Oppresso di stupore, a la mia guida
mi volsi, come parvol che ricorre .
sempre colà dove più si confida;
e quella, come madre che soccorre
sùbito al figlio palido e anelo
con la sua voce, che 'l suol ben disporre,
mi disse: “Non sai tu che tu se' in cielo?
e non sai tu che 'l cielo è tutto santo,
e ciò che ci si fa vien da buon zelo?
Come t'avrebbe trasmutato il canto,
e io ridendo, mo pensar lo puoi,
poscia che 'l grido t'ha mosso cotanto;
nel qual, se 'nteso avessi i prieghi suoi,
già ti sarebbe nota la vendetta
che tu vedrai innanzi che tu muoi.
La spada di qua sù non taglia in fretta
né tardo, ma' ch'al parer di colui
che disïando o temendo l'aspetta.
Ma rivolgiti omai inverso altrui;
ch'assai illustri spiriti vedrai,
se com' io dico l'aspetto redui.”
Come a lei piacque, li occhi ritornai,
e vidi cento sperule che 'nsieme
più s'abbellivan con mutüi rai.
Io stava come quei che 'n sé repreme
la punta del disio, e non s'attenta
di domandar, sì del troppo si teme;
e la maggiore e la più luculenta
di quelle margherite innanzi fessi,
per far di sé la mia voglia contenta.
Poi dentro a lei udi': “Se tu vedessi
com' io la carità che tra noi arde,
li tuoi concetti sarebbero espressi.
Ma perché tu, aspettando, non tarde
a l'alto fine, io ti farò risposta
pur al pensier, da che sì ti riguarde.
Quel monte a cui Cassino è ne la costa
fu frequentato già in su la cima
da la gente ingannata e mal disposta;
e quel son io che sù vi portai prima
lo nome di colui che 'n terra addusse
la verità che tanto ci soblima;
e tanta grazia sopra me relusse,
ch'io ritrassi le ville circunstanti
da l'empio cólto che 'l mondo sedusse.
Questi altri fuochi tutti contemplanti
uomini fuoro, accesi di quel caldo
che fa nascere i fiori e ' frutti santi.
Qui è Maccario, qui è Romoaldo,
qui son li frati miei che dentro ai chiostri
fermar li piedi e tennero il cor saldo.”
E io a lui: “L'affetto che dimostri
meco parlando, e la buona sembianza
ch'io veggio e noto in tutti li ardor vostri,
così m'ha dilatata mia fidanza,
come 'l sol fa la rosa quando aperta
tanto divien quant' ell' ha di possanza.
Però ti priego, e tu, padre, m'accerta
s'io posso prender tanta grazia, ch'io
ti veggia con imagine scoverta.”
Ond' elli: “Frate, il tuo alto disio
s'adempierà in su l'ultima spera,
ove s'adempion tutti li altri e 'l mio.
Ivi è perfetta, matura e intera
ciascuna disïanza; in quella sola
è ogne parte là ove sempr' era,
perché non è in loco e non s'impola;
e nostra scala infino ad essa varca,
onde così dal viso ti s'invola.
Infin là sù la vide il patriarca
Iacobbe porger la superna parte,
quando li apparve d'angeli sì carca.
Ma, per salirla, mo nessun diparte
da terra i piedi, e la regola mia
rimasa è per danno de le carte.
Le mura che solieno esser badia
fatte sono spelonche, e le cocolle
sacca son piene di farina ria.
Ma grave usura tanto non si tolle
contra 'l piacer di Dio, quanto quel frutto
che fa il cor de' monaci sì folle;
ché quantunque la Chiesa guarda, tutto
è de la gente che per Dio dimanda;
non di parenti né d'altro più brutto.
La carne d'i mortali è tanto blanda,
che giù non basta buon cominciamento
dal nascer de la quercia al far la ghianda.
Pier cominciò sanz' oro e sanz' argento,
e io con orazione e con digiuno,
e Francesco umilmente il suo convento;
e se guardi 'l principio di ciascuno,
poscia riguardi là dov' è trascorso,
tu vederai del bianco fatto bruno.
Veramente Iordan vòlto retrorso
più fu, e 'l mar fuggir, quando Dio volse,
mirabile a veder che qui 'l soccorso.”
Così mi disse, e indi si raccolse
al suo collegio, e 'l collegio si strinse;
poi, come turbo, in sù tutto s'avvolse.
La dolce donna dietro a lor mi pinse
con un sol cenno su per quella scala,
sì sua virtù la mia natura vinse;
né mai qua giù dove si monta e cala
naturalmente, fu sì ratto moto
ch'agguagliar si potesse a la mia ala.
S'io torni mai, lettore, a quel divoto
trïunfo per lo quale io piango spesso
le mie peccata e 'l petto mi percuoto,
tu non avresti in tanto tratto e messo
nel foco il dito, in quant' io vidi 'l segno
che segue il Tauro e fui dentro da esso.
O glorïose stelle, o lume pregno
di gran virtù, dal quale io riconosco
tutto, qual che si sia, il mio ingegno,
con voi nasceva e s'ascondeva vosco
quelli ch'è padre d'ogne mortal vita,
quand' io senti' di prima l'aere tosco;
e poi, quando mi fu grazia largita
d'entrar ne l'alta rota che vi gira,
la vostra regïon mi fu sortita.
A voi divotamente ora sospira
l'anima mia, per acquistar virtute
al passo forte che a sé la tira.
“Tu se' sì presso a l'ultima salute,”
cominciò Bëatrice, “che tu dei
aver le luci tue chiare e acute;
e però, prima che tu più t'inlei,
rimira in giù, e vedi quanto mondo
sotto li piedi già esser ti fei;
sì che 'l tuo cor, quantunque può, giocondo
s'appresenti a la turba trïunfante
che lieta vien per questo etera tondo.”
Col viso ritornai per tutte quante
le sette spere, e vidi questo globo
tal, ch'io sorrisi del suo vil sembiante;
e quel consiglio per migliore approbo
che l'ha per meno; e chi ad altro pensa
chiamar si puote veramente probo.
Vidi la figlia di Latona incensa
sanza quell' ombra che mi fu cagione
per che già la credetti rara e densa.
L'aspetto del tuo nato, Iperïone,
quivi sostenni, e vidi com' si move
circa e vicino a lui Maia e Dïone.
Quindi m'apparve il temperar di Giove
tra 'l padre e 'l figlio; e quindi mi fu chiaro
il varïar che fanno di lor dove;
e tutti e sette mi si dimostraro
quanto son grandi e quanto son veloci
e come sono in distante riparo.
L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci,
volgendom' io con li etterni Gemelli,
tutta m'apparve da' colli a le foci;
poscia rivolsi li occhi a li occhi belli.
Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide
Turned like a little child who always runs
For refuge there where he confideth most;
And she, even as a mother who straightway
Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy
With voice whose wont it is to reassure him,
Said to me: "Knowest thou not thou art in heaven,
And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all
And what is done here cometh from good zeal?
After what wise the singing would have changed thee
And I by smiling, thou canst now imagine,
Since that the cry has startled thee so much,
In which if thou hadst understood its prayers
Already would be known to thee the vengeance
Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest.
The sword above here smiteth not in haste
Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him
Who fearing or desiring waits for it.
But turn thee round towards the others now,
For very illustrious spirits shalt thou see,
If thou thy sight directest as I say."
As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned,
And saw a hundred spherules that together
With mutual rays each other more embellished.
I stood as one who in himself represses
The point of his desire, and ventures not
To question, he so feareth the too much.
And now the largest and most luculent
Among those pearls came forward, that it might
Make my desire concerning it content.
Within it then I heard: "If thou couldst see
Even as myself the charity that burns
Among us, thy conceits would be expressed;
But, that by waiting thou mayst not come late
To the high end, I will make answer even
Unto the thought of which thou art so chary.
That mountain on whose slope Cassino stands
Was frequented of old upon its summit
By a deluded folk and ill-disposed;
And I am he who first up thither bore
The name of Him who brought upon the earth
The truth that so much sublimateth us.
And such abundant grace upon me shone
That all the neighbouring towns I drew away
From the impious worship that seduced the world.
These other fires, each one of them, were men
Contemplative, enkindled by that heat
Which maketh holy flowers and fruits spring up.
Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus,
Here are my brethren, who within the cloisters
Their footsteps stayed and kept a steadfast heart."
And I to him: "The affection which thou showest
Speaking with me, and the good countenance
Which I behold and note in all your ardours,
In me have so my confidence dilated
As the sun doth the rose, when it becomes
As far unfolded as it hath the power.
Therefore I pray, and thou assure me, father,
If I may so much grace receive, that I
May thee behold with countenance unveiled."
He thereupon: "Brother, thy high desire
In the remotest sphere shall be fulfilled,
Where are fulfilled all others and my own.
There perfect is, and ripened, and complete,
Every desire; within that one alone
Is every part where it has always been;
For it is not in space, nor turns on poles,
And unto it our stairway reaches up,
Whence thus from out thy sight it steals away.
Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it
Extending its supernal part, what time
So thronged with angels it appeared to him.
But to ascend it now no one uplifts
His feet from off the earth, and now my Rule
Below remaineth for mere waste of paper.
The walls that used of old to be an Abbey
Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls
Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.
But heavy usury is not taken up
So much against God's pleasure as that fruit
Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;
For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping
Is for the folk that ask it in God's name,
Not for one's kindred or for something worse.
The flesh of mortals is so very soft,
That good beginnings down below suffice not
From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.
Peter began with neither gold nor silver,
And I with orison and abstinence,
And Francis with humility his convent.
And if thou lookest at each one's beginning,
And then regardest whither he has run,
Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.
In verity the Jordan backward turned,
And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more
A wonder to behold, than succour here."
Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew
To his own band, and the band closed together;
Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.
The gentle Lady urged me on behind them
Up o'er that stairway by a single sign,
So did her virtue overcome my nature;
Nor here below, where one goes up and down
By natural law, was motion e'er so swift
That it could be compared unto my wing.
