Canto VII - Paradiso - The Divine Comedy

Line 47 (the middle line) in Canto VII of Paradiso is for me the most powerful stanza in Dante's Divine Comedy: [1]

In Italian by author Dante Alighieri:

Però d’un atto uscir cose diverse:
ch’a Dio e a’ Giudei piacque una morte;
per lei tremò la terra e ‘l ciel s’aperse.  [2]

 Translated by John Ciardi:

Thus, various sequels flow from one event:
    God and the Jews concurred in the same death;
    for it the earth shook and the heavens were rent.  [3]

Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

From one act therefore issued things diverse;
  To God and to the Jews one death was pleasing;
  Earth trembled at it and the Heaven was opened. [4]

Anyone interested in reading The Divine Comedy in its entirety, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, can go here:  http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/dante/dante-longfellow.pdf  [5]


[1] The tercet quoted (as originally written and two translations) is from Dante's Paradiso, Canto VII, lines 46-48.  Other stanzas in this Canto are also edifying and I plan to quote them too in a later entry.  I actually have not finished reading Dante's Paradiso, but I cannot imagine the author coming up with a line that more loaded than this line 47, by placing God (the "Chooser") on one side and the Jews (the "Chosen") on another that is diametrically opposed to God's, caused by a disagreement as to why Christ had to die, and simultaneously bringing them together in agreement by their sharing of a common solution, namely, the death of Christ, with just nine words.
[2] http://divinacommedia.weebly.com/paradiso-canto-vii.html
[3] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Paradiso. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003, p.650.
[4] http://www.thefinalclub.org/view-work.php?work_id=12&section_id=296
[5] I prefer John Ciardi's translation but I think it is at present available in print only.