NOTES

The following annotations are meant to serve as a very basic apparatus; they do not substitute for the three volumes-in-progress, one devoted to each cantica of the Comedy, of the California Lectura Dantis. From its own century until today, the Comedy has given rise to many commentaries. Chronologies of Dante’s life and works and interpretations of vexed points in the Comedy are various and, at times, more conflicting than complementary. Much that is said bears the implicit qualifications, “possibly,” “probably,” and “perhaps.” But some assertions do have more cogency than others, and this modest guide has garnered reasonable, helpful opinion in addition to a fair sum of certainties.

The notes are supplemented by a drawing-diagram by Barry Moser, showing the spatial organization of Dante’s cosmos.

The quotations from the Scriptures are from the Jerusalem Bible (1966).

In the following notes, the Aeneid is cited with the English line numbers of the Bantam Classics edition (that edition carries Latin line numbers at the top of each page). Other works by Virgil carry the Latin line numbers of the Loeb Classical Library editions, as do all works of Ovid, Lucan, and Statius. Ovid’s Metamorphoses is abbreviated as Met.; Lucan’s Pharsalia as Phars.; and the Thebaid of Statius as Theb.

The Summa theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas is abbreviated as Summa theol. These notes use the standard mode of referring to the Summa. The Roman numeral I refers to Part I of the work; I–II refers to the Prima Secundae, or first portion of Part II; and II–II refers to the Secunda Secundae, or second portion of Part II. The Roman numeral is followed by the Arabic numeral of the question (“q.”) considered and then by the Arabic numeral of the article (“a.”) under that question.

A.M.

CANTO I

1–12 In these opening lines, glossed at length in his dedicatory Letter to Cangrande della Scala (Epistole, XIII), the poet states “the matter of [his] song”: his intention, in this third and final canticle, is to describe as much of his vision of the “holy kingdom” of Paradise as his memory has been able to retain. The first great difficulty he will encounter, then, is remembering. (The second, as we shall immediately see, will be putting what he remembers into words, given the inadequacy of human language to speak of things divine.) The events of Paradiso are different in kind from all others, even from those of Inferno and Purgatorio, far surpassing all human capacity. In order to experience the bliss of Heaven, Dante must pass “beyond the human” (70). The powers of his soul—his memory, his intellect or understanding, and his will—must be immeasurably increased. But this enhancement of his faculties is a privilege granted only for the duration of his vision: in order to return among men, to fulfill his mission of speaking of what was revealed, he must be restored to his earthly humanity. There is, between the almost infinite receptivity of his imparadised soul and the renewed limits of his all-too-human memory, an incalculable disparity, which the reader is never allowed to forget. To paraphrase St. Paul (an insistent, if implicit, presence behind these opening lines), what Dante saw face-to-face on his heavenly journey, he now can remember only, as it were, through a glass, darkly (cf. 2 Cor. 12:2–4). [return to English / Italian]

1–3 God, who created the universe, and (like the Aristotelian “First Cause” or “Unmoved Mover”) maintains it in motion, is conceived by Dante in terms of light and radiance, “glory.” His light—intellectual illumination, understanding, revealed knowledge—is everywhere present in His Creation. As a consequence, however, of factors that are part of the order that He has willed (of which more later, in lines 103–142), this light is more or less apparent in each creature, depending on its nearness to Him. The identity of light (“glory”) and love are, incidentally, confirmed by the perfect circularity of Paradiso, whose last line, “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars” (XXXIII, 145), brings us back to its first.

4–5 God’s glory is most effulgent in the outermost sphere of the heavens, the Empyrean, in which He dwells. Dante’s basically Ptolemaic model of the universe is geocentric, or earth-centered. The earth is surrounded by ten concentric heavenly spheres, the first nine revolving, each in its particular orbit, with a velocity that increases the farther the sphere is from the earth; the last, the Empyrean, the heaven of pure “ ‘light and love’ ” (XXVII, 112), is motionless. Nonmaterial, beyond space and time, it is the dwelling place of Light and Love—of God—where all desire, whose unfulfillment is the source of motion, is fulfilled. The contained spheres turn ever faster the closer they are to the Empyrean because they perceive more directly and immediately, as it were, the object of their (and our) desire, and their desire is thereby quickened. The lower spheres—the first seven, which contain the moving stars or planets (the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, in that order); the eighth, which contains the Fixed Stars; and the ninth, the crystalline Primum Mobile—are all composed of matter, however diaphanous and refined, and thus fall short of complete perfection. [return to English / Italian]

The fact that Dante, claiming special divine concession, encounters the spirits of certain of the blessed throughout the lower heavens, even though the true seats of all the blessed are in the Empyrean, is a brilliant literary strategem. By this method, the poet overcomes the reticence of the true visionary (cf. St. Paul, 2 Cor. 12, an important cryptic subtext), as well as the static quality that often characterizes visionary narrative. Dante adapts what could have been a nondynamic revelation (and the contents of his theological encyclopedia [cf. the didactic scholasticism of his Letter to Cangrande]) to the needs of suspenseful narrative and step-by-step dialectical exposition. [return to English / Italian]

7 The “desired end” of the intellect is God, in whom is perfect knowledge. [return to English / Italian]

13–36 “both crests”: i.e., the inspiration of Apollo as well as the Muses. The reader will recall that Purgatorio also opened with an invocation—a briefer one—of the nine Muses, who, for Dante, had their seat on “one of Parnassus’ peaks” (16). The second crest, Cyrrha, was sacred to Apollo himself, the sun god and the god of music and poetry, lover of the nymph Daphne, the daughter of the river god Peneus (whence the adjective “Peneian” [31]). According to Ovid, Daphne was transformed by her father into a laurel tree to save her from the god’s embrace. Thereafter, Apollo’s love was transferred to the laurel itself, which became his sacred plant; its leaves were used to weave the triumphant crowns of the emperor and the poet “laureate.” [return to English / Italian]

21 Ovid recounts (Met. VI, 383–391) how the satyr Marsyas was foolhardy enough to challenge Apollo to a musical duel. After Marsyas’ inevitable defeat, he was tied to a tree and flayed alive by the victorious god, who drew him like a sword from the scabbard of his limbs. This allusion to the awesome power of Apollo (cf. Purg. I, 9–12, for a similar allusion to the power of the Muses), far from being a gruesome and gratuitous embellishment, is yet another oblique reminder of the tragic consequences of human presumption and of the need for humility and submission to the Divine Will. One is reminded again of the warning implicit in the episode of Ulysses in Inferno XXVI. [return to English / Italian]

31 “Peneian”: See 13–36, note. [return to English / Italian]

33 Apollo is the “Delphic deity,” since his chief shrine was located at Delphi, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. [return to English / Italian]

34–36 After expressing his regrets—and, in essence, apologizing to “Cyrrha’s god,” Apollo—for the pusillanimity of his fellow men, for their lack of epic and imperial ambition (28–33). Dante dares to hope, with fitting humility, that the “small spark” of his Commedia may lead to a “great fire” of emulators. [return to English / Italian]

37–42 The actual narrative of events begins here (or rather, continues, since the events of Paradiso begin where Purgatorio left off). Throughout the year, the sun (“the lantern of the world”) rises at different points on the horizon. The most favorable point (and the point from which, as we shall see, it now rises) is reached at the vernal equinox, when four astronomical circles—the equator, the ecliptic, the equinoctial colure, and the horizon itself—meet, forming among themselves three crosses. (The four and three allude on the allegorical level to the cardinal and theological virtues.) At this point the sun is joined to the constellation of Aries. It is spring, and the “world’s wax” is most disposed to receive the seal or imprint of the sun (that is, nature is most ready to respond to his fecundating warmth and stir herself from the suspended animation of winter). [return to English / Italian]

43–48 The sun had earlier risen over the horizon of Purgatory, bringing morning with it. Consequently, at the antipodes, in the inhabited hemisphere of land, which has its pole at Jerusalem, night had fallen. The exact time in Eden, where Dante is, must in fact be shortly after noon, since he arrived at the twin source of the Lethe and Eunoe rivers, accompanied by Beatrice, Matilda, Statius, and the seven women, at precisely that hour (cf. Purg. XXXIII, 104). The passage through Inferno began as night was falling, the ascent of the mountain of Purgatory at dawn. Appropriately, after his direct appeal to the sun god Apollo, Dante’s journey to Paradise begins at midday. Turning left, from their position facing eastward, where we left them at the end of Purgatorio, Beatrice turns north, and it is into the noonday sun, in all its dazzling brightness, that she stares so fixedly. The eagle was reputed to have the unique ability to look unflinchingly at the sun, just as, of all birds, it soared closest to it. [return to English / Italian]

49–57 Dante, seeing Beatrice staring at the sun, is led automatically to do the same. He finds, here in Eden, where God first placed Adam—father and representative of all mankind—that though he cannot contemplate the sun with the same fixity as Beatrice, he can nevertheless bear its brightness for longer than he ever could before. The simile of the reflected ray stresses Dante’s continuing dependence on Beatrice as intermediary between himself and God. [return to English / Italian]

50 The Italian term pelegrin, besides meaning “pilgrim” (with all the nostalgic lyrical connotations of peregrin in Purg. II, 63, and VIII, 4), may also indicate the peregrine falcon, a bird that shares the same characteristics as the eagle, though, like Dante with respect to Beatrice at this moment, it possesses them to a lesser degree. [return to English / Italian]

62 “The One who can”: God, to whom all things are possible. [return to English / Italian]

65 “The eternal circles”: the heavenly spheres. [return to English / Italian]

67–72 Ovid recounts (in Met. XIII, 898–968) how Glaucus, a fisherman of Boeotia, surprised to see his catch of fish, which he had set down on the grass (“herb”), regain vigor and jump back into the sea after eating some of the herb, decided to taste it himself and was immediately filled with an uncontrollable longing to plunge into the sea. Diving from the cliff, he was transformed into a sea god by Oceanus and Tethys. Glaucus’ change of nature from human to divine parallels the qualitative change Dante feels within himself as he gazes upon Beatrice. [return to English / Italian]

73–75 Though he is not yet aware of it, Dante has already begun his upward journey (Beatrice will reveal this to him in lines 91–93). Like Saint Paul (in 2 Cor. 12:3), he cannot in retrospect say whether at this point he was pure soul (“the part of me / that You created last,” [see the account of the soul’s creation in Purg. XXV, 71–75]) or soul and body combined. The passage in Paul had given rise to considerable theological debate, and the poet may leave the question in suspense for reasons of doctrinal prudence. In any case, there are various clues in the subsequent text that suggest that Dante imagined his journey to have been made not merely in the spirit but also in the flesh, albeit a flesh without weight, purged and purified by his passage through Purgatory and by the rituals of Earthly Paradise. [return to English / Italian]

