Paradiso (The Divine Comedy series Book 3)

by Dante

  That Cacciaguida’s first words are in Latin, both biblical (at least generically) and Virgilian, accomplishes one of Dante’s aims. It establishes his ancestor as speaker of the doubly significant “grammatical” tongue, that of God and man, Church and empire. As Dante’s spiritual and fleshly father, he is perfectly fitted to meet his son’s needs. [return to English / Italian]

  28. Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 66, points out that the protagonist has himself once used sangue in this precise sense (i.e., to denote bloodline), referring to Geri del Bello (Inf. XXIX.20). And now his ancestor uses the word, in Latin, to identify Dante as his seed. [return to English / Italian]

  29. Some readers have reflected that this verse would seem to put Dante in a class by himself, since Paul claims (II Corinthians 12:2) a celestial ascent only as far as the third heaven. But see the note to Paradiso I.73 for notice that traditional understanding of the passage identified Paul’s “third heaven” with the Empyrean. [return to English / Italian]

  30. Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 28–30) says that this, Dante’s first visit to the realms of Paradise, is made in the flesh, while the next one will not be (i.e., Dante’s soul will fly up without his body after his death). Of course, he is destined to get that body back at the general resur-rection. [return to English / Italian]

  31. While this “light” does not choose to identify himself until verse 135, it is perhaps good to have some sense of Dante’s great-great-grandfather, who is speaking in this scene, “of whose life nothing is known beyond what Dante himself tells us; viz. that he was born in Florence (Par. XV.130–133) in the Sesto di Porta san Piero (Par. XVI.40–42) about the year 1090 (Par. XVI.34–39); that he belonged (possibly) to the Elisei, one of the old Florentine families which boasted Roman descent (Par. XV.136; Par. XVI.40); that he was baptized in the baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence (Par. XV.134–135); that he had two brothers, Moronto and Eliseo (Par. XV.136); that his wife came from the valley of the Po, and that from her, through his son, Dante got his surname of Alighieri (Par. XV.91–94, Par. XV.137–138); that he followed the Emperor Conrad III on the Second Crusade, and was knighted by him (Par. XV.139–144), and finally that he fell fighting against the infidel about the year 1147 (Par. XV.145–148)” (T). [return to English / Italian]

  32–33. The protagonist makes up for his previous “failure” to look at Beatrice in the last canto (XIV.127–132).

  Aversano claims that stupefaction is experienced only twice in the Bible, both times in the responses of those who beheld Christ, citing Mark 9:14 (regarding the populace after the Transfiguration) and Acts 9:6–7 (regarding those who witness what is to them strange behavior on the part of Saul on the road to Damascus). But see also Acts 2:7–12, which perhaps contains a more relevant context than those two passages. After the apostles found they were able to “translate” words spoken in tongues into their own language, they were amazed. This is the first use of the word stupefatto in the poem. It will twice be used again (Par. XXVI.80 and Par. XXXI.35). On the last of these it will refer to the reaction of the pilgrim approaching Rome who sees the city for the first time. [return to English / Italian]

  34–36. Beatrice’s smile recognizes that Dante has understood his identity better than ever before, biologically, but more important in terms of his family’s heritage, and, still more important, as “Roman” and as Christian, assured of his salvation. [return to English / Italian]

  37–42. This is Cacciaguida’s second kind of speech, one that the protagonist is unable to understand. For some reason André Pézard (Peza.1967.1) does not include this passage in his consideration of the “tongues” spoken by Cacciaguida (he deals with items 1, 3, and 4 in the listing below). This list is found in Hollander (Holl.1980.2), pp. 125–27 (for some further consideration, see Hollander [Holl.1992.1], pp. 38–39, n. 57). However, it seems clear that the reader must consider four languages as spoken by Cacciaguida: (1) vv. 28–30, Latin; (2) 37–42, speech that the protagonist could not recognize; (3) vv. 47–48, the Italian of Dante’s time; (4) Paradiso XVI.34–36, the vernacular of Cacciaguida’s day. For support for this view, see Honess (Hone.1997.1), p. 130. [return to English / Italian]

