Paradiso (The Divine Comedy series Book 3)

by Dante

  80–81. See the great prophecy of Augustus as bearer of world peace in Aeneid I.286–296, esp. verse 294, “claudentur Belli portae” (the gates of War shall be shut), as was first observed by Pietro di Dante (comm. to vv. 79–81, along with passages from Lucan, esp. Phars. I.62). For both these loci, see also Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 79–81). [return to English / Italian]

  81. The word delubro is a Latinism (from delubrum, “temple”). [return to English / Italian]

  82–91. “Tiberius Claudius Nero, stepson and adopted son and successor of Augustus; Roman emperor, a.d. 14–37” (T). There is apparently a certain tongue-in-cheek quality to Dante’s words in support of his selection of the third emperor in his most unusual pantheon. Julius is a bit problematic, given even Dante’s own slurs on his character (see the notes to Purg. IX.133–138 and Purg. XXVI.77–78), but we understand that, for Dante and his time, he was the first emperor and thus is a necessary presiding presence. About Augustus no one ever could (and no one ever has wanted to) complain. But Tiberius (not to mention Titus!) has caused more than a little discomfort. And the protagonist does indeed marvel at these words (in Paradiso VII.19–24). But see Monarchia II.xi.5: “Thus if Christ had not suffered under an authorised judge, that penalty would not have been a punishment. And no judge could be authorised unless he had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind, since the whole of mankind was punished in that flesh of Christ ‘who bore our sorrows’, as the prophet says. And Tiberius Caesar, whose representative Pilate was, would not have had jurisdiction over the whole of mankind unless the Roman empire had existed by right” (tr. P. Shaw).

  Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 79–81) made clear his amazement at Dante’s having included Tiberius among the great emperors, referring to him as “the worst sort of successor” to Augustus. (And see Benvenuto’s own list of seven emperors, dropping Tiberius and Titus in favor of Trajan and Constantine and adding Theodosius, in the outline of this canto.) It is possible that Dante’s “final list” is indeed seven, since it eventually includes Henry VII or his successor (see the note to Par. XXX.133–138) as the seventh emperor in the line adumbrated here. See Hollander and Rossi (Holl.1986.1), pp. 62 and 78n. [return to English / Italian]

  88–90. Justinian is making the case for the justness of Christ’s death at the hands of the Romans (Pontius Pilate, acting as agent of Tiberius). This “vendetta” pursued by the Roman Eagle (as Justinian, inspired by the justice of God even as he now speaks, insists) is what makes the accomplishments of even Julius and Augustus seem paltry, for Christ’s death atoned for all previous human sin and made sinners to come redeemable as well. Thus the apparently specious hyperbole in the passage regarding Tiberius (vv. 82–91) must be seen as serious. His greatness is precipitated out of the event he presided over, the Crucifixion. See Carroll on vv. 82–90: “The wrath is the just anger of God against the human race for its sins; and the ‘doing of vengeance’ is the death of Christ, regarded as the bearing of the punishment inflicted by that anger. The extraordinary thing is that Dante regards the crucifixion as the supreme glory of Roman justice, inasmuch as it was the agent by which ‘the Living Justice’ ‘did vengeance for His wrath.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

  88. See the quotation of the first line of Justinian’s Institutiones in the note to vv. 1–27. Again Dante puts words reflecting the spiration of the Holy Spirit in Justinian’s mouth; see verse 23 and the note to vv. 22–24. And see Inferno XXIX.55–57 and the note to vv. 54–57 for Dante’s association of himself with similar inspiration, not to mention Purgatorio XXIV.52–54. Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 28, is one of the relatively few commentators to take clear notice of Justinian’s insistence on divine inspiration for his work on Roman law. [return to English / Italian]

  92–93. “Titus, son and successor of Vespasian, Roman emperor, a.d. 79–81; he served under his father in the Jewish wars, and when Vespasian was proclaimed emperor and returned to Italy in 70 he remained in Palestine in order to carry on the siege of Jerusalem, which he captured, after a siege of several months, in September of that year; in the following year he returned to Rome and celebrated the conquest of the Jews in a triumph with his father” (T). For a clear explanation of this tercet, see Tozer (comm. to vv. 91–93): “The repetition is that of the word vendetta in two different applications, corresponding to the twofold mission of the eagle; first it avenged God’s wrath against Adam’s sin (vendetta del peccato antico) by putting Christ to death; then it took vengeance on the Jews for bringing about Christ’s death by the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.”

