The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  They do not count what blood and agony planted it in the world, nor Heaven’s pleasure in those who search it in humility.

  Each man, to show off, strains at some absurd invented truth; and it is these the preachers make sermons of; and the Gospel is not heard.

  One says the Moon reversed its course to throw a shadow on the Sun during Christ’s passion so that its light might not shine down below;

  others say that the Sun itself withdrew and, therefore, that the Indian and the Spaniard shared the eclipse in common with the Jew.

  These fables pour from pulpits in such torrents, spewing to right and left, that in a year they outnumber the Lapi and Bindi in all Florence.

  Therefore the ignorant sheep turn home at night from having fed on wind. Nor does the fact that the pastor sees no harm done set things right.

  Christ did not say to His first congregation: ‘Go and preach twaddle to the waiting world.’ He gave them, rather, holy truth’s foundation.

  That, and that only, was the truth revealed by those who fought and died to plant the faith. They made the Gospel both their sword and shield.

  Now preachers make the congregation roar with quips and quirks, and so it laugh enough, their hoods swell, and they ask for nothing more.

  But in their tippets there nests such a bird that the people, could they see it, would soon know what faith to place in pardons thus conferred.

  Because of these such folly fills the earth that, asking neither proof nor testimonials, men chase whatever promise is held forth.

  On such St. Anthony’s pig feeds on, unstinted, and others yet more swinish feast and guzzle and pay their way with money never minted.

  But we have strayed. Therefore before we climb turn your attention back to the straight path that we may fit our journey to our time.

  So many beings are ranked within this nature that the number of their hosts cannot be said nor even imagined by a mortal creature.

  Read well what Daniel saw at Heaven’s height. You will soon see that when he speaks of ‘thousands’ every finite number is lost from sight.

  To all, the Primal Light sends down Its ray. And every splendor into which it enters receives that radiance in its own way.

  Therefore, since the act of loving grows from the act of recognition, the bliss of love blazes in some of these, and in some it glows.

  Consider then how lofty and how wide is the excellence of the Eternal Worth which in so many mirrors can divide

  Its power and majesty forevermore, Itself remaining One, as It was before.”

  NOTES

  1-9. Latona (or Leto) was, according to early legend, the wife of Zeus before he married Hera. Later legend has her as his mistress. In any case she bore him Apollo (the Sun) and Diana, or Artemis (the Moon).

  At the vernal equinox the sun sets in Aries as the moon rises in the opposite sign of Libra. For a moment, with the zenith as the fulcrum of these sky-wide scales, they are perfectly balanced and wear the line of the horizon as a common belt. Then, each changing hemisphere—one dropping below the horizon, the other rising above it—the balance is broken.

  The language of astronomy, legend, and the zodiac is not as immediate to us as it was to Dante and the figure may seem strained, yet it does describe Beatrice’s brief pause with tonal embellishments sweetly appropriate to the Paradisal elevation.

  Gist of this passage: “Beatrice looked up a moment in silence.”

  12. where time and space are focused in one ray: God, ubiquitous and eternal.

  13-15. A much disputed passage. (Where I have used “reflected” Dante used “splendore,” but Dante always used the verb “splendare” or the noun “splendore” to mean reflected rather than direct light.) God, being perfect, cannot add to His own good, already having all. It was not for self-increase that He created other beings, but that His ray of love, reflected to His created beings, might permit those reflections to say “I am,” i.e., to share in the joy of existence.

  18. new loves: The angels.

  19-21. The question would be: “Where was God and what did He do before the Creation?” The answer: “He was Himself, sufficient, perfect, and eternal.” Before and after are conditions of time, and God, as stated in line 16, is beyond time.

  21-24. THE SIMULTANEITY OF CREATION. All created things came into being in the same instant, projected perfectly from God’s perfect will.

  There were, in fact, three-string crossbows in Dante’s time. The figure, therefore, has precedent, but the numerological significances of trinity are always apt and may be read into the figure at will.

  Pure essence: Immaterial intelligences. The angels. pure matter: The physical materials of the universe and the lower animals. the two joined into one: Creatures composed of both soul and physical matter. Mankind.

  31-36. The Creation is an act of love imposed upon formless chaos. It was, therefore, inherently orderly. All the essences of that instant creation emerged in fixed ranks within the order of creation. The angels rank highest because (see XXVIII, 127-129) they have the power to influence what lies below them, having been created as pure act. At the bottom rank stands man, the material intelligence that exists as pure potential, as the receiver of divine influences he cannot influence. In between, the heavens were created as both act and potential, subject to influences from above, and able to influence what lies below.

  37. Hieronymus: St. Hieronymus, also known as St. Jerome (c. 342-420), was one of the first great biblical scholars. wrote to you: “To you,” of course, is the equivalent of “to mankind.” In one of his epistles he asserted the precreation of the angels, a doctrine opposed to the one Beatrice is expounding.

