The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  As a stranger from afar—a Croat, if you will—comes to see our Veronica, and awed by its ancient fame, can never look his fill,

  but says to himself as long as it is displayed: “My Lord, Jesus Christ, true God, and is this then the likeness of thy living flesh portrayed?”—

  just so did I gaze on the living love of him who in this world, through contemplation, tasted the peace which ever dwells above.

  “Dear son of Grace,” he said, “you cannot know this state of bliss while you yet keep your eyes fixed only on those things that lie below;

  rather, let your eyes mount to the last round where you shall see the Queen to whom this realm is subject and devoted, throned and crowned.”

  I looked up: by as much as the horizon to eastward in the glory of full dawn outshines the point at which the sun went down;

  by so much did one region on the height to which I raised my eyes out of the valley outshine the rays of every other light.

  And as the sky is brightest in that region where we on earth expect to see the shaft of the chariot so badly steered by Phaëthon,

  while to one side and the other it grows dim—just so that peaceful oriflamme lit the center and faded equally along either rim.

  And in the center, great wings spread apart, more than a thousand festive angels shone, each one distinct in radiance and in art.

  I saw there, smiling at this song and sport, she whose beauty entered like a bliss into the eyes of all that sainted court.

  And even could my speech match my conception, yet I would not dare make the least attempt to draw her delectation and perfection.

  Bernard, seeing my eyes so fixed and burning with passion on his passion, turned his own up to that height with so much love and yearning

  that the example of his ardor sent new fire through me, making my gaze more ardent.

  NOTES

  1-12. In XXX, 43, Beatrice promised that Dante would see both hosts of Paradise. The first host is of the sacred soldiery, those who were once mortal and who were redeemed by Christ. They are seated upon the thrones of the Mystic Rose in which are gathered eternally the essences of all those heavenly souls that manifested themselves to Dante in the various spheres below, moved by caritas to reveal themselves to Dante at the various levels of his developing understanding. How these souls could be eternally within the Rose while yet manifesting themselves to Dante in the various spheres is, of course, one of the mysteries to be grasped only by revelation. The essential point is that Dante becomes better able to see; the vision of Heaven unfolds to him ever more clearly and ever more profoundly.

  The second soldiery is of the angels who never left heaven. They soar above the Rose like Heavenly bees, in constant motion between the Rose and the radiance of God. Unlike earthly bees, however, it is from God, the mystical hive of grace, that they bring the sweetness to the flower, bearing back to God, of course, the bliss of the souls of Heaven. (See lines 16-18.)

  The first host is more emphatically centered on the aspect of God as the Son; the second, on the aspect of God as the Father.

  13. See the vision of God and Heaven in Ezekiel, i, 14 ff.

  14. See the similar vision in Daniel, x, 4 ff.

  22-24. God illuminates all things in the exact degree that each is worthy of illumination (which is to say, able to receive it), and nothing may block from any other thing the light it is in condition to receive. No soul, that is to say, can receive less of God than it is able to contain at any given stage of its development.

  27. one goal: God.

  32. Helice: The nymph Helice (I am afraid the reader will have to Anglicize her name as HEL-ees) attracted Zeus and was turned into a bear by jealous Hera. Zeus translated his nymph to heaven as Ursa Major, the constellation of the Great Bear which contains the Big Dipper. Arcas, her son by Zeus, was translated to Ursa Minor, within which he forms the Little Dipper.

  The two dippers, being near the pole, are always above the horizon in the northland, the zone from which the barbarians came.

  35. the Lateran: The Lateran is today a section of old Rome. Here Dante uses it to signify Rome in general.

  39. from Florence to a people just and whole: This is Dante’s last mention of Florence. Note that Florence has not improved but that on the universal scale it has become too insignificant for the sort of denunciation he once heaped upon it.

  42. my bliss was to hear nothing and be dumb: At such a moment of ecstasy Dante wants neither to speak nor to hear others speak, but only to stand rapt before the glory of such revelation.

  Note that Dante believes he is standing next to Beatrice. “To hear nothing” must mean he does not even wish to hear her speak. On the personal level, such a feeling might seem an affront to his lady; yet there is no affront: even she, as she herself would insist, must be silent before the greater vision. The figure of Beatrice is a complex symbol. To simplify matters for the beginning reader of Dante, I have taken her allegorically in simplest terms as Divine Revelation. So taking her, Dante’s seeming rejection of her blends harmoniously with the total of his vision, for if Beatrice is Divine Revelation (an agent of God), Dante is now near God Himself (that which Revelation is meant to reveal).

