The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  When I drew my first breath of Tuscan air the Sun, the father of all mortal life, was rising in your rays and setting there.

  And then when I was granted Heaven’s grace to enter the great wheel that gives you motion, I was led upward through your zone of space.

  To you devoutly now my prayer is sped: make my soul worthy of the call it hears to the great passage that still lies ahead!

  “You are so near the final health of man you will do well to go clear-eyed and keen into that good,” my Beatrice began.

  “Therefore, before you enter further here look down and see how vast a universe I have put beneath your feet, bright sphere on sphere.

  Thus may you come in the fullness of delight to the Triumphant Court that comes in joy through the round ether to your mortal sight.”

  My eyes went back through the seven spheres below, and I saw this globe, so small, so lost in space, I had to smile at such a sorry show.

  Who thinks it the least pebble in the skies I most approve. Only the mind that turns to other things may truly be called wise.

  I saw Latona’s daughter glowing there without that shadow that had once misled me to think her matter was part dense, part rare.

  My eyes looked on your son, Hyperion, nor did they falter. And wheeling close around him, I saw the motion of Maia and Dione.

  Next I saw how Jupiter mediates between his father and son, and I understood why the motion of one and the other vacillates.

  And all the seven, in a single view, showed me their masses, their velocities, and the distances between each in its purlieu.

  And turning there with the eternal Twins, I saw the dusty little threshing ground that makes us ravenous for our mad sins,

  saw it from mountain crest to lowest shore. Then I turned my eyes to Beauty’s eyes once more.

  NOTES

  13-15. the prayer within their cry: Dante heard the sound of the cry, but not the prayer within it (what the words said). We may now understand that these souls called on God to show His wrath at the corruption of the Church, and perhaps of the Papacy in particular. What retribution Dante will witness before he dies is not specified. History suggests the capture of Boniface VIII at Alagna by the mercenaries of Philip the Fair under William de Nogaret as one possible vengeance (v. Purgatorio, XX, 85-93 and note). Or it may suggest Philip’s maneuver in 1304 whereby Clement V was elected Pope and the Papacy removed to Avignon (v. Purgatorio, XXXII, 158 and note). But neither event can be taken as a large-scale visitation of God’s wrath, and neither, certainly, ended Papal corruption. Beatrice’s prophecy is best taken, I believe, as simply one more way of denouncing the corrupt. Dante would, of course, have welcomed such a visitation of God’s wrath, but he clearly has no specific event in mind.

  16-18. Beatrice is making the point that God’s vengeance is always taken at the proper and inevitable moment, never too soon, and never too late, though to the wicked (who wait for it with dread) it seems always to come too soon, and to the pious (who wait for it with hope for the downfall of evil) it seems always to come too late.

  19. the others: Dante’s attention has been fixed on St. Peter Damiano. Now Beatrice directs his attention to the other great spirits of this sphere.

  28-29. the largest and most glowing globe: Contains the spirit of St. Benedict (480-543). There is some historic uncertainty about his life, the recorded facts having been subject to pious increment. He was born at Nursia in Umbria and went to Rome for his education. There, appalled by the wickedness of the Romans, he left the world about the year 500 and lived in a cave on Mount Subiaco, his rigid asceticism and holiness drawing disciples to him, though he seems never to have been ordained. About 525 he moved with his followers to Monte Cassino and there, after destroying a temple to Apollo, founded the great central monastery of the Benedictine order on the rule he had already established for his followers on Subiaco. He died at Monte Cassino on March 21, his feast day, and was buried in the same grave with his sister, Ste. Scholastica.

  33. your tongue would have been free: To ask the questions Dante held back from speaking.

  34-36. St. Benedict’s exact point in this passage will be clear if one recalls that many of the heavenly spirits have answered not only the questions Dante had spoken or framed in his mind, but others, too, though he had not yet thought to think them. To speed Dante on his way, St. Benedict will answer only the one question Dante has clearly in mind.

  38. once served: By having upon its peak a temple of Apollo. Especially in the outlying districts, paganism survived well into the Middle Ages. St. Benedict is saying that he was the first to bring Christianity to the mountain people on and around Cassino.

  45. that impious creed: The cult of Apollo.

  49. Romualdus: St. Romualdo (956-1027), founder of the Camaldolese Order (v. note to XXI, 109). Maccarius: Probably St. Maccarius of Alexandria (died 404), a disciple of St. Anthony. He lived in the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea and was reputed to have been the leader of 5000 eremites. Dante may have had in mind Maccarius the Egyptian (circa 301-391) also a disciple of St. Anthony. Or Dante may have thought of the two as one person.

  55-57. A literal rendering of these lines might read: “[These things] have caused my confidence to dilate just as the sun does a rose, which, when opened, becomes as great as it has the power to become.”

  60. unveiled image: The image in which the soul would appear were Dante’s eyes not blinded by the radiance that veils it.

  61. Brother: Dante has addressed him as “Father” out of respect, but all the souls in Heaven are brothers and sisters of the one Father, and above honorary titles.

  62. in the last sphere: In the Empyrean. There (v. XXXII, 35) St. Benedict does appear to Dante among the glories of the Mystic Rose.

