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If I were only what thou didst create,
Then newly, Love! by whom the heaven is ruled;
Thou knows't, who by thy light didst bear me up.
Whenas the wheel which thou dost ever guide,
Desired Spirit! with its harmony2,

Temper'd of thee and measured, charm'd mine ear
Then seem'd to me so much of heaven3 to blaze
With the sun's flame, that rain or flood ne'er made
A lake so broad. The newness of the sound,
And that great light, inflamed me with desire,
Keener than e'er was felt, to know their cause.
Whence she, who saw me, clearly as myself,
To calm my troubled mind, before I ask'd,
Open'd her lips, and gracious thus began:
"With false imagination thou thyself
Makest dull; so that thou seest not the thing,
Which thou hadst seen, had that been shaken off.
Thou art not on the earth as thou believest;
For lightning, scaped from its own proper place,
Ne'er ran, as thou hast hither now return'd.”
Although divested of my first-raised doubt
By those brief words accompanied with smiles,
Yet in new doubt was I entangled more,
And said: "Already satisfied, I rest
From admiration deep; but now admire
How I above those lighter bodies rise."

Whence, after utterance of a piteous sigh,
She towards me bent her eyes, with such a look,
As on her frenzied child a mother casts;
Then thus began: "Among themselves all things
Have order; and from hence the form, which
The universe resemble God. In this [makes

1 If.] "Thou, O divine Spirit, knowest whether I had not risen above my human nature, and were not merely such as thou hadst then formed me."

2 Harmony.] The harmony of the spheres.
And after that the melodie herd he

That cometh of thilke speris thryis three,
That welles of musike ben and melodie

In this world here, and cause of harmonie.

Chaucer, The Assemble of Foules.
In their motion harmony divine

So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear
Listens delighted.

Milton, P. L. b. v. 627.

3 So much of heaven.] The sphere of fire, as Lombardi well explains it.

4 From hence the form.] This order it is, that gives to the universe the form of unity, and therefore of resemblance to God.

The higher creatures see the printed steps
Of that eternal worth, which is the end
Whither the line is drawn1. All natures lean,
In this their order, diversly; some more,
Some less approaching to their primal source.
Thus they to different havens are moved on
Through the vast sea of being, and each one
With instinct given, that bears it in its course:
This to the lunar sphere directs the fire;
This moves the hearts of mortal animals;
This the brute earth together knits, and binds.
Nor only creatures, void of intellect,
Are aim'd at by this bow; but even those,
That have intelligence and love, are pierced.
That Providence, who so well orders all,

With her own light makes ever calm the heaven2,
In which the substance, that hath greatest speed3,
Is turn'd: and thither now, as to our seat
Predestined, we are carried by the force
Of that strong cord, that never looses dart
But at fair aim and glad. Yet is it true,
That as, oft-times, but ill accords the form
To the design of art, through sluggishness

4

1 Whither the line is drawn.] All things, as they have their beginning from the Supreme Being, so are they referred to Him again.

2 The heaven.] The empyrean, which is always motionless. 3 The substance, that hath greatest speed.] The primum

mobile.

4 Through sluggishness.]

Perch' a risponder la materia è sorda.

So Filicaja, canz. vi. st. 9.

Perche a risponder la discordia è sorda.

"The workman hath in his heart a purpose, he carrieth in mind the whole form which his work should have; there wanteth not in him skill and desire to bring his labour to the best effect; only the matter, which he hath to work on, is unframable." Hooker's Eccl. Polity. b. v. 9.

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Our Poet, in his De Monarchiâ, has expressed the same thought more fully. Sciendum, &c." lib. ii. p. 115. "We must know, that as art is found in a triple degree, in the mind that is of the artist, in the instrument, and in the matter formed by art, so we may contemplate nature also in a triple degree. For nature is in the mind of the first mover, who is God; then in heaven, as in an instrument, by means of which the similitude of the eternal goodness is unfolded in variable matter; and, as the artist being perfect, and the instrument in the best order, if there is any fault in the form of art, it is to be imputed only to the matter; so, since God reaches to the end of perfection, and his instrument, which is heaven, is not in any wise deficient of due perfection, (as

Of unreplying matter; so this course1
Is sometimes quitted by the creature, who
Hath power, directed thus, to bend elsewhere;
As from a cloud the fire is seen to fall,

From its original impulse warp'd, to earth,
By vitious fondness. Thou no more admire
Thy soaring, (if I rightly deem) than lapse
Of torrent downwards from a mountain's height.
There would2 in thee for wonder be more cause,
If, free of hinderance, thou hadst stay'd below,
As living fire unmoved upon the earth."

So said, she turn'd toward the heaven her face.

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Dante and his celestial guide enter the moon. The cause of the spots or shadows, which appear in that body, is explained to him.

