Paradiso 33

Not surprising that the climax to the Divine Comedy ends in the experience of the light that goes beyond words.  All the other cantos are leading to this end. I reproduce the entire Canto:

Poem (Petrocchi Edition) Mandelbaum Longfellow “Virgin mother, daughter of your Son, more humble and sublime than any creature, fixed goal decreed from all eternity, you are the one who gave to human nature so much nobility that its Creator did not disdain His being made its creature. That love whose warmth allowed this flower to bloom within the everlasting peace—was love rekindled in your womb; for us above, you are the noonday torch of charity, and there below, on earth, among the mortals, you are a living spring of hope. Lady, you are so high, you can so intercede, that he who would have grace but does not seek your aid, may long to fly but has no wings. Your loving—kindness does not only answer the one who asks, but it is often ready to answer freely long before the asking. In you compassion is, in you is pity, in you is generosity, in you is every goodness found in any creature. This man—who from the deepest hollow in the universe, up to this height, has seen the lives of spirits, one by one—now pleads with you, through grace, to grant him so much virtue that he may lift his vision higher still— may lift it toward the ultimate salvation. And I, who never burned for my own vision more than I burn for his, do offer you all of my prayers—and pray that they may not fall short—that, with your prayers, you may disperse all of the clouds of his mortality so that the Highest Joy be his to see. This, too, o Queen, who can do what you would, I ask of you: that after such a vision, his sentiments preserve their perseverance. May your protection curb his mortal passions. See Beatrice—how many saints with her! They join my prayers! They clasp their hands to you!” The eyes that are revered and loved by God, now fixed upon the supplicant, showed us how welcome such devotions are to her; then her eyes turned to the Eternal Light— there, do not think that any creature’s eye can find its way as clearly as her sight. And I, who now was nearing Him who is the end of all desires, as I ought, lifted my longing to its ardent limit. Bernard was signaling—he smiled—to me to turn my eyes on high; but I, already was doing what he wanted me to do, because my sight, becoming pure, was able to penetrate the ray of Light more deeply— that Light, sublime, which in Itself is true. From that point on, what I could see was greater than speech can show: at such a sight, it fails— and memory fails when faced with such excess. As one who sees within a dream, and, later, the passion that had been imprinted stays, but nothing of the rest returns to mind, such am I, for my vision almost fades completely, yet it still distills within my heart the sweetness that was born of it. So is the snow, beneath the sun, unsealed; and so, on the light leaves, beneath the wind, the oracles the Sibyl wrote were lost. O Highest Light, You, raised so far above the minds of mortals, to my memory give back something of Your epiphany, and make my tongue so powerful that I may leave to people of the future one gleam of the glory that is Yours, for by returning somewhat to my memory and echoing awhile within these lines, Your victory will be more understood. The living ray that I endured was so acute that I believe I should have gone astray had my eyes turned away from it. I can recall that I, because of this, was bolder in sustaining it until my vision reached the Infinite Goodness. O grace abounding, through which I presumed to set my eyes on the Eternal Light so long that I spent all my sight on it! In its profundity I saw—ingathered and bound by love into one single volume— what, in the universe, seems separate, scattered: substances, accidents, and dispositions as if conjoined—in such a way that what I tell is only rudimentary. I think I saw the universal shape which that knot takes; for, speaking this, I feel a joy that is more ample. That one moment brings more forgetfulness to me than twenty— five centuries have brought to the endeavor that startled Neptune with the Argo’s shadow! So was my mind—completely rapt, intent, steadfast, and motionless—gazing; and it grew ever more enkindled as it watched. Whoever sees that Light is soon made such that it would be impossible for him to set that Light aside for other sight; because the good, the object of the will, is fully gathered in that Light; outside that Light, what there is perfect is defective. What little I recall is to be told, from this point on, in words more weak than those of one whose infant tongue still bathes at the breast. And not because more than one simple semblance was in the Living Light at which I gazed— for It is always what It was before— but through my sight, which as I gazed grew stronger, that sole appearance, even as I altered, seemed to be changing. In the deep and bright essence of that exalted Light, three circles appeared to me; they had three different colors, but all of them were of the same dimension; one circle seemed reflected by the second, as rainbow is by rainbow, and the third seemed fire breathed equally by those two circles. How incomplete is speech, how weak, when set against my thought! And this, to what I saw. is such—to call it little is too much. Eternal Light, You only dwell within Yourself, and only You know You; Self—knowing, Self—known, You love and smile upon Yourself! That circle—which, begotten so, appeared in You as light reflected—when my eyes had watched it with attention for some time, within itself and colored like itself, to me seemed painted with our effigy, so that my sight was set on it completely. As the geometer intently seeks to square the circle, but he cannot reach, through thought on thought, the principle he needs, so I searched that strange sight: I wished to see the way in which our human effigy suited the circle and found place in it— and my own wings were far too weak for that. But then my mind was struck by light that flashed and, with this light, received what it had asked. Here force failed my high fantasy; but my desire and will were moved already—like a wheel revolving uniformly—by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars. 

My journey of a 100 days of Dante ends on Thanksgiving Day 2017

Digital Dante

Columbia's Digital Dante is a pleasant way to take the journey.