A simile, with the formal markers of the trope suppressed (e.g., “just as,” “so,” “like”) but with reference to its literary kind embedded in it (similitudine [a hapax, verse 7]), this comparison of the sounds of Thomas's voice, at the circumference of the smaller circle of saints, and of Beatrice's, issuing from near Dante at the center of that circle, draws attention to the mind of its maker, a witness of such celestial phenomena. The meaning is clear enough, if some have stumbled over the question of how water in the center of a bowl may be struck (answer: by something falling from above [like the thought that drops into Dante's mind – see the last part of the note to vv. 7-9]).

For the frequency of figurative language in Paradiso, see Luigi Vanossi (“Figure iconiche del Paradiso,” in Omaggio a Gianfranco Folena, ed. Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo [Padua: Editoriale Programma, 1993], pp. 447-62).

The Latinism caso, for “fall,” is used uniquely here (ordinarily in the Commedia the word means either “chance” or “instance” [see Inf. IV.136, Inf. XXV.41, Purg. X.66]).

The use of the word “vita” to designate the soul of Thomas echoes Paradiso XII.127, describing the living soul (vita) of Bonaventure. See the note to Paradiso IX.7.

Just as the previous canto, in order to introduce a new group of saved souls, had begun with two instantaneously coupled links in a chain of events, the first of which is Thomas's speaking his concluding word (Par. XI.139 and XII.1-3), so now does this one. The utterance of Beatrice here comes hard upon Thomas's last word. It is probably not accidental that the Latinism caso in verse 4 reflects that particular word, cadere. Thomas says “fall” and it “falls” into Dante's mind that the discourse of Thomas and Beatrice are similar. That similarity is assumed to be obvious by most of the commentators, who, at any rate, do not trouble to discuss it. However, it is not finally clear what is meant. Thomas has just finished a longish discourse (Par. XIII.112-142) about the limited capacity of human knowledge. Beatrice's nine verses insist on the same thing: she knows what Dante wants to know even before he does. What these two saved souls share intellectually is the ability common to those who dwell in the Empyrean to know all that is knowable, and to know it in God (including, clearly, as the next tercet demonstrates, the future thoughts of mortals before they think them).

Dante apparently uses traditional narrative sequencing to present these nearly simultaneous experiences. However, upon examination, things are not quite as “orderly” as they seem. We can attempt to establish the timeline for the opening of the canto:

(1) 1-3. Dante's perception of what has happened, expressed in an image of movement directed inward from the circumference of a circle and of movement directed outward from its center.

(2) 4-6. This fell into his mind after Thomas finished speaking (Par. XIII.142), a moment that occurred between cantos, as it were.

(3) 7-9. Beatrice spoke immediately upon Thomas's cessation of speech. Thus, the building blocks of the narrative process are not 1-2-3 but more like 2/3 (nearly simultaneous) and, only then, 1. For a consideration of a related problem, the representation of sequence and of simultaneity in this heaven, see Teodolinda Barolini (The Undivine “Comedy”: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], pp. 194-216).

These are Beatrice's first words since Paradiso X.52-54 (her longest silence since she entered the poem in Purgatorio XXX; she will not speak again until Par. XVII.7, and then only briefly), just before Thomas began speaking at Paradiso X.82. Thomas and Cacciaguida are two of the most voluble characters Dante meets in the afterlife. While they speak less than do the most present and loquacious of the guides, Virgil and Beatrice, not even the more mobile Statius or the presiding figure in the Empyrean, St. Bernard, speaks as much as either of these within their respective heavens. They are allowed to push Beatrice to the periphery of the discourse.

Dante, Beatrice says, will want to know two related things. She is addressing her request to all the saints in both the circles (all her pronouns are plural; we shall see that she is addressing all twenty-four of them by the plural cerchi [circles] of verse 23). One of them will step forward to deal with Dante's questions; if we expect Thomas – we would be excused if we did – we will be surprised.

The questions she attributes to Dante are: (1) Will the light that you give off be yours in eternity? (2) If it will, how will you not be blinded by one another once you get your bodies back [and become all the more resplendent]?

As opposed to the first simile in the canto (see the note to vv.1-9), this one is fully expressed in the conventional mode, both tenor and vehicle keyed by the expected terms of comparison (Come...così). As circling dancers here on earth sometimes show greater pleasure by moving more animatedly and singing, so these twenty-four souls revealed (by moving more animatedly and singing) that they were pleased by Beatrice's request (they obviously take delight in being able to make others feel more joy).

Contemporary readers, who think of rain only as an inhibitor of outdoor relaxation or of light chores on a summer's day, will not see the point in this exaltation of a cooling shower in the sweltering Tuscan (un-air-conditioned) summertime. For the opposite sort of rain, see Inferno VI.7-12.