76–78 It is the heavens’ longing for God, who dwells ideally, as we have seen, in the outermost Empyrean, that imparts to them their eternal wheeling motion. The farther they are from the earth, and the more space they encompass, the swifter their gyre. Their different speeds and motions produce different musical notes, which, Pythagoras and Plato imagined, combined to make the divinely ordered harmony of the music of the spheres. Aristotle and his Scholastic followers rejected the latter idea. The artist in Dante recovered the concept from Book VI of Cicero’s De re publica, which was widely known in the Middle Ages through the commentary of Macrobius, called the Somnium Scipionis (Scipio’s Dream). [return to English / Italian]

79–81 Dante may be rising through the so-called Sphere of Fire, which medieval science placed just below the circle of the moon. Alternatively, his perception of the sun (whose brightness was already seen as redoubled in lines 61–63) may simply be becoming more complete. [return to English / Italian]

82–93 Beatrice (who, gazing upon the Mind of God, where all things are reflected, has even less difficulty than did Virgil, Dante’s former guide, in perceiving Dante’s thoughts) now reveals to him that they have left the earth and the Earthly Paradise behind and are speeding, swifter than lightning, toward their heavenly home, toward the Empyrean. Beatrice draws her simile from the phenomenon of lightning. Medieval science held that all fire—and lightning is a kind of fire—naturally strove upward to reach its proper abode in the Sphere of Fire. The descent of lightning to the earth, proverbial for its swiftness, was therefore an unnatural phenomenon in violation of this generally valid scientific axiom. But Beatrice’s simile, though paradoxical, is quite felicitous here; and by implicitly invoking the general principle that everything seeks its true place in the universe, including the human soul, whose true place is in Heaven, Beatrice prepares the way for the answer to Dante’s second perplexity. [return to English / Italian]

94–99 Dante’s free-fall upward into space appears to him as a violation of the natural laws of gravity. How can he transcend “ ‘these lighter bodies,’ ” the spheres of air and fire? Beatrice’s reply, which will occupy the remainder of the canto, essentially points out that there is a metaphysical order superior to the so-called laws of physics. [return to English / Italian]

103–141 More than a dry scholastic argument, Beatrice’s discourse, with the exhilarating rhythm and cadenced incisiveness of its tercets and the spontaneous and apposite flow of its imagery, is, like so many of the doctrinal excursuses of Paradiso, an enthusiastic hymn in praise of the providential order of the cosmos. [return to English / Italian]

103–114 The perfect order of Creation is a reflection of Divine Perfection. It is visible only to the “ ‘higher beings,’ ” to angels and to man, whose intellect enables them to discern the divine “ ‘pattern’ ”—the image of the Supreme Good imprinted on the world—and therefore to seek God as their goal. Within this universal order, however, there is a hierarchy of natures, each moving toward its decreed end, according to its innate tendency. [return to English / Italian]

115–126 This is the divinely implanted instinct that carries the element of fire up toward the Sphere of Fire, governs the behavior of the lower “ ‘mortal creatures’ ” (i.e., those lacking an immortal soul), and causes the earth to gravitate toward its center. The same principle is also operative in those “higher beings” possessed of a soul. The same divine impetus shoots them like arrows toward their true goal. Divine Providence, which has predisposed things thus, has its true dwelling beyond the fastest spinning of the heavens, the Primum Mobile, in the Empyrean, “ ‘the heaven of pure light’ ” (XXX, 39). That is where the bow of God’s infallible design is now propelling us. [return to English / Italian]

127–141 Every artist knows that what is created does not always correspond perfectly to its creator’s intentions. One reason for this is the resistance offered by the raw materials. (Cf. XIII, 77–78.) Like the recalcitrance of the artist’s materials, the gift of free will, wrongly used, can lead the rational creature away from its predestined end, toward some lesser good, just as a lightning bolt may fall, against its nature, down from the sky. [return to English / Italian]

139–141 Dante, “ ‘no longer hindered’ ” by the obstacles that his soul was cleansed of by his passage through Purgatory, should no more wonder at his upward flight than he would at the natural phenomena of a waterfall that falls or a flame that rises. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO II

1–18 Before beginning the account of his journey upward through the heavens, Dante exhorts his readers to consider well whether they are adequately prepared to continue following his ship, his poem (taking up again the nautical metaphor with which Purgatorio opened), as it “crosses to deep seas” (3), that is, to the profound treatment and experience of theological and philosophical problems that will in large measure constitute the subject matter of this third cantica. Dante warns his readers that he will be crossing waves that “were never sailed before” (7), for although the journey to Paradise by a living man was completed before Dante by St. Paul (see 2 Cor. 12:2–4), Dante’s poetic voyage is indeed unprecedented—if not in the mere fact of his description of Paradise (for earlier such descriptions did exist), certainly unprecedented in the elaborateness of that description, and in its theological and philosophical scope.

The “bread of angels” (11) is Divine Wisdom, upon which the angels feed (see Ps. 78 [77 in the Vulgate]:25 and Wisdom 16:20, and cf. the opening to Dante’s Convivio [I, i, 7]: “Oh blessed those few who sit at that table where the bread of angels is served”). And only those few who have “turned [their] minds in time / unto the bread of angels” (10–11), that is, only those who, through the prolonged study of speculative theology and philosophy, have devoted themselves to acquiring wisdom, dare undertake to follow the poet on his voyage. The arduousness of this journey is such that it will require that even the well-prepared, dependent on the poet’s guidance, keep their course “within / his wake,” behind which “waves smooth again,” traceless. The ill- or un-prepared, Dante insists, had better return to the safety of familiar shores, lest in the midst of “deep seas,” they find themselves unprepared to continue and unable to return. [return to English / Italian]

8 Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, “breathes” (spira), filling the sails of Dante’s “ship” (3); while Apollo, the god of poetry and poetic inspiration (invoked by Dante in Canto I, 13–33), acts as pilot and guide—a reversal, perhaps, of the roles one might expect for these deities, that aptly expresses the interrelatedness, the inseparability, of the doctrinal and poetical aspects of the poem. [return to English / Italian]

9 “The nine Muses,” overseers of all the arts (invoked by Dante in Inf. II, 7–9, and Purg. I, 7–12, and XXIX, 40–42), point out to Dante the Big and Little Bears—the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The former contains the Big Dipper, and the latter is identical with the Little Dipper, whose tail star is the North Star, or polestar, used by sailors in navigation (and usually located by following the line formed by the outer stars of the Big Dipper’s bowl). [return to English / Italian]

11–12 “the bread of angels”: see 1–18, note. The inherent limits of the human intellect prevent it, in this life, from comprehending the Truth completely. Thus man’s hunger for the bread of angels remains “unsatisfied.” Only the beatific vision granted to the blessed in Paradise, and to the angels, can satisfy this hunger (cf. IV, 124–126). [return to English / Italian]

16–18 “Those men of glory” were the Argonauts, who “crossed to Colchis” with Jason in quest of the Golden Fleece. Jason was encountered, and his exploits described, in Inferno XVIII, 82–96, and Dante will refer to his voyage again here, in Canto XXXIII, 93–96. The first of three trials that the king of Colchis imposed on Jason was that of taming a pair of fire-breathing oxen with sharp horns of iron and using them to plow a field. The story is told by Ovid (Met. VII, 100–148), but while in Ovid’s account it is the men of Colchis who are amazed. Dante’s version is more incisive in its likening Dante’s “followers” to Jason’s. The former, Dante says, will be more amazed than were the latter at Jason’s exploit, when they see Dante mastering such formidable problems in theology and philosophy. [return to English / Italian]

19–20 The “thirst for the godly realm” is “innate,” created together with the intellective soul, and “everlasting,” because, in life, insatiable. (Cf. VII, 142–144.) Dante, with Beatrice, is borne naturally upward toward “the godly realm” by his desire for it (see I, 139–141). [return to English / Italian]

21 “as swiftly as the heavens that you see”: i.e., “as swiftly as the heavens rotate about the earth,” or perhaps more likely, “as quickly as you see the heavens,” i.e., in the time it takes to scan their expanse, the mere wink of an eye. (Cf. X, 37–39.) [return to English / Italian]

23–24 The events in the flight of a shaft or arrow shot from a crossbow are presented here in reverse order (a rhetorical figure called hysteron proteron), so that the arrow’s flight is viewed beginning from the end, suggesting a teleological view, in which the aim or end is viewed as a cause. The effect reinforces the idea that Dante is being carried “as toward a destined place” (I, 124) (ultimately, the Empyrean, but first the moon). The hysteron proteron—which actually accords with experience, in that an arrow’s flight, too quick to be perceived, is reconstructed by the mind in retrospect upon seeing the arrow strike—seems also to convey again tremendous velocity (cf. line 21). [return to English / Italian]

30 “ ‘the first star’ ”: the moon, in the First Heaven (see Intro., and diagram). The term star, for Dante, includes the sun, the moon, and the planets, as well as the fixed stars. [return to English / Italian]

31 The “brilliant, solid, dense, and stainless cloud” is the material of the moon itself, as conceived by Dante. In his Monarchia (Monarchy, III and IV, 17–18) Dante argues that the moon has a certain luminosity of its own, “as is evident in a lunar eclipse.” [return to English / Italian]

35–36 Dante (with Beatrice) is received into the body of the moon without its undergoing any displacement (as would, for example, a cloud)—a miraculous phenomenon anticipated by Dante’s reference to the moon’s solidity and density (32). (See 37–4, note.) [return to English / Italian]

37–42 Presumably Dante did conceive his journey to Paradise as also corporeal (cf. I, 73–75 and note), so that his entering the body of the moon without its undergoing any displacement can only have been miraculous. (The fundamental scientific principle that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time, is superable, according to St. Thomas, but only through divine miracle [Summa theol. Suppl., q. 83, a. 3].) And this miracle should inflame still more our longing “to see that Essence”—Jesus Christ—in whom divine nature and human nature were united, in the Incarnation. [return to English / Italian]

43–45 “What we hold here by faith” is the miracle of the Incarnation; in Paradise it will be “directly known,” as self-evident as the “first,” or a priori, “truth.” [return to English / Italian]

49 “ ‘the dark marks’ ”: Having entered the very body of the moon, Dante wonders as to the nature of the lunar spots visible from the earth. Before answering Dante’s question, Beatrice will elicit and then rigorously confute his own opinion. But her subsequent explanation of the true principle involved will far transcend the relatively minor problem of the lunar spots and comprise an explanation of the manner in which, from the timeless and spaceless Empyrean (“ ‘the heaven of the godly peace’ ” [112]), the power of God descends downward through the various heavens (“ ‘these organs of the universe’ ” [121]) and is shed as spiritual and material light upon the earth and upon the plurality of beings. This explanation, which complements that of Canto I on the tendency of all beings to move toward God (I, 98–141), will complete the grand preliminary overview given by Beatrice of the material and spiritual structure and operation of the universe. [return to English / Italian]

