Paradiso (The Divine Comedy series Book 3)

by Dante

  19–22. The narrative continues with Dante and Beatrice being drawn heavenward by their desire for God, she with her eyes fixed on Heaven, he with his fixed on hers, which serve as his mirrors. This is the first of the formulaic ascents that will precede the arrival and description of each new heaven. For a listing of them all, see the page facing the “map” of Paradise in the front matter. [return to English / Italian]

  21. While some complicate the meaning of the comparison, it is perhaps better to see it in simple terms: The poet, who knows that the stars are actually moving rather rapidly in their orbits, compares their movement to the rapid upward movement of Beatrice and himself. [return to English / Italian]

  23–26. One of the most frequently discussed examples of Dante’s employment of the device hysteron proteron, a rhetorical figure that, to denote speed and the resultant difficulty of knowing which event in a sequence preceded which other(s), reverses the normal order. As a speeding arrow (actually a bolt shot from a crossbow) is suddenly released from the catch (or “nut” or “peg” [according to Tozer on vv. 23–24]) on the bow, flies, and strikes its target, that is how quickly Dante finds himself within the surface of the Moon, so quickly indeed that the constituent moments of the ascent seem to have been experienced in reverse order. Gabriele (comm. to vv. 23–24) informs us that this iron “arrow” (the bolt) was usually four-sided. [return to English / Italian]

  30. Beatrice makes plain what we have probably fathomed: Dante is in the sphere of the Moon, within the body of this “star” itself. Dante’s terms for the heavenly bodies are, from a modern point of view, both inconsistent and, at times, different from ours, as the reader has already probably noted. (Later on in this canto, he will refer to the Moon as a planet [pianeto, verse 76] and not, as here, a “star.” He uses the terms interchangeably; for us the Moon is neither of the above.) [return to English / Italian]

  31–36. Dante’s first impression of the physicality of the Moon tells us that its matter is less “material” than Earth’s: For all its rocklike qualities, it seems a cloud. As Singleton (comm. to verse 31) points out, Aristotle taught in De caelo that the Moon and all above is physically different from our material world. It is thus that Dante must describe it as “eternal,” since, unlike Earth, it is imperishable. That Beatrice, pure form, penetrates the matter of the Moon, is not surprising; that Dante also does so raises the question in his mind that we find referred to in vv. 37–39. [return to English / Italian]

  32. The poet is of the opinion that the Moon shines with its own light as well as reflecting the light of the Sun (Mon. III.iv.17–18), as Singleton observes (comm. to verse 32). In this canto, Dante refers only to the second phenomenon (vv. 79–81). [return to English / Italian]

  37–45. The poet raises the question once more (see Par. I.4–6, Par. I.73, Par. I.98–99) of his presence in the heavens with his flesh in such a way as to make us feel that he wants us to believe he was there in body (otherwise the “bonus” referred to in the tercet that concludes this passage will not apply).

  Singleton (comm. to Par. I.98–99) refers to St. Thomas’s words that were clearly meant to calm fearful Christians, worried that at the general resurrection, saved souls would be kept from approaching Heaven by the substance of the spheres. Here is Thomas’s answer (Summa contra Gentiles IV.87): “Neither does this divine promise meet an impossibility in the assertion that celestial bodies are unbreakable so that the glorious bodies may not be elevated above them. For the divine power will bring it about that the glorious bodies can be simultaneously where the other bodies are; an indication of this was given in the body of Christ when He came to the disciples, ‘the doors being shut’ (John 20:26).”

  See Picone (Pico.2000.1), pp. 7–12, for discussion of Dante’s bodily assumption; and again (Pico.2002.2), pp. 35–39, hammering home his essential observation, that Dante wants us to acknowledge his presence in paradise in the flesh, without, perhaps, paying sufficient attention to the deliberate coyness of his claim, only made indirectly (if clearly enough) some three-quarters of the way into the cantica (see the note to Par. I.73). [return to English / Italian]

  39. The double presence of the word corpo in a single verse is a sign of the poet’s concern with materiality here; corpo (body) appears nine times in this canto, far more often than in any other (nearly one-sixth of its fifty-five appearances throughout the poem; Inferno XXXIII is the closest challenger, with five). [return to English / Italian]

