Paradise: A New Translation by Anthony Esolen
"If there is any justice in the world of books, [Esolen's] will be the standard Dante…for some time to come."—Robert Royal, Crisis\ In this, the concluding volume of The Divine Comedy, Dante ascends from the devastation of the Inferno and the trials of Purgatory. Led by his beloved Beatrice, he enters Paradise, to profess his faith, hope, and love before the Heavenly court. Completed shortly before his death, Paradise is the volume that perhaps best expresses Dante's spiritual philosophy...
Search in google:
“If there is any justice in the world of books, [Esolen’s] will be the standard Dante . . . for some time to come.”–Robert Royal, CrisisIn this, the concluding volume of The Divine Comedy, Dante ascends from the devastation of the Inferno and the trials of Purgatory. Led by his beloved Beatrice, he enters Paradise, to profess his faith, hope, and love before the Heavenly court. Completed shortly before his death, Paradise is the volume that perhaps best expresses Dante’s spiritual philosophy about resurrection, redemption, and the nature of divinity. It also affords modern-day readers a clear window into late medieval perceptions about faith. A bilingual text, classic illustrations by Gustave Doré, an appendix that reproduces Dante’s key sources, and other features make this the definitive edition of Dante’s ultimate masterwork.
Canto One\ Dante and Beatrice are at the threshold of Heaven. She explains to him that it is the nature of the human soul to rise.\ The glory of the One who moves all things\ penetrates the universe with light,\ more radiant in one part and elsewhere less:\ I have been in that heaven He makes most bright,4\ and seen things neither mind can hold nor tongue\ utter, when one descends from such great height,\ For as we near the One for whom we long,7\ our intellects so plunge into the deep,\ memory cannot follow where we go.\ Nevertheless what small part I can keep10\ of that holy kingdom treasured in my heart\ will now become the matter of my song.\ O good Apollo, for this last work of art,13\ make me as fit a vessel of your power\ as you demand when you bestow the crown\ Of the beloved laurel. Till this hour16\ one peak of twin Parnassus has sufficed,\ but if I am to enter the lists now\ I shall need both. Then surge into my breast19\ and breathe your song, as when you drew the vain\ Marsyas from the sheath of his own limbs.\ Father, virtue divine, should you but deign22\ that I make manifest a shadow of\ the blessed kingdom sealed upon my brain,\ At the foot of that tree whose wood you love25\ you’ll see me stand and crown my brows with green,\ made worthy by the subject, and by you.\ Poets and Caesars now so rarely glean28\ those leaves to celebrate a victory\ (man’s fault and shame, for our desires are mean),\ the Peneian branches must give birth to joy31\ when any man should thirst for their high fame,\ in the glad heart of the Delphic deity.\ A little spark gives birth to a great flame.34\ Better voices perhaps will follow mine,\ praying to hear what Cyrrha shall proclaim!\ By various spills of light the sun will shine37\ dawning upon the world of men that die,\ but at the three-cross intersection of\ Four rings it rises in the company40\ of a more favorable time of year,\ happier stars, to stamp this worldly clay\ With its most perfect seal. One hemisphere43\ lay brightening in that stream and one grew dim,\ as it made morning there and evening here,\ When I saw Beatrice turn upon her left46\ and look to Heaven to gaze into the sun:\ no eagle ever held a gaze so firm.\ As a reflecting ray will follow upon49\ the first and in a glance, an instant, rise\ just like a pilgrim longing to turn home,\ So she instilled her gazing–through my eyes–52\ into my powers of fancy, and I too\ stared at the sun more than our sight can bear.\ With our weak powers on earth one may not do55\ what there one may–thanks to the special place\ created as the proper home for man.\ Not long could I sustain the brilliant rays58\ before they seemed to flash like sparks that play\ round steel still white-hot from the forge’s blaze,\ And suddenly it seemed that day and day61\ were fused, as if the One who wields the might\ adorned the heavens with a second sun.\ Into the everlasting wheels of light64\ Beatrice gazed with silent constancy;\ on her I gazed, far from that central sight.\ Her countenance had the same effect in me67\ as did the plant that Glaucus tasted when\ it made him share the godhood of the sea.\ To signify man’s soaring beyond man70\ words will not do: let my comparison\ suffice for them for whom the grace of God\ Reserves the experience. If I bore alone73\ that part of me which you created last,\ O Love that steers the heavens, you surely know,\ For your light lifted me. And when the vast76\ wheel you have made eternal by desire\ held me intent to hear the harmony\ You tune in all its parts, the sunlight-fire79\ lit so much of the sky, no flooding stream\ or rain could ever fill so broad a lake.\ The newness of the sound, the swelling gleam82\ lighted desire in me to learn their cause–\ keener than any appetite I’d known.\ And she, who saw within me what I was,85\ to still the troubled waters of my soul,\ opened her lips before I could inquire,\ And thus began: “You’re making your mind dull88\ with false imagining–you don’t perceive\ what you would see, if you could shake it off.\ You are not on the earth, as you believe.91\ Lightning that flees its proper realm is not\ so swift as your returning to your own.”\ I admit I was shorn of my first doubt94\ by the brief words she flashed me with a smile,\ but in another net my feet were caught:\ “My first amazement is at peace–but still97\ I am amazed that I should rise so high,\ beyond the lightness of the air and fire.”\ She turned her eyes to me then with a sigh100\ of pity, as a mother in distress\ whose child is ill and talks deliriously,\ So she made matters plain: “All things possess103\ order amongst themselves: this order is\ the form that makes the world resemble God.\ Thence the high beings read the signs, the trace106\ of that eternal Power who is the end\ for which the form is set in time and place.\ All natures in this order lean and tend109\ each in distinctive manner to its Source,\ some to approach more near and others less–\ Whence from their various ports all creatures move112\ on the great sea of being, with each one\ ferried by instinct given from above.\ This is what makes the fire rise toward the moon;115\ this, the prime mover of the mortal heart;\ this makes the heavy earth condense in one;\ Nor does this bow with target-cleaving art118\ strike only things that lack intelligence,\ but beings made with intellect and love.\ The glorious world-ordaining providence121\ forever stills the highest heaven with light,\ beyond the spinning of the swiftest sphere,\ And to that place as to our destined site124\ we’re speeded by the power of that cord\ shooting each arrow in its happy flight.\ Often it’s true a form may not accord127\ with the intent of him who works the art\ because the matter’s deaf and won’t respond:\ So, from this course, a creature may depart130\ if it should have the power, despite the push,\ to swerve away and veer off from its start,\ And as you’ll see a fall of lightning flash133\ from the high clouds, so cheating pleasures skew\ that first urge, and they plunge it to the earth.\ No more amazement should it bring to you136\ that you ascend, than if a mountain stream\ should tumble rushing to the plains below.\ But it would be a cause of just surprise139\ if, free of every bar, you should remain\ like a still flame on earth, and not arise.”\ Then to the heavens she turned her gaze again.142