51 “ ‘the tale of Cain’ ”: A popular belief in Dante’s time held that the spots on the moon resulted from Cain’s being confined there, condemned for all eternity to carry a bundle of thorns on his shoulders as punishment for slaying his brother Abel (cf. Inf. XX, 124). [return to English / Italian]

52–57 Beatrice begins her response in a metaphorical mode characteristic of the highest medieval rhetorical style and appropriate to the elevated character of her discourse. Since reason cannot progress very far toward the truth even when considering physical phenomena—in which sense perception, “from which our knowledge begins” (Convivio II, iv, 17), provides material for the intellect—then Dante should not be amazed that where spiritual matters are concerned—in which the senses do not provide adequate (or any) material for the intellect—mortals’ opinions fall into error. [return to English / Italian]

59–60 Dante is expressing the opinion he had held when he wrote the Convivio (see II, xiii, 9)—an opinion derived perhaps from Averroës, but one that Dante had rejected by the time he was writing the Paradiso—namely, that the dark spots appearing on the surface of the moon result from the presence of materially rarer portions within the body of the moon that fail to reflect the sun’s rays to the same degree as the denser parts. Beatrice will now refute (in lines 64–105) Dante the poet’s former opinion, which was dependent upon physical causality, and advance the principles underlying his revised opinion (106–148), dependent instead upon spiritual causality. [return to English / Italian]

64–66 The fixed stars, in the Eighth Heaven, differ in the quality and quantity of their light. Note that Beatrice begins her refutation by discussing differences in appearance between the fixed stars rather than between parts of the moon, the implication being that the underlying principle is the same. [return to English / Italian]

67–73 Fundamental to Beatrice’s argument is the medieval presupposition that the different stars are endowed with different “ ‘powers’ ” (“virtù”), which they exert, by means of the light they shed, on the sublunar world. Beatrice argues that if the formal principle of rarity and density alone determined the essential nature and power of the stars, (and so, the differences in their appearance), then there would be only one power in all the stars, because different powers can arise only from different formal principles. Since different powers do exist, so must different formal principles. [return to English / Italian]

73–78 Furthermore, “ ‘were rarity / the cause’ ” of the lunar spots, then either the rarity would extend through the entire thickness of the moon, or else rare and dense portions (“ ‘lean / and fat’ ”) would alternate in strata. [return to English / Italian]

79–82 If the first of these hypotheses were true, then during a solar eclipse, when the moon is between the sun and the earth, the sun would be visible through the rare portions of the moon, as through any rare (“ ‘slender’ ”) matter. But “ ‘this is not so.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

85–90 If the second hypothesis were true, then where rare matter ended and dense began, the sun’s rays would be reflected, just as they are from the dense portions of the moon’s surface. [return to English / Italian]

89 “ ‘glass that hides lead at its back’ ”: a mirror. [return to English / Italian]

91–93 Beatrice anticipates the possible objection, on Dante’s part, that if the second of the two hypotheses were true, that might yet account for the lunar spots, since a ray reflected from within the body of the moon, rather than from its surface, will appear dimmer. But Beatrice proposes an experiment to rebut this objection. [return to English / Italian]

95–96 “ ‘the source / of your arts’ course springs from experiment’ ”: This idea, already present in Aristotle (see, e.g., Metaphysics I, 1), was familiar to the Scholastics as the basis for the “argument per experimentum.” [return to English / Italian]

103–105 Although the image of the light reflected in the mirror placed farther back will be smaller than the images reflected in the two closer mirrors, it will be of the same brightness per unit of size; its quality of light will be the same. [return to English / Italian]

106–108 The “ ‘sub-matter of the snow’ ” is water. Beneath the “ ‘warm rays’ ” of the sun, the water is stripped of the accidental (as opposed to essential) qualities of whiteness and cold that it had as snow. [return to English / Italian]

112 “ ‘the heaven of the godly peace’ ”: the Empyrean, the heaven purely of“ ‘light and love’ ” (XXVII, 112). Beatrice begins here her exposition of the true principle underlying the phenomenon of the lunar spots. [return to English / Italian]

113–114 The “ ‘body in whose power lies / the being of all things that it enfolds’ ” is the Primum Mobile, the Ninth or Crystalline Heaven, surrounded by the Empyrean and revolving within it with an “almost incomprehensible” swiftness (Convivio II, iii, 9). From the Empyrean a power is transmitted to the Primum Mobile, which, being uniform itself, transmits that power without differentiation to “ ‘the sphere that follows’ ” (115). [return to English / Italian]

115–117 “ ‘The sphere…where so much is shown’ ” is the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, the Eighth Heaven, which receives the undifferentiated power transmitted by the Primum Mobile, and begins the process of differentiation, by distributing (“ ‘bestow[ing]’ ”) that power to its different stars. [return to English / Italian]

118–123 The seven heavens below that of the fixed stars modify and further differentiate the powers transmitted downward to them so that they can properly exercise their influences over earthly things. [return to English / Italian]

124–126 “ ‘ cross the ford alone’ ”: i.e., apply the true principle behind the differences in appearance between stars, which Beatrice will reveal, to the question concerning the lunar spots (“ ‘the truth you want’ ”). [return to English / Italian]

127–129 Just as the smith himself is the efficient cause of the “ ‘hammer’s art’ ” (e.g., in the forging of a tool)—the hammer being merely the instrument (or instrumental cause)—so “ ‘the force and motion of the holy spheres’ ”—i.e., the entire process outlined by Beatrice (112–123)—has its efficient cause in (is “ ‘inspired by’ ”) the “ ‘blessed movers,’ ” i.e., the Celestial Intelligences. As Dante writes in the Convivio (II, iv, 2), “the movers of those heavens are substances separate from matter, that is, Intelligences, which the common people call angels.” (For the angelic orders, see XXVIII, 97–129.) [return to English / Italian]

130–132 Beatrice now applies this principle of spiritual causality to the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, with which she began her argument (64). The “ ‘deep Mind that makes it wheel’ ” is the Intelligence, or angelic order, presiding over the Heaven of the Fixed Stars, the Cherubim. The heaven is stamped (like wax with a “ ‘seal’ ”) with the knowledge and purposes of the Cherubim. And the “ ‘force and motion’ ” (127) of the heaven are the means by which those purposes are effected. [return to English / Italian]

133 “ ‘your dust’ ”: the human body. (See Gen. 3:19: “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.”) [return to English / Italian]

135 “ ‘a different potency’ ”: i.e., the particular function to which each of the “ ‘different organs’ ” (134) is adapted. [return to English / Italian]

139–141 Each “ ‘different power’ ” imparted by the Intelligence is combined with a different star (“ ‘dear body’ ”), which it “ ‘quickens,’ ” or vivifies, much as the soul, bound to the human body, vivifies it; and each particular combination of power and celestial body forms a different “ ‘compound,’ ” with properties particular to it. [return to English / Italian]

142–148 “ ‘Because of the glad nature of its source,’ ” i.e., the gladness of the Angelic Intelligences, which derives from the gladness of God (cf. Purg. XVI, 89), the power manifests itself as radiant light, shining (like gladness in the human eye) from the sphere with which it is “ ‘mingled.’ ” But each “ ‘different compound’ ” has properties particular to it and therefore shines with a particular quantity and quality of light. [return to English / Italian]

145–148 The “ ‘differences from light to light’ ” (from star to star) derive from the diverse shining of different compounds. It follows, then (though Beatrice has left it up to Dante to draw this conclusion [124–126]), that the lunar spots result from the diverse shining of the different compounds formed by the different parts of the moon mingled with the power that “ ‘quickens’ ” (139) the moon—the parts of lesser “ ‘worth’ ” shining less brightly. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO III

1 Readers of the Vita nuova and of the Purgatorio will recall that Dante was first visited by the warmth of love at the age of nine (“when I had not yet left / my boyhood” [Purg. XXX, 41–42], when he first set eyes on Beatrice, “the glorious lady of my mind” (Vita nuova II, 1). [return to English / Italian]

2 “Confuting, proving”: Beatrice’s argumentative technique, as we have had occasion to observe in the previous two cantos, is that typical of medieval Scholasticism. The questio is first raised, false opinions are refuted, then the true solution is proved. Dante uses and defends the technique in his Convivio IV, ii, 16: “And this was the method followed by the master of human reason, Aristotle, who always combatted the adversaries of the truth first, and then, when they had been discomfited, demonstrated the truth.” [return to English / Italian]

10–22 Dante is able to distinguish faintly the faces of the blessed in the First Heaven, the Heaven of the Moon. In contrast, however, to the spirits he had met in the previous two cantiche, whose appearance had been so real as to lead him upon occasion to do as Statius had done—to “ ‘[treat] the shades as…solid things’ ” (Purg. XXI, 136)—the vision he has of them is extremely attenuated and evanescent. Their contours are no more marked than would be those of white pearls strung, as was then the fashion, upon a woman’s white forehead, to invite favorable comparison with her complexion. They appear to be faces reflected on an unsilvered pane of glass (rather than in a mirror), or on water too shallow to give back a clear image. Dante is deceived into thinking that what he sees are reflections, and he instinctively turns around, believing the actual faces to be behind him. [return to English / Italian]

17–18 Ovid is once again Dante’s probable source for the Narcissus story. Narcissus, “the man [who] love[d] the fountain,” seeing his own face reflected in the pool, took it for the face of another (see Met. III, 407–510). Dante’s contrary mistake is to believe the reality of the spirits—their “true substances” (29)—to be “merely mirrorings” (20). [return to English / Italian]

30 Because of its monthly fluctuations, the moon has always been associated with mutability and inconstancy. In this, the lowest of the heavens, Dante encounters the souls of those compelled by the violence of others to fall short of the vows they had made to God. In like manner, the souls he meets in the other planetary spheres—the glory-seeking souls in Mercury, the loving in Venus, the wisdom-seeking in the Sun, the warlike in Mars, the just in Jupiter, the meditative in Saturn—will illustrate the characteristic influence of the star. [return to English / Italian]

43–45 That is, “Our charitable love cannot deny any just request, any more than God’s love can.” The entire canto is an enthusiastic celebration of caritas (charity), or spiritual love. [return to English / Italian]

46–51 Piccarda Donati was the sister of both Forese Donati—the friend of Dante’s youth with whom he was reunited, among the gluttonous, on the next to the last cornice of Purgatory—and the violent Corso Donati—the leader of the Black Guelphs (the faction opposed to Dante’s party, the Whites), whose coming damnation Forese had prophesied (Purg. XXIV, 82–87). Forese had also assured Dante, who was related to the family through his wife, Gemma Donati, that Forese’s lovely and good sister Piccarda was in Heaven (Purg. XXIV, 13–15). [return to English / Italian]

