158. and dragged it off: In 1304 Philip engineered the election of Clement V and transferred the Papal Seat (dragged it off) to Avignon.
Canto XXXIII
THE EARTHLY PARADISE
Eunoë
Dante’s Purification Completed
The Seven Nymphs sing a hymn of sorrow for the grief of the Church, and Beatrice answers with Christ’s words announcing his resurrection. All then move onward, Beatrice summoning Dante to her side as they walk on.
Beatrice begins her discourse with an obscurely worded prophecy of the Deliverance of the Church. In much simpler language, she then utters her FINAL REPROACH TO DANTE for having so lost sight of the truth.
Just as she finishes, the train halts before THE GREAT SPRING from which flow the waters of both Lethe and Eunoë. At Beatrice’s command, the Seven Nymphs lead Dante forward and he DRINKS THE WATERS OF EUNOË. By drinking the waters of Lethe, Dante has already forgotten all sin and error; now every good is strengthened in him. Thus is his FINAL PURIFICATION completed, and Dante rises “perfect, pure, and ready for the stars.”
“Deus, venerunt gentes”—the Holy Seven,
in alternating chorus through their tears,
first three, then four, raised a sweet chant to Heaven;
and Beatrice, when she heard them mourn such loss
sighed with a grief so deep that even Mary
could not have changed more at the foot of the cross.
But when the other virgins in their choir
fell still for her reply, she rose erect
in holy zeal, and said, as if afire:
“Modicum et non videbitis me;
et iterum, dearly beloved sisters,
modicum, et vos videbitis me.”
Then placing the Seven before her, she moved ahead
with a nod to me, to the Lady, and to the Sage
that had remained, to follow where she led.
So she strolled on, and she had not yet laid
her tenth step on the sward, when she turned round
and struck my eyes with her eyes as she said
with a serene tranquillity: “Draw near,
that you may, if I wish to speak to you
as we move on, be better placed to hear.”
When I was, as I should be, at her side,
she said: “Dear brother, why are you not moved
to question me as we move on?”—Tongue-tied,
like one who knows his station is beneath
that of the presences in which he stands,
and cannot drag his voice across his teeth,
so did I, with a voice almost choked through,
manage to say: “My Lady, all my need
and all that is my good is known to you.”
And she to me: “My wish is that you break
the grip of fear and shame, and from now on
no longer speak like one but half awake.
The cart the dragon broke was, and is not;
let him whose fault that is believe God’s wrath
will not be calmed by soup, however hot.
The eagle you saw shed its plumes back there
to make the cart a monster and a prey,
will not remain forever without heir;
for certain as my words, my eyes foresee,
already nearing, the unstayable stars
that bring the time in which, by God’s decree,
five hundred, ten, and five shall be the sign
of one who comes to hunt down and destroy
the giant and his thievish concubine.
My prophecy, being obscure as those
of Themis and the Sphinx, may fail to move you,
since all such words hide what they should disclose;
but soon now, like an Oedipus reborn,
events themselves shall solve the dark enigma,
and without loss of either sheep or corn.
Note my words well, and when you give them breath,
repeat them as I said them, to the living
whose life is no more than a race toward death.
And when you come to write them down, make clear
what you have seen of the Tree, now twice-despoiled
since all-creating God first raised it here.
All those who rob or break those boughs commit
a blasphemy-in-deed, offending God
who sacred to Himself created it.
For just one bite, the First Soul’s tears were spilt
five thousand years and more, yearning for Him
who suffered in His own flesh for that guilt.
Your wits must be asleep not to have known
that a particular reason must account
for its great height and its inverted crown.
Had not your idle thoughts been to your brain
an Elsan water, and your pleasure in them
a Pyramus to the mulberry’s new stain,
those two facts surely should have made you see
the justice of God’s interdict shine forth
as the moral meaning of the form of the Tree.
It is my wish—because I see your mind
turned into stone, and like a stone, so darkened
that the light of what I tell you strikes it blind—
that you bear back, if not in writing, then
in outline, what I say, as pilgrims wreathe
their staffs with palm to show where they have been.”
And I to her: “As pressed wax will retain
a faithful imprint of the signet ring,
so is your seal imprinted on my brain.
But why do your desired words fly so high
above my power to follow their intent
that I see less and less the more I try?”
“They fly so high,” she said, “that you may know
what school you followed, and how far behind
the truth I speak its feeble doctrines go;
and see that man’s ways, even at his best,
are far from God’s as earth is from the heaven
whose swiftest wheel turns above all the rest.”
“But,” I replied, “I have no recollection
of ever having been estranged from you.
