5 days ago
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When the Septentrion of the First Heaven, which does not rise nor set, and which has never been veiled from sight by any mist but sin,
and which made every soul in that high court know its true course (just as the lower Seven direct the helmsman to his earthly port),
had stopped; the holy prophets, who till then had walked between the Griffon and those lights, turned to the car like souls who cry “Amen”.
And one among them who seemed sent from Heaven clarioned: “Veni, sponsa, de Libano,” three times, with all the others joining in.
As, at the last trump every saint shall rise out of the grave, ready with voice new-fleshed to carol Alleluliah to the skies;
just so, above the chariot, at the voice of such an elder, rose a hundred Powers and Principals of the Eternal Joys,
all saying together: “Benedictus qui venis”; then, scattering flowers about on every side: “Manibus o date lilia plenis.”
Time and again at daybreak I have seen the eastern sky glow with a wash of rose while all the rest hung limpid and serene,
and the Sun’s face rise tempered from its rest so veiled by vapors that the naked eye could look at it for minutes undistressed.
Exactly so, within a cloud of flowers that rose like fountains from the angels’ hands and fell about the chariot in showers,
a lady came in view: an olive crown wreathed her immaculate veil, her cloak was green, the colors of live flame played on her gown.
My soul—such years had passed since last it saw that lady and stood trembling in her presence, stupefied by the power of holy awe—
now, by some power that shone from her above the reach and witness of my mortal eyes, felt the full mastery of enduring love.
The instant I was smitten by the force, which had already once transfixed my soul before my boyhood years had run their course
- Anonymous
5 days ago
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I turned left with the same assured belief that makes a child run to its mother’s arms when it is frightened or has come to grief,
to say to Virgil: “There is not within me one drop of blood unstirred. I recognize the tokens of the ancient flame.” But he,
he had taken his light from us. He had gone. Virgil had gone. Virgil, the gentle Father to whom I gave my soul for its salvation!
Not all that sight of Eden lost to view by our First Mother could hold back the tears that stained my cheeks so lately washed with dew.“Dante, do not weep yet, though Virgil goes. Do not weep yet, for soon another wound shall make you weep far hotter tears than those!”
As an admiral takes his place at stern or bow to observe the handling of his other ships and spur all hands to do their best—so now,
on the chariot’s left side, I saw appear when I turned at the sound of my own name (which, necessarily, is recorded here),
that lady who had been half-veiled from view by the flowers of the angel-revels. Now her eyes fixed me across the stream, piercing me through.And though the veil she still wore, held in place by the wreathed flowers of wise Minerva’s leaves,
let me see only glimpses of her face,her stern and regal bearing made me dread her next words, for she spoke as one who saves the heaviest charge till all the rest are read.
- Anonymous
5 days ago
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“Look at me well. I am she. I am Beatrice. How dared you make your way to this high mountain? Did you not know that here man lives in bliss?”
I lowered my head and looked down at the stream. But when I saw myself reflected there, I fixed my eyes upon the grass for shame.
I shrank as a wayward child in his distress shrinks from his mother’s sternness, for the taste of love grown wrathful is a bitterness.
She paused. At once the angel chorus sang the blessed psalm: “In te, Domine, speravi.” As far as “pedes meos” their voices rang.As on the spine of Italy the snow lies frozen hard among the living rafters in winter when the northeast tempests blow;
then, melting if so much as a breath stir from the land of shadowless noon, flows through itself like hot wax trickling down a lighted taper—
just so I froze, too cold for sighs or tears until I heard that choir whose notes are tuned to the eternal music of the spheres.
But when I heard the voice of their compassion plead for me more than if they had cried out: “Lady, why do you treat him in this fashion?”;the ice, which hard about my heart had pressed, turned into breath and water, and flowed out through eyes and throat in anguish from my breast.
Still standing at the chariot’s left side, she turned to those compassionate essences whose song had sought to move her, and replied:
“You keep your vigil in the Eternal Day where neither night nor sleep obscures from you a single step the world takes on its way;
but I must speak with greater care that he who weeps on that far bank may understand and feel a grief to match his guilt.- Anonymous
5 days ago
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Not only
by the workings of the spheres that bring each seed to its fit end according to the stars that ride above it, but by gifts decreedin the largesse of overflowing Grace, whose rain has such high vapors for its source our eyes cannot mount to their dwelling place;
this man, potentially, was so endowed from early youth that marvelous increase should have come forth from every good he sowed.