Lombardi (comm. to vv. 28-32) points out that none of the earlier commentators had revealed the plan in the first two lines, which is to set the “one” of the first verse against the “three” of the second, and the “three” of the first against the “one” of the second, thus making dramatic the relations of the Trinity, one-in-three as well as three-in-one. He also discusses the significance of the parallel relation between the two “two”s in the lines, representing the human and divine united in the Second Person of the Trinity. Porena (comm. to these verses) summarizes what is presented here succinctly: “Theological designation of God, who lives and reigns eternally as a single Substance, two Natures, and three Persons.”

It took a bit longer until the palindromatic structure of these verses was understood as reflecting Joachim of Flora's structure of history, with its three great Ages: the first, of the Father; the second, of the Son; the third, of the Spirit. See the note to vv. 67-78. And see one of the “additional drawings” in the Liber figurarum (Marjorie Reeves and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich, The “Figurae” of Joachim of Fiore [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972]) for the three overlapping circles representing the three Ages. See also Peter Dronke (“'Orizzonte che rischiari,'” in his Dante and Medieval Latin Traditions [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 {1975}], pp. 7-9).

Longfellow points out (comm. to verse 28) that this tercet is imitated by Geoffrey Chaucer in the last stanza of his Troilus and Criseyde.

Christian Moevs (The Metaphysics of Dante's “Comedy” [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], p. 27 and n. 34 [p. 199]) points out that there was current amongst medieval theologians (followed by some Dantists today) the notion that the Trinity was in a place apart from (and higher than) the Empyrean. It was known as the coelum Trinitatis (the heaven of the Trinity) and in it God in His three persons lived apart from manifestations of His creation. Moevs is doubtless correct in asserting that Dante simply combined these two heavens in his Empyrean.

Cf. Purgatorio XI.1-2: “Our Father, who are in Heaven, / circumscribed only by the greater love....”

This hymn to the Trinity, like that which it celebrates, blends multiplicity and unity, in this case twenty-four voices heard as one.

The Latinism muno (from the noun munus), a hapax in the poem clearly forced by rhyme, means “gift, reward.” The reader may choose to honor (or not) the Ottimo's apparent acceptance of the claim (comm. to Inf. X.85-87) that he says Dante once made to him: Not only did rhyme never force him to saying other than he intended to say, but he was able to make words in the rhyme position mean other than what they had meant in the work of previous poets.

See the note to Paradiso I.13-15 for the use of munus in the Epistle to Cangrande.

From the earliest commentators on, e.g., Jacopo della Lana (comm. to verse 34), writers have identified this unnamed figure as Solomon. In light of Paradiso X.109, which says that his light was the most beautiful in his circle, it is difficult not to. However, Francesco da Buti is the first commentator to hesitate to the point of not naming any one of the twelve in the first circle; perhaps his hesitation, shared by several, as we shall see, accounts for some of the continuing doubt about the identity of this singer. Landino (comm. to this tercet) advocates the candidacy of Peter Lombard; we find Vellutello (comm to vv. 34-39) denying that this is he, and joining those who believe it is Solomon. Both Gabriele (comm. to verse 34) and his pupil, Daniello (comm. to this tercet) abstain. In more modern times a similar profile describes the debate, with almost all thinking it is Solomon to whom reference is made. However, Porena's uneasiness is perhaps instructive (comm. to vv. 34-35). He suggests that Solomon may be here only because he was seen as the brightest star in his circle in Paradiso X (one would like to ask Porena why Dante has so described him if he did not mean anything by the remark). He goes on to wonder why Solomon is never mentioned by name – a worthy question. It is also clear that he is a bit concerned by the fleshly activities and celebrations of the king. Marguerite Chiarenza (“Solomon's Song in the Divine Comedy,” in Sparks and Seeds: Medieval Literature and Its Afterlife [Essays in Honor of John Freccero], ed. Dana E. Stewart and Alison Cornish [Turnhout: Brepols, 2000], p. 206), on the other hand, insists on Solomon's value, in Dante's eyes, for his heightened sense of the importance of the flesh. She also notes that Dante's practice of not naming him, but always (Purg. XXX.10, Par. X.109, and here) presenting him as a privileged member of a group (pp. 206-7), thus examining the same phenomenon that makes Porena feel that Dante is uncomfortable with his own treatment of Solomon. Chiarenza sees, much more steadily, that he is playing off our discomfort. (For an example of that discomfort, see Carroll's remarks in the note to Paradiso XIII.97-102.)

It seems clear that this is indeed Solomon, and that Dante values him very highly, ranking him even higher than Thomas, both in the description of his brightness in Canto X and in choosing him to hold the last and privileged position in the heaven of the Sun. If we reflect how surely we expect Thomas to answer Beatrice's formulations of Dante's doubts (let the reader start reading again at Canto X and come to this canto innocent of both knowledge and inclination: Will not he or she expect Thomas to take command once more?), we can recapture some of our original surprise at finding not Thomas but Solomon here. And, as Scartazzini (comm. to verse 34) reminds us (Carroll [comm. to vv. 34-60] allows the same point), a passage in Ecclesiastes (3:18-22) reveals Solomon's skepticism about the destination of the soul after the death of the body. Carroll's treatment, unlike Scartazzini's, goes on to argue that an expert of no less authority than Aquinas asserts (ST I, q. 75, a. 6) that in this passage Solomon is speaking “in the character of the foolish” about an error of others that he states in order to refute. Whether Scartazzini or Carroll is right, it does seem that Dante knows that, even in asserting that Solomon was saved, he was taking on some pretty estimable adversaries (e.g, Augustine); in making him an authority on the Trinity and the General Resurrection, he has, once again, chosen to live dangerously.