  46–51. Having done what Beatrice exhorted him to do (vv. 29–30; thank God for raising him from the earth to the Moon), Dante now asks the question the resolution of which will occupy the rest of the canto—the cause of the dark spots on the Moon. [return to English / Italian]

  51. For the legend that Cain was confined to the Moon and bore a bundle of thorns, see the note to Inferno XX.124–126. For a study of the question of these “lunar spots,” see at least Bruno Nardi (Nard.1985.1) and Giorgio Stabile (Stab.1989.1), pp. 47–55; according to the latter, p. 48, Dante puts forward “tre interpretazioni: del mago, del filosofo naturale e del teologo” (three interpretations, that of the magus, that of the “scientist,” that of the theologian) only to destroy the first two in favor of the last. [return to English / Italian]

  52–57. Beatrice gently chides those rationalists (including Dante) who analyze ineffectively, since they lack the principle that informs the phenomena that they observe, evidence found through the senses. [return to English / Italian]

  58. Beatrice’s simple (if loaded) question brings forth ninety verses of response. [return to English / Italian]

  59–60. Dante restates (as Beatrice knew he would) his previous argument, found in Convivio II.xiii.9, that the dark places in the Moon are the result of rarer matter (which does not reflect the Sun’s rays as well as denser matter does) in the surface of the Moon. However, and as Bosco/Reggio point out (comm. to this passage), the protagonist has here gone deeper into error by making this phenomenon more inclusive and even, perhaps, general, using the plural in line 60, corpi, and thus indicating other celestial bodies in addition to the Moon.

  Where most critics believe Dante’s source for this view is Averroës, André Pézard, as is duly reported by Sapegno in his introductory note to his commentary on this canto, believes it lies in the Roman de la Rose (vv. 16803–16850 [ed. Lecoy], vv. 16833–16880 [tr. Dahlberg]). And Vasoli (Vaso.1972.1), p. 36, cites Pézard (Peza.1965.1), pp. 1377–78, for Jean de Meun’s passage with its view of the moonspots. What is most fascinating about Jean’s words to the student of the Commedia is how clearly reflected they seem to be in Dante’s. (And the closeness is all the more arresting because Il Fiore contains no similar passage; there can be no question of the Roman’s direct influence on Dante here, no question that Dante is here citing a putative earlier self in Il Fiore.) In the Roman, Nature, confessing to Genius, resolves the question of the moonspots more or less precisely as Dante had in Convivio: “It seems to men that the moon (la lune) may indeed not be clean and pure (necte et pure), because in some places it shows up dark (obscure). But it is because of its double nature that it appears opaque and cloudy (espesse et trouble) in some places … because it is both clear and opaque (clere et espesse) ….” Jean is arguing that the Moon has two kinds of matter, clear and opaque, and that the Sun’s beams pass right through the clear but are reflected by the opaque; and then, beginning at verse 16825 (16855 in Dahlberg’s translation), Nature, like Beatrice, turns to experimental means of demonstration: “But if one took lead, or something dense (plom ou quelque chose espesse) that does not allow rays to pass through, and placed oneself on the side opposite to that from which the Sun’s rays come, the form would return immediately.” It is difficult to believe that Dante did not have this passage in mind when he developed his own discussion, also involving “experimental science,” if coming up with a very different solution, one that objects strenuously to the mere physicality of Nature’s explanation, as we shall see. Thus, if Dante reveals his kno
wledge of the French text here, he does not reveal himself as an uncritical admirer.

