Eternal Rose, with Rows and Rows: Canto XXX of Dante’s Paradise, Translated by Stephen Binns

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Eternal Rose, with Rows and Rows:
Canto XXX of Paradise

by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
translated by Stephen Binns

Six thousand miles away, high overhead,
__perhaps noon blazes, while our world’s shadow
__inclines, almost, as on a level bed, ____it’s daybreak in Italy
and heaven’s zenith now begins to show
__such changes that the faint stars, one by one,
__are lost to sight on this low land below,
and as the brightest handmaid of the sun ____Aurora, goddess of dawn
__advances, heavens close: the rays efface
__each light until the loveliest are gone. ____it’s too light to see brightest stars
Just so, the angels’ rings that gaily race ____angels moving the spheres
__forever round the point that dazzled me, ____the center of the Primum Mobile
__which seems enclosed by all in its embrace, ____paradox discussed in Canto XXVIII
most gradually became harder to see,
__until this strain and my love served as spur
__to turn to Beatrice, my blessed lady.
If all that I have ever said of her
__were brought together in a single laud,
__it would not do for this. I must demur.
The beauty that I saw transcends our flawed,
__mere mortal minds, and I believe, indeed,
__this phase delights most fully only God. ____the heavenly version of Beatrice
So at this pass I’m vanquished. I must heed
__to silence now. No bard of any theme,
__comic or tragic, faced this. I concede.
The sun will reach weak vision with its beam;
__just so, weak memory of her sweet smile
__confounds my mind. It certainly did seem
from first I saw her face and all the while
__on earth, until this sight, no obstacle
__prevented singing songs of this same style.
And yet, alas, a halt I must now call
__to following her beauty, writ and versed,
__as any artist overcome must fall.
And so I leave her for a louder burst
__than my poor trumpet gives, which cannot sound
__the end of this material I’ve rehearsed.
She, acting as a guide whose goal is found,
__then said: “We’ve left the largest sphere. Above ____the Primum Mobile
__is Heaven’s purest light, where there abound ____the Empyrean
lights intellectual, lights filled with love,
__love of true goodness, filled with ecstasy,
__beyond all ecstasy at this remove.
And here you’ll meet both sorts of soldiery ____blessed souls and angels
__of Paradise, and one of them appears
__as at the Final Judgment. You will see.” ____the blessed
A sudden bolt of lightning, flashing, tears
__the eyes, removing from our sense of sight
__the strength to see the clearest of affairs:
so was I circumfused with living light,
__which left me swaddled in a heavy veil
__of radiance that blanched all things too white.
“All those who come, love welcomes with this hail,
__who come to Heaven, love in all its peace,
__to ready for His flame their wicks and oil.”
No sooner did she give these words release,
__they entered understanding. I then knew
__my strength had grown by infinite degrees.
My sight was not my own, was something new,
__was such that no great light could ever gleam
__too glaringly; all would be clear and true.
And I saw light depicted as a stream
__that flows like liquid, which two high sides hold—
__two banks in bloom, a wondrous springtime’s teem.
And living sparks, as that bright river rolled,
__would settle on the flowers on each bank,
__almost like rubies in their rings of gold.
And then, as if the scents were wine they drank,
__they dove again into the marvelous surge, ____the sparks
__and as one rose just then another sank.
“Your burning deep desire must be an urge ____says Beatrice
__toward knowledge of what now before you lies.
__It pleases me to see this so emerge.
But you must drink the stream of Paradise
__before your thirst is satisfied with this,”
__said she who is the sunlight to my eyes.
She said: “The river and the topazes,
__which come and go, the laughter in the grass,
__are but their truth’s foreshadowing prefaces.
Not that such thing a need for ripening has,
__but rather the defect is how you see. ____he still sees things in earthly terms
__Your eyes are not quite steady at this pass.”
No baby ever turns so rapidly
__toward his dear mother’s milk, drawing nearer,
__when waking later than is customary,
as I, to make an even better mirror
__of eyes, bent down upon a bank to take
__what flows with the effect to make sight clearer.
No sooner had my eyes begun to slake
__their thirst there than the length of that long stream
__had turned into the roundness of a lake.
As people look quite other than they seem
__when they are wearing masks, if they divest
__themselves from guises which had hidden them,
the blooms and sparks, in yet another fest,
__had changed themselves so wholly I could see ____changed into souls and angels
__both courts of Heaven, all made manifest.
O radiance of God, which gave to me
__the lofty triumph of the truth’s own reign,
__grant me the power to tell it accurately!
There is a light that shines there to sustain
__the eyes of all those souls to see the One,
__who only in His sight their peace obtain.
It forms itself into a circular zone,
__so broadly does its great circumference splay
__it’d be too wide a girdling for the sun.
The whole of its appearance is a ray.
__It takes its life and all its potency
__reflecting off the Primum Mobile. ____pronounced Mo-be-lay
And as a hill reflects upon a sea
__as if it were a glass for it to peer
__down at itself in blooms and greenery,
so rising from the light, tier after tier,
__were thousands mirrored, each of whom achieves ____the saints
__the highest glory of returning there. ____returning to their Creator
And if the lowest grade of all receives
__this much strong light, how great the space must be
__that Rose extends to at its farthest leaves! ____the Eternal Rose, containing souls
For all the reach and breadth, there was for me
__a sight undimmed. I saw all that there was:
__the scope of that delight, and saw clearly.
And where God rules without a second cause,
__a far or near can ne’er detract, disclose;
__there is no presence of the natural laws. ____distance has no effect on vision
She drew me to the yellow of the Rose,____ the center, as though yellow stamens
__which sends its scent up to the higher height
__as praise—to ever-vernal Sun it goes. to God
I wished to speak but kept, adoring, quiet.
__My lady turned to me and said: “You see
__how many wear the council’s robes of white!
You see how far around is our city:
__you see the seats are filled, all of the rows— ____the Rose seems a kind of stadium
__how very few are left in vacancy.
On that great throne where your eyes find repose,
__by reason of the crown placed there in trust,
__before your own soul to this supper goes, ____before Dante goes to Heaven
shall sit the soul to be on earth august, ____Henry VII of Luxembourg
__Henry the High, anointed to reverse ____as Holy Roman Emperor
__Italia’s ways with governance that’s just.
The blind cupidity that is your curse
__has made you like a little baby who, ____you Italians
__half-faint with hunger, pushes off his nurse.
Then in the holy forum, over you,
__comes one who’ll not, at least not privately, ____Pope Clement V
__walk Henry’s way. The straight road he’ll eschew.
But God will never suffer him to be
__long in the sacred office; he’ll be thrown ____he died months after Henry
__where Simon Magus is, deservedly, ____Hell’s circle for simoniacs
to force him of Alagna deeper down.” ____Pope Boniface VIII, from Alagna, Lombardy