Reader, as I may unto that devout
Triumph return, on whose account I often
For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,—
Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire
And drawn it out again, before I saw
The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.
O glorious stars, O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be,
With you was born, and hid himself with you,
He who is father of all mortal life,
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air;
And then when grace was freely given to me
To enter the high wheel which turns you round,
Your region was allotted unto me.
To you devoutly at this hour my soul
Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire
For the stern pass that draws it to itself.
"Thou art so near unto the last salvation,"
Thus Beatrice began, "thou oughtest now
To have thine eves unclouded and acute;
And therefore, ere thou enter farther in,
Look down once more, and see how vast a world
Thou hast already put beneath thy feet;
So that thy heart, as jocund as it may,
Present itself to the triumphant throng
That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether."
I with my sight returned through one and all
The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe
Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance;
And that opinion I approve as best
Which doth account it least; and he who thinks
Of something else may truly be called just.
I saw the daughter of Latona shining
Without that shadow, which to me was cause
That once I had believed her rare and dense.
The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,
Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves
Around and near him Maia and Dione.
Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove
'Twixt son and father, and to me was clear
The change that of their whereabout they make;
And all the seven made manifest to me
How great they are, and eke how swift they are,
And how they are in distant habitations.
The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,
To me revolving with the eternal Twins,
Was all apparent made from hill to harbour!
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.
This simile is perhaps better described as two simple comparisons combined into a single trope. (Francesco da Buti [comm. to vv. 1-21] did, however, describe it as a “similitudine.”) It first compares Dante to a distressed child running to its mother and then portrays Beatrice as a mother calming her child. Poletto (comm. to vv. 1-3) was apparently the first to indicate the nearly certain reference to Purg. XXX.43-45 (Dante as child [fantolin] running to his mommy [mamma]), but the Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to vv. 1-3) pretty clearly had been thinking of that same text.
These verses continue the action of the preceding canto, which ended with Dante being unable to make out the meaning of a thunder-like utterance (one of the loudest noises we hear from the pages of the poem, perhaps bringing to mind the similarly stunning noise of the infernal waterfall at Inferno XVI.94-105). This shout emanated from Peter Damian's outraged colleagues, departing from the silent meditation that marked their presence once they descended toward this sphere (see Par. XXI.58). Naturally enough, the protagonist, unable to make out their words, fears lest their rebuke, so loud as to be incomprehensible, be aimed at him. His apparent logic is clear enough: In this realm, if Beatrice does not smile and if the souls do not sing, he must be being rebuked for something he has (or has not) done.
Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 1-3) was perhaps the first to identify the citation here of Boethius (Cons. Phil. I.2[pr]): Philosophy appearing to the befuddled “hero” at the beginning of that work (the two passages share versions of the phrase stupor oppressit). Thus the text of the Consolatio stands behind Dantean expressions at either end of the canto. See the note to verse 151 (but also see the note to Par. XXI.28-30). Zygmunt Baranski (“Canto XXII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 357) makes the telling point that Boethius presents the Lady Philosophy's gown as bearing a ladder that moves from lower practical matters to higher and theological concerns, an emblem resembling the ladder we see here in Saturn, which configures both ascent and descent, the life of meditation and of work in the world, the monastic practices of meditation and labor. (Benedict's “motto,” as is reported by Fallani [comm. to verse 40], was “ora et labora” [pray and work].)
Beatrice's increasing feminization (for her “male” attributes, see Purg. XXX.19, 43-48, 58, and the notes thereto) is, clearly, not the sign of her sexualization, as some contrive to believe. Never in the poem does she appear as other than chaste, here, in simile, as Dante's mother.
Beatrice corrects his misapprehension, explaining that anger in the heavens cannot be produced by anything but righteous indignation (buon zelo). Thus the shout he heard could not have been directed against him, but rather against those on earth who offend in their desecration of the religious life, “li moderni pastori” (modern shepherds [Par. XXI.131]). Once again we are made to see how poorly prepared this mortal is for this higher realm.
Beatrice explains that Dante's inability to comprehend the “prayers” of the visitors to Saturn, prophesying God's vengeance on His enemies, is in itself proof that he was not ready to bear either Beatrice's beatific smile or the contemplatives' singing, both of which were, for that reason, withheld from him.
Carroll (comm. to vv. 1-18) restates a passage in St. Bernard's De Consideratione (V.xiv) that may throw considerable light on this tercet: There are four kinds of divine judgments, each one defined by its breadth, or length, or depth, or height. Consideration of God's judgments coincides with “depth.” Carroll continues: “This kind of contemplation (now in Bernard's words) 'may violently shock the beholder with the fearful vision, but it puts vice to flight, firmly bases virtue, initiates in wisdom, preserves humility.' It is plainly the shock of this contemplation of the 'depth' which here stuns the Pilgrim. The cry is an echo from the Thrones of the Divine judgments who preside over this Heaven, and the very echo shakes Dante to the soul; and Beatrice asks how, if the 'depth' so shook him, he could have borne the 'height' – the lofty ecstatic joy of contemplation represented by her smile.”
This sort of righteous indignation is itself a sort of joy, since it involves, as Beatrice says, the celebration of just punishment, visible in the vengeance of God, that Dante will be able to observe on earth before he dies. This “minor prophecy” (for another see Purg. XXIII.97-102) about the punishment of the corrupt clergy resembles the similar promise (Par. XVII.98-99), made by Cacciaguida, that Dante will witness the just punishment of his Florentine enemies. How are we to take these “personal prophecies”? It is perhaps best to understand that both Cacciaguida's and this one spoken by Beatrice are promissory notes Dante has written to himself. He surely has in mind the completion of his hope for the political redemption of Florence; once this were accomplished, he was certain that his political enemies and the corrupt clergy who seem to support them (and perhaps often did) would come to a bad end indeed. But like all successful prophecies, this one had to provide at least some sure results in order to be taken as veracious. The death of any of Dante's major adversaries, occurring while he was still alive, would indeed seem to make elements of these “prophecies” correct. On the religious side of the roster, major deaths that succored Dante's hopes included those of the popes Boniface VIII (1303) and Clement V (1314); in the secular ledger, that of Corso Donati (1308 [see Purg. XXIV.82-90]). It may be argued convincingly that, in fact, Dante did not triumph over his enemies; nonetheless, he could, from the vantage point of 1317 or so, count on us to recognize that some of his greatest foes had died, thus preserving, for the moment, the possible happy outcome of this essentially botched prediction. It comes more as the result of wishful thinking (and the accompanying conviction that his political views were simply correct) than of revelation.
For Dante's enemies, obviously, this sword will make itself felt all too soon, while for him it will be slow indeed in coming.
This feeling had already raced through Dante's veins. Mattalia (comm. to verse 16) indicates the second of Dante's “political epistles” (Ep. VI.4, written in March of 1311), addressed to Henry VII, for the sword of God and vendetta. The text speaks of the “gladius Eius qui dicit: 'Mea est ultio'” (the sword of Him who says, “Vengeance is mine”).
Beatrice's urging would lead us to believe that we shall learn of the presence of at least a number of great contemplatives in this sphere. We shall, however, meet only one more, St. Benedict (named only by periphrasis at verses 40-42), although he is accompanied by two other named monastics, Macarius and Romuald (verse 49), who are merely said to be here and must share a single line of verse. The others, of whom we are about to see many dozens, do not receive even that much notice, a perhaps fitting anonymity in this environment of self-abnegation. For whatever reason, Dante has limited his panoply of great contemplatives to Peter Damian and Benedict of Norcia, with an assisting cast of only two named supporting players.
The phrasing of her command to Dante reflects similar urgings on Virgil's part (Inf. IX.55, X.31; Purg. XXVII.31-32) and one earlier one by Beatrice herself (Par. XVIII.20). The ability to turn and face that which he fears or has not yet understood is what his two guides both encourage in him.
For the phrase illustri spiriti (glorious spirits), Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 19-21) adduces a Virgilian text (Aen. VI.758): “inlustris animas.”
These “one hundred little globes” are neither precisely one hundred in number nor little globes, but a large number of descended saints who, in their joy (we remember that they are spending eternity in the most joyful place there is) make one another more joyous, as can be perceived by their increasing brightness.
The protagonist, getting with the spirit of this place, overrules “la punta del disio” (the spur of his desire) and suppresses his desire to know who these spirits are – but of course he has communicated with them in God, despite his reticence. One light, the best and the brightest “pearl” among them, advances to reveal his identity.
For a study of Dante's adaptation of sexually charged terms to express the desire for God, see Lino Pertile (“'La punta del disio': storia di una metafora dantesca,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 7 [1990]: 3-28), using verse 26 as his point of departure. And now see his book (La punta del disio: Semantica del desiderio nella “Commedia” [Fiesole: Cadmo, 2005]), which includes this essay and builds upon it.
Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 100, draws this desire and that referred to at Paradiso XXI.48 into relation with the disio mentioned in Inferno XXVI, first that of the protagonist (verse 69), then that of Ulysses (his ardore, verse 97), and finally that of his shipmates (he has made them aguti [...] al cammino, vv. 121-122).
We know, as did those who painted and those who “read” medieval paintings, that size is a measure of importance; this is, accordingly, the most important personage of the group (as is also underlined by his greater brightness among the margherite [pearls] who make up his company). Thus it is that Mary will be the greatest among the flames (at least once Christ goes back to the Empyrean) seen in the descended Church Triumphant (Par. XXIII.90).
Benedict will make his identity knowable (he will not actually name himself then or ever) at vv. 40-42. See the note to vv. 37-45.
Once again a personage of Paradise alludes to the fact that speech is here an unnecessary form of communication (to any understanding but that of mortal Dante). The speaker assures him that, had he only known the inner dispositions of these “globes,” he would have spoken up (even as we remind ourselves that there obviously was no need to, since they know his thoughts even as he suppresses his desire to give voice to them).
For the extraordinary number of verbs of seeing in this canto (twenty-one), all but two of them referring to Dante's sight, see Baranski (“Canto XXII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 344n.).
