CANTO XXVI

1–2 “with blinded eyes”: as a result of his too intent gazing at the sun-bright flame of St. John. (On Dante’s blindness, see 76–79, note.) [return to English / Italian]

4–9 While Dante’s examinations on faith and hope were both preceded by Beatrice’s entreating the administering Apostle to test Dante (XXIV, 34–39; XXV, 28–31), here St. John charitably takes the initiative himself, first immediately assuring the “apprehensive” (1) Dante implicitly (4–5) and then explicitly (8–12), that his blindness is only temporary, and bidding him compensate for the sensory loss of his power of sight with the light of the intellect, in reasoned discourse. St. John then begins without delay the third and final part of Dante’s examination, on the third Theological Virtue, Charity. He bids Dante declare the object of his soul’s longing, the object of his love. Although St. John does not begin with an explicit question as to the definition of the virtue (cf. XXIV, 53, and XXV, 46), that definition is, in fact, already implicit in his question. For charity, says St. Thomas, is “love of God, loved as the object of beatitude, to which we are disposed by means of faith and hope” (Summa theol. I–II, q. 65, a. 5). [return to English / Italian]

8–12 St. John assures Dante that his vision will eventually be restored by Beatrice, merely through her gazing upon him, for “ ‘within her gaze’ ” she has “ ‘that force the hand of Ananias had.’ ” Ananias, one of the first disciples of Jesus, was sent by the Lord to restore Saul’s (St. Paul’s) vision by laying his hands on him. Saul had been blinded when, while traveling to Damascus to arrest the followers of Jesus, Jesus appeared to him in a “light from heaven…saying ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ ” (See Acts 9:1–19.) [return to English / Italian]

14–15 “ ‘the fire with which I always burn’ ”: the fire of Love, first instilled in Dante by Beatrice, through his eyes, the “ ‘gates’ ” to his heart (an image frequent in 13th- and 14th-century lyric poetry). Cf. Purgatorio XXX, 40–42 (and see “Dante in His Age,” Bantam Classics Inferno, p. 320). [return to English / Italian]

16–18 To St. John’s question (7–8), Dante responds that God is the beginning and end (“ ‘Alpha and Omega’ ”), the origin and aim of all his loves, both greater and lesser. Cf. Revelation 1:8 and 21:6: “ ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ says the Lord God, who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty”; “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End” (cf. Rev. 22:13). The letters naturally suggest the metaphor of “writings…read out” by Love. [return to English / Italian]

22–24 While a fairly general answer sufficed for St. John’s first question, his next will require that Dante “ ‘sift with a still finer sieve,’ ” that he be more specific, that he particularize in his next answer. Considering that St. John’s next question, analogous to those asked by St. Peter, in XXIV, 123, and by St. James in XXV, 47–48, would have Dante tell “ ‘who led [his] bow to aim at such a target,’ ” that is, who directed his love toward God, St. John’s desire that Dante be especially particular and clear in his reply might be motivated by the fact that Dante’s love had not always been directed with such perfect rectitude (see Purg. XXX, 109–145, and XXXI, 1–63). (For the metaphor of bow and target, cf. I, 125–126, and XV, 43.) [return to English / Italian]

25–27 “ ‘philosophic arguments’ ”: i.e., “ ‘human reasoning’ ” (46); “ ‘authority whose source is here’ ”: divinely inspired Scripture (cf. XXIV, 133–138). [return to English / Italian]

28–30 Insofar as the good is understood as being the good, it “ ‘enkindles love,’ ” and the greater the good understood as such, the greater the love it enkindles. [return to English / Italian]

30–36 Anyone who discerns the underlying truth of this principle must love God (“ ‘that Essence / which is preeminent’ ”) “ ‘more than…all else,’ ” for God is the Highest Good (cf. XIII, 52–54, and XIX, 52–54). [return to English / Italian]

37–39 “ ‘him / who demonstrates…that the first love / of the eternal beings is their Maker’ ”: Dante is probably referring to the author of the De causis (Book on Causes), widely attributed to Aristotle in the Middle Ages, though not by St. Thomas, and probably not by Dante (though Dante may indeed intend Aristotle here, with the Metaphysics [e.g., XII, 11] in mind). The idea is, in any case, basically Aristotelian. In the Convivio (III, ii, 7, 9), citing the De causis, Dante writes: “the human soul naturally wills, with all its desire, to exist; and since its being depends upon God, and is preserved by Him, it naturally desires and wills to be united with God, in order to fortify its being….And this uniting is that which we call love.” (Cf. also Convivio IV, xii, 14 [quoted in VII, 143–144, note].) A similar argument can be applied to the other eternal beings as well, the heavenly bodies and the Celestial Intelligences, or angels, since “each substantial form proceeds from its first cause, which is God, as is written in the Book on Causes” (Convivio III, ii, 4; cf. I, 76–77). [return to English / Italian]

40–45 The “ ‘true Author’ ” is God Himself, who, after “Moses said ‘Show me your glory, I beg you,’ ” replied “ ‘I shall show you all goodness’ ” (see Exod. 33:18–23 [Dante is translating from the Vulgate]). God is “ ‘all goodness,’ ” the all-inclusive and Highest Good, and therefore rightly to be loved “ ‘more than…all else’ ” (33). St. John, too, reveals this truth, at the beginning of his Gospel, which “ ‘more than any other proclamation’ ”—in particular, more than the other Gospels, which are less explicitly theological and philosophical than John’s—“ ‘cries out to earth the mystery of Heaven,’ ” the mystery of God’s nature and of the Incarnation of God, in which “the Word was made flesh” for the redemption of mankind, demonstrating God’s grace and the boundless goodness that makes Him the true and proper object of man’s “ ‘highest love’ ” (48). (See John 1.) [return to English / Italian]

46–48 “ ‘authorities’ ”: scriptural authorities. [return to English / Italian]

49–51 “ ‘other cords’ ”: i.e., other stimuli, other reasons. St. John, in this final question of Dante’s examination on charity, continues to press Dante for particulars (see 22–24, note). [return to English / Italian]

52 “Christ’s Eagle” is St. John. The “flying eagle” is one of the four animals of the Apocalypse (see Rev. 4:6–7), traditionally used as symbols of the four Evangelists (the Lion for St. Mark, the bull for St. Luke, and the animal with a human face, for St. Matthew). The symbol suggests John’s keen insight into “the mystery of Heaven” (45). [return to English / Italian]

57 “ ‘the world’s existence’ ”: cf. Psalm 19 [18 in the Vulgate]:1–2: “The heavens declare the glory of God, the vault of heaven proclaims his handiwork; day discourses of it to day, night to night hands on the knowledge.” [return to English / Italian]

58 “ ‘and mine’ ”: i.e., my existence. Cf. Psalm 8:4–5: “Ah, what is man that you should spare a thought for him, the son of man that you should care for him? Yet you have made him little less than a god, you have crowned him with glory and splendor.” [return to English / Italian]

58–59 “ ‘the death that He sustained that I / might live’ ”: Christ’s sacrifice for the redemption of mankind. See John 1, and 1 John 4:9: “God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him.” [return to English / Italian]

59–60 “ ‘the hope of all / believers,’ ” for eternal beatitude. [return to English / Italian]

61 “ ‘living knowledge,’ ” that God is the Greatest Good, and therefore to be loved above all else. [return to English / Italian]

62 “ ‘the sea of twisted love’ ”: i.e., love of an evil object or else (as in Dante’s case [see Purg. XXX, 124–132, and XXXI, 34–36]) excessive love of a lesser, or “ ‘secondary,’ ” good (see Purg. XVII, 94–102, and 97, note). The “ ‘right love’ ” is, of course, the love of God. The metaphor of sea and shore recalls Inferno I, 22–24. [return to English / Italian]

64–66 All creatures in the created world, Dante loves in proportion to the good bestowed upon them by God. The image recalls John 15:1: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.” [return to English / Italian]

67–69 Dante’s examination is ended, and his success is attested to by the “song most sweet,” in which Beatrice, too, takes part. “ ‘Holy, holy, holy’ ” begins the song of the four animals of the Apocalypse, with which they “glorified, and honored and gave thanks” to God (see Rev. 4:6–9). In Isaiah 6:3, the same words are cried out by the Seraphim flying above God’s throne. [return to English / Italian]

71–73 Sight, in Dante’s time, was conceived of as arising from the transmission by the visual spirit (the “spirit of eyesight,” which ran along a nerve running from the pupil in the eye to the brain) of the image formed on the pupil, as on a mirror, by “brightness”—i.e., by light and color, conveying the form of visible things, passing successively from membrane to membrane (beginning with the eyelid) in the eye. (See Convivio III, ix, 7–10.) [return to English / Italian]

76 “until his judgment helps him”: i.e., by making sense of the confused image seen upon first waking. (Cf. Purg. XXIX, 49, and see 43–51, note.) [return to English / Italian]

76–79 “so / did Beatrice dispel…the chaff / from my eyes”—restoring Dante’s vision, just as St. John had assured him she would (8–12). The symbolical and allegorical significance of Dante’s blindness, which has lasted throughout his examination on charity, and the restoration of his vision by Beatrice’s gaze, is much disputed and is undoubtedly multiple, but Beatrice’s words, and then Dante’s, in Canto XXII, 124–138, seem to shed some light: “ ‘You are so near the final blessedness,’ / so Beatrice began, ‘that you have need / of vision clear and keen; and thus, before / you enter farther, do look downward, see / what I have set beneath your feet already: / much of the world is there….I approve / that judgment as the best, which holds this earth / to be the least; and he whose thoughts are set / elsewhere, can truly be called virtuous.’ ”

By gazing too intently at the brilliant light of St. John in an effort to verify the legend that St. John had been raised to Heaven with his body (XXV, 118–123); thereby concerning himself with what is, for St. John apparently, a piece of earthly superstitious sentimentalism (see XXV, 122–123, 129), Dante was, so to speak, dragging his feet on the ground, distracting himself from, and interfering with, the process of refining his doctrine, which the examination is intended to effect. But there is no contradiction at all here in seeing Dante’s blindness as divinely effected to facilitate the utmost absorption of thought as he strives to enunciate the nature and his personal experience of charity or Love. Indeed, that Dante’s blindness, which is intended to insulate him from the realm of “ ‘mere appearances’ ” (Purg. XXXI, 34), comes about as it does is proof that there is a need for that insulation; it aids him in perfect concentration on spiritual truth. His blindness is thus at once appropriate justice and a gift of God’s grace.

