Canto XXIV of Paradise
The Fruit of the threes of the Garden of Eden.
Love, the argument of the invisible thing.
«O sodalizio eletto a la gran cena del benedetto Agnello, il qual vi ciba sě, che la vostra voglia č sempre piena, se per grazia di Dio questi preliba di quel che cade de la vostra mensa, prima che morte tempo li prescriba, ponete mente a l'affezione immensa e roratelo alquanto: voi bevete sempre del fonte onde vien quel ch'ei pensa». Cosě Beatrice; e quelle anime liete si fero spere sopra fissi poli, fiammando, a volte, a guisa di comete.
"Oh brotherhood elected to the source of the divine Lamb, and who nourishes yourself from him, so that your desires are always satisfied, consider the intensity of his desire, and answer his thirst before tha death does carry him away!" Thus spoke Jeanne, and the souls turned with joy and covetousness around themselves, with a radiation as sharp as that of the comets. I saw coming from them, a crown more brilliant, which approached and turned around Jeanne, while declining so soft words, that I saw myself reddened when repeating them. "Oh Our holy sister, who asked Us so devotely to come, it is the ardour of Our affection for You, who makes Us thus, leave Our cloister, to let Us bewitch that way by Your grace!" And Jeanne to answer: "Oh good Peter, to whom Our Lord entrusted the keys of Happiness! Rather examine this one present, on points of the faith, so that he has to speak and to the glorify about it." And the Master, who seemed vexed to see me in this place, says to me: "Tell me, you, who believe you are a believer, what is the faith?" And I answered to him, after a long reflexion: "The faith is the substance of the hoped thing and the argument of the invisible thing, here is what I believe and who appear to me to be its essence. The profound things which are revealed here, to me, are so ignored on earth, that their existence can only be, by the desire to believe or to have the faith, in Love which is the argument of the invisible thing, and, in Jeanne, who is the substance of the hoped thing." "It is necessary for you now to express, in addition to the essence of what you believe, from where this belief does come to you?" "I believe in a single and eternal Entity, which, without being driven by itself, puts in movement the Object, the Desire and the Love, and I do not only have of this faith, metaphysical but also metaphysicals evidences, and it is the truth of over there and that from here which demonstrate it to me, by the body and the spirit of Jeanne and by you, who wrote it after the Fire of Love had sanctified you. Thus I believe in three eternal entities, and I believe them an essence, one and trine at the same time: Jeanne, me and Love joined together in One. From the deep divine mystery of which I speak, it is the principle, it is the spark which dilates, and which opens itself, and which transform itself into a sharp flame, and which only awaits tthe entry in scene of my progenitor imember, packed with million of thirsty gametas to make her shine like a star in the sky." This answer seems to please my Master and, by the smile of Jeanne, I understood that I had allured her.
Marco Polo ou le voyage imaginaire (La tragédie humaine, janvier 2000) © 1999 Jean-Pierre Lapointe
Theme musical: matilda de Pink Floyd, emprunté aux Classical Midi Archives.
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