  40. the Scribes of the Holy Ghost: The writers of scripture. All of them were said to have been “entered” (i.e., inspired by) the Holy Ghost.

  42-45. Dante must not be understood to imply that the angels, whose pure act or function is to move toward God, would cease to exist if they were denied the exercise of their perfection. Rather, they are eternal, which is to say they cannot cease to exist; and, as even man’s intellect may understand, for such perfect action and existence to be expended on nothing would be chaos and a denial of the orderliness of creation. Since that order cannot be denied, the angels cannot be denied their perfect function.

  51. the elemental core: Earth. Its elements are earth, air, fire, and water. Earth is, of course, the bedrock of the material universe; its core, Hell; and Hell’s core, Satan. Beatrice informs Dante that Satan and his rebellious crew plunged to Earth (roiling the elemental core in the splash that raised the Mount of Purgatory, and roiling it since by their very existence) within a twenty-count of the Creation. The inherent orderliness of creation—a force for setting things instantly in their right ranking—could not tolerate the presence of perverted angels in Heaven for more than an instant.

  At the end of Canto XXVI, Adam told Dante that his stay in the Terrestrial Paradise was less than seven hours. Beatrice has already asserted the simultaneity of the Creation. Since Satan was in the Garden and tempting Eve for some time before the Fall, he could not, in any case, have remained long in Heaven.

  53. the art: Of circling around God, their cause. The art of the angels is to receive God’s ray from above and to spread its influence below.

  56. that dark principal: Satan.

  61-66. Dante intends a distinction here between illuminating grace and consuming grace. He is following Aquinas (Summa theologica, I, 62, 4). Illuminating grace is God’s gift to the soul, which may then, through zealous love, earn the consuming grace of the direct vision of God. The power of illuminating grace is, in fact, directly measurable by the ardor of love with which the soul receives it.

  67-69. Beatrice tells Dante he is now prepared to look about this heaven and to observe its nature without further help from her. Characteristically, however (was Dante indulging a gentle and tender humor on the narrative level?), she talks on to the end of the Canto.

  81. divided thought: Human intel
ligence, lacking absolute content and concentration, must categorize, dividing its attention, which is to say, putting some things out of mind at times to be summoned back later by memory. The intelligence of angels, on the contrary, is eternally aware of all knowledge and memory and, therefore, irrelevant to it.

  83. believing it or not: None has the truth, but some are only deluded, whereas others, ambitious for reputation and gifts, preach as truth what they do not themselves believe. These latter, as hypocrites and falsifiers, are clearly more sinful than those who are merely misled.

  97-102. An eclipse of the sun by the moon would throw only a limited cone of shadow, whereas were the sun itself to withdraw, the whole earth (from Spain to India) would be dark. Recent commentators have disputed the text of this passage. As I have done throughout, I follow the reading established by Scartazzini-Vandelli.

  104. spewing to right and left: In the manner of demagogic oratory.

  105. the Lapi and Bindi: Lapo and Bindo were, and are, common Florentine surnames. An equivalent reading in American terms might be: “they outnumber the Joneses and Smiths in the phonebook.”

  111. holy truth’s foundation: “For no other foundation can one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians, iii, 11.

  117. their hoods swell: With pride in their clownish performances. “Hoods” here for “heads.”

  118. in their tippets: The tippet is the long hanging point of a monk’s hood or sleeves. Mendicant friars stuffed their tippets with all sorts of dubious religious articles and trade goods to be sold to pious simpletons along with unauthorized indulgences. Thus did they do the devil’s work, and so the bird that nests in their tippets is the devil himself.

  122. testimonials: Documents bearing papal or episcopal seals as authority to sell indulgences. Genuine documents of this sort did exist, but false documents seemed to work equally well upon the gullible.

  124-126. St. Anthony the Eremite (251-356) was usually depicted with a pig (representing the devil) rooting at his feet. In Florence, pigs belonging to the various monastery herds were called St. Anthony’s pigs and enjoyed the status of sacred cows, rooting in gardens, and even in houses, with no interference from the superstitious and pious folk. On such credulity, St. Anthony’s pigs (these swinish mountebank monks) feed, and with them others (concubines, cronies, relatives) who eat and drink their fill, paying with fantastic and worthless promises (money never minted).

  127-129. To digress from a subject is, metaphorically, to wander from the straight path. The straight path of this sphere is toward the study of the angelic nature. Having strayed from it, Beatrice and Dante must now hurry if they are to complete their set course in the time remaining to them before they ascend to the Empyrean.

  130. this nature: The angelic nature.