ALL ye, who in small bark3 have following sail'd, Eager to listen, on the adventurous track

Of my proud keel, that singing cuts her way, Backward return with speed, and your own shores Revisit; nor put out to open sea,

Where losing me, perchance ye may remain Bewilder'd in deep maze. The way I pass, Ne'er yet was run: Minerva breathes the gale; Apollo guides me; and another Nine,

appears from what we know by philosophy concerning heaven) it remaineth that whatever fault is in inferior things, is a fault of the matter worked on, and clean beside the intention of God and of heaven."

1 This course.] Some beings, abusing the liberty given them by God, are repugnant to the order established by Him. 2 There would.] Hence, perhaps, Milton:

in our proper motion we ascend Up to our native seat: descent and fall To us were adverse.

3 In small bark.]

Con la barchetta mia cantando in rima.

P. L. b. ii. v. 77.

Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xxviii.

Io me n'andrò con la barchetta mia,
Quanto l'acqua comporta un picciol legno.
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail?

Ibid.

Pope, Essay on Man. Ep. iv.

D D

To my rapt sight, the arctic beams reveal.
Ye other few who have outstretch'd the neck
Timely for food of angels, on which here
They live, yet never know satiety;

Through the deep brine ye fearless may put out
Your vessel; marking well the furrow broad
Before you in the wave, that on both sides
Equal returns. Those, glorious, who pass'd o'er
To Colchos, wonder'd not as ye will do,
When they saw Jason following the plough.
The increate perpetual thirst1, that draws
Toward the realm of God's own form, bore us
Swift almost as the heaven ye behold.

Beatrice upward gazed, and I on her;
And in such space as on the notch a dart
Is placed, then loosen'd flies, I saw myself
Arrived, where wonderous thing engaged my sight.
Whence she, to whom no care of mine was hid,
Turning to me, with aspect glad as fair,
Bespake me : Gratefully direct thy mind
To God, through whom to this first star 2 we come."
Meseem'd as if a cloud had cover'd us,
Translucent, solid, firm, and polish'd bright,
Like adamant, which the sun's beam had smit.
Within itself the ever-during pearl
Received us; as the wave a ray of light
Receives, and rests unbroken. If I then
Was of corporeal frame, and it transcend
Our weaker thought, how one dimension thus
Another could endure, which needs must be
If body enter body; how much more
Must the desire inflame us to behold

That essence, which discovers by what means
God and our nature join'd! There will be seen
That, which we hold through faith; not shown by
But in itself intelligibly plain,

E'en as the truth3 that man at first believes.

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1 The increate perpetual thirst.] The desire of celestia 1 beatitude, natural to the soul.

2 This first star.] The moon.

3 E'en as the truth.] "Like a truth, that does not need demonstration, but is self-evident." Thus Plato, at the conclusion of the Sixth Book of the Republic, lays down four principles of information in the human mind: "1st, intuition of self-evident truth, vonois; 2d, demonstration by reasoning, Savoia; 3d, belief on testimony, irris; 4th, probability,

I answer'd: "Lady! I with thoughts devout, Such as I best can frame, give thanks to him, Who hath removed me from the mortal world. But tell, I pray thee, whence the gloomy spots Upon this body, which below on earth Give rise to talk of Cain1 in fabling quaint ?"

She somewhat smiled, then spake: "If mortals err
In their opinion, when the key of sense
Unlocks not, surely wonder's weapon keen [wings
Ought not to pierce thee: since thou find'st, the
Of reason to pursue the senses' flight

Are short. But what thy own thought is, declare."
Then I: "What various here above appears,
Is caused, I deem, by bodies dense or rare 2."
She then resumed: "Thou certainly wilt see
In falsehood thy belief o'erwhelm'd, if well
Thou listen to the arguments which I

Shall bring to face it. The eighth sphere displays
Numberless lights3, the which, in kind and size,
May be remark'd of different aspects:

If rare or dense of that were cause alone,
One single virtue then would be in all;
Alike distributed, or more, or less.
Different virtues needs must be the fruits

or conjecture, sinaría." I cannot resist adding a passage to the like effect from Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, b. ii. § 7. "The truth is, that the mind of man desireth evermore to know the truth, according to the most infallible certainty which the nature of things can yield. The greatest assurance generally with all men, is that which we have by plain aspect and intuitive beholding. Where we cannot attain unto this, there what appeareth to be true, by strong and invincible demonstration, such as wherein it is not by any way possible to be deceived, thereunto the mind doth necessarily assent, neither is it in the choice thereof to do otherwise. And in case these both do fail, then which way greatest probability leadeth, thither the mind doth evermore incline."

1 Cain.] Compare Hell, Canto xx. 123, and note.

2 By bodies dense or rare.] Lombardi observes, that the opinion respecting the spots in the moon, which Dante represents himself as here yielding to the arguments of Beatrice, is professed by our author in the Convito, so that we may conclude that work to have been composed before this portion of the Divina Commedia. "The shadow in the moon is nothing else but the rarity of its body, which hinders the rays of the sun from terminating and being reflected, as in other parts of it." P. 70.

3 Numberless lights.] The fixed stars, which differ both in bulk and splendour.

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