Benedict (480-543), born in the Umbrian city of Norcia, became the founder of what is considered the oldest monastic order in the West, which bears his name. Son of wealthy parents, he went to Rome to study, and there witnessed the debauchery of the clergy. His response was to take up a solitary eremitic life in a cave. His fame brought him the attention of those who had chosen to live a cloistered life. He agreed to become the head of the convent of Vicovaro, thus moving from the existence of a hermit to that of a cenobite. This was not in all respects a propitious decision on his part, since his fellow monks, resentful of his extremely strict Rule, tried to poison him. He managed to survive the attempt on his life and once again retreated to his cave. Monks loyal to him and to his vision of the cenobitic life eventually followed him to Montecassino, where he destroyed a temple of Apollo and a grove sacred to Venus (according to Oelsner [comm. to vv. 37-39]), converted the locals (until his advent, still pagans), and founded his order. As commentators point out, beginning with Jacopo della Lana (Nota to this canto), Dante's brief version of Benedict's vita is indebted to that found in his biographer, St. Gregory the Great, Dialogues, II.2. It may seem surprising that Benedict was canonized only in 1220, nearly seven centuries after his death, while Francis had to wait only two years for his sainthood (1228).
The adjectives assigned to the indigenous pagan locals pretty clearly seem to distinguish between, in Tommaseo's view (comm. to vv. 37-39), their confused mental state and their misdirected affections (in Oelsner's formulation [see the note to vv. 37-45], worship of Apollo and devotions to Venus).
As opposed to verse 39, which seems to point to two unacceptable forms of behavior among the locals, this one would rather indicate the worship of Apollo alone, even if a more universal victory over paganism is probably indicated.
Once again (see the note to verse 1) the text indicates the special nature of the monastic vocation, a combination of prayerful meditation and labor, in Benedict's own prescription for cenobitic activity, “ora et labora.”
The souls that Dante had in mind as models for this kind of ecstatic appreciation of God are, according to Claudia Di Fonzo (“'La dolce donna dietro a lor mi pinse / con un sol cenno su per quella scala' [Par. XXII.100-101],” Studi Danteschi 63 [1991 {1997}]: 141-75), Anselm, Benedict, Bonaventure, and (especially) Bernard.
Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 37-51) resolves the metaphoric fiori (flowers) and frutti (fruits) into “words” and “deeds.” It seems at least possible, given Benedict's own division of monkish occupation into prayer and work, that this is how we should interpret the “flowers” that Dante has in mind: the words that give shape to prayer.
Saints Macarius and Romuald were surely also monks, but, especially with regard to the first, there is little certainty as to his absolute identity. For Macarius, the two main candidates were both dead before Benedict was born. “It is uncertain which of the several saints of the name of Macarius is the one intended by Dante. The two best known, between whom perhaps Dante did not very clearly distinguish, are St. Macarius the Elder, called the Egyptian, and St. Macarius the Younger of Alexandria – both disciples of St. Anthony. St. Macarius the Elder (born in 301) retired at the age of 30 into the Libyan desert, where he remained for sixty years, passing his time between prayer and manual labour, until his death, at the age of 90, in 391. St. Macarius the Younger had nearly 5,000 monks under his charge (d. 404); he is credited with having established the monastic rule of the East, as St. Benedict did that of the West” (Toynbee, “Macario” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
As for St. Romuald (956-1027), he began (in 1012) the Camaldolese Order, a reformed group of Benedictines. It was named for the donor of its holding, campus Maldoli (the field of Maldolus), or “Camaldoli.” (Its monastery, in Tuscany, is referred to in Purgatorio V.96.) Thus Benedict is bracketed, chronologically, by a precursor and a follower. Dante may have learned about Romuald, born in Ravenna, from the vita Romualdi composed by his townsman, Peter Damian.
It sounds as though Benedict is readying himself to give a denunciation of the corruption of his order, in the style of Peter Damian (Par. XXI.130-135); however, Dante interrupts him with a surprising question, one that detains him for some time; he will deliver his broadside only at vv. 73-96.
See Annibale Ilari (“Il Canto XXII,” in “Paradiso”: Letture degli anni 1979-81, ed. S. Zennaro [Rome: Bonacci, 1989], pp. 573-624) for the view that Dante's sense of the purpose of the monastic life, particularly in its Benedictine form, was shaped by the sense of monasticism that he found in the writings of Joachim of Flora.
The protagonist allows that he has interpreted (correctly) his temporary companions' increased brightness as an expression of their affection for him.
Benedict is awarded the role of Dante's penultimate “father” in this poem, with only St. Bernard to come (for the others, see the note to Par. XVI.16).
He also has the honor of preceding St. John (see Par. XXV.122-129) in causing Dante to ask questions about the fleshly aspect of the condition of the blessed. There also circulated a medieval legend that St. John, for his particular closeness to Jesus, was unique among the rest of the blessed (Jesus and Mary being the sole other exceptions) in having his resurrected body in Heaven before the general resurrection (see Rachel Jacoff [“Dante and the Legend(s) of St. John,” Dante Studies 117 {1999}: 45-57]). Dante's curiosity about Benedict's actual appearance, however, has no ascertainable “source,” at least none supported by Dante's commentators. In the case of Benedict, the protagonist's question (and his desire) is somewhat different. He would like to see Benedict now as he shall be when he is found again, seated in Heaven (Par. XXXII.35), that is, with his sheathing flame removed so that his face's features will be utterly plain to a beholder. Once in the Empyrean, Dante will see all the blessed as though they had already been given back their fleshly selves (Par. XXX.43-45), that is, even before the general resurrection. Thus he will there experience the reality of Benedict and of John (and of all the other saints) in identical ways.
Why, the commentators are left to ask, does Dante introduce this concern here, one that seems to have no historical footing? The least that one can hazard is that, given his “fatherhood” and this exceptional request, Benedict played a more vital role in Dante's intellectual and spiritual development than has been ascertained, if in what precise ways remains unknown.
Kevin Brownlee points out (“Ovid's Semele and Dante's Metamorphosis: Paradiso 21-22,” in Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, eds., The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia” [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991], pp. 227-28) that Dante's desire to see Benedict in his flesh uncomfortably parallels Semele's request to Jove, but that he will see Benedict as though resurrected in the flesh in Paradiso XXXII.35. His story, unlike hers, has a happy ending.
At some length Benedict corrects the supposition that lay behind Dante's desire to see him in his true human resemblance. His conclusion, with its reference to Jacob's Ladder and its function as the connecting point between the rest of the time-bound universe and the unchanging Empyrean, brings his attention back to his monks, last heard of at verse 51.
This represents the last use of the word “brother” (frate) as a term of address in the poem. See the note to Purgatorio IV.127.
See Carroll (comm. to vv. 61-63) for the notion (attributed only to Chimenz [comm. to vv. 61-63] by Bosco/Reggio [comm. to this verse]) that Benedict is gently reproving Dante for having called him “father” (verse 58) by insisting that they are better considered brothers in Christ. Compare the desire of Pope Adrian V not to have Dante kneel before him in obeisance, since they enjoy a similar brotherhood (Purg. XIX.133-135).
Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 101, points out that, rather than redundant through some failing on the poet's part, as some commentators hold, these three adjectives reproduce a phrase in an apostolic epistle (James 1:4): “And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (perfecti et integri, in nullo deficientes). The only other reference to this passage (if not in this context) in the entire commentary tradition seems to be found in Bernardino Daniello (comm. to Par. XXV.29).
The Empyrean non s'impola (does not turn on poles), as does the terrestrial globe and as do the planets, but is the place that T.S. Eliot might have described as “the still point of the turning world” (the phrase occurs once in the second section of “Burnt Norton,” the first of the Four Quartets, and once again in the fourth).
This ladder “mounts right up to it,” that is, to the Empyrean, which is why Dante cannot yet see its terminus.
The tercet puts into play, in case we have missed it, the reference to Genesis 28:12: “And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”
Beginning with the foot of Jacob's Ladder, as it were, Benedict now rounds on the current members of his order. Their degeneracy is reflected in the crumbling physical plant of the monastery; in the attempt to find some use for the cowls of the monks (since apparently those who wear them are few) as bags for flour; in the flagrant usury employed by them (quel frutto, the disgraceful “harvest” of their misguided lavoro). On this last charge, see Tozer (comm. to vv. 79-84), describing it as “covetousness in misappropriating the revenues of the Church, which rightfully belong to God's poor, to the purposes of nepotism and licentiousness. This in the sight of God is a worse sin than usury.”
Benedict's remarks come to momentary cessation in the image of human sinfulness quickly undoing even fresh and worthy initiatives; these are snuffed out soon after inception.
Christ, driving the moneychangers from the temple (Matthew 21:12-13), portrays them as turning His “house of prayer” into a “den of thieves” (speluncam latronum), as was noted by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 76-78). Dante's spelonche nearly certainly reflects that passage.
Oaks take a while to grow mature enough to produce acorns - twenty years, according to Jacopo della Lana (comm. to this tercet) and Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 73-87). However, Dante seems to be underlining the relative brevity of their acornless state. Sapegno (comm. to this tercet) looks forward to a similar sense of the brief durance, there of innocence among us humans, at Paradiso XXVII.121-138.
In the first of these three tercets, Benedict reviews high points in the establishments of communities within the Church: the apostle Peter's first “papacy” (first century); the founding of his own order (sixth century); the founding of Francis's (twelfth century). The reader has a clear sense that Benedict does not expect any major renewal in the Church. And yet his speech ends with a curiously optimistic (and typically Dantean) reversal, in the promise of better days, with which his harangue comes to its close. If bodies of water could have been halted in their flow to let the Hebrews cross to safety, as Psalms 113:3 (114:5) attests, that would still seem a greater miracle than if God were to intervene in the world now. In short, as unlikely as that possibility seems, its odds are shorter than they were for the miracles of Jordan and of the Red Sea. In Dante's scheme of things, there is always room for hope, a view that we will find again in Paradiso XXVII.142-148, in a passage that similarly surmounts a decidedly pessimistic view of human sinfulness with hopes for a better world in the near future.
