Paradiso (The Divine Comedy series Book 3)

by Dante

  130. A probable reference to Pope John XXII, who acceded to the Holy See in 1316 (he would survive in it for thirteen years past Dante’s death, until 1334). John was not only French, but he decided to keep the Church in France, in its Avignonian “captivity,” thus managing to draw Dante’s ire. It has seemed to some that this diatribe against papal use of excommunication for political purpose is grounded in John’s excommunication of the imperial vicar Cangrande in 1317.

  The last pope who had a speaking part in the poem was Adrian V, on his way to Paradise, addressed by the protagonist with the honorific voi (Purg. XIX.131). Now, in the poem called Paradiso, we hear the protagonist speak to the sitting pope, using the familiar tu, in the most disparaging terms and tone of voice. [return to English / Italian]

  131–132. Dante’s threat to Pope John is advanced in two lines hinged on the past tense of the verb “to die” (moriro[no]) and culminating in the triumphant assertion that the first keepers of the vineyard of the Church, who gave their lives for it as martyrs, are indeed alive (vivi). Peter and Paul (and John the Baptist, as we shall shortly hear), for the pope and his cofunctionaries, are dead indeed; but not for believers like Dante. [return to English / Italian]

  PARADISO XIX

  * * *

  1–6. The Eagle is first seen as a discrete entity (la bella image) and then as its components, the individual just rulers who constitute this beautiful image of justice, each appearing as a much-prized precious stone, the ruby. The text goes on to suggest that all of them were glowing as though the sun were equally reflected in all of them at once (something that would not happen in earthbound optics, where uneven surfaces reflect a distant light variously). In fact, these “rubies,” red with the glow of caritas, are shining with their own light of affection, if that is eventually a reflection of God’s love for them.

  Dante’s radical (and revolutionary, at least from an Augustinian point of view) notion is that earthly justice is the direct product of a divine principle. And, as we learned in the last canto (see the note to Par. XVIII.115–117), the souls of the shapers of those human institutions that serve justice are themselves shaped by the agency of this heaven. [return to English / Italian]

  1. The image of the Eagle, with its open wings, suggests, to Baranski (Bara.1995.4), p. 277, a passage from Deuteronomy 32:11, “expandit alas suas” (spreading out its wings), in the song about himself that Moses intones near the end of his life, in which he is presented as an eagle taking his chicks upon his back for an exodal ride. (Scartazzini cited that passage, but at Purgatorio IX.30.) [return to English / Italian]

  2. The term frui (to enjoy), first identified as deriving from St. Augustine by Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 1–3), probably arrives in Dante via Aquinas (ST I–II, q. 11, a. 3), as Scartazzini may have been the first to suggest. [return to English / Italian]

  7–12. What Dante must now report was never reported by voice, nor written in ink, nor present in the image-receiving faculty of the mind, for he had seen the beak speak and had heard it, too, when it uttered with its voice “I” and “mine,” while in its conception it meant “we” and “our.” We have had a similar experience once before, hearing Dante introduce himself as “we” and then speak as “I” in the first two lines of the poem (Inf. I.1–2): “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura.…”

  St. Paul describes similar marvelous truths (I Corinthians 2:9) that “the eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,” an observation dating back to Jacopo della Lana (proem to this canto). For discussion of this example of Dante’s exploitation of the familiar topos of novelty, see Ledda (Ledd.2002.1), pp. 81–82. [return to English / Italian]

  9. For “phantasy” as a technical term in medieval versions of Aristotelian “physiology of mind,” see Carroll (comm. to Par. IV.28–48) and Singleton (comm. to Purg. XVII.13–18); see also the note to Purgatorio XVII.13–18. This faculty is the image-receiving element in the mind. Carroll, Singleton, and Hollander consequently use this spelling in order to distinguish this term from the modern one, “fantasy,” a daydream or another form of fictive flight. [return to English / Italian]

  10. The first commentator to report the resonance here of Apocalypse 8:13, “Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead,” was Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 10–12). The context is the fourth angelic trumpet blast, and the eagle is announcing woe to those who dwell on earth. Dante’s Eagle, on the other hand, has a more eupeptic message.

  It seems clear that Geoffrey Chaucer was amused when he read this verse; his loquacious eagle in that delightful send-up of Dante’s poem, The House of Fame, surely was one poet’s laughing salute to another. [return to English / Italian]

  13. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse) point out the resonance of the description of Trajan (shortly himself to appear in the poem at Par. XX.44–45) in Purgatorio X.93, where he is portrayed as moved by giustizia and pietà. [return to English / Italian]

