Purgatorio XXIX

Then, like a lady moved by love, she sang
(her revelations now come to an end):
Beati quorum tecla sunt peccata!

And like those nymphs that used to stroll alone
through shaded woodlands, one seeking the sun,
another trying to avoid its light,

so she began to walk along the bank,
moving upstream, and I kept pace with her,
matching on my side her small, graceful steps.

Not a hundred steps between us had we gone,
when the two river banks curved perfectly
parallel — and I faced the east again;

when we had gone a little farther on,
the lady stopped and, turning to me, said:
"My brother, look and listen." Suddenly,

a burst of incandescence cut the air,
with one quick flash it lit up all the woods —
at first I thought it was a lightning flash.

But lightning goes as quickly as it comes;
what I saw stayed, its radiance increased.
"What can this be?" I thought, and as I did,

a gentle melody was drifting through
the luminous atmosphere. Then righteous zeal
made me curse the presumptuousness of Eve:

to think that, while all earth and Heaven obeyed
His will, a single woman, newly made,
would dare strip off the veil imposed by Him!

Had she remained submissive to His will,
I could on these ineffable delights
have feasted sooner and for much more time.

As I was moving in a blissful trance
among these first fruits of eternal joy,
yearning for still more happiness to come,

the air, beneath green boughs, became transformed
before our eyes into a blazing light,
and the sweet sound had now become a chant.

Most holy Virgins, if because of you
hunger or cold or vigils I endured,
allow me now to ask for my reward:

let Helicon pour forth its streams for me,
and let Urania help me with her choir
to put in verse things difficult to grasp.

A little farther on, I saw what seemed
to be seven trees of gold — a false effect
caused by the distance separating us;

but when I had come close enough to them
that distance could no longer hide detail,
and what had tricked my senses now was clear,

that power which feeds the process of our thought
identified the shapes as candlesticks
and heard the word Hosanna in the chant.

Above the splendid gold — a brilliant light,
brighter than moonlight in a cloudless sky
at midnight shining in her bright mid-month!

Full of bewilderment, I turned around
to my good Virgil. His answer was a glance
charged with no less amazement than I felt.

Then I turned back to gaze at those high things
moving toward us as though they did not move
more slowly than a modest, newmade bride.

The lady cried: "Why are you so intent
on looking only at those living lights?
Have you no wish to see what comes behind?"

Then I saw people following the glow,
as if they were attendants; all were clothed
in garments supernaturally white.

The waters on my left received the light,
and when I looked into this shining glass,
my left side was reflected clearly there.

When I had reached the point along my bank
where only water separated us,
I stopped to watch the scene more carefully:

I saw the slender flames as they advanced,
leaving the air behind them color-streaked —
so many streaming pennants overhead!

And thus the sky became a painted flow
of seven bands of light, all the same shades
as Delia's cincture or Apollo's bow.

These bands extended farther back than eyes
could see and, all together, I would say,
they measured, side by side, a good ten strides.

And under that magnificence of Heaven
came four-and-twenty elders, two by two,
all of them wearing crowns of fleur-de-lis.

They sang as they moved on: "Benedicta thou
of all of Adam's daughters, blessed be
thy beauty throughout all eternity!"

When once the group of God's elect had passed
(the flowers and the tender grass that grew
along the other bank once more in view),

as groups of stars will replace other stars
high in the heavens, following them there came
four creatures wearing crowns of forest green.

Each had six wings with feathers that were all
covered with eyes; were Argus still alive,
his eyes would be exactly like all those.

Reader, I cannot spend more verses now
describing them, for I have other needs
constraining me — here I must spare my words;

but you can read Ezekiel's account:
he saw them once approaching from the north
borne on the wind, moving in cloud and fire,

and as he pictured them, so were they here,
except that, in the matter of their wings,
Saint John agrees with me and not with him.

The four of them were corners for a space
filled by a triumphal two-wheeled chariot
drawn by a griffin, harnessed to its neck.

He kept both wings raised high, and each one flan
the mid-banner between the three and three:
so perfectly that neither one was cut.

His wings rose higher than my sight could rise;
the parts of him that were a bird were gold
and all the rest was white, with deep red marks.

An Africanus or Augustus never
had such a splendid chariot from their Rome;
indeed, that of the Sun could not compare —

that of the Sun which strayed and was destroyed
at the devout petition of the Earth,
when Jove in his mysterious way was just.

There were three ladies circling in a dance
near the right wheel, and one was red, so red
she hardly would be visible in fire;

the second looked as if her flesh and bones
were fashioned out of emerald; the third
had all the whiteness of new-fallen snow;

at times the white one led the dance, at times,
the red, and from the song the red one sang
the others took the tempo of their dance.

Beside the left wheel, dancing festively,
were four more ladies — dressed in purple robes
and led by one with three eyes in her head.

Behind the dancing figures, three and four,
there came two aged men, differently dressed,
but similar in bearing, staid and grave.

One wore the garments of a follower
of great Hippocrates, whom Nature made
to heal those creatures that she loved the most;

the other seemed to be his counterpart:
he bore a sword, so sharp, gleaming so bright,
that I, though on the other bank, felt fear.

Then I saw coming four of humble mien,
and, last of all, an old man, by himself,
who moved in his own dream, his face inspired.

And these last seven, just like the group up front,
were clad in white, except the wreaths that crowned
their heads were not entwined with lily blooms,

but roses and other flowers that are red.
Had I been farther off, I would have sworn
a crown of flames encircled every head.

And when the chariot was opposite me,
thunder was heard! The exalted creatures, then,
as though forbidden to move on, stopped short,

as did the flaming ensigns at the front.