Paradiso (The Divine Comedy series Book 3)

by Dante

  Interea videt Aeneas in valle reducta

  seclusum nemus et virgulta sonantia silvae,

  Lethaeumque domos placidas qui praenatat amnem.

  hunc circum innumerae gentes populique volabant:

  ac veluti in pratis ubi apes aestate serena

  floribus insidunt variis et candida circum

  lilia funduntur, strepit omnis murmure campus.

  . . .

  And now Aeneas sees in the valley’s depths

  a sheltered grove and rustling wooded brakes

  and the Lethe flowing past the homes of peace.

  Around it hovered numberless races, nations of souls

  like bees in meadowlands on a cloudless summer day

  that settle on flowers, riots of color, swarming round

  the lilies’ lustrous sheen, and the whole field comes alive

  with a humming murmur. (Tr. R. Fagles [Viking 2006])

  This is a powerful moment in which Virgil’s and Dante’s mimetic proclivities are shown in their warmest tones; at least in Dante’s case we witness the imitation of nature engineered by another kind of imitation altogether. See McLaughlin (Mcla.1995.1), p. 5, for the distinction between mimesis of external reality and imitation of previous literature. And for an earlier brief discussion of the distinction and of how the two techniques may be found joined, see Hollander (Holl.1975.2), p. 122. [return to English / Italian]

  66. For the ruby set in gold, it has become commonplace, after Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), to cite Aeneid X.134: “qualis gemma micat, fulvum quae dividit aurum” (glittered like a jewel set in yellow gold [tr. H. R. Fairclough]). [return to English / Italian]

  67. For the inebriation of the angels, Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 46–81) cites the Psalms (35:9–10 [36:8–9]): “They feast on the abundance of your house, / and you give them drink from the river of your delights. / For with you is the fountain of life; / in your light do we see light.” [return to English / Italian]

  68. A discussion of another Virgilian text that may stand behind Dante’s Latinate phrase miro gurge (marvelous flood) is found in Rossi (Ross.1985.1), pp. 83–91, examining the parallels between Dante’s river and that found in Georgics IV.348–356, the Peneüs, into whose depths Aristaeus will penetrate and see (p. 84) “the place where all the earth’s streams converge” (IV.365–366). [return to English / Italian]

  70–75. Beatrice intervenes again, preparing Dante for his baptismal ingestion of the waters of Life. Hollander (Holl.1969.1), p. 196, and (Holl.1993.5), p. 19, points out that he has experienced “baptism” in two previous scenes: Purgatorio I.121–129 and XXXIII.127–129. [return to English / Italian]

  76–81. His guide now explains what we may have already understood, that what Dante was seeing was not really what he thought it was, that it was only a “shadowy forecast” of its true nature.

  For the notion that all of Paradiso up to verse 90 is best conceived as a series of accommodative metaphors, see discussion in Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 192–202; (Holl.1993.5.1), pp. 19–21. [return to English / Italian]

  77. Resolved from metaphor, the “laughter” of the “meadows” is represented in the “flowers” that cover it, that is, the saints. [return to English / Italian]

  78. For the figural sense of history that stands behind this expression (umbriferi prefazi), see Pasquini (Pasq.1999.2). See also Ledda (Ledd. 2002.1), pp. 302–3. For more on the figural dimensions of the word umbra, see the note to Paradiso I.22–24. [return to English / Italian]

  82–90. In nine lines Dante “drinks in” his “baptismal” “milk” and, as a result, has his vision transformed; he will shortly be able to see the realities of Heaven as they truly are. This simile is the opening gesture in staging his identity as newborn “babe,” culminating in Paradiso XXXIII.106–108. [return to English / Italian]

  85–89. The conclusion of this simile is effortful indeed: Dante “drinks” his “baptism”with his eyelids and thus moves his eyesight to the next level of seeing. [return to English / Italian]

  90. In a single verse the meaning of Dante’s changed “eyesight” is manifest: For him time has become eternity; history has become its own fulfillment in revelation. His previous linear sense of things has moved to a new dimension, the circularity of perfection. This new vision, unlike that of some, maintains its relation to the things of the world, which now for the first time may be really understood. See Paradiso XXXIII.88–90. [return to English / Italian]

