If I were only what thou didst create, Temper'd of thee and measured, charm'd mine ear Whence, after utterance of a piteous sigh, 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. That cometh of thilke speris thryis three, In this world here, and cause of harmonie. Chaucer, The Assemble of Foules. So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear 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 With her own light makes ever calm the heaven2, 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. 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 From its original impulse warp'd, to earth, So said, she turn'd toward the heaven her face. 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, Ibid. Pope, Essay on Man. Ep. iv. D D To my rapt sight, the arctic beams reveal. Through the deep brine ye fearless may put out Beatrice upward gazed, and I on her; That essence, which discovers by what means E'en as the truth3 that man at first believes. [proof, 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 Are short. But what thy own thought is, declare." Shall bring to face it. The eighth sphere displays If rare or dense of that were cause alone, 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. |