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Translator’s Note

Quite notable is the sudden sharp turn at the end of the canto, from the heavenly to the earthly, from the timeless to recent times in Italy. But throughout the final pages of Paradise, it is made clear that Dante will soon descend to complete his life, and he continues to hope for better days. As commentator John Ciardi writes: “Dante placed his one hope of returning to Florence on the outcome of Henry’s efforts to settle the hatreds of Italian politics.”

Notable, too, is that this is the last time Beatrice speaks, and yet her words take us even father below as she turns to these popes. Writes commentator Teodolini Barolini: “The intratextual moment is vertiginous, as this visionary canto ends with a very specific vision from the landscape of lower Hell, as witnessed and recorded by the author of the Commedia.”

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Italian Original

Forse semilia miglia di lontano
ci ferve l’ora sesta, e questo mondo
china già l’ombra quasi al letto piano,

quando ’l mezzo del cielo, a noi profondo,
comincia a farsi tal, ch’alcuna stella
perde il parere infino a questo fondo;

e come vien la chiarissima ancella
del sol più oltre, così ’l ciel si chiude
di vista in vista infino a la più bella.

Non altrimenti il trïunfo che lude
sempre dintorno al punto che mi vinse,
parendo inchiuso da quel ch’elli ’nchiude,

a poco a poco al mio veder si stinse:
per che tornar con li occhi a Bëatrice
nulla vedere e amor mi costrinse.

Se quanto infino a qui di lei si dice
fosse conchiuso tutto in una loda,
poca sarebbe a fornir questa vice.

La bellezza ch’io vidi si trasmoda
non pur di là da noi, ma certo io credo
che solo il suo fattor tutta la goda.

Da questo passo vinto mi concedo
più che già mai da punto di suo tema
soprato fosse comico o tragedo:

ché, come sole in viso che più trema,
così lo rimembrar del dolce riso
la mente mia da me medesmo scema.

Dal primo giorno ch’i’ vidi il suo viso
in questa vita, infino a questa vista,
non m’è il seguire al mio cantar preciso;

ma or convien che mio seguir desista
più dietro a sua bellezza, poetando,
come a l’ultimo suo ciascuno artista.

Cotal qual io lascio a maggior bando
che quel de la mia tuba, che deduce
l’ardüa sua matera terminando,

con atto e voce di spedito duce
ricominciò: “Noi siamo usciti fore
del maggior corpo al ciel ch’è pura luce:

luce intellettüal, piena d’amore;
amor di vero ben, pien di letizia;
letizia che trascende ogne dolzore.

