contribute nothing to what forces them,
then these souls have no claim to that excuse.
For the will, if it will not, cannot be spent,
but does as nature does within a flame
a thousand or ten thousand winds have bent.
If it yields of itself, even in the least,
then it assists the violence—as did these
who could have gone back to their holy feast.
If their whole will had joined in their desire—
as whole will upheld Lawrence on the grill,
and Mucius with his hand thrust in the fire,
just so, it would have forced them to return
to their true way the instant they were free.
But such pure will is too rare, we must learn!
If you have gleaned them diligently, then
these words forever destroy the argument
that would have plagued your mind time and again.
But now another pass opens before you,
so strait and tortuous that without my help
you would tire along the way and not win through.
I made you understand beyond all doubt
that these souls cannot lie, for they exist
in the First Truth and cannot wander out.
Later you heard Piccarda say that she
who stood beside her kept her love of the veil;
and it seems that what she said contradicts me.
Time and again, my brother, men have run
from danger by a path they would not choose,
and on it done what ought not to be done.
So, bending to his father’s prayer, did he
who took his mother’s life. Alcmaeon I mean,
who sought his piety in impiety.
Now weigh within your own intelligence
how will and violence interact, so joining
that no excuse can wipe out the offense.
Absolute will does not will its own harm,
but fearing worse may come if it resists,
consents the more, the greater its alarm.
Thus when Piccarda spoke as she did to you,
she meant the absolute will; and I, the other.
So both of us spoke only what was true.”
—Such was the flowing of that stream so blest
it flows down from the Fountain of All Truth.
Such was the power that laid my doubts to rest.
“Beloved of the First Love! O holy soul!”
I said then, “You whose words flow over me,
and with their warmth quicken and make me whole,
there is not depth enough within my love
to offer you due thanks, but may the One
who sees and can, answer for me above.
Man’s mind, I know, cannot win through the mist
unless it is illumined by that Truth
beyond which truth has nowhere to exist.
In That, once it has reached it, it can rest
like a beast within its den. And reach it can;
else were all longing vain, and vain the test.
Like a new tendril yearning from man’s will
doubt sprouts to the foot of truth. It is that in us
that drives us to the summit from hill to hill.
By this am I encouraged, by this bidden,
my lady, in all reverence, to ask
your guidance to a truth that still lies hidden:
can such as these who put away their veils
so compensate by other good works done
that they be not found wanting on your scales?”
Beatrice looked at me, and her glad eyes,
afire with their divinity, shot forth
such sparks of love that my poor faculties
gave up the reins. And with my eyes cast down
I stood entranced, my senses all but flown.
NOTES
1-9. DANTE’S DOUBT. The phrasing of this passage is difficult. Nor am I sure I have found the right rendering of all the grammatical ambiguities. The intent, on the other hand, is clear. Piccarda’s account of herself has raised questions that, as we shall see, tear Dante’s understanding in two directions at once. Beatrice, as usual, senses his self-division and resolves all in the conversation that follows.
The difficulty of the phrasing is caused by the interplay of the ideas “free choice” and “necessity.” Dante follows Aquinas in this: if the choices offered to a man are entirely equal, no choice can be made and the man cannot act. Thus Dante takes neither blame nor praise for his indecisive doubts since he was unable to choose between them.
13. as Daniel had done: Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, condemned all his diviners to death because they could not interpret a dream he had forgotten. Daniel first divined the dream and then interpreted it, calming the fury of the king. (Daniel, ii, 1-45.)
19. if the will that vowed stays true: Dante is thinking of what Piccarda said. If her will to keep her vows never faltered, how can the fact that her brother’s violence forced her to act against her will alter her just reward for the purity of her intentions (which, seemingly, should have earned her a higher place in Heaven).
24. as Plato taught: As Dante rendered the Timaeus, Plato taught that souls existed in the stars before they entered human bodies (Wordsworth’s “Ode on the Intimations of Immortality” is a well-known treatment of this theme) and returned, at the body’s death, to the same stars from which they had come. Such a doctrine, however, denies free will, the soul being pre-created to a fixed place in Heaven’s order. And yet the souls of the Inconstant seem to return to the Inconstant Moon. Thus one thought negates the other, leaving Dante’s mind ensnared between the two.
27. whose venom has more power to kill: The doctrine within which lurks the greater danger of self-destroying heresy.