See the relevant passage in Acts 3:6: “Petrus autem dicit: Argentum et aurum non est mihi” (But Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none”), its relevance first suggested in the Chiose ambrosiane (comm. to this verse).
A possible arrière pensée of Ugolino (Inf. XXXIII.75), who knew digiuno (fasting) all too well, but prayer too little. See the note to Inferno XXXIII.49.
See Paradiso XXVII.136 for a similar description of a thing changed into its opposite, in that case, innocence into sinfulness.
God's miracles (Joshua 3:14-17), Jordan turned back and (Exodus 14:21-29) the crossing of the Red Sea (both remembered in Psalms 113:3 [114:5]), will have accustomed the eventual witnesses of His vengeance against these prelates to see that such relatively minor miracles are also signs of His power.
The departure of Benedict and his fellow monastics, headed back “home,” to the Empyrean at the upper end of Jacob's Ladder, where, we may assume, they will no longer think of the world's many corruptions, is accompanied by a whirlwind, sign of God's power and of His love for these saints.
In their wake, Beatrice leads Dante up the “ladder,” not yet to Benedict's companions' goal, the Empyrean, but to the eighth of the nine heavenly spheres, that of the Fixed Stars. The ascent is brief and briefly described, but the point of arrival will be treated at greater length.
This verse lies at the boundary line of the next heaven. Since in the Starry Sphere Dante will experience the Church Triumphant, has the poet used this perfect number as the number of its border deliberately?
Andreoli (comm. to this verse) paraphrases as follows: “the natural gravity of my body.” Is this an admission that Dante indeed visited the heavens in the body? However, it could suggest that the protagonist thinks of himself in corporeal terms out of habit. But see the note to Paradiso I.73.
Dante apostrophizes us (for the distribution of the addresses to the reader throughout the poem, see the notes to Inf. VIII.94-96 and to Par. X.22-27) for the final time in the poem (as Tommaseo noted). It comes as a surprise of some magnitude when one reads Scartazzini on this passage (comm. to verse 106) and finds that stubbornly thorough assembler of data coming up several addresses to the reader short in his quick survey. He undercounts occurrences of the phenomenon by two in Inferno and by two again here in the third cantica. Are we to think it a coincidence that this last occurrence falls just before the first of the final triad of invocations, now to higher powers directly (God's creative powers in the stars and then the Deity Itself in Par. XXX and XXXIII)? It is as though the poet is underlining the distance between human and divine experience by leaving us behind. After Dante looks down through the planets, the next sight he will see is the Church Triumphant, which we will see again in the penultimate canto of the poem. For all of the next canto, for the last third of the thirtieth, and for all the final three we are seeing “face-to-face.” As the space travelers near their eventual goal, the time taken for the ascent from sphere to sphere decreases, since the “gravitational pull” of the Empyrean naturally increases as one nears it. [Note revised 24 August 2013; see the revised note to Par. IX.10-12.]
The poet allows us to learn, inferentially, where his visit to the Starry Sphere has been situated by Providence, in “the sign following the Bull” (Taurus), and thus in Gemini, the sign under which, in 1265, he was born and which shaped whatever genius he possesses. With Gemini the Sun rose and set the day Dante was born in Tuscany; and now he comes to this heaven in that constellation. (Singleton [cited in the note to Par. XXII.127-154] cites an interesting observation of Grandgent's: “Thus, in a spiritual sense, [Dante] returns, like Plato's departed, to his native star: cf. Par. IV.52-57.”) From the stars of Gemini he invokes aid in acquiring the necessary capacity to tell of the final things of Heaven, beginning in the next canto with the appearance of the “hosts of Christ's triumph” (Par. XXIII.20-21).
The by now fairly familiar trope hysteron proteron is used to describe the speed of their upward movement and attainment of the next sphere. See the note to Paradiso I.23-26.
Adding to the reader's sense of the poet's self-consciousness at this moment in his creation, this seventh invocation also underlines the importance of the visit to the stars that shaped his human abilities. In Inferno II.7, when Dante invoked alto ingegno for aid, it is at least possible that he was invoking God's power to help him make his poem (see the notes to Inf. II.7-9 and Par. XXV.2). Here, especially in light of the equation between God's powers and that of the heavenly spheres suggested by Paradiso II.9, Dante would seem to be aligning his own powers as a poet with those specifically allotted him by God through the agency of the alignment of the stars at his birth, when the Sun (“he who is father to all mortal life”) was under the sign of Gemini.
This is the seventeenth (of eighteen in all) appearance of the word ingegno in the poem. The next and last (Par. XXIV.81), in the biting phrase “ingegno di sofista,” offers us the picture of those who used their “genius” perversely, and to widely different ends.
The actual invocation occurs only now, as the first three tercets of the passage define the power of these stars and give the nature and history of Dante's relationship with them. What is the specific “daunting task” for which the poet seeks heavenly aid? Most commentators are content to see this as a general appeal, called for by the heightening of the poem's subject, rising above the realms in which Dante and we are allowed to see the temporarily present souls of saved mortals and looking forward to the final vision in the poem's final canto. This seems a sensible view. (For a review of the varied [and rather vague or general] interpretations offered through the nineteenth century, see Scartazzini [comm. to vv. 122-123].) Del Lungo (comm. to this tercet) offers a stronger reading, arguing that the specific appeal is made for a specific reason: Dante in the next canto must describe the triumph presided over by Christ and Mary. Indeed, in Canto XXIII the protagonist will be seeing “face-to-face.” And what he will see is the ultimate destination of the justified portion of our race, the Church Triumphant, which will descend from the Empyrean in order to make itself visible to a mortal (for the first [and only!] time in human history, we may embarrassedly consider). And thus this invocation is “special” for that reason. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this tercet) make two questionable gestures, first attributing this interpretation to Chimenz rather than to Del Lungo, who preceded him; second, casting doubt upon it. Having made it, the poet reports first on his downward glance, as he readies himself to see better things; the passage describing that vision will complete this canto. In the next, the intricate opening simile leads directly into the vision of the Church Triumphant, the first thing above him that Dante will describe after the invocation (see Par. XXIII.19-21, Beatrice's words, “Now look upon the hosts / of Christ in triumph, all the fruit / gathered from the wheeling of these spheres!”). It is with this immediate destination in mind that one might want to understand the “clue” to such an understanding found in Beatrice's earlier statement, a few lines farther on in this canto, at verse 124 (“You are so near the final blessedness”), as a reference not to his eventual destination in the Empyrean, as most imagine it to be, but in fact to this immediately proximate vision of the citizenry of that place in the next canto. In fact, the vast majority of commentators believe the passage looks forward only to the last canto, drawn by the phrase ultima salute, for God, in Paradiso XXXIII.27. Only Trucchi (comm. to vv. 124-126) resists this “easy” solution, seeing that the presence of Christ in the next one is what is at stake.
Of similar effect is Beatrice's ensuing remark (vv. 131-132), encouraging Dante to look back to see how much heavenly territory he has already traversed, a journey that makes him ready to appear before “the triumphant throng / that comes rejoicing to this celestial sphere.” In light of such indications, it seems more than likely that the invocation is meant to be read as a preparation for that near-at-hand experience, not one some ten cantos distant.
The phrase “passo forte” (daunting task) caught Benvenuto's attention (comm. to vv. 121-123). Why is it so? “Because,” Benvenuto says, “here is that which all things strive toward. In what follows [Dante] describes God's Church in its triumph, with all the celestial court, including God.”
See Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle (“Closure in Paradise: Dante Outsings Aquinas,” Modern Language Notes 115 [2000]: 3-5) on Dante's awareness of Thomas's failure to complete his three-part Summa and consequent diminution in comparison with Dante's tripartite poem. She continues by claiming that the Comedy uses both agricultural and navigational metaphors to demonstrate that poetry is more fitting than philosophy or theology to articulate “the ascent to divine contemplation.” While her sense of Dante's hostility to Thomas is surely overblown, she is among those who realize that all is not peaches and cream in Dante's presentation of his relations with Thomas.
Beatrice is not so much admonishing Dante to prepare his eyes for such exalted vision as insisting that, trained as they have been, they are now necessarily ready for that vision, and will be so for the duration of his visit to the rest of the heavens and to the Empyrean. This is to agree with Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this tercet). For the sense in which Dante is at this moment near his “final blessedness,” see the note to vv. 121-123.
Dante's neologism here is close to untranslatable. The coinage is possibly to be taken as a verb of the first conjugation, “inleiarsi,” to “in-it oneself,” that is, to make oneself one with something external to one's being.
Beatrice's reference to the great extent of the universe that Dante can now make out “beneath his feet” reminds us again that we are still not sure whether we are meant to understand that Dante is in Paradiso in the flesh. While something like certainty awaits us, as will be made clear in a few cantos, here we sense a certain coyness. Beatrice may be speaking figuratively, meaning “Look down beneath you, where your feet would be if you were here in the flesh.” Or she may simply be saying, “Look beneath your feet,” feet that are really there, dangling beneath him in the heaven of the Fixed Stars.
Once again Beatrice clearly alludes to what Dante will see next, in the verses early in the next canto (19ff.), the Church Triumphant, having left Heaven to appear to Dante in this heaven.
The word etera, literally translated, means “(a)ether,” in Aristotle's sense of the “fifth element,” as understood by Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 130-132), that which composes the “stuff” of which a celestial sphere consists and in which other bodies (e.g., the stars) are contained. It is thus differentiated from both stars (and what we refer to as planets) and nothingness (what we used to refer to as “space”).
This remarkable passage is almost as interesting in its antecedence as in its immediate progeny. There are similar scenes in Boccaccio's Filostrato and Teseida; Chaucer visits both of these, in the moment that is perhaps central to the understanding of his intentions for the ending of the Troilus; and both writers evidently pay close attention to Dante as well as to his and their classical precursors. While there continues to be debate about Dante's first-hand knowledge of the portion of Cicero's lost De re publica known as the “Dream of Scipio,” it really does seem to most that Dante knew this text (VI.xvi.16). On the other hand, there is and can be no debate about his knowledge of the similar passage in Boethius's De consolatione (II.m7.1-6), if that seems less directly resemblant. (Singleton [comm. to vv. 127-154] presents both texts, with English translations.) In Cicero, Dante's great Roman hero Scipio, appearing in a dream to his grandson after his death, speaks of this paltry world, seen from the heavens, in much the same tone as we find here; in Boethius, there is a vision of this narrow earth.
