Parea dinanzi a me con l'ali aperte
la bella image che nel dolce frui
liete facevan l'anime conserte;
parea ciascuna rubinetto in cui
raggio di sole ardesse sì acceso,
che ne' miei occhi rifrangesse lui.
E quel che mi convien ritrar testeso,
non portò voce mai, né scrisse incostro,
né fu per fantasia già mai compreso;
ch'io vidi e anche udi' parlar lo rostro,
e sonar ne la voce e “io” e “mio,”
quand' era nel concetto e “noi” e “nostro.”
E cominciò: “Per esser giusto e pio
son io qui essaltato a quella gloria
che non si lascia vincere a disio;
e in terra lasciai la mia memoria
sì fatta, che le genti lì malvage
commendan lei, ma non seguon la storia.”
Così un sol calor di molte brage
si fa sentir, come di molti amori
usciva solo un suon di quella image.
Ond' io appresso: “O perpetüi fiori
de l'etterna letizia, che pur uno
parer mi fate tutti vostri odori,
solvetemi, spirando, il gran digiuno
che lungamente m'ha tenuto in fame,
non trovandoli in terra cibo alcuno.
Ben so io che, se 'n cielo altro reame
la divina giustizia fa suo specchio,
che 'l vostro non l'apprende con velame.
Sapete come attento io m'apparecchio
ad ascoltar; sapete qual è quello
dubbio che m'è digiun cotanto vecchio.”
Quasi falcone ch'esce del cappello,
move la testa e con l'ali si plaude,
voglia mostrando e faccendosi bello,
vid' io farsi quel segno, che di laude
de la divina grazia era contesto,
con canti quai si sa chi là sù gaude.
Poi cominciò: “Colui che volse il sesto
a lo stremo del mondo, e dentro ad esso
distinse tanto occulto e manifesto,
non poté suo valor sì fare impresso
in tutto l'universo, che 'l suo verbo
non rimanesse in infinito eccesso.
E ciò fa certo che 'l primo superbo,
che fu la somma d'ogne creatura,
per non aspettar lume, cadde acerbo;
e quinci appar ch'ogne minor natura
è corto recettacolo a quel bene
che non ha fine e sé con sé misura.
Dunque vostra veduta, che convene
essere alcun de' raggi de la mente
di che tutte le cose son ripiene,
non pò da sua natura esser possente
tanto, che suo principio non discerna
molto di là da quel che l'è parvente.
Però ne la giustizia sempiterna
la vista che riceve il vostro mondo,
com' occhio per lo mare, entro s'interna;
che, ben che da la proda veggia il fondo,
in pelago nol vede; e nondimeno
èli, ma cela lui l'esser profondo.
Lume non è, se non vien dal sereno
che non si turba mai; anzi è tenèbra
od ombra de la carne o suo veleno.
Assai t'è mo aperta la latebra
che t'ascondeva la giustizia viva,
di che facei question cotanto crebra;
ché tu dicevi: 'Un uom nasce a la riva
de l'Indo, e quivi non è chi ragioni
di Cristo né chi legga né chi scriva;
e tutti suoi voleri e atti buoni
sono, quanto ragione umana vede,
sanza peccato in vita o in sermoni.
Muore non battezzato e sanza fede:
ov' è questa giustizia che 'l condanna?
ov' è la colpa sua, se ei non crede?'
Or tu chi se', che vuo' sedere a scranna,
per giudicar di lungi mille miglia
con la veduta corta d'una spanna?
Certo a colui che meco s'assottiglia,
se la Scrittura sovra voi non fosse,
da dubitar sarebbe a maraviglia.
Oh terreni animali! oh menti grosse!
La prima volontà, ch'è da sé buona,
da sé, ch'è sommo ben, mai non si mosse.
Cotanto è giusto quanto a lei consuona:
nullo creato bene a sé la tira,
ma essa, radïando, lui cagiona.”
Quale sovresso il nido si rigira
poi c'ha pasciuti la cicogna i figli,
e come quel ch'è pasto la rimira;
cotal si fece, e sì leväi i cigli,
la benedetta imagine, che l'ali
movea sospinte da tanti consigli.
Roteando cantava, e dicea: “Quali
son le mie note a te, che non le 'ntendi,
tal è il giudicio etterno a voi mortali.”
Poi si quetaro quei lucenti incendi
de lo Spirito Santo ancor nel segno
che fé i Romani al mondo reverendi,
esso ricominciò: “A questo regno
non salì mai chi non credette 'n Cristo,
né pria né poi ch'el si chiavasse al legno.
Ma vedi: molti gridan 'Cristo, Cristo!'
che saranno in giudicio assai men prope
a lui, che tal che non conosce Cristo;
e tai Cristian dannerà l'Etïòpe,
quando si partiranno i due collegi,
l'uno in etterno ricco e l'altro inòpe.
Che poran dir li Perse a' vostri regi,
come vedranno quel volume aperto
nel qual si scrivon tutti suoi dispregi?
Lì si vedrà, tra l'opere d'Alberto,
quella che tosto moverà la penna,
per che 'l regno di Praga fia diserto.
Lì si vedrà il duol che sovra Senna
induce, falseggiando la moneta,
quel che morrà di colpo di cotenna.
Lì si vedrà la superbia ch'asseta,
che fa lo Scotto e l'Inghilese folle,
sì che non può soffrir dentro a sua meta.
Vedrassi la lussuria e 'l viver molle
di quel di Spagna e di quel di Boemme,
che mai valor non conobbe né volle.
Vedrassi al Ciotto di Ierusalemme
segnata con un i la sua bontate,
quando 'l contrario segnerà un emme.
Vedrassi l'avarizia e la viltate
di quei che guarda l'isola del foco,
ove Anchise finì la lunga etate;
e a dare ad intender quanto è poco,
la sua scrittura fian lettere mozze,
che noteranno molto in parvo loco.
E parranno a ciascun l'opere sozze
del barba e del fratel, che tanto egregia
nazione e due corone han fatte bozze.
E quel di Portogallo e di Norvegia
lì si conosceranno, e quel di Rascia
che male ha visto il conio di Vinegia.
O beata Ungheria, se non si lascia
più malmenare! e beata Navarra,
se s'armasse del monte che la fascia!
E creder de' ciascun che già, per arra
di questo, Niccosïa e Famagosta
per la lor bestia si lamenti e garra,
che dal fianco de l'altre non si scosta.”
Appeared before me with its wings outspread
The beautiful image that in sweet fruition
Made jubilant the interwoven souls;
Appeared a little ruby each, wherein
Ray of the sun was burning so enkindled
That each into mine eyes refracted it.
And what it now behoves me to retrace
Nor voice has e'er reported, nor ink written,
Nor was by fantasy e'er comprehended;
For speak I saw, and likewise heard, the beak,
And utter with its voice both 'I' and 'My,'
When in conception it was 'We' and 'Our.'
And it began: "Being just and merciful
Am I exalted here unto that glory
Which cannot be exceeded by desire;
And upon earth I left my memory
Such, that the evil-minded people there
Commend it, but continue not the story."
So doth a single heat from many embers
Make itself felt, even as from many loves
Issued a single sound from out that image.
Whence I thereafter: "O perpetual flowers
Of the eternal joy, that only one
Make me perceive your odours manifold,
Exhaling, break within me the great fast
Which a long season has in hunger held me,
Not finding for it any food on earth.
Well do I know, that if in heaven its mirror
Justice Divine another realm doth make,
Yours apprehends it not through any veil.
You know how I attentively address me
To listen; and you know what is the doubt
That is in me so very old a fast."
Even as a falcon, issuing from his hood,
Doth move his head, and with his wings applaud him,
Showing desire, and making himself fine,
Saw I become that standard, which of lauds
Was interwoven of the grace divine,
With such songs as he knows who there rejoices.
Then it began: "He who a compass turned
On the world's outer verge, and who within it
Devised so much occult and manifest,
Could not the impress of his power so make
On all the universe, as that his Word
Should not remain in infinite excess.
And this makes certain that the first proud being,
Who was the paragon of every creature,
By not awaiting light fell immature.
And hence appears it, that each minor nature
Is scant receptacle unto that good
Which has no end, and by itself is measured.
In consequence our vision, which perforce
Must be some ray of that intelligence
With which all things whatever are replete,
Cannot in its own nature be so potent,
That it shall not its origin discern
Far beyond that which is apparent to it.
Therefore into the justice sempiternal
The power of vision that your world receives,
As eye into the ocean, penetrates;
Which, though it see the bottom near the shore,
Upon the deep perceives it not, and yet
'Tis there, but it is hidden by the depth.
There is no light but comes from the serene
That never is o'ercast, nay, it is darkness
Or shadow of the flesh, or else its poison.
Amply to thee is opened now the cavern
Which has concealed from thee the living justice
Of which thou mad'st such frequent questioning.
For saidst thou: 'Born a man is on the shore
Of Indus, and is none who there can speak
Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write;
And all his inclinations and his actions
Are good, so far as human reason sees,
Without a sin in life or in discourse:
He dieth unbaptised and without faith;
Where is this justice that condemneth him?
Where is his fault, if he do not believe?'
Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit
In judgment at a thousand miles away,
With the short vision of a single span?
Truly to him who with me subtilizes,
If so the Scripture were not over you,
For doubting there were marvellous occasion.
O animals terrene, O stolid minds,
The primal will, that in itself is good,
Ne'er from itself, the Good Supreme, has moved.
So much is just as is accordant with it;
No good created draws it to itself,
But it, by raying forth, occasions that."
Even as above her nest goes circling round
The stork when she has fed her little ones,
And he who has been fed looks up at her,
So lifted I my brows, and even such
Became the blessed image, which its wings
Was moving, by so many counsels urged.
Circling around it sang, and said: "As are
My notes to thee, who dost not comprehend them,
Such is the eternal judgment to you mortals."
Those lucent splendours of the Holy Spirit
Grew quiet then, but still within the standard
That made the Romans reverend to the world.
It recommenced: "Unto this kingdom never
Ascended one who had not faith in Christ,
Before or since he to the tree was nailed.
But look thou, many crying are, 'Christ, Christ!'
Who at the judgment shall be far less near
To him than some shall be who knew not Christ.
Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn,
When the two companies shall be divided,
The one for ever rich, the other poor.
What to your kings may not the Persians say,
When they that volume opened shall behold
In which are written down all their dispraises?
There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert,
That which ere long shall set the pen in motion,
For which the realm of Prague shall be deserted.
There shall be seen the woe that on the Seine
He brings by falsifying of the coin,
Who by the blow of a wild boar shall die.
There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst,
Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad
That they within their boundaries cannot rest;
Be seen the luxury and effeminate life
Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian,
Who valour never knew and never wished;
Be seen the Cripple of Jerusalem,
His goodness represented by an I,
While the reverse an M shall represent;
Be seen the avarice and poltroonery
Of him who guards the Island of the Fire,
Wherein Anchises finished his long life;
And to declare how pitiful he is
Shall be his record in contracted letters
Which shall make note of much in little space.
And shall appear to each one the foul deeds
Of uncle and of brother who a nation
So famous have dishonoured, and two crowns.
And he of Portugal and he of Norway
Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too,
Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice.
O happy Hungary, if she let herself
Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy,
If with the hills that gird her she be armed!
And each one may believe that now, as hansel
Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta
Lament and rage because of their own beast,
Who from the others' flank departeth not."
The Eagle is first seen as a discrete entity (la bella image) and then as its components, the individual just rulers who constitute this beautiful image of justice, each appearing as a much-prized precious stone, the ruby. The text goes on to suggest that all of them were glowing as though the sun were equally reflected in all of them at once (something that would not happen in earthbound optics, where uneven surfaces reflect a distant light variously). In fact, these “rubies,” red with the glow of caritas, are shining with their own light of affection, if that is eventually a reflection of God's love for them.
Dante's radical (and revolutionary, at least from an Augustinian point of view) notion is that earthly justice is the direct product of a divine principle. And, as we learned in the last canto (see the note to Par. XVIII.115-117), the souls of the shapers of those human institutions that serve justice are themselves shaped by the agency of this heaven. This offers us another occasion on which to consider Dante's heterodoxy when he is measured against the requirements of any one school of thought. Depending on the specific issues enjoined, he will be seen to be both Augustinian and anti-Augustinian, Aristotelian and anti-Aristotelian, Virgilian and anti-Virgilian. Perhaps that is one reason that contemporary readers are so surprisingly receptive to this medieval poet; they “read beneath the radar” of the “official” Dantologies, which tend, in their strategic attempt to restrict other views, to make him one thing and only that thing (e.g., Dominican or Franciscan; imperialist or republican; “grammarian” or vernacularist; etc.). He is, as he said his poem was (Epistle XIII.20), “polysemous” (of many meanings).
The image of the Eagle, with its open wings, suggests, to Zygmunt Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 277), a passage from Deuteronomy 32:11, “expandit alas suas” (spreading out its wings), in the song about himself that Moses intones near the end of his life, in which he is presented as an eagle taking his chicks upon his back for an exodal ride. (Scartazzini cited that passage, but at Purgatorio IX.30.)
The term frui (to enjoy), first identified as deriving from St. Augustine by Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 1-3), probably arrives in Dante via Aquinas (ST I-II, q. 11, a. 3), as Scartazzini may have been the first to suggest. Steiner (comm. to vv. 2-3) adverts to the familiar Augustinian binome (variously found but perhaps best known from the extended discussion in the first book of De doctrina christiana), frui and uti (to use), the former pertaining to our relationship to things divine (we “enjoy” them), the latter, to perishable things (we only “use” these).
What Dante must now report was never reported by voice, nor written in ink, nor present in the image-receiving faculty of the mind, for he had seen the beak speak and had heard it, too, when it uttered with its voice “I” and “mine,” while in its conception it meant “we” and “our.” We have had a similar experience once before, hearing Dante introduce himself as “we” and then speak as “I” in the first two lines of the poem (Inf. I.1-2): “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura....”
St. Paul describes similar marvelous truths (I Corinthians 2:9) that “the eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,” an observation dating back to Jacopo della Lana (proem to this canto). For discussion of this example of Dante's exploitation of the familiar topos of novelty, see Giuseppe Ledda (La guerra della lingua [Ravenna: Longo, 2002]), pp. 81-82).
For “phantasy” as a technical term in medieval versions of Aristotelian “physiology of mind,” see Carroll (comm. to Par. IV.28-48) and Singleton (comm. to Purg. XVII.13-18); see also the note to Purgatorio XVII.13-18. This faculty is the image-receiving element in the mind. Carroll, Singleton, and Hollander consequently use this spelling in order to distinguish this term from the modern one, “fantasy,” a daydream or another form of fictive flight.
See Mario Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 85, for two potential biblical sources for this verse: for fantasia, Ecclesiasticus 34:6; for compreso, Daniel 7:1, comprehendit, when Daniel has a dream of a leonine shape with the wings of an eagle (Dan. 7:4).
The first commentator to report the resonance here of Apocalypse 8:13, “Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead,” was Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 10-12). The context is the fourth angelic trumpet blast, and the eagle is announcing woe to those who dwell on earth. Dante's Eagle, on the other hand, has a more eupeptic message.
It seems clear that Geoffrey Chaucer was amused when he read this verse; his loquacious eagle in that delightful send-up of Dante's poem, The House of Fame, surely was one poet's laughing salute to another.
Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse) point out the resonance of the description of Trajan (shortly himself to appear in the poem at Par. XX.44-45) in Purgatorio X.93, where he is portrayed as moved by giustizia and pietà.
