# Paradise Canto 10

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.*

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> 
> Canto X
> 
> Argument
> 
>      Their next ascent carries them into the sun, which is the fourth heaven.
> Here they are encompassed with a wreath of blessed spirits, twelve in number.
> Thomas Aquinas, who is one of these, declares the names and endowments of the
> rest.
> 
> Looking into His First - Born with the Love,
> Which breathes from both eternal, the first Might
> Ineffable, wherever eye or mind
> Can roam, hath in such order all disposed,
> As none may see and fail to enjoy. Raise, then,
> O reader! to the lofty wheels, with me,
> Thy ken directed to the point,[1] whereat
> One motion strikes on the other. There begin
> Thy wonder of the mighty Architect,
> 
> [1: To that part of heaven where the equinoctial circle and the
> Zodiac intersect each other, where the common motion of the heavens from east
> to west may be said to strike with greatest force against the motion proper to
> the planets, and this repercussion, as it were, is here the strongest, because
> the velocity of each is increased to the utmost by their respective distances
> from the poles.]
> 
> Who loves His work so inwardly, His eye
> Doth ever watch it. See, how thence oblique[2]
> Brancheth the circle, where the planets roll
> To pour their wished influence on the world;
> Whose path not bending thus, in Heaven above[3]
> Much virtue would be lost, and here on earth
> All power well - nigh extinct; or, from direct
> Were its departure distant more or less,
> I' the universal order, great defect
> Must, both in Heaven and here beneath, ensue.
> 
> [2: "Oblique." The Zodiac.]
> 
> [3: If the planets did not preserve that order in which they move,
> they would not receive nor transmit their due influences; and if the Zodiac
> were not thus oblique; if toward the north it either passed or went short of
> the tropic of Cancer, or else toward the south it passed, or went short of the
> tropic of Capricorn, it would not divide the seasons as it now does.]
> 
> Now rest thee, reader! on thy bench, and muse
> Anticipative of the feast to come
> So shall delight make thee not feel thy toil.
> Lo! I have set before thee; for thyself
> Feed now: the matter I indite, henceforth
> Demands entire my thought. Join'd with the part,[4]
> Which late we told of, the great minister[5]
> Of nature that upon the world imprints
> The virtue of the Heaven, and doles out
> Time for us with his beam, went circling on
> Along the spires,[6] where[7] each hour sooner comes;
> And I was with him, weetless of ascent,
> But as a man,[8] that weets his thought, ere thinking.
> 
> [4: The intersection of the equinoctial circle and the Zodiac.]
> 
> [5: "Minister." The sun.]
> 
> [6: According to Dante, as the earth is motionless, the sun passes by
> a spiral motion, from one tropic to another.]
> 
> [7: "Where." In which the sun rises earlier every day after the
> vernal equinox.]
> 
> [8: "But as a man." That is, he was quite insensible of it.]
> 
> For Beatrice, she who passeth on
> So suddenly from good to better, time
> Counts not the act, oh then how great must needs
> Have been her brightness! What there was i' th' sun,
> (Where I had enter'd,) not through change of hue,
> But light transparent - did I summon up
> Genius, art, practice - I might not so speak,
> It should be e'er imagined: yet believed
> 
> It may be, and the sight be justly craved.
> And if our fantasy fail of such height,
> What marvel, since no eye above the sun
> Hath ever travel'd? Such are they dwell here,
> Fourth family[9] of the Omnipotent Sire,
> Who of His Spirit and of His Offspring[10] shows;
> And holds them still enraptured with the view.
> And thus to me Beatrice: "Thank, oh thank
> The Sun of Angels, Him, who by His grace
> To this perceptible hath lifted thee."
> 
> [9: "Fourth family." The inhabitants of the sun, the fourth planet.]
> 
> [10: The procession of the third and the generation of the second
> person in the Trinity.]
> 
> Never was heart in such devotion bound,
> And with complacency so absolute
> Disposed to render up itself to God,
> As mine was at those words: and so entire
> The love for Him, that held me, it eclipsed
> Beatrice in oblivion. Nought displeased
> Was she, but smiled thereat so joyously,
> That of her laughing eyes the radiance brake
> And scatter'd my collected mind abroad.