But richest soil the soonest will grow wild with bad seed and neglect. For a while I stayed him with glimpses of my face. Turning my mild
and youthful eyes into his very soul, I let him see their shining, and I led him by the straight way, his face to the right goal.
The instant I had come upon the sill of my second age, and crossed and changed my life,he left me and let others shape his will.
When I rose from the flesh into the spirit, to greater beauty and to greater virtue, he found less pleasure in me and less merit.
He turned his steps aside from the True Way, pursuing the false images of good that promise what they never wholly pay.
Not all the inspiration I won by prayer and brought to him in dreams and meditations could call him back, so little did he care.
He fell so far from every hope of bliss that every means of saving him had failed except to let him see the damned. For this
I visited the portals of the dead and poured my tears and prayers before that spirit by whom his steps have, up to now, been led.
The seal Almighty God’s decree has placed on the rounds of His creation would be broken were he to come past Lethe and to taste
the water that wipes out the guilty years without some scot of penitential tears!” - Anonymous
5 days ago
“You, there, who stand upon the other side—” (turning to me now, who had thought the edge of her discourse was sharp, the point) she cried
without pause in her flow of eloquence,“Speak up! Speak up! Is it true? To such a charge your own confession must give evidence.”
I stood as if my spirit had turned numb: the organ of my speech moved, but my voice
died in my throat before a word could come.Briefly she paused, then cried impatiently: “What are you thinking? Speak up, for the waters have yet to purge sin from your memory.”
Confusion joined to terror forced a broken “yes” from my throat, so weak that only one who read my lips would know that I had spoken.As an arbalest will snap when string and bow are drawn too tight by the bowman, and the bolt will strike the target a diminished blow—
so did I shatter, strengthless and unstrung, under her charge, pouring out floods of tears, while my voice died in me on the way to my tongue.And she: “Filled as you were with the desire I taught you for That Good beyond which nothing exists on earth to which man may aspire,
what yawning moats or what stretched chain-lengths lay across your path to force you to abandon all hope of pressing further on your way?- Anonymous
5 days ago
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What increase or allurement seemed to show in the brows of others that you walked before them as a lover walks below his lady’s window?”
My breath dragged from me in a bitter sigh; I barely found a voice to answer with; my lips had trouble forming a reply.
In tears I said: “The things of the world’s day, false pleasures and enticements, turned my steps as soon as you had ceased to light my way.”And she: “Had you been silent, or denied what you confess, your guilt would still be known to Him from Whom no guilt may hope to hide.
But here, before our court, when souls upbraid themselves for their own guilt in true remorse, the grindstone is turned back against the blade.In any case that you may know your crime truly and with true shame and so be stronger against the Siren’s song another time,
control your tears and listen with your soul to learn how my departure from the flesh ought to have spurred you to the higher goal.Nothing in Art or Nature could call forth such joy from you, as sight of that fair body which clothed me once and now sifts back to earth”
And if my dying turned that highest pleasure to very dust, what joy could still remain in mortal things for you to seek and treasure?
At the first blow you took from such vain things your every thought should have been raised to follow my flight above decay. Nor should your wings
have been weighed down by any joy below—love of a maid, or any other fleeting and useless thing—to wait a second blow.
The fledgling waits a second shaft, a third; but nets are spread and the arrow sped in vain in sight or hearing of the full-grown bird.”- Anonymous
5 days ago
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As a scolded child, tongue-tied for shame, will
stand and recognize his fault, and weep for it, bowing his head to a just reprimand,
so did I stand. And she said: “If to hear megrieves you, now raise your beard and let your eyes show you a greater cause for misery.”
The blast that blows from Libya’s hot sand, or the Alpine gale, overcomes less resistance uprooting oaks than I, at her command,
overcame then in lifting up my face;for when she had referred to it as my “beard” I sensed too well the venom of her phrase.
When I had raised my eyes with so much pain, I saw those Primal Beings, now at rest, whohad strewn blossoms round her thick as rain;
and with my tear-blurred and uncertain vision I saw Her turned to face that beast which is one person in two natures without division.”Even veiled and across the river from me her face outshone its first-self by as much as she outshone all mortals formerly.
And the thorns of my repentance pricked me so that all the use and substance of the world I most had loved, now most appeared my foe.Such guilty recognition gnawed my heart
I swooned for pain; and what I then became she best knows who most gave me cause to smart.- Anonymous
5 days ago
>The blast that blows from Libya’s hot sand, or the Alpine gale, overcomes less resistance uprooting oaks than I, at her command, overcame then in lifting up my face
Damn
- Anonymous
5 days ago
Nice pic
