Red Canyon Petroglyph, Detail
Collage
O you, eager to hear more,
who have followed in your little bark
my ship that singing makes its way,
turn back if you would see your shores again.
Do not set forth upon the deep,
for, losing sight of me, you would be lost.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto II, lines 1-6 (all excerpts from the Hollander translation)
It seemed to me that we were in a cloud,
shining, dense, solid, and unmarred,
like a diamond struck by sunlight.
The eternal pearl received us in itself,
as water does a ray of light
and yet remains unsundered and serene.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto II, lines 31-36
Beatrice looked at me with eyes so full
of the radiance of love and so divine
that, overcome, my power of sight faded and fled,
and, eyes cast down, I almost lost my senses.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto IV, lines 139-142
The soul of every beast and every plant
is drawn from a complex of potentials
by the shining and motion of the holy lights.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto VII, lines 139-141
How suddenly its glowing shone before me,
so bright my eyes could not endure it!
But Beatrice showed herself to me so fair
and smiling, this vision of her must remain
among those sights that have escaped my memory.
At this my eyes regained their sight and, raising them,
I saw myself translated, alone now with my lady,
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XIV, lines 77-83
It is well that endless be his grief
who, for love of things that do not last,
casts off a love that never dies.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XV, lines 10-12
Yet, should I be a timid friend of truth,
I fear that I shall not live on for those
to whom our times will be the ancient days.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XVII, lines 118-120
Just as from many coals we feel a single heat,
so from that image there came forth
the undivided sound of many loves.
And I then answered: O, everlasting blossoms
of eternal bliss, you make all odors
blend into what seems a single fragrance,
breathe forth and free me from this endless fast
that ever keeps me famished,
since I can find no food for it on earth.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XIX, lines 19-27
for my beauty which you have seen
flame up more brilliantly the higher we ascend
the stairs of this eternal palace,
is so resplendent that, were it not tempered
in its blazing, your mortal powers would be
like tree limbs rent and scorched by lightning.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XXI, lines 7-12
I also saw, descending on its rungs,
so many splendors that I thought that every light
shining in the heavens was pouring down.
And as, following their normal instinct,
rooks rise up together at the break of day,
warming their feathers, stiffened by the cold,
and some of them fly off, not to return,
while some turn back to where they had set out,
and some keep wheeling overhead,
just such varied motions did I observe
within that sparkling throng, which came as one
as soon as it had reached a certain rung.
And the one that stayed the closest there to us
grew so shining bright I said, but not aloud,
This sign makes clear your love for me.
But she, upon whose word I wait to know
when and how to speak or to be silent, she keeps still
and I do as well, against my will, to ask no question.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XXI, lines 31-48
since by God’s grace this man enjoys a foretaste
of whatsoever falls beneath your table,
before death sets a limit to his time,
heed his immeasurable craving and with dewdrops
from that fountain where you drink forever,
refresh him at the very source of all his thoughts.
Thus Beatrice. And those joyful spirits
transformed themselves to rings around fixed poles,
circling, like blazing comets, in their brightness.
(lines 4-12)
And so my pen skips and I do not write it,
for our imagination is too crude, as is our speech,
to paint the subtler colors of the folds of bliss.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XXIV, lines 25-27
Should it ever come to pass that this sacred poem,
to which both Heaven and earth have set their hand
so that it has made me lean for many years,
should overcome the cruelty that locks me out
of the fair sheepfold where I slept as a lamb,
foe of the wolves at war with it,
with another voice then, with another fleece,
shall I return a poet and, at the font
where I was baptized, take the laurel crown.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XXV, lines 1-9
It seemed to me I saw the universe
smile, so that my drunkenness
came now through hearing and through sight.
O happiness! O joy beyond description!
O life fulfilled in love and peace!
O riches held in store, exempt from craving!
Before my eyes four torches were aflame.
The one who, luminous, had come forth first
began to glow more brilliantly,
his aspect changing, as would Jupiter’s
if he and Mars were birds
and had exchanged their plumage.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XXVII, lines 4-15
And, as that brightest handmaid of the sun advances,
the sky extinguishes its lights,
even the most beautiful, one by one.
(lines 7-9)
I turned my eyes to gaze on Beatrice.
If all things said of her up to this point
were gathered in a single hymn of praise,
it would be paltry, matched to what is due.
The beauty that I saw transcends
all thought of beauty, and I must believe
that only its maker may savor it all.
I declare myself defeated at this point
more than any poet, whether comic or tragic,
was ever thwarted by a topic in his theme,
for, like sunlight striking on the weakest eyes,
the memory of the sweetness of that smile
deprives me of my mental powers.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XXX, lines 15-27
And I saw light that flowed as flows a river,
pouring its golden splendor between two banks
painted with the wondrous colors of spring.
From that torrent issued living sparks
and, on either bank, they settled on the flowers,
like rubies ringed in gold.
Then as though intoxicated by the odors,
they plunged once more into the marvelous flood,
and, as one submerged, another would come forth.
(lines 61-69)
Thus the sun of my eyes spoke to me.
Then she continued: The river, the topazes
that enter and leave it, and the laughter of the meadows
are all shadowy prefaces of their truth,
not that these things are in themselves unripe,
but because the failure lies with you,
your vision is not yet strong enough to soar.
No infant, waking up too late
for his accustomed feeding, will thrust his face
up to his milk with greater urgency,
than I, to make still better mirrors of my eyes,
inclined my head down toward the water
that flows there for our betterment,
and no sooner had the eaves of my eyelids
drunk deep of that water than to me it seemed
it had made its length into a circle.
Then, like people wearing masks,
once they put off the likeness not their own
in which they hid, seem other than before,
the flowers and sparks were changed before my eyes
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XXX, lines 75-94
Your womb relit the flame of love–
its heat has made this blossom seed
and flower in eternal peace.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XXXIII, lines 7-9
Here my exalted vision lost its power.
but now my will and my desire, like wheels revolving
with an even motion, were turning with
the Love that moves the sun and all the other stars.
—Dante, from Paradiso, Canto XXXIII, lines 143-145