by Dante
For some other discussions, see Passerini (Pass.1918.1), ad loc.; Gilson (Gils.1924.1), pp. 62–63; Pernicone (Pern.1965.1), pp. 120–21. Gilson cites Canticle of Canticles 5:2, “Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat” (I sleep and my heart wakes), a passage that Bonaventure uses to indicate the state of ecstatic vision. And see Boyde (Boyd.1993.1), pp. 130–39, for a discussion of somnia (dreams). See also the note to Paradiso XXVII.79–81. [return to English / Italian]
140–141. Alessio (Ales.1989.1), p. 12, finds a source for Dante’s much-admired image in the conclusion of a treatise on epistolary rhetoric, Palma, by Buoncompagno da Signa. Advising his reader that he should measure out his epistolary space with care, so that his thoughts will all fit onto the amount of paper reserved for them, Buoncompagno continues his thought with a simile: “sicut providus sartor pannum, de quo camisiam disposuit facere vel gunnellam” (just as a tailor, having thought ahead, has prepared the cloth from which to make a shirt or else a skirt). [return to English / Italian]
142–144. Bernard calls our attention to the fact that Dante’s sight, improving, is moving up within the raggio (ray) that irradiates the Rose, eventually to penetrate its source. See the note to Paradiso XXXI.94–99. [return to English / Italian]
145–148. Unlike Icarus (see the note to Par. XV.54), Dante will not trust his own wings, but will listen to Bernard, a more successful “father” than Daedalus, perhaps because he recognizes the necessity of the grace that Mary can help obtain. [return to English / Italian]
145. The word ne is not a Latinism (ne in Italian is a pronominal particle meaning “of it” or “of them”), but a Latin conjunction meaning “lest.” [return to English / Italian]
146. The neologism and hapax oltrarsi (move forward, advance), nearly certainly forced by the requirement of rhyme, will be echoed in the noun oltraggio in the next canto (verse 57). [return to English / Italian]
149–150. Bernard uses the future tense as an imperative: “You shall follow me.…” The implication is that Dante would not want to do anything else but internalize his words. [return to English / Italian]
151. The poet puts what clearly might have served as the opening line of the next canto here, apparently to give Bernard an uninterrupted presence at center stage for his prayer. Momigliano (comm. to vv. 149–151) describes this canto-ending as one of the most remarkable in the poem, “a long pause that sets apart, like a hush falling over the congregation, the prayer that will be raised in the holy atmosphere of the next canto.” [return to English / Italian]
PARADISO XXXIII
* * *
1–39. This much (and justly) celebrated passage, Bernard’s prayer to the Virgin, has the authority and unity of a separate poem. This is not to suggest that it is in any way incongruous in its context (quite the opposite is true), only that it could be published (as surely it has been) in an anthology of devotional lyrics and be one of the most moving and commanding of the collection.
For a study of this passage, see Auerbach (Auer.1949.1), who aligns it with examples of classical and Christian praise. And for the large extent to which Dante has borrowed from Bernard’s own writings for the words of this prayer, see Aversano (Aver.2000.2), pp. 173–76.
Gian Carlo Alessio, in a lecture he presented at Princeton University during the autumn semester of 1981, broke down the rhetorical divisions of Bernard’s prayer as follows:
1–12: salutatio
13–21: exordium
22–27: narratio
28–33: repetitio
34–39: peroratio
The tone of intimacy found in this prayer is emphasized by its extraordinary number of second-person-singular pronouns (tu, te, ti) and adjectives (tuo, tua), 17 of them in 39 verses (and that figure does not include second-person-singular endings of verbs). See the note to Paradiso XXXI.79–90. [return to English / Italian]
1. This verse establishes the basic modality of the entire canto, making two references to what will be a common theme of so many verses in it: harmonious resolution of impossibly related contraries. “Virgin” and “mother” cannot logically be the shared properties of any woman; nor can any woman be the daughter of her son. This overriding of the logic of impossibility will culminate in the final simile of the poem, the geometer attempting to square the circle. The only answer to impossibility is miracle. Reacting to the entire canto, Güntert has said (Gunt.2002.2), p. 505, “No Christian poet had ever been so daring.”