  63. including my own: My own wish to content you in your wish. St. Benedict does not imply that every wish finds fulfillment in the presence of God, but rather that “this good” and “every other” do.

  64-69. Only the mystery of revelation will make clear, and only to the elected soul, these mysteries of God’s love. In one sense, we may gather from the vocabulary of exaltation, all good is from God, and since no part of good has ever left Him, every part of every good wish, in being returned to God’s presence, is back where it always has been. For God is also ubiquitous, His presence limited by no boundary, since it is not a dimension of space.

  It is to the crown of that sublimity that exists beyond dimension that the Golden Ladder mounts, outsoaring the reach of any soul’s (physical or spiritual) sight.

  70-72. The vision of Jacob’s ladder is described in Genesis, xxviii, 12 ff.

  73-75. Another sounding of the theme of latter-day degeneracy, St. Benedict’s rule for the contemplative was designed to raise the soul toward Heaven (as if climbing the ladder). Now, however, none of his monks are in any hurry to forgo the pleasures of the earth, and so the Benedictine rule lives on as a waste of the parchments on which it is copied, since none observe it.

  78-84. Once the clerics sought God in prayer, meditation, and acts of charity. Then all the possessions of the Church were held in trust for the poor, to be distributed to them at need. Now, however, the fruit of avarice has poisoned the hearts of clerics, and the wealth that should be used to help God’s poor is used by the monks themselves to swell the purse and position of their families, or for worse relations (the latter probably signifying that corrupt monks kept mistresses and bad companions in luxurious establishments).

  86-87. Dante says, literally: “A good beginning is not enough [to certify the interval] from the birth of the oak to the harvest of acorns.”

  91. each one: Of the three folds founded by the three great saints.

  94-96. Jordan . . . the sea parting: Most commentators read these lines as a statement of hope: “The same will that caused the Jordan to flow backward and the Red Sea to divide, could will the lesser miracle of restoring purity to the church.” Others read it in the opposite sense: “It would be mo
re wondrous to see Jordan flow backward and the sea divide than to see the church restored to purity.” Especially in view of the fact that Beatrice has promised Dante that he would live to see God’s vengeance on the corruptors of the Church, the more hopeful interpretation seems to be the more likely.

  98. his company: The other souls of the Contemplative. Their choir closes about him (an allegory of the unity of the souls of Heaven?) and instantly ascends to the top of the sky.

  100-111. ASCENT FROM SATURN TO THE SPHERE OF THE FIXED STARS. Once again the ascent is instantaneous. Beatrice, by a simple sign, raises Dante to the next sphere, her power overcoming his nature. On one level his “nature” is his mortal weight, which is here uplifted despite the forces of gravity. On another, it is the human soul, gross and imperfect in itself, yet able by the power of Divine Revelation to soar toward God.

  103. down here: On earth, and within the operations of earth’s natural laws, from which Dante has escaped.

  105. my wing: To signify “my flight.” But note that Dante says “wing” rather than “wings.” He may have intended an allegorical point. The soul, while still earthbound, may seek to soar with reason as one wing and with faith as the other. In Heaven, however, the ascent is accomplished by the single wing of faith, that power of the soul that brings it to the transcendent recognition of God.

  108. beat my breast: In penitence.

  108-109. draw your hand . . . and thrust it back: The sequence of this action is deliberately reversed in another hysteronproteron. See note to II, 23-24.

  111. the sign that follows Taurus: Gemini. Heaven’s track: The zodiac.

  112-123. INVOCATION OF GEMINI. Dante’s invocation is spoken not in the persona of the pilgrim en route, but in that of the poet at his desk, looking back to his great journey.

  Gemini, Dante lets us know, is the zodiacal sign under which he was born (lines 115-117) and whose influence determined his poetic genius (lines 112-114). In 1265 the Sun entered the sign of Gemini on May 18 and passed from it on June 17. (The exact date of Dante’s birth is not known, but these dates set firm limits for it.) It is allegorically felicitous certainly, that Dante, in ascending to (being born into) the Sphere of the Fixed Stars, should pass through his natal constellation.

  124. the final health of man: God.

  134. this globe: The Earth.

  139. Latona’s daughter: The Moon (as Diana, sister of Apollo, the Sun, both children of Latona).

  140-141. without that shadow: See II, 46 ff. Dante is looking now at the face of the moon we call the dark side and which is never visible from Earth. The sun that lights it, moreover, must be between it and Dante, probably to one side, though it would be nothing now for his Heaven-heightened vision to see through the sun. As the next tercet indicates, Dante was at least able to look directly into the sun.

  142. your son, Hyperion: The Sun as the son of Hyperion, himself the son of Uranus and Terra.

  144. Maia and Dione: Here stand for Mercury and Venus. Maia was one of the seven sisters of the Pleiades and the mother of Mercury. Dione was the mother of Venus. I do not know why Dante takes the mothers for the children here.

