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PARADISE

CANTO XXXIII

THE BEATIFIC VISIÓN

[Dante, having been brought by Beatrice to Paradise in the Empyrean, is left by her in charge of St. Bernard, while she takes her place among the blessed.- Prayer of St. Bernard to the Virgin.- Her intercession.-The vision of God.-The end of desire.]

"VIRGI

JIRGIN MOTHER, daughter of thine own Son, humble and exalted more than any creature, fixed term of the eternal counsel, thou art she who didst so ennoble human nature that its own Maker disdained not to become His own making. Within thy womb was rekindled the love through whose warmth this flower has thus blossomed in the eternal peace. Here thou art to us the noonday torch of charity, and below, among mortals, thou art the living fount of hope. Lady, thou art so great, and so availest, that whoso wishes grace, and has not recourse to thee, wishes his desire to fly without wings. Thy benignity not only succors him who asks, but oftentimes freely foreruns the asking. In thee mercy, in thee pity, in thee magnificence, in thee whatever of goodness is in any creature, are united. Now doth this man, who, from the lowest abyss of the universe, far even as here, has seen one by one the lives of spirits, supplicate thee, through grace, for virtue such that he may be able with his eyes to uplift himself higher toward the Ultimate Salvation. And I, who never for my own vision burned more than I do for his, proffer to thee all my prayers, and pray that they be not scant, that with thy prayers thou wouldst dissipate for him every cloud of his mortality, so that the Supreme Pleasure may be displayed to him. Further I pray thee, Queen, who canst what so thou wilt, that, after so great a vision, thou wouldst preserve his affections sound. May thy guardianship vanquish human impulses. Behold Beatrice with all the blessed for my prayers clasp their hands to thee."

The eyes beloved and revered by God, fixed on the speaker, showed to us how pleasing unto her are devout prayers. Then to the Eternal Light were they directed, on which it is not to be believed that eye so clear is turned by any creature.

And I, who to the end of all desires was approaching, even as I ought, ended within myself the ardor of my longings.

Bernard was beckoning to me, and was smiling, that I should look upward; but I was already, of my own accord, such as he wished; for my sight, becoming pure, was entering more and more through the radiance of the lofty Light which of itself is true.*

Thenceforward my vision was greater than our speech, which yields to such a sight, and the memory yields to such excess.

As is he who dreaming sees, and after the dream the passion remains imprinted, and the rest returns not to the mind, such am I; for my vision almost wholly fails, while the sweetness that was born of it yet distills within my heart. Thus the snow is by the sun unsealed; thus on the wind, in the light leaves, was lost the saying of the Sibyl.

O Supreme Light, that so high upliftest Thyself from mortal conceptions, re-lend a little to my mind of what Thou didst appear, and make my tongue so powerful that it may be able to leave one single spark of Thy glory for the future people; for by returning somewhat to my memory and by sounding a little in these verses, more of Thy victory shall be conceived.

I think that by the keenness of the living ray which I endured, I should have been dazzled if my eyes had been averted from it. And it comes to my mind that for this reason I was the more hardy to sustain so much, that I joined my look unto the Infinite Goodness.

O abundant Grace, whereby I presumed to fix my eyes through the Eternal Light so far that there I consummated my vision!

In its depth I saw that whatsoever is dispersed through the universe is there included, bound with love in one volume; substance and accidents and their modes, fused together, as it were, in such wise, that that of which I speak is one simple Light. The universal form of this knott I believe that I saw, because in saying this I feel that I more abundantly rejoice. One instant only is greater oblivion for me than five-and-twenty centuries to the emprise which made Neptune wonder at the shadow of Argo.

* Light in its essence; all other light is derived from it.

This union of substance and accident.

So overwhelming was the vision that the memory could not retain it completely even for an instant.

Thus my mind, wholly rapt, was gazing fixed, motionless, and intent, and ever with gazing grew enkindled. In that Light one becomes such that it is impossible he should ever consent to turn himself from it for other sight; because the Good which is the object of the will is all collected in it, and outside of it that is defective which is perfect there.

Now will my speech be shorter even in respect to that which I remember, than an infant's who still bathes his tongue at the breast. Not because more than one simple semblance was in the Living Light wherein I was gazing, which is always such as it was before; but through my sight, which was growing strong in me as I looked, one sole appearance, as I myself changed, was altering itself to me.

Within the profound and clear subsistence of the lofty Light appeared to me three circles of three colors and of one dimension; and one appeared reflected by the other, as Iris by Iris, and the third appeared fire which from the one and from the other is equally breathed forth.

O how short is the telling, and how feeble toward my conception! and this toward what I saw is such that it suffices not to call it little.

