Hope: Canto XXV of Paradiso



THE EIGHTH SPHERE: THE FIXED STARS

If ever it comes to pass that the sacred song,

     to which both heaven and earth so set their hand

     that I grew lean with laboring years long,

wins over the cruelty that exiles me

     from the sweet sheepfold where I slept, a lamb,                             5

     and to the raiding wolves an enemy;

with a changed voice and with my fleece full grown

     I shall return to my baptismal font,

     a poet, and there assume the laurel crown;

for there I entered the faith that lets us grow                                       10

     into God’s recognition; and for that faith

     Peter, as I have said, circled my brow.

Thereafter another radiance came forth

     from the same sphere out of whose joy had come

     the first flower of Christ’s vicarage on earth.                                    15

And my lady, filled with ecstasy and aglow,

     cried to me: “Look! Look there! It is the baron

     for whom men throng to Galicia there below!”

At times, on earth, I have seen a mating dove

     alight by another, and each turn to each,                                          20

     circling and murmuring to express their love;

exactly so, within the eighth great sphere,

     one glorious great lord greeted the other,

     praising the diet that regales them there.

Those glories, having greeted and been greeted,                                 25

     turned and stood before me, still and silent,

     so bright I turned my eyes away defeated.

And Beatrice said, smiling her blessedness:

     “Illustrious being in whose chronicle

     is written our celestial court’s largesse,                                             30

let hope, I pray, be sounded at this height.

     How often you personified that grace

     when Jesus gave His chosen three more light!”

“Lift up your head, look up and do not fear,

     for all that rises from the mortal world                                             35

     must ripen in our rays from sphere to sphere.”

So spoke the second flame to comfort me;

     and I raised my eyes to the mountains that before

     had borne them down by their weight of majesty.

“Since of His grace Our Lord and Emperor calls                                    40

     and bids you come while still in mortal flesh

     among His counts in His most secret halls;

that you, the truth of this great court made clear,

     may make the stronger, in yourself and others,

     the hope that makes men love the good down there,                    45

say what it is, what power helped you to climb,

     and how you bear its flowering in your mind.”

     —So spoke the second flame a second time.

And that devout sweet spirit that had led

     the feathers of my wings in that high flight                                      50

     anticipated my reply, and said:

“Church Militant, as is written in the Sun

     whose ray lights all our hosts, does not possess

     a single child richer in hope—not one.

It was for that he was allowed to come                                                  55

     from Egypt to behold Jerusalem

     before his warning years had reached their sum.

The other two points—raised not that you may know

     but that he may report how great a pleasure

     hope is to you, when he returns below—                                          60

I leave to him. They will not be difficult.

     Nor will the truth seem boastful. Let him answer

     and may God’s grace appear in the result.”

As a pupil who is eager to reply

     to his professor, knowing his subject well,                                        65

     and quick to show his excellence—such was I.

“Hope,” I said, “is the certain expectation

     of future glory. It is the blessed fruit

     of grace divine and the good a man has done.

From many stars this light descends to me,                                          70

     but it was first distilled into my heart

     by the ultimate singer of Ultimate Majesty.

‘Let them hope in Thee,’ sang the God-praising poet,

     ‘whoso doth know Thy name!’ And who can feel

     a faith as firm as mine is and not know it?                                        75

And your epistle sent down once again

     a fresh dew on his dew, till I was full

     and overflowed to others your sweet rain.”

While I was speaking thus a luminescence

     trembled within the bosom of the flame,                                          80

     sudden and bright as lightning’s incandescence.

“Love that still burns in me,” I heard it breathe,

     “for that grace that followed even to the palm,

     and till I left the field for happy death,

moves me to speak further: you know the true                                    85

     and lasting joy she brings gladden me, therefore,

     by telling me what Hope holds forth to you.”

And I: “From scripture, new and old, descends

     the symbol, and the symbol points me to it.

     All those whom God has chosen as His friends—                            90

as Isaiah testifies—they shall be dressed

     in double raiment in their native land;

     and that land is this sweet life with the blest.

And your brother, where he writes so ardently

     of the white robes, sets forth this revelation                                    95

     in great detail for all of us to see.”

As soon as I had spoken there rang clear

     from overhead, “Let them hope in Thee, O Lord!”

     and the response rang back from all that sphere.

At once within that choir there blazed a ray                                          100

     so bright that if the Crab had such a star

     one month of winter would be a single day.

And as a joyous maid will rise and go

     to join the dance, in honor of the bride

     and not for any reasons of vain show,                                               105

so did that radiant splendor, there above,

     go to the two who danced a joyous reel

     in fit expression of their burning love.

It joined them in the words and melody;

     and like a bride, immovable and silent,                                             110

     my lady kept her eyes fixed on their glory.

“This is he who lies upon the breast

     of Our Pelican; and this is He elected

     from off the cross to make the great behest.”

So spoke my lady, nor, her pose unbroken,                                           115

     did she once let her rapt attention stray,

     either before or after she had spoken.

As one who stares, squinting against the light,

     to see the Sun enter a partial eclipse,

     and in the act of looking loses his sight—                                         120

so did I stare at the last flame from that sphere

     until a voice said, “Why do you blind yourself

     trying to see what has no true place here?

My body is earth in earth where it shall be

     one with the rest until our numbers grow                                        125

     to fill the quota of eternity.

Only the Two Lamps that are most aglow

     rose to their blessed cloister doubly clad.

     Explain this to your world when you go below.”

And when these words were said the flaming wreath                         130

     broke off the dancing and the sweet accord

     in which it had combined its three-part breath,

as oars that have been striking through the sea

     pause all together when a whistle sounds

     to signal rest or some emergency.                                                      135

Ah, when a surge of feeling swept my mind

     when I turned away an instant from such splendor

     to look at Beatrice, only to find

I could not see her with my dazzled eyes,

though I stood near her and in Paradise!                                                140

*From Dante, The Divine Comedy, translated by John Ciardi (New York: New American Library, 2003), pp. 816-821. Available for purchase at Eighth Day Books.