Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Paradise

The Paradiso is the luminous conclusion to Dante's cosmic poem, the place where all of creation converges upon its source. Having journeyed through Hell's torments and Purgatory's cleansing slopes, Dante now ascends through the celestial spheres guided by Beatrice, his lady, his inspiration, his theological instructor. Each heaven, from the Moon's trembling shades to Saturn's contemplative silence to the Fixed Stars' triumphal glory, holds souls whose positions reveal the precise justice of God's grace. But this is no cold theological exercise. Dante weeps at beauty. He marvels at order. He struggles to comprehend what his eyes see and his language cannot hold. The Paradiso reaches its climax in the Empyrean, where Aquinas and Bonaventure illuminate divine providence, and finally in the Beatific Vision: that impossible sight of God triune, the center of all love and light. Longfellow's 1867 translation captures terraces of medieval verse that Dante invented to make the ineffable sing. This is the record of one human soul reaching upward, and in the reaching, illuminating what it means to yearn.