These verses were initially and widely interpreted to refer to that glory (salvation) that is greater than any desire for it. Scartazzini (comm. to verse 15), however, cites Bartolomeo Perazzini (Note alla “Divina Commedia” [Venice, 1844], p. 155), who says that the heavenly glory won by these souls, even more than did their desire, reflected (and rewarded) their deeds. Given the context of their virtuous acts as rulers, this interpretation has won support ever since it was presented by Scartazzini (op. cit.) and Campi (comm. to vv. 13-15). Nonetheless, there is still no consensus, with various commentators advancing the one or the other explanation. Here is Carroll (comm. to vv. 1-18), summarizing the debate before attempting to find a way out: “Two interpretations are suggested: (1) that this glory of Jupiter is superior to all human desire; (2) that it does not allow itself to be won by mere desire – it must be worked for (Matth. 7:21). I venture to suggest a third: the common way in which kings aim at glory is at their own 'desire' or ambition, and earthly glory may be so won. But not so the glory of this Heaven: it can be 'conquered' only 'by being just and merciful.'”
We may need to remind ourselves that the Eagle is speaking as a corporate entity, his “I” really meaning “we,” that is, the virtuous rulers composing his shape have all left exemplary lives behind them that draw lip service but no imitative good actions.
The commentators, from Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 16-18) onward, generally take storia here in the sense of exemplum, that is, according to the fourteenth-century Dantist, the wicked on the earth do not follow the positive examples of these virtuous rulers, present here in the Eagle, of whom we shall see some in the next canto. Most of the following commentators become confused, taking the Eagle as the symbol of the Roman Empire, rather than as the collectivity of just rulers, some from other places as well (e.g., David [Par. XX.38] and Hezekiah [Par. XX.49]). But see, for the better reading, Porena (comm. to this verse). A slightly different interpretive difficulty is found in the view that the text means that those in need of a corrective example are themselves to blame because they fail to read history correctly. See Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 286): “Human beings sin, because they do not read and interpret their history books properly.” That may be true, but it hardly seems to be what Dante is saying here.
The simile pounds home the poet's insistence that the plurality of souls making up the Eagle's unity sing as a single voice.
The protagonist himself, as it were, picks up the theme of the simile only to express it in metaphor: He believes that these souls have become a garden of flowers giving off a single perfume, that is, speaking as one.
We probably are reminded of the presence in Limbo of the virtuous pagans (unauthorized by previous authority, e.g., St. Thomas, who denies them a place alongside the only inhabitants of the “orthodox” Limbus, the innocent but unbaptized infants [see the note to Inf. IV.30]). It was clear from that earlier passage that our poet had a problem with traditional Christian views of the “guilt” of otherwise morally good (or even excellent) human beings. The last words of his request to the souls in the Eagle make it plain that in his life he had been bothered by the Church's teaching on the post-mortal situation of the virtuous heathen.
The gerund (perhaps used here as a present participle) spirando (breathing forth) is a form of the verb (spirare) that Dante uses to indicate the “spiration” of the Holy Spirit. For confirmation of this association, see verse 101.
The poet here refers, as Tommaseo (comm. to this tercet) was apparently the first commentator to point out, to Cunizza's words in Paradiso IX.61-62, from which he has learned that the angelic order of Thrones, presiding over the heaven of Saturn, is designated as reflecting divine justice. But this does not mean that these just souls here in Jupiter are innocent of such knowledge, since they know about earthly justice and, further, like all the saved, see the higher form reflected in God Himself. (Momigliano is confused about exactly this issue, saying [comm. to vv. 28-30] that here Dante contradicts what he has said in vv. 115-117.)
This is the first of two similes based on avian behavior in this canto. This one shows a tamed falcon being prepared to go off on a hunt for prey, while the next, at vv. 91-96, completes the implicitly joined image with a stork that has fed its young.
For six other references to falconry in the poem, see Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 34-36). Torraca explains (comm. to verse 34) that Frederick II, in his treatise on falconry (De arte venandi cum avibus), had boasted that it was he who introduced the Oriental use of the hood to Europe.
For the double sense here of the Latin verb plaudere (both “to beat one's wings” and “to express approval” [as found in both Ovid and Virgil]), see Scartazzini (comm. to this verse).
The following is Tozer's paraphrase of these lines: “God, who created all things, infinitely surpasses in Himself the wisdom which appears in His creation (ll. 40-45). Lucifer, the highest of created beings, fell, because he lacked as yet the light which would have enabled him to see God perfectly (ll. 46-48). How much more feeble must be the vision of beings inferior to him! (ll. 49-51). Hence our minds cannot have any true conception of God's attributes (ll. 52-57), and, in particular, of His justice (ll. 58-63).”
For the image of the compass in God's designing of the universe, see Proverbs 8:27, as was perhaps first noted by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 40-42). Torraca added (comm. to vv. 40-45) the information that Dante himself cited this passage in Convivio III (xv.16).
Lucifer's fall (and that of the other rebellious angels) will have an entire passage to itself for Beatrice's elucidation in Paradiso XXIX.49-66. For Adam's contrasting “ripeness,” see Paradiso XXVI.91. The poet's formulation “per non aspettar lume” might seem to suggest that Lucifer did not await God's finishing His creation of him, which would have made him “perfect” with the light of grace.
Some commentators follow Scartazzini (comm. to verse 58) in ascribing this thought to Psalm 35:7 [36:6], “Your judgments are like the great deep,” first cited, if without ascription, by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 70-78).
The answer to Dante's question will be found in God alone (in the metaphor, such shining as is never clouded over), as opposed to human sight, obfuscated by clouds of unknowing (products of our fallible or, worse, corrupt senses).
Marked by two Latinisms used as rhymes (latebra, “hiding-place”; crebra, “frequent”), this tercet marks the Eagle's finally coming to grips with Dante's insistent question about the justice of the condemnation of pagans who had apparently committed no positive sin.
The poet, allowing the Eagle to do so for him, insists once again that his life has been marked by a sort of pre-humanist zeal to defend the pagans from unfair Christian treatment. But see the note to vv. 88-90.
This passage gives the fullest and most affecting version of this question, one that was directed at, as we have seen, perhaps the single most troubling aspect of Christian orthodoxy for Dante. The language, if indirectly, revisits a scene from Purgatorio (XXI.7-13), the appearance of Statius, himself led to salvation by Virgil, represented so as to be reminiscent of Jesus, resurrected, appearing to Cleopas and his wife. See Luke 24:19, a description of Jesus given by Cleopas (to Jesus Himself, whom he did not at first recognize), “vir propheta potens in opere et sermone” (a prophet mighty in deed and word), perhaps first cited by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 73-75). In Purgatorio XXI.17-18, Virgil, hoping Statius will soon enjoy the fruits of salvation, refers to his own situation, condemned by “the unerring court / that confines me in eternal exile,” with full acceptance of his guilt in God's eyes. Was Dante thinking also of Ovid's altogether different reaction to his imposed exile by command of Augustus, another kind of divinity altogether, as put forward in the Tristia? See the note to Paradiso XVII.111. It is difficult to read the passage at hand and not think of Virgil. Once we encounter some of the virtuous pagans who were saved in the next canto, it will once more be difficult not to think of him.
Bortolo Martinelli (“Canto XIX,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 289-91) would cancel the ascription (only found in some commentaries in any case) of Dante's question to Leviticus 19:35, substituting for it Job 28:20-21.
The verb tenses and moods of each tercet are instructive. Based on the imperfect, here expressing habitual or insistent questioning (dicevi, “you used to say”), Dante's dubiety is seen as still present by the Eagle (nasce, is born); the absence of Christian instruction is conveyed by three verbs, all in the present subjunctive (ragioni, legga, scriva: “speak, read, write”). The second tercet has a single verb in its main clause, a present indicative statement of this Indian's good thoughts and deeds (sono, “are”). The third has three verbs in its two main clauses in the present indicative, the first (muore, “dies”), matching his present-tense goodness, while the last two, interrogatives, a repetition of the verb “to be,” challenges the justice in his relegation to Hell.
For a meditation on the challenge to Dante's claim to universality presented by those dwelling beyond the Indus (i.e., in India or even farther to the east), see Brena Deen Schildgen (“Dante and the Indus,” Dante Studies 111 [1993]: 177-93).
As Kenelm Foster explains (“Paradiso XIX,” Dante Studies 94 [1976]: 83), this hypothetical Indian must be condemned to Limbo, for he is (verse 73) without sin.
Up until now we have probably been sympathizing with the protagonist's unwillingness to embrace the justice that would condemn such an essentially admirable human being who, through no fault of his own, has not heard the Word. Suddenly the Eagle pounces on Dante (his “tu” is most personal, where in most of the rest of his long speech [vv. 40-90], with the exception of five other second-person singular pronouns or verbs within four lines, 67-70, he seems to be thinking of all mortals, three times addressing us as “voi”). “Who are you, Dante, to judge God's judgment?” Further (and now the Eagle resorts to third-person attack, Dante being offhandedly treated as a caviling subtilizer), is he not aware of what the Bible says? See the discussion of Romans 9:20 in the note to vv. 79-81.
See Boethius (Cons. Phil. IV.5[pr]) in this mode (how little it is that man knows), cited by Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 79-90). Landino (comm. to this tercet) offers an anthology, drawn from the Gospels and St. Paul, of several pertinent warnings lest humans attempt to know God's motives. As a biblical source for this tercet, Venturi (comm. to verse 79) adduces the Pauline formula (Romans 9:20) that will have most currency among later commentators: “o homo tu quis es qui respondeas Deo?” (But who are you, O man, that you answer back to God? [Is this the source of the Eagle's “tu”?]) Tommaseo adds a reference to Dante himself speaking in this vein (Conv. IV.v.9). Sapegno (comm. to verse 79) seems to have been the first commentator to have suggested Job 38:1-2, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 'Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?'” This citation has a certain following among the commentators, yet is clearly not as close to Dante's verse as the painful question found in St. Paul.
For the notion that this is the most important tercet of the canto, see Riccardo Scrivano (“Paradiso XIX,” L'Alighieri 6 [1995], p. 29).
A “span” is as much as can be covered by a human palm, that is, not very much, at least not in comparison with one thousand miles.
See the extensive treatment of this verse by Andrea Battistini (“'Se la Scrittura sovra voi non fosse [...]'. Allusioni bibliche nel canto XIX del Paradiso,” Critica letteraria 16 [1988]: 211-35).
Cf. Boethius (Cons. Phil. III.3[pr]) on terrena animalia (earthly beasts), first cited by Poletto (comm. to vv. 85-87), who also points out that Dante had previously cited this phrase in Convivio IV.v.9.
See Scartazzini's citation (comm. to this verse) of Malachi 3:6: “ego enim Dominus et non mutor” (for I am the Lord and I change not).
All that is just in the world accords with God's will; on the other hand, no created good draws God's will to itself; its goodness is the manifestation of that will, not its cause. Scartazzini/Vandelli (comm. to this tercet) point to Dante's similar phrasing in Monarchia II.ii.5, a passage that, in turn, may reflect the concept of God's inability to be unjust in Romans 9:14-15.
Having set himself up as a “liberal” on the question of the eternal punishment of virtuous pagans, Dante now embraces the “conservative” position, which has it that pagans are justly damned for not having intuited the truth of Christ. He will play this hand out again in the next canto, where he will see saved pagans (their presence in Heaven surely reflects a “liberal” mind-set), but will contrive to convince us (and himself?) that they had somehow found Christ. As we will see, moral perfection alone will not procure the most just among pagans a place in Heaven, this poet's Christian pantheon.
For the earlier and related avian simile, see the note to vv. 34-39.
The meaning of this expression is that the Eagle is propelled by the shared wills of its constituent souls.
Just as the second avian simile completed the first one (see the notes to vv. 34-39 and 91-96), so this second simile, pronounced by the Eagle itself, completes the pattern established by the first simile. There (vv. 19-21), many were resolved as one (many embers sensed as a single heat, many affectionate voices heard as a single song); here celestial harmony is not audible to human ears, which can hear only the individual voices and cannot make sense of them. See Inferno XX.29-30 for a similar insistence on the necessary failure of humans to understand God's justice.
This formulation might help clarify an issue that confuses some readers. The Eagle is not so much a symbol of Roman imperium as it is of God's justice made apparent in this world in whatever embodiment it should happen to take.
Zygmunt Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 285) comments on the density of various words, like segno, connected to the concept of signification in this canto. However, while not in any way denigrating his point, one may point out that, if segno occurs twice in this canto (and in several others), it has occurred five times in Paradiso VI, a canto dedicated to the eagle of empire.
The Eagle's words are pellucidly clear; nevertheless, some readers contrive not to understand them. Salvation without belief in Christ is simply not possible. We should tuck this notice away in order to reexamine it in the light of the salvation of both Trajan and Ripheus in the next canto; in the light of this absolute qualification, their salvations seem dubious, at the very least.
For an excursus (in English) on the concept of implicit faith, which alone can make a bit more understandable Dante's unshakable embrace of the Church's firm ruling in this matter, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 79-84).
This is the third set (there will eventually be four [see Par. XXXII.83-87] of identical rhymes on the word Cristo. See the notes to Paradiso XII.71-75 and XIV.103-108. Joan Ferrante (“Words and Images in the Paradiso: Reflections of the Divine,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini [Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983], p. 125), observing that the word occurs four times in these two tercets, goes on to explain that it does so in such a way as to form a cross on the page. Riccardo Scrivano (“Paradiso XIX,” L'Alighieri 6 [1995], p. 30) unaccountably omits reference to the fourth of these sets of identical rhymes.
Mowbray Allan (“Paradiso XIX, 106, and St. Thomas's Sed contra,” Dante Studies 111 [1993]: 195-211) restates and widens some of his earlier conclusions (see his article “Does Dante Hope for Virgil's Salvation?” Modern Language Notes 104 [1989]: 193-205) about the poem's openness to the possibility of Virgil's salvation. He reads this tercet as promising more than Dante probably intends. The text states only that, after the Judgment, some of these failed Christians will be still farther from God than certain pagans. That statement probably should not be interpreted as arguing for the possible eventual salvation of Virgil (or other pagans). They are already nearer God, in the Limbus (see Baranski [“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics {Lectura Dantis [virginiana], 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995}, p. 292], making this point), than most of the damned, who are predominantly (at least nominally) Christians. There is nothing here that requires us to think that Dante thinks that God will change his mind about Virgil - although of course He has the ability to do exactly that should He choose. The evidence of the text, however, does not in any way suggest that Dante thought that He would. For example, Virgil is allowed to describe his place in Limbo as eternal (Purg. XXI.18), not something the poet would have put in his mouth were he to have disagreed, as is (or ought to be) abundantly clear.
See Singleton (comm. to this verse) for a citation of Matthew 7:22-23 that may be reflected in this verse.
In response to this passage, perhaps Venturi (comm. to verse 109) was the first commentator to cite the following pertinent text in Matthew (12:41-42): “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” For a reference to the biblical queen of Sheba, seeking the wisdom of Solomon in Jerusalem, see Dante's Epistle XIII.3.
Zygmunt Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], pp. 291-2), citing the previous opinion of Nicolae Iliescu (“Will Virgil Be Saved,” Mediaevalia 12 [1986], pp. 109-111), argues that the passage requires that we understand that Dante believes that some pagans will be exempt from damnation on the strength of their moral goodness, “that some good Ethiopians and Persians would in fact be saved.” This is not Dante's point, as the text itself makes perfectly plain (see the note to verse 110). Dante clearly indicates that virtuous pagans (typified, not exhaustively referred to, as Ethiopians and Persians) present at the Last Judgment and damned by Christ, along with sinful Christians, will be able to take some solace in the fact that they will share damnation with those who were given access to the truth (the Bible and the Church) that pagans were intrinsically denied. Baranski (p. 292) goes on to assert that the Apocalypse promises exactly such conversions of all the peoples of the world. That may be, but any sort of attention to this passage does not allow such an understanding of Dante's text. In other words, that may have been John's message, but it is not Dante's. See the note to verse 113.
On the relationship in this and the next canto of the communion of saints and the Last Judgment, see Trottmann (“Communion des saints et jugement dernier dans les chants XIX-XX du Paradis,” in Pour Dante: Dante et l'Apocalypse: Lectures humanistes de Dante, ed. Bruno Pinchard and Christian Trottmann [Paris: Champion, 2001], pp. 181-98).
