Paradiso (The Divine Comedy series Book 3)

by Dante

  For the absence of the perfected forms of the three Theological Virtues in those who display themselves in the subsolar planets (i.e., Moon, Mercury, and Venus), see Ordiway (Ordi.1982.1). But see Carroll, introduction to Paradiso and Proem to Canto X, for a much earlier version of this thesis. And see Andreoli (comm. to verse 16): “The fact is that it is only in the fourth heaven that we shall begin to find souls that are completely without reproach.” Bosco/Reggio rightly point out (comm. to Par. XIV.68) that, beginning in the Sun, the souls who appear take on definite shapes—circle, cross, eagle, ladder—thus further distinguishing themselves from these who appear in the first three subsolar heavens. [return to English / Italian]

  49–50. Naming herself (and thus answering the first of Dante’s questions), Piccarda for a second time speaks of her placement in this heaven as though it might be permanent. See the other relevant passages indicated in the note to vv. 29–30. [return to English / Italian]

  51. The Moon is “the slowest of these spheres” because, in Dante’s astronomy, each successive heaven, of the nine revolving around the earth, is moving at a faster rate of speed. See the apparently contradictory notice (Par. XXVIII.22–39) in which the nine ranks of angels, each associated with one of the planetary spheres, rotating around the point that represents the Godhead, rotate faster the nearer they are to that point. [return to English / Italian]

  52–54. A difficult tercet because it is hard to be certain whether the piacere associated with the Holy Spirit is directed by the souls toward the Spirit or by the Spirit toward the souls. We are in accord with that branch of the tradition, a majority, represented by Francesco da Buti’s gloss (to vv. 46–57), in which the souls whom we see in the Moon “altro desiderio non ànno, se non di piacere allo Spirito Santo dal quale procede la carità” (have no other care except to be pleasing to the Holy Spirit, from whom holy love comes forth).

  For the nature of love represented by the earthly (and now heavenly) Piccarda, see Battaglia Ricci (Batt.1989.1), pp. 51–65, 68–70, pointing out that Dante is probably relying on various expressions of mystical devotion, especially those found in the Epistola ad Severinum de caritate by one “frate Ivo.” [return to English / Italian]

  55–57. The “lot” of these souls reflects their earthly failings (as will also be true of those we meet in each of the next two heavens), their failure to maintain the strict sense of their vows. While this is a particularly monastic concern, since vows were a part of the requirements for entrance, as it were, and while the only beings we hear about here were in fact nuns, the failing is probably not meant to be understood as being limited to the clergy.

  On yet another occasion the phrasing at the very least admits the possibility that Piccarda’s “lot” (sorte) is permanently to be present in the Moon. See discussions indicated in the note to vv. 29–30. [return to English / Italian]

  58–63. Once again the nature of heavenly transfiguration is alluded to (see vv. 47–48). Only after he knows her story can Dante begin to recognize the features of the earthly woman he once knew. That even this much “physicality” is possible is singular; Dante will not recognize anyone else whom he once knew and whom he meets in the various heavens, not Charles Martel (Par. VIII), not his ancestor Cacciaguida (Par. XV). From this, we may choose to believe that only here, in the Moon, is there even the slightest amount of physical resemblance of a soul to its earlier mortal self. Dante, however, does not choose to raise (or answer) this question for us. But see Par. XXXI.46–48, where St. Bernard tells Dante that the heavenly infants are recognizable as such. [return to English / Italian]

  64–66. It is clear that the protagonist believes that Piccarda and the other souls with her are bound in the Moon for eternity unless the desire he attributes to them to be closer to God should one day be consummated. This, of course, is the opinion of the protagonist and is not necessarily shared by the poet. See the note to vv. 29–30. [return to English / Italian]

  67. See the discussion of the use of the word ombra (shade) in Paradiso (in the note to verse 34). [return to English / Italian]

