by Dante
79–81. Tozer (comm. to this tercet) explains the passage as follows: “The metaphor is from coloured glass, the reference being to ‘coated’ glass, i.e. white glass coated with a coloured film on one side only. As this colour could be clearly seen through the glass, so the spirits could look through Dante’s mind, and see the doubt within it.” [return to English / Italian]
85–90. The Eagle, its eye more ardent, acknowledges the protagonist’s confusion and prepares to explain its causes. [return to English / Italian]
91–93. Commentators, beginning with Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 91–92), suggest the trace here of Aquinas’s distinction between cognitio sensitiva and cognitio intellectiva (ST II–II, q. 8, a. 1), that is, between knowledge based on sense perception and that based on reason, penetrating to the true meaning of phenomena. [return to English / Italian]
92. The word quiditate is a Scholastic term for “essence.” [return to English / Italian]
93. Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 91–92) deals with the Latinism prome as meaning “extract,” “draw out,” that is, as one grasps the essence of a concept. [return to English / Italian]
94–96. See Matthew 11:12: “Regnum caelorum vim patitur, et violenti rapiunt illud” (the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent bear it away [italics added])—in these cases at the behest of the hopeful prayers of Pope Gregory and the ardent affection of Ripheus. As we will see (vv. 108, 121), the virtues of Hope and Love will be specifically aligned with the salvations of Trajan and of Ripheus, respectively. [return to English / Italian]
97. Rhyme may have forced Dante to use a Provençalism, sobranza (overcomes, conquers), but he seems to welcome the excuse, as his project for the language of the Commedia is inclusive rather than exclusive. [return to English / Italian]
98–99. The chiasmus (vince, vinta; vinta, vince) underlines the power of the paradox: God wills to be conquered and thus conquers. [return to English / Italian]
103–105. This tercet is built on still another chiasmus: Trajan, Ripheus; Christ to come, Christ come.
As opposed to a more comfortable understanding, in other words, that Trajan and (more pointedly) Ripheus had been won to the God of the Christians through implicit faith (see Aquinas, ST II–II, q. 2, a. 7), Dante insists that he believes that we believe that they believed explicitly in Christ, in Trajan’s case (less difficult to accept, but involving a major miracle [see vv. 106–117], after the fact; in Ripheus’s, before [see vv. 118–129]). And so they died, not as unbelievers, but as full-fledged Christians. The trick here is to add a disclaimer for Trajan (he died a Christian only when he died a second time) and to swallow hard at the claim made on behalf of Ripheus.
The feet of Jesus, transfixed to the Cross by a single spike, offered one of the most piteous physical images drawn from the Passion. See, for example, Bonvesin de la Riva’s De scriptura rubra in his Libro de le tre scritture, vv. 153–170 (cited by Gragnolati [Grag.2005.1], pp. 95–96; and see p. 231, n. 57), where, in eighteen verses, the word pei (Milanese dialect for “feet”) occurs six times in Bonvesin’s bloody account of the Crucifixion. [return to English / Italian]
106–117. The somewhat grudging authority of St. Thomas (ST, Suppl., q. 71, a. 5) sustains the widely disseminated tale that Trajan was resuscitated by agency of Gregory’s accepted prayers, believed in Christ, was baptized, died a second time, and was received in Heaven (see the note to Purg. X.73–93). Thomas, however, seems in fact to have been drawn to the story of Gregory’s intervention on Trajan’s behalf, referring to it in some six loci in his other works. See the indispensable online Corpus Thomisticum (www.corpusthomisticum.org), the project in which Father Roberto Busa convinced IBM to become his partner in 1946. [return to English / Italian]
108. What is perhaps most surprising about Trajan’s reward is that it was won not by his hope, but by that of Pope Gregory. We are reminded of the fate of those in Limbo (where, we assume, Trajan was first lodged), who exist (according to Inf. IV.42) longing for a better lot, if without hope for it (sanza speme). Gregory’s hope “conquered” God on Trajan’s behalf; the emperor himself, the evidence that we gather from Limbo would seem to assert, was hopeless. [return to English / Italian]
118–129. Some early commentators (e.g., Pietro di Dante [Pietro1, comm. to these verses], John of Serravalle [comm. to vv. 31–36 and 127–129]) speak of the “baptism of fire” in those inspired by the Holy Spirit to love God perfectly. For Dante, Virgil’s single word, iustissimus, seems to have been the key for this incredible invention. (For the centrality of justice to Dante’s design, see the note to Inferno III.4.)