The adjective dia can mean (and it has had both meanings in the poem) “divine” or “shining.” We have followed Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 34-35) and many others in believing that here it possesses the latter meaning.

The word modesta sent Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 34-36) in a direction Erich Auerbach would explore more amply in his essay “Sermo humilis” (in his Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, tr. R. Manheim [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965 {1958}], pp. 25-66). Tommaseo hears the voice of Beatrice beneath this verse. See Inferno II.56-57, where she is reported by Virgil to have spoken to him on her visit to Limbo “soave e piana, / con angelica voce, in sua favella” (gentle and clear... – / an angel's voice was in her speech). And see the note to Inferno II.56-57. See also Paola Nasti (“The Wise Poet: Solomon in Dante's Heaven of the Sun,” Reading Medieval Studies 27 [2001]: 120).

The reference to Gabriel and the Annunciation is a brief, iconographic way to connect this passage to the Song of Solomon, the wedding song of Christ and his Bride (the Church), as it was interpreted by generations of Christian exegetes.

Solomon's hymn, so different in technique from Thomas's “Scholastic” verses in these cantos, really does seem intended to imitate the warmth and poetic quality of the Canticle of Canticles. He answers Dante's two questions (vv. 37-57: in the rest of time the saved shall shine as brightly as we do here and now, until, after the General Resurrection, the renewed presence of our bodies will make us shine more brightly still; vv. 58-60: indeed, our restored senses, stronger than they are now, will be capable of looking on this even greater brightness). However, he does so by singing what can only be regarded as a hymn to the General Resurrection, to borrow from Momigliano (comm. to vv. 28-33), a passage of critical prose that captures, as well perhaps as any has ever done, the thread uniting this entire canto, a celebration that combines praise of the Trinity and of the Resurrection. In an only human view, these two moments are registered as the birth and death of Jesus.

Emilio Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001], pp. 226-28) characterizes these lines as a spectacular case of Dante's “circolarità ritmica e concettuale” (rhythmic and conceptual circularity).

Solomon responds to Beatrice's question on Dante's behalf of all the spirits gathered in the Sun (see vv. 13-15), the answer to which is “we shall be resplendent eternally.”

For a discussion of previous notice (that of Umberto Bosco and of Patrick Boyde) of the way in which this passage is complementary to Inferno VI.106-111, where Virgil tells Dante that after the Last Judgment and the recovery of their bodies, the sinners will feel more pain, see Manuele Gragnolati (Experiencing the Afterlife [Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2005], pp. 154-57). Solomon's words clearly state that the reclad soul will have greater powers of sight, and thus, it would follow, greater joy in seeing both the “soldiery of Paradise” and God Himself.

For interesting and pertinent remarks about the rhetorical figure chiasmus in this canto, beginning with its first verse and culminating in Solomon's speech, in these twelve verses, see Madison Sowell (“Paradiso XIV,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], pp. 201-5). This trope derives its name from the Greek character transliterated as chi and expressed as “X”; thus, like the two major elements in the letter “x” (>

In the first of two “interlaced” tercets, Solomon, like Gabriel in verse 35, is modest, more modest than reading him might prepare us to find. The more grace he and his fellow saints experience, the better they see God; the better they see Him, the more they love Him; the more they love Him, the brighter they will shine. The verses run back down the chain of cause and effect. Cf. the tercet at vv. 49-51 for a second example of this sort of interlacing. There the order is natural, i.e., we move from seeing to loving to shining.

See the note to vv. 40-42.

In marked contrast to Thomas, who only rarely sounds “poetic” (but see the note to Par. XI.19-21), Solomon here is granted one of the few similes allowed a speaker in the poem (we have not encountered a simile since the one involving Iris in Par. XII.10-21). This further identifies him with Dante and the world of poetry, eclipsing Thomas at least a little. This is not to say that Dante does not value Thomas; he values hardly anyone more. But it is also time for some good-natured revenge on the man who labored to belittle poetry and poets.

There are some 628 verses in the heaven of the Sun, nearly half of them (287) spoken by Thomas, poetry's confirmed enemy. Further, Dante is silent in all of this heaven, as though to match Thomas by opposition, switching roles with him. This is the only “zone” of the entire poem in which the protagonist does not say a single word.

Solomon concludes by responding to Beatrice's representation of Dante's second question (see vv. 16-18). The glorified body will not be too strongly bright for the eyes of the saved, perhaps because their own resurrected bodies will possess capacities their earthly ones did not, in this case superhuman eyesight. Dante's question was based solely on a normal human understanding of immortality, i.e., on ignorance.