This verse has been a stumbling block for some readers. The clause “when the two assemblies go their separate ways” almost certainly does not mean, as some have taken it to do, that the Ethiopians shall depart from the wicked Christians and go to Heaven. Rather, it signifies that when the sheep (the saved “soldiery of Heaven”) are separated from the goats (both decent Ethiopian nonbelievers and sinful Christians), these virtuous heathen will (justly) castigate their Christian counterparts, who were given the key to Heaven and chose not even to try to unlock its gates.
The word “kings” sets up the acrostic with its list of those rotten rulers that fills the rest of the canto.
The noun volume was first used, we may remember, to indicate Virgil's Aeneid (see Inf. I.84 and note). Of its nine occurrences in the poem (see Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” {Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969}, pp. 78-79], unaccountably mentioning only seven of these, omitting the two occurrences found at Par. XXIII.112 and XXVI.119), only this one refers more or less directly to the Bible, more precisely, to the Apocalypse (20:12), as was first pointed out in specific terms by Pietro Alighieri ([Pietro1] comm. to vv. 112-114). These two uses do not make Virgil's book a Christian book by association; rather, they underline the tragic distance separating Virgil from salvation. The biblical text refers to the Book of Life, in which are recorded the names of the saved, and other unnamed “Books of the Dead” (see discussion of Inf. XXIX.57 in Hollander [“Dante's 'Book of the Dead': A Note on Inferno XXIX, 57,” Studi Danteschi 54 {1982}: 31-51]): “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” It is more than sufficiently clear that Dante is here referring, not to the “good” book in Revelation 20:12, but to the “bad” one(s).
That the word dispregio (here translated “infamy”) has already been seen at Inferno VIII.51 has been noted in the commentaries at least since the appearance of Poletto's (1894, to vv. 112-114). This is its seventh and last appearance in the poem, in one form or another.
Dante's second (and last) full-scale acrostic in the poem (for the first, see the note to Purgatorio XII.25-63). There can be little doubt but that this one, too, is a deliberate contrivance, whatever the strength of the feelings one happens to harbor against such literary behavior. Three sets of three consecutive tercets begin with the same letter, L, V, and E, respectively, thus spelling the word lue, or “plague.” However, even such astute readers as Bosco and Reggio (comm. to verse 115), seem to want to join Savi-Lopez (BSDI 10 [1903], p. 328) in thinking Dante's LVE the result of mere chance. While that seems extreme, at the other end of extremity we find Karla Taylor (“From superbo Ilïòn to umile Italia”: The Acrostic of Paradiso 19,“ Stanford Italian Review 7 [1987]: 47-65), who wants to extend the acrostic by adding the ”i“ and ”emme“ of its central tercet (vv. 128-129) so as to get the scrambled word ”lueim,“ an anagram for umile (humble). For her more than questionable procedure in so doing, see Teodolinda Barolini's complaint (The Undivine ”Comedy“: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], pp. 309-10). Barolini (pp. 308-9) also dismisses three other ”discoverers“ of ”acrostics“ elsewhere in the poem. However, see Paola Allegretti (”Un acrostico per Giovanni del Virgilio,“ Studi Danteschi 69 [2004]: 289-93) for a study of yet another (and hitherto unobserved) acrostic in Dante's poetic response to Giovanni del Virgilio's invitation to compose a pastoral eclogue.
Lì, here and in the next two tercets, means ”in that volume,“ that is, in the ”Book of the Dead.“ Albert (emperor from 1298-1308, i.e., in precedence of Henry VII), was previously denounced by Dante for his neglect of Italy (Purg. VI.97-126). In 1304 he invaded and devastated Bohemia. In the assemblage of fifteen crowned heads appearing here, Albert is the only one to be named, thus giving us a sense of how much knowledge of ”current events“ Dante believed he could count on in his readers.
”On the banks of the Seine,“ that is, at Paris, where Philip the Fair caused his subjects great distress when he adulterated the coinage. See the note to verse 119.
For Philip's monetarist failings (let Ben Bernanke take note), see Oelsner (comm. to vv. 119-120): ”[the king] debased the coinage to one-third of its value, in order to meet the expenses of his Flemish campaigns in 1302. This is one of several passages in which we see the horror of tampering with the coinage entertained by Dante, the citizen of the greatest commercial city of Europe. As the symbol of greed the Florin was the 'accursed flower' of Par. IX.130, but as the foundation of all commercial relations it was worthy of such reverence that he who tampered with it was to be ranked with him who falsified the very personality of human beings, the ultimate basis of human intercourse.“ Toynbee (”Filippo2“ [Concise Dante Dictionary]) points out that Philip is always named by periphrasis in the poem, never by his name, and lists his other main periphrastic appearances: Inferno XIX.87; Purgatorio VII.109, XX.91.
This mention of the death of the French king dates the canto as having been composed (or, at least, modified) after November 1314, according to Campi (comm. to vv. 118-120); see also Kenelm Foster (”Paradiso XIX,“ Dante Studies 94 [1976)], p. 85). The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 118-120), writing in 1333, knew about the death of Philip the Fair, caused by a boar. (The word cotenna, in Tuscany, meant the hide of a wild pig and perhaps, in Dante's day [as nineteenth-century commentators report, even then on the tongues of peasants in the Romagna], referred to the whole dangerous animal.) Lombardi (comm. to this verse) explains what happened (citing Villani [Cron. IX.66]): A boar ran among the legs of Philip's horse and the frightened animal threw his royal rider, killing him.
”The pride that makes men thirst“ is evidently the craving to dominate. Dante is probably referring to the border wars between Scotland and England in the reign of Edward I (1272-1307). However, just which monarch Dante has in mind is debated. Since the poet had previously praised Edward I (Purg. VII.130-132), some readers have suggested that Dante was thinking of Edward II, even if he ruled at a period that places him outside the limits established for everyone else mentioned in this list (i.e., to have been governing in 1300). Thus it probably seems necessary to believe one of two things: Either Dante had received information that made him change his mind about Edward I, or else he had incorrect dates for Edward II. The Scottish leader referred to is perhaps Robert the Bruce (1306-29). That would put him also outside the allotted time zone. However, as Tozer points out (comm. to this tercet), since Villani (Cron. VIII.90) represents him as the Scottish leader during Edward I's reign, Dante may have fallen into the same error.
Ferdinand IV of Castile and Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. For the latter see Purgatorio VII.101-102, where he is described in much the same way.
”The Cripple of Jerusalem“ was the derogatory name for the lame Charles II, king of Apulia and Naples (1285-1309), who claimed the title ”King of Jerusalem“ enjoyed by his father, even though it never was granted to him as the son. Tozer (comm. to vv. 127-129) paraphrases and comments: ”His virtues will be seen marked by a unit (I), his vices by an M (for Lat. mille, 'a thousand'). The one virtue here intended was liberality, which Dante attributes to him in Paradiso VIII.82.“ Steiner (comm. to vv. 128-130) says that others have suggested that ”I“ and ”M“ refer to the first and last letters of his desired and fraudulent title, ”King of Ierusalem.“
The reference is to Frederick II, son of Pedro of Aragon (see Purg. VII.119), and first regent (1291) and then king of Sicily (1296-1337). Sicily is referred to as ”the isle of fire“ because of the volcanic activity of Mt. Etna. For the death of Anchises on its western shore, see Virgil (Aen. III.707-710). This Frederick II is not to be confused with the emperor Frederick II (see Inf. X.119 and note), who died in 1250.
See Vittorio Russo (”Paradiso XIX: similis fictio numquam facta fuit per aliquem poetam,“ Dante Studies 101 [1983], p. 105) for discussion of the rhymes based in the sound of -zz as typical of the low style, citing De vulgari eloquentia II.vii.5-6 on ”hirsute“ words that are not fitting for the tragic style.
Frederick is the only one of the pestilential dozen to receive more than a single tercet for his dispraises. With a wry sense of humor, Dante claims that Frederick is unworthy of attention, yet he gives Frederick's unworthiness more space than any of his competitors in malfeasance. Tozer paraphrases the tercet as follows and then comments: ”'In order to let men know how paltry he is, that which is written against him will take the form of abbreviations, which will enumerate many vices within a small space.' Abbreviations were commonly used in MSS. to save space; so they would be used in God's record of Frederic, because he was too insignificant for a large space to be allotted to him.“
The uncle, barba, of Frederick II of Sicily was James, king of Majorca (and of Minorca). He lost his crown for ten years as a result of joining Philip the Bold of France in a disastrous invasion of Catalonia. His brother, James of Aragon (see Purg. VII.119), in 1291 succeeded to the throne of Aragon, surrendering his kingship of Sicily, which his father had acquired, and appointed his younger brother, Frederick, to it in 1296. By these acts the James boys dishonored both family and their kingship.
Seven times in the first two canticles the word barba meant, what it still means, ”beard.“ Here it means ”uncle,“ as Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 136-148) informs us it does in Lombard. Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) gives its medieval Latin forms and dialectical presence in nineteenth-century Italy (Lombardy and the Tuscan Romagna). According to Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 136-138) it still has that meaning in some northern dialectical Italian of the mid-twentieth century.
The concluding royal triad share a single tercet: Dionysius, king of Portugal; Haakon V, king of Norway; and Stephen Ouros, king of Rascia, the modern Illyria and Dalmatia. Tozer (comm. to this tercet): ”[Stephen] struck coins of debased metal in imitation of the Venetian ducat; the resemblance of the two is seen in the figures given by Philalethes, p. 259.“
The acrostic comes to a close, but Dante is not yet finished cataloguing the ills of Europe's suffering kingdoms. This ungainly departure from the acrostic mode suggested to Bosco/Reggio that the acrostic itself may have occurred without design (see the note to vv. 115-139). The reader notes that these three examples offer mixed messages: the first of a good monarch leading to continued good governance, the second of a good monarch whose work will be undone at her death, and the third of a disastrous monarch.
Tozer (comm. to this tercet): ”Hungary had been governed by corrupt princes until the time of Andrea III (1290-1301), who was a good sovereign. 'Happy Navarre, if she should defend herself with the mountain that girds her,' the Pyrenees. Joan of Navarre had married Philip the Fair in 1284, but governed her kingdom independently. On her death in 1305 it passed to her son Louis Hutin, and when he succeeded to the throne of France as Louis X in 1314, it was annexed to the French crown.“
Tozer (comm. to this tercet): ”Cyprus, of which Nicosia and Famagosta were the chief cities, was badly governed in 1300 by Henry II of Lusignan, who was a man of corrupt life.“
As a coda to the whole parade of princes, we are told that Henry (as opposed to Andrea III and Joanna of Navarre?), a bad ruler, keeps the (metaphoric) company of the dirty dozen referred to in the acrostic.
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Parea dinanzi a me con l'ali aperte
la bella image che nel dolce frui
liete facevan l'anime conserte;
parea ciascuna rubinetto in cui
raggio di sole ardesse sì acceso,
che ne' miei occhi rifrangesse lui.
E quel che mi convien ritrar testeso,
non portò voce mai, né scrisse incostro,
né fu per fantasia già mai compreso;
ch'io vidi e anche udi' parlar lo rostro,
e sonar ne la voce e “io” e “mio,”
quand' era nel concetto e “noi” e “nostro.”
E cominciò: “Per esser giusto e pio
son io qui essaltato a quella gloria
che non si lascia vincere a disio;
e in terra lasciai la mia memoria
sì fatta, che le genti lì malvage
commendan lei, ma non seguon la storia.”
Così un sol calor di molte brage
si fa sentir, come di molti amori
usciva solo un suon di quella image.
Ond' io appresso: “O perpetüi fiori
de l'etterna letizia, che pur uno
parer mi fate tutti vostri odori,
solvetemi, spirando, il gran digiuno
che lungamente m'ha tenuto in fame,
non trovandoli in terra cibo alcuno.
Ben so io che, se 'n cielo altro reame
la divina giustizia fa suo specchio,
che 'l vostro non l'apprende con velame.
Sapete come attento io m'apparecchio
ad ascoltar; sapete qual è quello
dubbio che m'è digiun cotanto vecchio.”
Quasi falcone ch'esce del cappello,
move la testa e con l'ali si plaude,
voglia mostrando e faccendosi bello,
vid' io farsi quel segno, che di laude
de la divina grazia era contesto,
con canti quai si sa chi là sù gaude.
Poi cominciò: “Colui che volse il sesto
a lo stremo del mondo, e dentro ad esso
distinse tanto occulto e manifesto,
non poté suo valor sì fare impresso
in tutto l'universo, che 'l suo verbo
non rimanesse in infinito eccesso.
E ciò fa certo che 'l primo superbo,
che fu la somma d'ogne creatura,
per non aspettar lume, cadde acerbo;
e quinci appar ch'ogne minor natura
è corto recettacolo a quel bene
che non ha fine e sé con sé misura.
Dunque vostra veduta, che convene
essere alcun de' raggi de la mente
di che tutte le cose son ripiene,
non pò da sua natura esser possente
tanto, che suo principio non discerna
molto di là da quel che l'è parvente.
Però ne la giustizia sempiterna
la vista che riceve il vostro mondo,
com' occhio per lo mare, entro s'interna;
che, ben che da la proda veggia il fondo,
in pelago nol vede; e nondimeno
èli, ma cela lui l'esser profondo.
Lume non è, se non vien dal sereno
che non si turba mai; anzi è tenèbra
od ombra de la carne o suo veleno.
Assai t'è mo aperta la latebra
che t'ascondeva la giustizia viva,
di che facei question cotanto crebra;
ché tu dicevi: 'Un uom nasce a la riva
de l'Indo, e quivi non è chi ragioni
di Cristo né chi legga né chi scriva;
e tutti suoi voleri e atti buoni
sono, quanto ragione umana vede,
sanza peccato in vita o in sermoni.
Muore non battezzato e sanza fede:
ov' è questa giustizia che 'l condanna?
ov' è la colpa sua, se ei non crede?'
Or tu chi se', che vuo' sedere a scranna,
per giudicar di lungi mille miglia
con la veduta corta d'una spanna?
Certo a colui che meco s'assottiglia,
se la Scrittura sovra voi non fosse,
da dubitar sarebbe a maraviglia.
Oh terreni animali! oh menti grosse!
La prima volontà, ch'è da sé buona,
da sé, ch'è sommo ben, mai non si mosse.
Cotanto è giusto quanto a lei consuona:
nullo creato bene a sé la tira,
ma essa, radïando, lui cagiona.”
Quale sovresso il nido si rigira
poi c'ha pasciuti la cicogna i figli,
e come quel ch'è pasto la rimira;
cotal si fece, e sì leväi i cigli,
la benedetta imagine, che l'ali
movea sospinte da tanti consigli.
Roteando cantava, e dicea: “Quali
son le mie note a te, che non le 'ntendi,
tal è il giudicio etterno a voi mortali.”
Poi si quetaro quei lucenti incendi
de lo Spirito Santo ancor nel segno
che fé i Romani al mondo reverendi,
esso ricominciò: “A questo regno
non salì mai chi non credette 'n Cristo,
né pria né poi ch'el si chiavasse al legno.
Ma vedi: molti gridan 'Cristo, Cristo!'
che saranno in giudicio assai men prope
a lui, che tal che non conosce Cristo;
e tai Cristian dannerà l'Etïòpe,
quando si partiranno i due collegi,
l'uno in etterno ricco e l'altro inòpe.
Che poran dir li Perse a' vostri regi,
come vedranno quel volume aperto
nel qual si scrivon tutti suoi dispregi?
Lì si vedrà, tra l'opere d'Alberto,
quella che tosto moverà la penna,
per che 'l regno di Praga fia diserto.
Lì si vedrà il duol che sovra Senna
induce, falseggiando la moneta,
quel che morrà di colpo di cotenna.
Lì si vedrà la superbia ch'asseta,
che fa lo Scotto e l'Inghilese folle,
sì che non può soffrir dentro a sua meta.
Vedrassi la lussuria e 'l viver molle
di quel di Spagna e di quel di Boemme,
che mai valor non conobbe né volle.
