(111) Behold now, when the Mercurius or tone in this nature-heaven riseth up, there the divine and angelical joyfulness riseth up, for therein rise up forms, imagings, colours and angelical fruits, which blossom curiously, grow, spring, flourish and stand in perfection, as to all manner of bearing or fruit trees, plants and springing growths, of a gracious, comely, lovely, amiable, blessed prospect, vision or sight to be looked upon, with a most delicious, lovely, pleasant smell and taste.

(25) And, in truth, to speak briefly: Among many small pearls there is the one; and in a great take of fish there is the beauty-fish; and by time and toil truth will gleam forth, if a good helper is at hand. For most benefits are supplied, from God, through men. All of us who make use of our eyes see what is presented before them. But some look at objects for one reason, others for another. For instance, the cook and the shepherd do not survey the sheep similarly: for the one examines it if it be fat; the other watches to see if it be of good breed.

(5) Then will He sometimes peradventure send out a beam of ghostly light, piercing this cloud of unknowing that is betwixt thee and Him; and shew thee some of His privity, the which man may not, nor cannot speak. Then shalt thou feel thine affection inflamed with the fire of His love, far more than I can tell thee, or may or will at this time. For of that work, that falleth to only God, dare I not take upon me to speak with my blabbering fleshly tongue: and shortly to say, although I durst I would do not. But of that work that falleth to man when he feeleth him stirred and helped by grace, list me well tell thee: for therein is the less peril of the two.

(64) If I had the tongue of an angel, and thou hadst an angelical understanding, we might very finely discourse of it. But the spirit only seeth it, and the tongue cannot advance towards it. For I can use no other words than the words of this world; but now the Holy Ghost being in thee, thy soul will well apprehend it.

(2) Therefore the pen skips, and I write it not, Since our imagination for such folds, Much more our speech, is of a tint too glaring. "O holy sister mine, who us implorest With such devotion, by thine ardent love Thou dost unbind me from that beautiful sphere!" Thereafter, having stopped, the blessed fire Unto my Lady did direct its breath, Which spake in fashion as I here have said. And she: "O light eterne of the great man To whom our Lord delivered up the keys He carried down of this miraculous joy, This one examine on points light and grave, As good beseemeth thee, about the Faith By means of which thou on the sea didst walk. If he love well, and hope well, and believe, From thee 'tis hid not; for thou hast thy sight There where depicted everything is seen. But since this kingdom has made citizens By means of the true Faith, to glorify it 'Tis well he have the chance to speak thereof." As baccalaureate arms himself, and speaks not Until the master doth propose the question, To argue it, and not to terminate it,

(6) So from the lights that there to me appeared Upgathered through the cross a melody, Which rapt me, not distinguishing the hymn. Well was I ware it was of lofty laud, Because there came to me, "Arise and conquer!" As unto him who hears and comprehends not. So much enamoured I became therewith, That until then there was not anything That e'er had fettered me with such sweet bonds. Perhaps my word appears somewhat too bold, Postponing the delight of those fair eyes, Into which gazing my desire has rest; But who bethinks him that the living seals Of every beauty grow in power ascending, And that I there had not turned round to those, Can me excuse, if I myself accuse To excuse myself, and see that I speak truly: For here the holy joy is not disclosed, Because ascending it becomes more pure.

(1) Appeared before me with its wings outspread The beautiful image that in sweet fruition Made jubilant the interwoven souls; Appeared a little ruby each, wherein Ray of the sun was burning so enkindled That each into mine eyes refracted it. And what it now behoves me to retrace Nor voice has e'er reported, nor ink written, Nor was by fantasy e'er comprehended; For speak I saw, and likewise heard, the beak, And utter with its voice both 'I' and 'My,' When in conception it was 'We' and 'Our.' And it began: "Being just and merciful Am I exalted here unto that glory Which cannot be exceeded by desire; And upon earth I left my memory Such, that the evil-minded people there Commend it, but continue not the story." So doth a single heat from many embers Make itself felt, even as from many loves Issued a single sound from out that image. Whence I thereafter: "O perpetual flowers Of the eternal joy, that only one Make me perceive your odours manifold,