The twenty-four souls in the first two circles, moved by Solomon's words, show their desire to put on their resurrected flesh, and perhaps for the same result for all those other saved souls whom they love.

The reader who believes that Dante is not sympathetic to our physical selves will have to acknowledge that this passage establishes his credibility as a human being who, like Solomon, accepts the fact of our corporeal existence and finds it good. For Dante's view of the resurrected body, see Rachel Jacoff (“'Our Bodies, Our Selves': The Body in the Commedia,” in Sparks and Seeds: Medieval Literature and Its Afterlife [Essays in Honor of John Freccero], ed. Dana E. Stewart and Alison Cornish [Turnhout: Brepols, 2000], pp. 119-37). See also Caroline Walker Bynum (The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity 200-1336 [New York: Columbia University Press, 1995], pp. 291-305). And see Picone (“Canto XIV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 212-13, n. 21) for bibliography of some European contributions on this subject. More recently Wei Wei Yeo has contributed an essay (“Embodiment in the Commedia: Dante's Exilic and Poetic Self-Consciousness,” Dante Studies 121 [2003 {2006}]: 67-93) in which she reflects upon recent work on the increasingly popular question of “the body in Dante.” One has a certain sense that she and some of her precursors do not understand that the importance of the body in this poem is in part a natural concomitance of its self-presentation as history (rather than as fable). This is not to suggest that it fails to be an important concern for Dante (nothing could be farther from the truth), but that some of its presence is driven by still more pressing concerns. Had Dante remained in the allegorical mode of the first three treatises of Convivio, there would have been little or no such attention in the resultant work. Such a perception, mirroring the importance of an incarnational poetic in both Vita nuova and Commedia, is a central position advanced by Erich Auerbach from his first pages dedicated to Dante (in his Dante, Poet of the Secular World [Dante, Poet of the Secular World, tr. R. Manheim {Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961 [1929]}]) through his last (“Sermo humilis,” in his Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, tr. R. Manheim [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965 {1958}], pp. 25-66). Yeo, whose bibliographical recognition of important predecessors is not ungenerous, does not mention Auerbach's work.

The Hebrew word “amen” is given here in its Tuscan form, amme, as part of Dante's program of expressing sacred truth in the low vernacular. See the note to verse 64.

The use of the word mamme, although forced by rhyme, is nonetheless striking. Such usage of the low-vernacular “mommy” is at one with the context, a soft-hued family portrait of saved humanity, as it were. Our translation deploys the less disturbing “mothers” because of its pairing with padri (rather than babbi, “daddies”). See the notes to Inferno XXXII.1-9 and Purgatorio XXI.97-99.

This supercharged passage has begun to be understood only in the past one hundred and one years. An undergraduate student, Randy Mamiaro (Princeton '80), caused a stir in class when (in December 1979) he suggested that this third circle, tacitly parallel in number with the first two, contained the twelve apostles, who manifested themselves here as a sign of their approval of Solomon's words. Were not the apostles closely associated with the Holy Spirit, referred to in verse 76, represented as descending on them with the gift of tongues (Acts 2:3-4)? And would not they represent a fitting final group of twelve to accompany the first two who have come forward? Mamiaro's might still be a promising hypothesis, had not Peter Dronke, in an article (“'Orizzonte che rischiari,'” in his Dante and Medieval Latin Traditions [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 {1975}], esp. pp. 10-16), demonstrated convincingly that what Dante has built into his poem is a highly structured reference to Joachim of Flora's “Third Age,” “the Age of the [Holy] Spirit,” when the Church shall be taken up and each Christian living in the Spirit will be his or her own priest (and thus the numerically unspecified multitude of these many souls [a problem not well dealt with by Mamiaro's hypothesis]). Consequently, the first two circles in the Sun probably are related to Joachim's Age of the Father and Age of the Son, respectively. Dronke's thesis should have found more favor than it has. But see Picone (“Canto XIV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 211) and Merlante and Prandi (La Divina Commedia [Brescia: La Scuola, 2005], in their commentaries to vv. 28 and 76-78), acknowledging his contribution. How often in Dante studies can one say that a new reading has completely altered our sense not only of the meaning of a text, but of its intellectual provenance as well? However, Dronke's discovery (he gives credit, for a first effort in this direction, to Leone Tondelli [Il libro delle figure dell'abate Gioachino da Fiore {Turin: SEI, 1940}], pp. 260-62) had in fact been made by another, some three score and ten years earlier, John S. Carroll (comm. to these verses). (And Carroll, as far as one can see, has also been omitted from the post-Dronke discussion.) In a long gloss, a portion of which follows, Carroll makes his case: “Now, it seems to me clear that Dante in this third circle wished to show how far his sympathy with these Joachimite views went. In general, he accepts the doctrine of a third era of the Holy Spirit. If we take the three circles to correspond to the Trinity, we may say that the first, the Dominican, represents the Father, the reign of law and fear; and the second, the Franciscan, the Son, the favour of the grace of Christ, whose image St. Francis bore. But Dante believes that these two types do not exhaust the possibilities of Theology. Joachim and his followers were not mistaken in their hope for a third era worthy to be called, in comparison with the others, the 'true sparkling of the Holy Spirit,' far wider in its range, far more brilliant in its shining. Dante cannot describe it definitely; it lies far off on the dim horizon of the future. It has the mystery of the evening when the stars are scarcely seen, for it is the passing away of one era. It has the mystery of the morning when the dawn whitens, for it is the beginning of a new day of the Spirit – perhaps the eternal day itself.” It is instructive to note that if one searches on “joachim” (or on “giovacchino”) in all commentaries to Canto XIV contained in the DDP, one gets eleven “hits,” all found in Carroll's single gloss. (Only two current commentators discuss Joachim with reference to material in this canto.) John Saly (Dante's Paradiso: The Flowering of the Self: An Interpretation of the Anagogical Meaning [New York: Pace University Press, 1989], pp. 14-15) also sees this third circle of souls as signifying Joachim's Third Age, but seems unaware of his precursors in this belief.

