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72 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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We all are ready at your pleasure, so that you may receive delight from us. One circle and one circling and one thirst are ours as we revolve with the celestial Princes whom, from the world, you once invoked: 'you who, through understanding, move the third heaven' Our love is so complete--to bring you joy, brief respite will not be less sweet.
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Charles Martel
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Tell me, who are you?
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Dante
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The world held me briefly below; but had my stay been longer much evil that will be, would not have been. My happiness, surrounding me with rays, keeps me concealed from you; it hides me like a creature that is swathed in its own silk.
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Charles Martel
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You loved me much and had good cause for that; for had I stayed below, I should have showed you more of my love than the leaves alone. The left bank that the Rhone bathes after it has mingled with the waters of the Sorgue, awaited me in due time as its lord, as did Ausonia's horn, which --south of where the Tronto and the VErde reach the sea--Catona, Bari, and Gaeta border.
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Charles Martel
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Upon my brow a crown already shone--the crown of that land where the Danube flows when it has left behind its German shores. And fair Trinacria, whom ashes (these result from surging sulphur, not Typhoeus) cover between Pachynus and Pelorus, along the gulf that Eurus vexes most, would still await its rulers born--through me--from Charles and Rudolph, if ill sovereignty, which always hurts the heart of subject peoples, had not proviked Palermo to cry out: Die! Die!
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Charles MArtel
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And if my brother could foresee what ill-rule brings, he would already flee from Catalonia's grasping poverty, aware that it may cause him injury; for truly there is need for either him or others to prevent his loaded boat from having to take on still greater loads. His niggard nature is descended from one who was generous; and he needs soldiers who are not bent on filling up their coffers.
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Charles Martel
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My lord, since I believe that you perceive completely--where all good begins and ends--the joy I see within myself on hearing your words to me, my joy is felt more freely; and I joy too, in knowing that you are blessed, since you preceived this as you gazed at God.
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Dante
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You made me glad; so may you clear the doubt that rose in me when you--before--described how from a gentle seed, harsh fruit derives.
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Dante
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If I can show one certain truth to you, you will confront what now is at your back. The Good that moves and makes content the realm through which you now ascend, makes providenceact as a force in these great heavens' bodies; and in the mind that , in itself, is perfect, not only are the natures of His creatures but their well being too provided for.
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Charles Martel
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dAnd thus, whatever this bow shoots must fall according to a providential end, just like a shaft directed to its target. Were this not so, the heavens you traverse would bring about effects in such a way that they would not be things of art but shards. That cannot be unless the Minds that move these planets are defective, and defective the First Mind, which had failed to make them perfect. Would you have this truth still more clear to you?
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Charles Martel
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No. I see it is impossible for nature to fall short of what is needed.
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Dante
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Tell me, would a man on earth be worse if he were not a citizen?
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Charles Martel
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Yes and here I need no proof
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Dante
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Can there be citizens if men below are not diverse, with diverse duties? NO, if what your master writes is accurate.
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Charles Martel
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Thus, the roots from which your tasks proceed must needs be different: so, one is born a Solon, one a Xerexes, and one a Melchizedek, and another, he who flew through the air and lost his son. Revolving nature, serving as a seal for mortal wax, plies well its art, but it does not distinguish one house from another.
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Charles Martel
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Thus, even from the seed, Esau takes leave of Jacob; and because he had a father so base, they said Quirinus was Mars' son. Engendered natures would forever take the path of those who had engendered them, did not Divine provision intervene. Now that which stood behind you, stands infront: but so that you may know the joy you give me, I now would cloak you with a corollary.
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Charles Martel
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Where Nature comes upon discrepant fortune, like any seed outside its proper region, Nature will always yield results awry. But if the world below would set its mind on the foundation Nature lays as base to follow, it would have its people worthy. But you twist to religion one whose birth made him more fit to gird a sword, and make a king of one more fit for sermoning, so that the track you take is off the road.
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Charles Martel
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Be silent and let the years revolve.
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Charles Martel
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Pray, blessed spirit, may you remedy--quickly--my wish to know give me proof that you can reflect the thoughts I think.
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Dante
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In that part of indecent Italy that lies between Rialto and the springs from which the Brenta and the Piave stream, rises a hill--of no great height--from which a firebrand descended, and it brought much injury to all the land about.