> 
> Then saw I a bright band, in liveliness
> Surpassing, who themselves did make the crown,
> And us their centre: yet more sweet in voice,
> Than, in their visage, beaming. Cinctured thus,
> Sometime Latona's daughter we behold,
> When the impregnate air retains the thread
> That weaves her zone. In the celestial court,
> Whence I return, are many jewels found,
> So dear and beautiful, they cannot brook
> Transporting from that realm: and of these lights
> Such was the song.[11] Who doth not prune his wing
> To soar up thither, let him[12] look from thence
> For tidings from the dumb. When, singing thus,
> Those burning suns had circled round us thrice,
> As nearest stars around the fixed pole;
> Then seem'd they like to ladies, from the dance
> Not ceasing, but suspense, in silent pause,
> 
> [11: The song of these spirits was like a jewel so highly prized that
> the exportation of it is prohibited by law.]
> 
> [12: Let him not expect intelligence of that place, for it surpasses
> direction.]
> 
> Listening, till they have caught the strain anew:
> Suspended so they stood: and, from within,
> Thus heard I one, who spake: "Since with its beam
> The Grace, whence true love lighteth first his flame,
> That after doth increase by loving, shines
> So multiplied in thee, it leads thee up
> Along this ladder, down whose hallow'd steps
> None e'er descend, and mount them not again;
> Who from his phial should refuse thee wine
> To slake thy thirst, no less constrained[13] were,
> Than water flowing not unto the sea.
> Thou fain wouldst hear, what plants are these, that bloom
> In the bright garland, which, admiring, girds
> This fair dame round, who strengthens thee for Heaven.
> I, then,[14] was of the lambs, that Dominic
> Leads, for his saintly flock, along the way
> Where well they thrive, not swoln with vanity.
> He, nearest on my right hand, brother was,
> And master to me: Albert of Cologne[15]
> Is this; and, of Aquinum, Thomas[16] I.
> If thou of all the rest wouldst be assured,
> Let thine eye, waiting on the words I speak,
> In circuit journey round the blessed wreath.
> That next resplendence issues from the smile
> Of Gratian,[17] who to either forum[18] lent
> 
> [13: "The rivers might as easily cease to flow toward the sea, as we
> could deny thee thy request."]
> 
> [14: "I was of the Dominican order."]
> 
> [15: Albertus Magnus was born at Laugingen, in Thuringia, in 1193,
> and studied at Paris and at Padua; at the latter place he entered into the
> Dominican order. He then taught theology in various parts of Germany, and
> particularly at Cologne. Thomas Aquinas was his favorite pupil In 1260 he
> reluctantly accepted the bishopric of Ratisbon, and in two years after
> resigned it, and returned to his cell in Cologne, where the remainder of his
> life was passed in superintending the school, and in composing his voluminous
> works on divinity and natural science. He died in 1280.]
> 
> [16: Thomas Aquinas, of whom Bucer is reported to have said, "Take
> but Thomas away, and I will overturn the Church of Rome:; and whom Hooker
> terms "the greatest among the school divines" - ("Eccl. Pol." b. iii. section
> 9), was born of noble parents, who anxiously but vainly endeavored to divert
> him from a life of celibacy and study. He died in 1274, at the age of forty -
> seven.]
> 
> [17: "Gratian." Gratian, a Benedictine monk belonging to the convent
> of St. Felix and Nabor, at Bologna, and by birth a Tuscan, composed, about the
> year 1130, for the use of the schools, an abridgement or epitome of canon law,
> drawn from the letters of the pontiffs, the decrees of councils and the
> writings of the ancient doctors.]
> 
> [18: "To either forum." By reconciling the civil with the canon law.]
> 
> Such help, as favour wins in Paradise.
> The other, nearest, who adorns our quire,
> Was Peter,[19] he that with the widow gave
> To holy Church his treasure. The fifth light,[20]
> Goodliest of all, is by such love inspired,
> That all your world craves tidings of his doom.[21]
> Within, there is a lofty light, endow'd
> With sapience so profound, if truth be truth,
> That with a ken of such wide amplitude
> No second hath arisen. Next behold
> That taper's radiance,[22] to whose view was shown,
> Clearliest, the nature and the ministry
> Angelical, while yet in flesh it dwelt.
