DANTE'S SUBLIME COMEDY: PARADISE: Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Saint Benedict

Slowly my sense returned. Like a hurt child

            I turned at once to she I trusted most:

            my Beatrice. She calmed with kindly words      3         

the trembling caused by that wild shout and said,

            “Know you are in the sky of holiness –

            pure Paradise. One cry unstrung your nerve.      6

How would you be if the full choir had sung?

            Or had I smiled in my new ecstasy?

            You did not hear the prayer within that cry,       9

or know the vengeance it was calling down

            on those deserving that, which you will see

before you die. Neither too soon or slow,          12

sinners must feel the weight of Heaven’s doom.

            Now gaze around you at the company

            of contemplative souls who learned to look       15

           

lovingly upon God’s full radiance.”

            I obeyed, saw a hundred vivid globes

            sharing the glory of their brilliance.                   18

Halfway between desire and modesty

            I stood, afraid to speak, tried not to say

            questions that might cause terrible offence.        21

The biggest globe among these glowing pearls

            then granted what I lacked the guts to ask,

            saying, “If you knew that we like to help           24

asking would be no task. Not to delay

            your journey on the upward track, I shall

answer the simple query you hold back.            27

The Abbey of Cassino on a hill

            was pagan shrine until I carried up

the name of Jesus Christ, who died to teach       30

all people how to live. God’s grace was with me.

            Many heeded, left their false creed and I

baptized them in Christ’s name, and two became 33

  

these great and Christian contemplative souls,

            Makarios of Alexandria,

founder of monasteries in the east,                      36

and Ronualdus, stern reformer of

            my holy order here, with more who stayed

strictly within their cloisters saying mass             39

nor strayed from duties of unselfish prayer.”

            Said I, “Your kindly speech so full of love

gives me a confidence that grows, unfolds           42

like petals in a rose. Perhaps too bold,

            I beg a favour. May I see your face?”

He said, “Yes, at last in the highest place            45

where everything we want will be revealed

            as perfect, whole, and outside time and space.

            That sphere does not revolve around a pole.        48

This ladder reaches it, and that is why

            the very top is far beyond your sight.

            Patriarch Jacob glimpsed that summit once          51

laden with angels. None on earth below

            now lift a foot to climb. The rules I wrote

            for monks who followed me are wasted ink.       54

Monte Cassino is a den of thieves

            whose robes now stink like sacks of rotten grain.

            Even a moneylender can’t offend                        57

God like a lazy monk who spends on kin

            and luxury and prostitute money

the Kirk collects to feed the destitute.                   60

So weak is mortal flesh that, starting well,

            good conduct hardly ever lasts for more

            than oak trees need to grow new acorn crops.      63

           

No gold or silver helped Saint Peter found

            our Roman Kirk. My order grew and spread

by fasts and prayers. Francis wed Poverty.           66

Now no Franciscans do, and thus you see

how white transforms to black. God saved the Jews

from Pharaoh’s wrath by a dry path across           69

 the Red Sea’s bed, reversed the Jordan’s flow.

            Today our Kirk needs miracles like these.”

            So spoke Saint Benedict, moving away                72

to join his company who suddenly,

            as if swept up by tempest, soared above.

            She I love made a sign that overcame                   75

my nature so completely that I too

            went flying up that gold stair to the stars.

            Nothing on earth was quick enough to match       78

the swiftness of our flight. When purged of sin

            that chains me to the earth, how I will love

            to soar in Paradise again! None pull                     81

a finger faster from a flame than I

            sprang into that part of the Zodiac,

            that constellation where knowledge and thought 84

are nourished by the starry Twins. Their rays

mingled with sunlight shone upon my birth

            when I first tasted Tuscan air. Dear Twins,          87

I owe my genius to you! It was

            my birthday when I reached your zone. I felt

            as if coming home, and prayed you for strength   90

to undertake this great work calling me.               

Said Beatrice, “A glad host soon arrives

            in this triumphant air, to be received                     93

gladly, with clear eyes. First exercise yours.                     

Look back and down. See what I raised you from.”

My gaze plunged down through seven planets’ rings 96

to that low thing, our queer wee comic earth

at which I smiled, now knowing thought deserved

much higher things. The moon, daughter of God,  99      

appeared pure disc, recalling how wrongly

            I’d explained her spots. I saw her siblings –

            Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter –                   102

all tempered by old Saturn’s gravity.

Their magnitudes and speeds and inclinations

            were seen by me, and how they altered climes,     105

 weathers and tides for earth’s poor folk who live

on coast and plain and mountainside. Meanwhile

I soared on high with the immortal Twins

then gazed into the eyes of my fair guide.                         109