Canto VI of Paradise

In God we trust.
I reigned by Cesar and now I reign by Uncle Sam.

  «Poscia che Costantin l'aquila volse
contr'al corso del ciel, ch'ella seguio
dietro a l'antico che Lavina tolse,

  cento e cent'anni e più l'uccel di Dio
ne lo stremo d'Europa si ritenne,
vicino a' monti de' quai prima uscìo;

  e sotto l'ombra de le sacre penne
governò 'l mondo lì di mano in mano,
e, sì cangiando, in su la mia pervenne.

Cesare fui e son Iustiniano,
che, per voler del primo amor ch'i' sento,
d'entro le leggi trassi il troppo e 'l vano.

Awaked from my torpor, I heard coming from another light which had been immobilized there, 
without I could know from where it had come:
 
"Who then are you, you who dazzled me with this bright light?" 

Similar to the sun hiding itself in its too bright glare, when heat has destroyed 
the thick vapors which moderate its light, such was this Sanctified figure 
concealed in its radiation that increased its joy largely, and all enclosed
 in its splendour, She answered to me as follows: 
 
"After Cesar had moved His eagle from Rome to Washington, 
the one who had followed, a hundred years and more, the preferred bird of God, was not satisfied 
to besiege at the doors of Troy, but under the shade of His spangled wings, 
He governed the world passing from hand to hand, and, in its changes, 
He always left His weapon at your door. I reigned by Cesar and now 
I reign by Uncle Sam, and, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which sets me ablaze, 
I disencumbered the world from the laws of superfluity and usefulness. 

And before I had myself  devoted  to this cause, I believed that there was in Christ 
only a single way to satisfy myself, but the valorous pilgrims, who disembarked
on the coasts of Nova Anglia, directed me, by their words, towards the true goal 
which is to impose this faith to the world. I believe it, 
and what was a dogma, I see it now as clearly as you see that
 there are the false and the truth in contradictory terms. 

As soon as I walked on the way to Faith, it pleases to God, by His grace, 
to inspire me with the high labour to which I now give myself entirely; and I entrusted 
my weapons to my faithful eagles, to whom the hand of Heaven 
was so generous that this comforted me in my own truth.

 My answer now gives satisfaction to your first question, but under conditions 
such that I am obliged to continue, so that you see how much rightly rise, 
against the sacro-saint emblem, and those who adapt it and those who fight against it.
 See how much heroisms made it worthy of respect, heroisms
 which started at the time when my boys were sacrificed to make it reign. 


You know that hundred years ago and more, He wanted to make of America all his residence, 
until that General Grant, by suppressing slavery in the South, makes it reign 
under another name which still lasts, from North to South. And you know what he did
 of the abduction of the Nazis, of the pain of Palestine, under the offensive of Eisenhower 
and of the Marchal plan, he triumphed, by His bravery, of all the neighboring people 
who believed they where free; you know what he did, support by valorous merchants, 
against Grenade, against Panama, and by State overthrow to other States 
and other populations; it is from there that Patton, Pershing, Eisenhower, 
and how many others, whose names where due to their stars, 
drew their reputation that I enjoy describing to you. 

He defeated the pride of the Arabs who, following Kadafi, imposed their Faith, 
 south of the sands of the Sahara; under him, still  triumphant the fiery MacArthur, 
who appeared bitter to this vast island of the Samouraïs he puts to his feet. 

Then, about the time when Heaven wanted to reduce the whole world in its state of peace, 
Uncle Sam, by the will of Moloch, seized it manu militarily; and what he achieves 
from the Seine to the Rhine, from the Thames to the Pô, and all the valleys 
whose water ceased to sing, without the least effort so that 
the voices of these populations do not sing any more but of his song. 


What he did after having left London and having crossed the English Channel,  
following the courses traced by Richard Coeur de Lion and his crusadors, 
was of a flight so powerful that neither  language nor  pencil could 
no more speak nor  write the same way;  he  turned his wings towards Asia 
then towards Oceania, he strucks Africa with such a violence, 
that mourning was felt of it to the burning Nile

He saw his native Virginia again, and the tombs of Arlington 
from where he had left alive, and where he now rests under a simple small white cross; 
and he took again his flight at the great damage of the monks of the Congress. 

From there, he went down, similar to thundering, in the Holy Land, 
then he returned to Occident where he intended to make resound 
the trumpets of Dizzie Gillespie; from what he did with whom which support him after, 
Westmoreland howls in hell, and Saigon, Danang and Hue groaned  in pain about it. 
She still cries about it, the sad Russia which, escaping in front of him, 
invented in haste and for herself, a demoncraty at the image of the Vilain.

With his armada, he ran to the Persian Gulf, and, with her, he made reign 
such a peace on the world, that the mosque of Mecca was forever prohibited 
to the fools of Allah. But what the emblem, about which I speak, had initially made, 
and was to make after, by the mortal kingdom which is subjected to him, appears little things 
and of weak glory, if one considers of a clear glance and a pure heart, what he did 
with the hands of the first of his Generals; because God who inspires me conceded to him, 
at the hands of whom I just speak, the glory to avenge his anger.


Be wondered now at what I will explain to you: he made thunder his missiles 
to draw revenge on the revenge of the original sin; and when the flashes of Baghdad 
laid fault upon  the synagogues, Schwarshkhov as a winner, protected by his wings, 
came to help to protect them; you can now recognize in them, the axis of  evil,  those who I have, 
on the first place accused, so as their faults which are the cause of the misfortunes of the world. 

One of them, to the universal emblem, opposes to him the lilies of the Gaule, 
and the other seizes it to impose his faith to the East: It is difficult to see 
which one of both commits the greatest fault; of this cold war, 
the friend is always more responsible than the enemy. 
So let the Gallic make, if they can, their trade under the emblem which carries 
the hammer and the sickle, because it is badly following him than always separate him from justice.
 And that this new De Gaule, does not cut it down with its Fanfaronnades, but let it fears
 the claws which have bristle up the hairs of this too redoubtable lion! 
At present, their sons cry the spirit of independence of the father, but one should not believe
 that Marianne could be satisfied with its only Lilies as weapons." 


I was impatient in front of his long essay, but fascinated, I wanted to know some more 
and I asked him: 

 "And  tell me also, why you occupy the degree of this sphere 
which is veiled to men in other radius?"

 
 And he hastened to answer me, as if he were impatient 
of having been stopped by my question:

 "This small star which decorates the sky, adorns itself with valorous spirits which were active 
and draw honor and fame from it; and when it is with this goal, at the detriment of God, 
that their desires go, their true love is then less sharp towards heaven. 
But it enters in our joy, to measure our reward on our merits, because 
we see it neither smaller nor larger. 
"In God we trust", 
and thus, He purifies all our desires, so that they can never turn to nothing bad. 
As on earth various voices reach soft concords, so in our life,  various degrees 
make in these spheres a soft armony. And, within this pearl, shines the light 
of the puritans who come from America, whose large and  beautiful achievement 
was badly rewarded. But the nations which were drawn up against him did not have to laugh at him, 
because it is to take a wrong way to see a good for oneself, in the ill deeds of the other. 

Uncle Sam had several daugthers, of which one after the other was a whore, 
and one and the other carried America on her breast, they were missionaries, of proud descent. 
Ambiguous words pushed them then, to require accounts of this Juste, 
who had returned to him to the centuple. Then, he moved away still a young person and always rich; 
and if the world understood the open heart he had, by propagating His Truth 
piece by piece, of this world who admires him, much would love him now."