Читать книгу PARADISE - Alasdair Gray - Страница 8

3: In the Moon

She who, sunlike, first warmed my breast with love 1

deserved both gratitude for that reply

and for correcting me. Raising my eyes,

surprise expelled my thanks. I thought she stood 4

beside a dusty glass that mirrored folk

so faintly that a pearl on a pale brow

was not more dim. They seemed to beckon me. 7

Narcissus loved reflections of himself

so gazed in front. To see these folk more clear

I looked behind myself, and none were there. 10

Turning again to my sweet smiling guide

I heard her say, “Funny, the childish way

you do not trust your eyes in Paradise! 13

These beings by my side are real although

lowest in Heaven for breaking holy vows.

Question them. Hear. Believe. They shine in truth 16

and never more will truth depart from them.”

I faced the shade that seemed most keen to speak

and almost stammering with eagerness 19

declared, “O spirit made for blessedness,

who dwells in sweetness of this radiance,

22 will you be kind enough to let me know

your name and circumstance?” She eagerly

and cheerfully told me, “We can’t refuse

25 kindness to those who only want what’s right

because at our great height above the earth

all are like God in this. On earth I was

28 your friend Forese’s sister, Piccarda,

forced to wed someone who I did not love.

Soon after I was dead. My fairer face

31 is why you do not recognise me now.”

“Piccarda! Yes, I know you,” I declared,

“although at first the glory in your face

34 half-blinded, dazed, distracted me. But say,

is not a higher sphere what you desire?

In higher places you’d be held more dear.”

37 She smiled a bit (as did the other shades)

then answered me so gladly that she seemed

in the first fires of love. “Brother, our wills

40 are tuned by charity – by love itself.

We thirst for what we have, and nothing more.

Our wills are now identical with His

43 who keeps all things in perfect harmony –

earth, planets, stars, up to the outermost

circumference of all, which is Himself.

46 Any in Paradise who craved for more

(and once before this craving did occur)

would strike a discord through our bliss and sever

charity from necessity, and thus 49

destroy the harmony of Heaven too.

God’s will is the creative sea in which

we live and move. Sharing it is our peace.” 52

I now knew why the bliss of Paradise

is everywhere in Heaven – each soul

is needed by the whole domain, although 55

God is not always equally in all.

Yet in my body my imperfect will

still craved more water from her well of truth. 58

The pure cloth of the life she’d tried to weave

was slashed before the fabric was complete.

I begged Piccarda to explain. Said she, 61

“A perfect love of Christ allowed Saint Clare

to teach the vows by which a lady may

put on the bridal veil and marry Him. 64

Just such a nun was I who left the world

to join the Poor Clare sisterhood. Alas,

greedy relations came, dragged me away. 67

God knew my sufferings. Upon my right,

shining with all the splendour of the moon

is one whose plight was mine. Raped from cloister, 70

keeping bridal veil over her heart, she

is Constance, heiress to the Swabian throne,

mother of Europe’s holy potentate 73

who should have been the Roman Emperor.”

Piccarda, singing Ave Maria,

76 sank from my eyes into deeper light like

stone in pond. I looked to Beatrice who

increased so vividly upon my sight,

79 questioning her was more than I could do.