  14–15. These verses were initially and widely interpreted to refer to that glory (salvation) that is greater than any desire for it. Scartazzini (comm. to verse 15), however, cites Bartolomeo Perazzini (Note alla “Divina Commedia” [Venice, 1844], p. 155), who says that the heavenly glory won by these souls, even more than did their desire, reflected (and rewarded) their deeds. Given the context of their virtuous acts as rulers, this interpretation has won support ever since it was presented by Scartazzini and Campi (comm. to vv. 13–15). Nonetheless, there is still no consensus, with various commentators advancing the one or the other explanation. Here is Carroll (comm. to vv. 1–18), summarizing the debate before attempting to find a way out: “Two interpretations are suggested: (1) that this glory of Jupiter is superior to all human desire; (2) that it does not allow itself to be won by mere desire—it must be worked for (Matth. 7:21). I venture to suggest a third: the common way in which kings aim at glory is at their own ‘desire’ or ambition, and earthly glory may be so won. But not so the glory of this Heaven: it can be ‘conquered’ only ‘by being just and merciful.’ ” [return to English / Italian]

  16–18. We may need to remind ourselves that the Eagle is speaking as a corporate entity, his “I” really meaning “we,” that is, the virtuous rulers composing his shape have all left exemplary lives behind them that draw lip service but no imitative good actions. [return to English / Italian]

  18. The commentators, from Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 16–18) onward, generally take storia here in the sense of exemplum, that is, according to the fourteenth-century Dantist, the wicked on the earth do not follow the positive examples of these virtuous rulers, present here in the Eagle, of whom we shall see some in the next canto. [return to English / Italian]

  19–21. The simile pounds home the poet’s insistence that the plurality of souls making up the Eagle’s unity sing as a single voice. [return to English / Italian]

  22–24. The protagonist himself, as it were, picks up the theme of the simile only to express it in metaphor: He believes that these souls have become a garden of flowers giving off a single perfume, that is, speaking as one. [return to English / Italian]

  25–33. We probably are reminded of the presence in Limbo of the virtuous pagans (unauthorized by previous authority, e.g., St. Thomas, who denies them a place alongside the only inhabitants of the “orthodox” Limbus, the innocent but unbaptized infants [see the note to Inf. IV.30]). It was clear from that earlier passage that our poet had a problem with traditional Christian views of the “guilt” of otherwise morally good (or even excellent) human beings. The last words of his request to the souls in the Eagle make it plain that in his life he had been bothered by the Church’s teaching on the postmortal situation of the virtuous heathen. [return to English / Italian]

  25. The gerund (perhaps used here as a present participle) spirando (breathing forth) is a form of the verb (spirare) that Dante uses to indicate the “spiration” of the Holy Spirit. For confirmation of this associat
ion, see verse 101. [return to English / Italian]

  28–30. The poet here refers, as Tommaseo (comm. to this tercet) was apparently the first commentator to point out, to Cunizza’s words in Paradiso IX.61–62, from which he has learned that the angelic order of Thrones, presiding over the heaven of Saturn, is designated as reflecting divine justice. But this does not mean that these just souls here in Jupiter are innocent of such knowledge, since they know about earthly justice and, further, like all the saved, see the higher form reflected in God Himself. [return to English / Italian]

  34–39. This is the first of two similes based on avian behavior in this canto. This one shows a tamed falcon being prepared to go off on a hunt for prey, while the next, at vv. 91–96, completes the implicitly joined image with a stork that has fed its young.

  For six other references to falconry in the poem, see Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 34–36). [return to English / Italian]

  35. For the double sense here of the Latin verb plaudere (both “to beat one’s wings” and “to express approval” [as found in both Ovid and Virgil]), see Scartazzini (comm. to this verse). [return to English / Italian]

  40–63. The following is Tozer’s paraphrase of these lines: “God, who created all things, infinitely surpasses in Himself the wisdom which appears in His creation (ll. 40–45). Lucifer, the highest of created beings, fell, because he lacked as yet the light which would have enabled him to see God perfectly (ll. 46–48). How much more feeble must be the vision of beings inferior to him! (ll. 49–51). Hence our minds cannot have any true conception of God’s attributes (ll. 52–57), and, in particular, of His justice (ll. 58–63).” [return to English / Italian]

  40. For the image of the compass in God’s designing of the universe, see Proverbs 8:27, as was perhaps first noted by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 40–42). Torraca added the information that Dante himself cited this passage in Convivio III (xv.16). [return to English / Italian]

  46–48. Lucifer’s fall (and that of the other rebellious angels) will have an entire passage to itself for Beatrice’s elucidation in Paradiso XXIX.49–66. For Adam’s contrasting “ripeness,” see Paradiso XXVI.91. The poet might seem to suggest that Lucifer did not await God’s finishing His creation of him, which would have made him “perfect” with the light of grace. [return to English / Italian]

  58–60. Some commentators follow Scartazzini (comm. to verse 58) in ascribing this thought to Psalm 35:7 [36:6], “Your judgments are like the great deep,” first cited, if without ascription, by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 70–78). [return to English / Italian]

  64–66. The answer to Dante’s question will be found in God alone (in the metaphor, such shining as is never clouded over), as opposed to human sight, obfuscated by clouds of unknowing (products of our fallible or, worse, corrupt senses). [return to English / Italian]

  67–69. Marked by two Latinisms used as rhymes (latebra, “hiding-place”; crebra, “frequent”), this tercet marks the Eagle’s finally coming to grips with Dante’s insistent question about the justice of the condemnation of pagans who had apparently committed no positive sin. [return to English / Italian]