  91–96. The first moment of face-to-face seeing is presented with this simile. The protagonist now perceives the “flowers” as the saints they are, the “sparks” as angels. While no one said so for centuries, the only apparent “source” for this image of unmasking was a festive occasion, a masked ball of some kind. Poletto (comm. to vv. 91–96) somewhat uneasily defends the poet’s choice of material; however, the noun feste (lit., “festivals,” or “celebrations”) in verse 94 at least seems to help establish a frame of reference. Nonetheless, Fallani (comm. to vv. 91–93) suggested that the reference is to masked actors. A potential literary source for this image has apparently never been suggested. It is probably fair to say that most readers feel puzzled as to the poet’s motivation at such an important moment.

  For another sort of unmasking, in which the protagonist again has his initial vision yield to a greater reality, see the note to Paradiso XXXIII.28–33. [return to English / Italian]

  95–99. On identical rhymes, see Wlassics (Wlas.1975.1), p. 121. He points out that this repetition of vidi (I saw) underlines the claim for a poetics based in seeing and making seen. As several commentators have observed (apparently the first was Scartazzini [comm. to vv. 97–99]), aside from the four occurrences of the identical rhymes of “Cristo” (see the note to Par. XII.71–75), there are only two other cases of triple identical rhymes in the poem, the bitterly ironic repetition of “per ammenda” in Purgatorio XX.65–69 and the occurrences of “vidi” here.

  Responding to the word’s presence in verse 61, Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 152, points to the repetitive pattern of the same form, vidi, in John’s Apocalypse (Apoc. 5:1, 5:2, 5:6, and 5:11). Dante uses that form seven times in all in this canto, the most of any canto in the cantica (Par. XVIII is the nearest challenger, with six uses; however, Inferno IV, with its list of forty virtuous pagans whom the protagonist saw in the Limbus, has fully eleven appearances of vidi; and in Purgatorio XXXII, there are eight. There are 167 occurrences of this form of the verb vedere in the poem, all but fourteen of them spoken by the poet; exceptions include Virgil [at Inf. IV.53, VIII.25, and XXIX.25], the protagonist [at Inf. XXIV.129], and several souls to whom Dante listens [Inf. XXVI.103, XXVII.79, XXVIII.71, XXXII.116; Par. XIII.136; XV.115; XVI.88, 91, 109]). Vidi is one of Dante’s favorite locutions, reflecting his strategic insistence on the reality of his experience. [return to English / Italian]

  95. The fiori (flowers) are the saved souls, the faville (sparks) are the angels, as is commonly agreed (see the note to vv. 62–66). We see them again in the next canto, verses 7–9, the sparks now transformed, in simile, into bees. Once we see that, we can understand that these first “real substances,” noncontingent and sempiternal, that we see “face-to-face” in the entire poem have models in a scene in the Aeneid (VI.703–708 [see the note to vv. 64–66]). [return to English / Italian]

  97–99. This is the eighth and penultimate invocation in the poem (see the note to Inf. II.7–9), addressing God’s reflected light, possibly his grace (the ninth and final invocation will be addressed to God as luce, the source of light, in Par. XXXIII.67). [return to English / Italian]

  100–102. The first line of this tercet marks a borderline as sharply etched as that, involving similar stylistic traits, separating lower from upper Hell (Inf. XVIII.1): “Luogo è in inferno detto Malebolge” (There is a place in Hell called Malebolge). Here the light of grace that makes God visible to once-mortal souls introduces the final (and visionary) part of the poem. [return to English / Italian] />
  100. There is a certain amount of indecision in the commentaries as to whether this lume is reflected light rather than its source (which would be luce). Some argue that it is the Holy Spirit, others Jesus as Logos, still others some form of grace. For this last, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 100–123): “It will be noticed that I speak of this central circular sea as lumen gratiae, for it is still the light of grace which once flowed in form of a river; but that light of grace has now reached its perfect form of eternity, the lumen gloriae. The change of the river into the circular sea is Dante’s symbolic way of stating that the grace by which a soul is saved and strengthened to persevere to the end of the earthly life, is not something different in kind from the glory to which it leads. According to Aquinas, ‘grace is nothing else than a certain beginning of glory in us’ [ST II–II, q. 24, a. 3: ‘Gratia et gloria ad idem genus referuntur; quia gratia nihil est aliud quam quaedam inchoatio gloriae in nobis’], and the light of glory is simply the perfected form of the grace of earth [ST I–II, q. 111, a. 3]. Aquinas is here laying down the distinction between prevenient and subsequent grace.” Hollander (Holl.1993.5), p. 25, n. 63, claims that, among the first commentators, only Benvenuto (comm. to Par. VII.1–6) discusses the lumen gloriae (even if elsewhere); but see his remarks on this passage (vv. 100–102) and those of his student, John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 100–105). He does go on (correctly) to credit Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 115–117) as being the first of the moderns to do so. [return to English / Italian]