  39. Poletto (comm. to vv. 37–39) seems to have been the first commentator to notice the closeness of this line to the tenth verse of the last poem of the Vita nuova (XLI.12): “io non lo intendo, sì parla sottile” (I cannot understand the subtle words it [his pilgrim spirit, having visited Paradise and seen Beatrice] speaks [tr. M. Musa]). Benvenuto explains (comm. to vv. 37–42) that Cacciaguida was speaking of pure mental constructs (conceptiones mentales) that transcend mere humans’ ability to understand. (See the note to Par. XIV.88.) On the other hand, Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 37–48) and Cristoforo Landino (comm. to vv. 37–39) both think the context of his first words in Latin, regarding Dante’s status as one of the elect (vv. 28–30), point to the issue of predestination, a position that Sapegno (comm. to vv. 37–42) brings back into consideration, as several others do also. Hollander (Holl.1980.2) is of the opinion that this linguistic behavior on the part of Dante’s ancestor may reflect either Adamic vernacular or the apostles’ speaking in tongues. There is, in short, no consensus about how to read this verse. But see the note to vv. 43–48. [return to English / Italian]

  40–42. Benvenuto’s hypothesis (see the note to verse 39) concerning “mental constructs” would seem to be certified by these lines, which tell us that Cacciaguida was not trying to hide his words from Dante but that the language he employed simply overshot its human target, that is, Cacciaguida had momentarily forgotten that Dante was not yet “immortal,” that, in other words, his intelligence still was limited by his humanity.

  The word concetto represents an important element in Dante’s vocabulary of consciousness. Used as a singular noun for the first time in Inferno XXXII.4 (where it refers to the mental construct Dante has in his brain of the lowest landscape of Hell), it does not reappear until here (for the rest of its “career” in the poem, see the note to Par. XXXIII.127). [return to English / Italian]

  43–48. These six lines perhaps offer some clarification of the nature of Cacciaguida’s ununderstandable utterance (vv. 37–42). First, he seems to have been addressing God, and certainly not Dante; second, if the words he speaks now flow from the ones he uttered then, they, too, were words of thanksgiving for God’s grace to his descendant. [return to English / Italian]

  48. This is the last appearance in the poem of the adjective cortese (literally “courtly” [i.e., of the court], and hence “courteous” [i.e., behaving as a courtier does—or should do]). It transforms the usual sense of the word, which often associates it with “courtly love,” into heavenly affection, a rather pronounced Nietzschean “transvaluation of values.” Dante had already availed himself of a similar strategic displacement at the end of the Vita nuova, when he refers to God as the “sire de la cortesia” (the Lord of graciousness [tr. M. Musa]). [return to English / Italian]

  50. For volume, see the note to Paradiso XII.122. To what “volume” does Cacciaguida refer? Where today commentators are unanimous in their opinion, it is amusing to read Jacopo della Lana on the problem. According to him (comm. to vv. 49–50) and to perhaps one other (the Anonimo Fiorentino [comm. to vv. 49–51]), it is the Aeneid. The Codice Cassinese (comm. to this verse) is perhaps the first to deliver the standard gloss: the mind of God. With few exceptions this is the common opinion during seven hundred years of commentatary. Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 49–51) suggests that the reference may also be to the Apocalypse (3:3), the Book of Life, in which the names of all the saved are recorded. Insofar as we are supposed to think of God’s mind as containing this book (and, since it contains infinity, it must), we realize that Cacciaguida has read in it Dante’s salvation. [return to English / Italian]

  50–54. Cacciaguida is using lofty diction to say that Dante’s arrival has satisfied the long craving he has experienced (dating, we assume, from his arrival in the Empyrean circa 1147) to see his desc
endant’s arrival in the heavens, about which he read in God’s mind, credit for which he gives to Beatrice. [return to English / Italian]

  51. That is, the words in this “book” are unchanging, unlike those in human manuscripts, where scribes variously blot, erase, add to, and cross out previous texts. Compare Paradiso XVII.37–39. And see Torraca (comm. to vv. 49–51) for a reflection of this verse in the opening line of Dante’s first Eclogue to Giovanni del Virgilio: “Vidimus in nigris albo patiente lituris …” (In letters black, upon receptive white, I saw …). [return to English / Italian]