  43. shrine of his vow: It was a custom of the pious, as thanks for an answered prayer, to win forgiveness of sins, or as a testimony of faith, to vow a journey to a stated shrine or temple. Such pilgrimages were often dangerous. Travel was rare in the Middle Ages, and the pilgrim returned from far shrines was much sought after for the hopefully miraculous, and in any case rare, news he brought back. How could Dante, having traveled to the Infinite Summit, fail to think ahead to the way he would speak his vision to mankind?

  58. One thing I expected; another greeted me: Dante expected to see Beatrice. He sees instead St. Bernard. As Virgil, his service done, vanished at the top of Purgatory, so now Beatrice has left Dante, though not to vanish but to resume her throne among the blessed. In the next passage Dante will look up and see her there.

  60. an elder: St. Bernard (1090-1153), the famous Abbot of Clairvaux, a contemplative mystic and author. Under him the Cistercian Order (a branch of the Benedictines with a stricter rule than the original order) flourished and spread. All Cistercian monasteries are especially dedicated to the Virgin, and St. Bernard is particularly identified with her worship.

  66. Beatrice called me from my place: In succeeding Beatrice, Bernard clearly becomes the allegorical figure of Contemplation, and so a progress of the soul: From Human Reason or Aesthetic Wisdom the soul mounts to Revelation at which time the final bliss becomes Contemplation of God as He reveals Himself.

  Bernard, himself one of the most famous contemplatives of the Church, has a second function. The ultimate revelation must come as a special grace and grace can be granted in answer to the prayers of the worthy. The worthiest being in the Mystic Rose is the Virgin and Bernard as her special servitor will pray to her that she pray God to grant Dante’s most ardent wish.

  68. the third circle down: In the Mystic Rose (see diagram in XXXII) Mary sits in the topmost tier, Eve directly below her, Rachel (the Contemplative Life) below Eve. Beatrice sits to the right of Rachel. In Dante, of course, every mention of three must suggest trinity, but the reader is left to decide for himself the significance of the Mary-Eve-Rachel trinity.

  73-75. To what altitude the sound of thunder reaches through the atmosphere and how far that would be from the bottom of the deepest sea are questions a scientist might perhaps determine. For Dante the upper height would be the top of the atmosphere and he would have understood that upper limit as being close to the moon. Whatever the specifications, the poetic force of the passage powerfully suggests vast dimensions.

  81. to set your feet upon Hell’s broken floor: As she did when she descended to Limbo (as, of course, a manifestation) to summon Virgil.

  103. a Croat: Probably used here in a generic sense to signify the native of any far-off Christian land, but Croatia, aside from lying at one of the outer
limits of Christianity, was also known for the ardor of its religious belief.

  104. our Veronica: From vera icon, the true image. Certainly the most famous relic in St. Peter’s, the Veronica was the handkerchief of the faithful follower ever after known as St. Veronica. She gave it to Jesus to wipe the blood from his face on the road to Calvary, and what was believed to be the true likeness of Jesus was believed to have appeared on what was believed to be the cloth in what was believed to be His own blood.

  110-111. According to legend, Bernard was rewarded for his holiness by being permitted a vision of Heaven’s blessedness while he was yet on earth.

  112-117. The way to perfect consummation is ever upward toward God. Dante has been staring at Bernard, awed by that vision of holiness. In modesty and as an act of loving guidance, Bernard tells him to prepare his eyes for the ultimate vision by looking up to Mary on her throne.

  118-123. The comparison is not, as careless readers sometimes take it to be, between a dawn and a sunset (whose brightnesses would be approximately equal) but between the eastern and western horizons at dawn. Bright as Heaven is, Mary outshines it as the east outshines the west at daybreak.

  124-129. The shaft of the chariot of the Sun would project ahead of the horses. It would, therefore, be the first point of light of the new dawn, that moment when light glows on the eastern rim while the horizon to north and south is still dark. Thus Mary not only outshines all heaven as the east at daybreak outshines the west, but even at the uppermost tier of the blessed, those radiances at either side of her are dim by comparison.

  132. art: Motion. No two angel beings are exactly equal in their brightness, nor in the speed of their flight. These festive angels are, of course, another manifestation of the Angel Hierarchy. At this height of heaven and revelation, it should not seem contradictory for them to revolve forever around God while they forever circle Mary. The two circlings are clearly meant to be one. Heaven, moreover, reveals itself in one manifestation after another of the truth only God can entirely grasp.

  THE MYSTIC ROSE (after Gardner)

  No specific number of petals or of tiers should be understood.

  The dotted lines indicate the parts of the rose which Dante does not describe in detail.

  Canto XXXII

  THE EMPYREAN

  St. Bernard

  The Virgin Mary

  The Thrones of the Blessed

  HIS EYES FIXED BLISSFULLY on the vision of the Virgin Mary, Bernard recites the orders of the Mystic Rose, identifying the thrones of the most blessed.

