The Divine Comedy — Dante Alighieri

p. 268Camto EL Now this is not so. Then, to turn our sight To the other supposition, if that too Be broken thy conjecture falls outright. If, then, this rarity does not pass through, **. Some boundary to it must be effected Where density prevents its course anew.

And thence the alien ray will be reflected Just as it tumeth backwards from the glass Whose back with leaden coating is protected. ^ Now thou wilt say the dimness on the mass Is in some places greater by the ray That from a greater depth doth backwards pass. Such a mistake to thee will clear away Experiment, if ever thou wilt try, ^ 0' the streams of all your arts sole source for aye.

Take thou three mirrors, and place equally Before thee two, the other further on. So placed that 'twixt the first it meet thy eye. Turned towards these, behind thy back set down A light which on the mirrors three shall gleam, And from them all reflected towards the sun. Although in quantity is not the same The light most distant, thou wilt see it blazo As fitteth with no less resplendent beam.

Now as beneath the touch of the warm rays Loses the earth the snow with which 'twas deckt, And its first colour, and its frozen glaze, So thee, thus stripped within thy intellect, I would inform with light whose living shine Shall tremble o'er thee in its first aspect. Within the heaven where resteth peace divine There whirls a body in whose magic power Sublies all being held in its confine.

The heaven that follows with its starry shower, That being shares to its various essences. Distinct from it, yet held within its bower. The other spheres, with changing differences. The power distinct, which doth within them glow, Dispose to their own seeds and purposes. ^ These organs of the universe thus go^ As thou dost henceforth see, from stair to stair, Above receiving, giving from below. Line 96.

An ennmeration of the trne prinoiple of Bacon's experimental pliiloBophy. Line 112. The empyrean. See ihe deecription of Dante's system of astronomy, in which moTCS the primom mobile.

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no

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Canto III. PARADloiS. 269 Now mark me well, how I from this prepare To reach the truth which thou dost ever love, ^*^* So that henceforth aloue thou'lt pass the mere. The motion of the holy spheres above, As by the workman comes the hammer's art, Impelled bj blessed motors, aye must move. The sky yon starry beauty gleams athwart Takes from the deep soul of its guiding spirit The image and the seal 'twill thence impart. And as the soul that human dust doth 'herit Resolves itself through different limbs yet made Together unto powers of different merit, So the intelligence of the spheres displayed Its goodness through the stars all multiplied, Yet whirling in its unity arrayed. Virtue diverse has diverse compact plied With the precious body, which it vivifies. In which, as life within yourselves, 'tis tied. Glad through the nature whence it doth arise. The mingled virtue through the frame makes light. As joyousness shines out through living eyes. From this ensueth what from light to light ^*^ Seems different, and not from dense or rare. This is the formal cause that makes aright, Conformed to its own goodness, dusk or clear." Line 148. The common -sense reader will not be very satisfied with Beatrice's offered explanation. The moving angel of each sphere stirs in it like the soul in the human body, and shines oat of it like joy from hnman eyes, hence the difference in each li^rht rayed from a different power ; bnt this does not appear to account for a difference in the light rayed oat of one body by its own intelligence as the shadows visible on the moon's surface.

CANTO in. Dante beholds in the moon the spirits of the blessed. He converses with Ficcarda, the sister of Forese, and learns that she, with the rest, are confined to that lowest sphere through having been compelled to a breach of their vows, but that God's will makes every sphere perfect Paradise. She points out to him the spirit of the Empress Constance.

That sun which first with love had warmed my breast Had opened unto me of truth so fair, With proof reiterate, the aspect blest. And I, my sure conviction to declare As was most fitting, raised on high my head To her the due acknowledgment to bear.