  This discussion touches on one of the great unresolved issues confronting readers of the Commedia: Dante’s knowledge of the Old French masterpiece of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. To deal with the state of the unresolved issue briefly, we should be aware of at least three possible answers to the spiny question: (1) Il Fiore is indeed by Dante, and thus he knew the Roman from his youth (since the latter work is a sort of free translation of passages from the Old French work, and Contini—as well as almost all who make the Fiore a part of Dante’s bibliography—places it very early in Dante’s career, in the 1280s or, at the latest, in the early 1290s [see Rossi (Ross.2003.1), p. 20]). (2) Il Fiore was indeed read by Dante, but someone else wrote it, which explains why he cites this Italian “translation” of the Rose (for some textual resonances of Il Fiore in the Commedia, see ED II [1970], pp. 898–900) but not the original; there is thus no direct relationship between the French work and Dante’s. (3) Another view would hold that, beginning with this passage, Dante reveals his recent reading of the Roman, a text that he encountered only after he had finished composing Purgatorio. In recent years the dispute has intensified, even in Italy, where—while Contini, much of whose later life was devoted to demonstrating Dantean authorship, remained among the living—dissenting voices were not very often heard. See the balanced volume, edited by Baranski and Boyde (Bara.1997.3), devoted in part to the question of the work’s authorship; Leonardi (Leon. 1996.1), who believes it is authentic; Malato (Mala.1999.1), pp. 138–48, considering arguments pro et contra, and tending toward a negative view; and Pasquini (Pasq.2001.1), p. 43, denying Dantean authorship. For what had earlier become the standard view and the basic bibliography, see Gianfranco Contini, Fiore, Il (ED II [1970]), pp. 895–901; and for a listing of some more agnostic views, see Hollander (Holl.2001.1), pp. 182–83. More recently, we have Luciano Rossi’s attempt to start the investigation over again (Ross.2003.1), reminding us of his senior colleague’s early attempt to accomplish a similar task: Picone’s remarks on the problems of attribution (Pico.1974.1). [return to English / Italian]

  61–63. Beatrice begins with a sweeping denunciation of Dante’s position in a thoroughly Scholastic manner, making clear the nature of the thesis that she will set about to destroy (Dante’s hypothesis regarding alternating layers of rarity and density). For this tercet as reflecting the poet’s disavowal of his earlier Averroist views of the issue, see Cassell (Cass.2004.1), pp. 54–55. [return to English / Italian]

  64–148. See Russo (Russ.1971.1), pp. 103–58, 161–208, for an impassioned defense of the poetic qualities of such lengthy and ostensibly “scientific” or “philosophical” passages as this one, which he links with the only slightly shorter lesson in embryology offered up by Statius (Purgatorio XXV.37–108). For a careful study of the central theological and scientific issues here and the history of their reception among Dante’s critics, see Vasoli (Vaso.1972.1). And for an immensely helpful basic bibliography on Dante in relation to the various sciences that make their presence felt in the poem, see the extended note by Simon Gilson (Gils.2001.2), pp. 58–65. For a useful review of some current writing on Dante’s knowledge and use of the sciences, with bibliography, see Ledda (Ledd.2001.1). [return to English / Italian]

  64–72. The first part of Beatrice’s discourse attacks the notion (introduced by Dante in verse 60) that various stars in the Starry Sphere shine brighter or less bright and, indeed, have other distinguishing characteristics (e.g., color, size, shape), simply because they are more or less dense. This would make the differentiating power single, and would be at odds with what we know of the variety of God’s formal principles. So much for the larger issue at stake here. For discussion of the passage, see Moore (Moor.1903.1), pp. 87–91. [return to English / Italian]

  73–105. Turning to the phenomenon itself, Beatrice adduces two arguments to destroy Dante’s position, the first involving two points (vv. 73–82), the second, a single one (vv. 83–105), building on the second point in the first argument, an extended disproof by imagined experiment. [return to English / Italian]

  73–82. If the dark spots on the Moon were the result of rarer matter, then matter rare and dense would be distributed either randomly or in strips, as meat and fat in creatures or pages in a book (for this second image, vv. 77–78, see Hatcher [Hatc.1971.1]). Were the first case true (i.e., were there “holes” without density in the Moon), we would verify that fact during eclipses of the Sun; and, since we cannot, Beatrice says, we must look to the second possible cause put forward by Dante.