> In the other little light serenely smiles
> That pleader[23] for the Christian temples, he,
> Who did provide Augustin of his lore.
> Now, if thy mind's eye pass from light to light,
> Upon my praises following, of the eighth[24]
> Thy thirst is next. The saintly soul, that shows
> The world's deceitfulness, to all who hear him,
> Is, with the sight of all the good that is,
> Blest there. The limbs, whence it was driven, lie
> 
> [19: "Peter." Pietro Lombardo was of obscure origin, nor is the place
> of his birth in Lombardy ascertained. With a recommendation from the Bishop of
> Lucca to St. Bernard, he went into France to continue his studies; and for
> that purpose remained some time at Rheims, whence he proceeded to Paris. Here
> his reputation was so great that Philip, brother of Louis VII, being chosen
> Bishop of Paris, resigned that dignity to Pietro, whose pupil he had been. He
> held his bishopric only one year, and died 1160. His "Liber Sententiarum" is
> highly esteemed. It contains a system of scholastic theology, much more
> complete than any which had been yet seen.]
> 
> [20: "The fifth light." Solomon.]
> 
> [21: "His doom." It was a common question, it seems, whether Solomon
> were saved or no.]
> 
> [22: St. Dionysius, the Areopagite. "The famous Grecian fanatic, who
> gave himself out for Dionysius the Areopagite, disciple of St. Paul, and who,
> under the protection of this venerable name, gave laws and instructions to
> those that were desirous of raising their souls above all human things, in
> order to unite them to their great source by sublime contemplation, lived most
> probably in the fourth century." Maclaine's Mosheim.]
> 
> [23: "That pleader." In the fifth century, Paulus Orosius "acquired a
> considerable degree of reputation by the history he wrote to refute the cavils
> of the Pagans against Christianity, and by his books against the Pelagians and
> Priscillianists." Ibid.]
> 
> [24: Boetius, whose book "de Consolatione Philosophiae," excited so
> much attention during the Middle Ages, was born about 470. "In 524 he was
> cruelly put to death by Theodoric, either on real or pretended suspicion of
> his being engaged in a conspiracy." Della Lett. Ital.]
> 
> Down in Cieldauro;[25] and from martyrdom
> And exile came it here. Lo! further on,
> Where flames the arduous spirit of Isidore;[26]
> Of Bede;[27] and Richard,[28] more than man, erewhile,
> In deep discernment. Lastly this, from whom
> Thy look on me reverteth, was the beam
> Of one, whose spirit, on high musings bent,
> Rebuked the lingering tardiness of death.
> It is the eternal light of Sigebert[29]
> Who 'scaped not envy, when of truth he argued,
> Reading in the straw - litter'd street."[30] Forthwith,
> As clock, that calleth up the spouse of God[31]
> To win her Bridegroom's love at matin's hour,
> Each part of other fitly drawn and urged,
> Sends out a tinkling sound, of note so sweet,
> Affection springs in well - disposed breast;
> Thus saw I move the glorious wheel; thus heard
> Voice answering voice, so musical and soft,
> It can be known but where day endless shines.
> 
> [25: "Cieldauro." Boetius was buried at Pavia, in the monastery of
> St. Pietro in Ciel d'Oro.]
> 
> [26: He was Archbishop of Seville during forty years, and died in
> 635.]
> 
> [27: "Bede." Bede, whose virtues obtained him the appellation of the
> Venerable, was born in 672, at Wearmouth and Jarrow in the bishopric of
> Durham, and died at Jarrow in 735. Invited to Rome by Pope Sergius I, he
> preferred passing almost the whole of his life in the seclusion of a
> monastery.]
> 
> [28: Richard of St. Victor, a native either of Scotland or Ireland,
> was canon and prior of the monastery of that name at Paris; and died in 1173.
> "He was at the head of the Mystics in this century; and his treatise, entitled
> the "Mystical Ark," which contains as it were the marrow of this kind of
> theology, was received with the greatest avidity." Maclaine's Mosheim.]
> 
> [29: A monk of the Abbey of Gemblours, in high repute at the end of
> the eleventh, and beginning of the twelfth century.]
> 
> [30: The name of a street in Paris; the "Rue de Fouarre."]
> 
> [31: The Church.]
>
> — *Paradise Canto 10*