To Ripheus Virgil has dedicated a total of only five lines in the Aeneid; Dante doubles that (and then some) in this passage alone. [return to English / Italian]
121. The word drittura is a hapax in the poem, but has a Dantean history before it puts in its appearance here, first in Convivio (IV.xvii.6), where, as rectitude, it is an attribute of the eleventh and final of Aristotle’s moral virtues, Justice. Drittura also appears in the exilic canzone, “Tre donne intorno al cor mi son venute” (Rime CIV.35), where she seems as much a despised exile from Florence as does the poet. [return to English / Italian]
126. As provocation, this detail is over the top. Nonetheless, the commentators are amazingly willing to accept what Dante says without protest. The whole story of Ripheus is nothing less than outrageous, and now the poet tops it off by turning him, as Poletto (comm. to vv. 124–126) had the strength of mind to observe, into a sort of Trojan St. Paul. Why not? Dante seems to have thought; if he became a Christian, he must have hated those shoddy pagan gods and the religious practices of his fellow pagans, doesn’t that makes sense? And so he preached against those practices. Is Dante having fun with us? And at Virgil’s expense? Perhaps. [return to English / Italian]
127–129. The three ladies are obviously the three theological virtues, whom we saw at the right wheel of the chariot of the Church Triumphant in Purgatorio XXIX.121–129. In what sense did they “serve to baptize” Ripheus? Since that ritual was not available to him, and since he was born with original sin upon him, he required something in its place. Somehow he acquired the three theological virtues and these brought him to Christ. Dante’s text here may reflect a passage in St. Augustine’s De doctrina christiana (I.xxxix.43): “Thus a man supported by faith, hope, and charity, with an unshaken hold upon them, does not need the Scriptures except for the instruction of others” (tr. D. W. Robertson, Jr.). [return to English / Italian]
130–148. The fourth and final section of this canto addresses itself to a question that has always troubled Christians (as is focally shown in many of the writings of Augustine): predestination. Reiterating Thomas’s criticism of our all-too-human desire to speculate upon the likely salvation or damnation of our neighbors (Par. XIII.139–142), the Eagle now portrays as cosmic the unknowing that surrounds God’s purpose. Not even the immortal just souls in the Empyrean know all the elect (see verse 72 for the less dramatic notice of the shortness of mortal vision in this regard). This comes as something of a surprise, as Torquato Tasso noted (comm. to vv. 133–135), since everything we have previously learned about this topic would clearly seem to indicate that the saved know, in God, all things that exist (see, inter alia, Par. V.4–6, VIII.85–90, IX.73–75, XV.49–51, XVII.13–18, and XIX.28–30, as well as the notes to Par. IV.16–18 and XIV.7–9); however, Dante’s enthusiasm for the subject seems to have led him into at least a possible self-contradiction, since what is said here denies that even the blessed can have complete knowledge of what God has in His mind. Gragnolati (Grag.2005.1, passim) argues that after the general resurrection God’s thought will be knowable by all the saved. Dante’s apparent assertion that the blessed do not know the identities of those not yet saved certainly seems to violate the principle that whatever God knows the saved are able to read in His mind, as Tasso noted. From Paradiso XV.49–51 we have learned that Cacciaguida knew that Dante was inscribed in the Book of Life. And
so we must wonder how thoroughly the poet held to this apparent revision of his earlier view, as much as we must honor it.
