28. ‘O aspectata in ciel beata et bella’

O blessed and lovely spirit expected in Heaven

truly clothed with our humanity,

but not imprisoned in it like others:

oh God’s delight, obedient servant,

so that you ever find the gentler road,

by which we cross from here to his kingdom,

see how recently your boat

has turned its back on the blind world

to sail to a better harbour

with the sweet comfort of a western wind:

you’ll be conducted through the midst

of this dark valley where we weep for our

and another’s sin, from ancient bonds broken,

through the straightest path,

to the true East, towards which you have turned.

Perhaps the devoted and loving prayers

and the sacred tears of mortal beings

have made their way towards the highest pity:

and perhaps they were not great enough nor such

as to merit eternal justice bending

even a little from its course:

but the benign king who governs the heavens

through grace turns his eyes

to the sacred place where one hung on the cross,

breathing vengeance into the heart

of the new Charlemagne, so that delay would hurt us,

since Europe has sighed for it for many years:

so he brings aid to his beloved spouse

so that merely at his voice

Babylon trembles, and stands amazed.

Every place between the Garonne and the mountains,

between Rhone and Rhine and the salt waves

follows the highest ensign of Christ:

and those who ever sought true honour,

from the Pyrenees to the furthest horizon

empty Spain to follow Aragon:

England with the islands Ocean bathes

between the Pillars and the Bear,

as far as where the doctrine resounds

from the most sacred Helicon,

men of varied tongues and arms and dress,

spur to Heaven’s high enterprise.

What love, so lawful and worthy,

whether of children or of wife,

was the subject of such a just design?

There is a part of the world frozen,

always beneath the ice and cold snow,

so far is it from the sun’s path:

the day there is clouded and brief,

and bears a people that death does not grieve,

the natural enemies of peace.

So that if they became more devout than they are,

and took up swords with German fury,

we would soon find out the worth

of the Turks, and Arabs, and Chaldeans,

with all the gods they place their hopes in,

this side of the sea with blood-red waters:

lazy and fearful, naked peoples,

who never fight with steel,

but commit their weapons to the winds.

Now is the time to throw off the yoke

of ancient slavery, and the thick veil

that has long been draped over our eyes:

and for the noble wit you possess

from heaven by the grace of the immortal Apollo,

and your eloquence, to show its power

now in the spoken, now the written word:

for if you don’t marvel at the legends

of Orpheus and Amphion,

less should you at rousing Italy’s sons

with the sound of your clear speech,

so they take up the lance for Christ:

for if this ancient motherland seeks truth,

in none of her intentions

was ever so lovely or noble a cause.

You who’ve enriched yourself

turning the ancient and modern pages,

flying to heaven in an earthly body,

you know, from the empire of Mars’ son

to when great Augustus three times

crowned his head with green laurel,

how many times through injury to others

Rome was generous with her blood:

and should she not be now,

not generous but dutiful and pious

in avenging the impious injury

to the Son of our glorious Mary?

What hope can the enemy have

or human defence

if Christ fights against them?

Remember the rash audacity of Xerxes

who outraged the sea with alien bridges

made in order to land on our shores:

and see how all the Persian women

were dressed in black for their dead husbands:

and the sea at Salamis tinted red.

And not only is victory promised

by that ruinous misery for the sad

Eastern peoples,

but Marathon, and that vital pass

that the Spartan lion defended with the few,

and other battles you have heard of or read:

so we should certainly bow to God,

our knees and spirit,

He who has preserved our age for so much good.

Song, you’ll see Italy and the famous river,

not hidden from my eyes, not concealed

by sea, or hill, or stream,

but only by Love that with his other light

binds me closer the more he fires me:

nor is Nature more opposed to habit.

Now go, without losing other friends,

since Love for which we smile and weep

does not live only beneath women’s veils.

Notes: Addressed to Giacomo Colonna. Amphion and Orpheus moved stones and trees with their music. Romulus was the son of Mars. Xerxes famously bridged the Hellespont but was countered at the naval battle of Salamis in 480BC. Darius his father had been defeated at Marathon in 490BC. Leonidas, the Spartan King, stalled the Persians at Thermopylae through his heroic resistance.

‘Xerxes Crossing the Hellespont’ - Simon Fokke (Dutch, 1722 - 1784), The Rijksmuseum