Conscience does not accuse me of defection.”
And she then with a smile: “If, as you say
you lack that memory, then call to mind
how you drank Lethe’s waters here today.
As certainly as smoke betrays the fire,
this new forgetfulness of your wish to stray
betrays the sinfulness of that desire.
But I assure you that I shall select
the simplest words that need be from now on
to make things clear to your dull intellect.”
Now with a brighter flame and slower pace
the sun was holding its meridian height,
which varies round the world from place to place,
when suddenly—as one who leads a line
of travelers as their escort will stop short
at a strange sight or an unusual sign—
so stopped the Seven at an edge of shade
pale as a shadow cast by a cold peak
on a cold stream deep in an Alpine glade.
And there ahead of them, in a single flow,
Tigris and Euphrates seemed to rise
and part as friends who linger as they go.
“O light and glory of mankind,” I cried,
“what is this flood that pours forth from one source
and then parts from itself to either side?”
In answer to that prayer I heard the name
“Matilda” and “ask her.” Who spoke up then
as one does who absolves himself of blame:
“This, and much more, I have this very day
explained to him, and Lethe certainly
could not have washed that memory away.”
And Beatrice
: “Perhaps a greater care,
as often happens, dims his memory
and his mind’s eye. But see Eunoë there—
lead him, as is your custom, to the brim
of that sweet stream, and with its holy waters
revive the powers that faint and die in him.”
Then as a sweet soul gladly shapes its own
good will to the will of others, without protest,
as soon as any sign has made it known,
so the sweet maid, taking me by the hand
and saying in a modest voice to Statius,
“Come you with him,” obeyed the good command.
Reader, had I the space to write at will,
I should, if only briefly, sing a praise
of that sweet draught. Would I were drinking still!
But I have filled all of the pages planned
for this, my second, canticle, and Art
pulls at its iron bit with iron hand.
I came back from those holiest waters new,
remade, reborn, like a sun-wakened tree
that spreads new foliage to the Spring dew
in sweetest freshness, healed of Winter’s scars;
perfect, pure, and ready for the Stars.
NOTES
1. Deus, venerunt gentes: Psalm LXXIX, the lamentation for the destruction of Jerusalem. “O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.” So have the later unbelievers despoiled and defiled the Church.
3. first three, then four: The Seven Nymphs sing the psalm antiphonally, the Three Theological Virtues singing first (they being higher in the scale of things), and then the Four Cardinal Virtues.
5-6. even Mary could not have changed more: The comparison is not a hyperbole. Beatrice, mourning for the crucifixion of the Church, would endure the same grief Mary suffered at the crucifixion of her son, Christ and the Church being one.
10-12. Modicum et non videbitis me . . . : “A little while and ye shall not see me; and again a little while, and ye shall see me [because I go to the Father].” (John, xvi, 16.)
These are Christ’s words to his disciples, announcing his resurrection. Beatrice speaks them afire with her holy zeal in reply to the mournful psalm. She is saying, in effect, that the triumph of the True Faith shall be seen again. On one level her words may be taken to mean that the pure in heart shall rise above the corruption of the Church to see Christ again in Heaven. More likely, Dante meant that the Church shall be purged until Christ is once more truly visible in its workings.
14-15. the Lady: Matilda. the Sage that had remained: Statius. The other Sage, Virgil, has departed.
17. her tenth step: Every number mentioned by Dante invites allegorical conjecture, and many have taken the “ten” here to refer to the Ten Commandments. The interpretation seems doubtful, however, especially since the actual steps taken were not yet ten.
18. struck my eyes with her eyes: Dante takes this forceful way of emphasizing the power of her eyes. (The Lamps of Heaven?)
19. serene tranquillity: The change in Beatrice is not a matter of feminine mood. When Dante still had upon himself a stain of neglect, Beatrice berated him for it. But he has now done fit penance and the stain has been removed, thereby removing all cause for anger.
22. When I was, as I should be, at her side: Dante’s whole progress up to this time has been, as it should be the object of every soul, to stand beside Divine Love.
27. and cannot drag his voice across his teeth: It is characteristic of Dante that a certain pungency should creep into his phrasing even at such sublime moments.
31-33. like one but half awake: Dante has achieved purification, and all memory of sin has been washed from him by the waters of Lethe. He must yet drink of the waters of Eunoë, which will strengthen every good memory in him. Because he has not yet been so strengthened, he still speaks, partly, with the habituated fears and confusions of his former ways. It is these fears and confusions Beatrice is telling him to put by.
