Paradiso Hardback - 2007

Excerpt

PARADISO I

La gloria di colui che tutto move
per l’universo penetra, e risplende
in una parte più e meno altrove.

Nel ciel che più de la sua luce prende
fu’ io, e vidi cose che ridire
né sa né può chi di là sù discende;

perché appressando sé al suo disire,
nostro intelletto si profonda tanto,
che dietro la memoria non può ire.

Veramente quant’ io del regno santo
ne la mia mente potei far tesoro,
sarà ora materia del mio canto.

O buono Appollo, a l’ultimo lavoro
fammi del tuo valor sì fatto vaso,
come dimandi a dar l’amato alloro.

Infino a qui l’un giogo di Parnaso
assai mi fu; ma or con amendue
m’è uopo intrar ne l’aringo rimaso.

Entra nel petto mio, e spira tue
sì come quando Marsïa traesti
de la vagina de le membra sue.

O divina virtù, se mi ti presti
tanto che l’ombra del beato regno
segnata nel mio capo io manifesti,

vedra’mi al piè del tuo diletto legno
venire, e coronarmi de le foglie
che la materia e tu mi farai degno.


The glory of Him who moves all things
pervades the universe and shines
in one part more and in another less.

I was in that heaven which receives
more of His light. He who comes down from there
can neither know nor tell what he has seen,

for, drawing near to its desire,
so deeply is our intellect immersed
that memory cannot follow after it.

Nevertheless, as much of the holy kingdom
as I could store as treasure in my mind
shall now become the subject of my song.

O good Apollo, for this last labor
make me into a vessel worthy
of the gift of your belovèd laurel.

Up to this point, one peak of Mount Parnassus
has been enough, but now I need them both
in order to confront the struggle that awaits.

Enter my breast and breathe in me
as when you drew out Marsyas,
out from the sheathing of his limbs.

O holy Power, if you but lend me of yourself
enough that I may show the merest shadow
of the blessèd kingdom stamped within my mind,

you shall find me at the foot of your beloved tree,
crowning myself with the very leaves
of which my theme and you will make me worthy.


Sì rade volte, padre, se ne coglie
per triunfare o cesare o poeta,
colpa e vergogna de l’umane voglie,

che parturir letizia in su la lieta
delfica deïtà dovria la fronda
peneia, quando alcun di sé asseta.

Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda:
forse di retro a me con miglior voci
si pregherà perché Cirra risponda.

Surge ai mortali per diverse foci
la lucerna del mondo; ma da quella
che quattro cerchi giugne con tre croci,

con miglior corso e con migliore stella
esce congiunta, e la mondana cera
piu a suo modo tempera e suggella.

Fatto avea di là mane e di qua sera
tal foce, e quasi tutto era là bianco
quello emisperio, e l’altra parte nera,

quando Beatrice in sul sinistro fianco
vidi rivolta e riguardar nel sole:
aguglia sÌ non li s’affisse unquanco.

E sì come secondo raggio suole
uscir del primo e risalire in suso,
pur come pelegrin che tornar vuole,

così de l’atto suo, per li occhi infuso
ne l’imagine mia, il mio si fece,
e fissi li occhi al sole oltre nostr’ uso.

Molto è licito là, che qui non lece
a le nostre virtù, mercé del loco
fatto per proprio de l’umana spece.


So rarely, father, are they gathered
to mark the triumph of a Caesar or a poet—
fault and shame of human wishes—

that anyone’s even longing for them,
those leaves on the Peneian bough, should make
the joyous Delphic god give birth to joy.

Great fire leaps from the smallest spark.
Perhaps, in my wake, prayer will be shaped
with better words so Cyrrha may respond.

The lamp of the world rises on us mortals
at different points. But, by the one that joins
four circles with three crossings, it comes forth

on a better course and in conjunction
with a better sign. Then it tempers and imprints
the wax of the world more to its own fashion.

Its rising near that point had brought out morning there
and evening here, and that hemisphere
was arrayed in light, this one in darkness,

when I saw that Beatrice had turned toward her left
and now was staring at the sun—
never had eagle so fixed his gaze on it.

And, as a second ray will issue from the first
and rise again up to its source,
even as a pilgrim longs to go back home,

so her gaze, pouring through my eyes
on my imagination, made itself my own, and I,
against our practice, set my eyes upon the sun.

Much that our powers here cannot sustain is there
allowed by virtue of the nature of the place
created as the dwelling fit for man.


Io nol soffersi molto, né sì poco
,ch’io nol vedessi sfavillar dintorno,
com’ ferro che bogliente esce del foco;

e di sùbito parve giorno a giorno
essere aggiunto, come quei che puote
avesse il ciel d’un altro sole addorno.

