Such seemed to me the image of the imprint
  Of the eternal pleasure, by whose will
  Doth everything become the thing it is.

And notwithstanding to my doubt I was
  As glass is to the colour that invests it,
  To wait the time in silence it endured not,

But forth from out my mouth, "What things are these?"
  Extorted with the force of its own weight;
  Whereat I saw great joy of coruscation.

Thereafterward with eye still more enkindled
  The blessed standard made to me reply,
  To keep me not in wonderment suspended:

"I see that thou believest in these things
  Because I say them, but thou seest not how;
  So that, although believed in, they are hidden.

Thou doest as he doth who a thing by name
  Well apprehendeth, but its quiddity
  Cannot perceive, unless another show it.

'Regnum coelorum' suffereth violence
  From fervent love, and from that living hope
  That overcometh the Divine volition;

Not in the guise that man o'ercometh man,
  But conquers it because it will be conquered,
  And conquered conquers by benignity.

The first life of the eyebrow and the fifth
  Cause thee astonishment, because with them
  Thou seest the region of the angels painted.

They passed not from their bodies, as thou thinkest,
  Gentiles, but Christians in the steadfast faith
  Of feet that were to suffer and had suffered.

For one from Hell, where no one e'er turns back
  Unto good will, returned unto his bones,
  And that of living hope was the reward,--

Of living hope, that placed its efficacy
  In prayers to God made to resuscitate him,
  So that 'twere possible to move his will.

The glorious soul concerning which I speak,
  Returning to the flesh, where brief its stay,
  Believed in Him who had the power to aid it;

And, in believing, kindled to such fire
  Of genuine love, that at the second death
  Worthy it was to come unto this joy.

The other one, through grace, that from so deep
  A fountain wells that never hath the eye
  Of any creature reached its primal wave,

Set all his love below on righteousness;
  Wherefore from grace to grace did God unclose
  His eye to our redemption yet to be,

Whence he believed therein, and suffered not
  From that day forth the stench of paganism,
  And he reproved therefor the folk perverse.

Those Maidens three, whom at the right-hand wheel
  Thou didst behold, were unto him for baptism
  More than a thousand years before baptizing.

O thou predestination, how remote
  Thy root is from the aspect of all those
  Who the First Cause do not behold entire!

And you, O mortals! hold yourselves restrained
  In judging; for ourselves, who look on God,
  We do not know as yet all the elect;

And sweet to us is such a deprivation,
  Because our good in this good is made perfect,
  That whatsoe'er God wills, we also will."

After this manner by that shape divine,
  To make clear in me my short-sightedness,
  Was given to me a pleasant medicine;

And as good singer a good lutanist
  Accompanies with vibrations of the chords,
  Whereby more pleasantness the song acquires,

So, while it spake, do I remember me
  That I beheld both of those blessed lights,
  Even as the winking of the eyes concords,

Moving unto the words their little flames.