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| “HOSANNA 1 Sanctus Deus Sabaoth, | |
| Superillustrans claritate tuâ | |
| Felices ignes horum malahoth.” | |
| Thus chanting saw I turn that substance bright, 2 | |
| With fourfold lustre to its orb again, | 5 |
| Revolving; and the rest, unto their dance, | |
| With it, moved also; and, like swiftest sparks, | |
| In sudden distance from my sight were veil’d. | |
| Me doubt possess’d; and “Speak,” it whisper’d me, | |
| “Speak, speak unto thy lady; that she quench | 10 |
| Thy thirst with drops of sweetness.” Yet blank awe, | |
| Which lords it o’er me, even at the sound | |
| Of Beatrice’s name, did bow me down | |
| As one in slumber held. Not long that mood | |
| Beatrice suffer’d; she, with such a smile, | 15 |
| As might have made one blest amid the flames, 3 | |
| Beaming upon me, thus her words began: | |
| “Thou in thy thought art pondering (as I deem, | |
| And what I deem is truth) how just revenge | |
| Could be with justice punish’d: from which doubt | 20 |
| I soon will free thee; so thou mark my words; | |
| For they of weighty matter shall possess thee. | |
| Through suffering not a curb upon the power | |
| That will’d in him, to his own profiting, | |
| That man, who was unborn, 4 condemn’d himself; | 25 |
| And, in himself, all, who since him have lived, | |
| His offspring: whence, below, the human kind | |
| Lay sick in grievous error many an age; | |
| Until it pleased the Word of God to come | |
| Amongst them down, to His own person joining | 30 |
| The nature from its Maker far estranged, | |
| By the mere act of His eternal love. | |
| Contemplate here the wonder I unfold: | |
| The nature with its Maker thus conjoin’d, | |
| Created first was blameless, pure and good; | 35 |
| But, through itself alone, was driven forth | |
| From Paradise, because it had eschew’d | |
| The way of truth and life, to evil turn’d. | |
| Ne’er then was penalty so just as that | |
| Inflicted by the Cross, if thou regard | 40 |
| The nature in assumption doom’d; ne’er wrong | |
| So great, in reference to Him, who took | |
| Such nature on Him, and endured the doom. | |
| So different effects 5 flow’d from one act: | |
| For by one death God and the Jews were pleased; | 45 |
| And Heaven was open’d, though the earth did quake. | |
| Count it not hard henceforth, when thou dost hear | |
| That a just vengeance 6 was, by righteous court, | |
| Justly revenged. But yet I see thy mind, | |
| By thought on thought arising, sore perplex’d; | 50 |
| And, with how vehement desire, it asks | |
| Solution of the maze. What I have heard, | |
| Is plain, thou sayst: but wherefore God this way | |
| For our redemption chose, eludes my search. | |
| “Brother! no eye of man not perfected, | 55 |
| Nor fully ripen’d in the flame of love, | |
| May fathom this decree. It is a mark, | |
| In sooth, much aim’d at, and but little kenn’d: | |
| And I will therefore show thee why such way | |
| Was worthiest. The celestial Love, that spurns | 60 |
| All envying in its bounty, in itself | |
| With such effulgence blazeth, as sends forth | |
| All beauteous things eternal. What distils | |
| Immediate thence, no end of being knows; | |
| Bearing its seal immutably imprest. | 65 |
| Whatever thence immediate falls, is free, | |
| Free wholly, uncontrollable by power | |
| Of each thing new: by such conformity | |
| More grateful to its Author, whose bright beams, | |
| Though all partake their shining, yet in those | 70 |
| Are liveliest, which resemble Him the most. | |
| These tokens of pre-eminence 7 on man | |
| Largely bestow’d, if any of them fail, | |
| He needs must forfeit his nobility, | |
| No longer stainless. Sin alone is that, | 75 |
| Which doth disfranchise him, and make unlike | |
| To the Chief Good; for that its light in him | |
| Is darken’d. And to dignity thus lost | |
| Is no return; unless, where guilt makes void, | |
| He for ill pleasure pay with equal pain. | 80 |
| Your nature, which entirely in its seed | |
| Transgress’d, from these distinctions fell, no less | |
| Than from its state in Paradise; nor means | |
| Found of recovery (search all methods out | |
| As strictly as thou may) save one of these, | 85 |
| The only fords were left through which to wade: | |
| Either, that God had of His courtesy | |
| Released him merely; or else, man himself | |
| For his own folly by himself atoned. | |
| “Fix now thine eye, intently as thou canst, | 90 |
| On the everlasting counsel; and explore, | |
| Instructed by my words, the dread abyss. | |
| “Man in himself had ever lack’d the means | |
| Of satisfaction, for he could not stoop | |
| Obeying, in humility so low, | 95 |
| As high, he, disobeying, thought to soar: | |
| And, for this reason, he had vainly tried, | |
| Out of his own sufficiency to pay | |
| The rigid satisfaction. Then behoved | |
| That God should by His own ways lead him back | 100 |
| Unto the life, from whence he fell, restored; | |
| By both His ways, I mean, or one alone. 8 | |
| But since the deed is ever prized the more, | |
| The more the doer’s good intent appears; | |
| Goodness celestial, whose broad signature | 105 |
| Is on the universe, of all its ways | |
| To raise ye up, was fain to leave out none. | |
| Nor aught so vast or so magnificent, | |
| Either for Him who gave or who received, | |
| Between the last night and the primal day, | 110 |
| Was or can be. For God more bounty show’d, | |
| Giving Himself to make man capable | |
| Of his return to life, than had the terms | |
| Been mere and unconditional release. | |
| And for His justice, every method else | 115 |
| Were all too scant, had not the Son of God | |
| Humbled Himself to put on mortal flesh. | |
| “Now, to content thee fully, I revert; | |
| And further in some part 9 unfold my speech, | |
| That thou mayst see it clearly as myself. | 120 |
| “I see, thou sayst, the air, the fire I see, | |
| The earth and water, and all things of them | |
| Compounded, to corruption turn, and soon | |
| Dissolve. Yet these were also things create. | |
| Because, if what were told me, had been true, | 125 |
| They from corruption had been therefore free. | |
| “The Angels, O my brother! and this clime | |
| Wherein thou art, impassable and pure, | |
| I call created, even as they are | |
| In their whole being. But the elements, | 130 |
| Which thou hast named, and what of them is made, | |
| Are by created virtue inform’d: create, | |
| Their substance; and create, the informing virtue | |
| In these bright stars, that round them circling move. | |
| The soul of every brute and of each plant, | 135 |
| The ray and motion of the sacred lights, | |
| Draw from complexion with meet power endued. | |
| But this our life the Eternal Good inspires | |
| Immediate, and enamours of itself; | |
| So that our wishes rest for ever here. | 140 |
| “And hence thou mayst by inference conclude | |
| Our resurrection certain, if thy mind | |
| Consider how the human flesh was framed, | |
| When both our parents at the first were made.” | |
