The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  I leave to him. They will not be difficult. Nor will the truth seem boastful. Let him answer and may God’s grace appear in the result.”

  As a pupil who is eager to reply to his professor, knowing his subject well, and quick to show his excellence—such was I.

  “Hope,” I said, “is the certain expectation of future glory. It is the blessed fruit of grace divine and the good a man has done.

  From many stars this light descends to me, but it was first distilled into my heart by the ultimate singer of Ultimate Majesty.

  ‘Let them hope in Thee,’ sang the God-praising poet, ‘whoso doth know Thy name!’ And who can feel a faith as firm as mine is and not know it?

  And your epistle sent down once again a fresh dew on his dew, till I was full and overflowed to others your sweet rain.”

  While I was speaking thus a luminescence trembled within the bosom of that flame, sudden and bright as lightning’s incandescence.

  “Love that still burns in me,” I heard it breathe, “for that grace that followed even to the palm, and till I left the field for happy death,

  moves me to speak further: you know the true and lasting joy she brings: gladden me, therefore, by telling me what Hope holds forth to you.”

  And I: “From scripture, new and old, descends the symbol, and the symbol points me to it. All those whom God has chosen as His friends—

  as Isaiah testifies—they shall be dressed in double raiment in their native land; and that land is this sweet life with the blest.

  And your brother, where he writes so ardently of the white robes, sets forth this revelation in great detail for all of us to see.”

  As soon as I had spoken there rang clear from overhead, “Let them hope in Thee, O Lord!” and the response rang back from all that sphere.

  At once within that choir there blazed a ray so bright that if the Crab had such a star one month of winter would be a single day.

  And as a joyous maid will rise and go to join the dance, in honor of the bride and not for any reasons of vain show,

  so did that radiant splendor, there above, go to the two who danced a joyous reel in fit expression of their burning love.

  It joined them in the words and melody; and like a bride, immovable and silent, my lady kept her eyes fixed on their glory.

  “This is he who lies upon the breast of Our Pelican; and this is He elected from off the cross to make the great behest.”

  So spoke my lady, nor, her pose unbroken, did she once let her rapt attention stray, either before or after she had spoken.

  As one who stares, squinting against the light, to see the Sun enter a partial eclipse, and in the act of looking loses his sight—

  so did I stare at the last flame from that sphere until a voice said, “Why do you blind yourself trying to see what has no true place here?

  My body is earth in earth where it shall be one with the rest until our numbers grow to fill the quota of eternity.

  Only the Two Lamps that are most aglow rose to their blessed cloister doubly clad. Explain this to your world when you go below.”

  And when these words were said the flaming wreath broke off the dancing and the sweet accord in which it had combined its three-part breath,

  as oars that have been striking through the sea pause all together when a whistle sounds to signal rest or some emergency.

  Ah, what a surge of feeling swept my mind when I turned away an instant from such splendor to look at Beatrice, only to find

  I could not see her with my dazzled eyes, though I stood near her and in Paradise!

  NOTES

  1-12. DANTE’S HOPE. Dante has just been examined on his Faith, the first of the Christian Graces. Now he will be examined on Hope, the second. As a first sounding of the theme of Hope, perhaps to demonstrate that hope is ever green within him, he declares his dream of returning to Florence and of being crowned with a laurel wreath (baptized as a poet) at the font of “his beautiful San Giovanni” at which he was baptized into the faith, for the possession of which St. Peter so honored him at the end of the last Canto.

  3. that I grew lean: With the labor of writing his great poem.

  5-6. the sweet sheepfold: Florence. the wolves: The leaders of Florentine politics.

  7. with a changed voice: He will return not as a singer of love songs, as he began, but as the master singer of God’s universal scheme. And not as a baby but as a man. and with my fleece full grown: Continues the lamb image of line 5.

  13. Thereafter: After St. Peter had three times circled Dante’s brow.

  14. the same sphere: Not from the Sphere of the Fixed Stars, the Eighth Heaven, in which Dante, Beatrice, and these souls are, but from the sphere of light the souls had formed for joy when Beatrice uttered her prayer (XXIV, 12).

  17-18. the baron . . . Galicia: The second of the barons of Christ is St. James. His tomb is in Santiago di Compostela in Galicia, Spain, and was a shrine to which many pilgrimages were made in the Middle Ages.

  23. one glorious great lord: St. Peter. the other: St. James.

  24. the diet that regales them there: The love of others, caritas.

  29-33. in whose chronicle . . . largesse: I.e., “whose writings tell of the generosity and benevolence of the court of Heaven.” See Epistle of James, i, 5, 17. Dante seems to have confused two St. Jameses into one. The Epistle of James is generally attributed to the James called “the Lord’s brother” in Gal., I, 19 (see also Acts, xv, 13), not to James the Apostle whose shrine is in Compostela. let hope be sounded at this height: St. James was particularly associated with the grace of hope. In Heaven, however, there is nothing to hope for, all having been achieved. his chosen three: Matthew (xvii, 1 ff.), Mark (ix, 1), and Luke (viii, 51, and ix, 28) all cite the special trust Jesus placed in Peter, James, and John (“gave his chosen three more light”). Medieval commentators on Scripture cited them as the three pillars of the church and had them representing the Christian Graces, Peter representing Faith; James, Hope; and John, Charity (caritas).