50–54 Though they appear in the lowest and slowest sphere, the beatitude of Piccarda and her companions is complete. They delight in whatever place they are privileged to fill in the Divine Order. “ ‘The flame / that is the pleasure of the Holy Ghost’ ” is the flame of charity or spiritual love. [return to English / Italian]

51 The Sphere of the Moon, being the smallest in diameter and closest to the center (the earth), moves more slowly in its revolutions than the outer spheres. (Cf. I, 76–78, note.) [return to English / Italian]

69 Most commentators interpret “love’s first flame” as referring to Divine Love, the love of the Holy Spirit, the “Primal Love” of Inferno III, 6. It could also point back, however, to the allusion to a first human love, Dante’s love for Beatrice, with which the present canto began. The language of the canto, indeed, recalls at times the tender sweetness of the Vita nuova and the “sweet new style,” a tone that characterized much of the language of Purgatorio. [return to English / Italian]

70 Singleton points out that the vocative “ ‘Brother,’ ” used by the Apostles in their Epistles, is often used by the speakers in the poem to take the sting out of a lesson or correction. [return to English / Italian]

70–72 Elsewhere, Dante explains in a similar fashion the paradox of an equal hierarchy among the blessed: “And this is another reason why the saints have no envy of one another, for every one attains the end of his desire, a desire commensurate with the excellence of his nature” (Convivio III, XV, 10). [return to English / Italian]

85 Cf. St. Paul, Ephesians 2:14: “Ipse enim est pax nostra” (“For he is our peace”) and St. Augustine’s Confessions, XIII, 9: “In thy good will is our peace.” “ ‘That sea / to which all beings move’ ” recalls “ ‘the mighty sea of being’ ” of Canto I, 113. This conjunction of love and of flowing toward peace suggests that the circumlocution used by Francesca da Rimini in Inferno V, 97–99, to designate her birthplace (“ ‘that shore / to which the Po…/ descends to final rest’ ” [the Italian text has “pace,” “peace”]) was not casual. The love Francesca professed could never bring her to this peace. [return to English / Italian]

95–96 For Singleton, the unfinished web, the cloth whose weaving had been interrupted, is Piccarda’s account of herself, interrupted by Dante’s question in line 58. For most other modern commentators, the metaphor refers to her broken vow. [return to English / Italian]

98 The “ ‘woman’ ” is the founder of the order of the Poor Clares, St. Clare of Assisi (1194–1253), a follower of St. Francis. We learn here that her soul is in a higher heaven, though Dante never actually meets her. [return to English / Italian]

100–101 At the moment of her final vows, the nun enters into a mystical marriage as the bride of Christ. [return to English / Italian]

102 “ ‘All vows’ ” that are inspired by true charity and therefore in conformity with His will. [return to English / Italian]

106–108 Piccarda was snatched violently from her convent by her brother Corso, who forced her to marry his henchman Rossellino della Tosa. Here Piccarda’s charitable reticence resorts to a generic locution, “ ‘men more used to malice than to good,’ ” avoiding the mention of her brother Corso’s name. [return to English / Italian]

118 The brightest of the souls in the Heaven of the Moon is Constance (1154–1198), daughter of Roger of Hauteville and last heir of the Norman rulers of Sicily. Dynastic pressures forced her to leave her monastery and marry the emperor Henry VI (1165–1197), the “ ‘Swabian’s second gust,’ ” son of Frederick Barbarossa. Their son, the emperor Frederick II, was the Swabian’s “ ‘third and final power.’ ” With him the Swabian (or Hohenstaufen) dynasty ended. [return to English / Italian]

123 As the spirits, when they first appeared, had seemed to be reflected on water, so it is as if into water that they depart, presumably to return to their seats in the Empyrean. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO IV

1–12 Piccarda’s words in the previous canto have raised two doubts in Dante’s mind, both of which are equally compelling. Thus, like Perseus (see Met. V, 164), Dante is uncertain and remains silent. [return to English / Italian]

13–18 Daniel, inspired by God, interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Dan. 2:1–46), thus saving the lives of the wise men of Babylon, whom the king, enraged by their inability to interpret his dream, had ordered put to death. Similarly Beatrice, through divine inspiration, discovers and resolves Dante’s doubts. [return to English / Italian]

19–27 The first of Dante’s doubts is: If the will to good remains constant, why should one’s merit diminish before God because of another’s violence? (See III, 106–108 and 115–117.) His second doubt, springing from the appearance within the moon of the souls of Piccarda and Costanza, is whether Plato might not be justified in his assertion in the Timaeus that the creator of the universe had assigned the souls to stars, and that upon the body’s death the soul returned to the particular star from which it came. This Platonic idea, in possibly suggesting an overpowering influence of the stars on human actions, threatens the crucial idea of the freedom of the will and although Marco Lombardo already explained that free will is not constrained by the stars’ influence (Purg. XVI, 67–81 [cf. also Purg. XVIII, 46–75]), the importance of this idea is such that any doubt that threatens it is still “ ‘insidious’ ” (27). Thus Beatrice treats Dante’s second question first. [return to English / Italian]

28–48 “ ‘ nor either John’ ”: i.e., neither the Baptist nor the Evangelist. In truth, all the blessed souls, says Beatrice, reside in the Empyrean; they appear to Dante in the different spheres only to show him, a mortal, the degrees of their beatitude. Since all human knowledge begins from sense perception (see II, 52–57, note), “ ‘such signs’ ” (40) are necessary for Dante if he is to grasp this purely spiritual truth. For this same reason the Scriptures ascribe to God feet and hands, and the Church represents in human figures the three Archangels, Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael (“ ‘the angel / who healed the eyes of Tobit’ ” [see Tobit 3:16–17, and 11:1–15]). (Cf. Summa theol. I, q. 84, a. 1, 6; I, q. 3, a. 1, ad 3.) [return to English / Italian]

49–63 Dante in these verses is reluctant to dismiss altogether Plato’s theory of the souls returning to their stars. He suggests that Plato’s words might have been intended figuratively, as meaning that what “ ‘returns’ ” to the stars is the “ ‘honor and blame’ ” (59) for their influence upon the human soul (an influence Dante of course admitted [see e.g., Canto XXII, 112–123, and Purg. XVI, 73]). It may be, therefore, that Plato’s opinion is “ ‘one to be derided’ ” (57). [return to English / Italian]

73–87 Regarding Dante’s first doubt (19–21), Beatrice explains that while Piccarda and Costanza were forced by violence, they did not oppose that violence with an absolute will, that is, a will unconditioned by any external forces. Such a will, unremitting, is like a flame, which by its natural impulse shoots upward, “ ‘though force—a thousand times—tries to compel’ ” (78) it otherwise. Thus, had Piccarda and Costanza exercised an absolute will, they would “ ‘have fled back to their holy shelter’ ” (81). In not doing so, their wills yielded somewhat and “ ‘abetted [the] force’ ” (80) used against them.

Beatrice mentions two exemplary instances of “ ‘whole’ ” (82), “ ‘intact’ ” (87), unbending, absolute will, one drawn from Christian history and one from Roman pagan history: St. Lawrence, a deacon of the Church in Rome, was martyred in A.D. 258 by the emperor Valerian, who ordered him grilled alive on an iron grate. St. Lawrence is said to have mocked his persecutors by suggesting that they turn him so that he might be properly roasted. Caius Mucius Scaevola, a Roman citizen, failed in his attempt to kill Lars Porsena of Clusium, who was besieging Rome. Ordered by Porsena to be burnt alive. Mucius thrust his right hand into a nearby fire already lit for sacrifices and held it there unflinchingly as he explained to Porsena that one after another the Romans would try to kill Porsena until they succeeded. In admiration for his fortitude and the Romans’ determination, Porsena spared Mucius’ life and ended his siege. [return to English / Italian]

88–90 The “ ‘argument / that would have troubled [Dante] again,’ ” the argument concerning the apparent injustice of God (19–21), is thus quashed, “ ‘eliminate[d]’ ” (89). [return to English / Italian]

91–99 “ ‘Another obstacle’ ” obstructs Dante’s understanding of the truth that Beatrice has set forth concerning the will. Earlier, she made it quite clear to Dante that “ ‘souls in blessedness can never lie, / since they are always near the Primal Truth’ ” (see III, 31–33). Yet Piccarda has said that “ ‘the veil upon [Costanza’s] heart was never loosed’ ” (III. 117). That assertion “ ‘seems to contradict’ ” Beatrice’s words (82–87). And if Beatrice is right, Piccarda has spoken untruth. Beatrice will dissolve this “ ‘obstacle’ ” by explaining the distinction between the absolute will and the relative, or contingent, will. [return to English / Italian]

100–105 Alcmaeon was the son of Amphiaraus, one of the seven kings who warred against Thebes. Amphiaraus foresaw his death in the war and tried to avert it by hiding from battle, but his wife Eriphyle betrayed him to his enemies (see Purg. XII, 50–51 and note). Before dying, he enjoined Alcmaeon to revenge his death by slaying his mother Eriphyle, and in order not to be remiss in filial devotion, Alcmaeon did so (see Statius, Theb. II. 265–305). As with Alcmaeon, “ ‘it has often happened’ ” that to avoid an evil considered greater, men have unwillingly committed evil acts. (Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics III. 1.) [return to English / Italian]

106–114 Absolute will is completely unyielding to evil, but “ ‘contingent,’ ” or relative, will consents, or yields, to evil out of fear that resisting evil “ ‘might bring greater harm.’ ” Thus, in failing to flee “ ‘back to their holy shelter’ ” (81), Piccarda and Costanza yielded somewhat to the violent force that took them from the cloister. Therefore, “ ‘no excuse can pardon’ ” them for not having fulfilled their vows. When Piccarda said that “ ‘the veil upon [Costanza’s] heart was never loosed’ ” (III, 117), she was referring to Costanza’s absolute will, while Beatrice is speaking of Costanza’s relative will, without the consent of which, Costanza would not have remained away from the cloister. Thus there is no contradiction between Piccarda’s and Beatrice’s words. [return to English / Italian]

115–117 Beatrice’s divinely inspired explanation is “the holy stream / issuing from the fountain from which springs / all truth,” i.e., from God, the “ ‘First / Lover’ ” (118–119). [return to English / Italian]

126–138 The “ ‘truth beyond whose boundary no truth lies’ ” is the Truth of Divine Wisdom. In seeking the Truth, doubting is a natural process, spurring us on from truth to greater truth to Truth. Dante’s understanding of the vital importance of doubting encourages him to voice a further question. He wants to know whether one can compensate for unfulfilled vows by the performance of other “ ‘good works,’ ” meritorious deeds. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO V

1–3 “ ‘the fire of love’ ”: i.e., the ardor of Divine Love. The narrative here continues directly from the end of Canto IV. [return to English / Italian]

