What reason that another's violence

Should stint the measure of my fair desert?

66

Cause too thou find'st for doubt, in that it seems,
That spirits to the stars, as Plato3 deem'd,

Return. These are the questions which thy will
Urge equally; and therefore I, the first,

Of that will treat which hath the more of gall."

6

Of seraphim he who is most enskied,

Moses and Samuel, and either John,

Chuse which thou wilt, nor even Mary's self,

Have not in any other heaven their seats,

Than have those spirits which so late thou saw'st;
Nor more or fewer years exist; but all
Make the first circle' beauteous, diversly
Partaking of sweet life, as more or less
Afflation of eternal bliss pervades them.
Here were they shown thee, not that fate assigns
This for their sphere, but for a sign to thee
Of that celestial furthest from the height.
Thus needs, that ye may apprehend, we speak:
Since from things sensible alone ye learn
That, which, digested rightly, after turns
To intellectual. For no other cause
The Scripture, condescending graciously
To your perception, hands and feet to God
Attributes, nor so means: and holy church
Doth represent with human countenance,
Gabriel, and Michel, and him who made
Tobias whole. Unlike what here thou seest.
The judgment of Timæus, who affirms
Each soul restored to its particular star;
Believing it to have been taken thence,

"Plato." Plato, Timæus, v. ix. p. 326. "The Creator, when he had framed the universe, distributed to the stars an equal number of souls, appointing to each soul its several star.'

"Of that." Plato's opinion. "Which hath the more of gall." Which is the more dangerous.

"

"Of seraphim.' He amongst the seraphim who is most nearly united with God, Moses, Samuel, and both the Johns, the Baptist and the Evangelist, dwell not in any other heaven than do those spirits whom thou hast just be

46

held; nor does even the blessed Virgin
herself dwell in any other: nor is their
existence either longer or shorter than
that of these spirits." She first resolves
his doubt whether souls do not return
to their own stars, as he had read in the
Timæus of Plato. Angels, then, and
beatified spirits, she declares, dwell all
and eternally together, only partaking
more or less of the divine glory, in the
empyrean; although, in condescension
to human understanding, they appear to
have different spheres allotted to them.
7 "The first circle." The empyrean.

When nature gave it to inform her mould:
Yet to appearance his intention is

Not what his words declare: and so to shun
Derision, haply thus he hath disguised
His true opinion. If his meaning be,
That to the influencing of these orbs revert
The honor and the blame in human acts,
Perchance he doth not wholly miss the truth.
This principle, not understood aright,
Erewhile perverted well-nigh all the world;
So that it fell to fabled names of Jove,

And Mercury, and Mars. That other doubt,
Which moves thee, is less harmful; for it brings
No peril of removing thee from me.

8 That, to the eye of man, our justice seems Unjust, is argument for faith, and not

For heretic declension. But, to the end

This truth may stand more clearly in your view,
I will content thee even to thy wish.

"If violence be, when that which suffers, naught
Consents to that which forceth, not for this
These spirits stood exculpate. For the will,
That wills not, still survives unquench'd, and doth,
As nature doth in fire, though violence

Wrest it a thousand times; for, if it yield

Or more or less, so far it follows force.

And thus did these, when they had power to seek
The hallow'd place again. In them, had will

Been perfect, such as once upon the bars

Held Laurence 10 firm, or wrought in Scævola

To his own hand remorseless; to the path,

Whence they were drawn, their steps had hasten'd back,
When liberty return'd: but in too few,
Resolve, so steadfast, dwells.

And by these words,

the part of the meritorious. After all, Beatrice ends by admitting that there was a defect in the will, which hindered Constance and the others from seizing the first opportunity, that offered itself to them, of returning to the monastic life.

10" Laurence." Who suffered martyrdom in the third century.

If duly weigh'd, that argument is void,

Which oft might have perplex'd thee still. But now
Another question thwarts thee, which, to solve,
Might try thy patience without better aid.

I have, no doubt, instill'd into thy mind,
That blessed spirit may not lie; since near
The source of primal truth it dwells for aye:
And thou mightst after of Piccarda learn
That Constance held affection to the veil;
So that she seems to contradict me here.
Not seldom, brother, it hath chanced for men
To do what they had gladly left undone;
Yet, to shun peril, they have done amiss:
E'en as Alcmæon, at his father's 11 suit
Slew his own mother; 12 so made pitiless,
Not to lose pity. On this point bethink thee,
That force and will are blended in such wise
As not to make the offence excusable.
Absolute will agrees not to the wrong;
But inasmuch as there is fear of woe
From non-compliance, it agrees. Of will 13
Thus absolute, Piccarda spake, and I
Of the other; so that both have truly said."