It is fitting—now that Dante’s doctrine has been thoroughly sifted and resoundingly certified pure and secure—that it should be Beatrice who restores his vision, for it is she who has been, in Dante’s life, the principal vehicle of God’s bestowal of illuminating grace upon him—though the force “within her gaze” (11), like “that force the hand of Ananias had” (12), is entirely God’s. [return to English / Italian]

83–84 The “ ‘first soul’ ”: the soul of Adam, the first man. At the side of the three Apostles representing the three Theological Virtues, which were imparted by God through Christ as gifts to man to guide him toward salvation from his fallen state, it is appropriate that Adam, who incurred man’s fall, should appear—he who, “ ‘damning himself, damned all his progeny’ ” (VII, 27). [return to English / Italian]

93–94 To Adam, the progenitor of all mankind, “ ‘each bride is as a daughter and/daughter-in-law,’ ” since she is both a descendant of his and the bride of a descendant. [return to English / Italian]

101–102 Through a brightening or flashing in the radiance surrounding his soul, Adam showed his joy in “coming to delight [Dante]” through answering the questions in his mind. [return to English / Italian]

103–108 Adam generously and paternally reiterates what Dante by now well knows: that the souls of the blessed are able to read Dante’s thoughts reflected in the Mind of God (“ ‘the Truthful Mirror’ ”), upon which they gaze. [return to English / Italian]

109–112 “ ‘how long…in that high Garden’ ”: i.e., in the garden of Eden (see Gen. 2:8). Earthly Paradise (on the summit of the mountain island of Purgatory), where Beatrice “ ‘readied’ ” Dante to begin his ascent to Paradise. This is the first of four questions of Dante’s that Adam will voice aloud, afterward answering them in the order of their importance. [return to English / Italian]

112 “ ‘just how long it pleased my eyes’ ”: i.e., how long Adam remained in the garden of Eden before he was expelled by God (see Gen. 3:22–24). [return to English / Italian]

113 “ ‘the true cause of the great anger’ ”: i.e., the true reason for God’s expulsion of Adam from the garden of Eden, the true nature of Adam’s sin. [return to English / Italian]

114 “ ‘what idiom’ ”: i.e., what language Adam invented and spoke. [return to English / Italian]

115–117 Adam chooses to answer the most important of Dante’s four questions first (cf. IV, 25–27)—the third question (113). “The cause of [Adam’s] long exile” from Earthly Paradise and, after his death, from Paradise (see 118–123, note), did not lie in his tasting of the forbidden fruit per se (see VII, 25–27 and note), but rather in his trespass of the spiritual boundary set by God as proper to man. As St. Thomas explains, “man’s first sin was in desiring a spiritual good beyond its proper measure. Now this pertains to pride….The first thing man desired was his own excellence. Therefore the disobedience in him was caused by pride” (Summa theol. II–II, q. 163, a. 1). (Cf. VII, 97–102.) [return to English / Italian]

118–123 Adam answers next Dante’s first question (109–112). He lived 930 years (930 passages of the sun through the entire zodiac) and was then in Limbo (“ ‘that place from which your Lady sent you Virgil’ ” [see Inf. II, 52–74]) for 4,302 years, during which he longed for Paradise. Adam was liberated from Hell by Christ’s Harrowing of Hell in A.D. 34 (see Inf. IV, 52–61, note); from then until 1300 (the year of Dante’s journey [Inf. I, 1–3, note]) was 1,266 years. The total span was thus 6,498 years. Dante is following the chronology established by Eusebius of Caesarea (c260–c339) in his Thesaurus Temporum. (Cf. Purg. XXXIII, 61–63.) [return to English / Italian]

124–132 In his earlier work On Writing in the Common Tongue (De vulgari eloquentia I, VI, 4–7), Dante had expressed the view that the Hebrew language had been created directly by God simultaneously with the creation of Adam, and that it was therefore unchanging and incorruptible (to be spoken for all time by the Hebrews), and had been spoken universally until, to punish man’s attempt to build “a tower with its top reaching heaven” (the tower of Babel), God confused men’s language, so that they could no longer understand one another. (See Gen. 11:1–9. Cf. Inf. XXXI, 76–81, and Purg. XII, 34–36.) But subsequently Dante’s thoughts on the nature and origin of language changed and here, through Adam’s response to his fourth question (114) Dante expresses his revised opinions. Although there is a natural predisposition in man to express himself using words, the particular words and way are for man himself to choose. (Cf. Summa theol. II–II, q. 85, a. I.) His language, like all products of human reason, is subject to change and extinction. In fact, says Adam, the first language was extinct by the time the Babylonians (under King Nimrod) attempted to build the tower of Babel. [return to English / Italian]

133–136 Dante revises here his earlier opinion (in De vulgari eloquentia I, IV, 4) that the first word uttered by Adam was El (the earliest name for God among the Hebrews, according to St. Isidore [Etymologiae VII, i, 3]), though the earliest name of God, I, which Adam here says preceded El, is probably Dante’s invention, undoubtedly prompted partly by the letter’s significance as a symbol for one, or unity, the supreme attribute of God (Casini-Barbi). [return to English / Italian]

137–138 The image recalls Horace’s Ars poetica, 60–62: “As forests change their leaves with each year’s decline, and the earliest drop off: so with words, the old race dies, and, like the young of human kind, the newborn bloom and thrive” (Loeb Classical Library translation). [return to English / Italian]

139–142 Lastly Adam answers Dante’s second question (112). “ ‘That peak rising highest from the sea’ ” is the mountain island of Purgatory (cf. Inf. XXVI, 133–135). Adam’s sojourn in Eden (on its summit), including the time before his sin and the time after his sin but before his expulsion (“ ‘first pure, then tainted’ ”), lasted “ ‘from/the first hour’ ” of the day, 6 A.M., until the seventh hour, when the sun passes the 90° point overhead, i.e., between 12 noon and 1 P.M. In sum, then, Adam and Eve remained in the garden of Eden no more than a pitiably brief seven hours. Estimates as to the length of their sojourn varied considerably (the longest, perhaps, thirty-four years, the length of Christ’s life on earth), but Dante adopts the very briefest, that of Petrus Comestor, Peter Book-Devourer (XII, 135), in his Historia scolastica, ch. 24. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XXVII

1–3 The blessed souls intone a hymn of praise to the Holy Trinity. The full text of the liturgical Gloria reads as follows: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” [return to English / Italian]

10–12 The four “torches” are Peter, James, John, and Adam. The “first to come” was of course St. Peter, Christ’s first vicar. [return to English / Italian]

13–15 Flushing with righteous indignation, Peter’s light intensifies and changes color from white to red, as if the planet Jupiter had exchanged its silvery whiteness for the red of the fiery planet Mars. The unusual simile (cf. XIII, 1–18 and XXV, 100–102) is further complicated by the fact that it contains two levels of comparison—that of Peter’s appearance to that of the planets’ and that of the planets’ to that of the birds’—the second of which may seem gratuitous. Early commentators, however, offer an explanation, pointing out that the planets’ rays were technically referred to as their “plumage.” [return to English / Italian]

22–24 The threefold reiteration of “ ‘my place’ ” recalls the rhetorical repetition of Jeremiah 7:4: “Put no trust in delusive words like these: This is the sanctuary of Yahweh, the sanctuary of Yahweh, the sanctuary of Yahweh!” St. Peter was martyred and buried in Rome. His place on earth is usurped by the current pope—in 1300, Boniface VIII. So unworthy is Boniface of the office that, in the eyes of Christ, the papacy is vacant. [return to English / Italian]

26 The “ ‘perverse one who fell from Heaven’ ” is of course Lucifer, otherwise known as Satan. [return to English / Italian]

34–36 The reference is to the darkness that accompanied Christ’s agony on the cross: “It was now about the sixth hour and, with the sun eclipsed, a darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. The veil of the temple was torn right down the middle” (Luke 23:44–45). [return to English / Italian]