For the beginnings of the last cantos of the first two cantiche, see the note to Purgatorio XXXIII.1–3, which points out that each of the previous opening lines was in another poetic voice, first that of Venantius Fortunatus and second that of David, both of them speaking Latin. Here we have another poetic voice, that of St. Bernard, but he does not use his customary Latin tongue (apparently no writing of Bernard in French survives), but the vernacular. This opening line thus presents us first with a completed pattern and then, on further consideration, with a broken pattern: We expect Latin here, but do not find it.
For both elements of this verse as dependent on formulations found in the fifth book of Alain de Lille’s Anticlaudianus, see Ledda (Ledd.2002.1), p. 308n., citing the previous notice by Jacomuzzi (Jaco.1965.1), p. 12n. Ledda also reports other medieval formulae that are similar to Dante’s paradoxical expressions.
This marks the thirteenth time that a canto has begun with a speaker’s words (see the note to Par. V.1). [return to English / Italian]
2. If one had to choose a single line of the fourteen thousand two hundred and thirty-three verses of the Commedia to stand for its stylistic program, countering classical high style with Christian sermo humilis, this one might serve that purpose. It begins and ends with the humanity of Mary, humble and a mere human creature, who is, at the same time, lofty (alta), as is the poem itself. [return to English / Italian]
3. See Carroll’s explanation of this line (comm. to vv. 1–39): “The woman worthy to be the ‘Mother of God’ must have been elect from the beginning.” [return to English / Italian]
4–6. This tercet, remarkable for its triple play on the “making” of flesh (fattore, farsi, fattura), rises to the heights with the hapax (and coinage?) nobilitasti (ennobled). What is the noblest act ever done? God’s making himself mortal for our sake (cf. Par. VII.118–120). [return to English / Italian]
7. Dante’s use of the word ventre (here and once earlier for Mary’s womb at Par. XXIII.104) was perhaps not intended to be controversial. See Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 1–21), pointing out that Dante may have deliberately been echoing “et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus” (blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus [originally found in Luke 1:42]). This is the end of the first part of the prayer: “Hail, Mary, full of grace, / blessed are you among women.” Nonetheless, and as we have observed (see the notes to Par. XXI.84 and XXIII.104), some of Dante’s readers find this a lowering of diction unbefitting such a lofty subject.
In a related and similar vein, see McLaughlin (Mcla.1995.1), pp. 20–21, remarking that “After Petrarch reasserts the absolute superiority of Latin over the volgare, Dante’s vernacular echoes of classical auctores are regarded as a diminution of their status.”
On the word amore, see Sacchetto (Sacc.1974.1), for whom love is the key to the poem, occurring 19 times in Inferno, 50 in Purgatorio, and 85 in Paradiso. [return to English / Italian]
8–9. Christ’s sacrifice was the evidence of the rekindling of God’s love for humankind, resulting in the saved souls that populate the Rose. [return to English / Italian]
10–12. For the elevation of Mary found here (and in all this passage), see Carroll (comm. to vv. 1–39): “[Dante] must have been familiar with the distinction of Aquinas between latria, the worship due to God; dulia, the veneration given to saints and Angels; and hyperdulia, the higher veneration given to Mary, as the most exalted of creatures (ST II–II, q. 103, a. 3, 4).” [return to English / Italian]
11–12. For the saved, there is no more need for hope—their hop
e (as well as their faith) has been rewarded, and now they only love eternally. Meanwhile, while to those (few, we need to recall, lest we get carried away by the warmth of these verses) left on earth who will be saved, Mary offers the surest path of hope for their salvation. [return to English / Italian]
14–15. Campi (comm. to vv. 13–15) cites Monsignor Cavedoni for the attribution of this image to St. Bernard, Sermones in Vigilia Nativitatis Domini III.10: “Nihil nos Deus habere voluit, quod per Mariae manus non transiret” (God does not wish us to have anything that has not first passed through the hands of Mary). [return to English / Italian]
15. Geoffrey Chaucer, who knew and understood this poem better than any English writer for many centuries, appropriated this line in his Troilus with hilarious result. Stanza 182 of Book III (one stanza from the numerical midpoint of the work, 588 of 1178 stanzas) has Troilus in the midst of his three-stanza prayer to Venus (his “Mary”). Whoever wants to accomplish his love (he is thinking about carnal pleasure), he says, without Venus’s help, “his desire will fly without wings,” that is, will not be successful. It is Paradiso XXXIII done as Some Like It Hot, one of Billy Wilder’s greatest films. (That Chaucer could do Dante “straight” is witnessed in many of his texts; in the context of this canto, see particularly his rewriting of the first half of Bernard’s prayer in “The Second Nun’s Prologue” of The Canterbury Tales, vv. 29–77.)