5–6 “ ‘perfected vision’ ”: i.e., a vision partaking in Divine Wisdom, so that as the intellect apprehends the good, the will, perfected, moves immediately toward it. Nearing the good, the soul increases in love and so increases in its splendor (cf. XXVI, 28–36); thus Beatrice, flaming with Divine Love, “ ‘overcome[s Dante’s] vision’s force’ ” (3). [return to English / Italian]

8 The “ ‘never-ending light’ ” is the light of Truth, of Divine Wisdom. [return to English / Italian]

10–12 On the love of a “ ‘lesser thing’ ” see Purgatorio XVI, 85–93, and XVII, 91–102, and corresponding notes (cf. Convivio, IV, XII, 13–19, on the progress of the soul from the desire of lesser objects to ever greater objects and, finally, to the desire of the “highest object of desire, which is God”). [return to English / Italian]

13–15 “ ‘a promise unfulfilled’ ”: i.e., an unfulfilled vow. Beatrice is restating the question asked by Dante in Canto IV, 136–138. [return to English / Italian]

19–22 In order to answer Dante’s question, Beatrice will first explain the nature and significance of a vow (19–30). On the freedom of the will, see Purgatorio XVI, 67–81, and XVIII, 46–75. [return to English / Italian]

23 “ ‘those beings that have intellect’ ”: humans and angels. [return to English / Italian]

25–30 Not all vows are acceptable to God, for according to St. Thomas, since “God welcomes only virtuous actions…it is clear that one must not make a vow to perform any illicit or indifferent act, but only virtuous acts” (Summa theol. II–II, q. 88, a. 2). But the making of a vow accepted by God constitutes “ ‘a pact…drawn between a man / and God’ ” in which “ ‘a man gives up…his free will,’ ” that is, gives up his freedom to behave in any manner other than that prescribed by his vow, and does so “ ‘through free will,’ ” for a vow is “a voluntary promise” made to God (Summa theol., ibid.). [return to English / Italian]

32 To use that free will again would mean to violate one’s vow. [return to English / Italian]

35 “ ‘since the Holy Church gives dispensations’ ”: It is in the power of the Church to grant a release from the fulfillment of a vow. [return to English / Italian]

37–39 The same metaphor of wisdom, or teaching, as food, opens Dante’s Convivio (quoted in II, 1–18, note). [return to English / Italian]

44 The “ ‘matter of the pledge’ ” is the particular obligation imposed by the vow. [return to English / Italian]

45 “ ‘the formal compact’ ”: As Beatrice says (47–48), “ ‘it is of this’ ” that she has spoken “ ‘so precisely’ ” (in lines 25–30). [return to English / Italian]

49–51 Under the Mosaic law (see Lev. 27), the Hebrews were obliged to make ritual sacrifices, but under certain circumstances “ ‘some of their offerings might be altered.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

55–57 One must not substitute some “ ‘other matter’ ” (54) for the original matter of one’s vow “ ‘through his own judgment,’ ” without ecclesiastical sanction. (For “ ‘the white and yellow keys,’ ” symbols of priestly science, or wisdom, and priestly authority, see Purg. IX, 115–129 and notes.) According to St. Thomas, the Church, as the representative of God’s authority, has the power to grant total dispensation from a vow, if it is judged that such a dispensation would serve some greater good (Summa theol. II–II, q. 88, a. 10). But Dante, reacting against abuses of the power of dispensation, dissents here, upholding the view that only the commutation of a vow is permissible, that is, a change in the matter of a vow. [return to English / Italian]

58–60 The original obligation entailed by a vow must be clearly exceeded by the new obligation substituted for it. [return to English / Italian]

61–63 “ ‘when the matter of a vow…tips every scale, / no other weight can serve as substitute’ ”: since none could constitute a clearly greater obligation. Beatrice is probably referring to the specific “ ‘matter of a vow’ ” involved in the cases of Piccarda and Costanza (see III, 34–120), the vow of chastity, which, as St. Thomas concludes, is not subject to dispensation (Summa theol. II–II, q. 88, a. 11). (For Dante’s figure of the scale, cf. Ecclesiasticus 26:20: “a chaste character cannot be weighed on scales.”) [return to English / Italian]

65–66 Jephthah was a judge of Israel who, during a war against the Ammonites, made a vow to Yahweh that in return for victory he would sacrifice the first person to greet him at the door of his house upon his return. This turned out to be his only daughter (“ ‘his first gift’ ”). (See Judg. 11:29–40.) [return to English / Italian]

67–68 “ ‘by keeping faith’ ”: i.e., by actually sacrificing his daughter, in fulfillment of his vow. According to St. Thomas, when a person has taken a vow to do something “which in the majority of cases is a good,” but which in some particular case turns out to be “simply evil, or useless, or an obstacle to some greater good…it is necessary, in such a case, to decide that the vow is not to be observed” (Summa theol. II–II, q. 88. a. 10). [return to English / Italian]

69–72 The “ ‘Greeks’ chief,’ ” Agamemnon, had once made a vow to the goddess Artemis that he would sacrifice to her the most beautiful thing born in his realm that year. But this turned out to be his own daughter Iphigenia, and he refused to sacrifice her. Years later, when the Greek fleet at Aulis was prepared to sail against Troy, persistent calm and unfavorable winds prevented the fleet’s departure. The other Greek leaders placed the blame for this on Agamemnon’s not having kept his vow and convinced him that the wrath of Artemis must be appeased by the fulfillment of that vow. Agamemnon relented, and “her fair face made Iphigenia grieve.” Varying accounts of the episode appear in Ovid (Met. XII, 24–34) and Virgil (Aen. II, 164–166), but Dante’s source for the version involving a vow that in a particular case turns out to be evil was probably Cicero (De officiis III, 25, 95). [return to English / Italian]

71 “ ‘the wise and…the foolish’ ”: an expression still used in certain Italian dialects, meaning, simply, everyone. [return to English / Italian]

73–74 That is, “Proceed with greater seriousness and consideration in the making of vows; do not be frivolous and easily moved to make ill-considered vows that are soon regretted.” [return to English / Italian]

75 That is, “Do not think that the making of vows is sufficient to wash away your sins,” the way baptismal water washes away original sin, and holy water venial sin; or perhaps, “Do not think that you can be easily released from the fulfillment of your vows, and by merely any priest.” The dispensation or commutation of certain vows requires the authority of a bishop, while only the pope can dispense from the most important of the dispensable vows (see Summa theol. II–II, q. 88, a. 12). [return to English / Italian]

77 The “ ‘shepherd of the Church’ ” is the pope. [return to English / Italian]

80 “ ‘like sheep gone mad’ ”: turning this way and that in religious matters, following one another mindlessly. [return to English / Italian]

81 “ ‘so that / the Jew,’ ” regulating his behavior strictly by the Law, “ ‘not deride you’ ” for capriciousness, not only in the making of vows, but in religious matters generally. [return to English / Italian]

82–84 That is, “Do not abandon the spiritual nourishment of the Old and New Testaments and the guidance of the Church and its ‘shepherd,’ the pope, for in doing so, you ‘war against’ and ‘harm’ yourself spiritually.” (Cf. XI, 124–131, where the “ ‘sheep, remote and vagabond’ ” are Dominicans who have strayed from St. Dominic’s rule.) [return to English / Italian]

87 “to where the world is more alive with light”: toward the higher, surrounding heavens and beyond, toward the Empyrean, the heaven of “ ‘light and love’ ” (XXVII, 112). [return to English / Italian]

93 “the second realm”: the Second Heaven, that of Mercury. [return to English / Italian]

96–97 In response to Beatrice’s joy, even the planet—the immutable planet!—“grew more bright” and “changed and smiled.” [return to English / Italian]

105 In answering Dante’s questions and helping him resolve his doubts, these souls will increase in their charity, in their love. And as Virgil explained to Dante in Purgatory, “ ‘where there are more souls above who love, / there’s more to love well there, and they love more’ ” (Purg. XV, 73–74). [return to English / Italian]

106 “each shade”: Here in the Second Heaven, the image of a corporeal figure is still just barely discernible within the “bright radiance” (107) issuing from and surrounding these souls. [return to English / Italian]

115 “ ‘O you born unto gladness’ ”: cf. Purgatorio V, 59–60. [return to English / Italian]

116–117 “ ‘the thrones of the eternal / triumph’ ”: the seats of the blessed, triumphing eternally in the Empyrean (see IV, 28–39.) [return to English / Italian]

117 “ ‘your war of life’ ”: i.e., man’s life on earth. Cf. Job 7:1: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service [i.e., forced military service].” Those still fighting the war of life are contrasted with the triumphant blessed in Paradise. (Cf. XXV, 57.) [return to English / Italian]

118–119 The “ ‘light…/ which spreads through all of heaven’ ” is the light of divine love, or charity. Cf. the opening to Paradiso (I, 1–3). [return to English / Italian]

123 “ ‘trust them as you trust gods’ ”: cf. III, 31–33. [return to English / Italian]

124–126 “ ‘how you have nested in / your own light’ ”: i.e., how the soul surrounds itself with its effulgence, which issues “ ‘from [its] eyes,’ ” and “glistens” more brightly as the soul smiles with gladness. Cf. Dante’s words in the Convivio (III, VIII, 12): “Ah, marvelous smile of my lady, of which I speak, that never was felt, if not from her eyes!” [return to English / Italian]

128 “ ‘your rank’ ”: i.e., the soul’s assigned position in Paradise. But this position is only apparent, as Beatrice explained in IV, 28–39. [return to English / Italian]

128–129 In the Convivio (II, XIII, 11), Dante notes that Mercury “is veiled by the rays of the sun more than is any other star.” (Recall that Dante applies the term star to planets too [see II, 30, note]; and planet here refers to the sun.) [return to English / Italian]

136–138 The image of a corporeal figure (see 106, note) is now “concealed,” rendered invisible through the increased splendor of this soul, resulting from its increased gladness (cf. line 126). [return to English / Italian]

CANTO VI

1–9 In A.D. 324, the emperor Constantine the Great transferred the seat of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium (renamed Constantinople in A.D. 330). In doing so he “ ‘turned the Eagle,’ ” emblem of the Empire, “ ‘counter to heaven’s course,’ ” that is, carried it from west to east, opposite to “ ‘the course it took / behind’ ” Aeneas (“ ‘the ancient one who wed Lavinia’ ”) when Aeneas brought it from Troy (“ ‘the peaks from which it first emerged’ ”) to Italy. The seat of the Empire had remained in Constantinople (“ ‘near Europe’s borders’ ”) for over two hundred years (from A.D. 324 to 527 [though according to the chronology of Brunetto Latini’s Trésor, probably followed by Dante, the span was from 333 to 539]) when Justinian became emperor and reestablished the seat of the Empire in Italy, at Ravenna.