  34-36. do not fear: Dante is afraid the splendor will blind him. St. James, as a first example of hope, perhaps, reassures him: these rays do not destroy but strengthen, preparing Dante’s developing soul for the vision of God. “Sphere to sphere” is a rhyme-forced addition, not in the text but implicit.

  37. second flame: St. James.

  38. mountains: Peter and James. So called to indicate their stature among the blessed. (See Psalms, lxxxvi, 1, cxx, 1, and Matthew, v, 14.)

  48. So spoke: This, of course, is Dante’s way of saying that St. James had spoken lines 34-36, that Dante had obeyed him (lines 37-39), and that St. James had then continued (lines 40-47).

  49. that devout sweet spirit: Beatrice.

  49-63. THE EXAMINATION OF HOPE. In lines 46-47, St. James has put three questions to Dante, the last of which asks if Dante possesses the Grace of Hope. Before Dante can speak, Beatrice answers for him that no man in the church possesses more, for how else could he have ascended to Heaven itself? Were Dante to speak the greatness of his hope, however, his words might seem immodest. It is for this reason that she (Divine Revelation) speaks for him.

  The other two questions are “What is Hope?” and “What are its sources?” On these points she will let Dante speak, not that James (who already knows) needs his reply, but to let Dante say it out in order that he may return to Earth with a full accounting in terms mortal reason can grasp.

  52. the Sun: God. Dante’s hope is known to God and, therefore, to all the blessed.

  56-57. Egypt: The mortal life, earthly bondage. Jerusalem: Heaven, deliverance, warring years: Dante’s mortal years in the church militant.

  58. not that you may know: Since he knows already, informed by the ray of God.

  59-60. how great a pleasure hope is to you: As the special patron of the grace he himself no longer needs.

  67-69. THE NATURE OF HOPE. These lines are Dante’s answer to “say what it is” (line 46).

  70-78. THE SOURCES
OF HOPE. Dante offers no physical or metaphysical proofs. Hope arises in man as a direct revelation, its light coming “from many stars” (many sacred writings), the first of them, for him, being the Psalms and the second St. James’ own epistle. ultimate singer of Ultimate Majesty . . . the God-praising poet: David. “Let them hope in thee . . .” Psalms, ix, 11.

  83-84. that grace: Hope. the palm: Martyrdom. left the field: Abandoned the warfare of the church militant for the bliss of the church triumphant, i.e., heaven. 86. she: Hope.

  88-96. THE PROMISE (OR OBJECT) OF HOPE. The one hope that matters is, of course, the hope of Heaven. the symbol: Of the blessings to which hope leads. it: Hope. Sense: The Scriptures show the good that awaits those who hope in God, and the good so symbolized points me to hope.

  91-92. Isaiah testifies: See Isaiah, lxi, 7. double raiment: The glory in which Dante sees the souls clad plus the glory of the resurrected flesh after the Day of Judgment.

  94-96. your brother: St. John. where he writes . . . white robes: Apocal., vii.

  97-102. Dante has affirmed the promise of hope offered by the revelations of Scripture, particularly of Isaiah in the Old Testament and of John in the New. As soon as he has spoken, the words of the Ninth Psalm ring out from far above and all the whirling spheres chorus the response. Then, from among them, there grows a splendor that outshines all others there. It is the soul of St. John, the apostle of love, and brightest of the chosen three as Love (caritas) is the greatest of the Christian Graces.

  100. a ray: St. John.

  101-102. so bright: That if the Crab (the constellation which is the zodiacal sign for December and January) contained a star as bright, that winter month would be one long day, the light of such a star replacing the light of the sun during the night hours.

  113. Our Pelican: One of the medieval epithets for Christ. The pelican was believed to nourish its young by striking its breast until it bled and then giving them its blood. Another legend ran that the pelican performed in this way when it found its young dead, reviving them with its blood.

  113-114. elected from off the cross: Chosen by Christ while He was on the cross to remain behind and be a son to Mary (John, xix, 26-27).

  118-135. THE LEGEND OF ST. JOHN. John, xxi, 20-23, provided the basis for the medieval legend that St. John had been translated to Heaven body and soul. Here, Dante sets out to correct that misinterpretation of Scripture.

  He starts with a long-tail simile of a man who has heard there will be a partial eclipse of the sun and who, therefore, allows himself to look directly at it and becomes blind in trying to see what he cannot bear. The eclipse here would, of course, be the darkening of the soul’s radiance when the physical body moves in front of it.

  As Dante is staring, the voice of St. John asks why he is blinding himself in the useless effort to see what is not there (see I Corinthians, xv, 50). St. John’s mortal body, as he tells Dante, is in the earth. Only Jesus and Mary ascended to heaven in their physical bodies. (Some readers will recall that Enoch and Elijah were translated to Heaven in their physical bodies, but Dante is obviously following the legend that they were borne only as high as the Terrestrial Paradise.)

