The First Heaven, or that of the moon, in which are seen the spirits of those who, having taken monastic vows, were forced to violate them.
O Ye, who in some pretty little boat, Eager to listen, have been following Behind my ship, that singing sails along, Turn back to look again upon your shores; Do not put out to sea, lest peradventure, In losing me, you might yourselves be lost. The sea I sail has never yet been passed; Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo, And Muses nine point out to me the Bears. Ye other few who have the neck uplifted Betimes to th’ bread of Angels upon which One liveth here and grows not sated by it, Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you Upon the water that grows smooth again. Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be, When Jason they beheld a ploughman made! The con-created and perpetual thirst For the realm deiform did bear us on, As swift almost as ye the heavens behold. Upward gazed Beatrice, and I at her; And in such space perchance as strikes a bolt And flies, and from the notch unlocks itself, Arrived I saw me where a wondrous thing Drew to itself my sight; and therefore she From whom no care of mine could be concealed, Towards me turning, blithe as beautiful, Said unto me: “Fix gratefully thy mind On God, who unto the first star has brought us.” It seemed to me a cloud encompassed us, Luminous, dense, consolidate and bright As adamant on which the sun is striking. Into itself did the eternal pearl Receive us, even as water doth receive A ray of light, remaining still unbroken. If I was body, (and we here conceive not How one dimension tolerates another, Which needs must be if body enter body,) More the desire should be enkindled in us That essence to behold, wherein is seen How God and our own nature were united. There will be seen what we receive by faith, Not demonstrated, but self-evident In guise of the first