(3) I was as one who still retains the feeling Of a forgotten vision, and endeavours In vain to bring it back into his mind, When I this invitation heard, deserving Of so much gratitude, it never fades Out of the book that chronicles the past. If at this moment sounded all the tongues That Polyhymnia and her sisters made Most lubrical with their delicious milk, To aid me, to a thousandth of the truth It would not reach, singing the holy smile And how the holy aspect it illumed. And therefore, representing Paradise, The sacred poem must perforce leap over, Even as a man who finds his way cut off; But whoso thinketh of the ponderous theme, And of the mortal shoulder laden with it, Should blame it not, if under this it tremble. It is no passage for a little boat This which goes cleaving the audacious prow, Nor for a pilot who would spare himself. "Why doth my face so much enamour thee, That to the garden fair thou turnest not, Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?

(100) O thou excellent angelical kingdom, how comely dressed and adorned wert thou once? How has the devil turned thee into a murderous den? Dost thou suppose thou standest now in the flower of thy beauty and glory? No! thou standest in the midst of hell: If thine eyes were but opened, thou wouldst see it.

(2) For there where earth and heaven obedient were, The woman only, and but just created, Could not endure to stay 'neath any veil; Underneath which had she devoutly stayed, I sooner should have tasted those delights Ineffable, and for a longer time. While 'mid such manifold first-fruits I walked Of the eternal pleasure all enrapt, And still solicitous of more delights, In front of us like an enkindled fire Became the air beneath the verdant boughs, And the sweet sound as singing now was heard. O Virgins sacrosanct! if ever hunger, Vigils, or cold for you I have endured, The occasion spurs me their reward to claim! Now Helicon must needs pour forth for me, And with her choir Urania must assist me, To put in verse things difficult to think. A little farther on, seven trees of gold In semblance the long space still intervening Between ourselves and them did counterfeit; But when I had approached so near to them The common object, which the sense deceives, Lost not by distance any of its marks,

(7) His aspect had bereft me of my sight, So that I turned me back unto my Teachers, Like one who goeth as his hearing guides him. And as, the harbinger of early dawn, The air of May doth move and breathe out fragrance, Impregnate all with herbage and with flowers, So did I feel a breeze strike in the midst My front, and felt the moving of the plumes That breathed around an odour of ambrosia; And heard it said: "Blessed are they whom grace So much illumines, that the love of taste Excites not in their breasts too great desire, Hungering at all times so far as is just."

(1) In fashion then as of a snow-white rose Displayed itself to me the saintly host, Whom Christ in his own blood had made his bride, But the other host, that flying sees and sings The glory of Him who doth enamour it, And the goodness that created it so noble, Even as a swarm of bees, that sinks in flowers One moment, and the next returns again To where its labour is to sweetness turned, Sank into the great flower, that is adorned With leaves so many, and thence reascended To where its love abideth evermore. Their faces had they all of living flame, And wings of gold, and all the rest so white No snow unto that limit doth attain. From bench to bench, into the flower descending, They carried something of the peace and ardour Which by the fanning of their flanks they won. Nor did the interposing 'twixt the flower And what was o'er it of such plenitude Of flying shapes impede the sight and splendour; Because the light divine so penetrates The universe, according to its merit, That naught can be an obstacle against it.

(1) Absorbed in his delight, that contemplator Assumed the willing office of a teacher, And gave beginning to these holy words: "The wound that Mary closed up and anointed, She at her feet who is so beautiful, She is the one who opened it and pierced it. Within that order which the third seats make Is seated Rachel, lower than the other, With Beatrice, in manner as thou seest. Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and her who was Ancestress of the Singer, who for dole Of the misdeed said, 'Miserere mei,' Canst thou behold from seat to seat descending Down in gradation, as with each one's name I through the Rose go down from leaf to leaf. And downward from the seventh row, even as Above the same, succeed the Hebrew women, Dividing all the tresses of the flower; Because, according to the view which Faith In Christ had taken, these are the partition By which the sacred stairways are divided. Upon this side, where perfect is the flower With each one of its petals, seated are Those who believed in Christ who was to come.