Beatrice tutta ne l’etterne rote
fissa con li occhi stava; e io in lei
le luci fissi, di là sù rimote.

Nel suo aspetto tal dentro mi fei,
qual si fé Glauco nel gustar de l’erba
che ’l fé consorto in mar de li altri dèi.

Trasumanar significar per verba
non si poria; però l’essemplo basti
a cui esperïenza grazia serba.

S’i’ era sol di me quel che creasti
novellamente, amor che ’l ciel governi,
tu ’l sai, che col tuo lume mi levasti.

Quando la rota che tu sempiterni
desiderato, a sé mi fece atteso
con l’armonia che temperi e discerni,

parvemi tanto allor del cielo acceso
de la fiamma del sol, che pioggia o fiume
lago non fece alcun tanto disteso.

La novità del suono e ’l grande lume
di lor cagion m’accesero un disio
mai non sentito di cotanto acume.

Ond’ ella, che vedea me sì com’ io,
a quïetarmi l’animo commosso,
pria ch’io a dimandar, la bocca aprio


I could not bear it long, yet not so brief a time
as not to see it sparking everywhere,
like liquid iron flowing from the fire.

Suddenly it seemed a day was added to that day,
as if the One who has the power
had adorned the heavens with a second sun.

Beatrice had fixed her eyes
upon the eternal wheels and I now fixed
my sight on her, withdrawing it from above.

As I gazed on her, I was changed within,
as Glaucus was on tasting of the grass
that made him consort of the gods in the sea.

To soar beyond the human cannot be described
in words. Let the example be enough to one
for whom grace holds this experience in store.

Whether I was there in that part only which you
created last is known to you alone, O Love who rule
the heavens and drew me up there with your light.

When the heavens you made eternal,
wheeling in desire, caught my attention
with the harmony you temper and attune,

then so much of the sky seemed set on fire
by the flaming sun that neither rain nor river
ever fed a lake so vast.

The newness of the sound and the bright light
lit in me such keen desire to know their cause
as I had never with such sharpness felt before.

And she, who knew me as I knew myself,
to calm my agitated mind
before I even had begun to speak, parted her lips


e cominciò: “Tu stesso ti fai grosso
col falso imaginar, sì che non vedi
cio che vedresti se l’avessi scosso.

Tu non se’ in terra, sì come tu credi;
ma folgore, fuggendo il proprio sito,
non corse come tu ch’ad esso riedi.”

S’io fui del primo dubbio disvestito
per le sorrise parolette brevi,
dentro ad un nuovo più fu’ inretito

e dissi: “Già contento requievi
di grande ammirazion; ma ora ammiro
com’ io trascenda questi corpi levi.”

Ond’ ella, appresso d’un pio sospiro,
li occhi drizzò ver’ me con quel sembiante
che madre fa sovra figlio deliro,

e cominciò: “Le cose tutte quante
hanno ordine tra loro, è questo e forma
che l’universo a Dio fa simigliante.

Qui veggion l’alte creature l’orma
de l’etterno valore, il qual è fine
al quale è fatta la toccata norma.

Ne l’ordine ch’io dico sono accline
tutte nature, per diverse sorti,
più al principio loro e men vicine;

onde si muovono a diversi porti
per lo gran mar de l’essere, e ciascuna
con istinto a lei dato che la porti.

Questi ne porta il foco inver’ la luna;
questi ne’ cor mortali è permotore;
questi la terra in sé stringe e aduna;


and said: ‘You make yourself dull–witted
with false notions, so that you cannot see
what you would understand, had you but cast them off.

‘You are not still on earth, as you believe.
Indeed, lightning darting from its source
never sped as fast as you return to yours.’

If I was stripped of my earlier confusion
by her brief and smiling words,
I was the more entangled in new doubt

and said: ‘I was content to be released
from my amazement, but now I am amazed
that I can glide through these light bodies.’

Then she, having sighed with pity,
bent her eyes on me with just that look
a mother casts on her delirious child,

and said: ‘All things created have an order
in themselves, and this begets the form
that lets the universe resemble God.

‘Here the higher creatures see the imprint
of the eternal Worth, the end
for which that pattern was itself set forth.

‘In that order, all natures have their bent
according to their different destinies,
whether nearer to their source or farther from it.

'They move, therefore, toward different harbors
upon the vastness of the sea of being,
each imbued with an instinct that impels it on its course.

‘This instinct carries fire toward the moon,
this is the moving force in mortal hearts,
this binds the earth to earth and makes it one.


né pur le creature che son fore
d’intelligenza quest’ arco saetta,
ma quelle c’hanno intelletto e amore.