The only problem inherent in the Carroll/Dronke hypothesis is that, while the souls in the first two circles have all finished their lives on earth and assumed their seats in the Empyrean, those in Joachim's prophetic text have not. On the other hand, there is no reason to believe that Dante thought Joachim's Third Age had begun yet. Thus his text, like Joachim's, is prophetic, and Joachim is not the only presence in the poem “di spirito profetico dotato” (endowed with the spirit of prophecy – Par. XII.141). Further, the imprecise nature of their number and the fact that they are not recognizable to Dante accords with their status as the unnumbered and unnamed ranks of a Joachite New Age. Singleton (comm. to vv. 74-76) correctly notes that “the context and simile clearly suggest that they are a multitude and not merely twelve lights.” Picone (“Canto XIV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 212), having cited Dronke's argument (p. 211), somehow goes on to transmute the third circle (the first two representing the canonical Christian “philosophers” [Canto X] and the canonical Christian mytics [Canto XII]) into a new canon of Christian poets, including Dante himself, possibly Statius, and those who are still to be formed (or perhaps still to be born). He further compounds this fairly dubious proposal with an impossible one: this third crown is perhaps the place that Dante will be situated in the afterworld (“la sede paradisiaca preparata per il poeta della Commedia”), in this “new Parnassus.” Picone has apparently forgotten that these three crowns, like all other manifestations of the saved in the heavens, are only there for Dante's visit.

Bosco/Reggio point out (comm. to this verse) that, as usual, the phrasing “Ed ecco” (And lo) alerts the reader to a change in focus. We might expect, as a result, a change of venue, e.g., the ascent to a higher sphere. But this is rather a totally new experience contained within the current heaven, one that is marked off as being exceptional in every way.

The word lustro (the noun “shining”) occurs only one other time in the poem (Purg. XXIX.16). There it describes the brightness of the Church Triumphant in procession as Matelda and Dante first behold that pageant.

This simile, matching in its sweet tones and glowing, soft colors the tranquility of verses 61-66, misled Vellutello (comm. to vv. 70-78) into thinking the novelle sussistenze were angels (as they were in Par. XIII.59) rather than souls, and Lombardi (comm. to vv. 70-75) into believing this circle is the first thing seen in the sphere of Mars, rather than the last in the Sun.

For the (indefensible) notion that this third circle of saints will eventually serve as home to “Virgil and the other honorable inhabitants of Limbo” (Aristotle, Plato, Homer, etc.), see Maurizio Palma di Cesnola (Questioni dantesche: “Fiore”, “Monarchia”, “Commedia” [Ravenna: Longo, 2003]), p. 133.

The word sussistenza (see the note to Par. XIII.59) is here used, by the consent of most discussants, to refer not to angelic substances but to saved souls. Tommaseo is quite sure, however, that even that last use of the word refers to angels. Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 70-75) was perhaps the first reader to identify the sussistenze as “the blessed souls in this third circle.”

If Dante is unable to look upon the working of the Holy Spirit, evident in the movements of this circle, he can fix his eyes on Beatrice's smile – if he cannot bring that back to mind, for her increased beauty is beyond the capacity of his memory.

While one can understand the theological reasons that make it imperative to realize that Beatrice becomes more beautiful both as she gets closer to God and as Dante's capacity to perceive her true nature improves, had the poet stinted on the number of occasions he informs us of their reciprocal progress, the likelihood is that few of us would have complained.

The ascent to Mars is accomplished with relatively little fanfare and as little poetic space as all but one ascent to a higher sphere (Venus, at Par. VIII.13-15) before it. Cf. Paradiso I.61-81; V.88-99; X.28-39.