28-63. THE PLACE IN HEAVEN OF THE BLEST. Every soul in Heaven is equally a part of God. As Beatrice goes on to explain, all have their seats in the Empyrean. The various spheres in which they appear to Dante only symbolize the degree of their beatitude. It is necessary to use such symbols because the limited comprehension of mankind could not begin to grasp the truth in any other way. Thus, the Bible speaks of God as if he had a manlike body when he is in fact Essence. Beatrice’s point is that every elect soul is equally in God. All have their place in one Heaven, all are eternal. They vary only in the degree of their beatitude, which is determined by their own ability to absorb the infinity of God’s bliss.
36. the Eternal Breath: Recall from Genesis that it was God’s breath that quickened the dust to life. The Eternal Breath, therefore, is the gift of life, and the difference in the beatitude of the blessed must be in the degree to which they are quickened to their Eternal life. The pallor of those moon-souls, as contrasted to the blinding radiance of those who appear higher, may also, perhaps, be taken as a measure of how much of the Eternal Breath is in them.
48. the other: Raphael, the third archangel. He cured Tobit of blindness (Tobit, xi, 2-17).
54. to give form: (The rest of this line, though implicit in Dante, is my own rhyme-forced addition.) The soul, in Scholastic teaching, is the formative power. (See Purgatorio , XXV, 40-42, note.) The body is simply the matter upon which it works to impress its form.
61-63. this principle: That souls come down from the stars (or spheres, or planets) and return to them. almost the whole world: The exception was the Jews. All others imagined multiple gods (Mars, Mercury, and Jove, for example) whose names they attached to the planets. Jove: For Jupiter.
64-69. the other doubt: Of the justice of placing Piccarda and Constance among the Inconstant when they were forced to break their vows against their will. This doubt is not as venomous because it does not lead to heresy. The Council of Constantinople (A.D. 540) had denounced the doctrine of the Timaeus as heretical. But the church had not pronounced infallibly on the matter of Dante’s second doubt. That second doubt, therefore, might lead Da
nte into error but not into heresy. It could not, therefore, drive him from Beatrice (Revealed Truth) to wander blind outside the church. proof of faith: To doubt a particular manifestation of divine justice implies a belief in its existence.
77. as nature does within a flame: The flame, that is to say, rises again.
81. their holy feast: Their convents and their vows.
83. Lawrence: In 258, during the reign of Valerius, St. Lawrence, then deacon of Rome, was ordered by the Roman Prefect to send him the treasure of the Church. Lawrence sent him the poor and the oppressed, declaring that they were the one treasure. He was thereupon martyred. After many other tortures, he was roasted on a grill, but remained steadfast under torture. Jacobus de Voragine (The Golden Legend) reports him as saying to his torturer: “Thou hast roasted the one side, tyrant, now turn the other and eat.”
84. Mucius: Mucius Scaevola, a young man of ancient Rome. He vowed to kill Porsenna and let his right hand be consumed by fire when its thrust missed the mark. Note that, as in the Whips and Reins of the Purgatory, Dante presents both a sacred and a classical example.
94. I made you understand: See III, 31-33.
96. the First Truth: God.
97-98. she who stood beside her: Constance. 105. his piety: To his father. impiety: To his mother. For Alcmaeon see Purgatorio, XII, 49-51 and note.
106-114. The central idea of this passage is the difference between the Absolute and the Conditioned Will. The Absolute Will is incapable of willing evil. The Conditioned Will, when coerced by violence, interacts with it and consents to a lesser harm in order to escape a greater. All that Piccarda said was true of the Absolute Will, but all that Beatrice has said is true of the Conditioned Will.
113-115. that stream: Stands for both Beatrice and her discourse. the Fountain of All Truth: God. Dante’s figure also expounds Beatrice’s allegorical function as Revealed Truth (which flows from God, the Fountain of All Truth, and calms all doubt from the souls of those to whom it descends).
127. In That: In the truth of God, within which the soul may rest as instinctively as does a beast within its den.
Canto V
ASCENT TO THE SECOND SPHERE
THE SECOND SPHERE: MERCURY
Beatrice Discourses
The Seekers of Honor
The Emperor Justinian
BEATRICE EXPLAINS the SANCTITY OF THE VOW, its RELATION TO FREE WILL, THE LIMITED RANGE WITHIN WHICH VOWS MAY BE ALTERED, and the DANGERS OF EVIL VOWS.