Venturi (comm. to verse 135) was apparently the first commentator to refer to part of the collecta (“collect”—originally a short prayer recited to Christians gathered [“collected”] for a service) known as “the Collect for the living and the dead”: “Deus, cui soli cognitus est numerus electorum in superna felicitate locandus” (God, to whom alone is known the number of the elect that is to be set in supernal bliss). This prayer, once it was cited by Venturi, had a certain afterlife in the commentators right through the nineteenth century, but for some reason has been allowed to vanish in our time. Nonetheless, while it does give us an official teaching of the Church regarding the limits of the knowledge of those in the Empyrean, it certainly is at odds with what the poem has led us to expect, as Tasso observed. [return to English / Italian]
134. The Eagle once again, concluding its presence in the poem, speaks as a plural entity, in the collective voice of the individual souls of the just. [return to English / Italian]
139–141. Thus were Dante’s weak eyes strengthened by Justice (cf. the Eagle’s very first words at XIX.13, speaking in the first-person singular: “Per esser giusto e pio” [For being just and merciful]). [return to English / Italian]
141. The phrase “soave medicina” (sweet medication) recalls the medicina of Inferno XXXI.3. It also probably refers to the “pestilence” the protagonist’s eyes had encountered in the counterpoised object of vision to this briefer catalogue of the justly saved, the group of twelve damned rulers found in Canto XIX. As Marino Barchiesi (Barc.1973.1), pp. 73–74, realized, it also recalls the “disease” of sympathy for classical divination demonstrated by the protagonist in Inferno XX. And, in this vein, see Hollander (Holl.1980.2), p. 199: “The disease which has been cured in Paradiso XX revealed its etiology in Inferno XX.” [return to English / Italian]
142–148. This is the final simile of the canto and of this simile-filled heaven (there are twelve in Cantos XVIII–XX, four in each): As a lutenist accompanies a singer, Trajan and Ripheus move their flames, as though in accompaniment, to the Eagle’s words. [return to English / Italian]
PARADISO XXI
* * *
1–4. As has always been the case (Par. I.64–66 [Moon]; V.88–96 [Mercury]; VIII.14–15 [Venus]; X.37–39 [Sun]; XIV.79–84 [Mars]; XVIII.52–57 [Jupiter]; and in these verses), as he ascends to a new heaven, Dante fixes his eyes on Beatrice’s face so that nothing else can attract his attention. And it will be much the same in the three ascents still before him (Par. XXII.97–105 [Starry Sphere]; XXVII.88–96 [Crystalline Sphere]; XXX.14–27 [Empyrean]). In most of these moments, Beatrice is either explicitly or indirectly portrayed as smiling. This time, however, there is something quite different about the heavenly guide’s disposition, as we discover in the following tercet: For the first time in this situation, an ascent to the next celestial heaven, Beatrice is rather pointedly not smiling. The little mystery that this fact engenders is left for Peter Damian to resolve (see vv. 61–63). [return to English / Italian]
5–12. The reference to Ovid’s Semele (Metam. III.256–315) may at first seem out of place in this context (as it did not when it occurred in Inf. XXX.1–2, where the vengeance of God upon the counterfeiters is compared to the vengeance taken by Juno upon Semele). “Semele, daughter of Cadmus, king of Thebes; she was beloved by Jupiter, by whom she became the mother of Bacchus. Juno, in order to avenge herself upon Jupiter, appeared to Semele in the disguise of her aged nurse Beroe, and induced her to ask Jupiter to show himself to her in the same splendour and majesty in which he appeared to Juno. Jupiter, after warning Semele of the danger, complied with her request, and appeared before her as the god of thunder, whereupon she was struck by lightning and consumed to ashes” (T). Here, Beatrice, as Jove, withholds her sovereign and celestial beauty from her mortal “lover” until such time as he will be able to bear her divine beauty. Thus Ovid’s “tragic” tale, embellished with a Christian and “comic” conclusion, is rewritten; unlike Semele, Dante will become capable of beholding the immortals face-to-face. See Brownlee (Brow.1991.2) for a discussion in this vein, also demonstrating that this myth functions as the “spine” of the narrative of Dante’s spiritual growth in this heaven. [return to English / Italian]
8. The phrase l’etterno palazzo (eternal palace) recalls, according to Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 94, the domus Dei (house of God) mentioned by Jacob in Genesis 28:17, a passage not distant from the one describing his dream of the ladder, so prominently visited in this canto. See the note to vv. 28–30. [return to English / Italian]
13–15. Beatrice announces that they have arrived in the seventh heaven, that of Saturn, characterized, as we shall find, by monastic silence. As the tenth canto of this cantica marked a transition to a higher realm (from the subsolar heavens of Moon, Mercury, and Venus), so does this canto lift the pilgrim into a still higher realm, beyond that dedicated to the praise of those associated with knowledge, just warfare, and just rulership, for Dante the highest forms of human activity in the world. Contemplation, as a form of direct contact with divinity, is thus marked off as a still higher form of human activity, one that itself borders on the divine. The major exemplary figures in this realm, Peter Damian and Benedict, are presented as, even during their lives on earth, having been nearly angelic in their comprehension, if, however, maintaining contact with the ordinary in their daily rituals of monastic labor (a monastery was, among other things, a sort of single-sex farming community). The eighth sphere will present us with still holier humans, writers of the Christian Bible (Saints Peter, James, and John), while in the ninth we find the reflection of the angelic intelligences. Thus we are here entering the final triad in the poet’s tripartite division of the created universe.
