(1) A will benign, in which reveals itself Ever the love that righteously inspires, As in the iniquitous, cupidity, Silence imposed upon that dulcet lyre, And quieted the consecrated chords, That Heaven's right hand doth tighten and relax. How unto just entreaties shall be deaf Those substances, which, to give me desire Of praying them, with one accord grew silent? 'Tis well that without end he should lament, Who for the love of thing that doth not last Eternally despoils him of that love! As through the pure and tranquil evening air There shoots from time to time a sudden fire, Moving the eyes that steadfast were before, And seems to be a star that changeth place, Except that in the part where it is kindled Nothing is missed, and this endureth little; So from the horn that to the right extends Unto that cross's foot there ran a star Out of the constellation shining there; Nor was the gem dissevered from its ribbon, But down the radiant fillet ran along, So that fire seemed it behind alabaster.

(6) And, thou Righteousness! when shall I see (thee, knowing the Good Mind (of God), and above all the personified) Obedience (of our lives which constitutes) the way to the most beneficent Ahura Mazda. (Asking this, I thus beseech thee, for) with this holy word of supplication we most hold off with tongue the flesh-devouring fiends, (the very sign and power of all spiritual foulness) !

(64) But thou mad World, what shall the Spirit say [of thee?] art thou not my Brother? The Essences of my Spirit stir thee, go forth out of thy Beast, and then I go with my Companions into the Garden of Roses, into the Lily of God. Why keepest thou back, and sufferest thyself to be held by the Devil? Is he not thy Enemy, he does but hunt after thy Pearl; and if he gets it, then thy Spirit becomes a Worm and Beast in its Figure. Why sufferest thou thy angelical Image to be taken away, for temporal Pleasure Sake? Thy Pleasure is only in the corruptible Beast. But what does that avail the Soul? If thou dost not go out from it, thou wilt get eternal Woe and Sorrow by it.

(9) Now fourth, on Continence I call, the Power against Desire. firm seat. For without judgement see how she hath chased Unrighteousness away. We are made righteous, son, by the departure of Unrighteousness. Power sixth I call to us - that against Avarice, Sharing-with-all. And now that Avarice is gone, I call on Truth. And Error flees, and Truth is with us. See how [the measure of] the Good is full, my son, upon Truth's coming. For Envy is gone from us; and unto Truth is joined the Good as well, with Life and Light. And now no more doth any torment of the Darkness venture nigh, but vanquished [all] have fled with whirring wings.

(7) But since the moments of thy vision fly, Here will we make full stop, as a good tailor Who makes the gown according to his cloth, And unto the first Love will turn our eyes, That looking upon Him thou penetrate As far as possible through his effulgence. Truly, lest peradventure thou recede, Moving thy wings believing to advance, By prayer behoves it that grace be obtained; Grace from that one who has the power to aid thee; And thou shalt follow me with thy affection That from my words thy heart turn not aside." And he began this holy orison.

(17) O, what sharp Thorns the Devil has brought into the Sport of Love, that we practise such proud Contention in the noble Knowledge, insomuch that Men bind up the Holy Ghost with Laws! What are Laws in the Kingdom of Christ, who has made us free, that we should walk in him in the Holy Ghost? To what Purpose are they invented, but for the Pleasure of Antichrist, who thereby struts in Might and Pomp, and is God on Earth? O fly from him, thou Child of Man, the Time is come for us to awake from the Sleep of Antichrist. Christ comes with the fair Lily out of Paradise in the Valley of Jehosaphat: It is Time for them to trim their Lamps that will go to the Marriage [of the Lamb.] The Gate [or the Explanation.]

(2) "'1. O Light of lights, I have had faith in thee. Save me from all these rulers who pursue after me, and help me, "'2. That in sooth they may never take from me my light, as the lion-faced power [did]. For thy light is not with me and thy light-stream to save me. Nay, Adamas is the more enraged against me, saying unto me: Thou hast imprisoned my power in the chaos. "'3. Now, therefore, O Light of lights, if I have done this and have imprisoned it, if I have done any injustice at all to that power, "'4. Or if I have constrained it, as it hath constrained me, then let all these rulers who pursue after me, take my light from me and leave me empty; "'5. And let foe Adamas pursue after my power and seize upon it and take my light from me and cast it into his dark power which is in the chaos, and keep my power in the chaos. "'6. Now, therefore, O Light, lay hold on me in thy wrath and lift up thy power above my foes who have lifted themselves up against me to the very end. "'7. Quicken me quickly, as thou hast said unto me: I will help thee.'

