DANTE'S SUBLIME COMEDY: PARADISE: Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27: To the Empyrean

Glory to Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

The full choir of the host of Heaven sang

that hymn so sweetly, I grew drunk on it.          3

Through ears and eyesight rapture entered me.

            I seemed to see a smiling universe

of joy unspeakable. With love and peace           6

the four bright torches flamed before my eyes,

            the first one growing brighter till it seemed

like Jupiter’s eagle, feathered with stars             9

like those of Mars with rubies at their hearts.

            The choir fell silent as the eagle spoke.

“Don’t wonder at me changing. You will see   12

more changes soon.  He who in Rome usurps

            my place, my place, my place has emptied it

in the eyes of the Son of God! This pope          15

has made my tomb a pit of blood and shit.

            Lucifer was expelled from here but now

triumphs below.” Then Heaven was suffused   18

           

with angry colours that we see in clouds

            that face the rising and the setting sun.

            My Lady’s colour changed like a chaste girl’s  21

hearing news of a sister’s shame. I think

            this Heavenly eclipse the same as seen

            when Jesus, crucified, gave up the Ghost.        24

His words continued in a voice as changed

            as his appearance was. “The Bride of Christ –

            our Holy Kirk – was not fed by my blood        27

nor that of many martyred saints, to gain

            gold for the Vatican. Popes Sixtus,

            Pius, Calixtus, Urban wept and bled                 30

           

to reach this happy sphere. They did not use

            my image on a battle flag in wars

            with Christian foes, nor on sealed documents   33

  

telling the lie that purchasers will not

go to Hell. Do you wonder I’ve turned red?

From here I see in every Christian flock           36

a hungry wolf wearing a shepherds frock!

            O God defending us, do you still sleep?

            The French popes are prepared to drink our blood! 39

O lovely Origin, what foulness now

            engulfs our Kirk? But it will not end thus.

            When she was prone, Scipio saved Rome         42

to be the glory of the world. Just so

            will Providence bring swift salvation soon.

            So you, my son, have now this mighty task.     45

Return to earth and tell what you have learned.

            Say it out loud. Don’t hide what I do not.

            That is the reason you’re permitted here.”          48

In winter when the sun’s in Capricorn

the flakes of frozen vapour fall to earth.

            The coloured forms I saw now paled to white,  51

snowed upward out of sight. I was staring

after them when Beatrice said, “And now

            look down to see how far we have revolved.”   54

I did, saw it was noon, viewed the full globe

in a broad arc from Spain to Asia —

            from the mad ocean route Ulysses took             57

to seas Europa swam astride a bull.

            I could have seen more of earth’s threshing floor

            had not the sun below my feet been some         60

degrees ahead. But now I yearned to look

            into the eyes of Beatrice, for she

            to me was the full sum of Paradise.                   63

If art or nature ever made a bait

            to catch the eye and occupy the mind,

            I never saw any whose charms, combined,       66

could move me from divine delight I found

            in my sweet darling’s face. Her glance gave strength

            to soar to an even higher Heaven –                   69

 a swifter zone and yet so uniform

            I cannot say just where we entered in.

            She knew how love of knowledge masters me, 72

so said with an ecstatic smile from which

            God’s meaning seemed to glow the following.

            “The stable order of the universe                       75

turns round the earth, that one unmoving place,

            but here is generated time and space.

            This is the mind of God whose love and light   78

creates all. Only the All-Containing

            comprehends how everything derives

            its motions from this sphere whose centre is      81

everywhere and boundaries nowhere.

Here none can see the roots whose branches sprout

the leaves and blooms and fruits of other spheres. 84

O why has such abominable greed

            corrupted all who’ve grown from Adam’s seed?

            Innocent love is found in tiny bairns,

yet perishes before their cheeks grow hair                        88