  For studies of the problem presented by the dark spots on the Moon, see Paget Toynbee, “Dante’s Theories as to the Spots on the Moon” (Toyn.1902.1), pp. 78–86 (for a discussion of possible sources and of some of the confusion caused by the passage). See also Manlio Pastore Stocchi (Past.1981.1). And see Nardi (Nard.1985.1), Stabile (Stab.1989.1), pp. 47–55 & nn., and Picone (Pico.2000.1), pp. 21–25. [return to English / Italian]

  83–90. If then, Beatrice reasons, there are no “holes” for the Sun’s light to come through, we must hypothesize the presence of dense matter that will act as a mirror for whatever light has penetrated the rare matter beneath the Moon’s surface. [return to English / Italian]

  91–93. Dante will object, Beatrice says, that the farther reflection, because of its greater distance, will seem dimmer, a proposition that she will spend four tercets tearing down. [return to English / Italian]

  94–105. In Aristotelian manner, Beatrice extols the virtue of experiment. In this “thought experiment” that she proposes for Dante to perform, the two equidistant mirrors (one of which is, strictly speaking, unnecessary) represent the surface of the Moon, while the one set farther back stands in for the indented portion, where the dense part begins. The three lights reflected in the mirror will show equal brightness, if not equal size. Thus, as Beatrice clearly means to instruct Dante, the quality of the light is not affected by distance; only the quantity is.

  For a discussion of this passage and the significance of mirrors in Paradiso, see Miller (Mill.1977.1). See also Tate (Tate.1961.1), offering a first “Trinitarian” reading of the third experimentally unnecessary mirror. Boyde (Boyd.1995.1), pp. 14–16, actually performed a version of the experiment in order to test Dante’s method (it passed his test). Gilson (Gils.1997.1), pp. 204–6, discusses various other similar “experiments” described by earlier writers (Pseudo-Thomas on the Meteorologica, Chalcidius on the Timaeus, Roger Bacon, Albert the Great on the De causis), concluding that, while Albert’s is the closest to Dante’s, in this (as in so much else) Dante simply cannot be pinned down. And now see Turelli (Ture.2004.1), in polemic with Kleiner (Klei.1994.1), p. 104 (who believes that “dopo il dosso” means “directly behind your back,” thus making the experiment literally impossible). But see Landino’s gloss to vv. 100–108; he simply (and understandably) assumes that the light is above the experimenter’s head (“et sopra el capo tuo ti sia un lume”). In our own time, Turelli convincingly defends the experimental “correctness” of Beatrice’s verbal demonstration; Moevs (Moev.2005.1), p. 115, however, accepts Kleiner’s presupposition, arguing that in the thought experiment we must realize that Dante possesses—meaningfully, of course—a transparent body. [return to English / Italian]

  106–111. Beatrice turns to simile (one of the fairly infrequent occasions on which the poet puts the simile-forging power into the hands of a character [but cf. Inf. XXVII.94–97]): As the Sun’s rays reduce snow to its underlying essence (water), stripping it of its accidental qualities (cold, whiteness), so Beatrice’s mind will rid Dante’s intellect of its improper qualities and return it to its original condition. [return to English / Italian]

  112–114. Going back, in thought, to the Beginning, the Empyrean, Beatrice turns her attention to the Primum Mobile, the ninth sphere, where nothing may be seen but where all the powers that course through the universe have their origins in space and
time. See Convivio II.xiv.15: “For, as the Philosopher says in the fifth book of the Ethics, ‘legal justice disposes the sciences for our learning, and commands that they be learned and taught in order that they not be forsaken’; so with its movement the aforesaid heaven governs the daily revolution of all the others, by which every day they all receive and transmit here below the virtue of all their parts” (tr. R. Lansing, italics added). [return to English / Italian]

  115–117. The Sphere of the Fixed Stars is where the angelic powers, undifferentiated in the Primum Mobile, are differentiated among the stars. It is from here that they exercise their influence on earth. [return to English / Italian]

  118–120. Perhaps it is best to follow Bosco/Reggio’s interpretation of this difficult tercet, which they understand in light of lines from Purgatorio XXX.109–110: “Not only by the working of the wheels above / that urge each seed to a certain end.…” They argue that this tercet then means that the seven lower heavens (after the Primum Mobile and the Starry Sphere) dispose in diverse ways the various essences or powers that they receive from the Starry Sphere, adapting them to their own precise purposes. [return to English / Italian]

  121–123. These “organs” of the universe, resembling in their workings the effective parts of the human body, as Dante now understands, take their powers from the realms closest to God and disperse them below. [return to English / Italian]

  124–126. Beatrice’s admonition prepares Dante to do his own reasoning (and do better than he has done so far). If he learns from this experience, he will not only understand the principle that explains the phenomenon of the moonspots, but other things as well. [return to English / Italian]