  69. The exact nature of the love displayed by Piccarda is a subject for disagreement among the commentators, some arguing that the phrase is to be understood as indicating the “first fire of love,” that is, the first enamorment of a young woman; others understand that the phrase rather indicates the fire of divine love, that given expression through the Holy Spirit. Those who hold to this second view find confirming evidence in the phrase found both at Inferno III.6 and Paradiso VI.11, “primal Love” (primo amor), referring to the love expressed in the Holy Spirit, forcing the phrase to be understood (or translated) as “love in the First Fire,” that is, the Holy Spirit. While this is surely a possible explanation, it does require a somewhat forced understanding of the verse. Would it be so strange for Piccarda, burning with reciprocal affection for God’s love of her, to seem to Dante like a young woman just fallen in love? It is hard to see the harm in such a reading. See the similar views of Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 67–69). One might also be reminded of the distance between this scene and the one containing Dante’s recognition of the love felt for him by Matelda (Purg. XXVIII.43–51). In that passage Dante imagines that Matelda is amorously disposed toward him in the normal mortal way; there he is incorrect. Here he is fully aware of the kind of love that motivates Piccarda, but sees it in terms reminiscent of our mortal sort of loving. [return to English / Italian]

  70–84. The bulk of Piccarda’s answer to Dante’s question (vv. 64–66) begins with the word frate (brother), the word that was nearly absent from Hell (eleven uses, predominantly to indicate a member of a religious order [nomenclature that the Infernal context makes obviously suspect at once], and only once to express human fraternity [by Ulysses, addressing his shipmates, at Inf. XXVI.112—with, according to some readers, an unmistakable whiff of Julius Caesar’s fulsome address to his soldiers, captatio benevolentiae on all fours, as it were]). It frequently appeared as a term of address in Purgatorio (thirteen times). Now, in the heavens, it appears less frequently as a term of address, first here, and then a total of four other times. In a sense it contains a central message of Piccarda’s speech in that it insists on the relationship that binds all saved Christians in their fellowship in God, a sense that overcomes the inevitable hierarchical distinctions found among them in this life. The love that governs their will is nothing less than charity, with the result that it is impossible for them to want advantage over their brothers and sisters in grace. To wish things other than they are, to desire one’s own “advancement,” is nothing less than to oppose the will of God. And thus all members of this community observe the gradations among themselves, but find in them the expression of their general and personal happiness.

  Verses 80–85 return to forms for the word volontà (will), which opened (at verse 70) Piccarda’s concluding discourse as its main subject, five times (voglia, voglie, voler, ’nvoglia, volontade), underlining the importance of the will’s direction of human love to divine ends. The celestial form of will in brotherhood is vastly different from the will that destroys fraternity here on earth. But it is as natural in the realms of Paradise as it is absent from Hell (and rarely enough found on earth). [return to English / Italian]

  73–75. At first reading, a certain indeterminacy seems possible. Does Piccarda mean “higher in the heavens” or “higher in the Rose”? Since the concluding words of the tercet, “that which assigns us to this place,” seem to refer to the sphere of the Moon, it is difficult to conclude that she means other than in a higher heaven. See, again, the note to vv. 29–30. [return to English / Italian]

  79. Our translation reflects Weatherby’s discussion (Weat.1975.1), p. 24, of the Scholastic nature of the term forma. Thus our choice of “essence” (in the sense of “formative principle”). [return to English / Italian]

  85. Piccarda’s last tercet makes her point with two differing linguistic gestures, this first a summarizing citation, the second a power
ful metaphor. Exactly which text she is citing is a matter for consideration, but a list of suggested candidates includes Luke 2:14 (“Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis” [And on earth peace to men of good will]); Ephesians 2:15 (“Ipse enim est pax noster” [For he (Christ Jesus) is our peace]); and Augustine’s Confessions XIII.9 (“In bona voluntate pax nobis est” [Our peace lies in willing the good]). The greater closeness of the last (“E ’n la la sua voluntade è nostra pace” [And in His will we find our peace]) makes it the most likely to have been on Dante’s mind as he created his Piccarda. (Grandgent [comm. to this verse], followed by Singleton, in his commentary to this line, cites the passage from Ephesians. John Sinclair [Sinc.1946.1], p. 59, cites the passage from Augustine.) Readers of these notes may remark upon the parallel then found between Francesca and Piccarda, each quoting a crucial text of St. Augustine as the climactic gesture of her speech; see Inferno V.138 and the note thereto. [return to English / Italian]

  86–87. Piccarda’s metaphor for the totality of the peace found in God reverses our normal sense of the proclivity of bodies to descend or to ascend (a phenomenon that is almost the trademark of Paradiso, beginning with Beatrice’s explanation that it here is as natural to be drawn up toward God as on earth to be drawn down by gravity; see Par. I.136–141). In Paradiso I.113, Beatrice has used the phrase “lo gran mar de l’essere” (the vastness of the sea of being) to refer to all of God’s creation, both here and above. Now Piccarda redeploys this metaphor to apply it only to God Himself, seen as the ocean to which all creation, whether direct or indirect, flows up.