  103–108. The enormous size of the Rose may come as something of a surprise. Dante never tells us the number of places that are found there, whether it is the precise number (144,000) offered in the Apocalypse (see the note to Par. XXXI.115–117), or the approximate number on the basis of the “replacement value” of the fallen angels (see the note to Par. XXIX.50), or still another figure. There are some questions that we are simply not encouraged to pose.

  The disc of the Sun, even populated by souls on thrones with first-class legroom, would hold more saints than are imaginable, millions of millions. See Poletto (comm. to vv. 100–105) for discussion of what Dante knew about such measurements, including that of the diameter of the Sun, 37,750 miles according to Convivio IV.viii.7.

  The Rose is made up of a beam of light (the Godhead) reflected upward from the convex surface of the Primum Mobile, which rotates because of its love for that beam and spreads its influence through the celestial spheres beneath it.

  This passage may help in understanding the difficult text at Paradiso XXVIII.13–15 (see the note thereto). There the poet, in the Primum Mobile, has his first vision of the Godhead and the surrounding spheres of angels. Exactly where he sees them is a matter in dispute. This passage might help establish that they are here (in the Empyrean) but are seen down there, on the surface of the Crystalline Sphere, whence they, along with the Rose, are also reflected back up here.

  For the shape of the Rose as being neither a cylinder nor a cone, but hemispheric, see Kay (Kay.2003.1), pp. 46–48. [return to English / Italian]

  109–114. In the vehicle of this simile, the stadium in which the saints are seated is “personified” as a hillside that can look down to its foot and see itself, alive with spring (see the primavera of verse 63), reflected back up to its gaze. The tenor presents the seeing hill’s counterpart, the protagonist, as looking up (not down), and seeing, not himself, but all the blessed as reflections of the beam, reaching upward a thousandfold. (We are aware that Dante frequently uses this number as a synonym for an uncountable multitude; see at least the next [and last] time he does so, Par. XXXI.131.) [return to English / Italian]

  115–117. Daniello (comm. to this tercet) wonders, if the circumference of the lowest row in the Rose is greater than the circumference of the sphere that holds the Sun (see the note to vv. 103–108), how great must be the circumference of the highest row, at least one thousand rows higher (and wider by a factor of at least one thousand times a probably constant yet indeterminate measurement). [return to English / Italian]

  117. Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 109–117) says that the rows of the Rose “are like those in the arena di Verona.” He is followed by two modern commentators, Trucchi (comm. to vv. 118–123) and Sapegno (comm. to vv. 112–113). Trucchi, however, prefers the notion of Gioachino Brognoligo that the structure Dante has in mind is the Colosseum at Rome. Both Dante’s more recent and more certain visit to the Arena and its greater intimacy as a built space give the edge to Verona. [return to English / Italian]

  118–123. For a concise statement of the “resemblant difference” of the Empyrean, its way of not relating and yet totally relating to the literally underlying realms of the created universe, see Moevs (Moev.2005.1), p. 82: “The Empyrean is out of space-time, untouched by physical law; it is a dimensionless point, in which all is immediately present, a ‘space’ of consciousness, in which the ‘sight’ of awareness ‘takes’ (prendeva) as itself all it sees, all that exists.”

