But since upon the earth, throughout your schools, They teach that such is the angelic nature That it doth hear, and recollect, and will, More will I say, that thou mayst see unmixed The truth that is confounded there below, Equivocating in such like prelections.
These substances, since in God's countenance They jocund were, turned not away their sight From that wherefrom not anything is hidden;
Hence they have not their vision intercepted By object new, and hence they do not need To recollect, through interrupted thought.
So that below, not sleeping, people dream, Believing they speak truth, and not believing;
And in the last is greater sin and shame.
Below you do not journey by one path Philosophising; so transporteth you Love of appearance and the thought thereof.
And even this above here is endured With less disdain, than when is set aside The Holy Writ, or when it is distorted.
They think not there how much of blood it costs To sow it in the world, and how he pleases Who in humility keeps close to it.
Each striveth for appearance, and doth make His own inventions; and these treated are By preachers, and the Evangel holds its peace.
One sayeth that the moon did backward turn, In the Passion of Christ, and interpose herself So that the sunlight reached not down below;
And lies; for of its own accord the light Hid itself; whence to Spaniards and to Indians, As to the Jews, did such eclipse respond.
Florence has not so many Lapi and Bindi As fables such as these, that every year Are shouted from the pulpit back and forth, In such wise that the lambs, who do not know, Come back from pasture fed upon the wind, And not to see the harm doth not excuse them.
Christ did not to his first disciples say, 'Go forth, and to the world preach idle tales,'
But unto them a true foundation gave;
And this so loudly sounded from their lips, That, in the warfare to enkindle Faith, They made of the Evangel shields and lances.
Now men go forth with jests and drolleries To preach, and if but well the people laugh, The hood puffs out, and nothing more is asked.
But in the cowl there nestles such a bird, That, if the common people were to see it, They would perceive what pardons they confide in, For which so great on earth has grown the folly, That, without proof of any testimony, To each indulgence they would flock together.
By this Saint Anthony his pig doth fatten, And many others, who are worse than pigs, Paying in money without mark of coinage.
But since we have digressed abundantly, Turn back thine eyes forthwith to the right path, So that the way be shortened with the time.
This nature doth so multiply itself In numbers, that there never yet was speech Nor mortal fancy that can go so far.
And if thou notest that which is revealed By Daniel, thou wilt see that in his thousands Number determinate is kept concealed.
The primal light, that all irradiates it, By modes as many is received therein, As are the splendours wherewith it is mated.
Hence, inasmuch as on the act conceptive The affection followeth, of love the sweetness Therein diversely fervid is or tepid.
The height behold now and the amplitude Of the eternal power, since it hath made Itself so many mirrors, where 'tis broken, One in itself remaining as before."