Such was the flow of that pure rill, that well'd
From forth the fountain of all truth; and such
The rest, that to my wandering thoughts I found.
"O thou, of primal love the prime delight,
Goddess!" I straight replied, "whose lively words
Still shed new heat and vigor through my soul;
Affection fails me to requite thy grace

With equal sum of gratitude: be his

14

To recompense, who sees and can reward thee.
Well I discern, that by that truth 1 alone
Enlighten'd, beyond which no truth may roam,
Our mind can satisfy her thirst to know:
Therein she resteth, e'en as in his lair

11" His father's." Amphiaräus.
12" His own mother." Eriphyle.
13" Of will." What Piccarda asserts
of Constance, that she retained her af-
fection to the monastic life, is said ab-
solutely and without relation to circum-

stances; and that, which I affirm, is spoken of the will conditionally and respectively: so that our apparent difference is without any disagreement.

14"That truth." The light of divine truth.

The wild beast, soon as she hath reach'd that bound.
And she hath power to reach it; else desire
Were given to no end. And thence doth doubt
Spring, like a shoot, around the stock of truth;
And it is nature which, from height to height,
On to the summit prompts us. This invites,
This doth assure me, Lady! reverently
To ask thee of another truth, that yet

Is dark to me. I fain would know, if man
By other works well done may so supply
The failure of his vows, that in your scale

They lack not weight." I spake; and on me straight
Beatrice look'd, with eyes that shot forth sparks
Of love celestial, in such copious stream,

That, virtue sinking in me overpower'd,

I turn'd; and downward bent, confused, my sight.

CANTO V

ARGUMENT.-The question proposed in the last Canto is answered. Dante ascends with Beatrice to the planet Mercury, which is the second Heaven; and here he finds a multitude of spirits, one of whom offers to satisfy him of anything he may desire to know from them.

F beyond earthly wont,1 the flame of love

IF

Illume me, so that I o'ercome thy power

Of vision, marvel not: but learn the cause

In that perfection of the sight, which, soon
As apprehending, hasteneth on to reach
The good it apprehends. I well discern,
How in thine intellect already shines
The light eternal, which to view alone
Ne'er fails to kindle love; and if aught else
Your love seduces, 'tis but that it shows
Some ill-mark'd vestige of that primal beam.
"This wouldst thou know: if failure of the vow

1"If beyond earthly wont." Dante having been unable to sustain the splendor of Beatrice, as we have seen at the

end of the last Canto, she tells him to attribute her increase of brightness to the place in which they were.

By other service may be so supplied,
As from self-question to assure the soul."

Thus she her words, not heedless of my wish,
Began; and thus, as one who breaks not off
Discourse, continued in her saintly strain.
"Supreme of gifts, which God, creating, gave
Of his free bounty, sign most evident

Of goodness, and in his account most prized
Was liberty of will; the boon, wherewith
All intellectual creatures, and them sole,

He hath endow'd. Hence now thou mayst infer
Of what high worth the vow, which so is framed
That when man offers, God well-pleased accepts:
For in the compact between God and him,
This treasure such as I describe it to thee,
He makes the victim; and of his own act.
What compensation therefore may he find?
If that, whereof thou hast oblation made,
By using well thou think'st to consecrate,
Thou wouldst of theft do charitable deed.
Thus I resolve thee of the greater point.

"But forasmuch as holy church, herein
Dispensing, seems to contradict the truth
I have discover'd to thee, yet behoves
Thou rest a little longer at the board,

Ere the crude aliment which thou hast ta'en,
Digested fitly, to nutrition turn.

Open thy mind to what I now unfold;

And give it inward keeping. Knowledge comes
Of learning well retain'd, unfruitful else.

"This sacrifice, in essence, of two things 3

De

"Supreme of gifts." So in the Monarchia," lib. I. pp. 107 and 108. “ If then the judgment altogether move the appetite, and is in no wise prevented by it, it is free. But if the judgment be moved by the appetite in any way preventing it, it cannot be free: because it acts not of itself, but is led captive by another. And hence it is that brutes cannot have free judgment, because their judgments are always prevented by appetite. And hence it may also appear manifest that intellectual substances, whose wills are immutable, and likewise souls separated from the body,

and departing from it well and holily, lose not the liberty of choice on account of the immutability of the will, but retain it most perfectly and powerfully. This being discerned, it is again plain that this liberty, or principle of all our liberty, is the greatest good conferred on human nature by God; because by this very thing we are here made happy, as men; by this we are elsewhere happy, as divine beings."

"Two things." The one, the substance of the vow, as of a single life for instance, or of keeping fast; the other, the compact, or form of it.