Some readers may benefit from a reminder: For Dante the seven “planets” circling over our earth are Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. All the stars are contained in the next sphere, the heaven of the Fixed Stars, to which point the protagonist has just now risen (see vv. 100-111).
Dante examines the planets beneath his feet; these are seen in a somewhat unusual order and are mainly named by their “parents”: (1) Moon (daughter of Latona), (4) Sun (son of Hyperion), (2) Mercury (son of Maia), (3) Venus (daughter of Dïone), (6) Jupiter (son of Saturn), (7) Saturn, (5) Mars (son of Jupiter).
Carroll (comm. to these verses) makes a helpful distinction between St. Bernard's terms consideratio and contemplatio: “St. Bernard (De Consideratione [II.ii]) thus distinguishes: 'Contemplation may be defined as the soul's true unerring intuition, or as the unhesitating apprehension of truth. But consideration is thought (cogitatio) earnestly directed to research, or the application of the mind to the search for truth; though in practice the two terms are indifferently used for one another' (Lewis' transl.). Both words are believed to come from augurial rites: Contemplation, from com and templum, the marking out of a templum, or sacred space open to the sky; and consideration, from com and sidus (sideris) a star, or constellation, observation of the stars.” In Bernard's language then, Dante is “considering” the stars; contemplation of God remains ahead of him.
The reference is, obviously, to the Moon (Latona's daughter, Diana) and to Dante's earlier misprisions of the reasons for its differing degrees of brightness (see Par. II.49-51). Now that he is seeing her from “behind,” from the side turned away from earth, her surface is uniform in appearance.
Dante's improved eyesight (see vv. 124-126) quickly bestows a new benefit: He can look directly at the Sun, the son of Hyperion in some classical myths, including Ovid's (Metam. IV.192).
Referring to them by the names of their mothers, Dante sees Mercury (Maia) and Venus (Dïone). The literal sense of this tercet has caused problems; Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 143-144) propose a reading that is mirrored in our translation.
Perhaps the best gloss available for these verses was written by Dante himself (Conv. II.xiii.25): “The heaven of Jupiter may be compared to Geometry because of two properties: one is that it moves between two heavens that are antithetical to its fine temperance, namely that of Mars and that of Saturn; consequently Ptolemy says, in the book referred to [Dante mentions his Quadripartitus in section 21], that Jupiter is a star of temperate constitution between the cold of Saturn and the heat of Mars; the other is that among all the stars it appears white, almost silvery” ([italics added] tr. R. Lansing).
Saturn, the father of Jupiter, thus lent his name to the only planet that cannot be named by a parent.
From his vantage point in the eighth celestial sphere, Dante is now able to observe the relationships among the seven planets (see the note to verse 134) with regard to their varying sizes, the differing speeds of their rotations around the earth, and the distances between their ripari, that is what medieval astronomers refer to as their “houses,” or their stations in the heavens.
The word “aiuola,” frequently translated as “threshing floor,” is almost without a doubt, as John Scott (“Paradiso 22.151: 'L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci': Philology and Hermeneutics,” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [April 2003]) has argued, without the biblical resonance of Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17 that is heard by some from the nineteenth century into our own time. He also believes that the word reflects its presence in a phrase found in Boethius's De consolatione, II.7[pr], angustissima... area. Scott cites Kay (Dante's “Monarchia,” translated, with a commentary, by Richard Kay [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998], p. 317, n. 22), glossing Monarchia III.xvi.11, where Dante uses the Latin equivalent of “aiuola”: “Latin areola is a diminutive form of area, and hence is 'a little space'” (see also Emilio Pasquini, “Canto XXII,” in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: “Paradiso,” ed. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1988}], p. 439). (For the long-standing but frequently overlooked knowledge of the reference to Boethius, see first Pietro di Dante [Pietro1, comm. to vv. 145-150] and then Francesco da Buti [comm. to vv. 149-154], who are joined by several later practitioners, including Landino, Daniello, and Tommaseo. Longfellow [comm. to this verse] gets the Boethius right but is responsible [according to Scott] for the invention of “threshing floor” in his translation.) This rendering of the word has had a long run, and may in fact still need winnowing. Scott continues: “Dante uses it here in this general, etymological sense, although often both areola and its Italian calc aiuola are used for specific small spaces, e.g. a flowerbed, seedbed, open courtyard, threshing floor, or even a blank space on a page [...]. Dante probably had in mind Boethius's description of the inhabitable world as an 'angustissimum [sic]... area' (Cons. Phil. II.7[pr].3), which Dante echoed in Epist. [VII.15]: 'in angustissima mundi area' [in such a narrow corner of the world].” And see Dante's second use of aiuola at Paradiso XXVII.86.
However, for a biblical use of area to mean “threshing floor,” see Daniel 2:35, “aestivae areae”: “Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” This is the stuff of Dante's vision of the Old Man of Crete in Inferno XIV. One can understand the temptation to read this passage in light of that one. And see Carroll (comm. to vv. 151-154), who is aware that the word area can mean other things, but argues here for the resonance of Jeremiah 51:33, where it clearly does mean “threshing floor.” However, on balance, the cooler heads of Kay and Scott should probably be allowed to regulate the overheated rhetorical enthusiasm that, as Scott argues, perhaps has its Anglo-Saxon origin in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Romantic view of this verse.
Gian Biagio Conte (see Atene e Roma 22, fasc. 3-4 [1977]: 162, his review of Alfonso Traina's article), citing Traina's previous observation (in “'L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci': per la storia di un topos,” in his Poeti latini [e neolatini]: note e saggi filosofici [Bologna: Pàtron, 1975], pp. 305-35), has suggested that a line in the proem of Seneca's Naturales Quaestiones (“puntum... in quo bellatis, in quo regno disponitis”) perhaps furnished the substance of this thought. Conte goes on to add his own sense that Lucan (Phars. IX.14) supplied the phrasing for Dante's expression of his scorn for the affairs of this paltry earth. However, it seems clear that, in the this verse (which is what most directly concerns us here), Dante is closer to Boethius than to Seneca.
Because of the high-speed revolution of the celestial sphere in which he is currently lodged, the protagonist is able to see all of the physical contour of our earth. He does so without particular enthusiasm, and is quick to turn his eyes back to the eyes of Beatrice, which are undoubtedly to be understood as gazing up toward God and not down toward Dante's (and our) paltry patch of earth.
For the relationship among this concluding passage of the canto and Convivio III.v.3-8, Dante's Questio, the Somnium Scipionis, as well as Honorius of Autun's Imago mundi, see Francesco Mazzoni (“Dante 'misuratore di mondi.'” in Dante e la scienza, ed. P. Boyde and V. Russo [Ravenna: Longo, 1995], p. 44).
This passage inevitably leads a reader to wonder exactly how much time Dante spent in the heavens (and in the Empyrean). He left our terrestrial globe at noon on Wednesday (either 30 March or 13 April in the year 1300, as the reader will recall [see the note to Inf. I.1]). How long was he in Paradise? When did he come “home”? For discussion, see the note to Paradiso XXVII.79-81.
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Oppresso di stupore, a la mia guida
mi volsi, come parvol che ricorre .
sempre colà dove più si confida;
e quella, come madre che soccorre
sùbito al figlio palido e anelo
con la sua voce, che 'l suol ben disporre,
mi disse: “Non sai tu che tu se' in cielo?
e non sai tu che 'l cielo è tutto santo,
e ciò che ci si fa vien da buon zelo?
Come t'avrebbe trasmutato il canto,
e io ridendo, mo pensar lo puoi,
poscia che 'l grido t'ha mosso cotanto;
nel qual, se 'nteso avessi i prieghi suoi,
già ti sarebbe nota la vendetta
che tu vedrai innanzi che tu muoi.
La spada di qua sù non taglia in fretta
né tardo, ma' ch'al parer di colui
che disïando o temendo l'aspetta.
Ma rivolgiti omai inverso altrui;
ch'assai illustri spiriti vedrai,
se com' io dico l'aspetto redui.”
Come a lei piacque, li occhi ritornai,
e vidi cento sperule che 'nsieme
più s'abbellivan con mutüi rai.
Io stava come quei che 'n sé repreme
la punta del disio, e non s'attenta
di domandar, sì del troppo si teme;
e la maggiore e la più luculenta
di quelle margherite innanzi fessi,
per far di sé la mia voglia contenta.
Poi dentro a lei udi': “Se tu vedessi
com' io la carità che tra noi arde,
li tuoi concetti sarebbero espressi.
Ma perché tu, aspettando, non tarde
a l'alto fine, io ti farò risposta
pur al pensier, da che sì ti riguarde.
Quel monte a cui Cassino è ne la costa
fu frequentato già in su la cima
da la gente ingannata e mal disposta;
e quel son io che sù vi portai prima
lo nome di colui che 'n terra addusse
la verità che tanto ci soblima;
e tanta grazia sopra me relusse,
ch'io ritrassi le ville circunstanti
da l'empio cólto che 'l mondo sedusse.
Questi altri fuochi tutti contemplanti
uomini fuoro, accesi di quel caldo
che fa nascere i fiori e ' frutti santi.
Qui è Maccario, qui è Romoaldo,
qui son li frati miei che dentro ai chiostri
fermar li piedi e tennero il cor saldo.”
E io a lui: “L'affetto che dimostri
meco parlando, e la buona sembianza
ch'io veggio e noto in tutti li ardor vostri,
così m'ha dilatata mia fidanza,
come 'l sol fa la rosa quando aperta
tanto divien quant' ell' ha di possanza.
Però ti priego, e tu, padre, m'accerta
s'io posso prender tanta grazia, ch'io
ti veggia con imagine scoverta.”