40–41 The “ ‘Bride of Christ’ ” is the Church (cf. XI, 31). Linus, pope from 66 to 78, was Peter’s first successor and, like Peter, gave his life’s blood for the Church, as did Linus’ successor, Cletus, or Anacletus, pope from 78 to 91. [return to English / Italian]

44–45 The early popes Sixtus I (117–127), Pius I (142–149), Calixtus I (217–222), and Urban I (222–230) were all martyrs for the faith. [return to English / Italian]

46–48 Recent popes have divided the house of God against itself, favoring one faction (the Guelphs) over the other (the Ghibellines). [return to English / Italian]

49–51 The keys of the kingdom of heaven, conferred upon him by Christ, symbolized the spiritual authority of Peter and his successors (see Matt. 16:19, [quoted in XXIII, 139, note]). The papal seal, with which venal and worthless privileges were being stamped, incorporates the image of St. Peter. [return to English / Italian]

56–59 Cf. Psalm 44 (43 in the Vulgate):23–24: “Wake up, Lord! Why are you asleep? Awake! Do not abandon us for good. Why do you hide your face, and forget we are wretched and exploited?” [return to English / Italian]

58–59 The generic plurals contain transparent allusions to individual French popes—Clement V (the “ ‘Gascon’ ” of XVII, 82), pope from 1305 to 1314, who took the papacy into its Babylonian Captivity in Avignon, and John XXII, pope from 1316 to 1334, a native of Cahors. In Inferno XI, 50, the name of Cahors was used as a synonym for usury. [return to English / Italian]

61–63 Publius Scipio Africanus the Elder led the victorious Roman legions against Hannibal in 202 B.C. (cf. VI, 49–52). [return to English / Italian]

64–66 This allusion to Dante’s “ ‘mortal weight’ ” appears to confirm the fact that he conceives his journey as having been made in the flesh (cf. I, 73–75, note). St. Peter’s solemn admonition to Dante to declare on earth what he has seen may be added to the similar injunctions of Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise (Purg. XXXII, 103–106, and XXXIII, 52–47) and of his ancestor Cacciaguida (XVII, 127–129). [return to English / Italian]

67–72 The spirits drifting slowly up into the outermost Empyrean, after manifesting themselves to the pilgrim in the Eighth Heaven, are compared to flakes of snow (“frozen vapors”). Unlike our winter snow on earth, however, they fall upward. The sun is in the house of Capricorn (“heaven’s Goat”) from December 21 to January 21. [return to English / Italian]

79–84 The last time Dante obeyed Beatrice’s bidding and looked down at the earth was in Canto XXII, 127–153. He now discovers that, since then, his journey has taken him westward through an arc of ninety degrees, the equivalent of a quarter of the earth’s circumference. In terms of earthly time, six hours have passed. He had been over the meridian of Jerusalem then, now he is over that of Cadiz. Looking west, he can see the ocean that Ulysses was punished for attempting to cross (cf. Inf. XXVI), and looking east, he can almost distinguish the shore of Phoenicia, whence Jupiter, disguised as a white bull, carried Europa away on his back to the island of Crete (see Met. II, 833–875). The ancient geographers and astronomers divided the northern hemisphere (the hemisphere of land) into seven horizontal sectors, or “ ‘clime[s],’ ” moving out from the equator. [return to English / Italian]

85–87 The same disparaging term (“ ‘threshing floor’ ”) was used for the earth in Canto XXII, 150. Dante is still in the constellation of Gemini, whereas the sun is two signs ahead (i.e., farther west), in Aries (between Gemini and Aries lies Taurus). Had the sun been in Gemini also, more of the earth’s surface to the east would have been illuminated. [return to English / Italian]

97–114 Gazing on Beatrice’s smile, Dante is transported out of the Heaven of the Fixed Stars and the constellation of Gemini (named for Castor and Pollux, the twin sons of Leda, born from an egg fertilized by Jupiter, who had assumed the form of a swan—hence “the nest of Leda”) into the Ninth or Crystalline Heaven, the Primum Mobile, Heaven’s last and swiftest sphere. Beyond the Primum Mobile lies only the Empyrean itself, the containing heaven, purely of “light and love” (112) in which God dwells. (See Convivio II, iii, 9 [quoted in XXVIII, 43–45, note], and cf. II, 112–114.) [return to English / Italian]

115–120 The motion of the whole universe is generated in the Primum Mobile, even as the number ten is the generated product of its factors two and five. Moreover, since time is a function of motion, time—whose effects we can observe in the other heavens, because, unlike the Primum Mobile, they contain the visible fixed and moving bodies of the stars and the planets, by which time on earth is measured—has its roots here too. [return to English / Italian]

121–141 Here, from the most divine of the material celestial spheres, Beatrice elegiacally deplores the perversity of mankind, who turn from contemplation of the celestial and the divine to the greedy pursuit of fallacious earthly goods. [return to English / Italian]

140–141 “on earth no king holds sway”: See “Dante in His Age,” Bantam Classics Inferno, p. 326. [return to English / Italian]

142–148 Beatrice’s regret, like St. Peter’s bitter lament over the corruption of the Church, which, in the structure of the canto, it completes and counterbalances, ends on a note of hopeful prophecy: it will not be long before Providence sets things straight. In Dante’s day the year was still measured by the Julian calendar, which set the duration of a year at 365 days 6 hours. Until the error was corrected, with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, this meant that the actual length of the year was overestimated by about twelve minutes, or a hundredth part of a day. In the course of time (in about ninety centuries, to be precise) the result of the accumulation of these neglected fractions would be that January would no longer fall in winter but in spring. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XXVIII

7–9 “to gauge/if that glass tells the truth to him”: i.e., to see whether the actual object accords with its mirrored image (here, the image of the twin flame of a “double candle” [5]). [return to English / Italian]

11–12 “the lovely eyes…”: Beatrice’s. (cf. Purg. XXXI, 116–117.) [return to English / Italian]

13–21 Turning from the image reflected in Beatrice’s eyes, to the thing in itself, Dante sees “a point” (16), infinitesimally small and of the most intense luminosity. This point is a self-manifestation of God. (Cf. Purg. XXXI, 115–126, where Dante first discerned the dual nature of the Griffin, symbolic of Christ, by gazing at its image reflected in Beatrice’s eyes.) [return to English / Italian]

13–15 “What appears within that sphere [the Primum Mobile] whenever/one looks intently at its revolution” is the vision, now appearing to Dante, of the intensely luminous point surrounded, as we are about to learn, by nine wheeling rings of fire (22–39). These rings are the Angelic Intelligences, which exert their influences on the natural world. It seems natural, then, that they should appear within that world, at its uppermost limit, here in the Primum Mobile. [return to English / Italian]

16 Cf. Convivio II, xiii, 27: “for its indivisibility, [the point] is immeasurable.” [return to English / Italian]

22–25 The halo around a star is smallest when the “mist that forms the halo” is thickest. (Cf. X, 67–69.) Thus this first wheeling “ring of fire” is fairly close to the brilliant central point. [return to English / Italian]

26–27 “the motion that most swiftly girds the world”: the motion of the Primum Mobile, “heaven’s swiftest sphere” (XXVII, 99). [return to English / Italian]

31–33 “Juno’s messenger” is Iris, goddess of the rainbow. (Cf. XII, 10–13, and Aen. IV, 964–966.) The seventh ring of fire, then, is “so wide” that “all of” a rainbow, that is, a rainbow imagined as completed to form an entire circle, “would be too narrow” to enclose it. [return to English / Italian]

37–39 “shares most deeply”: i.e., penetrates most deeply with its vision (as Beatrice will explain in lines 106–108) “that point’s truth,” the Truth of the light at the center that is God. [return to English / Italian]

41–42 Beatrice’s formulation recalls Aristotle’s: “It is on such a principle, then, that the heavens and the natural world depend” (Metaphysics XII, 7). St. Thomas, in his commentary, elaborates: “Thus it is on this principle, i.e., the First Mover seen as an end, that the heavens depend both for the eternality of their substance and the eternality of their motion. And consequently the whole of nature depends on such a principle, because all natural things depend on the heavens and on such motion as they possess” (In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum expositio XII, lect. 7, n. 2534). [return to English / Italian]

43–45 “ ‘burning love’ ”—for God. Note that the swiftest motion of the outermost of the material heavens, the Primum Mobile, is explained by Dante (Convivio II, iii, 9) in analogous but inverse terms: “Because of the most fervent appetite with which every part of this ninth heaven [the Primum Mobile], which is surrounded by [the Empyrean], longs to be conjoined with every part of that most divine and tranquil heaven, it revolves within it with such yearning that its swiftness is almost incomprehensible.” [return to English / Italian]

46–57 Dante, referring to the Primum Mobile as “ ‘this…angelic temple’ ” (53), has understood that the nine rings of fire that he sees before him are a visual manifestation of the nine orders of the Angelic Intelligences, the “ ‘blessed movers’ ” by whom “ ‘the force and motion of the holy spheres / must be inspired’ ” (II, 127–129). But what perplexes Dante is that this suprasensible, purely spiritual world (“ ‘the model’ ”) and the material world (the “ ‘copy’ ”—“ ‘earth and the nine spheres,’ ” which is the image of that spiritual world and bears its stamp) appear “ ‘not [to] share in one same plan,’ ” indeed, appear to be inverse in plan, for the material heavens become “ ‘more divine,’ ” move more swiftly, and burn with greater love for God, the more distant they are from the center (the Earth), that is, the closer they are to the Empyrean, which encloses the whole natural world (“ ‘the world of sense’ ”) purely with “ ‘love and light’ ” (54 [cf. XXVII, 112–114]). [return to English / Italian]