  While many commentators, moved by Piccarda, think of Francesca da Rimini, only Singleton (comm. to these verses) adverts to Francesca’s very words (Inf. V.98–99) as being remembered here. Both ladies use watery metaphors to express the peace that they either long for or enjoy. [return to English / Italian]

  88–90. Piccarda’s words have finally made it plain to Dante how one can be nearer or closer to God in Heaven and yet feel equally blessed with all who share beatitude, disregarding the matter of relative rank. Once again the phrasing, now representing not so much the response of the protagonist (see vv. 64–66) as the understanding of the poet, raises the question that is necessarily so persistent for a reader of this canto: Do references to paradisal “placement” speak of the ranked order of the saved in the Rose in the Empyrean or of their presences in the celestial spheres? Once we arrive in the Rose (Par. XXXII), we will see that there is a ranking (by one’s row in the Rose bowl); on the other hand, there does not seem to be much in the way of ranking going on within each sphere (there may be some in Jupiter), if the spheres themselves are ranked, progressing from lowest to most exalted. Again, see the note to vv. 29–30. [return to English / Italian]

  91–96. The second simile of the canto (see vv. 10–18 for the first) is an elaborate way of describing the protagonist’s reminder to his colloquist that she had not fully answered his second question (verse 41), the one dealing with her and her companions’ “lot” in the afterworld. As is frequent in the post-Convivial Paradiso, the material for the simile proper is drawn from alimentation. In a real sense, as Robin McCallister suggested in a paper in 1968, for Dante the Paradiso offered him the opportunity to complete the Convivio, now in better, more “orthodox,” form. [return to English / Italian]

  95–96. The as yet unexpressed portion of Piccarda’s self-explanation is, in metaphor, compared to the unfinished portion of a woven fabric, an image that undoubtedly reflects the Florence of Dante’s day, in the heart of which the wool merchants plied their trade. [return to English / Italian]

  97–99. Piccarda is referring to the companion and fellow citizen of St. Francis of Assisi, founder (in collaboration with Francis) of her own order in 1212, the Clarisse, St. Clare (1194–1253). “[S]he was canonized by [Pope] Alexander IV in 1255. The rule of her order, which was confirmed in 1247, and again in 1253, two days before her death, by Pope Innocent IV, was characterized by extreme austerity” (T).

  As Lauren Scancarelli Seem suggested in conversation many years ago, Piccarda’s reference to St. Clare, as being loftier than she, parallels, in opposition, Francesca’s reference to her husband, Gianciotto, as being fated to a place lower in Hell than she (see Inf. V.107). And see the note to Purgatorio XXIV.13–15 for another set of “family resemblances.”

  The resemblances and differences among the first three women in the three cantiche (Francesca in Inf. V, Pia de’ Tolomei in Purg. V, and Piccarda) have offered occasion for frequent comment. See Stefanini (Stef.1992.1), pp. 26–31, for a study of structural similarities in these three narratives. [return to English / Italian]

  97. Dante’s coinage, inciela (inheavens, “set[s] in a higher sphere”), again raises the issue of whether he refers to the Empyrean (in which Clare [whom we do not see there] is seated higher in the Rose than Piccarda) or to yet another heavenly sphere (e.g., that of the Sun, where we learn of St. Francis in Canto XI). It is very difficult to be certain, despite Bosco/Reggio’s assurances that all is under control (see their note to vv. 28–30). The second alternative, however, does seem more likely (i.e., St. Clare, in Piccarda’s view [the poet’s also?], is in the Sun [or perhaps in Saturn]). Once more, see the note to vv. 29–30. [return to English / Italian]

