Canto XX of Paradise
The representation of the eternal Pleasure.
Our happiness, is to desire only what God wants.
Quando colui che tutto 'l mondo alluma de l'emisperio nostro sì discende, che 'l giorno d'ogne parte si consuma, lo ciel, che sol di lui prima s'accende, subitamente si rifà parvente per molte luci, in che una risplende; e questo atto del ciel mi venne a mente, come 'l segno del mondo e de' suoi duci nel benedetto rostro fu tacente; però che tutte quelle vive luci, vie più lucendo, cominciaron canti da mia memoria labili e caduci.
When Whom who lights our world, comes down at the horizon while making the day die out from all parts, the sky lights up suddenly with many lights, where only him reflected himself; and this change on the sky came to my mind, when the emblem of the Masters of the world kept silent; all these living lights became then much brighter, and started singing songs, impossible to retain and quickly forgotten. Oh sweet Love, who dresses herself with your smile, and who is so full of ardour to whisper to me, so many sanctified thoughts! When I saw Jupiter, decorated with invaluable and brilliant rubies, to impose silence on their angelic songs, it seemed to me I heard the murmur of a river, which runs, limpid, from stone to stone, thus revealing the abundance of its source. This murmur rose from a holy Image of Extasy which appeared to me above me, as a sound which leaves a hollow form, and which becomes a voice, then which spouts out from there in the form of words, such as I remember it and that I then could not describe it. She started saying to me: "You must now look into me with attention, the fires which decorates the essence of who I am, and which are the representations of what your spirit knows but cannot see. The fire which shone in the middle of my pupil is the one which is reflected in your soul, and which pushes you into the desire to take me without having known how to recognize me. The other fires which revolve around my brain, are the fires which feed your desire, and which push you to take me, without eaven knowing the reason of my resistance. These other fires which furnish my sacred vulva, are the same fires that you carry into your member, and which push you to take me without eaven reaching me in my soul. Then, the fires which die out in my soul, are the same ones which dies out in your soul, and which push you to hang yourself without eaven having known how to love me. And if you well want to share with me the fire which burns in you and which burns in me and which pushes us one into the other and in love, we will make nothing more than a single eternal fire." Such appeared to me, the representation of the eternal Pleasure, which desire makes everything becoming real. And although I let my doubt appear, I could not wait in silence, but I let escape from my mouth: "Is it this as such?" This is what let me see the joy which was reflected in these fires. Then at once, with her eye shining more, the holy image answered to me, not to hold me in suspend: "Do not believe these things only because I tell them to you, but learn by yourself how they can be, so that they appear to you by their own intelligence; do not be such whom who learns a thing only by its name, but cannot know the essence of it if another one does not reveal it to him. The Divine virtue can be overcome by the violence of an ardent love, not as the victory of the rapist over the lover who succumbs to the winner, but because in her divine charity she let herself be taken, and is victorious thus, by her only kindness. I see that you are astonished, to see thus, the dwelling of the angels ornates itself with these lights which decorate my eyebrow. One and the other soul have left their bodies of sin and virtue, to send to sleep their suffering and their salvation on the crucified feet of Jesus. That one returned, by her only will, from the stay of the Limbs, and she covered herself again with the coat of her flesh, because she put all her strenght to request from God to raise her from the death. She only remained for a little time, because she believed in Whom who could blaze up himself with love for her, and while believing in Him, she was worthy to come to the carnal feast. As for the Other, by the effect of an unsoundable grace, she devoted all her love at being just, so that God opened her eyes to the redemption, and that she left the world of perversion to come and share with Him, the carnal joys of the feast. Oh mortals! do not judge us to know God, and that He holds us ignorant of the first cause of everything. Oh predestination! how soft it is for us not to know still, all the elected ones to the feast, because our happiness, we find it elsewhere, in this good which is, to desire only what God wants." It is thus, by this divine image, it was given to me a suave remedy, to clarify my short sight. As a guitar player tunes his cords to the voice of the singer, and increases the pleasure of the song, thus, while she spoke to me, I remember that I saw the two blessed lights, such as two eyes that beats simultaneously, with the words, vibrate of all their flames.
Marco Polo ou le voyage imaginaire (La tragédie humaine, janvier 2000) © 1999 Jean-Pierre Lapointe
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