  MARY’S THRONE is on the topmost tier of the Heavenly Stadium. Directly across from it rises the THRONE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. From her throne to the central arena (The Yellow of the Rose) descends a LINE OF HEBREW WOMEN. These two radii form a diameter that divides the stadium. On one side are throned THOSE WHO BELIEVED IN CHRIST TO COME; on the other, THOSE WHO BELIEVED IN CHRIST DESCENDED. The lower half of the Rose contains, on one side, the PRE-CHRISTIAN CHILDREN SAVED BY LOVE, and on the other, the CHRISTIAN CHILDREN SAVED BY BAPTISM.

  Through all these explanations, Bernard has kept his eyes fixed in adoration upon the Virgin. Having finished his preliminary instruction of Dante, Bernard now calls on him to join in a PRAYER TO THE VIRGIN.

  Still rapt in contemplation, the sainted seer assumed the vacant office of instruction, beginning with these words I still can hear:

  “The wound that Mary healed with balm so sweet was first dealt and then deepened by that being who sits in such great beauty at her feet.

  Below her, in the circle sanctified by the third rank of loves, Rachel is throned with Beatrice, as you see, there at her side.

  Sarah and Rebecca and Judith and she who was the great-grandmother of the singer who for his sins cried, ‘Lord, have mercy on me!’—

  as I go down the great ranks tier by tier, naming them for you in descending order, petal by petal, you shall see them clear.

  And down from the seventh, continuing from those in the first six tiers, a line of Hebrew women forms a part in the tresses of the rose.

  Arranged to form a wall thus, they divide all ranks according to the view of Christ that marked the faith of those on either side.

  On this side, where the flower is in full bloom to its last petal, are arranged all those whose faith was founded upon Christ to Come;

  on that, where the half circles show the unblended gaps of empty seats, are seated those whose living faith was fixed on Christ Descended.

  And as, on this side, the resplendent throne of Heaven’s Lady, with the thrones below it, establishes the line of that division;

  so, facing hers, does the throned blessedness of the Great John who, ever holy, bore the desert, martyrdom, and Hell’s distress;

  and under him, forming that line are found Francis, Benedict, Augustine, and others descending to this center round by round.

  Now marvel at all-foreseeing profundity: this garden shall be complete when the two aspects of the one faith have filled it equally.

  And know that below that tier that cuts the two dividing walls at their centerpoint, no being has won his seat of glory by his own virtue,

  but by another’s, under strict condition; for all of these were spirits loosed from flesh before they had matured to true volition.

  You can yourself make out their infant graces: you need no more than listen to their treble and look attentively into their faces.

  You do not speak now: many doubts confound you. Therefore, to set you free I shall untie the cords in which your subtle thoughts have bound you.

  Infinite order rules in this domain. Mere accidence can no more enter in than hunger can, or thirst, or grief, or pain.

  All you see here is fixed by the decree of the eternal law, and is so made that the ring goes on the finger perfectly.

  These, it follows, who had so short a pause in the lower life are not ranked higher or lower among themselves without sufficient cause.

  The king in whom this realm abides unchanging in so much love and bliss that none dares will increase of joy, creating and arranging

  the minds of all in the glad Paradise of His own sight, grants them degrees of grace as He sees fit. Here let the effect suffice.

  Holy Scripture clearly and expressly notes this effect upon those twins who fought while still within their mother. So we see

  how the Supreme light fittingly makes fair its aureole by granting them their graces according to the color of their hair.

  Thus through no merit of their works and days they are assigned their varying degrees by variance only in original grace.

  In the first centuries of man’s creation their innocence and the true faith of their parents was all they needed to achieve salvation.

  When the first age of man had run its course, then circumcision was required of males, to give their innocent wings sufficient force.

  But when the age of grace came to mankind then, unless perfectly baptized in Christ, such innocents went down among the blind.

  Look now on her who most resembles Christ, for only the great glory of her shining can purify your eyes to look on Christ.”

  I saw such joy rain down upon that face—borne to it by those blest Intelligences created thus to span those heights of space—

  that through all else on the long road I trod nothing had held my soul so fixed in awe, nor shown me such resemblances to God.

  The self-same Love that to her first descended singing “Ave Maria, gratia plena” stood before her with its wings extended.

  Thus rang the holy chant to Heaven’s Queen and all the blessed court joined in the song, and singing, every face grew more serene.

  “O holy Father, who endures for me the loss of being far from the sweet place where fate has raised your throne eternally, who is that angel who with such desire gazes into the eyes of our sweet Queen, so rapt in love he seems to be afire?”

  Thus did I seek instruction from that Great One who drew the beauty of his light from Mary as the mor
ning star draws beauty from the sun.