Paradiso (The Divine Comedy series Book 3)

by Dante

  Other, if less noticed, problems about the population of the Rose are caused by the location of Beatrice’s presence in it. This is obviously idiosyncratic to this particular viewer, since it is the only element not part of a balanced design. And, compounding that problem, her placement itself seems to be problematic, out of order. From what we are nearly forced to extrapolate from the arrangement seen in the top row, the center lines divide male from female on both sides of the Rose. Thus Beatrice should be next to a male (e.g., Benedict). Iconography apparently trumped the boy-girl ordering principle in Dante’s mind. Further, he had boxed himself into this arrangement in Inferno II.102, where Beatrice says that Lucy came to her in Heaven where she was seated next to Rachel. In any case, there does not seem to be a way around the fact that in placing Beatrice next to Rachel, Dante has violated his own unstated but clearly formulated rules. The following arrangement is based on the left-right axis as provided for in item (1), above. [return to English / Italian]

  38–39. All those commentators who believe that Dante “doesn’t mean” what he indicates, that in Heaven for the Last Judgment and general resurrection there will be an equal number of Christians and Hebrews (the latter including only a few gentiles in their number, at least two [see the note to Par. XXXI.25–27] and only possibly more), should have to recite these lines aloud before saying anything about the issue. [return to English / Italian]

  40–48. Dante now draws another boundary line, this one dividing the “north-south” axis of the Rose into two portions of equal height (though of unequal volume). There are three classes of saved babies, all of whom, because they had not attained the age of reason, died only in their inherited sinfulness (i.e., without positive sin): (1) Jewish infants who somehow shared their parents’ faith in Christ to come; (2) Jewish infants whose parents, once circumcision was instituted as a ritual by the Jews, had them circumcised (see the note to vv. 76–81); (3) Christian infants who had the better form of “circumcision,” baptism. In real terms, then, the rules for Christian infants were more stringent. [return to English / Italian]

  43. The “conditions” referred to indicate, of course, ritual circumcision. [return to English / Italian]

  46–48. Dante obviously enjoyed rewarding himself for his strict interpretation of the law of baptism in Inferno IV.30, when he agreed with St. Thomas that all unbaptized children will be found in Limbo. Now he sees a multitude of saved infants, and he dwells much longer on them.

  See the note to Paradiso XXXI.59 for discussion of the presence of these babes not as the adults they should become (according to the standard view), but as the babies they were, back in their sweet flesh. See Nardi (Nard.1944.1), pp. 317–34, for the “age” of the babes in Heaven and other problems associated with their presence here. [return to English / Italian]

  49–84. Dante now chooses to deal, at some length, with a knotty problem: Do these sinless and saved innocents appear in the Rose in any meaningful pattern, as do the adults? This matter is set forth and resolved in three parts (vv. 49–60, 61–66, and 67–84). [return to English / Italian]

  49–60. Part I: Bernard has divined that Dante, observing that these infants seem to be ranked in some sort of preferential order, immediately counters that (true) perception with the perfectly sensible notion that they only seem to be ordered by their varying merit, but are in fact merely casually arranged (for how can one distinguish one infant’s moral perfection from another’s?). In response, he treats his pupil as though he were a balky schoolboy (the reader may understandably feel surprise; we are, after all, very near the final vision). [return to English / Italian]

  49. The Latin verb silere (to be silent) is the source of Dante’s Latinism. [return to English / Italian]

  57. The metaphor refers to the hypothesis that lies behind Dante’s question. No, Bernard says, there is no possibility, in this realm, of what exists existing without a reason. Thus, if you see gradation, there is gradation, and there is a reason for it. [return to English / Italian]

  61–66. Part II: The second stage of Bernard’s response to Dante’s unvoiced question is a clear answer: Nothing happens casually here. The reason for His ordering the infants’ places as He does is in the mind of God and it is futile to try to fathom His reasons; just accept them. (And it may be particularly difficult to accept the idea that God creates human souls with unequal degrees of ability to know Him.) [return to English / Italian]

  67–84. Part III: The third and final stage of his response is to give examples of God’s other and similar behavior, which might have made it clear even to Dante that His preference for preference has always been manifest in the varying degrees of his grace. [return to English / Italian]

  67–75. Dante might have learned, for instance, from the Bible that God loves variously. See Malachi 1:2–3: “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated.” And this while they were still in the womb. Distinguishing them was not what they have done (they have not done anything), but, as it may seem, the color of their hair (Esau; see Genesis 25:25). That is the uncomprehending human view. God sees what we do not, and knows what we do not: the inner sight of our fellow beings. Esau’s red and Jacob’s black hair were only the outward manifestations of their inner differences, their abilities to know and love God. [return to English / Italian]

  76–84. Making clear what was latent in lines 40–48, Bernard now details the “history of grace” for babies, at first their parents’ love for Christ to come, then circumcision, and finally (in the age of Christ) baptism.