La provedenza, che cotanto assetta,
del suo lume fa ’l ciel sempre quieto
nel qual si volge quel c’ha maggior fretta;

e ora lì, come a sito decreto,
cen porta la virtù di quella corda
che ciò che scocca drizza in segno lieto.

Vero é che, come forma non s'accorda
molte fïate a l’intenzion de l’arte,
perch’ a risponder la materia è sorda,

così da questo corso si diparte
talor la creatura, c’ha podere
di piegar, così pinta, in altra parte;

e sì come veder si può cadere
foco di nube, sì l’impeto primo
l’atterra torto da falso piacere.

Non dei più ammirar, se bene stimo,
lo tuo salir, se non come d’un rivo
se d’alto monte scende giuso ad imo.

Maraviglia sarebbe in te se, privo
d'impedimento, giù ti fossi assiso,
com’ a terra quïete in foco vivo.”
Quinci rivolse inver’ lo cielo il viso.


‘This bow impels not just created things
that lack intelligence, but also those
that have both intellect and love.

‘Providence, which regulates all this,
makes with its light forever calm the heaven
that contains the one that whirls with greatest speed,

‘and there now, as to a place appointed,
the power of that bowstring bears us,
aimed, as is all it shoots, at a joyful target.

‘It is true that as a work will often fail
to correspond to its intended form, its matter
deaf and unresponsive to the craftsman's plan,

‘so sometimes a creature, having the capacity
to swerve, will, thus impelled, head off another way,
in deviation from the better course

‘and, just as sometimes we see fire
falling from a cloud, just so the primal impulse,
diverted by false pleasure, turns toward earth.

‘If I am correct, you should no more wonder
at your rising than at a stream’s descent
from a mountain's peak down to its foot.

‘It would be as astounding if you, set free
from every hindrance, had remained below,
as if on earth a living flame held still.’
Then she turned her face up to the heavens.


PARADISO I

[1-36].  Dante clearly offers these verses as an introduction to the third and final cantica as a whole. So much is dealt with in them, and in precisely such a way as to set Paradiso off from the rest of the poem, that it is perhaps worth considering them as a unit before attempting to come to grips with particular lines. One burden of these remarks (and of the specific glosses that follow them) is that Dante is once again (see, e.g., Purg. XXIV.52-54) playing a dangerous game as he addresses his role as poet. He presents himself, if in hidden ways (in modern political parlance, he “preserves deniability”), as being inspired by God to write this part of the poem (a barely hidden claim in the first two canticles as well). At the same time he allows us to believe, if we are uncomfortable with that claim here, that he is only doing what all poets do, invoking deities for poetic inspiration as has been conventional since Homer's time. And so here we shall find him referring to Apollo (I.13), Mt. Parnassus (I.16), the satyr Marsyas (I.20), and Daphne (in the form of the laurel tree—I.25). Yet all those classicizing gestures do not quite obfuscate the clear postclassical network of the necessary Christian appurtenances of a poem that begins by remembering its culmination and conclusion, the vision of God in the Empyrean.

We are fortunate in the fact that the first dozen of these opening verses are the subject of a commentary written by no less an expert than Dante himself, in his Epistle to Cangrande, which now, after the evidence that it was known and extensively cited by Andrea Lancia circa 1345, as Luca Azzetta (Azze.2003.1) has demonstrated, cannot easily be denied its Dantean paternity (and especially not by those for whom a major piece of negative evidence against the authenticity of the document was the complete absence of direct reference to Dante’s authorship in the fourteenth century). Dante himself marks off these thirty–six verses as introductory, referring to the rest of the cantica (Par. I.37-XXXIII.145) as its pars executiva (executive portion), i.e., the narrative (of which he says nothing, if he seems to promise to do so). In fact, his detailed treatment (the pars executiva, as it were, of his epistle) is reserved, interestingly enough, only for the first dozen of these three dozen lines, which receive some four pages of analysis (we might reflect that, had the commentator continued at this rate, he would have produced a document of some sixteen hundred pages for Paradiso alone). Then the commentator begins to treat his subject at breakneck speed: The last terzina of the group (vv. 10-12) receives only a single brief sentence of attention, while the following fifteen verses (13-27) are glossed even more hurriedly.

Except for Scartazzini, a happy and fairly early exception, few exegetes have made wide use of the Epistle in their responses to the opening of the Paradiso (if Charles Singleton, in his “Special Note” to the canto, and Umberto Bosco/ Giovanni Reggio [comm. to vv. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7-9, 12, 13] offer notable exceptions; see also Baldelli [Bald.1993.2]). To do so properly would overburden these pages; therefore, the interested reader is directed to a fuller treatment of this document in the commentary to the opening five tercets of the canto in the Princeton Dante Project (www.princeton.edu/dante).

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