Vedrassi al Ciotto di Ierusalemme
segnata con un i la sua bontate,
quando 'l contrario segnerà un emme.
Vedrassi l'avarizia e la viltate
di quei che guarda l'isola del foco,
ove Anchise finì la lunga etate;
e a dare ad intender quanto è poco,
la sua scrittura fian lettere mozze,
che noteranno molto in parvo loco.
E parranno a ciascun l'opere sozze
del barba e del fratel, che tanto egregia
nazione e due corone han fatte bozze.
E quel di Portogallo e di Norvegia
lì si conosceranno, e quel di Rascia
che male ha visto il conio di Vinegia.
O beata Ungheria, se non si lascia
più malmenare! e beata Navarra,
se s'armasse del monte che la fascia!
E creder de' ciascun che già, per arra
di questo, Niccosïa e Famagosta
per la lor bestia si lamenti e garra,
che dal fianco de l'altre non si scosta.”
Appeared before me with its wings outspread
The beautiful image that in sweet fruition
Made jubilant the interwoven souls;
Appeared a little ruby each, wherein
Ray of the sun was burning so enkindled
That each into mine eyes refracted it.
And what it now behoves me to retrace
Nor voice has e'er reported, nor ink written,
Nor was by fantasy e'er comprehended;
For speak I saw, and likewise heard, the beak,
And utter with its voice both 'I' and 'My,'
When in conception it was 'We' and 'Our.'
And it began: "Being just and merciful
Am I exalted here unto that glory
Which cannot be exceeded by desire;
And upon earth I left my memory
Such, that the evil-minded people there
Commend it, but continue not the story."
So doth a single heat from many embers
Make itself felt, even as from many loves
Issued a single sound from out that image.
Whence I thereafter: "O perpetual flowers
Of the eternal joy, that only one
Make me perceive your odours manifold,
Exhaling, break within me the great fast
Which a long season has in hunger held me,
Not finding for it any food on earth.
Well do I know, that if in heaven its mirror
Justice Divine another realm doth make,
Yours apprehends it not through any veil.
You know how I attentively address me
To listen; and you know what is the doubt
That is in me so very old a fast."
Even as a falcon, issuing from his hood,
Doth move his head, and with his wings applaud him,
Showing desire, and making himself fine,
Saw I become that standard, which of lauds
Was interwoven of the grace divine,
With such songs as he knows who there rejoices.
Then it began: "He who a compass turned
On the world's outer verge, and who within it
Devised so much occult and manifest,
Could not the impress of his power so make
On all the universe, as that his Word
Should not remain in infinite excess.
And this makes certain that the first proud being,
Who was the paragon of every creature,
By not awaiting light fell immature.
And hence appears it, that each minor nature
Is scant receptacle unto that good
Which has no end, and by itself is measured.
In consequence our vision, which perforce
Must be some ray of that intelligence
With which all things whatever are replete,
Cannot in its own nature be so potent,
That it shall not its origin discern
Far beyond that which is apparent to it.
Therefore into the justice sempiternal
The power of vision that your world receives,
As eye into the ocean, penetrates;
Which, though it see the bottom near the shore,
Upon the deep perceives it not, and yet
'Tis there, but it is hidden by the depth.
There is no light but comes from the serene
That never is o'ercast, nay, it is darkness
Or shadow of the flesh, or else its poison.
Amply to thee is opened now the cavern
Which has concealed from thee the living justice
Of which thou mad'st such frequent questioning.
For saidst thou: 'Born a man is on the shore
Of Indus, and is none who there can speak
Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write;
And all his inclinations and his actions
Are good, so far as human reason sees,
Without a sin in life or in discourse:
He dieth unbaptised and without faith;
Where is this justice that condemneth him?
Where is his fault, if he do not believe?'
Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit
In judgment at a thousand miles away,
With the short vision of a single span?
Truly to him who with me subtilizes,
If so the Scripture were not over you,
For doubting there were marvellous occasion.
O animals terrene, O stolid minds,
The primal will, that in itself is good,
Ne'er from itself, the Good Supreme, has moved.
So much is just as is accordant with it;
No good created draws it to itself,
But it, by raying forth, occasions that."
Even as above her nest goes circling round
The stork when she has fed her little ones,
And he who has been fed looks up at her,
So lifted I my brows, and even such
Became the blessed image, which its wings
Was moving, by so many counsels urged.
Circling around it sang, and said: "As are
My notes to thee, who dost not comprehend them,
Such is the eternal judgment to you mortals."
Those lucent splendours of the Holy Spirit
Grew quiet then, but still within the standard
That made the Romans reverend to the world.
It recommenced: "Unto this kingdom never
Ascended one who had not faith in Christ,
Before or since he to the tree was nailed.
But look thou, many crying are, 'Christ, Christ!'
Who at the judgment shall be far less near
To him than some shall be who knew not Christ.
Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn,
When the two companies shall be divided,
The one for ever rich, the other poor.
What to your kings may not the Persians say,
When they that volume opened shall behold
In which are written down all their dispraises?
There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert,
That which ere long shall set the pen in motion,
For which the realm of Prague shall be deserted.
There shall be seen the woe that on the Seine
He brings by falsifying of the coin,
Who by the blow of a wild boar shall die.
There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst,
Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad
That they within their boundaries cannot rest;
Be seen the luxury and effeminate life
Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian,
Who valour never knew and never wished;
Be seen the Cripple of Jerusalem,
His goodness represented by an I,
While the reverse an M shall represent;
Be seen the avarice and poltroonery
Of him who guards the Island of the Fire,
Wherein Anchises finished his long life;
And to declare how pitiful he is
Shall be his record in contracted letters
Which shall make note of much in little space.
And shall appear to each one the foul deeds
Of uncle and of brother who a nation
So famous have dishonoured, and two crowns.
And he of Portugal and he of Norway
Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too,
Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice.
O happy Hungary, if she let herself
Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy,
If with the hills that gird her she be armed!
And each one may believe that now, as hansel
Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta
Lament and rage because of their own beast,
Who from the others' flank departeth not."
The Eagle is first seen as a discrete entity (la bella image) and then as its components, the individual just rulers who constitute this beautiful image of justice, each appearing as a much-prized precious stone, the ruby. The text goes on to suggest that all of them were glowing as though the sun were equally reflected in all of them at once (something that would not happen in earthbound optics, where uneven surfaces reflect a distant light variously). In fact, these “rubies,” red with the glow of caritas, are shining with their own light of affection, if that is eventually a reflection of God's love for them.
Dante's radical (and revolutionary, at least from an Augustinian point of view) notion is that earthly justice is the direct product of a divine principle. And, as we learned in the last canto (see the note to Par. XVIII.115-117), the souls of the shapers of those human institutions that serve justice are themselves shaped by the agency of this heaven. This offers us another occasion on which to consider Dante's heterodoxy when he is measured against the requirements of any one school of thought. Depending on the specific issues enjoined, he will be seen to be both Augustinian and anti-Augustinian, Aristotelian and anti-Aristotelian, Virgilian and anti-Virgilian. Perhaps that is one reason that contemporary readers are so surprisingly receptive to this medieval poet; they “read beneath the radar” of the “official” Dantologies, which tend, in their strategic attempt to restrict other views, to make him one thing and only that thing (e.g., Dominican or Franciscan; imperialist or republican; “grammarian” or vernacularist; etc.). He is, as he said his poem was (Epistle XIII.20), “polysemous” (of many meanings).
The image of the Eagle, with its open wings, suggests, to Zygmunt Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 277), a passage from Deuteronomy 32:11, “expandit alas suas” (spreading out its wings), in the song about himself that Moses intones near the end of his life, in which he is presented as an eagle taking his chicks upon his back for an exodal ride. (Scartazzini cited that passage, but at Purgatorio IX.30.)
The term frui (to enjoy), first identified as deriving from St. Augustine by Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 1-3), probably arrives in Dante via Aquinas (ST I-II, q. 11, a. 3), as Scartazzini may have been the first to suggest. Steiner (comm. to vv. 2-3) adverts to the familiar Augustinian binome (variously found but perhaps best known from the extended discussion in the first book of De doctrina christiana), frui and uti (to use), the former pertaining to our relationship to things divine (we “enjoy” them), the latter, to perishable things (we only “use” these).
What Dante must now report was never reported by voice, nor written in ink, nor present in the image-receiving faculty of the mind, for he had seen the beak speak and had heard it, too, when it uttered with its voice “I” and “mine,” while in its conception it meant “we” and “our.” We have had a similar experience once before, hearing Dante introduce himself as “we” and then speak as “I” in the first two lines of the poem (Inf. I.1-2): “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura....”
St. Paul describes similar marvelous truths (I Corinthians 2:9) that “the eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,” an observation dating back to Jacopo della Lana (proem to this canto). For discussion of this example of Dante's exploitation of the familiar topos of novelty, see Giuseppe Ledda (La guerra della lingua [Ravenna: Longo, 2002]), pp. 81-82).
For “phantasy” as a technical term in medieval versions of Aristotelian “physiology of mind,” see Carroll (comm. to Par. IV.28-48) and Singleton (comm. to Purg. XVII.13-18); see also the note to Purgatorio XVII.13-18. This faculty is the image-receiving element in the mind. Carroll, Singleton, and Hollander consequently use this spelling in order to distinguish this term from the modern one, “fantasy,” a daydream or another form of fictive flight.
See Mario Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 85, for two potential biblical sources for this verse: for fantasia, Ecclesiasticus 34:6; for compreso, Daniel 7:1, comprehendit, when Daniel has a dream of a leonine shape with the wings of an eagle (Dan. 7:4).
The first commentator to report the resonance here of Apocalypse 8:13, “Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead,” was Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 10-12). The context is the fourth angelic trumpet blast, and the eagle is announcing woe to those who dwell on earth. Dante's Eagle, on the other hand, has a more eupeptic message.
It seems clear that Geoffrey Chaucer was amused when he read this verse; his loquacious eagle in that delightful send-up of Dante's poem, The House of Fame, surely was one poet's laughing salute to another.
Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse) point out the resonance of the description of Trajan (shortly himself to appear in the poem at Par. XX.44-45) in Purgatorio X.93, where he is portrayed as moved by giustizia and pietà.
These verses were initially and widely interpreted to refer to that glory (salvation) that is greater than any desire for it. Scartazzini (comm. to verse 15), however, cites Bartolomeo Perazzini (Note alla “Divina Commedia” [Venice, 1844], p. 155), who says that the heavenly glory won by these souls, even more than did their desire, reflected (and rewarded) their deeds. Given the context of their virtuous acts as rulers, this interpretation has won support ever since it was presented by Scartazzini (op. cit.) and Campi (comm. to vv. 13-15). Nonetheless, there is still no consensus, with various commentators advancing the one or the other explanation. Here is Carroll (comm. to vv. 1-18), summarizing the debate before attempting to find a way out: “Two interpretations are suggested: (1) that this glory of Jupiter is superior to all human desire; (2) that it does not allow itself to be won by mere desire – it must be worked for (Matth. 7:21). I venture to suggest a third: the common way in which kings aim at glory is at their own 'desire' or ambition, and earthly glory may be so won. But not so the glory of this Heaven: it can be 'conquered' only 'by being just and merciful.'”
We may need to remind ourselves that the Eagle is speaking as a corporate entity, his “I” really meaning “we,” that is, the virtuous rulers composing his shape have all left exemplary lives behind them that draw lip service but no imitative good actions.
The commentators, from Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 16-18) onward, generally take storia here in the sense of exemplum, that is, according to the fourteenth-century Dantist, the wicked on the earth do not follow the positive examples of these virtuous rulers, present here in the Eagle, of whom we shall see some in the next canto. Most of the following commentators become confused, taking the Eagle as the symbol of the Roman Empire, rather than as the collectivity of just rulers, some from other places as well (e.g., David [Par. XX.38] and Hezekiah [Par. XX.49]). But see, for the better reading, Porena (comm. to this verse). A slightly different interpretive difficulty is found in the view that the text means that those in need of a corrective example are themselves to blame because they fail to read history correctly. See Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 286): “Human beings sin, because they do not read and interpret their history books properly.” That may be true, but it hardly seems to be what Dante is saying here.
The simile pounds home the poet's insistence that the plurality of souls making up the Eagle's unity sing as a single voice.
The protagonist himself, as it were, picks up the theme of the simile only to express it in metaphor: He believes that these souls have become a garden of flowers giving off a single perfume, that is, speaking as one.
We probably are reminded of the presence in Limbo of the virtuous pagans (unauthorized by previous authority, e.g., St. Thomas, who denies them a place alongside the only inhabitants of the “orthodox” Limbus, the innocent but unbaptized infants [see the note to Inf. IV.30]). It was clear from that earlier passage that our poet had a problem with traditional Christian views of the “guilt” of otherwise morally good (or even excellent) human beings. The last words of his request to the souls in the Eagle make it plain that in his life he had been bothered by the Church's teaching on the post-mortal situation of the virtuous heathen.
The gerund (perhaps used here as a present participle) spirando (breathing forth) is a form of the verb (spirare) that Dante uses to indicate the “spiration” of the Holy Spirit. For confirmation of this association, see verse 101.
The poet here refers, as Tommaseo (comm. to this tercet) was apparently the first commentator to point out, to Cunizza's words in Paradiso IX.61-62, from which he has learned that the angelic order of Thrones, presiding over the heaven of Saturn, is designated as reflecting divine justice. But this does not mean that these just souls here in Jupiter are innocent of such knowledge, since they know about earthly justice and, further, like all the saved, see the higher form reflected in God Himself. (Momigliano is confused about exactly this issue, saying [comm. to vv. 28-30] that here Dante contradicts what he has said in vv. 115-117.)
This is the first of two similes based on avian behavior in this canto. This one shows a tamed falcon being prepared to go off on a hunt for prey, while the next, at vv. 91-96, completes the implicitly joined image with a stork that has fed its young.
For six other references to falconry in the poem, see Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 34-36). Torraca explains (comm. to verse 34) that Frederick II, in his treatise on falconry (De arte venandi cum avibus), had boasted that it was he who introduced the Oriental use of the hood to Europe.
For the double sense here of the Latin verb plaudere (both “to beat one's wings” and “to express approval” [as found in both Ovid and Virgil]), see Scartazzini (comm. to this verse).
The following is Tozer's paraphrase of these lines: “God, who created all things, infinitely surpasses in Himself the wisdom which appears in His creation (ll. 40-45). Lucifer, the highest of created beings, fell, because he lacked as yet the light which would have enabled him to see God perfectly (ll. 46-48). How much more feeble must be the vision of beings inferior to him! (ll. 49-51). Hence our minds cannot have any true conception of God's attributes (ll. 52-57), and, in particular, of His justice (ll. 58-63).”
For the image of the compass in God's designing of the universe, see Proverbs 8:27, as was perhaps first noted by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 40-42). Torraca added (comm. to vv. 40-45) the information that Dante himself cited this passage in Convivio III (xv.16).
Lucifer's fall (and that of the other rebellious angels) will have an entire passage to itself for Beatrice's elucidation in Paradiso XXIX.49-66. For Adam's contrasting “ripeness,” see Paradiso XXVI.91. The poet's formulation “per non aspettar lume” might seem to suggest that Lucifer did not await God's finishing His creation of him, which would have made him “perfect” with the light of grace.
Some commentators follow Scartazzini (comm. to verse 58) in ascribing this thought to Psalm 35:7 [36:6], “Your judgments are like the great deep,” first cited, if without ascription, by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 70-78).
The answer to Dante's question will be found in God alone (in the metaphor, such shining as is never clouded over), as opposed to human sight, obfuscated by clouds of unknowing (products of our fallible or, worse, corrupt senses).
Marked by two Latinisms used as rhymes (latebra, “hiding-place”; crebra, “frequent”), this tercet marks the Eagle's finally coming to grips with Dante's insistent question about the justice of the condemnation of pagans who had apparently committed no positive sin.
The poet, allowing the Eagle to do so for him, insists once again that his life has been marked by a sort of pre-humanist zeal to defend the pagans from unfair Christian treatment. But see the note to vv. 88-90.
