Paradiso: Canto II
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Dante Alighieri and Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Thus do these organs of the world proceed, As thou perceivest now, from grade to grade; Since from above they take, and act beneath.
Observe me well, how through this place I come Unto the truth thou wishest, that hereafter Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford
The power and motion of the holy spheres, As from the artisan the hammer’s craft, Forth from the blessed motors must proceed.
The heaven, which lights so manifold make fair, From the Intelligence profound, which turns it, The image takes, and makes of it a seal.
And even as the soul within your dust Through members different and accommodated To faculties diverse expands itself,
So likewise this Intelligence diffuses Its virtue multiplied among the stars. Itself revolving on its unity.
Virtue diverse doth a diverse alloyage Make with the precious body that it quickens, In which, as life in you, it is combined.
From the glad nature whence it is derived, The mingled virtue through the body shines, Even as gladness through the living pupil.
From this proceeds whate’er from light to light Appeareth different, not from dense and rare: This is the formal principle that produces,
According to its goodness, dark and bright.”