58–60 “ ‘that knot’ ”: the mystery of the correspondence, the “ ‘wonderful accord’ ” (76), between the spiritual and the material world. [return to English / Italian]

64–78 Beatrice proceeds to unravel “ ‘that knot.’ ” She begins by stating the principle that the size of each of the nine material heavens depends upon the power it contains—the power that, as Beatrice explained in Canto II (112–123), emanates from the Empyrean and is transmitted downward through the heavens. Her explanation is straightforward: the greater the power, or “ ‘excellence,’ ” a body possesses, the greater its blessedness; moreover, if a “ ‘body’s parts are equally complete,’ ” that is, equally capable of, and disposed to, blessedness, then “ ‘more blessedness’ ” necessitates a larger, or “ ‘greater,’ ” body. It follows that the outermost, largest, and swiftest of the material heavens, the Primum Mobile, is the most blessed and therefore corresponds to the most blessed of the Angelic Intelligences, the innermost ring of fire, which “ ‘loves most and knows the most’ ” (72). It is solely the “ ‘power within’ ” (74) the Angelic Intelligences, their degree of blessedness “ ‘and not [their] semblance,’ ” or apparent physical size in Dante’s vision, that must be considered in order to discern the perfect correspondence between the heavens and the Intelligences: each heaven is associated with the correspondingly divine angelic order. [return to English / Italian]

79–82 The winds were often represented, in cartography, as human faces—one at each of the four principal points of the compass—with puffed cheeks, blowing three winds: one directly from the center, and one from each side of their mouth (each “cheek”). When Boreas, the personification of the three winds from the north, blew “from his gentler cheek” the northeast wind, it kept the rain and clouds away, and cleared the air of all obfuscation (Latini, Tresor II, 37). Cf. Aeneid XII, 493–497. [return to English / Italian]

88–90 The distinct sparks are individual angels, who continue, however, to circle within the “flaming ring” in which they have appeared. [return to English / Italian]

91–93 On the problem of the number of angels (already alluded to in XIII, 97–98), Dante notes in the Convivio (II, V, 5) that according to Church belief and teaching, the angels, “those noblest of creatures,” are “almost innumerable.” And according to Pseudo-Dionysius (De coelestia Hierarchia XIV [see 97–102, note]), the angels “exceed the weak and limited measure of our material numbers.” (Cf. XXIX, 130–135.) Here Dante’s estimate of the number of angels refers to an old legend, according to which the king of Persia was so grateful to the inventor of the game of chess, that he offered to grant him any reward he might ask for. The inventor’s request seemed at first modest enough: one grain of corn for the first square of a chessboard, two grains for the second square, four grains for the third, and so on, successively doubling the number of grains for each of the sixty-four squares on the chessboard. But when the king attempted to keep his promise, it did not take him long to realize that all the corn in Persia, indeed all the corn in the entire world, would not be enough to fill the shrewd inventor’s request. (The number of grains required would be 2⁶⁴–1, about eighteen and one half billion billion.) [return to English / Italian]

94 “Hosanna”: a cry of adoration (see VII, 1–3, note). [return to English / Italian]

97–102 The Church doctors and theologians held discordant opinions concerning the number and ordering of the Celestial Intelligences. Most adopted either the arrangement presented in the De coelestia Hierarchia (On the Celestial Hierarchy, a 5th- or 6th-century Neoplatonic work, erroneously attributed in the Middle Ages to Dionysius the Areopagite [see 130–132 and note]) or one of the two arrangements proposed by St. Gregory the Great (see 133–135 and note). Dante, in his Convivio, had adopted one of St. Gregory’s proposed orderings, but St. Thomas had accepted Pseudo-Dionysius’s. Inevitably, here, perplexities arise in Dante’s mind, and Beatrice, as ever, perceiving his thoughts reflected in the Mind of God, responds by beginning her exposition of the true arrangement.

The first two angelic orders are the Seraphim and the Cherubim. (Cf. IX, 77–78, note.) [return to English / Italian]

103–105 The third ring comprises the Thrones (so named, according to St. Gregory, because “upon them God sits, and by means of them exercises judgment” [Homiliae in Evangelis II, 34]; cf. IX, 61–62).

St. Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius agree in seeing nine angelic orders divided into three hierarchies of three orders each. St. Gregory distinguished these according to their different offices or functions; Pseudo-Dionysius, according to their natural endowments; and St. Thomas, following him, according to the different ways in which they have knowledge of created things (Summa theol. I, q. 108, a. 1). But Dante, in the Convivio (II, V, 7–11), distinguishes the hierarchies and orders according to their contemplation of the three Persons of the Trinity and the essential attributes assigned to each of those Persons (though common to all): the first, second, and third hierarchies contemplate, respectively, the Father and His Power, the Son and His Wisdom, and the Holy Spirit and Its Love. Moreover, “since each Person of the Divine Trinity may be contemplated in three ways”—in itself and in relation to each of the other two Persons—“there are, in each hierarchy, three orders.”

Lines 104–105, then, suggest that this third angelic order derives its name from being placed, like a throne, at the foundation, or bottom, of the first and most divine hierarchy, God’s “immediate court” (Casini-Barbi). [return to English / Italian]

106–111 The beatitude of the Angelic Intelligences is in proportion to the profundity of their vision of God, “that truth in which all intellects find rest.” (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa contra gentiles III, ch. 59: “necessarily, the natural appetite of an intellective substance that sees the divine essence is wholly quieted.”)

Thus beatitude “ ‘depends / upon the act of vision, not upon / the act of love—which is a consequence.’ ” Every act of the will (e.g., the act of love) has some object. But to have such an object, it is necessary that that object be in some way already present to the mind, or intellect. Thus there must be an act of intellection first, an “ ‘act of vision’ ” of an object, for it to be the possible object of an act of love (or any act of will). (It follows that an act of vision which errs in understanding the nature of its object will result in an erroneous act of love.)

Dante’s position, aligned with that of St. Thomas (see Summa theol. I–II, q. 3, a. 1–8, and Suppl., q. 92, a. 1–3), differs in emphasis from the Augustinian-Franciscan position of those Scholastics who maintained that beatitude consists in the love of God. Nevertheless, it is an essential part of this—Dante’s—doctrine, that “ ‘the act of love…is a consequence’ ” of the act of vision of God. (See XXVI, 28–36.) There is no beatitude without love. (Cf. Solomon’s words in XIV, 41, and see 1 Cor. 13:1–13.) [return to English / Italian]

112–114 The profundity of their vision of God is according to their merit. And merit results from “ ‘grace and then…will to goodness.’ ” God’s grace must be met, or responded to, with the will to goodness, through which one cooperates with that grace. [return to English / Italian]

115–119 The “ ‘nightly Ram’ ” signifies autumn, that time of year when the constellation Aries (the Ram) is opposite the sun, so that after the sun sets, Aries is present in the nighttime sky. The “leaves” in Paradise never suffer the fate of earthly leaves in autumn. [return to English / Italian]

120–123 The three orders of Angelic Intelligences in the second hierarchy are the Dominions, the Virtues, and the Powers. (On their names, see St. Thomas [Summa theol. I, q. 108, a. 5], who follows Pseudo-Dionysius.) [return to English / Italian]

123–126 The last hierarchy is composed of the Principalities, the Archangels, and finally, the Angels—though Dante notes in the Convivio (II, iv, 2) that “the common people call [all of the Celestial Intelligences] ‘Angels.’ ” (On their names, see Summa theol., ibid.) [return to English / Italian]

127–129 In ecstatic contemplation of God, the angelic orders all are “drawn…to God,” by their knowledge and love of Him, and draw the lower orders to God, by transmitting to them their own knowledge of His workings. [return to English / Italian]

130–132 Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who “ ‘beheld most deeply / the angels’ nature and their ministry,’ ” was among the eleven souls presented by Thomas Aquinas in the Fourth Heaven (see X, 115–117 and note). The exposition of the hierarchies of the angelic orders in the De coelestia Hierarchia is, indeed, identical with Beatrice’s, and with good reason (as we are about to learn [136–139]). [return to English / Italian]

133–135 St. Gregory the Great, pope from A.D. 590 to 604 (see Purg. X, 75, and 73–93, note), “disputed” Pseudo-Dionysius, proposing, in fact, two different arrangements of the angelic orders, one of which had been adopted by Dante in his Convivio (II, v, 6). But “ ‘when Gregory came here’ ” and beheld the vision of the Angelic Intelligences, “ ‘he smiled at his mistake.’ ”

The following table summarizes Dante’s earlier and revised orderings of the angelic hierarchies: [return to English / Italian]