  Giorgio Padoan (Pado.1965.2), pp. 7–17, looks away from the canto of his Lectura Dantis Romana (Par. VII) to consider these verses and their problematic view of Jewish history. [return to English / Italian]

  94–96. Charlemagne gets short shrift as the sixth (Justinian does not, of course, refer to himself as a member of this elite group, but commentators have done so for him) and last of these “world-historical” emperors. See Tozer (comm. to these verses): “[W]hen Desiderius, king of the Lombards, persecuted the Church, Pope Adrian I called in Charles the Great to its defence. [V]incendo: by his victory over Desiderius. The date of this was 774, and Charles was not crowned emperor of the West until 800, so that at the time when it took place he was not under the protection of the Roman eagle (sotto le sue ali). Dante’s error here is of a part with his more serious mistake in Mon. [III.xi.1] where he says that Charles was crowned emperor by Adrian I while the emperor Michael was on the throne of Constantinople—whereas in reality he was crowned by Leo III during the reign of Irene.” The process of translatio imperii has now been insisted on, as the Eagle has flown out of Italy and into France. This tercet thus accomplishes a great deal, introducing and defending the concept of the Holy Roman Empire in the space of three lines. [return to English / Italian]

  97–111. Having finished with the “Roman” past of imperial power, from Julius to Charlemagne, a period of just over eight hundred years, Justinian now turns to the present political ills of Italy. This subject is not treated as formally as the history of Roman institutions, but it is at once clear that, for Dante, it is of extraordinary importance. [return to English / Italian]

  97–99. For Justinian’s earlier references to Guelphs and Ghibellines and their battle over control of the sacrosanto segno (that most holy standard), see vv. 31–33 and the notes to those verses and to verse 30. In a real sense then, vv. 34–96 are a digression (they are referred to as a giunta [an addendum] at verse 30), only preparing for Dante’s pressing business, to show how poorly ordered the political affairs of the peninsula were in his own time. [return to English / Italian]

  100–102. While the Guelphs oppose the imperial ensign with their (French) golden lilies, the Ghibellines try to make it only their own, desiring to deprive others of their rightful imperial homeland. [return to English / Italian]

  103–105. The Ghibellines, for ridding the sacred sign of empire of justice, are told to find another symbol to represent their conniving spirit. [return to English / Italian]

  106–108. Charles II, king of Naples (ruled 1289–1309), is referred to as “new” to distinguish him from his father, also king of Naples (and Sicily, in his case), who died in 1285. Justinian warns him not to let his Guelph troops attempt to wrest the ensign of imperial rulership from the Ghibellines (who have their own problems in meriting it), for the empire has defeated mightier enemies before. [return to English / Italian]

  108. The imperial Eagle’s claws are portrayed as having “ripped the hides from larger lions” than Charles represents. The general sense is clear, but there have been any number of interpretations of what exactly is meant. The majority believes that there is no specific reference, only a generic prophecy of Charles’s doomed experiment with increasing his dominions, should he try to accomplish that. [return to English / Italian]

  109–110. Strangely enough, not a single commentator (at least not among the seventy-two currently gathered in the DDP) makes reference to Ugo
lino’s narrative here (see, e.g., Inf. XXXIII.38–39). In this poem there is hardly another more evident case of sons weeping for the sins of their father. [return to English / Italian]

  112–117. In these two tercets Justinian explains the nature of what was lacking in these souls (as Ordiway has pointed out [Ordi.1982.1], pp. 82–85, it is the theological virtue of hope in its perfected form). As the temporary Moon-dwellers displayed a marred version of faith, so Justinian and the others here, while they were alive, displayed hope in an immature form, rendering their love of God less vibrant than it should have been. [return to English / Italian]