34-36. Beatrice now refers to the allegory that concluded Canto XXXII, assuring Dante, as in her answer to the psalm, that a dawn of righteousness is approaching. was, and is not: These are the words of John, Revelation, xvii, 8: “The beast thou sawest was, and is not.” soup: In some parts of ancient Greece a murderer could protect himself from all vengeance if for nine successive days he ate soup on the grave of his victim. In Florence it became a custom to stand guard for nine days over the grave of a murdered man to see that no one ate soup upon it. The reference is a strange one, but Dante’s intent is, clearly, that no such simple rite will ward off the vengeance of God.
37-39. the eagle . . . will not remain forever without heir: The eagle is, of course, the Roman Empire. The true heir of the Caesars, who will restore order and goodness, will come at last. Dante thought of Frederick II as the last real heir of the Caesars.
41. the unstayable stars: Nothing can stay the stars in their courses. Beatrice foresees propitious stars already near at hand. (God’s wrath will not be stayed: cf. lines 35-36.)
43. five hundred, ten, and five: As Beatrice says in the next tercet, she is speaking in the veiled tongue of prophecy, and her words hide what they should disclose. Whatever the numerological significance Dante intended by the number, it cannot be identified. Since Dante could make himself clear enough when he wanted to, and since he goes on to have Beatrice say that her meaning is hidden, it follows, as a fair guess, that Dante deliberately kept his reference vague.
46-51. The basic sense of this passage is: “Though my way of speaking is obscure, events themselves will soon make clear my meaning.” It is the mythological references that may confuse the modern reader. Themis: Daughter of Gaea (Earth) and Uranus (Heaven). She was the second wife of Zeus, and later, no longer as his wife, became his Goddess of Law and Order. She was noted for the obscurity of her oracles. the Sphinx: A monster with the head of an innocent maiden and the body of a savage beast. One of the oracles of Themis. She waited for travelers on a rock near Thebes and killed them when they failed to solve her famous riddle: “What walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three at night?” Oedipus: The ill-fated King of Thebes answered properly that the riddle meant a man in the three stages of his life (for he crawls on all fours as an infant, walks on two legs in the middle of his life, and totters on two legs and a cane thereafter). The Sphinx was so enraged on hearing the right answer that she killed herself. (Dante’s text reads not “Oedipus” but “the Naiads.” The Naiads had no connection with the riddle. Dante’s error follows a corrupt text of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, VII, 759, which reads “Naiades”—the Naiads—for “Laiades”—son of Laius, i.e., Oedipus.) without loss of either sheep or corn: Themis, to avenge her oracle, sent a monstrous beast to ravage the flocks and fields of Thebes.
52. and when you give them breath: This phrase is my own invention, forced upon the text by the, to me, clear necessity to render line 54 with “death” as the rhyme. I hope the rendering will seem at least approximately Dantean: since the words thus far have been spoken only by Beatrice, a spirit, they have not yet been given breath, as they will be when Dante repeats them with his mortal voice.
56. twice-despoiled: Dante probably meant the Fall as the first despoilment of the tree, and the corruption of the Church as the second.
59. blasphemy-in-deed: As distinct from blasphemy-in-word and blasphemy-in-thought.
61. the First Soul’s: Adam’s.
62. five thousand years and more: According to Genesis, v, 5, Adam lived 930 years on earth. According to Paradiso, XXVI, 118, he then waited in Limbo for 4,302 years. Dante follows, in this, the chronology of the ecclesiastical historian Eusebius, who set Christ’s birth in the year 5200 since the Creation. Christ’s death, therefore (and the Harrowing of Hell, for which see Inferno, IV, 53, note), would have occurred in the year 5232.
65. particular reason: The tree is enormously tall and broadens toward t
he crown (hence “inverted”). The “particular reason” for such a form must have been to make the fruit inaccessible to man. The story of Genesis, however, indicates that Eve certainly had no trouble getting her apple. It must follow that the tree has grown since Genesis. According to the chronology of Eusebius, the year 1300 would be the year 6500 since Creation—time enough for the knowledge of good and evil to show some substantial growth rings.
68-69. an Elsan water: The Elsa, a river of Tuscany, is so rich in lime that at some points along its course objects left in its waters will either petrify or become coated. So Dante’s idle thoughts (seemingly flowing around his brain more than through it) have petrified his intellect. a Pyramus to the mulberry’s new stain: The blood of Pyramus (and Thisbe) stained the mulberry red. (See XXVII, 37 ff., note.) So Dante’s delight in his idle thoughts has stained his intellect. Lines 73-75, below, further explain Dante’s meaning here.
The Divine Comedy Page 69