The imagery here—“ ‘counter to heaven’s course’ ”—expresses Dante’s conviction that the so-called Donation of Constantine (a document now known to be inauthentic), by which Constantine had supposedly granted temporal power in the Western Empire to the pope, was the source of many of the evils of Dante’s own time. (See Inf. XIX, 115–117 and note, and see “Dante in His Age,” Bantam Classics Inferno, pp. 326–328.) [return to English / Italian]

10–12 “ ‘Caesar I was and am Justinian’ ”: The contrast here makes clear that, as is true of every soul, Justinian’s beatitude is according to his virtue, his individual merit, and not to the power or dignity that was his on earth. Justinian’s most enduring accomplishment was the Codex Justinianus, a codification of the vast accumulated corpus of Roman law, from which, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Justinian deleted all that was contradictory, superfluous, or simply no longer applicable in the context of the 6th-century Christian empire. [return to English / Italian]

12–24 Justinian states that he was a follower of the Eutychian or Monophysite heresy, which attributed to Christ only the divine nature and not the human. He was converted to “ ‘that faith which has truth and purity,’ ” that is, to faith in the dual nature of Christ, by Agapetus (pope from A.D. 533 to 536); the truth of that faith is made all the more striking here by Justinian’s expression which can be paraphrased as: “I see Christ’s nature was both divine and human at the very same time, as clearly as you see that ‘A’ and ‘not A’ can not both be true at the same time.” After Justinian’s conversion, God “ ‘inspired [his] high task,’ ” the production of the Codex. [return to English / Italian]

25–27 The famous general Belisarius (c500–565) was entrusted by the emperor Justinian with complete control of the army. Belisarius overthrew the Vandal kingdom in Africa and defeated the Goths in Italy, which enabled the foundation of the exarchate of Ravenna. Dante, casting Justinian and Belisarius as paradigmatic emperor and general, may have been unaware of Belisarius’s having been unjustly accused of conspiracy against Justinian by jealous members of Justinian’s court. According to popular tradition Justinian had Belisarius blinded and confiscated his property, but in fact, Belisarius was simply confined to his own palace until Justinian discovered the falsity of the accusation. [return to English / Italian]

28–33 “ ‘with how much reason’ ”: Justinian’s ironic words anticipate his explicit reproach (100–111) of both the Ghibellines (who had appropriated the eagle as emblem for their own banner) and the Guelphs (who opposed the imperial eagle). (See “Dante in His Age,” Bantam Classics Inferno, pp. 322–323.) Justinian will proceed to a sweeping narration of the illustrious history of the Empire and the “ ‘great virtue’ ” (34) that “ ‘made that Eagle worthy / of reverence’ ” (34–35), the virtue of the men who founded, governed, and fought for it, from Aeneas to Charlemagne. Fundamental throughout is the idea that the Roman Empire had been divinely appointed to prepare the world for the advent of Christianity. [return to English / Italian]

36 Pallas, son of the Latin king Evander, died in battle against Turnus while fighting for Aeneas, who in revenge killed Turnus (see Aen. X, 657–675, and XII, 1225–1270). [return to English / Italian]

37–39 The kingdom of Aeneas was transferred by his son Ascanius from Lavinium (where it was founded) to Alba Longa. There it remained for three hundred years, until the three Roman Horatii defeated the Alban Curatii (“ ‘three…fought three’ ”). Thus Alba fell to Rome, though Dante, following Virgil, notes that the Albans and the Romans were both descended from the Trojans who came to Italy with Aeneas (see Mon. II, ix, 15). [return to English / Italian]

40–42 During the era of the Roman monarchy (“ ‘under seven kings’ ”), the Eagle “ ‘conquered / its neighbors,’ ” steadily extending its dominion. The first Roman king, Romulus, in order to provide his people with wives, ordered the rape of the Sabine women, who had come to attend the public games. The seventh and last king, Tarquin the Proud, was driven out in 510 B.C. by the people, who were outraged by his rape of Lucrece, famous for her steadfast goodness and driven to suicide in her grief. [return to English / Italian]

43–54 With the abolition of the monarchy, the period of the Roman Republic began. The Republic’s continued and successful struggle against various enemies is now outlined by Justinian with the impetus of a swooping eagle. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (whose name, cincinnatus, means “curly,” rather than “disheveled locks,” as was believed), a farmer called to the dictatorship, defeated the Aequians in 458 B.C. Brennus, leader of the Senonian Gauls who besieged the Capitol, was defeated in 390 B.C. by Torquatus (45) and one of the Fabii (48), a renowned Roman family. In 280 B.C. a member of another family, the Decii (47), defeated the Greek Pyrrhus, who had come to Italy to help the Tarentines in their fight against the Romans. The greatest of the Fabii, Quinctius Fabius Maximus, employed his famous delaying tactics to save Rome from Hannibal and the Carthaginians, who had crossed the Alps (from which the river Po descends) and successfully invaded Italy in 218 B.C. (Dante anachronistically refers to the Carthaginians as “Arabs,” for in Dante’s time the latter occupied what had been the Carthaginian territory.) Scipio Africanus the Elder, who as a boy of seventeen won fame by saving his father’s life at the battle of Ticinus (218 B.C.), at age thirty-three forced Hannibal to withdraw from Italy through his counter invasion of Africa and then defeated Hannibal at Zama. Leaping ahead more than a century to 81 B.C., Justinian mentions the first triumph of Pompey, at age twenty-five, against the faction led by Marius. Next, “ ‘that standard,’ ” the eagle, “ ‘seemed most harsh’ ” to Fiesole, a hill town overlooking Florence (“ ‘that hill beneath / which you were born’ ”). According to legend, the Romans destroyed Fiesole when Catiline had taken refuge there. [return to English / Italian]

55–57 Near the time ordained by God for the birth of Jesus Christ, so that through him man might be reconciled with God, Caesar came to power (“ ‘took up that standard’ ”). The idea of a single ruler was essential to Dante’s conception of political harmony and order, and Dante, sharing a popular misconception of the Middle Ages, believed Caesar to have been the first Roman emperor. [return to English / Italian]

58–60 Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul are referred to with the names of five of the region’s principal rivers and mention of “ ‘all / the valley-floors’ ” through which run tributaries that “ ‘feed the Rhone,’ ” another of Gaul’s rivers. [return to English / Italian]

61–63 In leaving Ravenna and crossing the Rubicon River (the border between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy) without permission of the Senate, Caesar exceeded the limits of his jurisdiction, thus provoking the civil war against Pompey (49 B.C.). The civil war, “even if deplorable, was necessary for the final success of the Empire” (Bosco-Reggio). (In Inferno [XXVIII, 96–102] Dante encountered Caius Curio, who “quenched the doubt in Caesar” about crossing the Rubicon.) [return to English / Italian]

64–66 Caesar overcame Pompey’s legates in Spain and followed Pompey to Durazzo (the modern Durrës, on the Dalmatian coast) in Thessaly. At Pharsalia, in Thessaly, Caesar decisively defeated Pompey’s troops (in 48 B.C.). Pompey escaped to Egypt (where “ ‘the warm Nile’ ” runs) to the court of Ptolemy, who, hoping to win favor with Caesar, treacherously slew him (see 69). [return to English / Italian]

67–68 Pursuing Pompey after the battle of Pharsalia, Caesar (bearing the eagle, still the subject of Justinian’s discourse) detoured to the Troad in Asia Minor, to see the ruins of Troy (“ ‘where Hector lies’ ”) and the town of Antandros (near the river Simois) from which, after the Trojan War, Aeneas first set forth. (See Lucan, Phars. IX, 950–999, and Virgil, Aen. III, 7–10.) [return to English / Italian]

69 Ptolemy XII, king of Egypt from 51 to 47 B.C., ruled jointly with his sister Cleopatra for three years, afterward expelling her. Cleopatra enlisted Caesar’s help, and Caesar successfully invaded Egypt, granting Ptolemy’s kingdom to Cleopatra. Ptolemy drowned while escaping from Caesar. [return to English / Italian]

70–72 Caesar, bearing the eagle, next defeated Juba, king of the Numidians, who had been an ally of Pompey. Then Caesar returned to Spain where, at the battle of Munda in 45 B.C., Caesar defeated the sons and last followers of Pompey. [return to English / Italian]

73–81 Augustus, the nephew of Caesar, “ ‘bore [the Eagle] next.’ ” Augustus defeated Mark Antony at Modena (43 B.C.) and Mark Antony’s brother Lucius at Perugia (41 B.C.). In 42 B.C., with Antony as his ally at the battle of Philippi, Augustus defeated Brutus and Cassius (who had assassinated Caesar in 44 B.C.). Brutus and Cassius then both committed suicide (cf. Inf. XXXIV, 64–67 and note). Augustus finally defeated Mark Antony in 31 B.C. at Actium, after which Antony took his own life. Antony’s lover, Cleopatra, rather than be taken to Rome as a captive, inflicted on herself the fatal bite of an asp (cf. Inf. V, 63). Having thus conquered Egypt for the Roman Empire (“ ‘reached / the Red Sea shore’ ”), Augustus was sole master of the entire Roman Empire, and under his rule universal peace prevailed, in token of which for only the third time in Rome’s history, the gates of the temple of Janus, always kept open during wartime (since the god was presumed to be away with the army), were shut. This universal peace having been achieved, the world was at last prepared for the advent of Christ. [return to English / Italian]

82–90 The third Caesar was Tiberius, under whose reign Christ was crucified, thus reconciling man with God, “ ‘avenging [God’s] own wrath’ ” for Adam’s original sin. In Dante’s view, this is the solemnest recognition of the legitimacy and providentiality of Imperial Rome (see Monarchy II, xii–xiii). And all the deeds of the Roman emperors, all the power and conquests of Rome “ ‘seem faint and insignificant’ ” compared to this event of man’s redemption through Christ’s Passion. [return to English / Italian]

91–93 The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in A.D. 70 and the subsequent diaspora of the Jews were considered by many to have been God’s vengeance against the Jews for their part in Christ’s crucifixion. [return to English / Italian]

94–96 Charlemagne “ ‘brought help’ ” to the Church when Desiderius, king of the Lombards, occupied papal territory in A.D. 773. Dante’s leap from Titus to Charlemagne is significant in suggesting the continuity and the direct derivation of the legitimacy of the Holy Roman Empire (dating from Charlemagne) from the ancient Roman Empire. [return to English / Italian]

97–102 “ ‘Those [Justinian] condemned above’ ” (see 31–33) are the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The Guelphs opposed the imperial eagle (“ ‘the universal emblem’ ”) with yellow (or golden) lilies, the emblem of the royal house of France, and the Ghibellines appropriated the eagle as the emblem of their own political faction. (See “Dante in His Age,” Bantam Classics Inferno, pp. 322–323). [return to English / Italian]

106 “ ‘This new Charles’ ” is Charles II of Anjou, king of Naples from 1285 to 1309 and leader of the Guelph party in Italy. The “ ‘claws that stripped / a more courageous lion of its hide’ ” are the claws of the imperial eagle. [return to English / Italian]