  118–123. In the following pair of tercets (these twelve verses indeed form a group, the two equal parts of which are joined by a triumphant “But”) Justinian, as has frequently been noted, sounds very much like Piccarda (Par. III.70–87). We can safely assume that neither he nor Romeo would be among the higher petals of the rose in Paradiso XXXII; but that only makes them love God the more, for accepting them in Heaven with a history of such galling imperfections. [return to English / Italian]

  121. This verse marks the third occurrence of the noun giustizia in the canto, a density shared by only two previous cantos (Inf. III and Purg. XIX; however, see Par. VII, where that noun appears only once, but other forms of the word [giusta (3), guistamente (2), giuste] appear six times; see the note to Par. VII.20). [return to English / Italian]

  127–142. Romeo, seneschal (chief steward) of Raymond Berenger IV, count of Provence: “The only foundation, apparently, for the story, adopted by Dante and Villani (vi.90), of the ‘pilgrim’ who became the minister of the Provençal count, is the fact that the name of count Berenger’s grand seneschal was Romieu (or Romée) of Villeneuve. Romeo, a friend of Sordello (Purg. VI.74) was born c. 1170. In Aug. 1229 he was in Genoa as ambassador to the podestà of that city, and in the same year was serving as Raymond Berenger’s chief minister, and by him was granted certain possessions in Genoa and her territories, and the next year received other properties. Early in 1241, on another mission as ambassador, he became involved in a battle at sea, from which he escaped unscathed, even managing to capture a Pisan vessel laden with merchandise which he had taken to Nice. On Aug. 19, 1245 Raymond Berenger died, leaving his daughter Beatrice his heir, and Romeo as ‘baiulus totius terrae suae et filiae suae’ [guardian of all his lands and those of his daughter]. Beatrice then married Charles of Anjou while under Romeo’s guardianship. Romeo died in 1250” (T). [return to English / Italian]

  130–132. Those courtiers, we suppose, who spoke ill of Romeo to Raymond succeeded in forcing his removal from a position of trust (see vv. 136–139), but in the end suffered the tyrannical rule of Raymond’s successors. [return to English / Italian]

  134. When we read or hear Raymond’s name, we may reflect on how many names or references to historical figures we have encountered in this canto (all but two of them in the first 106 verses). The total (Constantine, Aeneas, Lavinia, Justinian, Agapetus, Belisarius, Pallas, the Curiatii, the Horatii, the seven first kings of Rome, Sabine women, Lucrece, unnamed republicans, Brennus, Pyrrhus, Torquatus, Cincinnatus, the Decii, the Fabii, Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Hector, Ptolemy, Juba, Augustus, Brutus, Cassius, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Tiberius, Titus, Desiderius, Charlemagne, Charles II of Anjou, Romeo, and Raymond), even if we count some plural presences as single units, as here, is an impressive thirty-eight, and that excludes the several-times-alluded-to Guelphs and Ghibellines. If we have bought into the discredited but still supported notion that in the last cantica Dante has given over worldly concerns, it may come as something of a surprise to have a canto in Paradiso make so obvious a gesture toward history. [return to English / Italian]

  137. The phrase dimandar ragione is a term used for requesting a review of the financial situation between involved parties. [return to English / Italian]

  138. For example, Romeo’s accounts always returned more than he had accepted into his care. The numbers seem merely casually chosen, but would indicate a healthy 20 percent gain in Raymond’s holdings under Romeo’s management. [return to English / Italian]

