Whate'er from this immediately distils Has afterwards no end, for ne'er removed Is its impression when it sets its seal. For the blest ardor that irradiates all things In that most like itself is most vivacious. With all of these things has advantaged been The human creature; and if one be wanting, From his nobility he needs must fall. T is sin alone which doth disfranchise him, And render him unlike the Good Supreme, Unless he fill up where transgression empties Your nature when it sinned so utterly In its own seed, out of these dignities Even as out of Paradise was driven, Nor could itself recover, if thou notest With nicest subtilty, by any way, Except by passing one of these two fords: 70 75 80 85 90 Either that God through clemency alone Had pardon granted, or that man himself Of the eternal counsel, to my speech To satisfy, not having power to sink Far as he disobeying thought to rise; And for this reason man has been from Of satisfying by himself excluded. Therefore it God behoved in his own ways Man to restore unto his perfect life, I say in one, or else in both of them. But since the action of the doer is power So much more grateful, as it more presents The goodness of the heart from which it issues, Has been contented to proceed by each For God more bounteous was himself to give For justice, were it not the Son of God Now, to fill fully each desire of thine, Return I to elucidate one place, In order that thou there mayst see as I do. Thou sayst: 'I see the air, I see the fire, The water, and the earth, and all their mixtures Come to corruption, and short while endure; And these things notwithstanding were created'; Therefore if that which I have said were true, They should have been secure against corruption. The Angels, brother, and the land sincere In which thou art, created may be called Just as they are in their entire existence; But all the elements which thou hast named, And all those things which out of them are made, By a created virtue are informed. Created was the matter which they have; Created was the informing influence Within these stars that round about them go. 115 120 125 130 135 The soul of every brute and of the plants The So with herself, it evermore desires her. Your resurrection, if thou think again How human flesh was fashioned at that time When the first parents both of them were made." 140 145 CANTO VIII. HE world used in its peril to believe THE That the fair Cypria delirious love Rayed out, in the third epicycle turning; Wherefore not only unto her paid honor Of sacrifices and of votive cry The ancient nations in the ancient error, But both Dione honored they and Cupid, That as her mother, this one as her son, And said that he had sat in Dido's lap; And they from her, whence I beginning take, Took the denomination of the star That wooes the sun, now following, now in front. I was not ware of our ascending to it; But of our being in it gave full faith 5 10 My Lady whom I saw more beauteous grow. 15 And as within a flame a spark is seen, And as within a voice a voice discerned, When one is steadfast, and one comes and goes, |