(1) I salute thee, the holy soul! O beloved one! and this for me is more appropriate than for most. Hail! O truly beloved! And to the truly Loveable and Desired, very beloved! Why should it be a marvel, if Christ speaks truly, and the unjust banish His disciples from their cities, themselves bringing upon themselves their due, and the accursed severing themselves, and departing from the holy. Truly things seen are manifest images of things unseen. For, neither in the ages which are approaching, will Almighty God be Cause of the just separations from Himself, but they by having separated themselves entirely from Almighty God; even as we observe the others, becoming here already with Almighty God, since being lovers of truth, they depart from the proclivities of things material, and love peace in a complete freedom from all things evil, and a Divine love of all things good; and start their purification, even from the present life, by living, in the midst of mankind, the life which is to come, in a manner suitable to angels, with complete cessation of passion, and deification and goodness, and the other good attributes. As for you then, I would never be so crazy as to imagine that you feel any suffering; but I am persuaded that you ate sensible of the bodily sufferings merely to appraise them. But, as for those who are unjustly treating you, and fancying to imprison, not correctly, the sun of the Gospel, whilst fairly blaming them, I pray that by separating themselves from those things which they are bringing upon themselves they may be turned to the good, and may draw you to themselves, and may participate in the light. But for ourselves, the contrary will not deprive us of the all-luminous ray of John, who are even now about to read the record, and the renewal of this, thy true theology: but shortly after (for I will say it, even though it be rash), about to be united to you yourself. For, I am altogether trustworthy, from having learned, and reading the things made foreknown to you by God, that you will both be liberated from your imprisonment in Patmos, and will return to the Asiatic coast, and will perform there imitations of the good God, and will transmit them to those after you.

(1) 'Twas now the hour that turneth back desire In those who sail the sea, and melts the heart, The day they've said to their sweet friends farewell, And the new pilgrim penetrates with love, If he doth hear from far away a bell That seemeth to deplore the dying day, When I began to make of no avail My hearing, and to watch one of the souls Uprisen, that begged attention with its hand. It joined and lifted upward both its palms, Fixing its eyes upon the orient, As if it said to God, "Naught else I care for." "Te lucis ante" so devoutly issued Forth from its mouth, and with such dulcet notes, It made me issue forth from my own mind. And then the others, sweetly and devoutly, Accompanied it through all the hymn entire, Having their eyes on the supernal wheels. Here, Reader, fix thine eyes well on the truth, For now indeed so subtile is the veil, Surely to penetrate within is easy. I saw that army of the gentle-born Thereafterward in silence upward gaze, As if in expectation, pale and humble;

(7) "Turn, Beatrice, O turn thy holy eyes," Such was their song, "unto thy faithful one, Who has to see thee ta'en so many steps. In grace do us the grace that thou unveil Thy face to him, so that he may discern The second beauty which thou dost conceal." O splendour of the living light eternal! Who underneath the shadow of Parnassus Has grown so pale, or drunk so at its cistern, He would not seem to have his mind encumbered Striving to paint thee as thou didst appear, Where the harmonious heaven o'ershadowed thee, When in the open air thou didst unveil?

(4) The more conformed thereto, the more it pleases; For the blest ardour that irradiates all things In that most like itself is most vivacious. With all of these things has advantaged been The human creature; and if one be wanting, From his nobility he needs must fall. 'Tis sin alone which doth disfranchise him, And render him unlike the Good Supreme, So that he little with its light is blanched, And to his dignity no more returns, Unless he fill up where transgression empties With righteous pains for criminal delights. Your nature when it sinned so utterly In its own seed, out of these dignities Even as out of Paradise was driven, Nor could itself recover, if thou notest With nicest subtilty, by any way, Except by passing one of these two fords: Either that God through clemency alone Had pardon granted, or that man himself Had satisfaction for his folly made. Fix now thine eye deep into the abyss Of the eternal counsel, to my speech As far as may be fastened steadfastly!

(15) Where is now thy Authority, thy Honour, thy Riches, thy Pomp and Bravery, thy Power, wherewith thou hast terrified the Needy, and hast made the Right bow and bend to thy Will? Behold, it is all in Substance, and stands before thee; the Oppressed read thy Lesson to thee; all that was rightly spoken [by thee] in this World, is there recalled again, and thou abidest (in thy Unrighteousness) in Falshood; all Lying and Deceit stand manifest in the Substance, all thy Words stand in the Tincture in the Substance of Eternity before thee, and are thy Looking-glass; they will be thy eternal gnawing Whelps, and the Book of thy Comfort and Trust. Therefore do but think what thou wilt do; wilt thou not then curse and judge thyself?

