Paradiso
Canto 23
Translated by Robert Hollander
1 As the bird among the leafy branches that she loves,
2 perched on the nest with her sweet brood
3 all through the night, which keeps things veiled from us,
4 who in her longing to look upon their eyes and beaks
5 and to find the food to nourish them --
6 a task, though difficult, that gives her joy --
7 now, on an open bough, anticipates that time
8 and, in her ardent expectation of the sun,
9 watches intently for the dawn to break,
10 so was my lady, erect and vigilant,
11 seeking out the region of the sky
12 in which the sun reveals less haste.
13 I, therefore, seeing her suspended, wistful,
14 became as one who, filled with longing,
15 finds satisfaction in his hope.
16 But time was short between one moment and the next,
17 I mean between my expectation and the sight
18 of the sky turned more and more resplendent.
19 And Beatrice said: 'Behold the hosts
20 of Christ in triumph and all the fruit
21 gathered from the wheeling of these spheres!'
22 It seemed to me her face was all aflame,
23 her eyes so full of gladness
24 that I must leave that moment undescribed.
25 As, on clear nights when the moon is full,
26 Trivia smiles among the eternal nymphs
27 that deck the sky through all its depths,
28 I saw, above the many thousand lamps,
29 a Sun that kindled each and every one
30 as ours lights up the sights we see above us,
31 and through that living light poured down
32 a shining substance. It blazed so bright
33 into my eyes that I could not sustain it.
34 O Beatrice, my sweet belovèd guide!
35 To me she said: 'What overwhelms you
36 is a force against which there is no defense.
37 'Here is the Wisdom and the Power that repaired
38 the roads connecting Heaven and the earth
39 that had so long been yearned for and desired.'
40 As fire breaks from a cloud,
41 swelling till it finds no room there,
42 and, against its nature, falls to earth,
43 just so my mind, grown greater at that feast,
44 burst forth, transported from itself,
45 and now cannot recall what it became.
46 'Open your eyes and see me as I am.
47 The things that you have witnessed
48 have given you the strength to bear my smile.'
49 I was like a man who finds himself awakened
50 from a dream that has faded and who strives
51 in vain to bring it back to mind
52 when I heard this invitation, deserving
53 of such gratitude as can never be erased
54 from the book that registers the past.
55 If at this moment all the tongues
56 that Polyhymnia and her sisters nurtured
57 with their sweetest, richest milk
58 should sound to aid me now, their song could not attain
59 one thousandth of the truth in singing of that holy smile
60 and how it made her holy visage radiant.
61 And so, in representing Paradise,
62 the sacred poem must make its leap across,
63 as does a man who finds his path cut off.
64 But considering the heavy theme
65 and the mortal shoulder it weighs down,
66 no one would cast blame if it trembled with its load.
67 This is no easy voyage for a little bark,
68 this stretch of sea the daring prow now cleaves,
69 nor for a pilot who would spare himself.
70 'Why does my face arouse you so to love
71 you do not turn to see the lovely garden
72 now blossoming beneath the rays of Christ?
73 'There is the rose in which the Word of God
74 was turned to flesh. There are the lilies
75 for whose fragrance the right way was chosen.'
76 Beatrice said these words. And I, all eager
77 to follow her instruction, again resumed
78 the struggle, despite my feeble power of sight.
79 As, lit by the sun's rays streaming through broken clouds,
80 my eyes, sheltered by the shade,
81 once saw a field of flowers,
82 so now I saw a many-splendored throng
83 illuminated from above by blazing rays,
84 but could not see the source of all that brightness.
85 O gracious Power, who did thus imprint them!
86 You rose to more exalted heights to grant
87 their sight to eyes not ready to behold you.
88 The name of the fair flower I invoke
89 each morning and at evening time, enthralled my mind
90 as I gazed at the brightest of the flames.
91 When the quality and magnitude of the living star,
92 who surpasses up above as she surpassed below,
93 were painted on my eyes,
94 there descended through the sky a torch that,
95 circling, took on the likeness of a crown.
96 It encircled her and wheeled around her.
97 The sweetest melody, heard here below,
98 that most attracts our souls,
99 would seem a burst of cloud-torn thunder
100 compared with the reverberation of that lyre
101 with which the lovely sapphire that so ensapphires
102 the brightest heaven was encrowned.
103 'I am angelic love and I encircle
104 the exalted joy breathed from the womb
105 that was the dwelling place of our desire,
106 'and I shall circle you, Lady of Heaven,
107 until you follow your Son to the highest sphere,
108 making it the more divine because you enter.'
109 Thus that circling music, sealing itself,
110 came to its conclusion, while all the other lights
111 made Mary's name resound.
112 The royal mantle of the universal turning spheres,
113 which most burns and is most quickened
114 in the breath of God and in His works,
115 was, at its inner boundary,
116 so very far above us that as yet,
117 from where I was, it was well beyond my seeing,
118 so that my eyes had not the power
119 to fasten on the crown-tipped flame
120 that rose along the path left by her sowing.
121 And, like a baby reaching out its arms
122 to mamma after it has drunk her milk,
123 its inner impulse kindled into outward flame,
124 all these white splendors were reaching upward
125 with their fiery tips, so that their deep affection
126 for Mary was made clear to me.
127 Then they remained there in my sight,
128 singing Regina celi with such sweetness
129 that my feeling of delight has never left me.
130 Oh, how great is the abundance
131 that is stored in granaries so rich above,
132 that down on earth were fields ripe for the sowing!
133 There they live, rejoicing in the treasure
134 they gained with tears of exile,
135 in Babylon, where they spurned the gold.
136 Beneath the exalted Son of God and Mary,
137 up there he triumphs in his victory,
138 with souls of the covenants old and new,
139 the one who holds the keys to such great glory.