This is Dante's only use in his poem of the Latinism translato (in this context, literally “carried up to”). See Madison Sowell (“Paradiso XIV,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 201) for the recognition of a biblical precursor. Paul speaks of God's having snatched us from the power of darkness and translated us to His Son's kingdom, where we will dwell in light (Colossians 1:13). But see as well the only other presence of transferre in the New Testament, also Pauline (as far as Dante knew, Paul was the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews): Hebrews 11:5.

That Mars is the “red planet” is an ancient tradition. That it becomes more red as a sign of welcome to Beatrice echoes the sign made in response to her arrival in the planet Mercury (Par. V.96).

If the ascent to Mars is not particularly noteworthy, the description of Dante's prayer of thanksgiving most certainly is. There are nine occurrences of hapax in these nine verses (olocausto, essausto, litare, accetto, fausto, lucore, robbi, Elïòs, addobbi), a sure sign of heightened emotion. And the passage concludes with Dante's first spoken words since Canto X (verse 81), as Teodolinda Barolini (The Undivine “Comedy”: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], p. 334, n. 8) has observed. Language, as we shall see, is a continuing concern as we move through this entire sphere. Those who like to find Dante's identification of the seven liberal arts with the planets in the Convivio (II.xiii.8-30) at work in Paradiso must here justify the prior identification of Mars with music (Conv. II.xiii.20), a relationship in Paradiso perhaps more plausibly adduced from the sphere of the Sun.

Portirelli (comm. to vv. 88-96) interprets the phrase “that tongue which is the same for all” as meaning “the inner feelings of the mind, the same in all languages,” a view that had been widely embraced as early as in the fourteenth century. Dante is evidently referring to mental constructions, pre-verbal thoughts, which match one another perfectly until they are put into expression in various languages, when they may have small resemblance to one another. See John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 88-90): “Conceptus mentis sunt idem in omnibus hominibus, loquela vero non sic” (Mental constructs are identical in all humans, but not the words [that are used to express them]). Dante is perhaps suggesting that there exists an ideal universal vernacular innate in all of us. See the note to Paradiso XV.39.

The word olocausto means, literally, “burnt offering,” as verse 92 makes plain. For such sacrifice recorded in the Old Testament, most memorably in Abraham's eventually jettisoned intention to make a burnt-offering of his son, Isaac, see Genesis 22:2, 22:7, 22:8, 22:13. See the prior reference in Paradiso V.29.

Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 88-90), the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 88-89) and Pietro Alighieri (comm. to vv. 85-90) all say that “olocausto” involves sacrifice of the whole object, while “sacrificio” involves only a part of it.

The redness of Mars is insisted on once again, this time increasing in its glow in response to Dante's offering of his gratitude.

The two beams, as we shall see, in fact constitute the cross of Mars.

For the meaning of Elïòs, Torraca (comm. to vv. 94-96) may have been the first to cite Toynbee (Dante Studies and Researches [Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1971 {1902}], p. 112) for Dante's dependence on Uguccione da Pisa: “Ab ely, quod est deus, dictus est sol elyos, quod pro deo olim reputabatur” (From ely, which means 'God,' the sun, which once was considered God, is called elyos). The protagonist may here be presented as speaking in tongues, or at least a mixture of two biblical languages. His first word in particular, the name of God, reflects Hebrew (Eli [see Purg. XXIII.74]) and Greek (Helios).

The verb addobbare (a hapax in the poem, probably meaning “to adorn”) is generally understood to refer to the wearing of ornamental clothing, since it usually refers to a person as being adorned, with the range of the verb's meaning here being extended to light. However, a persistent temptation in the commentaries is to see the verb as reflecting the French verb adober (English “dub”), as in striking a knight on the shoulder with a sword as part of the ceremony that reflects his worthiness. See Giacalone (comm. to verse 96).

The first simile in the heaven of Mars compares the small, nearly invisible, stars that make up the Milky Way (la Galassia) to the souls who make up the cross of Mars (for Dante's learned discussion of the conflicting theories accounting for the existence of this celestial phenomenon, see Convivio II.xiv.5-8). Again, those who want to argue for a correspondence between Convivio's alignment of the human arts and sciences with the heavens of Paradiso face a large (insurmountable?) problem. In Convivio (II.xiv.5), Dante associates la Galassia with metaphysics. Here it is associated neither with the Sun (which may have created it) nor with the Fixed Stars (where Dante locates it in Convivio) but with Mars, associated with music in Convivio (see the end of the note to vv. 88-96).

Mars seems previously to have had both negative and positive associations for Dante (see Conv. II.xiii.20-24), if not the same positive ones that we find in the Commedia; in the earlier work Mars is associated with musical harmony as well as the destructiveness of war. In the Commedia, as the pagan god of war (e.g., Inf. XXIV.145; Inf. XXXI.51; Purg. XII.31), he is hardly praised. In his second aspect, he is sanitized (as he intrinsically is here) as the representative of the Christian warrior. C.S. Lewis (The Discarded Image [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964], p. 106) pegs Dante's positive sense of the pagan god to the term martire (martyr), as derivative of “Mars.”