Ond' elli: “Frate, il tuo alto disio
s'adempierà in su l'ultima spera,
ove s'adempion tutti li altri e 'l mio.
Ivi è perfetta, matura e intera
ciascuna disïanza; in quella sola
è ogne parte là ove sempr' era,
perché non è in loco e non s'impola;
e nostra scala infino ad essa varca,
onde così dal viso ti s'invola.
Infin là sù la vide il patriarca
Iacobbe porger la superna parte,
quando li apparve d'angeli sì carca.
Ma, per salirla, mo nessun diparte
da terra i piedi, e la regola mia
rimasa è per danno de le carte.
Le mura che solieno esser badia
fatte sono spelonche, e le cocolle
sacca son piene di farina ria.
Ma grave usura tanto non si tolle
contra 'l piacer di Dio, quanto quel frutto
che fa il cor de' monaci sì folle;
ché quantunque la Chiesa guarda, tutto
è de la gente che per Dio dimanda;
non di parenti né d'altro più brutto.
La carne d'i mortali è tanto blanda,
che giù non basta buon cominciamento
dal nascer de la quercia al far la ghianda.
Pier cominciò sanz' oro e sanz' argento,
e io con orazione e con digiuno,
e Francesco umilmente il suo convento;
e se guardi 'l principio di ciascuno,
poscia riguardi là dov' è trascorso,
tu vederai del bianco fatto bruno.
Veramente Iordan vòlto retrorso
più fu, e 'l mar fuggir, quando Dio volse,
mirabile a veder che qui 'l soccorso.”
Così mi disse, e indi si raccolse
al suo collegio, e 'l collegio si strinse;
poi, come turbo, in sù tutto s'avvolse.
La dolce donna dietro a lor mi pinse
con un sol cenno su per quella scala,
sì sua virtù la mia natura vinse;
né mai qua giù dove si monta e cala
naturalmente, fu sì ratto moto
ch'agguagliar si potesse a la mia ala.
S'io torni mai, lettore, a quel divoto
trïunfo per lo quale io piango spesso
le mie peccata e 'l petto mi percuoto,
tu non avresti in tanto tratto e messo
nel foco il dito, in quant' io vidi 'l segno
che segue il Tauro e fui dentro da esso.
O glorïose stelle, o lume pregno
di gran virtù, dal quale io riconosco
tutto, qual che si sia, il mio ingegno,
con voi nasceva e s'ascondeva vosco
quelli ch'è padre d'ogne mortal vita,
quand' io senti' di prima l'aere tosco;
e poi, quando mi fu grazia largita
d'entrar ne l'alta rota che vi gira,
la vostra regïon mi fu sortita.
A voi divotamente ora sospira
l'anima mia, per acquistar virtute
al passo forte che a sé la tira.
“Tu se' sì presso a l'ultima salute,”
cominciò Bëatrice, “che tu dei
aver le luci tue chiare e acute;
e però, prima che tu più t'inlei,
rimira in giù, e vedi quanto mondo
sotto li piedi già esser ti fei;
sì che 'l tuo cor, quantunque può, giocondo
s'appresenti a la turba trïunfante
che lieta vien per questo etera tondo.”
Col viso ritornai per tutte quante
le sette spere, e vidi questo globo
tal, ch'io sorrisi del suo vil sembiante;
e quel consiglio per migliore approbo
che l'ha per meno; e chi ad altro pensa
chiamar si puote veramente probo.
Vidi la figlia di Latona incensa
sanza quell' ombra che mi fu cagione
per che già la credetti rara e densa.
L'aspetto del tuo nato, Iperïone,
quivi sostenni, e vidi com' si move
circa e vicino a lui Maia e Dïone.
Quindi m'apparve il temperar di Giove
tra 'l padre e 'l figlio; e quindi mi fu chiaro
il varïar che fanno di lor dove;
e tutti e sette mi si dimostraro
quanto son grandi e quanto son veloci
e come sono in distante riparo.
L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci,
volgendom' io con li etterni Gemelli,
tutta m'apparve da' colli a le foci;
poscia rivolsi li occhi a li occhi belli.
Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide
Turned like a little child who always runs
For refuge there where he confideth most;
And she, even as a mother who straightway
Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy
With voice whose wont it is to reassure him,
Said to me: "Knowest thou not thou art in heaven,
And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all
And what is done here cometh from good zeal?
After what wise the singing would have changed thee
And I by smiling, thou canst now imagine,
Since that the cry has startled thee so much,
In which if thou hadst understood its prayers
Already would be known to thee the vengeance
Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest.
The sword above here smiteth not in haste
Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him
Who fearing or desiring waits for it.
But turn thee round towards the others now,
For very illustrious spirits shalt thou see,
If thou thy sight directest as I say."
As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned,
And saw a hundred spherules that together
With mutual rays each other more embellished.
I stood as one who in himself represses
The point of his desire, and ventures not
To question, he so feareth the too much.
And now the largest and most luculent
Among those pearls came forward, that it might
Make my desire concerning it content.
Within it then I heard: "If thou couldst see
Even as myself the charity that burns
Among us, thy conceits would be expressed;
But, that by waiting thou mayst not come late
To the high end, I will make answer even
Unto the thought of which thou art so chary.
That mountain on whose slope Cassino stands
Was frequented of old upon its summit
By a deluded folk and ill-disposed;
And I am he who first up thither bore
The name of Him who brought upon the earth
The truth that so much sublimateth us.
And such abundant grace upon me shone
That all the neighbouring towns I drew away
From the impious worship that seduced the world.
These other fires, each one of them, were men
Contemplative, enkindled by that heat
Which maketh holy flowers and fruits spring up.
Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus,
Here are my brethren, who within the cloisters
Their footsteps stayed and kept a steadfast heart."
And I to him: "The affection which thou showest
Speaking with me, and the good countenance
Which I behold and note in all your ardours,
In me have so my confidence dilated
As the sun doth the rose, when it becomes
As far unfolded as it hath the power.
Therefore I pray, and thou assure me, father,
If I may so much grace receive, that I
May thee behold with countenance unveiled."
He thereupon: "Brother, thy high desire
In the remotest sphere shall be fulfilled,
Where are fulfilled all others and my own.
There perfect is, and ripened, and complete,
Every desire; within that one alone
Is every part where it has always been;
For it is not in space, nor turns on poles,
And unto it our stairway reaches up,
Whence thus from out thy sight it steals away.
Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it
Extending its supernal part, what time
So thronged with angels it appeared to him.
But to ascend it now no one uplifts
His feet from off the earth, and now my Rule
Below remaineth for mere waste of paper.
The walls that used of old to be an Abbey
Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls
Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.
But heavy usury is not taken up
So much against God's pleasure as that fruit
Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;
For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping
Is for the folk that ask it in God's name,
Not for one's kindred or for something worse.
The flesh of mortals is so very soft,
That good beginnings down below suffice not
From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.
Peter began with neither gold nor silver,
And I with orison and abstinence,
And Francis with humility his convent.
And if thou lookest at each one's beginning,
And then regardest whither he has run,
Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.
In verity the Jordan backward turned,
And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more
A wonder to behold, than succour here."
Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew
To his own band, and the band closed together;
Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.
The gentle Lady urged me on behind them
Up o'er that stairway by a single sign,
So did her virtue overcome my nature;
Nor here below, where one goes up and down
By natural law, was motion e'er so swift
That it could be compared unto my wing.
Reader, as I may unto that devout
Triumph return, on whose account I often
For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,—
Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire
And drawn it out again, before I saw
The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.
O glorious stars, O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be,
With you was born, and hid himself with you,
He who is father of all mortal life,
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air;
And then when grace was freely given to me
To enter the high wheel which turns you round,
Your region was allotted unto me.
To you devoutly at this hour my soul
Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire
For the stern pass that draws it to itself.
"Thou art so near unto the last salvation,"
Thus Beatrice began, "thou oughtest now
To have thine eves unclouded and acute;
And therefore, ere thou enter farther in,
Look down once more, and see how vast a world
Thou hast already put beneath thy feet;
So that thy heart, as jocund as it may,
Present itself to the triumphant throng
That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether."
I with my sight returned through one and all
The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe
Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance;
And that opinion I approve as best
Which doth account it least; and he who thinks
Of something else may truly be called just.
I saw the daughter of Latona shining
Without that shadow, which to me was cause
That once I had believed her rare and dense.
The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,
Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves
Around and near him Maia and Dione.
Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove
'Twixt son and father, and to me was clear
The change that of their whereabout they make;
And all the seven made manifest to me
How great they are, and eke how swift they are,
And how they are in distant habitations.
The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,
To me revolving with the eternal Twins,
Was all apparent made from hill to harbour!
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.
This simile is perhaps better described as two simple comparisons combined into a single trope. (Francesco da Buti [comm. to vv. 1-21] did, however, describe it as a “similitudine.”) It first compares Dante to a distressed child running to its mother and then portrays Beatrice as a mother calming her child. Poletto (comm. to vv. 1-3) was apparently the first to indicate the nearly certain reference to Purg. XXX.43-45 (Dante as child [fantolin] running to his mommy [mamma]), but the Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to vv. 1-3) pretty clearly had been thinking of that same text.
These verses continue the action of the preceding canto, which ended with Dante being unable to make out the meaning of a thunder-like utterance (one of the loudest noises we hear from the pages of the poem, perhaps bringing to mind the similarly stunning noise of the infernal waterfall at Inferno XVI.94-105). This shout emanated from Peter Damian's outraged colleagues, departing from the silent meditation that marked their presence once they descended toward this sphere (see Par. XXI.58). Naturally enough, the protagonist, unable to make out their words, fears lest their rebuke, so loud as to be incomprehensible, be aimed at him. His apparent logic is clear enough: In this realm, if Beatrice does not smile and if the souls do not sing, he must be being rebuked for something he has (or has not) done.
Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 1-3) was perhaps the first to identify the citation here of Boethius (Cons. Phil. I.2[pr]): Philosophy appearing to the befuddled “hero” at the beginning of that work (the two passages share versions of the phrase stupor oppressit). Thus the text of the Consolatio stands behind Dantean expressions at either end of the canto. See the note to verse 151 (but also see the note to Par. XXI.28-30). Zygmunt Baranski (“Canto XXII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 357) makes the telling point that Boethius presents the Lady Philosophy's gown as bearing a ladder that moves from lower practical matters to higher and theological concerns, an emblem resembling the ladder we see here in Saturn, which configures both ascent and descent, the life of meditation and of work in the world, the monastic practices of meditation and labor. (Benedict's “motto,” as is reported by Fallani [comm. to verse 40], was “ora et labora” [pray and work].)
Beatrice's increasing feminization (for her “male” attributes, see Purg. XXX.19, 43-48, 58, and the notes thereto) is, clearly, not the sign of her sexualization, as some contrive to believe. Never in the poem does she appear as other than chaste, here, in simile, as Dante's mother.
Beatrice corrects his misapprehension, explaining that anger in the heavens cannot be produced by anything but righteous indignation (buon zelo). Thus the shout he heard could not have been directed against him, but rather against those on earth who offend in their desecration of the religious life, “li moderni pastori” (modern shepherds [Par. XXI.131]). Once again we are made to see how poorly prepared this mortal is for this higher realm.
Beatrice explains that Dante's inability to comprehend the “prayers” of the visitors to Saturn, prophesying God's vengeance on His enemies, is in itself proof that he was not ready to bear either Beatrice's beatific smile or the contemplatives' singing, both of which were, for that reason, withheld from him.
Carroll (comm. to vv. 1-18) restates a passage in St. Bernard's De Consideratione (V.xiv) that may throw considerable light on this tercet: There are four kinds of divine judgments, each one defined by its breadth, or length, or depth, or height. Consideration of God's judgments coincides with “depth.” Carroll continues: “This kind of contemplation (now in Bernard's words) 'may violently shock the beholder with the fearful vision, but it puts vice to flight, firmly bases virtue, initiates in wisdom, preserves humility.' It is plainly the shock of this contemplation of the 'depth' which here stuns the Pilgrim. The cry is an echo from the Thrones of the Divine judgments who preside over this Heaven, and the very echo shakes Dante to the soul; and Beatrice asks how, if the 'depth' so shook him, he could have borne the 'height' – the lofty ecstatic joy of contemplation represented by her smile.”
This sort of righteous indignation is itself a sort of joy, since it involves, as Beatrice says, the celebration of just punishment, visible in the vengeance of God, that Dante will be able to observe on earth before he dies. This “minor prophecy” (for another see Purg. XXIII.97-102) about the punishment of the corrupt clergy resembles the similar promise (Par. XVII.98-99), made by Cacciaguida, that Dante will witness the just punishment of his Florentine enemies. How are we to take these “personal prophecies”? It is perhaps best to understand that both Cacciaguida's and this one spoken by Beatrice are promissory notes Dante has written to himself. He surely has in mind the completion of his hope for the political redemption of Florence; once this were accomplished, he was certain that his political enemies and the corrupt clergy who seem to support them (and perhaps often did) would come to a bad end indeed. But like all successful prophecies, this one had to provide at least some sure results in order to be taken as veracious. The death of any of Dante's major adversaries, occurring while he was still alive, would indeed seem to make elements of these “prophecies” correct. On the religious side of the roster, major deaths that succored Dante's hopes included those of the popes Boniface VIII (1303) and Clement V (1314); in the secular ledger, that of Corso Donati (1308 [see Purg. XXIV.82-90]). It may be argued convincingly that, in fact, Dante did not triumph over his enemies; nonetheless, he could, from the vantage point of 1317 or so, count on us to recognize that some of his greatest foes had died, thus preserving, for the moment, the possible happy outcome of this essentially botched prediction. It comes more as the result of wishful thinking (and the accompanying conviction that his political views were simply correct) than of revelation.
For Dante's enemies, obviously, this sword will make itself felt all too soon, while for him it will be slow indeed in coming.
This feeling had already raced through Dante's veins. Mattalia (comm. to verse 16) indicates the second of Dante's “political epistles” (Ep. VI.4, written in March of 1311), addressed to Henry VII, for the sword of God and vendetta. The text speaks of the “gladius Eius qui dicit: 'Mea est ultio'” (the sword of Him who says, “Vengeance is mine”).
Beatrice's urging would lead us to believe that we shall learn of the presence of at least a number of great contemplatives in this sphere. We shall, however, meet only one more, St. Benedict (named only by periphrasis at verses 40-42), although he is accompanied by two other named monastics, Macarius and Romuald (verse 49), who are merely said to be here and must share a single line of verse. The others, of whom we are about to see many dozens, do not receive even that much notice, a perhaps fitting anonymity in this environment of self-abnegation. For whatever reason, Dante has limited his panoply of great contemplatives to Peter Damian and Benedict of Norcia, with an assisting cast of only two named supporting players.
The phrasing of her command to Dante reflects similar urgings on Virgil's part (Inf. IX.55, X.31; Purg. XXVII.31-32) and one earlier one by Beatrice herself (Par. XVIII.20). The ability to turn and face that which he fears or has not yet understood is what his two guides both encourage in him.
For the phrase illustri spiriti (glorious spirits), Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 19-21) adduces a Virgilian text (Aen. VI.758): “inlustris animas.”
These “one hundred little globes” are neither precisely one hundred in number nor little globes, but a large number of descended saints who, in their joy (we remember that they are spending eternity in the most joyful place there is) make one another more joyous, as can be perceived by their increasing brightness.
The protagonist, getting with the spirit of this place, overrules “la punta del disio” (the spur of his desire) and suppresses his desire to know who these spirits are – but of course he has communicated with them in God, despite his reticence. One light, the best and the brightest “pearl” among them, advances to reveal his identity.
For a study of Dante's adaptation of sexually charged terms to express the desire for God, see Lino Pertile (“'La punta del disio': storia di una metafora dantesca,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 7 [1990]: 3-28), using verse 26 as his point of departure. And now see his book (La punta del disio: Semantica del desiderio nella “Commedia” [Fiesole: Cadmo, 2005]), which includes this essay and builds upon it.
Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 100, draws this desire and that referred to at Paradiso XXI.48 into relation with the disio mentioned in Inferno XXVI, first that of the protagonist (verse 69), then that of Ulysses (his ardore, verse 97), and finally that of his shipmates (he has made them aguti [...] al cammino, vv. 121-122).
We know, as did those who painted and those who “read” medieval paintings, that size is a measure of importance; this is, accordingly, the most important personage of the group (as is also underlined by his greater brightness among the margherite [pearls] who make up his company). Thus it is that Mary will be the greatest among the flames (at least once Christ goes back to the Empyrean) seen in the descended Church Triumphant (Par. XXIII.90).
Benedict will make his identity knowable (he will not actually name himself then or ever) at vv. 40-42. See the note to vv. 37-45.
Once again a personage of Paradise alludes to the fact that speech is here an unnecessary form of communication (to any understanding but that of mortal Dante). The speaker assures him that, had he only known the inner dispositions of these “globes,” he would have spoken up (even as we remind ourselves that there obviously was no need to, since they know his thoughts even as he suppresses his desire to give voice to them).
For the extraordinary number of verbs of seeing in this canto (twenty-one), all but two of them referring to Dante's sight, see Baranski (“Canto XXII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 344n.).
Benedict (480-543), born in the Umbrian city of Norcia, became the founder of what is considered the oldest monastic order in the West, which bears his name. Son of wealthy parents, he went to Rome to study, and there witnessed the debauchery of the clergy. His response was to take up a solitary eremitic life in a cave. His fame brought him the attention of those who had chosen to live a cloistered life. He agreed to become the head of the convent of Vicovaro, thus moving from the existence of a hermit to that of a cenobite. This was not in all respects a propitious decision on his part, since his fellow monks, resentful of his extremely strict Rule, tried to poison him. He managed to survive the attempt on his life and once again retreated to his cave. Monks loyal to him and to his vision of the cenobitic life eventually followed him to Montecassino, where he destroyed a temple of Apollo and a grove sacred to Venus (according to Oelsner [comm. to vv. 37-39]), converted the locals (until his advent, still pagans), and founded his order. As commentators point out, beginning with Jacopo della Lana (Nota to this canto), Dante's brief version of Benedict's vita is indebted to that found in his biographer, St. Gregory the Great, Dialogues, II.2. It may seem surprising that Benedict was canonized only in 1220, nearly seven centuries after his death, while Francis had to wait only two years for his sainthood (1228).
The adjectives assigned to the indigenous pagan locals pretty clearly seem to distinguish between, in Tommaseo's view (comm. to vv. 37-39), their confused mental state and their misdirected affections (in Oelsner's formulation [see the note to vv. 37-45], worship of Apollo and devotions to Venus).
As opposed to verse 39, which seems to point to two unacceptable forms of behavior among the locals, this one would rather indicate the worship of Apollo alone, even if a more universal victory over paganism is probably indicated.
Once again (see the note to verse 1) the text indicates the special nature of the monastic vocation, a combination of prayerful meditation and labor, in Benedict's own prescription for cenobitic activity, “ora et labora.”
The souls that Dante had in mind as models for this kind of ecstatic appreciation of God are, according to Claudia Di Fonzo (“'La dolce donna dietro a lor mi pinse / con un sol cenno su per quella scala' [Par. XXII.100-101],” Studi Danteschi 63 [1991 {1997}]: 141-75), Anselm, Benedict, Bonaventure, and (especially) Bernard.
Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 37-51) resolves the metaphoric fiori (flowers) and frutti (fruits) into “words” and “deeds.” It seems at least possible, given Benedict's own division of monkish occupation into prayer and work, that this is how we should interpret the “flowers” that Dante has in mind: the words that give shape to prayer.