  54. It is not difficult to believe that Dante is here revisiting a theme dear to him, the ill-fated flight of Icarus (see Inf. XVII.109–111 and XXIX.113–116; Par. VIII.125–126), but now starring Beatrice as a better-artificing Daedalus and Dante as nonfalling wonder boy. See the note to verse 72. [return to English / Italian]

  55–69. “Cacciaguida tells Dante that he understands the reason why he does not inquire his name and the cause of his interest in him, which is, that he (Dante) is aware that the denizens of Heaven see the thoughts of others through the medium of the mind of God which reflects them in every detail; and consequently that it is unnecessary for him to state in words what he wishes to be told him, because his wishes are already fully known to Cacciaguida. Still, he encourages Dante to speak, because his (Cacciaguida’s) love will be increased by complying with his request” (Tozer, comm. to these verses). [return to English / Italian]

  56–57. See Grandgent (comm. to verse 56): “Raia, ‘radiates.’ Unity is the beginning of number, as God is the beginning of thought; from the conception of unity is derived the conception of all numbers, and in the divine mind all thought is contained.” [return to English / Italian]

  68. Will and desire are the hallmarks of the soul’s affective knowing and wise loving in Paradise. As Tommaseo pointed out long ago (comm. to vv. 67–69), the cantica will conclude with these two spiritual movements in Dante operating harmoniously (Par. XXXIII.143). [return to English / Italian]

  72. Dante apparently could not resist a second reference to Beatrice as Daedalus (see the note to verse 54). And see Hollander (Holl.1983.1), p. 135n., pointing out that there seems to be a “Daedalus program” in this part of the poem: Paradiso VIII.125, X.74–75, XIII.77–78, and here, representing, according to him (p. 136n.), something bordering on the obsessive. [return to English / Italian]

  73–84. This tortured preamble to a simple question (“What’s your name?”) is paraphrased by Tozer (comm. to these verses) as follows: “Dante here excuses himself for being unable to thank Cacciaguida as he would wish to do for his benevolence. The ground of his excuse is that, whereas in Heaven a feeling (affetto) is accompanied by an equivalent power of thought (senno), through which that feeling can find expression, this is not the case with mortal men, for in them the means (argomento) of expressing feeling fall short of the wish to do so (voglia).” [return to English / Italian]

  74. The term equalità, a hapax, has considerable theological weight. Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 68, cites Richard of St. Victor, De Trinitate VI.xxi: “Quid summa aequalitas sit in illa Trinitate, ubi oportet omnes aeque perfectos esse” (What very great equality there must be in that Trinity, in which it is necessary for all the elements to be equally perfect). Aversano continues by adducing the gloss of Alain de Lille (PL CCX.445) to his fourth regula theologica: “in Patre unitas, in Figlio [sic] aequalitas, in Spiritu sancto unitatis aequalitatisque connexio” (in the Father, uniqueness; in the Son, likeness; in the Holy Spirit, the link between uniqueness and likeness).

  If one thinks about the “aesthetics” of the Christian religion (and of Dante’s poem), one has a sense of the centrality of both uniqueness and of likeness. This is nowhere more readily apparent than in the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, a uniquely human being (because He is also the immortal God) and yet a commonly human being (because He was also mortal). And, it is perhaps fair to suggest, this theme has nowhere before in the poem been quite so evident or so important as it has become in this canto. [return to English / Italian]

  81. The phrase “pennuti in ali” (feathered wings) picks up (from verse 54 [“vestì le piume”] and verse 72 [“crescer l’ali”]) to make this one of the densest insistences on Dante’s heavenly flight in the poem. See Shankland’s two studies (Shan.1975.1; Shan.1977.1) for discussion of the pun on the poet’s surname (Alighieri) available in the Latin adjective for “winged,” aliger. [return to English / Italian]

  85. The protagonist addresses his ancestor as “topaz.” Alain de Lille, cited by Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 68, says that there are two colors of topaz, sky blue and golden. [return to English / Italian]