These tercets contain the second set (of four) triple identical rhymes on Cristo found in the poem (for the first, see Par. XII.71-75; also see the note to that passage).

Beginning with the notice of the fact that the Cristo-rhymes in Cantos XIV and XIX of the Paradiso appear in exactly the same lines (104, 106, and 108), Thomas Hart performs a series of calculations to demonstrate that Dante had employed ratios used to calculate the circumference of a circle to predetermine the precise locations in the poem of all four of these rhymes; these ratios in turn suggest the quadrants of a circumscribed Greek cross (formed by two diameters at right angles to one another). For more on the question of Dante's numerical composition, see Thomas Hart's various studies, as referred to in what may serve as a sort of compendium of them (“'Per misurar lo cerchio' [Par. XXXIII 134] and Archimedes' De mensura circuli: Some Thoughts on Approximations to the Value of Pi,” in Dante e la scienza, ed. P. Boyde and V. Russo [Ravenna: Longo, 1995], pp. 265-335). And see the note to Purgatorio XXXIII.136-141.

The ineffability of what the narrator has seen will become increasingly a theme of the poem as it nears its (ineffable) vision of God. His poetic ability (and here ingegno clearly refers to Dante's art, not God's [see the note to Inf. II.7-9]) is simply not able to represent adequately the amazing things that he is indeed capable of holding in mind. By the end of the poem, he will not be able to do that, either.

Dante's phrasing follows closely the words of Christ in Matthew 16:24: “Let him who wishes to follow me deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (see Jacopo della Lana [comm. to vv. 106-108] and many others).

See Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse) for a summary of the debate over this line. We have followed them in thinking the gerund vedendo describes Dante, and not the Christian soldier he is addressing indirectly. One of the main justifications for their argument is the fact that no soul on its way to God should come by this route (we are allowed to assume that all go directly to the Empyrean). Further, and perhaps more tellingly, this cross of Christian soldiers will no longer be here, since all who appear in all the spheres are there only temporarily, for the sake of Dante's education. On the other hand, the passage does read more readily the “wrong” way. And it was only fairly recently that anyone objected to that understanding (e.g., Torraca [comm. to vv. 106-108]), if that objection is both well founded and fairly common, especially after Porena's final note to this canto (found in the DDP at his comm. to vv. 106-108), entitled “una distrazione di Dante.” Is this another instance of the unfinished quality of Dante's last cantica? See the notes to Paradiso III.29-30 and IX.119-123.

For the verb balenare (to flash [said of lightning]), Carroll (comm. to vv. 103-108) points to Matthew 24:27: “As the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even unto the west, so shall also be the coming of the Son of Man.” Carroll goes on to say that this is the first of three visions of Christ in Paradiso, the second occurring in Canto XXIII.28-39, amidst the Church Triumphant. The final vision occurs, of course, in the concluding tercets of the poem.

Singleton's gloss to this verse follows this modern view (the gerund [mistakenly referred to as a “present participle”] refers to Dante, but he does not adapt the translation he is using, which reads “when he sees Christ,” while he translates the gerund in his commentary as “when I beheld.”

The first of two consecutive similes, this one has armies of admirers for its small detail drawn from ordinary daily life, an experience that all have known but never expected to find in an “important” poem, the motes suspended in air irradiated in the streaks of sunlight making their way through shutters. We can almost observe Dante observing them (see the note to Inf. XXXII.70-72) and wondering how to use them in his poem. The range of this poet, his ability to move back and forth between the lofty and the simple, is perhaps unparalleled. One is content to be counted among his admirers.

Singleton (comm. to this verse) reminds us that in Italian (and, one might add, in Latin) the word corno can refer to the flank of an army. The observation is well taken, given, as Singleton says, the “military context” of the setting here (of which there will be more in the notes to the next canto).

The rapid movements of the souls along the two bands of the cross have certain logistical implications, as we learn from these verses, i.e., there seems to be more than one file of saints along each band, since these souls catch up to and pass one another. We remember that in the preceding heaven, also, the souls, in their circles, were both dancing and singing as, we are about to learn, those in this new group are also.

Whether these minuzie (tiny motes) are, as we think, motes of dust or, as some of the early commentators believe, “atoms,” is not a matter easily resolved.

This is the fourth (and final) appearance of the conjoined pair, ingegno and arte. See the note to Inferno II.7-9.

See the note to Purg. XXXII.61-62. This melody, like the “hymn” in that earlier passage, leaves Dante (at first) unable to make out its words. Here, however, he almost immediately does make out two of them, “Resurgi” and “Vinci” (Arise and Conquer). Landino (comm. to vv. 124-126) points out that these two “Scriptural” words are sung to Christ: “Arise and conquer,” i.e., “Arise from death and conquer the devil.” Grandgent (comm. to verse 125) finds a source in the missal for Thursday of Easter Week (a most appropriate day, since it coincides with the beginning of the poem), the sequence “Resumpta carne resurgit victor die in tertia” (He rose again, having taken on once more His flesh, victorious on the third day).

