Canto II of Paradise

Where reason has no more ground. 
See how love can be subjective.



 O voi che siete in piccioletta barca,
desiderosi d'ascoltar, seguiti
dietro al mio legno che cantando varca,

  tornate a riveder li vostri liti:
non vi mettete in pelago, ché forse,
perdendo me, rimarreste smarriti.

  L'acqua ch'io prendo già mai non si corse;
Minerva spira, e conducemi Appollo,
e nove Muse mi dimostran l'Orse.

  Voialtri pochi che drizzaste il collo
per tempo al pan de li angeli, del quale
vivesi qui ma non sen vien satollo,

"Oh you! who, eager to understand, followed me up to now, 
and who hope rather then believe to know, the bread of the angels, 
which one nourishes himself without never being satisfied, then follow my steps." 


The innate thirst of the kingdom formed by the image of God, carried us as quickly as is driven the Sky. 
Jeanne looked above, and me, I looked inside Her, and as quickly as the time to say it, 
I saw myself arrived where a marvellous thing attracted my glances. Also, She, to whom  
I could not hide my desire, turned towards me, as merry as beautiful, she said to me:


 "Be grateful to God to have joined us together, here at the first star." 

It seemed to me that a cloud covered us, brilliant and similar to a diamond struck by the sun. 
The eternal pearl received us in it, as water receives a ray of light, without having to open. 
How one can understand this miracle as if my desire to penetrate Jeanne could be realized, 
and that from this union would spout out a single entity? 
One cannot explain differently then by Faith, without any other demonstration,
 that our nature comes to links itself to God.

 I spoke to Jeanne as such:

 "My Lovely Lady, with as much devotion that I can, 
I thank  the One who withdrew me from the mortal world and carried me towards you. 
But, tell me my Lovely Lady, what are, on your so bright face, these freckles which make that on earth, 
your face was so beautiful, and that here, it shines of the same fire as that of the angels?" 


Jeanne smiled and She answered to me: 
"You should not be astonished by what the opinion of mortals is misleaded 
on the meaning of things, since you see that even while following the meaning of things, 
the reason here, does not have any more influence.
But tell me first what you think about it." 


I answered to Her: 
"What on earth, appears to be beautiful to us, comes from the diversity of the things on one hand, 
and on the other hand, of the rarity of what makes the beauty of things. 
Would I be inflamed by you, Lovely Lady, if your beauty was similar to that of any thing, 
and what attracts me on you, is it not the rarity of the thing?"


She replied at once:  
"You will see with certainty how false is your opinion, if you listen well, the arguments 
that I will oppose to it. If diversity and the rarity were the cause, they would have all the same virtue, 
some having received more and the other less. But from different virtues rise different formal principles,
 which constitute the different species of the bodies, and not from the material principle which is the same 
 on every individual. Moreover, if the rarity was well the cause you seek in my beauty, or, it would be 
 singular and you would not be attracted any more, by some sombre African girls, or 
 by Asiatic girls with almond eyes, or Lesbians with white skin, some hermaphrodites Brazilian women, 
 or by, still virgins Young girls with clear eyes. 

That is not the case and it is necessary to examine another assumption; and if I manage to refute it, 
your opinion will appear false. If the rarity of my beauty attracts only you and not the others, 
it is that there is a limit beyond which the beauty is not reflected any more, like my face in a mirror.
 You could oppose, admittedly, that beauty shows there less imperceptibly than in another body, 
 because hid from the sight. From this objection,  experimentation, if ever you wanted to try it, 
 could clear you from it, which is the source from where, the art of seduction originates. 

See by the example of the three ladies, how, according to Cavalcanti, love is subjective. 
When you see a lady,  it seams you see, from her face, grow a second lady so beautiful  that 
your spirit cannot understand it, and at once, a third one is born of a strange beauty which says this: 

"I am your salvation!" 
 
However, as the substance of snow is deprived from colour and  cold under 
the warm rays of the sun, so are you, from now on, convinced if I tell you
that She will sparkle from a light even sharper if  She gives herself  to you!

 In the sky of the Empyree, an Intelligence is driven, in the virtue of which the relative beauty 
of any creature lies. The following sky which is full of stars, distributes the beauty from it
in the various discinctives virtues which are contained in Her. 
The others skies, according to their own characters, direct at their own ends the distinctives
 virtues which are in them and sow them. As you see it from now on, the heavens do like so, 
from one degree to the other: they are influenced from above and they act downwards.

Now listen well how, by my reasoning, I satisfy your desires of knowing all thing, so that you then, 
can understand by yourself. The movement and the influence of heaven, to which so many stars 
give their beauty, receive the image of the profound thought which puts it in movement and made it real. 
And, like the soul in the body, spreads itself in their directions, laid out for various functions,
thus the intelligence deploys its beauty multiplied through them, by keeping its unit in its movement.
Each virtue is combined variously to the precious body which it animates, and binds itself to it, like life with them. 
Thanks to the happy nature from which it derives, this virtue related to the celestial body resplendit in it, 
like joy in the pupil of a young girl. 

It is from it that comes what seems to differ from body to body, and not from the rarity:
 it is the formal principle which produces the glare, and its opposite."