  100–102. Piccarda’s language recollects various biblical passages equating the love of God with marriage to Christ. Compare the Song of Solomon, passim, as read by Christian interpreters; Matthew 9:15 and 25:1–12; Mark 2:19; and Luke 5:34, but in particular the parable of the wise and foolish virgins in Matthew 25. [return to English / Italian]

  106–108. This celebrated tercet condenses a moment of horror followed by a life of despondency into a single unit of verse. As for the events to which Piccarda refers, the most frequent understanding among the commentators is that her brother Corso wanted to marry her off to one Rossellino della Tosa in order to further his political/financial ambition and, for this reason, had her abducted from her convent. [return to English / Italian]

  109–120. Constance of Sicily is the only companion mentioned by Piccarda (and one wonders, here and elsewhere, why, if the souls appear in the spheres only for the instruction of visiting Dante, they always seem to be accompanied by crowds of anonymous others, who are thus temporarily deprived of the joys of the Empyrean).

  Bosco/Reggio offer a succinct account of the significant facts about her as they were known to Dante (in their comment to verse 118): “Constance, daughter of Roger II, king of Sicily, born in 1154, last heir of the Norman kingdom of Naples and Sicily, in 1185 married Henry VI of Swabia, son of Frederick Barbarossa. By marrying her, the emperor was finally obtaining dominion over southern Italy, which he had in vain attempted to conquer by force of arms. In 1194 Frederick II was born of this marriage. Constance, widowed in 1197, until her death in 1198 knew how to govern the kingdom with a shrewd sort of wisdom. With sure political instinct, sensing that she was near death, she named Pope Innocent III guardian of her three-year-old son, Frederick. During the time that the latter was emperor, the Guelphs spread the story that Constance had been made a nun against her will and that, at the age of 52, taken from the convent by the archbishop of Palermo, she had been joined in matrimony to Henry VI. Frederick II, the ‘Antichrist,’ would then have been born to an ex-nun who was at the same time a woman of a certain age, and thus opposing the precepts of every law, whether human or divine. In this way did Guelph propaganda attempt to discredit the emperor. Constance, in fact, had never been a nun and had married Henry at the age of 31. Dante accepted the story that she had become a nun, but omitted any negative elements from it, thus being able to illumine the figure of the empress in a lofty poetic light, making her the innocent victim of political machinations and violent acts. The halo of light that surrounds her, the refulgence in her of all of the light of this heaven, the attributes accorded her, all these tell us of Dante’s high esteem for the ‘Great Norman,’ with the negative elements of Guelph propaganda trans
formed into a luminous attestation of the poet’s reverence.”

  Piccarda’s remarks at vv. 112–117 will puzzle Dante in the next canto (Par. IV.19–21). [return to English / Italian]

  109. This is the first time the word “splendor” (splendore) is used to describe the appearance of a soul in Paradiso (but see also at least V.103; IX.13; XI.39; XIV.95; XXI.32; XXIII.82; XXV.106; XXIX.138). In the heaven of the Sun we learn that the souls are enclosed in their own light (e.g., Par. XIII.48), thus explaining why we would not be able to recognize them even had we previously known them—as well as why Dante can recognize the features of Piccarda; that is, she still possesses features, if they are but faint. Thus for Constance to be treated in this way, as though she were appearing in a higher heaven, tells us a good deal about Dante’s admiration for her. [return to English / Italian]

  118. Her name, Constance, plays with and against her former weakness, inconstancy, in that, if she was inconstant in her vows when forced (as she was at least in Dante’s sense of her life) back into the world, she was also constant in her heart (see verse 117). It is also interesting that there are reports that the name assumed by Piccarda, in the convent of the Clarisse, was Constance (see Lombardi’s commentaries [1791] to Purg XXIV.10 and Par. III.49). In Purgatorio (III.113), Constance is remembered with great affection by her grandson, Manfred (like his grandmother in this, not mentioning the name of the magnificent but hated “last of the Roman emperors,” Frederick II [Conv. IV.iii.6]). As was suggested in the note to Purgatorio III.143, that canto is also a “canto of two Constances.” [return to English / Italian]