	St. Gregory	Pseudo-Dionysius
Heavenly Sphere	and Convivio	and Paradiso
Primum Mobile	Seraphim	Seraphim
Fixed Stars	Cherubim	Cherubim
Saturn	Powers	Thrones
Jupiter	Principalities	Dominions
Mars	Virtues	Virtues
Sun	Dominions	Powers
Venus	Thrones	Principalities
Mercury	Archangels	Archangels
Moon	Angels	Angels

136–139 Pseudo-Dionysius affirms in the De coelestia Hierarchia (IV), that the truth concerning the Celestial Intelligences was disclosed to him by St. Paul himself, who had been “caught up…right into the third heaven [for St. Paul, the highest heaven]” (see 2 Cor. 12:2–4). [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XXIX

1–6 The elaborate opening simile, which conveys the duration of Beatrice’s silence, is suited to the intellectual tone of the canto. The children of Latona are Apollo and Diana, the sun and the moon. The constellations of Aries (the Ram) and Libra (the Scales) are diametrically opposite each other on the circle of the zodiac. When the sun is in Aries and the moon in Libra (or vice versa), one “planet” rises while the other sets, at opposing points on the horizon. To the observer, the half disk of the rising moon and that of the setting sun—the lower half of each disk being covered, so that the horizon acts as a kind of belt—appear for a brief moment to hang in equilibrium from the zenith of the sky, like the pans of a balance. Then, little by little, they leave the belt of the horizon, one rising into the hemisphere above it, the other sinking into the hemisphere below. [return to English / Italian]

8–9 Unlike Dante, who had been overwhelmed by its brightness, Beatrice is able to gaze intently at the Point of light (see XXVIII, 16–21). [return to English / Italian]

10–12 Beatrice has see Dante’s unexpressed question—actually a series of questions: about Creation, the rebellion of the fallen angels, the nature of the non-fallen angels and their number—in the eternal infinite Mind of God, the alpha and omega of all time (“ ‘whens’ ”) and space (“ ‘ubis’ ”—ubi is the Latin word for “where”). [return to English / Italian]

13–18 The Creation was an overflowing of God’s eternal love. God Himself being Infinite Perfection, He had no need of Creation. Rather, by a spontaneous act of His Divine Will (“as pleased Him”) and solely in order that those reflecting the splendor of His light and love might delight, like Himself, in the knowledge of their being (“ ‘might /…declare “Subsisto” [i.e., I am]’ ”), He, like a blossoming flower, “opened into new loves,” creating the angels, the incorruptible heavens, and primary matter. [return to English / Italian]

19–21 The Creation did not represent a transition from idleness to activity on God’s part, or from one state of affairs to another. It occurred outside of time and change. Only with the Creation did it become possible to speak of “ ‘before’ ” and “ ‘after.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

21 Cf. Genesis 1:2: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” [return to English / Italian]

22–30 These lines express the simultaneity of Creation, and are directed against those who, like St. Jerome (mentioned in line 37), claimed that it was achieved in staggered order. Pure form, pure matter, and the combination of form and matter (see note below) were all created at once, like three arrows shot from a single three-stringed bow, or like a light, which penetrates immediately and equally all portions of a translucent substance. (Dante believed, with his contemporaries, that the propagation of light was instantaneous.) [return to English / Italian]

31–37 Along with the three created “ ‘substances’ ”—“ ‘form, matter, and their union’ ” (28)—was created the hierarchy among them. The angels, being pure form (or “ ‘pure act’ ”), were the highest of created things, pure matter (or “ ‘pure potentiality’ ”) was the lowest (cf. VII, 130–138, note), while the middle ground was occupied by the heavens, a combination of form and matter (or “ ‘act’ ” and “ ‘potentiality’ ”). [return to English / Italian]

37–39 St. Jerome claimed that the angels were created long before the creation of the material world—an opinion contradicted by other authorities. Dante’s view closely follows that of Thomas Aquinas, who cites in support of his argument the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” [return to English / Italian]

40–42 The “scribes of the Holy Ghost” are the authors of Holy Scripture, the various divinely inspired books of the Bible. [return to English / Italian]

43–46 Beatrice’s appeal to the authority of revelation is buttressed, in the Scholastic mode, with an appeal to reason. If the Angelic Intelligences were created to move the heavens, then they and the heavens must have been created at almost the same time. Otherwise, the angels would have remained too long imperfect, lacking scope for their true function. The argument is borrowed from Aquinas. [return to English / Italian]

49–57 No sooner had the angels been created, when a certain portion of them, led by the “ ‘cursed / pride’ ” of Lucifer, rebelled and were thrust down from Heaven, creating in their fall the cavity of Hell within the earth (where Dante encountered Lucifer, or Satan, in Inf. XXXIV). Of the four elements, earth was considered the lowest. Elsewhere, Dante estimates that the fallen angels were “in number perhaps a tenth part” of those originally created (Convivio II, v, 12). After the defeat of the rebels, the remainder of the angels took up their designated task of moving the heavens. [return to English / Italian]

57 The modesty and humility of the good angels is in contrast to the presumption of the rebels. The good angels realized they were soon to be rewarded with the vast understanding required to move the heavens, and their patient fidelity was rewarded by the further generous bestowal of God’s illuminating grace. Their will is constantly and fully in harmony with God’s, because, since “ ‘affection follows / the act of knowledge’ ” (139–140), to see Him perfectly is to will only what He wills. [return to English / Italian]

70–82 Beatrice adds a corollary on the nature of the angels, to whom many attribute the same three powers attributed to the human soul—understanding, memory, and will. The allusion is to a question discussed at length by theologians. Dante, who concentrates on disproving the angels’ need for memory and does not go into the other two powers, takes the point of view that the attribution of such faculties to the angels is at best misleading, at worst pernicious. [return to English / Italian]

82–126 The doctrinal point turns out to have been merely a prologue and leads into an extended harangue against preachers and teachers more concerned with their own ingenuity and success with an audience than with truth and divine revelation. Several modern critics are not at all at ease with this diatribe and seem to endorse the Romantic critic Tommaseo’s observation that the Antonines’ pigs (124–125) are unworthy of Beatrice and of Paradise. [return to English / Italian]

97–102 One example of these overingenious inventions is the theory that the darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour at Christ’s Crucifixion was caused by a specially engineered lunar eclipse of the sun. But there is nothing about a lunar eclipse in the Gospels, and the Gospels plainly say that there was darkness over all the earth (visible therefore not only to the Jews of Jerusalem but to the Spaniards and Indians too). A lunar eclipse would have been more local in its effects. [return to English / Italian]

105 Lapo and Bindo, short for Jacopo and Ildebrando, were extremely common first names in Dante’s Florence. [return to English / Italian]

118 The “ ‘bird’ ” that nests in the fashionable preacher’s cowl is presumably the devil. (For the term, cf. Inf. XXII, 96, and XXXIV, 47.) The ultimate purpose of the theatrical preaching style is to extract money from the ignorant. [return to English / Italian]

124–125 The Antonine monks of the order of St. Anthony the Great (not St. Anthony of Padua), founded in the 3rd century, grazed their pigs on public land and fed them on the charity of the faithful. They seem to have been regarded as one of the more greedy and less scrupulous of the mendicant orders. [return to English / Italian]

130–141 The final point regarding the angels, to which Beatrice now returns, concerns their number (which is incalculable) and their multiformity. Even Daniel’s “A thousand thousand waited on him, ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him” (Dan. 7:10) is meant simply to indicate an astronomical figure and is not to be taken literally (cf. XXVIII, 91–93 and note). Moreover, among them, there are as many degrees of intelligence and charity as there are angels. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XXX

1–9 Though we do not become aware of it till we reach the word “So,” at the beginning of line 10, the peremptory first nine lines of the canto, which, unlike the narration of the events in Paradise, are in the present tense, are actually the first term of an erudite and ornate (but basically simple) comparison. Dante compares the gradual disappearance of the nine luminous circles playing around the central Point of light (described in XXVIII, 22–39) to the disappearance of the stars in our sky at dawn. It is the hour when the sun has still a quarter of the earth’s circumference (according to Dante’s calculations, about six thousand miles) to cover before reaching the position it occupies at noon (“the sixth hour”). At the moment, the cone-shaped shadow cast by the earth when the sun illuminates it (cf. IX, 118–119) is almost level. It will be perfectly horizontal at sunrise. For now, the sun has yet to appear on the horizon, but already the color of the eastern sky has begun to change to white, and many of the night stars are no longer visible. As the dawn (“the brightest handmaid of the sun”) advances, the remainder of the stars (heaven’s “lights”) are gradually extinguished, until even the last star visible, Venus, the lovely morning star, is gone. [return to English / Italian]

10 The “triumph” is the circling of the nine angelic hierarchies around the Divine Point. [return to English / Italian]

11–12 The Point of light so brilliant “that anyone who faced the force / with which it blazed would have to shut his eyes” (XXVIII, 17–18), which appeared to Dante as the center of the play of lights, represented God. But God is both the Center and the Circumference, “not circumscribed and circumscribing all” (XIV, 30), and in fact encloses what seemed there to enclose Him. [return to English / Italian]

28–33 Dante first saw Beatrice when he was nine years old, as the Vita nuova tells us. Since then, he now says, he has sung the praises of her beauty over and over, never despairing of conveying it to his readers. Now, however, he must admit defeat. He could never describe her as she appeared to him in all her perfect glory in the Empyrean. [return to English / Italian]

