Paradiso: Canto XII
Soon as the blessed
flame had taken up
The
final word to give it utterance,
Began the holy millstone to revolve,
And in its gyre had
not turned wholly round,
Before
another in a ring enclosed it,
And motion joined to motion, song to song;
Song that as
greatly doth transcend our Muses,
Our
Sirens, in those dulcet clarions,
As primal splendour that which is reflected.
And as are spanned
athwart a tender cloud
Two
rainbows parallel and like in colour,
When Juno to her handmaid gives command,
(The one without
born of the one within,
Like
to the speaking of that vagrant one
Whom love consumed as doth the sun the vapours,)
And make the people
here, through covenant
God
set with Noah, presageful of the world
That shall no more be covered with a flood,
In such wise of
those sempiternal roses
The
garlands twain encompassed us about,
And thus the outer to the inner answered.
After the dance,
and other grand rejoicings,
Both
of the singing, and the flaming forth
Effulgence with effulgence blithe and tender,
Together, at once,
with one accord had stopped,
(Even
as the eyes, that, as volition moves them,
Must needs together shut and lift themselves,)
Out of the heart of
one of the new lights
There
came a voice, that needle to the star
Made me appear in turning thitherward.
And it began: "The
love that makes me fair
Draws
me to speak about the other leader,
By whom so well is spoken here of mine.
'Tis right, where
one is, to bring in the other,
That,
as they were united in their warfare,
Together likewise may their glory shine.
The soldiery of
Christ, which it had cost
So
dear to arm again, behind the standard
Moved slow and doubtful and in numbers few,
When the Emperor
who reigneth evermore
Provided
for the host that was in peril,
Through grace alone and not that it was worthy;
And, as was said,
he to his Bride brought succour
With
champions twain, at whose deed, at whose word
The straggling people were together drawn.
Within that region
where the sweet west wind
Rises
to open the new leaves, wherewith
Europe is seen to clothe herself afresh,
Not far off from
the beating of the waves,
Behind
which in his long career the sun
Sometimes conceals himself from every man,
Is situate the
fortunate Calahorra,
Under
protection of the mighty shield
In which the Lion subject is and sovereign.
Therein was born
the amorous paramour
Of
Christian Faith, the athlete consecrate,
Kind to his own and cruel to his foes;
And when it was
created was his mind
Replete
with such a living energy,
That in his mother her it made prophetic.
As soon as the
espousals were complete
Between
him and the Faith at holy font,
Where they with mutual safety dowered each other,
The woman, who for
him had given assent,
Saw
in a dream the admirable fruit
That issue would from him and from his heirs;
And that he might
be construed as he was,
A
spirit from this place went forth to name him
With His possessive whose he wholly was.
Dominic was he
called; and him I speak of
Even
as of the husbandman whom Christ
Elected to his garden to assist him.
Envoy and servant
sooth he seemed of Christ,
For
the first love made manifest in him
Was the first counsel that was given by Christ.
Silent and wakeful
many a time was he
Discovered
by his nurse upon the ground,
As if he would have said, 'For this I came.'
O thou his father,
Felix verily!
O
thou his mother, verily Joanna,
If this, interpreted, means as is said!
Not for the world
which people toil for now
In
following Ostiense and Taddeo,
But through his longing after the true manna,
He in short time
became so great a teacher,
That
he began to go about the vineyard,
Which fadeth soon, if faithless be the dresser;
And of the See,
(that once was more benignant
Unto
the righteous poor, not through itself,
But him who sits there and degenerates,)
Not to dispense or
two or three for six,
Not
any fortune of first vacancy,
'Non decimas quae sunt pauperum Dei,'
He asked for, but
against the errant world
Permission
to do battle for the seed,
Of which these four and twenty plants surround thee.
Then with the
doctrine and the will together,
With
office apostolical he moved,
Like torrent which some lofty vein out-presses;
And in among the
shoots heretical
His
impetus with greater fury smote,
Wherever the resistance was the greatest.
Of him were made
thereafter divers runnels,
Whereby
the garden catholic is watered,
So that more living its plantations stand.
If such the one
wheel of the Biga was,
In
which the Holy Church itself defended
And in the field its civic battle won,
Truly full manifest
should be to thee
The
excellence of the other, unto whom
Thomas so courteous was before my coming.
But still the
orbit, which the highest part
Of
its circumference made, is derelict,
So that the mould is where was once the crust.
His family, that
had straight forward moved
With
feet upon his footprints, are turned round
So that they set the point upon the heel.
And soon aware they
will be of the harvest
Of
this bad husbandry, when shall the tares
Complain the granary is taken from them.
Yet say I, he who
searcheth leaf by leaf
Our
volume through, would still some page discover
Where he could read, 'I am as I am wont.'
'Twill not be from
Casal nor Acquasparta,
From
whence come such unto the written word
That one avoids it, and the other narrows.
Bonaventura of
Bagnoregio's life
Am
I, who always in great offices
Postponed considerations sinister.
Here are Illuminato
and Agostino,
Who
of the first barefooted beggars were
That with the cord the friends of God became.
Hugh of Saint
Victor is among them here,
And
Peter Mangiador, and Peter of Spain,
Who down below in volumes twelve is shining;
Nathan the seer,
and metropolitan
Chrysostom,
and Anselmus, and Donatus
Who deigned to lay his hand to the first art;
Here is Rabanus,
and beside me here
Shines
the Calabrian Abbot Joachim,
He with the spirit of prophecy endowed.
To celebrate so
great a paladin
Have
moved me the impassioned courtesy
And the discreet discourses of Friar Thomas,
And with me they
have moved this company."
This document (last modifiedJanuary 08, 1998) from Believerscafe.com
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