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7: Beatrice Explains

“To Heaven’s greatest height now praise our God 1

who gloriously brightens with His rays

good hearth-fires everywhere on holy days!”

So sang that bright soul, dancing as he sang, 4

that ruler who had striven to connect

justice on earth and Heaven’s government.

In happy play the other shining souls 7

danced with him too, until like shooting stars

they disappeared by being far away

and left me brooding in perplexity. 10

I well knew Beatrice could quell my doubts

so Tell her! Tell her! sounded in my head,

but reverence had overcome my tongue. 13

Parts of her name (be, is) still strike me dumb.

She did not leave me thus, for with a smile

that would have cheered a burning man she said, 16

“You do not see why justice should demand

vengeance upon revenge for ancient sin?

Listen and hear true doctrine straight from me. 19

Adam, the only man not born but made,

was given all good things men can enjoy

22 but could not bear one curb upon his will

so damned himself and we who spring from him.

Long ages passed before the Word of God

25 descending worked to free us from this ill.

By one act of amazing love God took

body with we who have rejected Him,

28 became a sinner too, deserving death

like me and you, and in Gethsemane

sadly embraced that foul necessity,

31 accepting Roman law so none can say

our Maker never felt our suffering.

If human need for death is understood

34 indeed Christ’s death was good. If we respect

His righteousness, nothing was more unjust.

From that great act came opposite effects –

37 Christ’s death desired by God and Jewish priests,

for which earth quaked and Heaven opened wide,

and Solomon’s great temple was destroyed.

40 I fear your thoughts are fankled in a knot

you can’t untie. Although my words are clear,

why God redeemed us thus is dark to you.

43 Brother, it is dark to everyone

with minds unripened by the sun of love.

I’ll say it all again in other words.

46 God’s excellence is never envious,

so all the souls He makes possess like Him

eternal life; like Him, freedom of choice.

These gifts are lost by people choosing sin. 49

Adam and Eve disobeyed God; believed

rejecting God would make them equal Him,

thus they exchanged eternity for time. 52

Justice cannot ignore so bad a crime

which all folk born of women re-enact,

so gaps between ourselves and Paradise 55

are far too big for penitence to fill

by any single act of human will

though penitence is certainly required. 58

Only a miracle could reconcile

justice with mercy, and at last it came.

God’s overflowing goodness made His Word 61

human, like us; offered new birth, new life,

eternally to all who follow Christ

and grasp their cross – forgive who do them wrong – 64

love enemies and promise not to sin.

What better thing to save us could God do

than show all people how we ought to live? 67

I see you want more news of sacred things,

a thirst I’ll satisfy before you ask.

What troubles you is instability. 70

God made the earth and water, fire and air

so must have made them pure as Paradise –

pure as these starry spheres, this shining space 73

through which we rise. Why on earth do all things

change, age, sicken, die and rot? Here is why.

76 Our God Himself did not directly make

all of the world below. Live plants and beasts

are generated in His elements

79 by things He made before. Sunlight is one.

Yet on the sixth day of the Genesis

He breathed His own soul into human clay.

82 All other earthly life will suffer death.

Men, women are the great exception,

created by His love to love Him back

85 eternally, after resurrection.”