Daily quote by Middle Ages

• Thou sayst: 'I see the air, I see the fire,
      The water, and the earth, and all their mixtures
      Come to corruption, and short while endure;
  And these things notwithstanding were created';
      Therefore if that which I have said were true,
      They should have been secure against corruption.
  The Angels, brother, and the land sincere
      In which thou art, created may be called
      Just as they are in their entire existence;
  But all the elements which thou hast named,
      And all those things which out of them are made,
      By a created virtue are informed.
  Created was the matter which they have;
      Created was the informing influence
      Within these stars that round about them go.
  The soul of every brute and of the plants
      By its potential temperament attracts
      The ray and motion of the holy lights;
  But your own life immediately inspires
      Supreme Beneficence, and enamors it
      So with herself, it evermore desires her.
  And thou from this mayst argue furthermore
      Your resurrection, if thou think again
      How human flesh was fashioned at that time
  When the first parents both of them were made."
  • Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, The Divine Comedy (1320) Canto VII, lines 124-148, as quoted in The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri (1867) Tr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Vol. 3, pp.46-47.