This passage gives the fullest and most affecting version of this question, one that was directed at, as we have seen, perhaps the single most troubling aspect of Christian orthodoxy for Dante. The language, if indirectly, revisits a scene from Purgatorio (XXI.7-13), the appearance of Statius, himself led to salvation by Virgil, represented so as to be reminiscent of Jesus, resurrected, appearing to Cleopas and his wife. See Luke 24:19, a description of Jesus given by Cleopas (to Jesus Himself, whom he did not at first recognize), “vir propheta potens in opere et sermone” (a prophet mighty in deed and word), perhaps first cited by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 73-75). In Purgatorio XXI.17-18, Virgil, hoping Statius will soon enjoy the fruits of salvation, refers to his own situation, condemned by “the unerring court / that confines me in eternal exile,” with full acceptance of his guilt in God's eyes. Was Dante thinking also of Ovid's altogether different reaction to his imposed exile by command of Augustus, another kind of divinity altogether, as put forward in the Tristia? See the note to Paradiso XVII.111. It is difficult to read the passage at hand and not think of Virgil. Once we encounter some of the virtuous pagans who were saved in the next canto, it will once more be difficult not to think of him.
Bortolo Martinelli (“Canto XIX,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 289-91) would cancel the ascription (only found in some commentaries in any case) of Dante's question to Leviticus 19:35, substituting for it Job 28:20-21.
The verb tenses and moods of each tercet are instructive. Based on the imperfect, here expressing habitual or insistent questioning (dicevi, “you used to say”), Dante's dubiety is seen as still present by the Eagle (nasce, is born); the absence of Christian instruction is conveyed by three verbs, all in the present subjunctive (ragioni, legga, scriva: “speak, read, write”). The second tercet has a single verb in its main clause, a present indicative statement of this Indian's good thoughts and deeds (sono, “are”). The third has three verbs in its two main clauses in the present indicative, the first (muore, “dies”), matching his present-tense goodness, while the last two, interrogatives, a repetition of the verb “to be,” challenges the justice in his relegation to Hell.
For a meditation on the challenge to Dante's claim to universality presented by those dwelling beyond the Indus (i.e., in India or even farther to the east), see Brena Deen Schildgen (“Dante and the Indus,” Dante Studies 111 [1993]: 177-93).
As Kenelm Foster explains (“Paradiso XIX,” Dante Studies 94 [1976]: 83), this hypothetical Indian must be condemned to Limbo, for he is (verse 73) without sin.
Up until now we have probably been sympathizing with the protagonist's unwillingness to embrace the justice that would condemn such an essentially admirable human being who, through no fault of his own, has not heard the Word. Suddenly the Eagle pounces on Dante (his “tu” is most personal, where in most of the rest of his long speech [vv. 40-90], with the exception of five other second-person singular pronouns or verbs within four lines, 67-70, he seems to be thinking of all mortals, three times addressing us as “voi”). “Who are you, Dante, to judge God's judgment?” Further (and now the Eagle resorts to third-person attack, Dante being offhandedly treated as a caviling subtilizer), is he not aware of what the Bible says? See the discussion of Romans 9:20 in the note to vv. 79-81.
See Boethius (Cons. Phil. IV.5[pr]) in this mode (how little it is that man knows), cited by Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 79-90). Landino (comm. to this tercet) offers an anthology, drawn from the Gospels and St. Paul, of several pertinent warnings lest humans attempt to know God's motives. As a biblical source for this tercet, Venturi (comm. to verse 79) adduces the Pauline formula (Romans 9:20) that will have most currency among later commentators: “o homo tu quis es qui respondeas Deo?” (But who are you, O man, that you answer back to God? [Is this the source of the Eagle's “tu”?]) Tommaseo adds a reference to Dante himself speaking in this vein (Conv. IV.v.9). Sapegno (comm. to verse 79) seems to have been the first commentator to have suggested Job 38:1-2, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 'Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?'” This citation has a certain following among the commentators, yet is clearly not as close to Dante's verse as the painful question found in St. Paul.
For the notion that this is the most important tercet of the canto, see Riccardo Scrivano (“Paradiso XIX,” L'Alighieri 6 [1995], p. 29).
A “span” is as much as can be covered by a human palm, that is, not very much, at least not in comparison with one thousand miles.
See the extensive treatment of this verse by Andrea Battistini (“'Se la Scrittura sovra voi non fosse [...]'. Allusioni bibliche nel canto XIX del Paradiso,” Critica letteraria 16 [1988]: 211-35).
Cf. Boethius (Cons. Phil. III.3[pr]) on terrena animalia (earthly beasts), first cited by Poletto (comm. to vv. 85-87), who also points out that Dante had previously cited this phrase in Convivio IV.v.9.
See Scartazzini's citation (comm. to this verse) of Malachi 3:6: “ego enim Dominus et non mutor” (for I am the Lord and I change not).
All that is just in the world accords with God's will; on the other hand, no created good draws God's will to itself; its goodness is the manifestation of that will, not its cause. Scartazzini/Vandelli (comm. to this tercet) point to Dante's similar phrasing in Monarchia II.ii.5, a passage that, in turn, may reflect the concept of God's inability to be unjust in Romans 9:14-15.
Having set himself up as a “liberal” on the question of the eternal punishment of virtuous pagans, Dante now embraces the “conservative” position, which has it that pagans are justly damned for not having intuited the truth of Christ. He will play this hand out again in the next canto, where he will see saved pagans (their presence in Heaven surely reflects a “liberal” mind-set), but will contrive to convince us (and himself?) that they had somehow found Christ. As we will see, moral perfection alone will not procure the most just among pagans a place in Heaven, this poet's Christian pantheon.
For the earlier and related avian simile, see the note to vv. 34-39.
The meaning of this expression is that the Eagle is propelled by the shared wills of its constituent souls.
Just as the second avian simile completed the first one (see the notes to vv. 34-39 and 91-96), so this second simile, pronounced by the Eagle itself, completes the pattern established by the first simile. There (vv. 19-21), many were resolved as one (many embers sensed as a single heat, many affectionate voices heard as a single song); here celestial harmony is not audible to human ears, which can hear only the individual voices and cannot make sense of them. See Inferno XX.29-30 for a similar insistence on the necessary failure of humans to understand God's justice.
This formulation might help clarify an issue that confuses some readers. The Eagle is not so much a symbol of Roman imperium as it is of God's justice made apparent in this world in whatever embodiment it should happen to take.
Zygmunt Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 285) comments on the density of various words, like segno, connected to the concept of signification in this canto. However, while not in any way denigrating his point, one may point out that, if segno occurs twice in this canto (and in several others), it has occurred five times in Paradiso VI, a canto dedicated to the eagle of empire.
The Eagle's words are pellucidly clear; nevertheless, some readers contrive not to understand them. Salvation without belief in Christ is simply not possible. We should tuck this notice away in order to reexamine it in the light of the salvation of both Trajan and Ripheus in the next canto; in the light of this absolute qualification, their salvations seem dubious, at the very least.
For an excursus (in English) on the concept of implicit faith, which alone can make a bit more understandable Dante's unshakable embrace of the Church's firm ruling in this matter, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 79-84).
This is the third set (there will eventually be four [see Par. XXXII.83-87] of identical rhymes on the word Cristo. See the notes to Paradiso XII.71-75 and XIV.103-108. Joan Ferrante (“Words and Images in the Paradiso: Reflections of the Divine,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini [Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983], p. 125), observing that the word occurs four times in these two tercets, goes on to explain that it does so in such a way as to form a cross on the page. Riccardo Scrivano (“Paradiso XIX,” L'Alighieri 6 [1995], p. 30) unaccountably omits reference to the fourth of these sets of identical rhymes.
Mowbray Allan (“Paradiso XIX, 106, and St. Thomas's Sed contra,” Dante Studies 111 [1993]: 195-211) restates and widens some of his earlier conclusions (see his article “Does Dante Hope for Virgil's Salvation?” Modern Language Notes 104 [1989]: 193-205) about the poem's openness to the possibility of Virgil's salvation. He reads this tercet as promising more than Dante probably intends. The text states only that, after the Judgment, some of these failed Christians will be still farther from God than certain pagans. That statement probably should not be interpreted as arguing for the possible eventual salvation of Virgil (or other pagans). They are already nearer God, in the Limbus (see Baranski [“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics {Lectura Dantis [virginiana], 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995}, p. 292], making this point), than most of the damned, who are predominantly (at least nominally) Christians. There is nothing here that requires us to think that Dante thinks that God will change his mind about Virgil - although of course He has the ability to do exactly that should He choose. The evidence of the text, however, does not in any way suggest that Dante thought that He would. For example, Virgil is allowed to describe his place in Limbo as eternal (Purg. XXI.18), not something the poet would have put in his mouth were he to have disagreed, as is (or ought to be) abundantly clear.
See Singleton (comm. to this verse) for a citation of Matthew 7:22-23 that may be reflected in this verse.
In response to this passage, perhaps Venturi (comm. to verse 109) was the first commentator to cite the following pertinent text in Matthew (12:41-42): “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” For a reference to the biblical queen of Sheba, seeking the wisdom of Solomon in Jerusalem, see Dante's Epistle XIII.3.
Zygmunt Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], pp. 291-2), citing the previous opinion of Nicolae Iliescu (“Will Virgil Be Saved,” Mediaevalia 12 [1986], pp. 109-111), argues that the passage requires that we understand that Dante believes that some pagans will be exempt from damnation on the strength of their moral goodness, “that some good Ethiopians and Persians would in fact be saved.” This is not Dante's point, as the text itself makes perfectly plain (see the note to verse 110). Dante clearly indicates that virtuous pagans (typified, not exhaustively referred to, as Ethiopians and Persians) present at the Last Judgment and damned by Christ, along with sinful Christians, will be able to take some solace in the fact that they will share damnation with those who were given access to the truth (the Bible and the Church) that pagans were intrinsically denied. Baranski (p. 292) goes on to assert that the Apocalypse promises exactly such conversions of all the peoples of the world. That may be, but any sort of attention to this passage does not allow such an understanding of Dante's text. In other words, that may have been John's message, but it is not Dante's. See the note to verse 113.
On the relationship in this and the next canto of the communion of saints and the Last Judgment, see Trottmann (“Communion des saints et jugement dernier dans les chants XIX-XX du Paradis,” in Pour Dante: Dante et l'Apocalypse: Lectures humanistes de Dante, ed. Bruno Pinchard and Christian Trottmann [Paris: Champion, 2001], pp. 181-98).
This verse has been a stumbling block for some readers. The clause “when the two assemblies go their separate ways” almost certainly does not mean, as some have taken it to do, that the Ethiopians shall depart from the wicked Christians and go to Heaven. Rather, it signifies that when the sheep (the saved “soldiery of Heaven”) are separated from the goats (both decent Ethiopian nonbelievers and sinful Christians), these virtuous heathen will (justly) castigate their Christian counterparts, who were given the key to Heaven and chose not even to try to unlock its gates.
The word “kings” sets up the acrostic with its list of those rotten rulers that fills the rest of the canto.
The noun volume was first used, we may remember, to indicate Virgil's Aeneid (see Inf. I.84 and note). Of its nine occurrences in the poem (see Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” {Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969}, pp. 78-79], unaccountably mentioning only seven of these, omitting the two occurrences found at Par. XXIII.112 and XXVI.119), only this one refers more or less directly to the Bible, more precisely, to the Apocalypse (20:12), as was first pointed out in specific terms by Pietro Alighieri ([Pietro1] comm. to vv. 112-114). These two uses do not make Virgil's book a Christian book by association; rather, they underline the tragic distance separating Virgil from salvation. The biblical text refers to the Book of Life, in which are recorded the names of the saved, and other unnamed “Books of the Dead” (see discussion of Inf. XXIX.57 in Hollander [“Dante's 'Book of the Dead': A Note on Inferno XXIX, 57,” Studi Danteschi 54 {1982}: 31-51]): “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” It is more than sufficiently clear that Dante is here referring, not to the “good” book in Revelation 20:12, but to the “bad” one(s).
That the word dispregio (here translated “infamy”) has already been seen at Inferno VIII.51 has been noted in the commentaries at least since the appearance of Poletto's (1894, to vv. 112-114). This is its seventh and last appearance in the poem, in one form or another.
Dante's second (and last) full-scale acrostic in the poem (for the first, see the note to Purgatorio XII.25-63). There can be little doubt but that this one, too, is a deliberate contrivance, whatever the strength of the feelings one happens to harbor against such literary behavior. Three sets of three consecutive tercets begin with the same letter, L, V, and E, respectively, thus spelling the word lue, or “plague.” However, even such astute readers as Bosco and Reggio (comm. to verse 115), seem to want to join Savi-Lopez (BSDI 10 [1903], p. 328) in thinking Dante's LVE the result of mere chance. While that seems extreme, at the other end of extremity we find Karla Taylor (“From superbo Ilïòn to umile Italia”: The Acrostic of Paradiso 19,“ Stanford Italian Review 7 [1987]: 47-65), who wants to extend the acrostic by adding the ”i“ and ”emme“ of its central tercet (vv. 128-129) so as to get the scrambled word ”lueim,“ an anagram for umile (humble). For her more than questionable procedure in so doing, see Teodolinda Barolini's complaint (The Undivine ”Comedy“: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], pp. 309-10). Barolini (pp. 308-9) also dismisses three other ”discoverers“ of ”acrostics“ elsewhere in the poem. However, see Paola Allegretti (”Un acrostico per Giovanni del Virgilio,“ Studi Danteschi 69 [2004]: 289-93) for a study of yet another (and hitherto unobserved) acrostic in Dante's poetic response to Giovanni del Virgilio's invitation to compose a pastoral eclogue.
Lì, here and in the next two tercets, means ”in that volume,“ that is, in the ”Book of the Dead.“ Albert (emperor from 1298-1308, i.e., in precedence of Henry VII), was previously denounced by Dante for his neglect of Italy (Purg. VI.97-126). In 1304 he invaded and devastated Bohemia. In the assemblage of fifteen crowned heads appearing here, Albert is the only one to be named, thus giving us a sense of how much knowledge of ”current events“ Dante believed he could count on in his readers.
”On the banks of the Seine,“ that is, at Paris, where Philip the Fair caused his subjects great distress when he adulterated the coinage. See the note to verse 119.
For Philip's monetarist failings (let Ben Bernanke take note), see Oelsner (comm. to vv. 119-120): ”[the king] debased the coinage to one-third of its value, in order to meet the expenses of his Flemish campaigns in 1302. This is one of several passages in which we see the horror of tampering with the coinage entertained by Dante, the citizen of the greatest commercial city of Europe. As the symbol of greed the Florin was the 'accursed flower' of Par. IX.130, but as the foundation of all commercial relations it was worthy of such reverence that he who tampered with it was to be ranked with him who falsified the very personality of human beings, the ultimate basis of human intercourse.“ Toynbee (”Filippo2“ [Concise Dante Dictionary]) points out that Philip is always named by periphrasis in the poem, never by his name, and lists his other main periphrastic appearances: Inferno XIX.87; Purgatorio VII.109, XX.91.
This mention of the death of the French king dates the canto as having been composed (or, at least, modified) after November 1314, according to Campi (comm. to vv. 118-120); see also Kenelm Foster (”Paradiso XIX,“ Dante Studies 94 [1976)], p. 85). The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 118-120), writing in 1333, knew about the death of Philip the Fair, caused by a boar. (The word cotenna, in Tuscany, meant the hide of a wild pig and perhaps, in Dante's day [as nineteenth-century commentators report, even then on the tongues of peasants in the Romagna], referred to the whole dangerous animal.) Lombardi (comm. to this verse) explains what happened (citing Villani [Cron. IX.66]): A boar ran among the legs of Philip's horse and the frightened animal threw his royal rider, killing him.