(13) This I ask Thee, O Ahura! tell me aright, how shall I banish this Demon-of-the-Lie from us hence to those beneath who are filled with rebellion? The friends of Righteousness (as it lives in Thy saints) gain no light (from their teachings), nor have they loved the questions which Thy Good Mind (asks in the soul )!

(2) But all other comforts, sounds and gladness and sweetness, that come from without suddenly and thou wottest never whence, I pray thee have them suspect. For they may be both good and evil; wrought by a good angel if they be good, and by an evil angel if they be evil. And this may on nowise be evil, if their deceits of curiosity of wit, and of unordained straining of the fleshly heart be removed as I learn thee, or better if thou better mayest. And why is that? Surely for the cause of this comfort; that is to say, the devout stirring of love, the which dwelleth in pure spirit. It is wrought of the hand of Almighty God without means, and therefore it behoveth always be far from any fantasy, or any false opinion that may befall to man in this life.

(1) "Our Father, thou who dwellest in the heavens, Not circumscribed, but from the greater love Thou bearest to the first effects on high, Praised be thy name and thine omnipotence By every creature, as befitting is To render thanks to thy sweet effluence. Come unto us the peace of thy dominion, For unto it we cannot of ourselves, If it come not, with all our intellect. Even as thine own Angels of their will Make sacrifice to thee, Hosanna singing, So may all men make sacrifice of theirs. Give unto us this day our daily manna, Withouten which in this rough wilderness Backward goes he who toils most to advance. And even as we the trespass we have suffered Pardon in one another, pardon thou Benignly, and regard not our desert. Our virtue, which is easily o'ercome, Put not to proof with the old Adversary, But thou from him who spurs it so, deliver. This last petition verily, dear Lord, Not for ourselves is made, who need it not, But for their sake who have remained behind us."

(1) When he who all the world illuminates Out of our hemisphere so far descends That on all sides the daylight is consumed, The heaven, that erst by him alone was kindled, Doth suddenly reveal itself again By many lights, wherein is one resplendent. And came into my mind this act of heaven, When the ensign of the world and of its leaders Had silent in the blessed beak become; Because those living luminaries all, By far more luminous, did songs begin Lapsing and falling from my memory. O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee, How ardent in those sparks didst thou appear, That had the breath alone of holy thoughts! After the precious and pellucid crystals, With which begemmed the sixth light I beheld, Silence imposed on the angelic bells, I seemed to hear the murmuring of a river That clear descendeth down from rock to rock, Showing the affluence of its mountain-top. And as the sound upon the cithern's neck Taketh its form, and as upon the vent Of rustic pipe the wind that enters it,

(49) And though indeed thou must walk here with thy Body in the dark Night among Thorns and Thistles, (so that the Devil and also this World does rend and tear thee, and not only buffet, despise, deride, and villify thee outwardly, but also many Times stop thy dear Mind, and lead it captive in the Lust of this World into the Bath [or Lake] of S wines,) yet then the noble Virgin will help thee still, and will call upon thee to desist from thy ungodly mWays.

(1) Beautiful Clemence, after that thy Charles Had me enlightened, he narrated to me The treacheries his seed should undergo; But said: "Be still and let the years roll round;" So I can only say, that lamentation Legitimate shall follow on your wrongs. And of that holy light the life already Had to the Sun which fills it turned again, As to that good which for each thing sufficeth. Ah, souls deceived, and creatures impious, Who from such good do turn away your hearts, Directing upon vanity your foreheads! And now, behold, another of those splendours Approached me, and its will to pleasure me It signified by brightening outwardly. The eyes of Beatrice, that fastened were Upon me, as before, of dear assent To my desire assurance gave to me. "Ah, bring swift compensation to my wish, Thou blessed spirit," I said, "and give me proof That what I think in thee I can reflect!" Whereat the light, that still was new to me, Out of its depths, whence it before was singing, As one delighted to do good, continued:

(7) And sweet to us is such a deprivation, Because our good in this good is made perfect, That whatsoe'er God wills, we also will." After this manner by that shape divine, To make clear in me my short-sightedness, Was given to me a pleasant medicine; And as good singer a good lutanist Accompanies with vibrations of the chords, Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires, So, while it spake, do I remember me That I beheld both of those blessed lights, Even as the winking of the eyes concords, Moving unto the words their little flames.

(6) And for this reason it is that I bid thee put down such a sharp subtle thought, and cover him with a thick cloud of forgetting, be he never so holy nor promise he thee never so well for to help thee in thy purpose. For why, love may reach to God in this life, but not knowing. And all the whiles that the soul dwelleth in this deadly body, evermore is the sharpness of our understanding in beholding of all ghostly things, but most specially of God, mingled with some manner of fantasy; for the which our work should be unclean. And unless more wonder were, it should lead us into much error.