Qui vederai l’una e l’altra milizia
di paradiso, e l’una in quelli aspetti
che tu vedrai a l’ultima giustizia.”

Come sùbito lampo che discetti
li spiriti visivi, sì che priva
da l’atto l’occhio di più forti obietti,

così mi circunfulse luce viva,
e lasciommi fasciato di tal velo
del suo fulgor, che nulla m’appariva.

«Sempre l’amor che queta questo cielo
accoglie in sé con sì fatta salute,
per far disposto a sua fiamma il candelo.”

Non fur più tosto dentro a me venute
queste parole brievi, ch’io compresi
me sormontar di sopr’ a mia virtute;

e di novella vista mi raccesi
tale, che nulla luce è tanto mera,
che li occhi miei non si fosser difesi;

e vidi lume in forma di rivera
fulvido di fulgore, intra due rive
dipinte di mirabil primavera.

Di tal fiumana uscian faville vive,
e d’ogne parte si mettien ne’ fiori,
quasi rubin che oro circunscrive;

poi, come inebrïate da li odori,
riprofondavan sé nel miro gurge,
e s’una intrava, un’altra n’uscia fori.

“L’alto disio che mo t’infiamma e urge,
d’aver notizia di ciò che tu vei,
tanto mi piace più quanto più turge;

ma di quest’ acqua convien che tu bei
prima che tanta sete in te si sazi”:

così mi disse il sol de li occhi miei.

Anche soggiunse: “Il fiume e li topazi
ch’entrano ed escono e ’l rider de l’erbe
son di lor vero umbriferi prefazi.

Non che da sé sian queste cose acerbe;
ma è difetto da la parte tua,
che non hai viste ancor tanto superbe.”

Non è fantin che sì sùbito rua
col volto verso il latte, se si svegli
molto tardato da l’usanza sua,

come fec’ io, per far migliori spegli
ancor de li occhi, chinandomi a l’onda
che si deriva perché vi s’immegli;

e sì come di lei bevve la gronda
de le palpebre mie, così mi parve
di sua lunghezza divenuta tonda.

Poi, come gente stata sotto larve,
che pare altro che prima, se si sveste
la sembianza non süa in che disparve,

così mi si cambiaro in maggior feste
li fiori e le faville, sì ch’io vidi
ambo le corti del ciel manifeste.

O isplendor di Dio, per cu’ io vidi
l’alto trïunfo del regno verace,
dammi virtù a dir com’ ïo il vidi!

Lume è là sù che visibile face
lo creatore a quella creatura
che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace.

E’ si distende in circular figura,
in tanto che la sua circunferenza
sarebbe al sol troppo larga cintura.

Fassi di raggio tutta sua parvenza
reflesso al sommo del mobile primo,
che prende quindi vivere e potenza.

E come clivo in acqua di suo imo
si specchia, quasi per vedersi addorno,
quando è nel verde e ne’ fioretti opimo,

sì, soprastando al lume intorno intorno,
vidi specchiarsi in più di mille soglie
quanto di noi là sù fatto ha ritorno.

E se l’infimo grado in sé raccoglie
ì grande lume, quanta è la larghezza
di questa rosa ne l’estreme foglie!

La vista mia ne l’ampio e ne l’altezza
non si smarriva, ma tutto prendeva
il quanto e ’l quale di quella allegrezza.

Presso e lontano, lì, né pon né leva:
ché dove Dio sanza mezzo governa,
la legge natural nulla rileva.

Nel giallo de la rosa sempiterna,
che si digrada e dilata e redole
odor di lode al sol che sempre verna,

qual è colui che tace e dicer vole,
mi trasse Bëatrice, e disse: “Mira
quanto è ’l convento de le bianche stole!

Vedi nostra città quant’ ella gira;
vedi li nostri scanni sì ripieni,
che poca gente più ci si disira.

E ’n quel gran seggio a che tu li occhi tieni
per la corona che già v’è sù posta,
prima che tu a queste nozze ceni,

sederà l’alma, che fia giù agosta,
de l’alto Arrigo, ch’a drizzare Italia
verrà in prima ch’ella sia disposta.

La cieca cupidigia che v’ammalia
simili fatti v’ha al fantolino
che muor per fame e caccia via la balia.

E fia prefetto nel foro divino
allora tal, che palese e coverto
non anderà con lui per un cammino.

Ma poco poi sarà da Dio sofferto
nel santo officio; ch’el sarà detruso
là dove Simon mago è per suo merto,

e farà quel d’Alagna intrar più giuso.”

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Stephen Binns is an editor at the Smithsonian (the institution, not the magazine). His most recently published poetry appeared in the January 2023 issue of First Things.