34–36 That is, “I yield, and leave the description of Beatrice’s beauty to a greater poet than myself.” [return to English / Italian]

38–39 “ ‘matter’s largest sphere’ ”: the Primum Mobile. The Empyrean, “the heaven of pure light,” is not material. [return to English / Italian]

43–45 “ ‘both ranks of Paradise’ ”: the angels and the blessed saints. Dante will see the images of the latter (no longer “conceal[ed]” [V, 136] BY THE EFFULGENCE THAT HAD SURROUNDED THEM) JUST AS THEY WILL BE WHEN THEY ASSUME THEIR GLORIFIED BODIES ON JUDGMENT DAY. [return to English / Italian]

46–47 The “ ‘spirits / of sight’ ” belong to medieval psychophysiology (cf. XXVI, 71–73, note). Dante’s early poetry, like that of certain other contemporary practitioners of the “sweet new style,” makes ample use of this scientific terminology. [return to English / Italian]

52 “ ‘calms this heaven’ ”: the reader will recall that the Empyrean, unlike the revolving heavens below it, is still. [return to English / Italian]

54 Cf. Proverbs 20:27: “Man’s spirit is the lamp of Yahweh, searching his deepest self.” [return to English / Italian]

76–77 “ ‘gems / of topaz’ ”: the “living sparks” of line 64, the “rubies” of line 66. Since the ruby is red and the topaz yellow, the color of the angels does not seem to be the point—rather their brightness and their worth. The soul of Cacciaguida was addressed as “ ‘living topaz’ ” in XV, 85. [return to English / Italian]

87 “may find our betterment”: may increase our capacity for seeing and become better fitted for the final revelation of God. [return to English / Italian]

88–96 As Dante bends toward the stream of light, bathing his eyes in its effulgence to perfect his vision, he sees the river change its shape and the flowers and the precious sparks transformed, like maskers who remove their disguises, into the blessed saints and the angels, “ ‘both ranks of Paradise’ ” (43), i.e., both groups of those who dwell in the heavenly court. [return to English / Italian]

97–99 This is the canto in which the verb vedere (“to see”) and its cognates reign supreme. Forms of the verb occur sixteen times. (See Di Scipio in Dante Studies, 98, 1980). [return to English / Italian]

106–109 All of the immense circle of light derives from one great ray that emanates from the Light of God Himself and strikes the convex outer surface of the Primum Mobile (which thereby receives the life, or motion, it transmits to the spheres below and the power to influence the sublunar world, which it communicates to them) and is reflected from it. [return to English / Italian]

114 “all of us who have won return above”: the souls of all those mortals who have won a place in Heaven and have returned there from their exile on earth. [return to English / Italian]

117 The metaphor of the Rose, introduced here for the first time, will dominate the next two cantos. The form of the Rose, as will become apparent, is that of a vast amphitheater. At one point, when the references to imperial Rome become unmistakably insistent, Singleton aptly refers to it as a celestial “colosseum” (p. 551). [return to English / Italian]

118–120 That is, “My eyes were able to absorb the joyous spectacle in all its extension and intensity.” [return to English / Italian]

121–123 In the Empyrean, beyond space and time, the fact that something is near or far away does not make it easier or more difficult to see. The very notions of nearness and farness, so important here below, simply do not apply. [return to English / Italian]

126 The “Sun,” the warmth and light of whose love causes the Rose to flourish in the eternal spring of Paradise, is of course God. [return to English / Italian]

132 There is little room left for more souls in the Rose of Paradise because, in Dante’s opinion, as in that of most of his contemporaries, the end of the world is at hand. Cf. Convivio II, xiv, 13: “We are already in the last age of the world, and we are truly awaiting the consummation of the movement of the heavens.” [return to English / Italian]

135 “ ‘before you join this wedding feast’ ”: i.e., “before you die and come to take the place set aside for you in the Rose.” The image of the celestial wedding feast also occurs in Canto XXIV, 1–2 (see note), and Purgatorio XXXII, 76. [return to English / Italian]

136 “ ‘noble Henry’ ”: the emperor Henry VII, count of Luxembourg. Younger than Dante, he was born between 1270 and 1280. In November 1308 he was unanimously elected emperor and crowned king of Germany at Aix-la-Chapelle in January 1309. Accepting Pope Clement V’s invitation to descend into Italy to put an end to factional strife there, he received the title of rex Romanorum (“king of the Romans”) in Milan in January 1311. Dante followed his movements eagerly and placed all his hopes for the righting of Italy’s and his own personal wrongs in Henry, saluting his coming with enthusiastic public epistles. Henry’s triumph did not last long. He dissipated his energies attempting to quell the rebellious cities of northern Italy and struggling against the Guelph coalition incited against him by the treacherous Clement. In June 1313 he finally succeeded in being crowned emperor in Rome, but not in St. Peter’s, which was under the control of the Guelphs led by King Robert of Naples. Called north to combat a further Guelph uprising led by Florence, he fell ill and died suddenly at Buonconvento, near Siena, in August 1313. Italy, says Dante, was not ready for him. [return to English / Italian]

139–141 The you in these lines is a plural you and is addressed not to Dante but to the peoples of Italy. [return to English / Italian]

142–144 The “ ‘Prefect’ ” of the “ ‘holy forum,’ ” or head of the Church, at the time of Henry’s coming to Italy, was, as we have seen, Clement V, whom Dante considered to have tricked and betrayed Henry. [return to English / Italian]

145–147 The death of Clement, which came a bare eight months after that of Henry, was seen by Dante as just retribution. It is hardly necessary to say that Dante had the pope earmarked for an eternity in Hell, in the Third Pouch of the Eighth Circle, among the Simonists, where he would succeed his predecessor, Boniface VIII, in the mouth of the hole in the rock, pushing Boniface farther into the hole on top of his predecessor, Nicholas III (cf. Inf. XIX). Boniface was born in the city of Anagni. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XXXI

1–3 The souls of the blessed, wedded to Christ through the sacrifice of His Crucifixion, many of whom Dante had encountered previously in the various heavens, are gathered all together here in their true dwelling place—the white Celestial Rose. [return to English / Italian]

4–12 The angels form the other host—the bees that ceaselessly and lovingly toil in the garden of Paradise. [return to English / Italian]

13–15 The description of the angels is not unnaturally an elaboration of biblical reminiscences: “Then I saw another powerful angel coming down from heaven,…his face was like the sun” (Rev. 10:1); “something could be seen like flaming brands or torches” (Ezek. 1:13); “His face was like lightning, his robe white as snow” (Matt. 28:3). [return to English / Italian]

17–18 Shuttling back and forth between the Rose and the eternal dwelling of God’s love, the angel bees share with the blessed the honey of His peace and ardor. [return to English / Italian]

22–24 Cf. Canto I, 1–3. [return to English / Italian]

26 The “people of both new and ancient times,” as we shall see in the following canto, are the saved from the periods of the Old and the New Testaments. [return to English / Italian]

33 The nymph Helice (perhaps better known as Callisto) was seduced by Jupiter and punished by Juno by being turned into a bear. Her son and Jupiter’s, Arcas, encountered the bear on a hunt and was about to kill it, when his father intervened, exalting the transformed Helice among the stars as the constellation of the Great Bear and placing Arcas near her as the Little Bear (see Ovid, Met. II, 401–530). The barbarians hailed from the north of Europe, where the Bear is visible year round. [return to English / Italian]

35–36 The Lateran Palace, first the residence of the emperors, then of the popes, is cited as an outstanding monument to the power and magnificence of Rome. [return to English / Italian]

40 The concrete name of Florence, coming at the climax of a crescendo of abstractions, is thrown into bitter relief in Dante’s last and most sardonic thrust against his ungrateful homeland. [return to English / Italian]

55–60 As the awestruck Dante turns to seek his beloved guide, Beatrice, only to find that she has left his side, we are reminded of a similar moment in Purgatory, when, overwhelmed by the triumphal advent of Beatrice, he had turned to Virgil for comfort, only to find him gone (cf. Purg. XXX, 40–54). The difference in dramatic tone derives from the fact that Virgil had returned to exile in Limbo, whereas Beatrice has taken her rightful place in the Rose of Paradise. [return to English / Italian]

60 This “elder” will identify himself in line 102. [return to English / Italian]

80–81 Cf. Inferno II, 53. [return to English / Italian]

102 The “holy elder” (94) now reveals himself to be the famous mystic St. Bernard (1091–1153), canonized in 1173, founder and first abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux. (The Cistercians were a stricter branch of the Benedictine order.) The contemplative author of many works on the ascetic and mystical path to God, he was also an active preacher and reformer, the respected counselor of popes and princes, and the promoter of the Second Crusade. He was particularly noted for his restoration of the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary. [return to English / Italian]

102–104 Dante contemplates St. Bernard with the same eagerness with which a pilgrim from the remote outback of Christendom might contemplate the “Veronica”—the image of Christ’s face imprinted on a piece of cloth preserved in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, connected with the pious legend of the woman who wiped the face of Jesus with her kerchief as he climbed to Calvary. The term Veronica is actually a phrase of Greek origin: vera icona, “true likeness.” [return to English / Italian]