109 “ ‘The sons have often wept for a father’s fault’ ”: cf. Exodus 20:5 and Lamentations 5:7. [return to English / Italian]

112–117 “ ‘This little planet’ ”: i.e., Mercury, in the Second Heaven. Here appear souls of those who acted righteously, but more for the sake of “ ‘honor and…fame’ ” than from love of God (“ ‘the true love’ ”). [return to English / Italian]

128–142 Romeo (or Romieu) of Villeneuve (1170–1250) was a minister and chamberlain to Raymond Berenger IV, count of Provence. The legend circulated in Dante’s time, that Romeo had been a poor and humble pilgrim, who, on returning from his pilgrimage, stopped at the court of Count Raymond. The count quickly appreciated Romeo’s virtue and wisdom, and before long appointed him minister. With prudence and sagacity Romeo succeeded in making each of Raymond Berenger’s four daughters a queen, arranging their marriages to Louis IX (St. Louis) of France, Henry III of England, Henry’s brother Richard of Cornwall, king elect of the Romans, and Charles of Anjou, brother to St. Louis. Certain barons of Provence, jealous of Romeo’s influence with the count, accused him of maladministration of the count’s treasure and incited Count Raymond to ask Romeo for an accounting. Seeing the count’s ungratefulness, Romeo renounced his service, returned to him all but the few poor possessions with which he had come, and, in spite of the count’s regretful protestations, departed, to no one knows where. A particular sympathy for the figure of Romeo is evident in Dante, himself a faithful servant of his city, who “ ‘met ungratefulness.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

CANTO VII

1–3 “Hosanna, holy God of hosts, superabundantly illuminating with your brightness the happy fires of these kingdoms!” This hymn sung by the soul of Justinian (“that substance” [5]), though Dante’s invention and not an actual church hymn, recalls liturgical language (in particular, the Sanctus from the liturgy of the Mass: “Sanctus Dominus Deus sabaòth…Hosanna in excelsis”) in mingling with its Latin three Hebrew terms: Hosanna, a shout of acclaim originally meaning “O save” (the cry with which the multitude greeted Christ as he entered Jerusalem on the occasion commemorated on Palm Sunday [see Matt. 21:9]); sabaòth, “hosts”; and malacòth (properly, mamlacòth), “kingdoms.” [return to English / Italian]

6 These “double lights” probably signify the twin ornaments of arms and laws, with which, according to the prologue of Justinian’s Institutiones, imperial majesty must be adorned. They may, however, represent Justinian’s imperial majesty and his beatitude or, simply, the lights common to all the blessed, the illumination of divine grace and the soul’s own effulgence. [return to English / Italian]

14 “Be and ice”: the first and last parts of the name of Beatrice. [return to English / Italian]

19–21 For the first of three times in this canto, Beatrice reads Dante’s thoughts reflected in the Mind of God (cf. 52 and 124)—hence her “ ‘never-erring judgment’ ” (cf. IX, 19–21, 73–75, XI, 19–21, and XV, 61–63). In each case she voices Dante’s doubts and questions and immediately instructs him in their resolution. The “ ‘question that perplexes’ ” Dante here is this: If Christ’s crucifixion represented “ ‘just vengeance’ ” for man’s original sin (as Justinian asserted in his discourse on the history and destiny of the imperial eagle [VI, 88–90]), how can that crucifixion “ ‘deserve just punishment,’ ” i.e., the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and the subsequent diaspora of the Jews as punishment for their part in that crucifixion? (See VI, 91–93.) In other words, it would seem that if Christ’s crucifixion was just, the punishment of the Jews must have been unjust. [return to English / Italian]

25–27 Adam, “ ‘the man who was not born’ ” (having been created directly by God), “ ‘could not endure the helpful curb / on his willpower,’ ” that is, the injunction given him by God that “of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die” (Gen. 2:17). (Cf. XXVI, 115–117.) As a result, not only Adam himself, but “ ‘all his progeny’ ”—all people—were damned. [return to English / Italian]

30–33 “ ‘until the Word of God willed to descend’ ”: i.e., until the Incarnation, in which human nature, “ ‘sundered from / its Maker’ ” by original sin, was united with divine nature in the person of Christ, “ ‘the Word of God.’ ” (See John I.) “ ‘Where the nature…was united to His person’ ”: in the womb of Mary, where “the Word was made flesh” (John 1:14). This union of divine and human nature “came about in the person, not in the nature” (Summa theol. III, q. 2, a. 2). In other words, divine and human natures were both present in the unity of Christ’s person, yet those natures themselves remained distinct. [return to English / Italian]

35–39 Human nature, thus united to God in the person of Christ, “ ‘was good and pure,’ ” as Adam had been before the Fall. But human nature “ ‘in itself’ ”—i.e., by its own doing, through its own fault—“ ‘had been banished / from paradise, because’ ” in committing original sin it “ ‘turned aside / from its own path, from truth, from its own life’ ”—from God. Cf. John 14:6: “Jesus said: ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

40–45 “ ‘measured by the nature He assumed,’ ” that is, insofar as He was human, Christ’s crucifixion was a just punishment of mankind for original sin, yet insofar as He was divine (“ ‘if we regard the Person made to suffer’ ”), “ ‘none was ever done so great a wrong.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

47 “ ‘God and the Jews were pleased by one same death’ ”—God, because that death (Christ’s upon the Cross) atoned for man’s original sin, and the Jews, because that death appeased their resentment and envy of Jesus. For that death “earth trembled” (see Matt. 27:51) from God’s wrath at “ ‘so great a wrong’ ” (43), and at the same time “ ‘Heaven opened’ ” (48) to man, reconciled with God through Christ’s Passion. [return to English / Italian]

57 “ ‘this pathway’ ”: i.e., the Incarnation and Passion of Christ. (This question [56–57] is the subject of St. Anselm’s Cur Deus homo?—which was probably an important source for the substance of Beatrice’s answer [64–120].) [return to English / Italian]

64–66 The Goodness of God is free of every passion opposed to Its own perfect Love, from the ardor of which springs creation, giving visible form to God’s “eternal beauties.” (Cf. XXIX, 13–18, and cf. Boethius, Consolatione philosophiae III, IX, 4–6: “No external causes impelled You to make this work from chaotic matter. Rather it was the form of the highest good, existing within You without envy.”) [return to English / Italian]

67–72 Those things created directly by God, without any intermediary causes (“ ‘immediately’ ”) are “everlasting” (for the image of the “ ‘seal’ ” and “ ‘imprint,’ ” cf. II, 130–132) and “ ‘fully free,’ ” not constrained by the influence of the heavens or any other natural causes. Beatrice will elaborate when she returns “ ‘to explain one point’ ” (121–148), to free Dante of an uncertainty turning on just this question. [return to English / Italian]

76–77 “ ‘The human being / has all these gifts’ ”: namely, immortality (his soul having been created directly by God) and liberty (for though influenced by the heavens, he is “ ‘not constrained’ ” [71] by that influence [this crucial point was explained to Dante by Marco Lombardo in Purgatory (see Purg. XVI, 67–84)]). [return to English / Italian]

79–81 As St. Thomas explains, “by sinning man forsakes the order of reason, and consequently falls away from human dignity, which consists in being free and in existing for himself, and he degenerates, in a way, into the slavish state of the beasts” (Summa theol. II–II, q. 64, a. 2). Sin makes man “ ‘unlike the Highest Good,’ ” so that “ ‘the Sacred Ardor’ ” (74) gleams less brightly in him. [return to English / Italian]

83–84 The image of filling a void aptly expresses the critical point here, that the atonement for a sin must be commensurate with the gravity of that sin. [return to English / Italian]

85–93 Man’s dignities of immortality and liberty were lost when Adam (man’s “ ‘seed’ ”) “sinned so totally.” These “ ‘could never be regained’ ” without there taking place one of two things: God’s pardoning man “ ‘through nothing other than His mercy’ ” (without requiring that justice be carried out), or man’s proffering “ ‘payment for his folly,’ ” that is, making suitable and just atonement, commensurate with the gravity of his sin. [return to English / Italian]

97–102 Adam and Eve had been assured by the serpent, “the day you eat it [the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil] your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). Adequate atonement was thus impossible for man, because “ ‘no obedience, no humility /…could have been so deep’ ” that it could compensate for man’s infinite presumptuousness in aspiring to the level of God. [return to English / Italian]

103–120 God’s “ ‘own ways’ ” are mercy and justice (cf. 91–93). But to restore to man the fullness of life lost in the Fall, it pleased God to proceed not by one only but by both His ways, thereby more greatly manifesting His Goodness. The pathway “God willed…for our redemption” (56–57), the Incarnation and Passion of Christ, satisfied at once the greatest liberalities of mercy and the strictest demands of justice—the former, in that God gave “ ‘His own self’ ” (116), in the Person of Christ, for the accomplishment of an atonement “ ‘man lacked the power / to offer…by himself’ ” (101–102), and the latter, justice, in that “ ‘the penalty the Cross inflicted’ ” (40) upon Christ justly punished man for original sin. Indeed, “ ‘every other means fell short of justice’ ” (118), since only the act of infinite humility whereby Christ became incarnate and suffered the Passion, could compensate for the infinite presumptuousness of man in committing original sin. [return to English / Italian]

124–129 Beatrice perceives and voices an objection on Dante’s part, that in spite of “ ‘ “what has been said above,” ’ ” i.e., that “ ‘all that derives directly from [the Godly] Goodness / is everlasting’ ” (67–68), it is yet apparent that the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, although created by God, are not everlasting, but rather, together with all things made from them, “ ‘ “come to corruption.” ’ ” Beatrice’s response and resolution of this objection fills the remainder of the canto. [return to English / Italian]

130–138 The angels and the heavens and heavenly bodies were indeed created directly by God in the entirety of their being. But this is not true of the elements, for although their material had been created directly by God (matter in the absence of form being conceived of as the potential to receive form), they actually “ ‘receive their form from a created power,’ ” namely, from the heavenly bodies. These bodies, presided over by the Angelic Intelligences (see II, 112–138), “ ‘wheel about them [the elements],’ ” and have the “ ‘power to give form’ ” to the elements. Thus the elements do not derive, in the entirety of their being, “ ‘directly from [the Godly] Goodness’ ” (67). They are, therefore, neither everlasting nor free of the continued “ ‘influence of other things’ ” (72). [return to English / Italian]

139–144 Shining downward as they “ ‘wheel about’ ” (137), and so exercising their influences—their “ ‘power to give form’ ” (138)—on the sublunar world, the stars and other heavenly bodies (“ ‘the holy lights’ ”) “ ‘draw forth’ ” the vegetative and sensitive souls of plants and animals (for plants the former only, for animals both) from appropriate mixtures of the elements. The human soul, however, is “ ‘breathed forth’ ” directly by God into the human fetus. (See Statius’ explanation in Purg. XXV, 52–75 and notes.) [return to English / Italian]