O Light Eternal, that sole dwellest in Thyself, sole understandest Thyself, and, by Thyself understood and understanding, lovest and smilest on Thyself! That circle, which, thus conceived, appeared in Thee as a reflected light, being somewhile regarded by my eyes, seemed to me depicted within itself, of its own very color, by our effigy, wherefore my sight was wholly set upon it. As is the geometer who wholly applies himself to measure the circle, and finds not by thinking that principle of which he is in need, such was I at that new sight. I wished to see how the image accorded with the circle, and how it has its place therein; but my own wings were not for this, had it not been that my mind was smitten by a flash in which its wish

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To my high fantasy here power failed; but now my desire and my will, like a wheel which evenly is moved, the Love was turning which moves the Sun and the other stars.†

*The wish to see the mystery of the union of the two natures, the divine and human in Christ.

That Love which makes sun and stars revolve was giving a concordant revolution to my desire and my will.

JAMES DARMESTETER

(1849-1894)

GOOD example of the latter-day enlightened savant is the French Jew, James Darmesteter, whose premature death robbed the modern world of scholarship of one of its most distinguished figures. Scholars who do noble service in adding to the sum total of human knowledge often are specialists, the nature of whose work excludes them from general interest and appreciation. It was not so with this man,- not alone an Oriental philologist of more than national repute, but a broadly cultured, original mind, an enlightened spirit, and a master of literary expression. Darmesteter calls for recognition as a maker of literature as well as a scientist.

The son of a humble Jewish bookbinder, subjected to the disadvantages and hardships of poverty, James Darmesteter was born at Chateau-Salins in Lorraine in 1849, but got his education in Paris, early imbibing the Jewish traditions, familiar from youth with the Bible and the Talmud. At the public school, whence he was graduated at eighteen, he showed his remarkable intellectual powers and attracted the attention of scholars like Bréal and Burnouf, who, noting his aptitude for languages, advised devotion to Oriental linguistics. After several years of uncertainty, years spent with books and in travel, and in the desultory production of poetry and fiction, philological study was undertaken as his life work, with remarkable results. For twenty years he labored in this field, and his appointment in 1882 to succeed Renan as Secretary of the Asiatic Society of France speaks volumes for the position he won. In 1885 he became professor of Iranian languages and literature in the College of France. Other scholastic honors fell to him in due course and good measure. As a scholar Darmesteter's most important labors were the exposition of Zoroastrianism, the national faith of ancient Persia, which he made a specialty; and his French translation of and commentary on the Avesta, the Bible of that religion. As an interpreter of Zoroaster he sought to unite synthetically two opposing modern schools: that which relied solely upon native traditions, and that which, regarding these as untrustworthy, drew its conclusions from an examination of the text, supplemented by the aid of Sanskrit on the side of language and of the Vedas on the side of religion. Darmesteter's work was thus boldly comprehensive. He found in the Avesta the influence of such discordant elements as the Bible, Buddha, and

Greek philosophy, and believed that in its present form it was composed at a later time than has been supposed. These technical questions are still mooted points with the critics. The translation of the Avesta will perhaps stand as his greatest achievement. A herculean labor of four years, it was rewarded by the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres with the 20,000-franc prize given but once in a decade for the work which, in the Academy's opinion, had best served or brought most honor to the country.

But the technical accomplishments of learning represent but a fragment of Darmesteter's amazing mental activity. He wrote a striking book on the Mahdi, the tenacious belief in the Mohammedan Messiah taking hold on his imagination. He was versed in English literature, edited Shakespeare, and introduced his countrymen to Browning. While in Afghanistan on a philological mission he gathered, merely as a side pursuit, a unique collection of Afghan folksongs, and the result was a fascinating and valuable paper in a new field. He helped to found a leading French review. Articles of travel, critiques on subjects political, religious, literary, and social, fell fast from his pen. In his general essays on these broader, more vital aspects of thought and life, he is an artist in literary expression, a writer with a distinct and great gift for form. Here his vigorous mind, ample training, his humanistic tastes and humanitarian aspirations, are all finely in evidence.

The English reader who seeks an introduction to Darmesteter is directed to his 'Selected Essays,' translated by Helen B. Jastrow, edited with a memoir by Professor Morris Jastrow, Jr. (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston). There is a translation by Ada S. Ballin of his 'The Mahdi' (Harper and Brothers, New York); and in the Contemporary Review for January, 1895, is a noble appreciation of Darmesteter by his friend Gaston Paris. In the Sacred Books of the East' will be found an English rendering of the Avesta by Darmesteter and Mills.

As a thinker in the philosophical sense Darmesteter was remarkable. Early breaking away from orthodox Judaism, his philological and historical researches led him to accept the conclusions of destructive criticism with regard to the Bible; and a disciple of Renan, he became enrolled among those scholars who see in science the one explanation of the universe. But possessing, along with his keen analytic powers, a nature dominantly ethical, he made humanity his idol. His patriotism for France was intense; and, a Jew always sympathetic to the wonderful history of his people,-in his later years by a brilliant, poetical, almost audacious interpretation of the Old Testament,- he found a solution of the riddle of life in the Hebrew prophets. What he deemed their essential faith — Judaism

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