PARADISE. Alasdair Gray
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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.
4: More Moonlight
Between two equally enticing meals 1
an idiot might starve before he chose.
A lamb between two wolves would also doubt
which way to turn, or hound between two does. 4
I hungered after what my guide might say
if asked why Heaven’s justice seemed unkind,
but can a man God made doubt God is good? 7
I feared to ask that question choking me,
but Beatrice, who understood my mind
replied at once, “What ties your tongue is this: 10
how can good vows and wills deserve the less
if broken by another’s wickedness?
Your other doubt is astrological. 13
Plato wrote after death all souls return
to planets ruling them. Did moons decree
these nuns’ inconstancy? Both these doubts need 16
an answer. I will take the second first.
It is most poisonous, so listen hard.
No seraphim that is most one with God – 19
not Abraham, Moses or Samuel –
neither John Baptist or Evangelist –
22 not even Mary in the highest Heaven
is separated from the two you’ve met
although they chose to greet you in this sphere.
25 All share alike in the eternal bliss
according to their soul’s capacity.
To indicate the nature of life here
28 I am compelled to talk to you as if
Heavenly Paradise has social ranks
like those on earth. This is not so, but I
31 can only make the highest things more clear
by speaking of them in the words you know,
although they may mislead. God’s Scriptures say
34 He sees, acts, speaks with eyes, hands, mouth because
only thus men and women can conceive
One seeing with all light, whose deeds are days,
37 whose voices teach in all that can be heard:
thunder and waves,