When she has finished, she and Dante soar to the SECOND SPHERE. There a host of radiant souls gathers to dance homage around Beatrice and Dante. These are the SEEKERS OF HONOR, souls who were active in their pursuit of the good, but who were motivated in their pursuit by a desire for personal honor, a good enough motive, but the least of all good motives.
One soul among them addresses Dante with particular joy. In Canto VI this soul identifies itself as the radiance that in mortal life was the EMPEROR JUSTINIAN.
“If, in the warmth of love, I manifest
more of my radiance than the world can see,
rendering your eyes unequal to the test,
do not be amazed. These are the radiancies
of the perfected vision that sees the good
and step by step moves nearer what it sees.
Well do I see how the Eternal Ray,
which, once seen, kindles love forevermore,
already shines on you. If on your way
some other thing seduce your love, my brother,
it can only be a trace, misunderstood,
of this, which you see shining through the other.
You ask if there is any compensation
the soul may offer for its unkept vows
that will secure it against litigation.”
So Beatrice, alight from Heaven’s Source,
began this canto; and without a pause,
continued thus her heavenly discourse:
“Of all creation’s bounty realized,
God’s greatest gift, the gift in which mankind
is most like Him, the gift by Him most prized,
is the freedom He bestowed upon the will.
All His intelligent creatures, and they alone,
were so endowed, and so endowed are still.
From this your reasoning should make evident
the value of the vow, if it is so joined
that God gives His consent when you consent.
When, therefore, God and man have sealed the pact,
the man divests himself of that great treasure
of which I speak—and by his own free act.
What can you offer, then, to make amends?
How can you make good use of what is His?
Would you employ extortion to good ends?
This much will make the main point clear to you.
But since the church grants dispensations in this,
whereby what I have said may seem untrue;
you must yet sit at table, for the food
you have just taken is crusty; without help
you will not soon digest it to your good.
Open your mind to what I shall explain,
then close around it, for it is no learning
to understand what one does not retain.
The essence of this sacrificial act
lies, first, in what one does, and, second, in how—
the matter and the manner of the pact.
This second part cannot be set aside
except by full performance; on this point
what I said earlier stands unqualified.
Thus it was mandatory to sacrifice
among the Jews, though the offering itself
might vary, or a substitute might suffice.
The other—what I have called the matter—may
be of the sort for which a substitution
will serve without offending in any way.
But let no man by his own judgment or whim
take on himself that burden unless the keys
of gold and silver have been turned for him.
And let him think no change a worthy one
unless what he takes up contains in it,
at least as six does four, what he puts down.
There are, however, things whose weight and worth
tip every scale, and for these there can be
no recompense by anything on earth.
Let no man make his vow a sporting thing.
Be true and do not make a squint-eyed choice
as Jephthah did in his first offering.
He had better have cried, ‘I had no right to speak!’
than, keeping his vow, do worse. And in like case
will you find that chief war leader, the great Greek
whose Iphigenia wept her loveliness,
and made both fools and wise men share her tears
hearing of such dark rites and her distress.
Be slower to move, Christians, be grave, serene.
Do not be like a feather in the wind,
nor think that every water washes clean.
You have the Testaments, both old and new,
and the shepherd of the church to be your guide;
and this is all you need to lead you true.
If cunning greed comes promising remission,
be men, not mad sheep, lest the Jew among you
find cause to point his finger in derision.
Do not be like the lamb that strays away
from its mother’s milk and, simple and capricious,
fights battles with itself in silly play!”
—Thus Beatrice to me, just as I write.
Then she turned, full of yearning, to that part
where the world is quickened most by the True Light.
Her silence, her transfigured face ablaze
made me fall still although my eager mind
was teeming with new questions I wished to raise.
And like an arrow driven with such might
it strikes its mark before the string is still,
we soared to the second kingdom of the light.
My lady glowed with such a joyous essence
giving herself to the light of that new sky
that the planet shone more brightly with her presence.
And if the star changed then and laughed with bliss,
what did I do, who in my very nature
was made to be transformed through all that is?
As in a fish pond that is calm and clear
fish swim to what falls in from the outside,
believing it to be their food, so, here,
I saw at least a thousand splendors move
toward us, and from each one I heard the cry:
“Here is what will give increase to our love!”
The Divine Comedy Page 75