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.

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! 

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, 

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. 

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 truth that man believes.

But tell me what the dusky spots may be
  Upon this body, which below on earth
  Make people tell that fabulous tale of Cain?"

Somewhat she smiled; and then, "If the opinion
  Of mortals be erroneous," she said,
  "Where'er the key of sense doth not unlock,

But tell me what thou think'st of it thyself."
  And I: "What seems to us up here diverse,
  Is caused, I think, by bodies rare and dense."

And she: "Right truly shalt thou see immersed
  In error thy belief, if well thou hearest
  The argument that I shall make against it.

If this were caused by rare and dense alone,
  One only virtue would there be in all
  Or more or less diffused, or equally.

Virtues diverse must be perforce the fruits
  Of formal principles; and these, save one,
  Of course would by thy reasoning be destroyed. 

Or else, as in a body is apportioned
  The fat and lean, so in like manner this
  Would in its volume interchange the leaves.

Were it the former, in the sun's eclipse
  It would be manifest by the shining through
  Of light, as through aught tenuous interfused.

But if this rarity go not through and through,
  There needs must be a limit, beyond which
  Its contrary prevents the further passing,

And thence the foreign radiance is reflected,
  Even as a colour cometh back from glass,
  The which behind itself concealeth lead. 

From this reply experiment will free thee
  If e'er thou try it, which is wont to be
  The fountain to the rivers of your arts.

Three mirrors shalt thou take, and two remove
  Alike from thee, the other more remote
  Between the former two shall meet thine eyes.

Though in its quantity be not so ample
  The image most remote, there shalt thou see
  How it perforce is equally resplendent.

Now, as beneath the touches of warm rays
  Naked the subject of the snow remains
  Both of its former colour and its cold,

Within the heaven of the divine repose
  Revolves a body, in whose virtue lies
  The being of whatever it contains.

The following heaven, that has so many eyes,
  Divides this being by essences diverse,
  Distinguished from it, and by it contained.

Thus do these organs of the world proceed,
  As thou perceivest now, from grade to grade;
  Since from above they take, and act beneath.

Observe me well, how through this place I come
  Unto the truth thou wishest, that hereafter
  Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford

The heaven, which lights so manifold make fair,
  From the Intelligence profound, which turns it,
  The image takes, and makes of it a seal.

And even as the soul within your dust
Through members different and accommodated
  To faculties diverse expands itself, 

Virtue diverse doth a diverse alloyage
  Make with the precious body that it quickens,
  In which, as life in you, it is combined.

From the glad nature whence it is derived,
  The mingled virtue through the body shines,
  Even as gladness through the living pupil.