The Divine Comedy — Dante Alighieri

CANTO n. Dante and his guide enter the sphere of the moon, and Beatrice explains to him the cause of the spots which appear on its surface. O YE who follow in your little boat Behind my bai'k, with hope to hear the strain With which in song across the sea I float.

266 PARADISE. Cahto U. Tarn je to see your native shores again ; Put you not forth on auch a aea, where far, Ere lost, you might be 'wildered on the main. The course I take was never steered before ; Inspires Minerva, and Apollo leads, And Muses new point out the guiding star. You other few, who help in time your needs ^" With angels' bread, on which one lives even here, Although the feast to fulness ne'er proceeds ; Across this ocean wide you well may steer Your navigation, following in my lee. Ere in the wave my furrow disappear. '^ Those glorious ones who past across the sea To Colchos marvelled erst, as you will do, When they saw Jason's wondrous husbandry. The ceaseless impetus which together grew With the Qod-made spheres, bore us still upwards raised ^ Nearly as swiftly as the sky you view. I upon her, on high Beatrice gazed. And haply in the time a bolt is plied. And flys, from the crossbow's notch released, We had attained, where drew my sight aside ^ A wondrous thing, so she, from whom I ne'er The slightest working of my heart could hide. Turned towards me with a face as glad as &ir. " Raise towards God the grateful mind," she said, '' Who thus has brought us unto this first star." ^ MeseemM that we now with cloud were clad. Clear shining, thickly solid, and as bright As diamond on the which the sun has rayed. Within itself the eternal Margarite Received us as the glassy wave receives, ** Retaining still its whole, a ray of light. Being a body scarce the mind conceives How matter other matter can admit. Which must be, if a frame in frame enweaves The which should kindle our desire more bright ^ To see that essence where beholds the adept How human nature does to God unite. There shall we see that which through faith we kept. Not proved to us, but known beyond a doubt. Like to those first truths which mankind accept. ^ Line 19. I have adopted Tentari's explanation of this passage, which is that the ceaseless whirling of the spheres drew on Dante and Beatrice now that they had risen into its influence.

Oamto II. PARADISE. 267 «* Madonna/' I replied, ** with heart devout As there can be I render thanks to Him Who has thus brought me from the mortal rout. But tell me what are these suffusions dim Upon this body, which below on earth *** Create the fable of Cain's faggots grim ?" She smiled a little, then " If thus there errs The opinion," said she, ** amongst mortals where The senses' key cannot unlock the birth, Certes, no more the darts of wonder rare "^ Should prick you, since behind the senses' flight You seest that Reason's wings are short to bear. But tell me what you think'st yourself of it." And I, " What seems so different above I think is caused by bodies dense or light." ^ And she : " You'lt surely see enough to prove False your belief if you will thoroughly hear The argument with which I will disprove. Lights many show to you the far eighth sphere, Which in their quality and in their size ^ Unto each other different will appear. If this were made by varying densities In all but one sole virtue would there be. Shared less or more or in equalities. Different virtues must the fruitage be ^* Of varying sources, all of which save one By your belief would be destroyed for you. Again, were rarity the cause alone. You askest, of those spots, either in part This planet of its substance would be shown ^^ Quite wanting, or as lies all apart The fat and lean upon a body, so Its volume's leaves would change from light to swart. Were the first true that would we clearly know In the eclipses of the sun, whose light ^ As to all rarities would pierce it through. Line 60. This opinion of the cause of the shadows on the moon's surface was offered by Dante in the Convito, and which he now makes Beatrice confute. Line 64. ^ The sphere of the fixed stars differing in size and brilliaace, Dante considered that these, like the moon, received their light from the sun. Line 73. She proceeds to prove the impossibility of tiie shadows being caused by the rarity of the moon's body, ^ich rarity cannot pierce right through the moon, or the sun's rays would be then visible during an eclipse, nor if the rarity proceeds only to a certain depth, like fat on the lean of animal flesh, could that produce the effect. This possible alternate rarity and density is compared to the pages of a parchment volume, which are alternately light and dark, each sheet of parchment having a brown side.