  87. We perhaps have already forgotten the elaborate preparation for this simple question. Cacciaguida says that he already knows what Dante wants to ask but wants him to ask it anyway, to bring him greater pleasure (vv. 55–69); and then Dante spends nearly as much poetic space (vv. 73–84) explaining why he cannot express his gratitude for Cacciaguida’s welcome. That the inquiry about Cacciaguida’s identity took so long to make it from Dante’s lips is, perhaps, amusing, a sort of Scholastic joke, the sort of thing that would offer Rabelais, two centuries later, endless opportunity for spirited (and antagonistic) amusement at the expense of medieval modes of expression. However, Dante may have felt that the reader (even the fourteenth-century reader) may have needed to be reminded of the gulf that separates souls that have come to God, enjoying an eternal and quasi-angelic spiritual existence, and even ultimately favored mortals, like Dante Alighieri. When we consider this aspect of the third cantica, we probably all agree that the poet manages to present himself as feeling proper humility at finding himself prematurely among the blessed, something that is not perhaps as often observed as it might be. For a useful presentation of what is known about Cacciaguida, see Fiorenzo Forti, “Cacciaguida,” ED I (1970). [return to English / Italian]

  88–135. For the perhaps surprising presence of so many virtuous women representing “the good old days” in Florence, see Honess (Hone.1997.2), esp. pp. 108–14. [return to English / Italian]

  88–89. Cacciaguida’s presentation of a genealogical “tree” (Bosco/Reggio point to the presence of the image of the family tree in Purg. VII.121, Purg. XX.43, and Par. IX.31) of Dante’s family, of which he declares himself the root, begins his wider exploration of the history of Florence, the subject of some forty verses (88–129). Beginning with Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 88–90), there has been appreciation of the fact that Cacciaguida’s words remember those attributed to God the Father (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22): “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” [return to English / Italian]

  91–94. Cacciaguida refers to his son Alighiero (Dante’s great-grandfather) as the source of the poet’s surname (since Alighiero’s own son, Dante’s grandfather, was known as Bellincione degli Alighieri). Alighiero was perhaps given a Christian name reflecting his mother’s maiden name, Alaghieri (see the note to vv. 137–138). We know from documentary evidence that he was alive in 1201, which means that Dante was misinformed as to the date of his death, since the poet has Cacciaguida represent him as having spent more than one hundred years in Purgatory purging his pridefulness (there results a certain family resemblance [see Purg. XIII.136–138]) and the calendar in the poem stands at 1300. [return to English / Italian]

  95–96. The news of Alighiero’s presence on the terrace of Pride comes with an admonition of Dante’s family duty, to pray for the deliverance of his soul from torment. There is a parallel moment in Inferno (XXIX.18–36), Dante’s discovery of his ancestor, Geri del Bello, a cousin of his father, among the sowers of discord, an apparition that causes him to feel guilty for not having avenged a relative’s violent death. For another similar distribution of a family, consider the case of the Donati (Corso in Hell, Forese in Purgatory, and Piccarda in Heaven [see the note to Purg. XXIII.42–48]; but there are several other examples as well).

  See
the note to Paradiso I.35–36 for the understanding that the purpose of the poem is to affect its readers’ prayers. Here is an internal example of precisely that effect. [return to English / Italian]

  97–99. “The old line of walls dated from 1078 a.d. (Villani, iv. 8); it was now ‘old,’ because the wall of Dante’s time was commenced in 1284 …. The Badia [the church of S. Stefano in Badìa], the chimes of which are here referred to, stood just within the ancient walls; the Florentines took their time from these.… The factions and civil dissensions in Florence did not commence until 1177” (Tozer, comm. to this tercet). [return to English / Italian]

  100–102. Dante, in Cacciaguida’s voice, has harnessed his wagon of complaint about a typical target of medieval moralizers, luxurious living, to a misogynistic diatribe against costly female overdecoration (for a cry against related but opposite behavior in Florentine women, see Purg. XXIII.98–105). [return to English / Italian]

  103–105. The tirade now turns toward marriage contracts, with their two related ills: the lowering age at which fathers feel forced to “sell” their daughters to a man, and the rising cost of doing so, represented by the dowry the girl’s family had to put up. The two details manage to make the Florentine institution of marriage sound more like sexual bondage than matrimony. [return to English / Italian]