As Simone Marchesi, in conversation, has pointed out, Chaucer’s Billy Wilder was Giovanni Boccaccio, whose lascivious Venetian friar Albert (Decam. IV.ii), in illicit pleasure with a Venetian matron, “flew many times without his wings.” Albert appears to the credulous woman as the angel Gabriel, decked out in a costume including wings that he takes off only in the darkness of her bedroom. Boccaccio is clearly pulling Dante’s leg; now Chaucer does so also. [return to English / Italian]
17–18. For liberality extending itself unrequested, see Purgatorio XVII.59–60 and Paradiso XVII.75. [return to English / Italian]
19–20. Here we have a case of a Virgilian borrowing that has apparently remained hidden for centuries (in both texts, CAPITALS mark structural parallels and italics indicate secondary repeated sounds of te):
In TE misericordia, in TE pietate,
in TE magnificenza, in TE s’aduna …
See Georgics IV.465–466 (Orpheus lamenting his dead Eurydice, a scene Dante has revisited in Purg. XXX.49–51 [see the note to that passage] as parallel to his plaint for lost Virgil, as is fairly widely agreed these days):
TE, dulcis coniunx, TE solo in litore secum,
TE veniente die, TE decedente canebat.
[thee, sweet wife, thee, alone on the lone shore,
thee while day dawned, thee while it died, he sang.]
This seems an obvious revisitation. Perhaps we have not seen it because the situations are so opposed. But that is the point: Bernard is a better Orpheus singing a better Eurydice, Maria. It is a small but telling emblem of how Dante rewrites Virgilian tragedy as Christian comedy. And the Virgilian context is striking: We last heard the notes of Georgics IV in tragic mode for his disappearance as a character from the poem; now that poem becomes the subtext for a better moment, his own reentry to this Christian comedy at its highest point.
Notice of this echo is fairly recent. See Hollander (Holl.1993.1), p. 339, citing a communication from Professor Rachel Jacoff in 1987, suggesting the existence of this borrowing, which also possibly reflects Paradiso XXIII.88–89, where Dante presents himself as praying to Mary each morning and evening, while Orpheus presents himself as “singing” Eurydice morning and evening. The stark contrast between Virgilian “Orphic” love that leads to death and Marian affection that leads to eternal life could not be more striking.
We may remember that the first (and only) time we heard Dante’s name in this poem (Purg. XXX.55), it was echoing a passage just a little farther along in this Georgic (see the note to Purg. XXX.63). [return to English / Italian]
22–23. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to these verses) rightly express surprise that there is any debate at all over exactly which of the souls in which parts of the afterworld Bernard refers to, since he obviously refers to all of them. [return to English / Italian]
28–33. The meaning of these verses is clear enough, but the discussion of them is uncertain with regard to a possible source. While several commentators hear a plausible echo of Aeneid II.604–606 (first Gabriele [comm. to vv. 31–32]) in these verses, and a few others hear one of Boethius (Cons. III.m9.25–28) and not of Virgil (first Vellutello [comm. to vv. 28–33]), neither text is really close enough to be a convincingly heard citation, if the Virgilian one has the largest following and the more likely context. If we believe that the Virgilian passage is being alluded to, the parallels are fairly inviting. Where Venus removes the shield of invisibility from the gods so that Aeneas may see his true enemies for what they are, Mary takes the cloud of his mortality away from Dante so that he may see his “friend,” God, as He is. [return to English / Italian]
29–39. These verses contain six words for praying, the densest occurrence of noun and verb forms of priego in the poem. [return to English / Italian]
33. Once again the precise understanding one should have of the verbal noun piacer is an issue. See the note to Purgatorio XXXI.47–54. Grabher (comm. to vv. 28–33) believes that here it means somma bellezza (highest beauty), as do we. [return to English / Italian]
34–39. See Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 1–21), who observe that this final prayer offered by Bernard may reflect the second and final part of the Ave Maria: “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, / ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, / et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen” (Holy Mary, Mother of God, / pray for us sinners now / and at the hour of our death. Amen).