  For the first two of these, see St. Thomas (ST III, q. 70, a. 4), cited by Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 76–78): “Ante institutionem circumcisionis fides Christi futuri iustificabat tam pueros quam adultos” (Before the institution of circumcision, faith in Christ to come justified both little children and adults). Bosco/Reggio go on to point out that Thomas (ST III, q. 70, a. 2) also holds that Original Sin is passed along through males alone (though it affects all, since our race cannot rely on matrilineal parthenogenesis), which accounts for the emphasis on male circumcision in the second tercet of this passage. However, the rules became more stringent once Christ came, with baptism now mandatory for the salvation of the innocent. [return to English / Italian]

  79. Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 79–81) understands that the “age of circumcision” began with Abraham. The author of the Codice Cassinese (comm. to this verse) was the first to understand the reference here as being to the first two ages, from Adam to the Flood, from the Flood to Abraham, some 3,184 years according to him. [return to English / Italian]

  83–87. Bernard’s lecture ends with the fourth and concluding set of identical rhymes on Cristo. See the notes to Paradiso XII.71–75 and XIV.103–108. [return to English / Italian]

  85–87. This transitional tercet presents the face of Mary as preparation for the final vision of Christ’s features in the next canto (verse 131), a stunning detail, suggesting a resemblance both physical for the human side of the Godhead and spiritual (Mary’s perfect purity of soul as the only human worthy of bearing the Christ). [return to English / Italian]

  88–93. And now, as a sort of coda to the foregoing “lecture,” the angels radiate their pleasure in her down from above to Mary. Gabriel, who had before (see Par. XXIII.94–96) descended to reenact the Annunciation, does so once again, spreading his wings as the painters of this scene always show him doing, and singing her song. [return to English / Italian]

  95. Gabriel’s praise of Mary is the last singing we hear in the poem. (For the program of song in the last cantica, see the note to Par. XXI.58–60.) If we recall the first parodic references to “hymns” (Inf. VII.125) or “songs” (Inf. XIX.118) or “psalms” (Inf. XXXI.69) to describe antimelodic utterance in Hell, we realize the care with which Dante organized his plan for the “musical score” of the Commedia, beginning in bono with the first singing heard in Purgatorio (II.46–48), the “theme song” of the entire work, Psalm 113, In Isräel de Aegypto. [return to English / Itali
an]

  97–99. The assembled choirs of Heaven, angelic and human, share a moment of joy in Mary, both singing and beaming with love. [return to English / Italian]

  97. The word cantilena, a hapax, would seem to refer specifically to Gabriel’s song (although some think it is more general in its reference). The singers would seem to include (although there is some uncertainty about this also) everyone on the scene, all the angels and all the saints, and their response, according to Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 94–99), is both spoken and sung: “cantantes et dicentes Dominus tecum etc.” (singing and saying “The Lord be with you,” etc.). Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 85–99) fills in the “etc.” by reciting the full response: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.”

  Cantilena (at least in Italian) seems to be a coinage of Dante’s. It happens that the word is also a hapax in the Vulgate (as Aversano has noted [Aver.2000.2], p. 169), occurring in the following passage of Ecclesiasticus (47:13–18): “Solomon reigned in days of peace, and God gave him rest on every side, that he might build a house for his name and prepare a sanctuary to stand for ever. / How wise you became in your youth! You overflowed like a river with understanding. / Your soul covered the earth, and you filled it with parables and riddles. / Your name reached to far-off islands, and you were loved for your peace. / For your songs [cantilenis] and proverbs and parables, and for your interpretations, the countries marveled at you. / In the name of the Lord God, who is called the God of Israel, you gathered gold like tin and amassed silver like lead.” Aversano reasonably enough believes that the word cantilenae here reflects the songs of Solomon gathered in the Cantica canticorum. Thus cantilena may have a certain affinity with the last coinage for a God-derived song, tëodia, that we heard in Paradiso XXV.73, as Mattalia (comm. to verse 97) suggests. [return to English / Italian]

  100–102. Dante’s last address to Bernard sounds like a conflation of his farewells to Beatrice (Par. XXXI.79–81) and to Virgil (Purg. XXX.46–51), his first “padre” in the poem. (See the note to Par. XVI.16.) [return to English / Italian]

  103–105. The protagonist does all of us who need assistance a favor by asking Bernard who that angelic presence was. [return to English / Italian]

  107–108. Mary is now presented as the morning star, Venus, a moment that certainly Nietzsche would have to agree is a pronounced “transvaluation of value,” even if he might not approve of the result. [return to English / Italian]

  109–114. Bernard identifies Gabriel as the angel who carried the palm of victory down to Mary at the Annunciation when Jesus decided to give His life for our salvation. Whose victory? Hers, for having been chosen; eventually ours, over death. [return to English / Italian]

  115. The three words at the beginning of this verse echo Virgil’s similar urgings of Dante to come along in Inferno XX.124 and Purgatorio IV.137. [return to English / Italian]

  116–117. The language is that of imperial Rome (“patricians,” “empire”) “transvaluated” into Christian terms, or at least terms that are positive in either context: justice and piety, perhaps the values most readily translatable between, in many respects, two very different cultures. [return to English / Italian]

  118–120. The two “roots” of the Rose are Adam, “father” of all those who believed in Christ to come, and St. Peter, the first leader of His Church.

