† Now men go forth with jests and drolleries

To preach, and if but well the people laugh, The hood puffs out, and nothing more is asked. But in the cowl there nestles such a bird,

That, if the common people were to see it,
They would perceive what pardons they confide in,

the folly,

For which so great on earth has grown
That, without proof of any testimony,
To each indulgence they would flock together.
By this Saint Anthony his pig doth fatten,

And many others, who are worse than pigs,
Paying in money without mark of coinage.

But since we have digressed abundantly,

Turn back thine eyes forthwith to the right path,
So that the way be shortened with the time.

This nature doth so multiply itself

In numbers, that there never yet was speech

Nor mortal fancy that can go so far.

And if thou notest that which is revealed

By Daniel, thou wilt see that in his thousands

Number determinate is kept concealed.

The primal light, that all irradiates it,

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By modes as many is received therein,

As are the splendors wherewith it is mated.

Hence, inasmuch as on the act conceptive

The affection followeth, of love the sweetness
Therein diversely fervid is or tepid.
The height behold now and the amplitude

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Of the eternal power, since it hath made
Itself so many mirrors, where 't is broken,

One in itself remaining as before."

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CANTO XXX.

PERCHANCE six thousand miles remote from us
Is glowing the sixth hour, and now this world
Inclines its shadow almost to a level,

When the mid-heaven begins to make itself

So deep to us, that here and there a star
Ceases to shine so far down as this depth,

And as advances bright exceedingly

The handmaid of the sun, the heaven is closed
Light after light to the most beautiful;

Not otherwise the Triumph, which forever

Plays round about the point that vanquished me,
Seeming enclosed by what itself encloses,

Little by little from my vision faded;

Whereat to turn mine eyes on Beatrice

My seeing nothing and my love constrained me.

If what has hitherto been said of her

Were all concluded in a single praise,

Scant would it be to serve the present turn.

Not only does the beauty I beheld

Transcend ourselves, but truly I believe

Its Maker only may enjoy it all.
Vanquished do I confess me by this passage

More than by problem of his theme was ever
O'ercome the comic or the tragic poet;

For as the sun the sight that trembles most,

Even so the memory of that sweet smile
My mind depriveth of its very self.
From the first day that I beheld her face
In this life, to the moment of this look,
The sequence of my song
But now perforce this sequence must desist

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has ne'er been severed; 30

From following her beauty with my verse,

As every artist at his uttermost.

Such as I leave her to a greater fame

Than any of my trumpet, which is bringing

Its arduous matter to a final close,

With voice and gesture of a perfect leader

She recommenced: "We from the greatest body
Have issued to the heaven that is pure light;

Light intellectual replete with love,

Love of true good replete with ecstasy,

Ecstasy that transcendeth every sweetness.

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Here shalt thou see the one host and the other

Of Paradise, and one in the same aspects Which at the final judgment thou shalt see.” Even as a sudden lightning that disperses

The visual spirits, so that it deprives

The eye of impress from the strongest objects
Thus round about me flashed a living light,

And left me swathed around with such a veil
Of its effulgence, that I nothing saw.
"Ever the Love which quieteth this heaven
Welcomes into itself with such salute,

To make the candle ready for its flame."
No sooner had within me these brief words

An entrance found, than I perceived myself

To be uplifted over my own power,

And I with vision new rekindled me,

Such that no light whatever is so pure

But that mine eyes were fortified against it.

And light I saw in fashion of a river

Fulvid with its effulgence, 'twixt two banks

Depicted with an admirable Spring.

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Out of this river issued living sparks,

And on all sides sank down into the flowers,
Like unto rubies that are set in gold;

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