”The pride that makes men thirst“ is evidently the craving to dominate. Dante is probably referring to the border wars between Scotland and England in the reign of Edward I (1272-1307). However, just which monarch Dante has in mind is debated. Since the poet had previously praised Edward I (Purg. VII.130-132), some readers have suggested that Dante was thinking of Edward II, even if he ruled at a period that places him outside the limits established for everyone else mentioned in this list (i.e., to have been governing in 1300). Thus it probably seems necessary to believe one of two things: Either Dante had received information that made him change his mind about Edward I, or else he had incorrect dates for Edward II. The Scottish leader referred to is perhaps Robert the Bruce (1306-29). That would put him also outside the allotted time zone. However, as Tozer points out (comm. to this tercet), since Villani (Cron. VIII.90) represents him as the Scottish leader during Edward I's reign, Dante may have fallen into the same error.
Ferdinand IV of Castile and Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. For the latter see Purgatorio VII.101-102, where he is described in much the same way.
”The Cripple of Jerusalem“ was the derogatory name for the lame Charles II, king of Apulia and Naples (1285-1309), who claimed the title ”King of Jerusalem“ enjoyed by his father, even though it never was granted to him as the son. Tozer (comm. to vv. 127-129) paraphrases and comments: ”His virtues will be seen marked by a unit (I), his vices by an M (for Lat. mille, 'a thousand'). The one virtue here intended was liberality, which Dante attributes to him in Paradiso VIII.82.“ Steiner (comm. to vv. 128-130) says that others have suggested that ”I“ and ”M“ refer to the first and last letters of his desired and fraudulent title, ”King of Ierusalem.“
The reference is to Frederick II, son of Pedro of Aragon (see Purg. VII.119), and first regent (1291) and then king of Sicily (1296-1337). Sicily is referred to as ”the isle of fire“ because of the volcanic activity of Mt. Etna. For the death of Anchises on its western shore, see Virgil (Aen. III.707-710). This Frederick II is not to be confused with the emperor Frederick II (see Inf. X.119 and note), who died in 1250.
See Vittorio Russo (”Paradiso XIX: similis fictio numquam facta fuit per aliquem poetam,“ Dante Studies 101 [1983], p. 105) for discussion of the rhymes based in the sound of -zz as typical of the low style, citing De vulgari eloquentia II.vii.5-6 on ”hirsute“ words that are not fitting for the tragic style.
Frederick is the only one of the pestilential dozen to receive more than a single tercet for his dispraises. With a wry sense of humor, Dante claims that Frederick is unworthy of attention, yet he gives Frederick's unworthiness more space than any of his competitors in malfeasance. Tozer paraphrases the tercet as follows and then comments: ”'In order to let men know how paltry he is, that which is written against him will take the form of abbreviations, which will enumerate many vices within a small space.' Abbreviations were commonly used in MSS. to save space; so they would be used in God's record of Frederic, because he was too insignificant for a large space to be allotted to him.“
The uncle, barba, of Frederick II of Sicily was James, king of Majorca (and of Minorca). He lost his crown for ten years as a result of joining Philip the Bold of France in a disastrous invasion of Catalonia. His brother, James of Aragon (see Purg. VII.119), in 1291 succeeded to the throne of Aragon, surrendering his kingship of Sicily, which his father had acquired, and appointed his younger brother, Frederick, to it in 1296. By these acts the James boys dishonored both family and their kingship.
Seven times in the first two canticles the word barba meant, what it still means, ”beard.“ Here it means ”uncle,“ as Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 136-148) informs us it does in Lombard. Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) gives its medieval Latin forms and dialectical presence in nineteenth-century Italy (Lombardy and the Tuscan Romagna). According to Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 136-138) it still has that meaning in some northern dialectical Italian of the mid-twentieth century.
The concluding royal triad share a single tercet: Dionysius, king of Portugal; Haakon V, king of Norway; and Stephen Ouros, king of Rascia, the modern Illyria and Dalmatia. Tozer (comm. to this tercet): ”[Stephen] struck coins of debased metal in imitation of the Venetian ducat; the resemblance of the two is seen in the figures given by Philalethes, p. 259.“
The acrostic comes to a close, but Dante is not yet finished cataloguing the ills of Europe's suffering kingdoms. This ungainly departure from the acrostic mode suggested to Bosco/Reggio that the acrostic itself may have occurred without design (see the note to vv. 115-139). The reader notes that these three examples offer mixed messages: the first of a good monarch leading to continued good governance, the second of a good monarch whose work will be undone at her death, and the third of a disastrous monarch.
Tozer (comm. to this tercet): ”Hungary had been governed by corrupt princes until the time of Andrea III (1290-1301), who was a good sovereign. 'Happy Navarre, if she should defend herself with the mountain that girds her,' the Pyrenees. Joan of Navarre had married Philip the Fair in 1284, but governed her kingdom independently. On her death in 1305 it passed to her son Louis Hutin, and when he succeeded to the throne of France as Louis X in 1314, it was annexed to the French crown.“
Tozer (comm. to this tercet): ”Cyprus, of which Nicosia and Famagosta were the chief cities, was badly governed in 1300 by Henry II of Lusignan, who was a man of corrupt life.“
As a coda to the whole parade of princes, we are told that Henry (as opposed to Andrea III and Joanna of Navarre?), a bad ruler, keeps the (metaphoric) company of the dirty dozen referred to in the acrostic.
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Parea dinanzi a me con l'ali aperte
la bella image che nel dolce frui
liete facevan l'anime conserte;
parea ciascuna rubinetto in cui
raggio di sole ardesse sì acceso,
che ne' miei occhi rifrangesse lui.
E quel che mi convien ritrar testeso,
non portò voce mai, né scrisse incostro,
né fu per fantasia già mai compreso;
ch'io vidi e anche udi' parlar lo rostro,
e sonar ne la voce e “io” e “mio,”
quand' era nel concetto e “noi” e “nostro.”
E cominciò: “Per esser giusto e pio
son io qui essaltato a quella gloria
che non si lascia vincere a disio;
e in terra lasciai la mia memoria
sì fatta, che le genti lì malvage
commendan lei, ma non seguon la storia.”
Così un sol calor di molte brage
si fa sentir, come di molti amori
usciva solo un suon di quella image.
Ond' io appresso: “O perpetüi fiori
de l'etterna letizia, che pur uno
parer mi fate tutti vostri odori,
solvetemi, spirando, il gran digiuno
che lungamente m'ha tenuto in fame,
non trovandoli in terra cibo alcuno.
Ben so io che, se 'n cielo altro reame
la divina giustizia fa suo specchio,
che 'l vostro non l'apprende con velame.
Sapete come attento io m'apparecchio
ad ascoltar; sapete qual è quello
dubbio che m'è digiun cotanto vecchio.”
Quasi falcone ch'esce del cappello,
move la testa e con l'ali si plaude,
voglia mostrando e faccendosi bello,
vid' io farsi quel segno, che di laude
de la divina grazia era contesto,
con canti quai si sa chi là sù gaude.
Poi cominciò: “Colui che volse il sesto
a lo stremo del mondo, e dentro ad esso
distinse tanto occulto e manifesto,
non poté suo valor sì fare impresso
in tutto l'universo, che 'l suo verbo
non rimanesse in infinito eccesso.
E ciò fa certo che 'l primo superbo,
che fu la somma d'ogne creatura,
per non aspettar lume, cadde acerbo;
e quinci appar ch'ogne minor natura
è corto recettacolo a quel bene
che non ha fine e sé con sé misura.
Dunque vostra veduta, che convene
essere alcun de' raggi de la mente
di che tutte le cose son ripiene,
non pò da sua natura esser possente
tanto, che suo principio non discerna
molto di là da quel che l'è parvente.
Però ne la giustizia sempiterna
la vista che riceve il vostro mondo,
com' occhio per lo mare, entro s'interna;
che, ben che da la proda veggia il fondo,
in pelago nol vede; e nondimeno
èli, ma cela lui l'esser profondo.
Lume non è, se non vien dal sereno
che non si turba mai; anzi è tenèbra
od ombra de la carne o suo veleno.
Assai t'è mo aperta la latebra
che t'ascondeva la giustizia viva,
di che facei question cotanto crebra;
ché tu dicevi: 'Un uom nasce a la riva
de l'Indo, e quivi non è chi ragioni
di Cristo né chi legga né chi scriva;
e tutti suoi voleri e atti buoni
sono, quanto ragione umana vede,
sanza peccato in vita o in sermoni.
Muore non battezzato e sanza fede:
ov' è questa giustizia che 'l condanna?
ov' è la colpa sua, se ei non crede?'
Or tu chi se', che vuo' sedere a scranna,
per giudicar di lungi mille miglia
con la veduta corta d'una spanna?
Certo a colui che meco s'assottiglia,
se la Scrittura sovra voi non fosse,
da dubitar sarebbe a maraviglia.
Oh terreni animali! oh menti grosse!
La prima volontà, ch'è da sé buona,
da sé, ch'è sommo ben, mai non si mosse.
Cotanto è giusto quanto a lei consuona:
nullo creato bene a sé la tira,
ma essa, radïando, lui cagiona.”
Quale sovresso il nido si rigira
poi c'ha pasciuti la cicogna i figli,
e come quel ch'è pasto la rimira;
cotal si fece, e sì leväi i cigli,
la benedetta imagine, che l'ali
movea sospinte da tanti consigli.
Roteando cantava, e dicea: “Quali
son le mie note a te, che non le 'ntendi,
tal è il giudicio etterno a voi mortali.”
Poi si quetaro quei lucenti incendi
de lo Spirito Santo ancor nel segno
che fé i Romani al mondo reverendi,
esso ricominciò: “A questo regno
non salì mai chi non credette 'n Cristo,
né pria né poi ch'el si chiavasse al legno.
Ma vedi: molti gridan 'Cristo, Cristo!'
che saranno in giudicio assai men prope
a lui, che tal che non conosce Cristo;
e tai Cristian dannerà l'Etïòpe,
quando si partiranno i due collegi,
l'uno in etterno ricco e l'altro inòpe.
Che poran dir li Perse a' vostri regi,
come vedranno quel volume aperto
nel qual si scrivon tutti suoi dispregi?
Lì si vedrà, tra l'opere d'Alberto,
quella che tosto moverà la penna,
per che 'l regno di Praga fia diserto.
Lì si vedrà il duol che sovra Senna
induce, falseggiando la moneta,
quel che morrà di colpo di cotenna.
Lì si vedrà la superbia ch'asseta,
che fa lo Scotto e l'Inghilese folle,
sì che non può soffrir dentro a sua meta.
Vedrassi la lussuria e 'l viver molle
di quel di Spagna e di quel di Boemme,
che mai valor non conobbe né volle.
Vedrassi al Ciotto di Ierusalemme
segnata con un i la sua bontate,
quando 'l contrario segnerà un emme.
Vedrassi l'avarizia e la viltate
di quei che guarda l'isola del foco,
ove Anchise finì la lunga etate;
e a dare ad intender quanto è poco,
la sua scrittura fian lettere mozze,
che noteranno molto in parvo loco.
E parranno a ciascun l'opere sozze
del barba e del fratel, che tanto egregia
nazione e due corone han fatte bozze.
E quel di Portogallo e di Norvegia
lì si conosceranno, e quel di Rascia
che male ha visto il conio di Vinegia.
O beata Ungheria, se non si lascia
più malmenare! e beata Navarra,
se s'armasse del monte che la fascia!
E creder de' ciascun che già, per arra
di questo, Niccosïa e Famagosta
per la lor bestia si lamenti e garra,
che dal fianco de l'altre non si scosta.”
Appeared before me with its wings outspread
The beautiful image that in sweet fruition
Made jubilant the interwoven souls;
Appeared a little ruby each, wherein
Ray of the sun was burning so enkindled
That each into mine eyes refracted it.
And what it now behoves me to retrace
Nor voice has e'er reported, nor ink written,
Nor was by fantasy e'er comprehended;
For speak I saw, and likewise heard, the beak,
And utter with its voice both 'I' and 'My,'
When in conception it was 'We' and 'Our.'
And it began: "Being just and merciful
Am I exalted here unto that glory
Which cannot be exceeded by desire;
And upon earth I left my memory
Such, that the evil-minded people there
Commend it, but continue not the story."
So doth a single heat from many embers
Make itself felt, even as from many loves
Issued a single sound from out that image.
Whence I thereafter: "O perpetual flowers
Of the eternal joy, that only one
Make me perceive your odours manifold,
Exhaling, break within me the great fast
Which a long season has in hunger held me,
Not finding for it any food on earth.
Well do I know, that if in heaven its mirror
Justice Divine another realm doth make,
Yours apprehends it not through any veil.
You know how I attentively address me
To listen; and you know what is the doubt
That is in me so very old a fast."
Even as a falcon, issuing from his hood,
Doth move his head, and with his wings applaud him,
Showing desire, and making himself fine,
Saw I become that standard, which of lauds
Was interwoven of the grace divine,
With such songs as he knows who there rejoices.
Then it began: "He who a compass turned
On the world's outer verge, and who within it
Devised so much occult and manifest,
Could not the impress of his power so make
On all the universe, as that his Word
Should not remain in infinite excess.
And this makes certain that the first proud being,
Who was the paragon of every creature,
By not awaiting light fell immature.
And hence appears it, that each minor nature
Is scant receptacle unto that good
Which has no end, and by itself is measured.
In consequence our vision, which perforce
Must be some ray of that intelligence
With which all things whatever are replete,
Cannot in its own nature be so potent,
That it shall not its origin discern
Far beyond that which is apparent to it.
Therefore into the justice sempiternal
The power of vision that your world receives,
As eye into the ocean, penetrates;
Which, though it see the bottom near the shore,
Upon the deep perceives it not, and yet
'Tis there, but it is hidden by the depth.
There is no light but comes from the serene
That never is o'ercast, nay, it is darkness
Or shadow of the flesh, or else its poison.
Amply to thee is opened now the cavern
Which has concealed from thee the living justice
Of which thou mad'st such frequent questioning.
For saidst thou: 'Born a man is on the shore
Of Indus, and is none who there can speak
Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write;
And all his inclinations and his actions
Are good, so far as human reason sees,
Without a sin in life or in discourse:
He dieth unbaptised and without faith;
Where is this justice that condemneth him?
Where is his fault, if he do not believe?'
Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit
In judgment at a thousand miles away,
With the short vision of a single span?
Truly to him who with me subtilizes,
If so the Scripture were not over you,
For doubting there were marvellous occasion.
O animals terrene, O stolid minds,
The primal will, that in itself is good,
Ne'er from itself, the Good Supreme, has moved.
So much is just as is accordant with it;
No good created draws it to itself,
But it, by raying forth, occasions that."
Even as above her nest goes circling round
The stork when she has fed her little ones,
And he who has been fed looks up at her,
So lifted I my brows, and even such
Became the blessed image, which its wings
Was moving, by so many counsels urged.
Circling around it sang, and said: "As are
My notes to thee, who dost not comprehend them,
Such is the eternal judgment to you mortals."
Those lucent splendours of the Holy Spirit
Grew quiet then, but still within the standard
That made the Romans reverend to the world.
It recommenced: "Unto this kingdom never
Ascended one who had not faith in Christ,
Before or since he to the tree was nailed.
But look thou, many crying are, 'Christ, Christ!'
Who at the judgment shall be far less near
To him than some shall be who knew not Christ.
Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn,
When the two companies shall be divided,
The one for ever rich, the other poor.
What to your kings may not the Persians say,
When they that volume opened shall behold
In which are written down all their dispraises?
There shall be seen, among the deeds of Albert,
That which ere long shall set the pen in motion,
For which the realm of Prague shall be deserted.
There shall be seen the woe that on the Seine
He brings by falsifying of the coin,
Who by the blow of a wild boar shall die.
There shall be seen the pride that causes thirst,
Which makes the Scot and Englishman so mad
That they within their boundaries cannot rest;
Be seen the luxury and effeminate life
Of him of Spain, and the Bohemian,
Who valour never knew and never wished;
Be seen the Cripple of Jerusalem,
His goodness represented by an I,
While the reverse an M shall represent;
Be seen the avarice and poltroonery
Of him who guards the Island of the Fire,
Wherein Anchises finished his long life;
And to declare how pitiful he is
Shall be his record in contracted letters
Which shall make note of much in little space.
