze to those lofty things
-
Moving towards us at so slow a pace
- 60
That even newly wedded brides move faster.
-
- The
lady chid me, "Why are you so ardent
- Only
for the sight of the living lights
- And
do not look at what comes after them?"
-
- Then
I saw people following the lights,
- 65
As if behind their lords, and clothed in white:
-
Whiteness so pure has never been on earth!
-
- The
water on my left took in my likeness,
- And
like a mirror, when I looked in it,
-
Reflected back to me my left-hand side.
-
- 70
When I had reached the point along my bank
- Where
only the stream now separated us,
- I
stayed my steps so that I could see better,
-
- And I
beheld the glowing flames glide forward,
-
Leaving the air behind them streaked with pigment,
- 75
Like moving strokes a painter’s brush might make,
-
- So
that the air above them remained marked
- With
seven bands, all in those colors which
- Make
up the rainbow and Delia’s girdle.
-
- These
banners streamed on to the rear and far
- 80
Beyond my sight; as well as I could judge,
- The
outside bands were full ten feet apart.
-
-
Beneath the vivid sky I have described,
-
Twenty-four elders, two by two, approached,
- With
crowns of woven lilies on their brows.
-
- 85
They all were singing, "Blessed are you among
- The
daughters of Adam, and blessed be
- Your
beauties throughout all eternity!"
-
- After
the flowers and fresh-growing grass
-
Across from me on the opposing bank
- 90
Were clear again of the elected people,
-
- As
star replaces star within the heavens,
-
Behind the elders came four living creatures,
- Each
with a crown of green leaves on his head.
-
- Each
had six wings with feathers full of eyes.
- 95
And were the eyes of Argus still alive
- They
would have looked exactly like his eyes.
-
- I
shall not spend more of my verses, reader,
-
Describing their forms, since I have other charges
- So
pressing that I can’t be lavish here.
-
- 100
But read Ezekiel who pictures them
- As he
saw them come from the frozen north
- Out
of a storm of wind and cloud and fire.
-
- And
just as you will find them in his pages,
- Such
were they here, except that, for the wings,
- 105
John is with me and disagrees with him.
-
- The
space between the four of them contained
- A
chariot of triumph on two wheels,
-
Coming drawn at the neck of a griffin.
-
- And
he stretched upward one wing and the other
- 110
Midway between the bands — three here, three there —
- So
that by splitting them he did no damage.
-
- They
rose so high the wings were lost to sight;
- His
limbs were golden where he was a bird
- And
all the rest was white mixed in with red.
-
- 115
Never did Africanus or Augustus
-
Please Rome with such a splendid chariot,
- But
even the sun’s cannot compare to it —
-
- The
sun’s, which veering off its course burnt out
- At
the devout petition of the earth,
- 120
When Jove in his mysterious ways was just.
-
- Three
women in a circle next came dancing
- At
the right wheel; the first one was so red
- She
scarcely would be noticed in a flame;
-
- The
second seemed as if her flesh and bone
- 125
Had been cut out of emerald; and the third
-
Appeared to be of freshly fallen snow.
-
- And
now the white one seemed to lead them round
- And
now the red, and from their leader’s song
- The
others took the measure fast and slow.
-
- 130
By the left wheel, four women clad in purple
-
Celebrated, dancing to the cadence
- Of
one of them with three eyes in her head.
-
- After
all the group I have described,
- I saw
two old men, different in their dress
- 135
But like in bearing, straightforward and staid:
-
- One
showed himself to be by his attire
- A
follower of great Hippocrates
- Whom
nature made for creatures she loves best;
-
- The
other showed the contrary concern,
- 140
With a glittering and sharp-edged sword —
- Even
on this near shore it frightened me!
-
- Then
I saw four men, modest in their look:
- And
after all of them, a lone old man
-
Coming along, keen-featured, in a sleep.
-
- 145
All seven of these men were clothed like those
- In
the first group, except they did not wear
- A
crown of woven lilies round their heads,
-
-
Rather of roses and other red flowers:
- One
viewing them from closer up would swear
- 150
That all, above their eyebrows, were ablaze.
-
- And
when the chariot was across from me,
- I
heard a thunderclap, and those worthy people,
-
Apparently forbidden to march farther,
-
-
Stopped there with their banner-flames in front.
|
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