  69. The poet, allowing the Eagle to do so for him, insists once again that his life has been marked by a sort of prehumanist zeal to defend the pagans from unfair Christian treatment. But see the note to vv. 88–90. [return to English / Italian]

  70–78. This passage gives the fullest and most affecting version of this question, one that was directed at, as we have seen, perhaps the single most troubling aspect of Christian orthodoxy for Dante. The language, if indirectly, revisits a scene from Purgatorio (XXI.7–13), the appearance of Statius, himself led to salvation by Virgil, represented so as to be reminiscent of Jesus, resurrected, appearing to Cleopas and his wife. See Luke 24:19, a description of Jesus given by Cleopas (to Jesus Himself, whom he did not at first recognize), “vir propheta potens in opere et sermone” (a prophet mighty in deed and word), perhaps first cited by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 73–75). In Purgatorio XXI.17–18, Virgil, hoping Statius will soon enjoy the fruits of salvation, refers to his own situation, condemned by “the unerring court / that confines me in eternal exile,” with full acceptance of his guilt in God’s eyes. It is difficult to read the passage at hand and not think of Virgil. Once we encounter some of the virtuous pagans who were saved in the next canto, it will once more be difficult not to think of him. [return to English / Italian]

  70–72. For a meditation on the challenge to Dante’s claim to universality presented by those dwelling beyond the Indus (i.e., in India or even farther to the east), see Schildgen (Schi.1993.1). [return to English / Italian]

  77. As Foster explains (Fost.1976.1), p. 83, this hypothetical Indian must be condemned to Limbo, for he is (verse 73) without sin. [return to English / Italian]

  79–90. Up until now we have probably been sympathizing with the protagonist’s unwillingness to embrace the justice that would condemn such an essentially admirable human being who, through no fault of his own, has not heard the Word. Suddenly the Eagle pounces on Dante (his “tu” is most personal, where in most of the rest of his long speech [vv. 40–90], with the exception of five other second-person singular pronouns or verbs within four lines, 67–70, he seems to be thinking of all mortals, three times addressing us as “voi”). “Who are you, Dante, to judge God’s judgment?” Further (and now the Eagle resorts to third-person attack, Dante being offhandedly treated as a caviling subtilizer), is he not aware of what the Bible says? See the discussion of Romans 9:20 in the note to vv. 79–81. [return to English / Italian]

  79–81. As a biblical source for this tercet, Venturi (comm. to verse 79) adduces the Pauline formula (Romans 9:20) that will have most currency among later commentators: “o homo tu quis es qui respondeas Deo?” (But who are you, O man, that you answer back to God? [Is this the source of the Eagle’s “tu”?]) Tommaseo adds a reference to Dante himself speaking in this vein (Conv. IV.v.9).

  For the notion that this is the most important tercet of the canto, see Scrivano (Scri.1995.1), p. 29. [return to English / Italian]

  81. A “span” is as much as can be covered by a human palm, that is, not very much, at least not in comparison with one thousand miles. [return to English / Italian]

  83. See the extensive treament of this verse by Battistini (Batt.1988.1). [return to English / Italian]

  85. Compare Boethius (Cons. Phil. III.3[pr]) on terrena animalia (earthly beasts), first cited by Poletto (comm. to vv. 85–87), who also points out that Dante had previously cited this phrase in Convivio IV.v.9. [return to English / Italian]

  87. See Scartazzini’s citation (comm. to this verse) of Malachi 3:6: “ego enim Dominus et non mutor” (for I am the Lord and I change not). [return to English / Italian]

  88–90. All that is just in the world accords with God’s will; on the other hand, no created good draws God’s will to itself; its goodness is the manifestation of that will, not its cause. Scartazzini/Vandelli (comm. to this tercet) point to Dante’s similar phrasing in Monarchia II.ii.5, a passage that, in turn, may reflect the concept of God’s inability to be unjust in Romans 9:14–15.

  Having set himself up as a “liberal” on the question of the eternal punishment of virtuous pagans, Dante now embraces the “conservative” position, which has it that pagans are justly damned for not having intuited the truth of Christ. He will play this hand out again in the next canto, where he will see saved pagans (their presence in Heaven surely reflects a “liberal” mind-set), but will contrive to convince us (and himself?) that they had somehow found Christ. As we will see, moral perfection alone will not procure the most just among pagans a place in Heaven, this poet’s Christian pantheon. [return to English / Italian]

  91–96. For the earlier and related avian simile, see the note to vv. 34–39. [return to English / Italian]

  96. The meaning of this expression is that the Eagle is propelled by the shared wills of its constituent souls. [return to English / Italian]


  97–99. Just as the second avian simile completed the first one (see the notes to vv. 34–39 and 91–96), so this second simile, pronounced by the Eagle itself, completes the pattern established by the first simile. There (vv. 19–21), many were resolved as one (many embers sensed as a single heat, many affectionate voices heard as a single song); here celestial harmony is not audible to human ears, which can hear only the individual voices and cannot make sense of them. See Inferno XX.29–30 for a similar insistence on the necessary failure of humans to understand God’s justice. [return to English / Italian]