And shall appear to each one the foul deeds
Of uncle and of brother who a nation
So famous have dishonoured, and two crowns.
And he of Portugal and he of Norway
Shall there be known, and he of Rascia too,
Who saw in evil hour the coin of Venice.
O happy Hungary, if she let herself
Be wronged no farther! and Navarre the happy,
If with the hills that gird her she be armed!
And each one may believe that now, as hansel
Thereof, do Nicosia and Famagosta
Lament and rage because of their own beast,
Who from the others' flank departeth not."
The Eagle is first seen as a discrete entity (la bella image) and then as its components, the individual just rulers who constitute this beautiful image of justice, each appearing as a much-prized precious stone, the ruby. The text goes on to suggest that all of them were glowing as though the sun were equally reflected in all of them at once (something that would not happen in earthbound optics, where uneven surfaces reflect a distant light variously). In fact, these “rubies,” red with the glow of caritas, are shining with their own light of affection, if that is eventually a reflection of God's love for them.
Dante's radical (and revolutionary, at least from an Augustinian point of view) notion is that earthly justice is the direct product of a divine principle. And, as we learned in the last canto (see the note to Par. XVIII.115-117), the souls of the shapers of those human institutions that serve justice are themselves shaped by the agency of this heaven. This offers us another occasion on which to consider Dante's heterodoxy when he is measured against the requirements of any one school of thought. Depending on the specific issues enjoined, he will be seen to be both Augustinian and anti-Augustinian, Aristotelian and anti-Aristotelian, Virgilian and anti-Virgilian. Perhaps that is one reason that contemporary readers are so surprisingly receptive to this medieval poet; they “read beneath the radar” of the “official” Dantologies, which tend, in their strategic attempt to restrict other views, to make him one thing and only that thing (e.g., Dominican or Franciscan; imperialist or republican; “grammarian” or vernacularist; etc.). He is, as he said his poem was (Epistle XIII.20), “polysemous” (of many meanings).
The image of the Eagle, with its open wings, suggests, to Zygmunt Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 277), a passage from Deuteronomy 32:11, “expandit alas suas” (spreading out its wings), in the song about himself that Moses intones near the end of his life, in which he is presented as an eagle taking his chicks upon his back for an exodal ride. (Scartazzini cited that passage, but at Purgatorio IX.30.)
The term frui (to enjoy), first identified as deriving from St. Augustine by Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 1-3), probably arrives in Dante via Aquinas (ST I-II, q. 11, a. 3), as Scartazzini may have been the first to suggest. Steiner (comm. to vv. 2-3) adverts to the familiar Augustinian binome (variously found but perhaps best known from the extended discussion in the first book of De doctrina christiana), frui and uti (to use), the former pertaining to our relationship to things divine (we “enjoy” them), the latter, to perishable things (we only “use” these).
What Dante must now report was never reported by voice, nor written in ink, nor present in the image-receiving faculty of the mind, for he had seen the beak speak and had heard it, too, when it uttered with its voice “I” and “mine,” while in its conception it meant “we” and “our.” We have had a similar experience once before, hearing Dante introduce himself as “we” and then speak as “I” in the first two lines of the poem (Inf. I.1-2): “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura....”
St. Paul describes similar marvelous truths (I Corinthians 2:9) that “the eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,” an observation dating back to Jacopo della Lana (proem to this canto). For discussion of this example of Dante's exploitation of the familiar topos of novelty, see Giuseppe Ledda (La guerra della lingua [Ravenna: Longo, 2002]), pp. 81-82).
For “phantasy” as a technical term in medieval versions of Aristotelian “physiology of mind,” see Carroll (comm. to Par. IV.28-48) and Singleton (comm. to Purg. XVII.13-18); see also the note to Purgatorio XVII.13-18. This faculty is the image-receiving element in the mind. Carroll, Singleton, and Hollander consequently use this spelling in order to distinguish this term from the modern one, “fantasy,” a daydream or another form of fictive flight.
See Mario Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 85, for two potential biblical sources for this verse: for fantasia, Ecclesiasticus 34:6; for compreso, Daniel 7:1, comprehendit, when Daniel has a dream of a leonine shape with the wings of an eagle (Dan. 7:4).
The first commentator to report the resonance here of Apocalypse 8:13, “Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead,” was Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 10-12). The context is the fourth angelic trumpet blast, and the eagle is announcing woe to those who dwell on earth. Dante's Eagle, on the other hand, has a more eupeptic message.
It seems clear that Geoffrey Chaucer was amused when he read this verse; his loquacious eagle in that delightful send-up of Dante's poem, The House of Fame, surely was one poet's laughing salute to another.
Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse) point out the resonance of the description of Trajan (shortly himself to appear in the poem at Par. XX.44-45) in Purgatorio X.93, where he is portrayed as moved by giustizia and pietà.
These verses were initially and widely interpreted to refer to that glory (salvation) that is greater than any desire for it. Scartazzini (comm. to verse 15), however, cites Bartolomeo Perazzini (Note alla “Divina Commedia” [Venice, 1844], p. 155), who says that the heavenly glory won by these souls, even more than did their desire, reflected (and rewarded) their deeds. Given the context of their virtuous acts as rulers, this interpretation has won support ever since it was presented by Scartazzini (op. cit.) and Campi (comm. to vv. 13-15). Nonetheless, there is still no consensus, with various commentators advancing the one or the other explanation. Here is Carroll (comm. to vv. 1-18), summarizing the debate before attempting to find a way out: “Two interpretations are suggested: (1) that this glory of Jupiter is superior to all human desire; (2) that it does not allow itself to be won by mere desire – it must be worked for (Matth. 7:21). I venture to suggest a third: the common way in which kings aim at glory is at their own 'desire' or ambition, and earthly glory may be so won. But not so the glory of this Heaven: it can be 'conquered' only 'by being just and merciful.'”
We may need to remind ourselves that the Eagle is speaking as a corporate entity, his “I” really meaning “we,” that is, the virtuous rulers composing his shape have all left exemplary lives behind them that draw lip service but no imitative good actions.
The commentators, from Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 16-18) onward, generally take storia here in the sense of exemplum, that is, according to the fourteenth-century Dantist, the wicked on the earth do not follow the positive examples of these virtuous rulers, present here in the Eagle, of whom we shall see some in the next canto. Most of the following commentators become confused, taking the Eagle as the symbol of the Roman Empire, rather than as the collectivity of just rulers, some from other places as well (e.g., David [Par. XX.38] and Hezekiah [Par. XX.49]). But see, for the better reading, Porena (comm. to this verse). A slightly different interpretive difficulty is found in the view that the text means that those in need of a corrective example are themselves to blame because they fail to read history correctly. See Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 286): “Human beings sin, because they do not read and interpret their history books properly.” That may be true, but it hardly seems to be what Dante is saying here.
The simile pounds home the poet's insistence that the plurality of souls making up the Eagle's unity sing as a single voice.
The protagonist himself, as it were, picks up the theme of the simile only to express it in metaphor: He believes that these souls have become a garden of flowers giving off a single perfume, that is, speaking as one.
We probably are reminded of the presence in Limbo of the virtuous pagans (unauthorized by previous authority, e.g., St. Thomas, who denies them a place alongside the only inhabitants of the “orthodox” Limbus, the innocent but unbaptized infants [see the note to Inf. IV.30]). It was clear from that earlier passage that our poet had a problem with traditional Christian views of the “guilt” of otherwise morally good (or even excellent) human beings. The last words of his request to the souls in the Eagle make it plain that in his life he had been bothered by the Church's teaching on the post-mortal situation of the virtuous heathen.
The gerund (perhaps used here as a present participle) spirando (breathing forth) is a form of the verb (spirare) that Dante uses to indicate the “spiration” of the Holy Spirit. For confirmation of this association, see verse 101.
The poet here refers, as Tommaseo (comm. to this tercet) was apparently the first commentator to point out, to Cunizza's words in Paradiso IX.61-62, from which he has learned that the angelic order of Thrones, presiding over the heaven of Saturn, is designated as reflecting divine justice. But this does not mean that these just souls here in Jupiter are innocent of such knowledge, since they know about earthly justice and, further, like all the saved, see the higher form reflected in God Himself. (Momigliano is confused about exactly this issue, saying [comm. to vv. 28-30] that here Dante contradicts what he has said in vv. 115-117.)
This is the first of two similes based on avian behavior in this canto. This one shows a tamed falcon being prepared to go off on a hunt for prey, while the next, at vv. 91-96, completes the implicitly joined image with a stork that has fed its young.
For six other references to falconry in the poem, see Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 34-36). Torraca explains (comm. to verse 34) that Frederick II, in his treatise on falconry (De arte venandi cum avibus), had boasted that it was he who introduced the Oriental use of the hood to Europe.
For the double sense here of the Latin verb plaudere (both “to beat one's wings” and “to express approval” [as found in both Ovid and Virgil]), see Scartazzini (comm. to this verse).
The following is Tozer's paraphrase of these lines: “God, who created all things, infinitely surpasses in Himself the wisdom which appears in His creation (ll. 40-45). Lucifer, the highest of created beings, fell, because he lacked as yet the light which would have enabled him to see God perfectly (ll. 46-48). How much more feeble must be the vision of beings inferior to him! (ll. 49-51). Hence our minds cannot have any true conception of God's attributes (ll. 52-57), and, in particular, of His justice (ll. 58-63).”
For the image of the compass in God's designing of the universe, see Proverbs 8:27, as was perhaps first noted by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 40-42). Torraca added (comm. to vv. 40-45) the information that Dante himself cited this passage in Convivio III (xv.16).
Lucifer's fall (and that of the other rebellious angels) will have an entire passage to itself for Beatrice's elucidation in Paradiso XXIX.49-66. For Adam's contrasting “ripeness,” see Paradiso XXVI.91. The poet's formulation “per non aspettar lume” might seem to suggest that Lucifer did not await God's finishing His creation of him, which would have made him “perfect” with the light of grace.
Some commentators follow Scartazzini (comm. to verse 58) in ascribing this thought to Psalm 35:7 [36:6], “Your judgments are like the great deep,” first cited, if without ascription, by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 70-78).
The answer to Dante's question will be found in God alone (in the metaphor, such shining as is never clouded over), as opposed to human sight, obfuscated by clouds of unknowing (products of our fallible or, worse, corrupt senses).
Marked by two Latinisms used as rhymes (latebra, “hiding-place”; crebra, “frequent”), this tercet marks the Eagle's finally coming to grips with Dante's insistent question about the justice of the condemnation of pagans who had apparently committed no positive sin.
The poet, allowing the Eagle to do so for him, insists once again that his life has been marked by a sort of pre-humanist zeal to defend the pagans from unfair Christian treatment. But see the note to vv. 88-90.
This passage gives the fullest and most affecting version of this question, one that was directed at, as we have seen, perhaps the single most troubling aspect of Christian orthodoxy for Dante. The language, if indirectly, revisits a scene from Purgatorio (XXI.7-13), the appearance of Statius, himself led to salvation by Virgil, represented so as to be reminiscent of Jesus, resurrected, appearing to Cleopas and his wife. See Luke 24:19, a description of Jesus given by Cleopas (to Jesus Himself, whom he did not at first recognize), “vir propheta potens in opere et sermone” (a prophet mighty in deed and word), perhaps first cited by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 73-75). In Purgatorio XXI.17-18, Virgil, hoping Statius will soon enjoy the fruits of salvation, refers to his own situation, condemned by “the unerring court / that confines me in eternal exile,” with full acceptance of his guilt in God's eyes. Was Dante thinking also of Ovid's altogether different reaction to his imposed exile by command of Augustus, another kind of divinity altogether, as put forward in the Tristia? See the note to Paradiso XVII.111. It is difficult to read the passage at hand and not think of Virgil. Once we encounter some of the virtuous pagans who were saved in the next canto, it will once more be difficult not to think of him.
Bortolo Martinelli (“Canto XIX,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 289-91) would cancel the ascription (only found in some commentaries in any case) of Dante's question to Leviticus 19:35, substituting for it Job 28:20-21.
The verb tenses and moods of each tercet are instructive. Based on the imperfect, here expressing habitual or insistent questioning (dicevi, “you used to say”), Dante's dubiety is seen as still present by the Eagle (nasce, is born); the absence of Christian instruction is conveyed by three verbs, all in the present subjunctive (ragioni, legga, scriva: “speak, read, write”). The second tercet has a single verb in its main clause, a present indicative statement of this Indian's good thoughts and deeds (sono, “are”). The third has three verbs in its two main clauses in the present indicative, the first (muore, “dies”), matching his present-tense goodness, while the last two, interrogatives, a repetition of the verb “to be,” challenges the justice in his relegation to Hell.
For a meditation on the challenge to Dante's claim to universality presented by those dwelling beyond the Indus (i.e., in India or even farther to the east), see Brena Deen Schildgen (“Dante and the Indus,” Dante Studies 111 [1993]: 177-93).
As Kenelm Foster explains (“Paradiso XIX,” Dante Studies 94 [1976]: 83), this hypothetical Indian must be condemned to Limbo, for he is (verse 73) without sin.
Up until now we have probably been sympathizing with the protagonist's unwillingness to embrace the justice that would condemn such an essentially admirable human being who, through no fault of his own, has not heard the Word. Suddenly the Eagle pounces on Dante (his “tu” is most personal, where in most of the rest of his long speech [vv. 40-90], with the exception of five other second-person singular pronouns or verbs within four lines, 67-70, he seems to be thinking of all mortals, three times addressing us as “voi”). “Who are you, Dante, to judge God's judgment?” Further (and now the Eagle resorts to third-person attack, Dante being offhandedly treated as a caviling subtilizer), is he not aware of what the Bible says? See the discussion of Romans 9:20 in the note to vv. 79-81.
See Boethius (Cons. Phil. IV.5[pr]) in this mode (how little it is that man knows), cited by Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 79-90). Landino (comm. to this tercet) offers an anthology, drawn from the Gospels and St. Paul, of several pertinent warnings lest humans attempt to know God's motives. As a biblical source for this tercet, Venturi (comm. to verse 79) adduces the Pauline formula (Romans 9:20) that will have most currency among later commentators: “o homo tu quis es qui respondeas Deo?” (But who are you, O man, that you answer back to God? [Is this the source of the Eagle's “tu”?]) Tommaseo adds a reference to Dante himself speaking in this vein (Conv. IV.v.9). Sapegno (comm. to verse 79) seems to have been the first commentator to have suggested Job 38:1-2, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 'Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?'” This citation has a certain following among the commentators, yet is clearly not as close to Dante's verse as the painful question found in St. Paul.
For the notion that this is the most important tercet of the canto, see Riccardo Scrivano (“Paradiso XIX,” L'Alighieri 6 [1995], p. 29).
A “span” is as much as can be covered by a human palm, that is, not very much, at least not in comparison with one thousand miles.
See the extensive treatment of this verse by Andrea Battistini (“'Se la Scrittura sovra voi non fosse [...]'. Allusioni bibliche nel canto XIX del Paradiso,” Critica letteraria 16 [1988]: 211-35).
Cf. Boethius (Cons. Phil. III.3[pr]) on terrena animalia (earthly beasts), first cited by Poletto (comm. to vv. 85-87), who also points out that Dante had previously cited this phrase in Convivio IV.v.9.
See Scartazzini's citation (comm. to this verse) of Malachi 3:6: “ego enim Dominus et non mutor” (for I am the Lord and I change not).
All that is just in the world accords with God's will; on the other hand, no created good draws God's will to itself; its goodness is the manifestation of that will, not its cause. Scartazzini/Vandelli (comm. to this tercet) point to Dante's similar phrasing in Monarchia II.ii.5, a passage that, in turn, may reflect the concept of God's inability to be unjust in Romans 9:14-15.