(5) And therefore she hung up her love and her longing desire in this cloud of unknowing, and learned her to love a thing the which she might not see clearly in this life, by light of understanding in her reason, nor yet verily feel in sweetness of love in her affection. Insomuch, that she had ofttimes little special remembrance, whether that ever she had been a sinner or none. Yea, and full ofttimes I hope that she was so deeply disposed to the love of His Godhead that she had but right little special beholding unto the beauty of His precious and His blessed body, in the which He sat full lovely speaking and preaching before her; nor yet to anything else, bodily or ghostly. That this be sooth, it seemeth by the gospel.

(3) But say again if other cords thou feelest, Draw thee towards Him, that thou mayst proclaim With how many teeth this love is biting thee." The holy purpose of the Eagle of Christ Not latent was, nay, rather I perceived Whither he fain would my profession lead. Therefore I recommenced: "All of those bites Which have the power to turn the heart to God Unto my charity have been concurrent. The being of the world, and my own being, The death which He endured that I may live, And that which all the faithful hope, as I do, With the forementioned vivid consciousness Have drawn me from the sea of love perverse, And of the right have placed me on the shore. The leaves, wherewith embowered is all the garden Of the Eternal Gardener, do I love As much as he has granted them of good." As soon as I had ceased, a song most sweet Throughout the heaven resounded, and my Lady Said with the others, "Holy, holy, holy!" And as at some keen light one wakes from sleep By reason of the visual spirit that runs Unto the splendour passed from coat to coat,

(14) Now the Scripture kindles the living spark of the soul, and directs the eye suitably for contemplation; perchance inserting something, as the husbandman when he ingrafts, but, according to the opinion of the divine apostle, exciting what is in the soul. "For there are certainly among us many weak and sickly, and many sleep. But if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged." Now this work of mine in writing is not artfully constructed for display; but my memoranda are stored up against old age, as a remedy against forgetfulness, truly an image and outline of those vigorous and animated discourses which I was privileged to hear, and of blessed and truly remarkable men.

(3) But wherein then is this travail, I pray thee? Surely, this travail is all in treading down of the remembrance of all the creatures that ever God made, and in holding of them under the cloud of forgetting named before. In this is all the travail, for this is man’s travail, with help of grace. And the tother above—that is to say, the stirring of love—that is the work of only God. And therefore do on thy work, and surely I promise thee He shall not fail in His.

(6) What is it, then? Why, why dost thou delay? Why is such baseness bedded in thy heart? Daring and hardihood why hast thou not, Seeing that three such Ladies benedight Are caring for thee in the court of Heaven, And so much good my speech doth promise thee?" Even as the flowerets, by nocturnal chill, Bowed down and closed, when the sun whitens them, Uplift themselves all open on their stems; Such I became with my exhausted strength, And such good courage to my heart there coursed, That I began, like an intrepid person: "O she compassionate, who succoured me, And courteous thou, who hast obeyed so soon The words of truth which she addressed to thee! Thou hast my heart so with desire disposed To the adventure, with these words of thine, That to my first intent I have returned. Now go, for one sole will is in us both, Thou Leader, and thou Lord, and Master thou." Thus said I to him; and when he had moved, I entered on the deep and savage way.

(20) So also the whole, full and perfect knowledge of God does not stand in the angelical body, but in the spirit, which is generated in the heart, which goeth forth from the light, which qualifieth or operateth also with the heart and. spirit of God, wherein the whole, full and perfect knowledge of God stands. But the body cannot apprehend that animated or soulish spirit; as also the seventh nature-spirit comprehendeth not the deepest birth or geniture of God.

(30) Therefore I seriously exhort the Reader, and would have him faithfully warned, as it were with a Preface to this great Mystery, that if he do not understand it, and yet longeth and would fain have the meaning or understanding thereof, that he would pray to God for his Holy Spirit, and that he would enlighten him with the same.