The traditional interpretation of these lines, as it is advanced by Sapegno (comm. to these verses); Chiavacci Leonardi (comm. vv. 34.36); and Dronke (Dron.1994.1), p. 28, fits well with the Marian text. It sees the final moments of the prayer as turning to Dante’s Nachleben back on earth, and hoping that Mary will intervene to help him remain pure, so that he will indeed be able to return here. This understanding is opposed by Pertile (Pert.1981.1); Bàrberi Squarotti (Barb.1995.1), pp. 367–71; and Ledda (Ledd.2002.1), pp. 309–10, all of whom find it inappropriate for Bernard’s prayer to leave the subject of Dante’s vision being pure for that of his post-Paradiso life back on earth being morally sound. Why is this an unseemly concern, either aesthetically or intellectually? It had already been before the reader in Paradiso XXXI.88–90, where Dante himself beseeches Beatrice for this kind of heavenly assistance. Pertile (p. 2) argues that, for the very reason that Dante’s prayer has been accepted, as signified by Beatrice’s smile, there is no longer any need to linger on this issue. Perhaps so. On the other hand, the language of these six verses (particularly at vv. 36 and 37) really does seem to be related to earthly concerns. In other words, even if it seems ungainly to some (but not to most), the standard interpretation seems more plausible. [return to English / Italian]
40–45. The Virgin, evidently made of more august stuff than Beatrice, does not smile when Bernard finishes his prayer as Beatrice did when Dante finished his (Par. XXXI.92), but indicates by the expression in her eyes how much she is gratified by the prayers of the devout. Then she turns her gaze (as did Beatrice) back up to God. [return to English / Italian]
46. As Güntert observes (Gunt.2002.2), p. 511, after the formal conclusion to Bernard’s prayer (vv. 40–45), this verse begins the final “macrosequence” of the one-hundredth canto; it is precisely one hundred verses in length. [return to English / Italian]
48. This verse has caused a central disagreement over its two main potential meanings. We follow Singleton’s interpretation (comm. to this verse): “The meaning of the verb in this verse is much debated, but one aspect of that meaning seems beyond discussion: finii cannot here be in a normal signification of ‘bring to an end.’ Indeed, the context requires that the meaning be the exact opposite, i.e., �
�I brought the ardor of my desire to its highest intensity.’ ” And see the similar position of Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse). Another difficult passage may be considered a “preview” of this one (Purg. XVIII.31–33) and may help unscramble the sense of this line. See the note to that passage (Purg. XVIII.28–33). [return to English / Italian]
49. As Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 177, points out, this is the third and last appearance of Bernard’s name in the poem (see also Par. XXXI.102 and 139), as a sort of Trinitarian gesture of farewell. [return to English / Italian]
50–51. Bernard was signaling, in his capacity as guide, what Dante should be doing, but Dante was already doing exactly that. He has not outrun his need for guidance so much as he has internalized his guide. [return to English / Italian]
52–54. The poet could not be more precise. Up to now his powers of sight have improved so that he can finally see God’s reflection in the universe perfectly, an ability that was far from his grasp when the poem began. Now he will see Him as Himself. Thus the protagonist’s vision is about to move from reflections of His glory up into the beam of light emanating from Him. It is balanced for seconds between the two aspects of deity, reflection and source (see the note to Par. XXIII.82–84). In the next tercet we realize that he has recorded his breakthrough. No Christian except for St. Paul has seen so much—or such is the unspoken claim the poet makes us share. [return to English / Italian]