For the program of song in the last cantica, see the note to Paradiso XXI.58-60.

The second simile in this set (eighth and last in the canto) captures the sonorous condition of the souls in Mars accompanying their rapid movement along the arms of the cross. This is a canto that is more characterized by simile than perhaps any other. See Picone (“Canto XIV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 205), who counts nine (including one that may not be considered formally a simile, if it does involve comparison, at vv. 34-36), differing from Luigi Blasucci (“Discorso teologico e visione sensibile nel canto XIV del Paradiso,” La Rassegna della letteratura italiana 95 [1991]: 5-19), who enumerates ten because he includes the simple comparison (see the note to Inf. I.22-27) at verse 126. Picone's nine occur as follows: Paradiso XIV.1-9, 19-24, 34-36, 52-57, 67-69, 70-75, 97-102, 109-117, and here.) For bibliography on the Dantean simile, see Madison Sowell (“A Bibliography of the Dantean Simile to 1981,” Dante Studies 101 [1983]: 167-80) and, for more recent Italian work, see Picone, op. cit., p. 205n., including reference to Pagliaro, “similitudine,” ED V (1976), esp. 254a-57b, and Baldelli, “lingua e stile,” ED VI (1978), esp. pp. 94a-97b.

Dante habitually uses similes in profusion at moments of heightened emotional or conceptual challenge, typically when the protagonist experiences stress (e.g., when he meets Beatrice and is castigated by her in Purg. XXX) or when the poet requires expanded intellectual powers (e.g., arriving in the Empyrean from the lower heavens in Par. XXX).

In Paradiso X.143 we have seen an earlier occurrence of the phrase dolce tintinno in the poem. There it refers to the sound issuing from a distant clock tower, here of two differing stringed instruments playing in harmony. The pleasure that a listener may take from music without recognizing the tune was like the pleasure Dante took from hearing the song these souls were singing without being able to make out most of its words.

The tercet concludes with a playful but meaningful identical rhyme: vinci (verb form derived from the Latin noun vinculum [shackles, bond]). Christ conquered death, we conquer by being bound to Him. This is the highest recognition that Dante has yet achieved, based on the experience of his selfless love of God.

Dante realizes that his reader may object to his apparent slight of Beatrice. These final ten verses of this extraordinary canto function as a commentary on the previous tercet (vv. 127-129), detailing Dante's increased love of God. Here is Tozer's explanation (comm. to vv. 133-139) of this convoluted, witty passage: “Dante here justifies himself for having said that the melody which he had just heard delighted him more than anything he had hitherto met with in Paradise, by doing which he had assigned the second place to the joy of seeing Beatrice's eyes. In order to justify himself (Per escusarmi), he accuses himself of not having looked at Beatrice's eyes since his arrival in the Heaven of Mars (l. 135); and his excuse for this (Escusar puommi) is that he was attracted by the delights of that Heaven, which surpassed those of the previous Heavens, according to the system of Paradise, in which the beauty and joy increase in ascending from sphere to sphere (ll. 133, 134). Consequently, what he had said about the delight of the melody of this Heaven surpassing all previous delights was true, inasmuch as it is reconcilable with the superior attractions of Beatrice's eyes, for their beauty had increased since the Heaven of Mars had been reached, but Dante was not aware of this because he had not seen them (ll. 138, 139).” Tozer and most other commentators take the verb dischiudere, which usually (in the Commedia as well as in Italian generally) means something like its English cognate, “to disclose,” to signify, as they argue it also does once earlier (Par. VII.102), “to exclude.” (But for disagreement with this generally accepted variant meaning in both cases, see Lodovico Cardellino [“'Dischiuso' in Paradiso 7.102 e 14.138: ha il senso usuale di 'aperto' o 'espresso,' non di 'escluso,'” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America {January 2006}].) Our understanding of most of the literal sense of these verses coincides with that of Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 133-139). That the word “here” (qui) refers to the poem is nearly guaranteed by its distinction from the “there” (lì) of line 135. (See the similar situation addressed in the note to Inf. XXIX.54-57).

For an English paraphrase of this difficult passage, see Tozer (comm. to vv. 133-139).

For the argument that the final thirteen lines of the canto comprise a sort of “pseudo-sonnet,” revisiting in corrective ways the sonnet on the Garisenda tower (Rime 51), in which Dante curses his eyes for looking at a tower in Bologna, thereby missing the passing form of his lady, see Picone (“Canto XIV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 215-17).

There has been continuing debate about the question, to what do “i vivi suggelli” (living seals) refer? See Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) for an exhaustive presentation of the state of the question at the close of the nineteenth century. And now see Lodovico Cardellino (“I 'vivi suggelli' in Paradiso 14.133,” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [February 2006]), bringing the history of the debate up to date and giving strong reasons for not believing that the “suggelli” refer exclusively to the beauty of Beatrice, but to all things that Dante gazes on in the heavens, whether spheres or souls, all “sealed” by God with an aspect of His beauty.