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Cunizza
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Both he and I were born of one same root:______ was my name, and I shine here because this planet's radience conquered me. But in myself I pardon happily the reason for my fate; I do not grieve--and vulgar minds may find this hard to see.
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Cunizza
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Of the resplendent, precious jewel that stands most close to me within our heaven, much fame still remains and will not die away before this hundreth year returns five times: see that if man should not seek excellence--that his first life bequeath another life.
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Cunizza
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And this, the rabble that is now enclosed between the Adige and Tagliamento does not consider, nor does it repent despite its scourgings; and since it would shun its duty, at the marsh the Paduans will stain the river-course that bathes Vicenza; and where the Sile and Cagnano flow in company, one lords it, arrogant; the net to catch him is already set.
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Cunizza
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Feltre shall yet lament the treachery of her indecent shepherd--act so filthy that for the like none ever entered prison. The vat to hold the flood of the Ferrarese would be too large indeed, and weary he who weighs it ounce by ounce--the vat that he, generous priest, will offer up to show fidelity to his Guelph party; and such gifts will suit the customs of that land.
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Cunizza
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Above are mirrors--Thrones is what you call them--and from them God in judgement shines on us; and thus we think it right to say such things.
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Cunizza
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God can see all and, blessed spirit, your vision is contained in Him, so that no wish can ever hide itself from you. Your voice has always made the heavens glad, as has the singing of the pious fires that make themselves a cowl of their six wings: why then do you not satisfy my longings? I would not have to wait for your request if I could enter you as you do me.
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Dante
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The widest valley into which the waters spread from the sea that girds the world between discrepant shores extends eastward so far against the sun, that when those waters end at the meridian, that point--when they began--was the horizon.
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Folco
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I lived along the shoreline of that valley between the Ebro and the MAgra, whose brief course divides the Genoese and Tuscans. Beneath the same sunset, the same sunrise, lie both Bougie and my own city, which once warmed its harbor with its very blood.
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Folco
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Those men to whom my name was know, called me ______; and even as this sphere receives my imprint, so was I impressed with its; for even Belus' daughter, wronging both Sychaeus and Creusa, did not burn more than I did, as long as I was young; nor did the Rhodopean woman whom Demophoon deceived, nor did Alcides when he enclosed Iole in his heart.
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Folco
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Yet one does not repent here; here one smiles--not for the fault, which we do not recall, but for the power that fashioned and foresaw. For here we contemplate the art adorned by such great love, and we discern the good through which the world above forms that below. But so that all your longings born within this sphere may be completely staisfied when you bear them away, I must continue.
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Folco
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You wish to know what spirit is within the light that here beside me sparkles so, as would a ray of sun in limpid water. Know then that Rahab lives serenely in that light, and since her presence joins our order, she seals that order in the highest rank. This heaven, where the shadow cast by earth comes to a point, had Rahab as the first soul to be taken up when Christ triumphed.
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Folco
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And it was right to leave her in this heaven as trophy of the lofty victory that Christ won, palm on palm, upon the cross, for she had favored the initial glory of Joshua within the Holy Land--which seldom touches the Pope's memory. Your city, which was planted by that one who was the first to turn against his Maker, the one whose envy cost us many tears--produces and distributes the damned flower that turns both sheep and lambs from the true course, for of the shepherd it has made a wolf.
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Folco
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For this the Gospel and the great Church Fathersare set aside and only the Decretals are studied--as their margins clearly show. On these the pope and cardinals are intent. Their thoughts are never bent on Nazareth, where Gabriel's open wings were reverent. And yet the hill of Vatican as well as other noble parts of Rome that were the cemetery for Peter's soldiery will soon be freed from priests' adultery.
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Folco
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Give thanks, give thanks to Him, the angels' Sun, who, through His grace, has lifted you to this embodied sun.
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Beatrice
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You wish to know what spirit is within the light that here beside me sparkles so, as would a ray of sun in limpid water. Know then that Rahab lives serenely in that light, and since her presence joins our order, she seals that order in the highest rank. This heaven, where the shadow cast by earth comes to a point, had Rahab as the first soul to be taken up when Christ triumphed.