  Canto XXX

  ASCENT TO THE EMPYREAN

  THE EMPYREAN

  Praise of Beatrice’s Beauty

  The River of Light

  The Mystic Rose

  The Throne of Henry VII

  Denunciation of Evil Popes

  THE GREAT THEME is drawing to a close. Here in the Empyrean, Beatrice is at last at home, her beauty made perfect, and Dante utters a lofty PRAISE OF BEATRICE.

  Beatrice promises Dante a VISION OF BOTH HOSTS OF PARADISE. He is blinded by a new radiance, hears a voice announce that he shall be given new powers, and immediately he sees a VISION OF A RIVER OF LIGHT. As in the Terrestrial Paradise, he is commanded to drink. No sooner is his face submerged in the water than the vision grows circular and re-forms as a VISION OF THE MYSTIC ROSE.

  When, as may be, the sun’s noon heat is shed six thousand miles away, while, where we are, earth’s shadow makes an almost level bed;

  when, at our zenith, the sky begins to show such changes that a star or two begins to fade from the eyes of watchers here below;

  and as the sun’s most radiant serving maid comes nearer yet, and heaven puts out its lamps one by one, till the loveliest, too, must fade—

  just so that Triumph that forever races around the blinding ray of the fixed Point that seems embraced by what Itself embraces,

  faded from sight, degree by slow degree; at which I turned my eyes from the lost vision to Beatrice, as love commanded me.

  If all that I have said of her below were gathered now into a single paean, that would be scant praise of her beauty now.

  The beauty I saw there transcends all measure of mortal minds. I think only her Maker can wholly comprehend so great a treasure.

  Here I concede defeat. No poet known, comic or tragic, challenged by his theme to show his power, was ever more outdone.

  As feeblest eyes, struck by the sun, go blind, so the remembrance of my lady’s smile strikes every recognition from my mind.

  From the first day I looked upon her face in this life, to this present sight of her, my song has followed her to sing her praise.

  But here I must no longer even try to walk behind her beauty. Every artist, his utmost done, must put his brushes by.

  So do I leave her to a clarion of greater note than mine, which starts to draw its long and arduous theme to a conclusion.

  She, like a guide who has his goal in sight began to speak again: “We have ascended from the greatest sphere to the heaven of pure light.

  Light of the intellect, which is love unending; love of the true good, which is wholly bliss; bliss beyond bliss, all other joys transcending;

  here shall you see both hosts of Paradise, one of them in the aspect you shall see when you return the day all bodies rise.”

  As a flash of lightning striking on our sight destroys our visual spirits, so that the eye cannot make out even a brighter light; just so, an aureole burst all about me, swathing me so completely in its veil that I was closed in light and could not see.

  “The Love that keeps this Heaven ever the same greets all who enter with such salutation, and thus prepares the candle for His flame.”

  No sooner had these few words penetrated my hearing than I felt my powers increase beyond themselves; transcendant and elated,

  my eyes were lit with such new-given sight that they were fit to look without distress on any radiance, however bright.

  I saw a light that was a river flowing light within light between enameled banks painted with blossoms of miraculous spring;

  and from the river as it glowed and rolled live sparks shot forth to settle on the flowers. They seemed like rubies set in bands of gold;

  and then, as if the fragrance overthrew their senses, they dove back into the river; and as one dove in there, out another flew.

  “The flame of high desire that makes you yearn for greater knowledge of these things you see pleases me more the more I see it burn.

  But only this same water satisfies such thirst as yours. You must bend down and drink.” —So spoke the sun and pole-star of my eyes.

  And added: “The river and the jewels you see dart in and out of it, and the smiling flowers are dim foretastes of their reality.

  Not that these fruits are in their natures tart and unformed, but that you still lack the vision of such high things. The defect is on your part.”

  No babe in arms that ever wakened hungry from having slept too long could turn its face to its dear mother’s milk more eagerly than I bent down to drink in Paradise of the sweet stream that flows its grace to us, so to make better mirrors of our eyes.

  No sooner were my eyes’ eaves sweetly drowned in that bright stream to drink, than it appeared to widen and change form till it was round.

  I have seen masqueraders here below shed the disguises that had hidden them and show their true appearances. Just so,

  the sparks and spring flowers changed before my eyes into a greater festival, and I saw the vision of both courts of Paradise.

  O splendor of God eternal through which I saw the supreme triumph of the one true kingdom, grant me the power to speak forth what I saw!

  There in Heaven, a lamp shines in whose l
ight the Creator is made visible to His creature, whose one peace lies in having Him in sight.

  That lamp forms an enormous circle, such that its circumference, fitted to the Sun as a bright belt, would be too large by much.

  It is made up entirely of the reflection of rays that strike the top of the first-moved sphere, imparting to it all its power and motion.

  And as a slope shines in the looking glass of a lake below it, as if to see itself in its time of brightest flower and greenest grass;

  so, tier on tier, mounting within that light, there glowed, reflected in more than a thousand circles, all those who had won return to Heaven’s height.