  As we will discover, Dante is allowed to see with a new sense of dimension, which abrogates spatial perspective and makes all things equidistant one from another (see Par. XXXI.73–78). This passage prepares for that one, and both offer further evidence of the poet’s extraordinarily vivid and inventive scientific imagination. [return to English / Italian]

  124–129. Ever since Jacopo della Lana, the yellow has been understood as the center of the Rose (the reader should remember that Dante is not talking about cultivated roses but wild ones, with their flatter profile). Beatrice and Dante are standing at the midpoint of the Rose when she directs him to look up and see the citizenry of the City of God.

  As has been suggested (see the note to verse 117), Dante may have found a model for the Rose in the Arena di Verona. The reader is in fact urged to visit that place, to find a way to walk, without looking up, into the very center of its floor, and then to experience the sight of the inner tiers of the amphitheater. And it is just possible that he or she then will share the experience that Dante had there some seven hundred years ago. It really looks like the model for the Rose, vast yet intimate. [return to English / Italian]

  124. For the notion that Dante’s Rose is a kind of counterimage to the flower plucked at the end of the Roman de la Rose, with its evident reference to the female pudenda, see Shaw (Shaw.1981.1), pp. 209–10. Shaw, who accepts Contini’s argument for attributing the Fiore, the sonnet sequence based on the Roman, to Dante, consequently argues that this passage is a “case of the mature poet making amends for the aberrations of his youthful self” (p. 210). (For discussion of the status of these questions, Dante’s knowledge of the Roman and his authorship of the Fiore, see the note to Par. II.59–60.) Among the surprisingly few commentators to express an opinion on this matter (one that no one considers unimportant), Mestica (comm. to vv. 115–123) raises the possibility that Dante had read it (and that he had written the Fiore). Giacalone (comm. to vv. 124–129) cites Savj Lopez (Savj.1964.1), who thinks that Dante would have made allowances for the profane love championed by the Roman and thus seen it as a worthy precursor. [return to English / Italian]

  125. The Latinism redole (exhales fragrance) is traced to Aeneid I.436 first by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 124–126). [return to English / Italian]

  126. For this “springtime” sense of the verb vernare, see the note to Paradiso XXVIII.118. The verb usually means “to spend the winter” (see Inf. XXXIII.135 and Purg. XXIV.64). [return to English / Italian]

  129. For the phrase bianche stole (white robes), see its previous use at Paradiso XXV.95, where it clearly signifies the bodies to be returned at the general resurrection. Beatrice has promised Dante that this is the way the saved will seem to him, even though they are not yet resurrected, and so the phrase here allows us to understand that this is indeed how they appear, in the flesh.

  For an overview of the history and significance of the concept of resurrection of the flesh in the Western Church (with some consideration of Dante), see Bynum (Bynu.1995.1).
For a close look at the importance of the resurrected body, in several writers preceding Dante and (primarily) in the Commedia, see Gragnolati (Grag.2005.1). For Dante’s sense of this subject, see also Jacoff (Jaco.1999.1 and Jaco.2000.1).

  At least since reading Paradiso XIV.61–66 (the passage shows the first two groups, the twenty-four contemplatives, who have shown themselves to Dante and Beatrice in the heaven of the Sun, all longing for their own resurrected flesh as well as for their saved relatives to regain their own), we have been aware that there is something missing in the beatific life. Against more usual views, Dante presents the afterlife of those currently in Paradise as being less than perfect (and less than perfected) because, against the orthodox notion that blessedness itself is the ultimate and eternal reward, there is, according to Dante, one thing that is felt as currently lacking: the resurrection of the flesh. Taught by Jesus (e.g., Luke 14:14) and insisted on by St. Paul, that future event is promised to all the saved. However, the early medieval view (e.g., that of Augustine) was, unsurprisingly, that once with God, the condition of the soul in a blessed and blissful member of the Church Triumphant was already perfected, both in what it knew and what it desired. The general resurrection, promised by St. Paul (most extensively in I Corinthians 15:35–55), of course awaited that soul, but the admixture of corporality was only “decorative,” at least in a sense. Paul tackles that issue with what seems a curiously defensive insistence, against pagan (and Christian?) mockers (see Acts 17:18 and 17:32), that the saved will indeed regain their own flesh in the long passage in I Corinthians.