Of Beatrice’s name, did bow me down
As one in slumber held.  Not long that mood
Beatrice suffer’d:  she, with such a smile,
As might have made one blest amid the flames,
Beaming upon me, thus her words began: 
“Thou in thy thought art pond’ring (as I deem,
And what I deem is truth how just revenge
Could be with justice punish’d:  from which doubt
I soon will free thee; so thou mark my words;
For they of weighty matter shall possess thee. 
     “That man, who was unborn, himself condemn’d,
And, in himself, all, who since him have liv’d,
His offspring:  whence, below, the human kind
Lay sick in grievous error many an age;
Until it pleas’d the Word of God to come
Amongst them down, to his own person joining
The nature, from its Maker far estrang’d,
By the mere act of his eternal love. 
Contemplate here the wonder I unfold. 
The nature with its Maker thus conjoin’d,
Created first was blameless, pure and good;
But through itself alone was driven forth
From Paradise, because it had eschew’d
The way of truth and life, to evil turn’d. 
Ne’er then was penalty so just as that
Inflicted by the cross, if thou regard
The nature in assumption doom’d:  ne’er wrong
So great, in reference to him, who took
Such nature on him, and endur’d the doom. 
God therefore and the Jews one sentence pleased: 
So different effects flow’d from one act,
And heav’n was open’d, though the earth did quake. 
Count it not hard henceforth, when thou dost hear
That a just vengeance was by righteous court
Justly reveng’d.  But yet I see thy mind
By thought on thought arising sore perplex’d,
And with how vehement desire it asks
Solution of the maze.  What I have heard,
Is plain, thou sayst:  but wherefore God this way
For our redemption chose, eludes my search. 
     “Brother! no eye of man not perfected,
Nor fully ripen’d in the flame of love,
May fathom this decree.  It is a mark,
In sooth, much aim’d at, and but little kenn’d: 
And I will therefore show thee why such way
Was worthiest.  The celestial love, that spume
All envying in its bounty, in itself
With such effulgence blazeth, as sends forth
All beauteous things eternal.  What distils
Immediate thence, no end of being knows,
Bearing its seal immutably impress’d. 
Whatever thence immediate falls, is free,
Free wholly, uncontrollable by power
Of each thing new:  by such conformity
More grateful to its author, whose bright beams,
Though all partake their shining, yet in those
Are liveliest, which resemble him the most. 
These tokens of pre-eminence on man
Largely bestow’d, if any of them fail,
He needs must forfeit his nobility,
No longer stainless.  Sin alone is that,
Which doth disfranchise him, and make unlike
To the chief good; for that its light in him
Is darken’d.  And to dignity thus lost