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Folco
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And it was right to leave her in this heaven as trophy of the lofty victory that Christ won, palm on palm, upon the cross, for she had favored the initial glory of Joshua within the Holy Land--which seldom touches the Pope's memory. Your city, which was planted by that one who was the first to turn against his Maker, the one whose envy cost us many tears--produces and distributes the damned flower that turns both sheep and lambs from the true course, for of the shepherd it has made a wolf.
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Folco
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For this the Gospel and the great Church Fathersare set aside and only the Decretals are studied--as their margins clearly show. On these the pope and cardinals are intent. Their thoughts are never bent on Nazareth, where Gabriel's open wings were reverent. And yet the hill of Vatican as well as other noble parts of Rome that were the cemetery for Peter's soldiery will soon be freed from priests' adultery.
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Folco
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Give thanks, give thanks to Him, the angels' Sun, who, through His grace, has lifted you to this embodied sun.
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Beatrice
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Because the ray of grace, from which true love is kindled first and then, in loving, grows, shines with such splendor, multiplied, in you, that it has led you up the stair that none descends who will not climb that stair again, whoever would refuse to quench your thirst with wine from his flask, would be no more free than water that does not flow toward the sea.
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St. Thomas
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You want to know what plants bloom in this garland that, circling, contemplates with love the fair lady who strengthens your ascent to heaven. I was a lamb among the holy flock that Dominic leads on the path where one may fatten well if one does not stray off. He who is nearest on my right was both my brohter and my teacher: from Cologne, Albert and I am ____
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St. Thomas
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If you would know who all the others are, then even as I speak let your eyes follow, making their way around the holy wreath. That next flame issues from the smile of Gratian, who served one and the other court of law so well that his work pleases Paradise. That other, who adjourns our choir next--he was that Peter who, like the poor widow, offered his treasure to the Holy Church.
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St. Thomas
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The fifth light, and the fairest light among us, breathes forth such love that all the world below hungers for tidings of it; in that flame there is the lofty mind where such profound wisdom was placed that, if the truth be true, no other ever rose with so much vision. Next you can see the radiance of that candel which, in the flesh, below, beheld most deeply the angels' nature and their ministry.
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St. Thomas
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Within the other little light there smiles that champion of the Christian centuries whose narrative was used by Augustine. Now, if your mind's eye, following my praising, was drawn from light to light, you must already be thristing for the eighth: within that light, because he saw the Greatest Good, rejoices the blessed soul who makes the world's deceit most plain to all who hear him carefully.
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St. Thomas
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The flesh from which his soul was banished lies below, within Cieldauro, and he came from martyrdom and exile to this peace. Beyond, you see, flaming, the ardent spirits of Isidore and Bede and Richard--he whose meditation made him more than man. Beyond, you see, tlaming, the ardent spirits of Isidore and Bede and Richard--he whose meditation made him more than man.
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St. Thomas
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This light from whom your gaze returns to me contains a spirit whose oppressive thoughts made him see death as coming much too slowly: it is the everlasting light of Siger, who when he lectured in the Street of Straw, demonstrated truths that earned him envy.
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St. Thomas
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Even as I grow bright within Its rays, so, as I gaze at the Eternal Light, I can perceive your thoughts and see their cause. You are in doubt; you want an explanation in language that is open and expanded, so clear that it contents your understanding of 2 points: where I said, 'They fatten well,' and where I said, 'No other ever rose'--and here one has to make a clear distinction.
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St. Thomas
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The Providence that rules the world with wisdom so fathomless that creatures' intellects are vanquished and can never probe its depth, so that the BRide of Him who, with loud cries, has wed her with more fidelity and more assurance in herself, on her behalf commanded that there be 2 princes, one on this side, one on that side, as her guides.
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St. Thomas
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One prince was all seraphic in his ardor; th other, for his wisdom, had possessed all the splendor of cherubic light on earth. I shall devote my tale to one, because in praising either prince one praises both; the labors of the 2 were toward one goal. Between Topino's stream and that which flows down from the hill the blessed Ubaldo chose, from a high peak there hangs a fertile slope; from there Perugia feels both heat and cold at Porta Sole, while behind it sorrow Nocera and Cualdo under their hard yoke.