124–126 The comparison with the sunrise continues. The “shaft” or chariot that Phaethon misguided was the chariot of the sun (see XV, 13–18, note). [return to English / Italian]

127 The “oriflamme” was the ancient royal standard of France—a red silk banner split at one end to form flame-shaped streamers. The term is used metaphorically to indicate the flamelike summit of the Rose, in the center of which is the place occupied by the Queen of Heaven. Unlike the warlike banner of the French kings, this oriflamme is a flag of peace. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XXXII

1–2 Though ardently absorbed in the contemplation of Mary, Bernard does not forget his task of instructing Dante. [return to English / Italian]

4–6 The place of Eve in the Rose is in the second highest rank, or tier, at the feet of Mary. Eve was the woman who opened the wound of original sin, Mary the woman who closed it. Mary is in fact often called the second Eve, as Christ is called the second Adam. Dante chooses to mention the healing of the wound before its infliction, placing the emphasis, in this brief epitome of providential history, on God’s love for the world rather than on His just vengeance, on the Redemption rather than the Fall. The reversal of the logical position of words and ideas, the rhetorical figure known as hysteron proteron, extends to the order of the verbs—one anoints a wound before closing it, and piercing precedes opening. (Cf. II, 23–24 and note.) [return to English / Italian]

7 We were already told that Beatrice was “sitting beside the venerable Rachel,” the second wife of Jacob and a symbol of the contemplative life, in Inferno II, 102. For Rachel and her sister Leah, see also Purgatorio XXVII, 100–108 and note. Beatrice is at the right hand of Rachel in the third rank of souls. [return to English / Italian]

8 Below Rachel, in the fourth rank, is Sarah, wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac. Below her, in the fifth rank, Rebecca, wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob and Esau. Next, in the sixth rank, comes Judith, the beautiful heroine of the Book of Judith, who delivered Israel from the Assyrians by gaining access to the tent of their general, Holofernes, and beheading him in his drunken sleep. [return to English / Italian]

10–12 The central place in the seventh rank is occupied by the great-grandmother of King David the psalmist—Ruth, wife of Boaz. David’s “sinfulness” was his adultery with Bathsheba. “ ‘Miserere mei’ ” (“Have mercy upon me, O God”) are the opening words of Psalm 50 in the Latin Vulgate, composed by David. [return to English / Italian]

15–27 The vertical row of Hebrew women from the Old Testament continues below the seventh rank; the women, though, are not named. Together they form one radius of the circular Rose, a kind of a wall or dividing line that separates those saved under the Old Dispensation (“whose faith was in the Christ to come”), who are on Mary’s left, from those saved under the New (“whose sight was set upon the Christ / who had already come”), who are on her right. Since the number of saved under each of the two covenants was to be equal (“both aspects of / the faith shall fill this garden equally” [38–39]), the seats on the left are all full, while on the right side a few vacancies still remain. [return to English / Italian]

28–37 Radiating out from the center of the Rose, on the opposite side, is another wall or partition of souls, serving the same dividing function as the first. Together the two radii form the circle’s diameter, and divide the Rose into two semicircles. [return to English / Italian]

31 At the topmost rank on the other side, across from Eve, is St. John the Baptist, the precursor of Christ, of whom Christ said: “I tell you solemnly, of all the children born of women, a greater than John the Baptist has never been seen” (Matt. 11:11). [return to English / Italian]

32–33 “ ‘always saintly’ ”: See Luke 1:15: “Even from his mother’s womb he will be filled with the Holy Spirit.” The Baptist lived in the desert and suffered martyrdom at the hands of Herod. Since he died two years before Christ, he spent two years in Limbo before Christ’s Harrowing of Hell (see Inf. IV, 52–61, note). [return to English / Italian]

35 The life of Francis of Assisi was recounted by Thomas Aquinas in Canto XI, while Dante met Benedict himself in Canto XXII. Some commentators have expressed surprise at the absence of Dominic from this brief list of founders. Augustine of Hippo (354–426), the famous Father of the Church, was born a pagan and became, like St. Paul, a convert to Christianity. His works, which Dante clearly knew very well, are among the most influential noncanonical texts in the Christian tradition. There is another passing reference to Augustine in Canto X, 120. [return to English / Italian]

40–45 A further major division of the Rose comes halfway down the ranks or tiers. The places in the lower half are reserved for the souls of infants who died before reaching the age at which their reason would have made them capable of distinguishing between good and evil, and hence of exercising “ ‘the power of true choice.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

49–75 The narrative strategy of the pilgrim’s doubt serves, here as elsewhere, to underline an aspect of Dante’s vision of the otherworld that is not in conformity with received theological opinion. In fact, Aquinas, along with most other thinkers who addressed the problem, concluded that there could be no difference in degree of beatitude among the infants in Heaven. The gist of Bernard’s explanation is that no two souls are created equal and that there must therefore be qualitative and quantitative differences in the capacity even of innocent children for beatitude. [return to English / Italian]

67–69 The twins in question were Esau and Jacob, who “struggled with one another” in Rebecca’s womb (Gen. 25:22). [return to English / Italian]

72 Unlike Jacob’s, which was black, Esau’s hair was red and, even at his birth, covered him “as though he were completely wrapped in a hairy cloak” (Gen. 25:25). [return to English / Italian]

76 The “ ‘early centuries’ ” (the “ ‘early times’ ” of line 79) are the first two ages of the world—from Adam to Noah, and from Noah to Abraham. “Before the institution of circumcision, faith in the future Christ justified both children and adults” (Summa theol. III, q. 70, a. 4). [return to English / Italian]

79–82 Circumcision was introduced by Abraham at God’s command (see Gen. 17:10–14). According to St. Thomas, the male was circumcised because it was through the male that original sin was transmitted (cf. Summa theol. I–II, q. 81, a. 5). The rite was considered by medieval theologians to be an imperfect form of baptism: “Now, our faith is the same as that of the Fathers of old….But circumcision was a protestation of faith….Consequently, it is manifest that circumcision was a preparation for baptism and a figure thereof….” (Summa theol. III, q. 70, a. 1). [return to English / Italian]

82–84 The “ ‘age of grace’ ” is the Christian era. With the advent of Christ, unbaptized infants were consigned to Limbo. [return to English / Italian]

83–87 In the Italian text the name Christ appears once more in rhyme with itself. This is the fourth time in the Paradiso that this has occurred (see XII, 71–75, XIV, 104–108, and XIX, 104–108, in the Italian). [return to English / Italian]

85–86 Mary’s face is most like Christ’s because she was His mother, and because she is closest to Him in brightness and beatitude. [return to English / Italian]

89 “holy intellects”: the angels. [return to English / Italian]

94–96 The “angelic love” is the Archangel Gabriel, the angel of the Annunciation. His words to Mary became the opening words of the prayer Ave Maria (Hail Mary). [return to English / Italian]

112–113 The palm is a symbol of victory. In pictorial representations of the Annunciation, Gabriel is usually depicted as bearing a palm frond or a flowering branch. [return to English / Italian]

116–119 The patricians were the aristocracy of ancient Rome. The heavenly court is frequently described in feudal or imperial terms. In the same paradigm is the word Empress used to designate Mary (the Agusta [Augusta] of the Italian text is even more Roman in its connotations). The empress Mary is surrounded on both sides by the highest members of her court—those from the period of the Old Testament on her left, those from the Christian dispensation on her right. [return to English / Italian]

121–123 On Mary’s left, in the highest rank, sits Adam, the father of mankind, whose tasting of the forbidden fruit caused his descendants to taste the bitterness of their fallen state. The play on the word taste is typically medieval rhetorical embellishment. [return to English / Italian]

124–126 On her right sits St. Peter, to whom Christ gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 16:19). [return to English / Italian]

127–129 To the right of Peter, in the top tier of souls, is St. John the Evangelist (identified, in Dante’s day, with St. John the Apostle), author of Revelation, which recounts his vision of the persecutions and hardships of the Church, the Bride of Christ. Christ’s sacrifice, by which he won his Bride, is indicated symbolically by the instruments of His Passion—the lance that pierced His side and the nails that wounded His hands and feet. [return to English / Italian]

130–132 On the left of Adam is Moses. He led the Jews (who “murmured against him”) out of the land of Egypt into the wilderness, where they were fed with manna from Heaven (Exod. 16). [return to English / Italian]

133–135 Anna was the mother of Mary and died before the birth of Christ. She closes the semicircle of those who believed in Christ to come. This places her diametrically opposite Peter (who sits next to Mary on her right) and to the right of John the Baptist. From this position the proud mother is free to gaze for all eternity upon her daughter. [return to English / Italian]

136–138 Diametrically opposite Adam (“ ‘the greatest father of a family’ ”) and therefore on John the Baptist’s left, closing the semicircle of those who believed in Christ come, sits St. Lucy, or Lucia, the 4th-century martyr saint of Syracuse, patron saint of sight and symbol of illuminating grace. She was sent by Mary and in turn sent Beatrice to Dante’s aid, in Inferno II, 97–102. [return to English / Italian]

