But in the next sonnet, the last in the book, there is a
surprising change of tone. The transfiguration of Beatrice has begun, and
we see completing itself that natural gradation of grief which will
erelong bring the mourner to call on the departed saint to console him
for her own loss. The sonnet is remarkable in more senses than one, first
for its psychological truth, and then still more for the light it throws
on Dante's inward history as poet and thinker. Hitherto he had celebrated
beauty and goodness in the creature; henceforth he was to celebrate them
in the Creator whose praise they were.[175] We give an extempore
translation of this sonnet, in which the meaning is preserved so far as
is possible where the grace is left out. We remember with some
compunction as we do it, that Dante has said, "know every one that
nothing harmonized by a musical band can be transmuted from its own
speech to another without breaking all its sweetness and harmony,"[176]
and Cervantes was of the same mind:[177]
"Beyond the sphere that hath the widest gyre
Passeth the sigh[178] that leaves my heart below;
A new intelligence doth love bestow
On it with tears that ever draws it higher;
When it wins thither where is its desire,
A Lady it beholds who honor so
And light receives, that, through her splendid glow,
The pilgrim spirit[179] sees her as in fire;
It sees her such, that, telling me again
I understand it not, it speaks so low
Unto the mourning heart that bids it tell;
Its speech is of that noble One I know,
For 'Beatrice' I often hear full plain,
So that, dear ladies, I conceive it well.
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