  For a study in which the Rose is seen as the culmination of the vegetation motif in the poem, see Frankel (Fran.1982.1). Her article studies this motif, from the tree losing its leaves in the simile of Inferno III.112–116 through its culmination in the form of a repetaled rose, moving from Virgilian tragedy to Dantean comedy. See also Prandi (Pran.1994.1) for a similar appreciation, if from a different perspective. [return to English / Italian]

  119. Calling the Queen of Heaven “Agosta” is a daring “imperializing” touch. The last time we heard the adjective it was in Beatrice’s mouth (Par. XXX.136) and described a true emperor, Henry VII. This is perhaps as far as Dante can go in the vein initiated in Purgatorio XXXII.102, “that Rome where Christ Himself is Roman.” [return to English / Italian]

  121–126. Adam and St. Peter each receive a terzina, the former the author of our woe, the latter the agent of our redemption as the founder of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, which holds the keys to the Kingdom. [return to English / Italian]

  121. Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 121–126) says that this verb, aggiustarsi, translates the Latin appropinquare (to near, approach). It is yet another hapax occurring in rhyme position. [return to English / Italian]

  127–129. St. John the Evangelist, who, as author/scribe of the Apocalypse, saw the final tribulations of the Church in his visions on the Isle of Patmos. See Dante’s “portrait” of him (Purg. XXIX.144), dormendo, con la faccia arguta (as though he slept, despite his keen expression). Is this a prefiguration of Dante’s visionary experience that is being prepared for in these concluding verses of this canto? See the note to verse 139. [return to English / Italian]

  130–132. Three spaces past Peter and next to Adam sits Moses, who led the stiff-necked Israelites (first in Exodus 32:9) through the desert, feeding them on manna (Exodus 16:14–15). [return to English / Italian]

  133–135. Diametrically opposite St. Peter sits Anne, the mother of Mary. She is apparently the only occupant of the Rose allowed the special privilege of not looking up at God, but across the rim of the stadium at her daughter. [return to English / Italian]

  136–138. This is St. Lucy’s third appearance in the poem (see Inf. II.97 and Purg. IX.52–63). Bernard here reminds Dante of the first one, when he was “ruining” downward back toward death (Inf. 1.61) when Virgil appeared to him, the result of the collaboration of the Virgin, Lucy, and Beatrice (seated at first where she is right now, next to Rachel [Inf. II.102]). The “greatest father” is, of course, Adam. [return to English / Italian]

  139. This verse has caused innumerable problems. Giacalone (comm. to vv. 139–144) compiles six differing attempts at interpretation; there are probably more, but one must admit it is hard to distinguish shadings of meaning from substantial differences. Most can agree that the verse refers to time and to sleep, but what exactly is time doing to the protagonist and what sort of sleep is involved? Further, and pivotal, is a distinction about when the dreaming referred to occurred or is occurring or will occur. The basic disagreements have, it is probably fair to say, their roots in the temporal relation of Dante’s dreaming. Either Dante (1) has been “dreaming” from the beginning of this special experience, as might be indicated by Inferno I.11, where Dante admits he was full of sleep when he lost the true way, and/or (2) is “dreaming” now (in the sense that he is having a more than normal experience of the afterworld), or (3) will be “out of time” (in both senses of the phrase) when he has the final vision of the Trinity, for which Bernard will seek Mary’s aid, in a few minutes. Barolini (Baro.1992.1), pp. 144–51, carries on a long conversation with Barbi (Barb.1934.1), in which she unsuccessfully tries to undermine his objections to her position. Barolini wants to make the entire poem “visionary.” Barbi, on the other hand, wants to distinguish between the “experiential” feel of most of the narrated journey and “vision” properly speaking. And the fact that there are “real” dreams presented in the poem (e.g., in Purg. IX, XIX, and XXVII) certainly implies that the rest of the time Dante is having “normal” experience of the decidedly postnormal things he witnesses in the afterworld. The crux of the issue found in this verse is to what precise (or for that matter general) dreaming the text refers. More than one hundred years ago, Torraca (comm. to vv. 139–141) read the verse as follows: “[P]erchè già cessa il tuo essere nel tempo, finisco, per non ritardare la tua partecipazione all’eternità, le tua visione suprema” (Because your presence in time already is ceasing, I finish speaking, so as not to delay your participation in eternity, your supreme vision). For a recent paper, not very distant from Torraca’s finding, see Cuzzilla (Cuzz.2003.1), whose vi
ews influenced our reading of the verse. What he suggests is that the “sleep” is the mystic vision, already referred to in the picture of John “dreaming” in Purgatorio XXIX (see the note to vv. 127–129).