  139–142. Where the opening verses of the canto imply the presence of Virgil, as author of the Aeneid, the concluding ones summon the image of the exiled and “mendicant” Dante (cf. Par. XVII.58–60, Cacciaguida’s admonition: “You shall learn how salt is the taste / of another man’s bread and how hard it is / to go down and then up another man’s stairs”). See Mazzoni (Mazz.1982.1), p. 157; and see Woodhouse (Wood.1997.1), for a treatment in English of Romeo’s resemblance to Dante: It is he who, “by recalling, in his person and in his name, Romeus, pilgrim to Rome, the tragic figure of Dante himself” (p. 7). His name also binds the two seemingly disparate parts of the canto, ancient and modern. This is a “Roman canto,” even when it turns its attention to recent events in Provence; its first part is a sort of vernacular version of a theologized Aeneid; its last, a comic (i.e., happily resolved) version of a lament for a courtier. [return to English / Italian]

  PARADISO VII

  * * *

  1–15. If one were to select a single passage from the entire Commedia that seems most self-consciously wrought and thoroughly marked by poetic exuberance, it might be difficult to find one more fitting that description than this, with its opening mixture of Hebrew and Latin, the mysterious “double light” glowing upon Justinian, the sudden departure of that soul and his dancing fellows, the protagonist’s wild excitement in his bafflement over a theological question, and, finally, the linguistic playfulness of the poet’s reference to Beatrice’s name. It is as though Dante were apologizing in advance for the lack of poetic energy that typifies the rest of the canto, turned over to the theological needs of its protagonist as ministered to by his guide.

  Canto VII almost seems to be offered as reassurance to readers with a religious and/or theological bent that we’ve closed the books on Roman history and Italian politics and now will stick to our good Christian knitting—for a while, at least. [return to English / Italian]

  1–3. See Tozer’s translation and note (comm. to vv. 1–3): “ ‘Hosanna, holy God of hosts, who by Thy brightness dost illuminate from above the happy fires of these realms.’ These verses appear to have been Dante’s own, not a hymn of the Church; but they are in Latin, to correspond to other mediaeval hymns. malacoth: as Dante required a rhyme for Sabaoth—no easy thing to find—he availed himself of the word malachoth, which he met with in St. Jerome’s Preface to the Vulgate, where it is translated by regnorum (realms). The proper form of this, which is read in modern editions of the Vulgate, is mamlachot, but in Dante’s time malachoth was the accepted reading.”

  For glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”) as a concern to Dante, see Hollander (Holl.1992.1). And see Di Scipio (Disc.1995.1), p. 281, for another assertion that Inferno VII.1 is a parodic version of glossolalia. Sarolli, who almost gets credit for being the first writer to connect, in an oppositional relation, the first lines of this canto with those of the seventh canto of Inferno, “Pape Satàn, pape Satàn, aleppe!” (Saro.1971.1, pp. 289–90), also unaccountably urges a reader to understand that the macaronic passage includes not only Hebrew and Latin, but Greek. (Tommaseo, in passing, does mention Inf. VII.1 in conjunction with the opening of Par. VII, thus depriving Sarolli of an honor he merits, since Tommaseo makes no effort to deal with the significance of the phenomenon he has observed.) [return to English / Italian]

  1. See the note to Paradiso V.1. This is the third consecutive canto that begins with a speaker’s voice (rather than narration) and the second consecutive canto to begin with the same speaker’s voice, both of these phenomena unique occurrences.

  Justinian’s first word of his last speech, Osanna, has a history in the poem: see Purgatorio XI.11 and XXIX.51. After this appearance, it also appears in Paradiso VIII.29; XXVIII.118; and XXXII.135. Its six appearances make it the most present “foreign” word in the poem. The Ottimo hears its resonance from the shouts for the entry o
f Jesus into Jerusalem (e.g., Matthew 21:9). Benvenuto, discussing (comm. to Par. VIII.22–30) the word’s appearance in Paradiso VIII.29, has this to say: “Ista vox hebraica significat immensam affectionem mentis quae non potest bene exprimi graece vel latine” (This Hebrew word signifies immense mental affection which cannot be properly expressed either in Greek or in Latin). The second Hebrew word in this line, sabaòth, is genitive plural “of the armies” (or “hosts,” as Tozer translates, an English version of Latin hostis [enemy], but without its sense of opposition).

  For the program of song in the last cantica, see the note to Paradiso XXI.58–60. [return to English / Italian]