Having set himself up as a “liberal” on the question of the eternal punishment of virtuous pagans, Dante now embraces the “conservative” position, which has it that pagans are justly damned for not having intuited the truth of Christ. He will play this hand out again in the next canto, where he will see saved pagans (their presence in Heaven surely reflects a “liberal” mind-set), but will contrive to convince us (and himself?) that they had somehow found Christ. As we will see, moral perfection alone will not procure the most just among pagans a place in Heaven, this poet's Christian pantheon.
For the earlier and related avian simile, see the note to vv. 34-39.
The meaning of this expression is that the Eagle is propelled by the shared wills of its constituent souls.
Just as the second avian simile completed the first one (see the notes to vv. 34-39 and 91-96), so this second simile, pronounced by the Eagle itself, completes the pattern established by the first simile. There (vv. 19-21), many were resolved as one (many embers sensed as a single heat, many affectionate voices heard as a single song); here celestial harmony is not audible to human ears, which can hear only the individual voices and cannot make sense of them. See Inferno XX.29-30 for a similar insistence on the necessary failure of humans to understand God's justice.
This formulation might help clarify an issue that confuses some readers. The Eagle is not so much a symbol of Roman imperium as it is of God's justice made apparent in this world in whatever embodiment it should happen to take.
Zygmunt Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 285) comments on the density of various words, like segno, connected to the concept of signification in this canto. However, while not in any way denigrating his point, one may point out that, if segno occurs twice in this canto (and in several others), it has occurred five times in Paradiso VI, a canto dedicated to the eagle of empire.
The Eagle's words are pellucidly clear; nevertheless, some readers contrive not to understand them. Salvation without belief in Christ is simply not possible. We should tuck this notice away in order to reexamine it in the light of the salvation of both Trajan and Ripheus in the next canto; in the light of this absolute qualification, their salvations seem dubious, at the very least.
For an excursus (in English) on the concept of implicit faith, which alone can make a bit more understandable Dante's unshakable embrace of the Church's firm ruling in this matter, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 79-84).
This is the third set (there will eventually be four [see Par. XXXII.83-87] of identical rhymes on the word Cristo. See the notes to Paradiso XII.71-75 and XIV.103-108. Joan Ferrante (“Words and Images in the Paradiso: Reflections of the Divine,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini [Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983], p. 125), observing that the word occurs four times in these two tercets, goes on to explain that it does so in such a way as to form a cross on the page. Riccardo Scrivano (“Paradiso XIX,” L'Alighieri 6 [1995], p. 30) unaccountably omits reference to the fourth of these sets of identical rhymes.
Mowbray Allan (“Paradiso XIX, 106, and St. Thomas's Sed contra,” Dante Studies 111 [1993]: 195-211) restates and widens some of his earlier conclusions (see his article “Does Dante Hope for Virgil's Salvation?” Modern Language Notes 104 [1989]: 193-205) about the poem's openness to the possibility of Virgil's salvation. He reads this tercet as promising more than Dante probably intends. The text states only that, after the Judgment, some of these failed Christians will be still farther from God than certain pagans. That statement probably should not be interpreted as arguing for the possible eventual salvation of Virgil (or other pagans). They are already nearer God, in the Limbus (see Baranski [“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics {Lectura Dantis [virginiana], 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995}, p. 292], making this point), than most of the damned, who are predominantly (at least nominally) Christians. There is nothing here that requires us to think that Dante thinks that God will change his mind about Virgil - although of course He has the ability to do exactly that should He choose. The evidence of the text, however, does not in any way suggest that Dante thought that He would. For example, Virgil is allowed to describe his place in Limbo as eternal (Purg. XXI.18), not something the poet would have put in his mouth were he to have disagreed, as is (or ought to be) abundantly clear.
See Singleton (comm. to this verse) for a citation of Matthew 7:22-23 that may be reflected in this verse.
In response to this passage, perhaps Venturi (comm. to verse 109) was the first commentator to cite the following pertinent text in Matthew (12:41-42): “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” For a reference to the biblical queen of Sheba, seeking the wisdom of Solomon in Jerusalem, see Dante's Epistle XIII.3.
Zygmunt Baranski (“Paradiso XIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], pp. 291-2), citing the previous opinion of Nicolae Iliescu (“Will Virgil Be Saved,” Mediaevalia 12 [1986], pp. 109-111), argues that the passage requires that we understand that Dante believes that some pagans will be exempt from damnation on the strength of their moral goodness, “that some good Ethiopians and Persians would in fact be saved.” This is not Dante's point, as the text itself makes perfectly plain (see the note to verse 110). Dante clearly indicates that virtuous pagans (typified, not exhaustively referred to, as Ethiopians and Persians) present at the Last Judgment and damned by Christ, along with sinful Christians, will be able to take some solace in the fact that they will share damnation with those who were given access to the truth (the Bible and the Church) that pagans were intrinsically denied. Baranski (p. 292) goes on to assert that the Apocalypse promises exactly such conversions of all the peoples of the world. That may be, but any sort of attention to this passage does not allow such an understanding of Dante's text. In other words, that may have been John's message, but it is not Dante's. See the note to verse 113.
On the relationship in this and the next canto of the communion of saints and the Last Judgment, see Trottmann (“Communion des saints et jugement dernier dans les chants XIX-XX du Paradis,” in Pour Dante: Dante et l'Apocalypse: Lectures humanistes de Dante, ed. Bruno Pinchard and Christian Trottmann [Paris: Champion, 2001], pp. 181-98).
This verse has been a stumbling block for some readers. The clause “when the two assemblies go their separate ways” almost certainly does not mean, as some have taken it to do, that the Ethiopians shall depart from the wicked Christians and go to Heaven. Rather, it signifies that when the sheep (the saved “soldiery of Heaven”) are separated from the goats (both decent Ethiopian nonbelievers and sinful Christians), these virtuous heathen will (justly) castigate their Christian counterparts, who were given the key to Heaven and chose not even to try to unlock its gates.
The word “kings” sets up the acrostic with its list of those rotten rulers that fills the rest of the canto.
The noun volume was first used, we may remember, to indicate Virgil's Aeneid (see Inf. I.84 and note). Of its nine occurrences in the poem (see Hollander [Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” {Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969}, pp. 78-79], unaccountably mentioning only seven of these, omitting the two occurrences found at Par. XXIII.112 and XXVI.119), only this one refers more or less directly to the Bible, more precisely, to the Apocalypse (20:12), as was first pointed out in specific terms by Pietro Alighieri ([Pietro1] comm. to vv. 112-114). These two uses do not make Virgil's book a Christian book by association; rather, they underline the tragic distance separating Virgil from salvation. The biblical text refers to the Book of Life, in which are recorded the names of the saved, and other unnamed “Books of the Dead” (see discussion of Inf. XXIX.57 in Hollander [“Dante's 'Book of the Dead': A Note on Inferno XXIX, 57,” Studi Danteschi 54 {1982}: 31-51]): “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” It is more than sufficiently clear that Dante is here referring, not to the “good” book in Revelation 20:12, but to the “bad” one(s).
That the word dispregio (here translated “infamy”) has already been seen at Inferno VIII.51 has been noted in the commentaries at least since the appearance of Poletto's (1894, to vv. 112-114). This is its seventh and last appearance in the poem, in one form or another.
Dante's second (and last) full-scale acrostic in the poem (for the first, see the note to Purgatorio XII.25-63). There can be little doubt but that this one, too, is a deliberate contrivance, whatever the strength of the feelings one happens to harbor against such literary behavior. Three sets of three consecutive tercets begin with the same letter, L, V, and E, respectively, thus spelling the word lue, or “plague.” However, even such astute readers as Bosco and Reggio (comm. to verse 115), seem to want to join Savi-Lopez (BSDI 10 [1903], p. 328) in thinking Dante's LVE the result of mere chance. While that seems extreme, at the other end of extremity we find Karla Taylor (“From superbo Ilïòn to umile Italia”: The Acrostic of Paradiso 19,“ Stanford Italian Review 7 [1987]: 47-65), who wants to extend the acrostic by adding the ”i“ and ”emme“ of its central tercet (vv. 128-129) so as to get the scrambled word ”lueim,“ an anagram for umile (humble). For her more than questionable procedure in so doing, see Teodolinda Barolini's complaint (The Undivine ”Comedy“: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], pp. 309-10). Barolini (pp. 308-9) also dismisses three other ”discoverers“ of ”acrostics“ elsewhere in the poem. However, see Paola Allegretti (”Un acrostico per Giovanni del Virgilio,“ Studi Danteschi 69 [2004]: 289-93) for a study of yet another (and hitherto unobserved) acrostic in Dante's poetic response to Giovanni del Virgilio's invitation to compose a pastoral eclogue.
Lì, here and in the next two tercets, means ”in that volume,“ that is, in the ”Book of the Dead.“ Albert (emperor from 1298-1308, i.e., in precedence of Henry VII), was previously denounced by Dante for his neglect of Italy (Purg. VI.97-126). In 1304 he invaded and devastated Bohemia. In the assemblage of fifteen crowned heads appearing here, Albert is the only one to be named, thus giving us a sense of how much knowledge of ”current events“ Dante believed he could count on in his readers.
”On the banks of the Seine,“ that is, at Paris, where Philip the Fair caused his subjects great distress when he adulterated the coinage. See the note to verse 119.
For Philip's monetarist failings (let Ben Bernanke take note), see Oelsner (comm. to vv. 119-120): ”[the king] debased the coinage to one-third of its value, in order to meet the expenses of his Flemish campaigns in 1302. This is one of several passages in which we see the horror of tampering with the coinage entertained by Dante, the citizen of the greatest commercial city of Europe. As the symbol of greed the Florin was the 'accursed flower' of Par. IX.130, but as the foundation of all commercial relations it was worthy of such reverence that he who tampered with it was to be ranked with him who falsified the very personality of human beings, the ultimate basis of human intercourse.“ Toynbee (”Filippo2“ [Concise Dante Dictionary]) points out that Philip is always named by periphrasis in the poem, never by his name, and lists his other main periphrastic appearances: Inferno XIX.87; Purgatorio VII.109, XX.91.
This mention of the death of the French king dates the canto as having been composed (or, at least, modified) after November 1314, according to Campi (comm. to vv. 118-120); see also Kenelm Foster (”Paradiso XIX,“ Dante Studies 94 [1976)], p. 85). The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 118-120), writing in 1333, knew about the death of Philip the Fair, caused by a boar. (The word cotenna, in Tuscany, meant the hide of a wild pig and perhaps, in Dante's day [as nineteenth-century commentators report, even then on the tongues of peasants in the Romagna], referred to the whole dangerous animal.) Lombardi (comm. to this verse) explains what happened (citing Villani [Cron. IX.66]): A boar ran among the legs of Philip's horse and the frightened animal threw his royal rider, killing him.
”The pride that makes men thirst“ is evidently the craving to dominate. Dante is probably referring to the border wars between Scotland and England in the reign of Edward I (1272-1307). However, just which monarch Dante has in mind is debated. Since the poet had previously praised Edward I (Purg. VII.130-132), some readers have suggested that Dante was thinking of Edward II, even if he ruled at a period that places him outside the limits established for everyone else mentioned in this list (i.e., to have been governing in 1300). Thus it probably seems necessary to believe one of two things: Either Dante had received information that made him change his mind about Edward I, or else he had incorrect dates for Edward II. The Scottish leader referred to is perhaps Robert the Bruce (1306-29). That would put him also outside the allotted time zone. However, as Tozer points out (comm. to this tercet), since Villani (Cron. VIII.90) represents him as the Scottish leader during Edward I's reign, Dante may have fallen into the same error.
Ferdinand IV of Castile and Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. For the latter see Purgatorio VII.101-102, where he is described in much the same way.
”The Cripple of Jerusalem“ was the derogatory name for the lame Charles II, king of Apulia and Naples (1285-1309), who claimed the title ”King of Jerusalem“ enjoyed by his father, even though it never was granted to him as the son. Tozer (comm. to vv. 127-129) paraphrases and comments: ”His virtues will be seen marked by a unit (I), his vices by an M (for Lat. mille, 'a thousand'). The one virtue here intended was liberality, which Dante attributes to him in Paradiso VIII.82.“ Steiner (comm. to vv. 128-130) says that others have suggested that ”I“ and ”M“ refer to the first and last letters of his desired and fraudulent title, ”King of Ierusalem.“
The reference is to Frederick II, son of Pedro of Aragon (see Purg. VII.119), and first regent (1291) and then king of Sicily (1296-1337). Sicily is referred to as ”the isle of fire“ because of the volcanic activity of Mt. Etna. For the death of Anchises on its western shore, see Virgil (Aen. III.707-710). This Frederick II is not to be confused with the emperor Frederick II (see Inf. X.119 and note), who died in 1250.
See Vittorio Russo (”Paradiso XIX: similis fictio numquam facta fuit per aliquem poetam,“ Dante Studies 101 [1983], p. 105) for discussion of the rhymes based in the sound of -zz as typical of the low style, citing De vulgari eloquentia II.vii.5-6 on ”hirsute“ words that are not fitting for the tragic style.
Frederick is the only one of the pestilential dozen to receive more than a single tercet for his dispraises. With a wry sense of humor, Dante claims that Frederick is unworthy of attention, yet he gives Frederick's unworthiness more space than any of his competitors in malfeasance. Tozer paraphrases the tercet as follows and then comments: ”'In order to let men know how paltry he is, that which is written against him will take the form of abbreviations, which will enumerate many vices within a small space.' Abbreviations were commonly used in MSS. to save space; so they would be used in God's record of Frederic, because he was too insignificant for a large space to be allotted to him.“
The uncle, barba, of Frederick II of Sicily was James, king of Majorca (and of Minorca). He lost his crown for ten years as a result of joining Philip the Bold of France in a disastrous invasion of Catalonia. His brother, James of Aragon (see Purg. VII.119), in 1291 succeeded to the throne of Aragon, surrendering his kingship of Sicily, which his father had acquired, and appointed his younger brother, Frederick, to it in 1296. By these acts the James boys dishonored both family and their kingship.
Seven times in the first two canticles the word barba meant, what it still means, ”beard.“ Here it means ”uncle,“ as Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 136-148) informs us it does in Lombard. Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) gives its medieval Latin forms and dialectical presence in nineteenth-century Italy (Lombardy and the Tuscan Romagna). According to Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 136-138) it still has that meaning in some northern dialectical Italian of the mid-twentieth century.
The concluding royal triad share a single tercet: Dionysius, king of Portugal; Haakon V, king of Norway; and Stephen Ouros, king of Rascia, the modern Illyria and Dalmatia. Tozer (comm. to this tercet): ”[Stephen] struck coins of debased metal in imitation of the Venetian ducat; the resemblance of the two is seen in the figures given by Philalethes, p. 259.“
The acrostic comes to a close, but Dante is not yet finished cataloguing the ills of Europe's suffering kingdoms. This ungainly departure from the acrostic mode suggested to Bosco/Reggio that the acrostic itself may have occurred without design (see the note to vv. 115-139). The reader notes that these three examples offer mixed messages: the first of a good monarch leading to continued good governance, the second of a good monarch whose work will be undone at her death, and the third of a disastrous monarch.
Tozer (comm. to this tercet): ”Hungary had been governed by corrupt princes until the time of Andrea III (1290-1301), who was a good sovereign. 'Happy Navarre, if she should defend herself with the mountain that girds her,' the Pyrenees. Joan of Navarre had married Philip the Fair in 1284, but governed her kingdom independently. On her death in 1305 it passed to her son Louis Hutin, and when he succeeded to the throne of France as Louis X in 1314, it was annexed to the French crown.“
Tozer (comm. to this tercet): ”Cyprus, of which Nicosia and Famagosta were the chief cities, was badly governed in 1300 by Henry II of Lusignan, who was a man of corrupt life.“
As a coda to the whole parade of princes, we are told that Henry (as opposed to Andrea III and Joanna of Navarre?), a bad ruler, keeps the (metaphoric) company of the dirty dozen referred to in the acrostic.
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