143–144 “ ‘who so enamors it / of His own Self that it desires Him always’ ”: cv. Convivio III, ii, 7, 9 (quoted in XXVI, 37–39, note) and Convivio IV, xii, 14: “the greatest desire of each thing, and the first given it by nature, is to return to its origin. And since God is the origin of our souls, who made them similar to Himself (as it is written: ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness’), that soul most greatly desires to return to Him.” [return to English / Italian]

145–148 Not only the human soul, but human flesh as well, was created directly by God, when Adam and Eve were created (see Gen. 2:7, 21–22). Thus, since “ ‘all that derives directly from [the Godly] Goodness / is everlasting,’ ” (67–68), the human body and the human soul are both immortal. Man’s physical death must, therefore, be followed, ultimately, by his resurrection. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO VIII

1–3 In pagan times, when the world, as yet unredeemed by Christ, was “still in peril,” it was believed that sensual or “frenzied love” was “sent down” by “Cyprian / the fair,” i.e., Venus (who was believed to have arisen from the sea near the island of Cyprus), as Venus wheeled in the third epicycle (see note below). (Both the goddess and the planet are intended here, since it was believed that the influence of the former was communicated by the latter; in Dante’s conception too, of course, “the rays of each heaven are the means by which their power descends to things here below” [Convivio II, vi, 9].) [return to English / Italian]

2 In addition to the overall east to west movement of the heavens and the orbital movement of each planet around the earth, the Ptolemaic system postulated an epicycle, a small rotation of each planet around a point of its circumference, thus eliminating a discrepancy between the calculated and observed positions of the planets. [return to English / Italian]

8–9 Virgil narrates how Cupid, taking the form of Ascanius, son of Aeneas, was sent by Venus to Dido, who upon embracing him was wounded with a fatal love for Aeneas (see Aen. I, 946–962). [return to English / Italian]

11–12 Venus is both a morning and an evening star (see Convivio II, xii, 13–14), rising above the horizon shortly before the sun does and setting on the horizon after sunset. [return to English / Italian]

13–15 Beatrice, as we have seen, grows more beautiful the higher she ascends toward the Empyrean. (Cf. V, 94–96.) [return to English / Italian]

17–18 “plainsong”: i.e., medieval polyphonic song, in which, as long as the voices sound in unison, one is not readily distinguished from another; but when most of the voices stay fixed, while one sings melody (“comes and goes”), then that voice is heard clearly among the others. [return to English / Italian]

22–30 “the heaven of the high Seraphim”: the Primum Mobile, presided over by the Seraphim, the highest order of angels. “A ‘Hosanna’ sounded”: see VII, 1–3, note. [return to English / Italian]

34–38 These souls, revolving in the Third Heaven, the Heaven of Venus (presided over by the third lowest order of Angelic Intelligence, the Principalities [“ ‘the celestial / Princes’ ”]), move in perfect harmony, united in their path (“ ‘one circle’ ”), their dance (“ ‘one circling’ ”), and their love and desire for God (“ ‘one thirst’ ”). In the opening line of his first canzone in Book II of the Convivio, Dante invoked the Angelic Intelligence that moves Venus (which, however, Dante believed at that time to be the Thrones, adhering to an ordering of the Angelic Intelligences proposed by St. Gregory [see XXVIII, esp. 97–102, note]). [return to English / Italian]

49–57 The soul speaking to Dante is that of Charles Martel (born c1271), grandson of Charles I of Anjou. According to G. Villani (Cronica VIII, 13), Charles Martel spent about twenty days in Florence in 1294, while awaiting his parents’ return from Provence. It was probably then that Dante and Charles formed the friendship expressed by Charles’s words (in lines 55–57) and by his recitation of the opening line of Dante’s canzone (37–38), which he had probably heard and admired at the time of their meeting. Charles Martel died only one year later, in 1295, at the age of twenty-four, and here says that had he lived longer, “ ‘much evil that will be, would not have been,’ ” referring to the misrule by the house of Anjou that led to the uprising called the Sicilian Vespers (see 67–75 and note), and to the “ill-rule” (76) by his own brother Robert (see 75–84 and notes). [return to English / Italian]

58–63 To the west, or left, of the Rhone, below its confluence with the Sorgue, is the region of Provence. Had he lived, Charles Martel would have inherited Provence, which had been the dowry of Raymond Berenger’s daughter Beatrice when she married Charles of Anjou, Charles Martel’s grandfather (cf. Canto VI, 128–142, note, and Purg. XX, 61 and note).

Ausonia was an ancient name for Italy. “ ‘Ausonia’s horn’ ” indicates the southern portion of Italy, specifically, the kingdom of Naples and Apulia, which lies to the south of the Tronto and Verde rivers (the latter is now called the Liri for three-fourths of its course and the Garigliano for its final reach to the Tyrrhenian Sea). The kingdom is designated here by three towns, Catona, Bari, and Gaeta, situated near its southern, eastern, and western borders, respectively. [return to English / Italian]

64–66 In 1292 Charles Martel’s mother, Mary of Hungary, had granted him the kingdom of Hungary, when the former king, Charles Martel’s uncle Ladislaus, died without issue. Charles never actually reigned in Hungary, however, for his cousin Andrew seized the throne. [return to English / Italian]

67–75 Trinacria is the ancient name for Sicily. Sicily, says Charles, would have been ruled by the descendants of Charles of Anjou and Rudolf of Hapsburg (Charles Martel’s grandfather and father-in-law respectively), which is to say, his own descendants, if misrule by Charles I of Anjou had not provoked the popular uprising in Palermo in 1282, called the Sicilian Vespers, in which Charles I and the supporters of the house of Anjou were driven out, the crown passing to Peter III of Aragon. [return to English / Italian]

75–81 Charles Martel’s younger brother Robert (b1278) served as a hostage of the Aragonese in Catalonia from 1288 to 1295, in return for the release of his father, Charles II, taken prisoner in a naval battle near Naples. It was then that Robert first became acquainted with the Catalan noblemen who would later serve as his ministers and officers when he succeeded to the throne of Naples in 1309 and whose notorious avarice chroniclers of the period reported Robert to have adopted. Out of metaphor, Robert’s “ ‘loaded boat’ ” is, presumably, the weight of responsibility of the kingship of Naples (already promised to him in 1300, the poem’s supposed present). [return to English / Italian]

82–84 Robert’s avarice contrasts with the generous nature of his father Charles II (who was known for his liberality toward his subjects, notwithstanding his ancestor Hugh Capet’s condemnation of his having “[sold] his daughter” for a large dowry [see Purg. XX, 79–81]; it may be, however, that the generous nature referred to here is that of Charles I). Charles Martel criticizes here Robert’s use of mercenary soldiers, who aggravated the consequences of Robert’s illiberality by concerning themselves primarily with “ ‘filling up their coffers.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

91–93 Charles Martel’s words (in lines 82–83) have given rise in Dante’s mind to the question of how a good, or “gentle,” seed can yield bad, or “harsh,” fruit, in apparent contradiction to Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:17–18: “A sound tree produces good fruit but a rotten tree bad fruit. A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree bear good fruit.” [return to English / Italian]

97–99 The process outlined by Beatrice, in Canto II, of the “ ‘stage by stage’ ” (II, 122) transmission downward through the various celestial spheres (“ ‘these great heavens’ bodies’ ”) of the power emanating from the Empyrean is the means by which God enacts His Providence in the world. [return to English / Italian]

100–111 God provides not only for “ ‘the natures of His creatures,’ ” but also for their well-being, giving to each creature “the disposition to fulfill [its] place in the universal order” (Sapegno). Without this ordering and orchestration by God, the effects of the heavens’ influences would be fragmentary and chaotic, not contributing toward a harmonious whole. But “ ‘that cannot be,’ ” for it would imply a defect in the Celestial Intelligences, and an imperfection in God, who created them. [return to English / Italian]

113–114 “ ‘it is impossible / for nature to fall short’ ”: The term nature, here, includes both creating and created nature, that is, God and “natural” nature. Dante’s formulation of this principle fundamental to Scholastic philosophy echoes Aristotle: “Nature never falls short in what is necessary” (De anima III, 14). (Cf. Convivio IV, xxiv, 10, and Monarchy I, X, 1.) [return to English / Italian]

115–120 Society is a good for man, contributing to his welfare and happiness. Cf. Dante’s “ ‘master’ ” (120), Aristotle: “Man is by nature a social animal” (Politics I, I, 2). Society depends upon the cooperative coexistence of people of different natures and “ ‘diverse duties’ ”—for “man has need of many things which no one is able to provide by himself” (Convivio IV, iv, 1). [return to English / Italian]

122–126 Since society requires that people have diverse duties and tasks, their natures must be providentially ordained by God to predispose them toward those diverse tasks. Thus, one is meant to be a legislator, like Solon; another a warrior, like Xerxes; one a priest, like Melchizedek (Gen. 14:18); another an inventor, like Daedalus (“ ‘he who flew through the air and lost his son’ ” [see Inf. XVII, 109–111, note]). [return to English / Italian]

127–132 The celestial bodies, as they revolve, exert their influences upon human natures and predispositions, thereby effecting God’s Providence. But those influences (and so, human natures and predispositions) do not correspond to distinctions of family (“ ‘house’ ”). Thus it was that Isaac and Rebekah’s twin sons Esau and Jacob were of two such different natures (see Gen. 25:22–28); and Quirinus, or Romulus, one of the founders of Rome, was of such humble origin that the Romans afterward claimed that his father had been the god Mars. [return to English / Italian]

133–135 If Divine Providence did not “ ‘intervene’ ” to influence human natures, children’s natures (“ ‘engendered natures’ ”) would always be like those of their fathers (“ ‘those who had engendered them’ ”). [return to English / Italian]

136 Cf. 95–96. [return to English / Italian]

139–141 In unfavorable circumstances (“ ‘discrepant fortune’ ”) natural dispositions cannot yield the results they should—just as a “ ‘seed outside its proper region’ ” will die, or at best grow poorly. [return to English / Italian]

142–148 If the world would pay more heed to the natural dispositions of people, those dispositions would yield the proper results, and the world “ ‘would have its people worthy.’ ” The early commentators saw in Dante’s examples of the failure to follow natural dispositions an allusion to Charles Martel’s brothers Louis and Robert. Louis joined the Franciscan Friars Minor and later became bishop of Toulouse. Robert, king of Naples after 1309, concerned himself with problems of theology and composed and recited at court a great number of sermons. Louis’s being “ ‘more fit to gird a sword,’ ” may imply not that he was a born warrior, but that he would have made a better king (the sword being “almost an iconographic attribute” of kingship [Bosco-Reggio]) than his brother Robert, whom Dante condemned, through Charles Martel’s words, in lines 75–84. [return to English / Italian]