  145-147. Jupiter . . . his father and son: Jupiter was the son of Saturn and the father of Mars. The temperate planet, Jupiter, lies between the excessively hot planet Mars and the excessively cold planet Saturn. Such are the terms of Dante’s astrology. Dante does not explain how this theory of a temperate mean between fire and ice allows him to understand the eccentricities of the orbits of Mars and Saturn—perhaps he conceives Jupiter as a moderating force that attracts the planets on its either side. Whatever the theory, the observable fact is that these planets, as seen from Earth, do wander all over the star chart; their orbits swing sometimes close to the sun and sometimes away, and they rise sometimes before it and sometimes after it. But Dante’s reference here is all the more confusing in that all the planets wander in this way.

  150. purlieu: Dante uses the word “riparo” (the place to which one repairs in the same sense that astrologers speak of “the house” of Mars or of some other planet). Hence Dante must mean the orbit of each considered as the place that is particularly its own.

  151. the eternal Twins: Gemini.

  152. the dusty little threshing ground: The Earth, so described as an insignificant and busy flat patch of dust as compared to the glory and serenity of the Heavens.

  155. Beauty’s eyes: The eyes of Beatrice, which are the eyes of Heaven.

  Canto XXIII

  THE EIGHTH SPHERE: THE FIXED STARS

  The Triumph of Christ

  The Virgin Mary

  The Apostles

  The Angel Gabriel

  St. Peter

  BEATRICE STARES expectantly toward that part of the sky where the Sun is at its highest point, and Dante, moved by the joy of her expectation, follows her look. Almost at once there descends from the highest Heaven the radiant substance of the VISION OF CHRIST TRIUMPHANT as it rays forth on the garden of all those souls who have been redeemed through Christ. The splendor too much for his senses, DANTE SWOONS. He is recalled to himself by Beatrice and discovers that, newly strengthened as he has been by the vision of Christ, he is able to look upon her smile of bliss.

  Beatrice urges him to look at the Garden of Christ’s Triumph, upon the Rose of the VIRGIN MARY and the Lilies of the APOSTLES. Christ, taking mercy on Dante’s feeble powers, has withdrawn from direct view and now rays down from above.

  Dante fixes his eyes on the brightest splendor (the Virgin Mary) and sees a crown of flame descend to summon her back to the Empyrean. It is the ANGEL GABRIEL. So summoned, Mary ascends to where her son is, and the flames of the souls yearn higher toward her. There, among the souls that remain below, Dante identifies ST. PETER.

  As a bird in its sweet canopy of green covers the nest of its beloved young through all the night when nothing can be seen;

  but eager for the loved, lit face of things, and to go hunting for its fledglings’ food in toil so glad that, laboring, she sings; anticipates the day on an open bough and in a fire of love awaits the sun, her eyes fixed eagerly on the pre-dawn glow—

  just so my lady waited—erect, intense—all her attention toward that part of heaven beneath which the sun’s daily pace relents:

  and I, observing her blissful expectation, became like one who yearns for more than he has, feeding his hope with sweet anticipation.

  But the interval between when and when was slight—the when of my waiting, I say, and the when of seeing the sky begin to swell with a new light.

  And Beatrice said: “Before you now appears the militia of Christ’s triumph, and all the fruit harvested from the turning of the spheres.”

  I saw her face before me, so imbued with holy fire, her eyes so bright with bliss that I pass on, leaving them unconstrued.

  As Trivia in the full moon’s sweet serene smiles on high among the eternal nymphs whose light paints every part of Heaven’s scene;

  I saw, above a thousand thousand lights, one Sun that lit them all, as our own Sun lights all the bodies we see in Heaven’s heights; and through that living light I saw revealed the Radiant Substance, blazing forth so bright my vision dazzled and my senses reeled.

  Oh my Beatrice, sweet and loving guide! “What blinds you,” she said to me, “is the very power nothing withstands, and from which none may hide.

  This is the intellect and the sceptered might that opened the golden road from Earth to Heaven, for which mankind had yearned in its long night.”

  Fire sometimes spreads so wide that it shoots forth from a cloud that can no longer hold it in, and against its nature, hurtles down to earth.

  That feast of bliss had swollen my mind so that it broke its bounds and leapt out of itself. And what it then became, it does not know.

  “Open your eyes and turn them full on me! You have seen things whose power has made you able to bear the bright smile of my ecstasy!”

  As one whose senses have been stricken blind by
a forgotten vision comes to himself and racks his wits to call it back to mind—

  such was I at that summons, my spirit moved to a thankfulness that shall live on forever within the book where what is past is proved.

  If there should sound now all the tongues of song Polyhymnia with her eight sisters nourished, giving their sweetest milk to make them strong,

  they could not help me, singing thus, to show a thousandth part of my lady’s sacred smile, nor with what glory it made her features glow.

  Just so, that Heaven may be figured forth, my consecrated poem must make a leap, as a traveler leaps a crevice there on earth.

  My theme is massive, mortal shoulders frail for such a weight. What thoughtful man will blame me for trembling under it for fear I fail?

  The seas my ardent prow is plowing here are no place for small craft, nor for a helmsman who will draw back from toil or cringe in fear.

  “Why are you so enamored of my face you do not turn your eyes to see the garden that flowers there in the radiance of Christ’s grace?