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St. Thomas
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From this hillside, where it abates its rise, a sun was born into the world, much like this sun when it is climbing from the Ganges. Therefore let him who names this site not say Ascesi, which would be to say too little, but Orient, if he would name it rightly. That sun was not yet very distant from his rising, when he caused the earth to take some comfort from his mighty influence.
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St. Thomas
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For even as a youth, he ran to war against his father, on behalf of her--the lady unto whom, just as to death, none willingly unlocks the door; before his spiritual court et coram parte, he wed her; day by day he loved her more. She was bereft of her first husband; scorned, obscure, for some 11 hundred years, until that sun came, she had had no suitor.
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St. Thomas
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Nor did it help her when men heard that he who made earth tremble found her unafraid--serene, with Amyclas--when he addressed her; nor did her constancy and courage help when she, even when Mary stayed below, suffered wit Christ upon the cross. But so that I not tell my tale too darkly, you may now take Francis and take Poverty to be the lovers meant in my recounting.
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St. Thomas
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Their harmony and their glad looks, their love and wonder and their gentle contemplation, served others as a source of holy thoughts; so much so, that the venerable Bernard went barefoot first; he hurried toward such peace; and though he ran, he thought his pace too slow. O wealth unknown! O good that is so fruitful! Egidius goes barefoot and Sylvester, behind the groom--the bride delights them so.
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St. Thomas
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Then Francis--father, master--goes his way with both his lady and his family, the lowly cord already round their waists. Nor did he lower his eyes in shame because he was the son ofPietro Bernardone, nor for the scorn and wonder he aroused; but like a sovereign, he disclosed in full--to Innocent--the sternness of his rule; from him he had the first seal of his order.
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St. Thomas
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And after many of the poor had followedFrancis, whose wondrous life were better sung by glory's choir in the Empyrean, the sacred purpose of this cheif of shepherds was then encircled with a second crown by the Eternal Spirit through Honorius. And after, in his thirst for martyrdom within the presence of Christ and those who followed Him.
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St. Thomas
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But, finding bearers who were too unripe to be converted, he--not wasting time--returned to harvest the Italian fields; there, on the naked crag between the Arno and Tiber, he received the final seal from Christ; and this, his limbs bore for two years. When He who destined Francis to such goodness was pleased to draw him up to the reward that he had won though his humility, then to his borhters, as to rightful heirs, Francis commended his most precious lady, and he bade them to love her faithfully.
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ST. Thomas
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And when, returning to its kingdom, his bright soul wanted to set forth from her bosom, it, for its body, asked no other beir. Consider now that man who was a colleague worthy of Francis; with him, in high seas, he kept the bark of Peter on true course. Such was our patriarch, thus you can see that those who follow him as he commands, as cargo carry worthy merchandise.
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St. Thomas
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But now his flock is grown so greedy for new nourishment that it must wander far, in search of strange and distant grazing lands; and as his sheep, remote and vagabond, stray farther from his side, at their return into the fold, their lack of milk is greater. Though there are some indeed who, fearing harm, stay near the shepherd, they are few in number--to cowl them would require little cloth.
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St. Thomas
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Now if my words are not too dim and distant, if you have listened carefully to them, if you can call to mind what has been said, then part of what you wish to know is answered, for you will see the splinters on the plant and see what my correction meant: 'Where one may fatten well, if one does not stray off.'"
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St. Thomas
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The love that makes me fair draws me to speak about the other leader because of whom my own was so praised here. Where one is, it is right to introduce the other: side by side, they fought, so may they share in glory and together gleam. Christ's army, whose rearming cost so dearly, was slow, uncertain of tiself, and scan ty behind its ensign, when the Emperor who rules forever helped his ranks in danger--only out of His grace and not their merits.
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St. Bonventure
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And, as was said, He then sustained His bride, providing her with 2 who could revive a straggling people: champions who would by doing and by preaching bring new life. In that part of the West where gently zephyr rises to open those new leaves in which Europe appears reclothed, not far from where, behind the waves that beat upon the coast, the sun, grown weary from its lengthy course, at times conceals itself from all men's eyes--there, Calaroga, blessed by fortune, sits under the aegis of the mighty shield on which the lipn loses and prevails.
