The Divine Comedy - The Original Classic Edition. Dante Dante

footing, And other great festivity, of song,

       And radiance, light with light accordant, each Jocund and blythe, had at their pleasure still'd (E'en as the eyes by quick volition mov'd,

       Are shut and rais'd together), from the heart Of one amongst the new lights mov'd a voice, That made me seem like needle to the star,

       In turning to its whereabout, and thus Began: "The love, that makes me beautiful, Prompts me to tell of th' other guide, for whom Such good of mine is spoken. Where one is,

       The other worthily should also be;

       That as their warfare was alike, alike

       Should be their glory. Slow, and full of doubt,

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       And with thin ranks, after its banner mov'd The army of Christ (which it so clearly cost To reappoint), when its imperial Head,

       Who reigneth ever, for the drooping host

       Did make provision, thorough grace alone,

       And not through its deserving. As thou heard'st, Two champions to the succour of his spouse

       He sent, who by their deeds and words might join

       Again his scatter'd people. In that clime,

       Where springs the pleasant west-wind to unfold The fresh leaves, with which Europe sees herself New-garmented; nor from those billows far, Beyond whose chiding, after weary course,

       The sun doth sometimes hide him, safe abides

       The happy Callaroga, under guard

       Of the great shield, wherein the lion lies Subjected and supreme. And there was born The loving million of the Christian faith, The hollow'd wrestler, gentle to his own, And to his enemies terrible. So replete

       His soul with lively virtue, that when first

       Created, even in the mother's womb,

       It prophesied. When, at the sacred font,

       The spousals were complete 'twixt faith and him, Where pledge of mutual safety was exchang'd, The dame, who was his surety, in her sleep

       Beheld the wondrous fruit, that was from him

       And from his heirs to issue. And that such

       He might be construed, as indeed he was,

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       She was inspir'd to name him of his owner, Whose he was wholly, and so call'd him Dominic. And I speak of him, as the labourer,

       Whom Christ in his own garden chose to be

       His help-mate. Messenger he seem'd, and friend Fast-knit to Christ; and the first love he show'd, Was after the first counsel that Christ gave. Many a time his nurse, at entering found

       That he had ris'n in silence, and was prostrate, As who should say, "My errand was for this." O happy father! Felix rightly nam'd!

       O favour'd mother! rightly nam'd Joanna! If that do mean, as men interpret it.

       Not for the world's sake, for which now they pore

       Upon Ostiense and Taddeo's page, But for the real manna, soon he grew Mighty in learning, and did set himself

       To go about the vineyard, that soon turns To wan and wither'd, if not tended well: And from the see (whose bounty to the just And needy is gone by, not through its fault, But his who fills it basely, he besought,

       No dispensation for commuted wrong,

       Nor the first vacant fortune, nor the tenth), That to God's paupers rightly appertain, But, 'gainst an erring and degenerate world, Licence to fight, in favour of that seed,

       From which the twice twelve cions gird thee round.

       Then, with sage doctrine and good will to help,

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       Forth on his great apostleship he far'd, Like torrent bursting from a lofty vein; And, dashing 'gainst the stocks of heresy,

       Smote fiercest, where resistance was most stout. Thence many rivulets have since been turn'd, Over the garden Catholic to lead

       Their living waters, and have fed its plants.

       "If such one wheel of that two-yoked car, Wherein the holy church defended her,

       And rode triumphant through the civil broil. Thou canst not doubt its fellow's excellence, Which Thomas, ere my coming, hath declar'd So courteously unto thee. But the track,

       Which its smooth fellies made, is now deserted: That mouldy mother is where late were lees.

       His family, that wont to trace his path,

       Turn backward, and invert their steps; erelong

       To rue the gathering in of their ill crop, When the rejected tares in vain shall ask Admittance to the barn. I question not

       But he, who search'd our volume, leaf by leaf,

       Might still find page with this inscription on't,

       'I am as I was wont.' Yet such were not

       From Acquasparta nor Casale, whence

       Of those, who come to meddle with the text, One stretches and another cramps its rule. Bonaventura's life in me behold,

       From Bagnororegio, one, who in discharge

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       Of my great offices still laid aside

       All sinister aim. Illuminato here,

       And Agostino join me: two they were,

       Among the first of those barefooted meek ones, Who sought God's friendship in the cord: with them Hugues of Saint Victor, Pietro Mangiadore,

       And he of Spain in his twelve volumes shining, Nathan the prophet, Metropolitan

       Chrysostom, and Anselmo, and, who deign'd To put his hand to the first art, Donatus. Raban is here: and at my side there shines Calabria's abbot, Joachim, endow'd

       With soul prophetic. The bright courtesy Of friar Thomas, and his goodly lore, Have mov'd me to the blazon of a peer

       So worthy, and with me have mov'd this throng."

       CANTO XIII

       Let him, who would conceive what now I saw,

       Imagine (and retain the image firm,

       As mountain rock, the whilst he hears me speak), Of stars fifteen, from midst the ethereal host Selected, that, with lively ray serene,

       O'ercome the massiest air: thereto imagine

       The wain, that, in the bosom of our sky,

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       Spins ever on its axle night and day,

       With the bright summit of that horn which swells Due from the pole, round which the first wheel rolls, T' have rang'd themselves in fashion of two signs

       In heav'n, such as Ariadne made,

       When death's chill seized her; and that one of them

       Did compass in the other's beam; and both

       In such sort whirl around, that each should tend

       With opposite motion and, conceiving thus, Of that true constellation, and the dance Twofold, that circled me, he shall attain

       As 't were the shadow; for things there as much

       Surpass our usage, as the swiftest heav'n

       Is swifter than the Chiana. There was sung

       No Bacchus, and no Io Paean, but

       Three Persons in the Godhead, and in one

       Substance that nature and the human join'd.

       The song fulfill'd its measure; and to us Those saintly lights attended, happier made At each new minist'ring. Then silence brake, Amid th' accordant sons of Deity,

       That luminary, in which the wondrous life

       Of the meek man of God was told to me;

       And thus it spake: "One