147–148 Before he raises his eyes to contemplate God Himself, Dante must pray to Mary (“ ‘that one who has the power to help you’ ”) for the grace of the vision and the strength to withstand it. His prayer will be spoken for him by St. Bernard. [return to English / Italian]

CANTO XXXIII

1–39 The canto opens with St. Bernard’s prayer to Mary, the Virgin Mother of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Like other familiar formulas of devotion—among them the Ave Maria (or Hail Mary)—this prayer falls into two parts. The first part (1–21) consists of a litany of her praises, her frequently paradoxical theological attributes. (In rhetoric, this part would be termed a captatio benevolentiae, a stratagem by which an orator attempts to capture the good will of his audience.) The second part (22–39) formulates the worshipper’s request. The urgent liturgical antitheses of the first part—Mary’s virginity and maternity, maternity and filiation, humility and exaltedness, presence in time and in eternity, etc.—bear witness to Dante’s intimate absorption of the spirit and texts of Christian mysticism. [return to English / Italian]

2 Mary’s humility characterized her at the Annunciation: “ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me’ ” (Luke 1:38). Her own words in the Magnificat, the verses spoken by her to her cousin Elizabeth, are the first statement of her singular combination of humbleness and sublimity: “He has looked upon his lowly handmaid. Yes, from this day forward all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). [return to English / Italian]

7–9 The Incarnation of Christ, the Word made flesh in the womb of Mary, made possible the Redemption of fallen mankind, and hence the salvation of all of the souls from the Old Dispensation and the New, who now form the Celestial Rose of the Empyrean. [return to English / Italian]

14–15 That is, “God does not wish us to have anything that does not pass through the hands of Mary” (Bernard of Clairvaux, “In Vigilia Nativitatis Domini,” Sermones de tempore III, 10). [return to English / Italian]

16–18 That Dante is here at all is an illustration of the overflowing zeal of Mary’s loving-kindness. It was she who set in motion the chain of intercessors who prevailed upon Virgil to come to his aid (see Inf. II, 94–96). [return to English / Italian]

34–37 Bernard makes the same request for Dante that Dante himself made earlier to Beatrice (XXXI, 87–90): that when he returns to the world after his vision, he will maintain his faith and his Christian disposition intact. Some critics see a reference here to Dante’s special need for grace to combat his tendency toward the sin of pride. [return to English / Italian]

38 Our last glimpse of Beatrice (this is the last mention of her name) is of a Beatrice who no longer stands alone and apart, as she did until now, both within the poem and outside it, but who has merged into the chorus of exulting spirits. [return to English / Italian]

58 Dante, the poet attempting to record his vision, is like a man awakened from a dream he does not remember, filled with the emotion of a dream, but with no clear recollection of its particulars. We are reminded of Coleridge’s preface to “Kubla Khan,” where the poem itself is presented as the recollection of a dream. Reading this last canto, it is easy to see how the Romantic poets were attracted by Dante. The stupendous tension of the remainder of the poem derives in large part from Dante’s dramatization of his present struggle to recollect (i.e., imagine) and describe (i.e., create in words) the content of his final vision. [return to English / Italian]

64–66 So the snow melts beneath the sun’s heat, and so the divinatory verses written upon leaves by the Sibyl, the frenzied prophetess of Cumae, consulted by Aeneas in Book VI of the Aeneid, were scattered and lost upon the wind. “Deep in her cave of rock she charts the fates, / consigning to the leaves her words and symbols. / Whatever verses she has written down / upon the leaves, she puts in place and order / and then abandons them inside her cavern. / When all is still, that order is not troubled; / but when soft winds are stirring and the door, / turning upon its hinge, disturbs the tender / leaves, then she never cares to catch the verses / that flutter through the hollow grotto, never / recalls their place or joins them all together” (Aen. III, 579–589). [return to English / Italian]

75 The exact meaning of the word victory in this context is contested. It could be simply a synonym of “omnipotence”; it may also refer more specifically to the victory of the Divine Vision over Dante’s ability to describe it. [return to English / Italian]

76–78 The words “gone astray” (in Italian, “smarrito”) may recall the opening lines of Inferno I, where Dante first found himself “astray” in the dark wood of error. [return to English / Italian]

85–87 The first metaphor Dante uses to describe his vision of God is that of a book. God is the book in which all of the separate pages, as it were, that we see scattered throughout the universe are bound together. [return to English / Italian]

88–90 This tercet continues and repeats—in the technical language of medieval Scholastic philosophy—the notion of ingathering. A “substance” (substantia) is that which subsists in and of itself; an “accident” (accidens) has no independent existence but exists only as a quality or attribute of a substance; their “disposition” (habitus) is the way substances and accidents are joined together, their relationship to each other. [return to English / Italian]

96 That is, “I can recall so little of the moment of my overwhelming vision that the twenty-five centuries that have passed since Neptune saw with amazement from the ocean’s depth the shadow of the keel of the first ship, the Argo, on which Jason sailed with the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, have not engendered more forgetfulness.” The voyage of the Argonauts is still remembered twenty-five centuries later, whereas Dante, who is still alive, has already almost lost what he saw. The sublime parallel stresses once again the infinite incommensurability between the seen and the remembered, as well as inviting comparison between Jason’s marvelous voyage and Dante’s (cf. II, 16–18 and note). [return to English / Italian]

109–114 God, the Living Light, is eternal and unchanging, always equal to Himself. The changes that Dante now witnesses, which are an attempt to translate into visual imagery the mystery of the Trinity, depend, not upon the object of his vision, but on his own increasing capacity to see. [return to English / Italian]

118 The description of the three circles discerned within the single Light is theologically impeccable: all three are equal, the second reflects the first (the Son proceeds from all eternity from the Father), and the third (the Holy Spirit) is the fire of Love that is breathed from both (“that Love which / One and the Other breathe eternally” [X, 1–2]). (For a possible source of this image in Joachim of Flora, see Luigi Tondelli’s edition of and commentary on the Liber figurarum of Joachim of Flora, 2 vols., Turin, 1953, and the recent article by Piero di Vona “Dante filosofo e San Bonaventura,” in Miscellanea Francescana, Tomo 84, 1984, I–II, pp. 8–10.) [return to English / Italian]

127–132 The second circle (the Second Person of the Trinity—the Son, the Logos, the Word, the “Idea”) seemed to contain within itself our human form. The reference is to the mystery of the Incarnation. The human form of Christ is “painted” within the circle in the same color as the circle itself and yet is clearly discernible. [return to English / Italian]

133–135 The problem of constructing or finding a square equal in area to a given circle is an ancient and proverbially insoluble mathematical puzzle. [return to English / Italian]

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The foregoing translation and brief annotations are much indebted to the exegetes cited in the Introduction to the Inferno, as well as to many earlier commentators.

Throughout, the Enciclopedia Dantesca has been consulted—the six-volume work directed by Umberto Bosco, with Giorgio Petrocchi and (from Vol. IV on) Ignazio Baldelli as general editors, Rome, 1970–1978. The first five volumes are ordered alphabetically. The sixth volume includes: Petrocchi’s biography of Dante; a unique collective series of essays on the language and style of Dante; a bibliography; and the texts of all of Dante’s works—and works that may be Dante’s. The E.D. is one of the finest examples of a collective scholarly-critical enterprise that our times have produced, but the special bibliographical section in Vol. VI is much less cogent and complete than many of the separate bibliographies at the end of the alphabetically-ordered entries.

Some of the commentaries that have proved most helpful are: Umberto Bosco and Giovanni Reggio, eds., Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia: Paradiso (Florence, 1979); Tommasso Casini and Silvio Adrasti Barbi (the latter revising the former after Casini’s death, in 1917), La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri, 6th ed. (Florence, 1926); and the editions of the Commedia by Siro A. Chimenz (Turin, 1967); Hermann Gmelin (Stuttgart, 1954–1957); Daniele Mattalia (Milan, 1960); Attilio Momigliano (Florence, 1945–1946); André Pézard (Paris, 1965); Natalino Sapegno (Milan, 1957); Charles S. Singleton (Princeton, 1975). All references to these commentaries are ad locum (to the same place in the Paradiso at which the exegete is cited in these notes), except for Bosco-Reggio, where the reference may call attention to Umberto Bosco’s preface to the canto in question.

Essays on the individual cantos of the Paradiso are to be found far beyond the range of the principal collective volumes—or pamphlet collections—of Paradiso readings. But the following compilations (with their separate essays on each canto, in the Lectura Dantis format that the California Lectura Dantis volumes, now in progress, will follow) have been both convenient and particularly helpful:

Letture dantesche: Paradiso, ed. Giovanni Getto, Florence, 1958 (now in the 1965 single-volume edition of the three cantiche); Lectura Dantis Scaligera: Paradiso, ed. Mario Marcazzan, Florence, 1967; the separate pamphlets of the Lectura Dantis Romana, ed. Giovanni Fallani, Turin, 1959–1967; the third, fourth, and fifth volumes of the Nuove letture dantesche of the Casa di Dante di Roma, Florence, 1969–1972; Letture del Paradiso, ed. Vittorio Vettori, Milan, 1970; and readings of Paradiso cantos scattered through Vols. I–III, V, VII, and IX of the Letture Classensi, Ravenna, 1969–1979.