That the constellation Leo should be described as warm (“ardente”—v. 14) seems to allow the understanding that Dante is speaking only metaphorically (the Sun being in Leo, and thus “warming” it). But, as Torraca (comm. to vv. 13–15) and others, after him, point out, an antecedent text (Par. XVI.39) also seems to make the constellation itself heat-producing. [return to English / Italian]
16–18. Beatrice’s monitory metaphor is precise: Dante should put his mind/memory behind his eyes in order to make them mirrors, by agency of such “backing,” in order to understand and remember what he is about to see in Saturn. [return to English / Italian]
19–24. As Tozer (comm. to these verses) paraphrases: “The man who could conceive the greatness of my joy in feasting my eyes on Beatrice’s face, would also be able to understand that I felt still greater delight in obeying her injunctions, when I looked away from her to the object which she indicated.” [return to English / Italian]
19. It is not unusual for Dante to present his intellectual quest in terms of metaphors of ingestion. See the note to Paradiso X.22–27. [return to English / Italian]
24. The line “balancing the one side of the scale against the other” reflects the strength of the protagonist’s desire to look at Beatrice as measured against his even greater desire to obey her. [return to English / Italian]
25–27. For a previous (and similarly circumlocutory) reference to Saturn, see Inferno XIV.95–96; and, for Dante’s overall assessment of this best of the pagan gods, who presided over a golden age, see Iannucci (Iann.1992.2).
The planet is mentioned by name only once in the poem (Purg. XIX.3). It is a larger presence in Convivio, where it is mentioned several times, including in the following description: “The heaven of Saturn has two properties by which it may be compared to Astrology: one is the slowness of its movement through the 12 signs, for according to the writings of the astrologers, a time of more than 29 years is required for its revolution; the other is that it is high above all the other planets” (Conv. II.xiii.28—tr. R. Lansing). This makes it symbolically the most lofty philosophical pursuit of all, since astrology is the highest and most difficult scien
ce for its students to master. Theology alone is more lofty—and more difficult. [return to English / Italian]
28–30. This ladder, as has been recognized at least since the fourteenth century (see the Codice Cassinese, comm. to Par. XXII.67), derives from the Bible, the ladder to Heaven seen by Jacob in his dream (Genesis 28:12), as Dante’s reference in the next canto will underline (Par. XXII.70–72). Further, and as Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 29–30) point out, both these saints, Peter Damian and Benedict, had written of Jacob’s Ladder as emblematizing the purpose of (monastic) life. However, we probably ought also to consider Boethius, who presents the Lady Philosophy as having the image of a ladder on her gown (Cons. Phil. I.1[pr]), connecting the Greek letters pi (at the bottom, for practical knowledge) and theta (at the top, for theoretical or, we might say, contemplative knowledge [Dante knew enough Greek to realize that theta is also the first letter of the word for God, theos]). Singleton (comm. to vv. 29–30) credits Grandgent for the reference to Boethius. See the note to Paradiso XXII.1.
That the ladder is golden reminds us that Saturn reigned in the golden age. [return to English / Italian]