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St. Boneventure
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Within its walls was born the loving vassal of Christian faith, the holy athlete, one kind to his own and harsh to enemies; no sooner was his mind created than it was so full of living force that it, still in his mother's womb, made her prophetic. Then, at the sacred font, where Faith and he brought mutual salvation as their dowry, the rites of their espousal were complete.
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St. Boneventure
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The lady who had given the assent for him saw, in a dream, astonishing fruit that would spring from him and from his heirs. And that his name might echo what he was, a spirit moved from here to have him called by the possessive of the One by whom he was possessed completely. Dominic became his name; I speak of him as one whom Christ chose as the worker in His garden.
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St. Boneventure
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He seemed the fitting messenger and servant of Christ: the very first love that he showed was for the first injunction Christ had given. His nurse would often find him on the ground, alret and silent, in a way that said: 'It is for this that I have come.' Truly, his father was Felice and his mother Giovanna if her name, interpreted, is in accord with what has been asserted.
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St. Boneventure
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Not for the world, for which men now travail along Taddeo's way or Ostian's but through his love of the true manna, he became, in a brief time, so great a teacher that he began to oversee the vineyard that withers when neglected by its keeper. And from the seatthat once was kinder to the righteous poor (and now has gone astrya, not in itself, but in its occupant), he did not ask to offer 2 or 3 for 6, nor for a vacant benefice, nor decimas, quae sunt pauperum Dei
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St. Boneventure
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But pleaded for the right to fight against the erring world, to serve the seed from which there grew the four-and-twenty plans that ring you. Then he, with both his learning and his zeal, and with his apostolic office, like a torrent hurtled from a mountain source, coursed, and his impetus, with greatest force, struck where the thickets of the heretics offered the most resistance. And from him there sprang the streams with which the catholic garden has found abundant watering, so that its saplings have more life, more green.
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St. Bonventure
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If such was one wheel of the chariot in which the Holy Church, in her defense, taking the field, defeated enemies within, then you must see the excellence o him--the other wheel--whom Thomas praised so graciously before I made my entry. And yet the track traced by the outer rim of that whell is abandoned now--as in a cask of wine when crust gives way to mold.
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St. Boneventure
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His family, which once advenced with steps that followed his footprints, has now turned back: its forward foot now seeks the foot that lags. And soon we are to see, at harvest time, the poor grain gathered, when the tares will be denied a place within the bin--and weep.
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St. Boneventure
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I do admit that, if one were to search our volume leaf by leaf, he might still read one page with, I am as I always was' ; but those of Acquasparta or Casale who read our Rule are either given to escaping it or making it too strict. I am the living light of Bonaventure of Bagnorea; in high offices I always put the left-hand interests last. Illuminato and Augustine are here; they were among the first unshod poor brothers to wear the cors, becoming friends of God.
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St. Boneventure
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Hugh of St. Victor, too, is here with them; Peter of Spain, who, with his 12 books, glows on earth below; and Peter Book-Devourer, Nathan the prophet, Anselm and Chrysostom the Metropolitan, and that Donatus who deigned to deal with that art which comes first.
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St. Bonavelent
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Rabanus, too, is here; and at my ied shines the Calabrian Abbot Joachim, who had the gift of the prophetic spirit. To this--my praise of such a paladin--the glowing courtesy and the discerning language of Thomas urged me on and stirred, with me, the souls that form this company.
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ST. Bonavelent
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Since one stalk is threshed, and since its grain is in the granary already. sweet love leads me to thresh the other stalk. You think that any light which human nature can rightfully possess was all infused by that Force which had shaped both of these 2: the one out of whose chest was drawn the rib from which was formed the lovely cheek whose palate was the to prove so costly to the world; and One whose chest was transfixed by the lance, who satisfied all past and future sins, outweighing them upon the scales of justince.
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St. Thomas
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Therefore you wondered at my words when I--before--said that no other ever vied wit that great soul enclosed in the 5th light. Now let your eyes hold fast to my reply, and you will see: truth centers noth my speech and your belief, just like a circle's center. Both that which never dies and that which dies are only the reflected light of that Idea which our Sire, with Love, begets; because the living Lithg that pours out so from Its bright Source that IT does not disjoin from It or from the Love intrined with them. through its own goodness gathers up Its rays within 9 essences, as in a mirror, Itself eternally remaining One.
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St. Thomas
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