  125. one with the rest: One among all other mortal bodies left in the earth and indistinguishable from them until the resurrection.

  125-126. until our numbers . . . quota of eternity: Clearly, Dante believes that God has ordained salvation for some exact number of souls and that the Judgment will follow when the last elected soul has been gathered to Heaven.

  127-128. the Two Lamps that are most aglow: Christ and Mary. doubly clad: In body and soul.

  130-135. In the usual order of his long-tail similes, Dante puts the likeness first and then compares to it the thing that is like it. Here he reverses that usual order, first describing the action, and then comparing it.

  136. DANTE SUFFERS TEMPORARY BLINDNESS. Turning from the splendors before him to speak to Beatrice, Dante discovers that he cannot see her! I take St. John’s remarks at the beginning of the next canto as the key to this allegory on the progress of the soul. God is beyond our mortal senses. The true vision can come, therefore, only when the senses are enlarged, having been shattered in the blaze of revelation and replaced by a new perception. As St. John says in line 12 of the next canto, Beatrice (Divine Revelation) has the power to heal. Not only will she remove Dante’s blindness but he will see the better for it.

  Canto XXVI

  THE EIGHTH SPHERE: THE FIXED STARS

  Examination of Love (Caritas)

  Adam

  JOHN ASSURES DANTE that Beatrice will restore his sight. Dante expresses his willingness to await her will since he knows her to be Love. John, thereupon, begins the EXAMINATION OF LOVE, asking Dante to explain how he came into the POSSESSION OF LOVE, and what drove him to seek it. He then asks Dante to describe the INTENSITY OF LOVE and to discuss the SOURCES OF LOVE.

  Dante concludes with a praise of God as the source of Love. At his words all Heaven responds with a paean, and immediately DANTE’S VISION IS RESTORED.

  There appears before him a fourth great splendor which Beatrice identifies as the soul of ADAM. Dante begs Adam to speak, and learns from him the DATE OF ADAM’S CREATION, HOW LONG ADAM REMAINED IN EDEN, THE CAUSE OF GOD’S WRATH, and WHAT LANGUAGE ADAM SPOKE IN HIS TIME ON EARTH.

  While I stood thus confounded, my light shed, out of the dazzling flame that had consumed it I heard a breath that called to me, and said:

  “Until your eyes once more regain their sense of the light you lost in me, it will be well for discourse to provide a recompense.

  Speak, therefore, starting with the thing that most summons your soul to it, and be assured your sight is only dazzled and not lost;

  for she who guides you through this holy land has, in a single turning of her eyes, the power that lay in Ananias’ hand.”

  “As she wills, late or soon, let remedy come to my eyes,” I said, “the gates through which she brought the fire that ever burns in me.

  The Good that is this cloister’s happiness is the Alpha and Omega of the scripture love reads to me with light and heavy stress.”

  The same voice that had soothed my fear away when I found suddenly that I could not see called me back to the question. I heard it say:

  “Surely a finer sieve must sift this through. You must explain what made you draw your bow at this exalted target—what and who.”

  And I: “By the arguments of philosophy and by authority that descends from here such Love has clearly stamped its seal upon me.

  For the Good, to the extent imperfect sense grasps its goodness, kindles love; the brighter the more we understand its excellence.

  To the Essence then in which lies such perfection that every good thing not immediate to It is nothing more than Its own ray’s reflection—

  to It, above all else, the mind must move once it has seen the truth that is the proof and argument that so compels man’s love.

  That truth he first made evident to me whose proofs set forth the First Cause and First Love of every sempiternal entity.

  It was proved by the True Maker’s voice sent forth to Moses when It said, meaning Itself, ‘I shall cause you to see a vision of all worth.’

  And proved by you in the high proclamation that cries to earth the secrets of this heaven more clearly than any other revelation.”

  And I heard: “As human reason and Holy Writ in harmony have urged you, keep for God the first, most sovereign passion of your spirit.

  But tell me if you feel yet other ties bind you to Him. Say with how many teeth this love consumes you.” So in Paradise

  Christ’s Eagle spoke his sacred purpose whole, concealing nothing; rather, urging me to make a full profession of my soul.

  I therefore: “All those teeth with power enough to turn the heart of any man to God have joined in my heart, turning it to Love.

  The existence of the world, and my own, too; the death He took on Himself that I might live; and what all b
elievers hope for as I do—

  these and the living knowledge mentioned before have saved me from the ocean of false love and placed me by the true, safe on the shore.

  The leaves that green the Eternal Garden’s grove I love to the degree that each receives the dew and ray of His all-flowering love.”

  The instant I fell still, my love professed, all Heaven rang with “Holy! Holy! Holy!” my lady joining with the other blest.

  As bright light shatters sleep, the man being bid to waken by the visual spirit running to meet the radiance piercing lid by lid,