第101章 Paradiso: Canto VII(2)

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!

Man in his limitations had not power To satisfy, not having power to sink In his humility obeying then, Far as he disobeying thought to rise;

And for this reason man has been from power Of satisfying by himself excluded.

Therefore it God behoved in his own ways Man to restore unto his perfect life, I say in one, or else in both of them.

But since the action of the doer is So much more grateful, as it more presents The goodness of the heart from which it issues, Goodness Divine, that doth imprint the world, Has been contented to proceed by each And all its ways to lift you up again;

Nor 'twixt the first day and the final night Such high and such magnificent proceeding By one or by the other was or shall be;

For God more bounteous was himself to give To make man able to uplift himself, Than if he only of himself had pardoned;

And all the other modes were insufficient For justice, were it not the Son of God Himself had humbled to become incarnate.

Now, to fill fully each desire of thine, Return I to elucidate one place, In order that thou there mayst see as I do.

Thou sayst: 'I see the air, I see the fire, The water, and the earth, and all their mixtures Come to corruption, and short while endure;

And these things notwithstanding were created;'

Therefore if that which I have said were true, They should have been secure against corruption.

The Angels, brother, and the land sincere In which thou art, created may be called Just as they are in their entire existence;

But all the elements which thou hast named, And all those things which out of them are made, By a created virtue are informed.

Created was the matter which they have;

Created was the informing influence Within these stars that round about them go.

The soul of every brute and of the plants By its potential temperament attracts The ray and motion of the holy lights;

But your own life immediately inspires Supreme Beneficence, and enamours it So with herself, it evermore desires her.

And thou from this mayst argue furthermore Your resurrection, if thou think again How human flesh was fashioned at that time When the first parents both of them were made."