Saints Macarius and Romuald were surely also monks, but, especially with regard to the first, there is little certainty as to his absolute identity. For Macarius, the two main candidates were both dead before Benedict was born. “It is uncertain which of the several saints of the name of Macarius is the one intended by Dante. The two best known, between whom perhaps Dante did not very clearly distinguish, are St. Macarius the Elder, called the Egyptian, and St. Macarius the Younger of Alexandria – both disciples of St. Anthony. St. Macarius the Elder (born in 301) retired at the age of 30 into the Libyan desert, where he remained for sixty years, passing his time between prayer and manual labour, until his death, at the age of 90, in 391. St. Macarius the Younger had nearly 5,000 monks under his charge (d. 404); he is credited with having established the monastic rule of the East, as St. Benedict did that of the West” (Toynbee, “Macario” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
As for St. Romuald (956-1027), he began (in 1012) the Camaldolese Order, a reformed group of Benedictines. It was named for the donor of its holding, campus Maldoli (the field of Maldolus), or “Camaldoli.” (Its monastery, in Tuscany, is referred to in Purgatorio V.96.) Thus Benedict is bracketed, chronologically, by a precursor and a follower. Dante may have learned about Romuald, born in Ravenna, from the vita Romualdi composed by his townsman, Peter Damian.
It sounds as though Benedict is readying himself to give a denunciation of the corruption of his order, in the style of Peter Damian (Par. XXI.130-135); however, Dante interrupts him with a surprising question, one that detains him for some time; he will deliver his broadside only at vv. 73-96.
See Annibale Ilari (“Il Canto XXII,” in “Paradiso”: Letture degli anni 1979-81, ed. S. Zennaro [Rome: Bonacci, 1989], pp. 573-624) for the view that Dante's sense of the purpose of the monastic life, particularly in its Benedictine form, was shaped by the sense of monasticism that he found in the writings of Joachim of Flora.
The protagonist allows that he has interpreted (correctly) his temporary companions' increased brightness as an expression of their affection for him.
Benedict is awarded the role of Dante's penultimate “father” in this poem, with only St. Bernard to come (for the others, see the note to Par. XVI.16).
He also has the honor of preceding St. John (see Par. XXV.122-129) in causing Dante to ask questions about the fleshly aspect of the condition of the blessed. There also circulated a medieval legend that St. John, for his particular closeness to Jesus, was unique among the rest of the blessed (Jesus and Mary being the sole other exceptions) in having his resurrected body in Heaven before the general resurrection (see Rachel Jacoff [“Dante and the Legend(s) of St. John,” Dante Studies 117 {1999}: 45-57]). Dante's curiosity about Benedict's actual appearance, however, has no ascertainable “source,” at least none supported by Dante's commentators. In the case of Benedict, the protagonist's question (and his desire) is somewhat different. He would like to see Benedict now as he shall be when he is found again, seated in Heaven (Par. XXXII.35), that is, with his sheathing flame removed so that his face's features will be utterly plain to a beholder. Once in the Empyrean, Dante will see all the blessed as though they had already been given back their fleshly selves (Par. XXX.43-45), that is, even before the general resurrection. Thus he will there experience the reality of Benedict and of John (and of all the other saints) in identical ways.
Why, the commentators are left to ask, does Dante introduce this concern here, one that seems to have no historical footing? The least that one can hazard is that, given his “fatherhood” and this exceptional request, Benedict played a more vital role in Dante's intellectual and spiritual development than has been ascertained, if in what precise ways remains unknown.
Kevin Brownlee points out (“Ovid's Semele and Dante's Metamorphosis: Paradiso 21-22,” in Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, eds., The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia” [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991], pp. 227-28) that Dante's desire to see Benedict in his flesh uncomfortably parallels Semele's request to Jove, but that he will see Benedict as though resurrected in the flesh in Paradiso XXXII.35. His story, unlike hers, has a happy ending.
At some length Benedict corrects the supposition that lay behind Dante's desire to see him in his true human resemblance. His conclusion, with its reference to Jacob's Ladder and its function as the connecting point between the rest of the time-bound universe and the unchanging Empyrean, brings his attention back to his monks, last heard of at verse 51.
This represents the last use of the word “brother” (frate) as a term of address in the poem. See the note to Purgatorio IV.127.
See Carroll (comm. to vv. 61-63) for the notion (attributed only to Chimenz [comm. to vv. 61-63] by Bosco/Reggio [comm. to this verse]) that Benedict is gently reproving Dante for having called him “father” (verse 58) by insisting that they are better considered brothers in Christ. Compare the desire of Pope Adrian V not to have Dante kneel before him in obeisance, since they enjoy a similar brotherhood (Purg. XIX.133-135).
Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 101, points out that, rather than redundant through some failing on the poet's part, as some commentators hold, these three adjectives reproduce a phrase in an apostolic epistle (James 1:4): “And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (perfecti et integri, in nullo deficientes). The only other reference to this passage (if not in this context) in the entire commentary tradition seems to be found in Bernardino Daniello (comm. to Par. XXV.29).
The Empyrean non s'impola (does not turn on poles), as does the terrestrial globe and as do the planets, but is the place that T.S. Eliot might have described as “the still point of the turning world” (the phrase occurs once in the second section of “Burnt Norton,” the first of the Four Quartets, and once again in the fourth).
This ladder “mounts right up to it,” that is, to the Empyrean, which is why Dante cannot yet see its terminus.
The tercet puts into play, in case we have missed it, the reference to Genesis 28:12: “And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”
Beginning with the foot of Jacob's Ladder, as it were, Benedict now rounds on the current members of his order. Their degeneracy is reflected in the crumbling physical plant of the monastery; in the attempt to find some use for the cowls of the monks (since apparently those who wear them are few) as bags for flour; in the flagrant usury employed by them (quel frutto, the disgraceful “harvest” of their misguided lavoro). On this last charge, see Tozer (comm. to vv. 79-84), describing it as “covetousness in misappropriating the revenues of the Church, which rightfully belong to God's poor, to the purposes of nepotism and licentiousness. This in the sight of God is a worse sin than usury.”
Benedict's remarks come to momentary cessation in the image of human sinfulness quickly undoing even fresh and worthy initiatives; these are snuffed out soon after inception.
Christ, driving the moneychangers from the temple (Matthew 21:12-13), portrays them as turning His “house of prayer” into a “den of thieves” (speluncam latronum), as was noted by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 76-78). Dante's spelonche nearly certainly reflects that passage.
Oaks take a while to grow mature enough to produce acorns - twenty years, according to Jacopo della Lana (comm. to this tercet) and Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 73-87). However, Dante seems to be underlining the relative brevity of their acornless state. Sapegno (comm. to this tercet) looks forward to a similar sense of the brief durance, there of innocence among us humans, at Paradiso XXVII.121-138.
In the first of these three tercets, Benedict reviews high points in the establishments of communities within the Church: the apostle Peter's first “papacy” (first century); the founding of his own order (sixth century); the founding of Francis's (twelfth century). The reader has a clear sense that Benedict does not expect any major renewal in the Church. And yet his speech ends with a curiously optimistic (and typically Dantean) reversal, in the promise of better days, with which his harangue comes to its close. If bodies of water could have been halted in their flow to let the Hebrews cross to safety, as Psalms 113:3 (114:5) attests, that would still seem a greater miracle than if God were to intervene in the world now. In short, as unlikely as that possibility seems, its odds are shorter than they were for the miracles of Jordan and of the Red Sea. In Dante's scheme of things, there is always room for hope, a view that we will find again in Paradiso XXVII.142-148, in a passage that similarly surmounts a decidedly pessimistic view of human sinfulness with hopes for a better world in the near future.
See the relevant passage in Acts 3:6: “Petrus autem dicit: Argentum et aurum non est mihi” (But Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none”), its relevance first suggested in the Chiose ambrosiane (comm. to this verse).
A possible arrière pensée of Ugolino (Inf. XXXIII.75), who knew digiuno (fasting) all too well, but prayer too little. See the note to Inferno XXXIII.49.
See Paradiso XXVII.136 for a similar description of a thing changed into its opposite, in that case, innocence into sinfulness.
God's miracles (Joshua 3:14-17), Jordan turned back and (Exodus 14:21-29) the crossing of the Red Sea (both remembered in Psalms 113:3 [114:5]), will have accustomed the eventual witnesses of His vengeance against these prelates to see that such relatively minor miracles are also signs of His power.
The departure of Benedict and his fellow monastics, headed back “home,” to the Empyrean at the upper end of Jacob's Ladder, where, we may assume, they will no longer think of the world's many corruptions, is accompanied by a whirlwind, sign of God's power and of His love for these saints.
In their wake, Beatrice leads Dante up the “ladder,” not yet to Benedict's companions' goal, the Empyrean, but to the eighth of the nine heavenly spheres, that of the Fixed Stars. The ascent is brief and briefly described, but the point of arrival will be treated at greater length.
This verse lies at the boundary line of the next heaven. Since in the Starry Sphere Dante will experience the Church Triumphant, has the poet used this perfect number as the number of its border deliberately?
Andreoli (comm. to this verse) paraphrases as follows: “the natural gravity of my body.” Is this an admission that Dante indeed visited the heavens in the body? However, it could suggest that the protagonist thinks of himself in corporeal terms out of habit. But see the note to Paradiso I.73.
Dante apostrophizes us (for the distribution of the addresses to the reader throughout the poem, see the notes to Inf. VIII.94-96 and to Par. X.22-27) for the final time in the poem (as Tommaseo noted). It comes as a surprise of some magnitude when one reads Scartazzini on this passage (comm. to verse 106) and finds that stubbornly thorough assembler of data coming up several addresses to the reader short in his quick survey. He undercounts occurrences of the phenomenon by two in Inferno and by two again here in the third cantica. Are we to think it a coincidence that this last occurrence falls just before the first of the final triad of invocations, now to higher powers directly (God's creative powers in the stars and then the Deity Itself in Par. XXX and XXXIII)? It is as though the poet is underlining the distance between human and divine experience by leaving us behind. After Dante looks down through the planets, the next sight he will see is the Church Triumphant, which we will see again in the penultimate canto of the poem. For all of the next canto, for the last third of the thirtieth, and for all the final three we are seeing “face-to-face.” As the space travelers near their eventual goal, the time taken for the ascent from sphere to sphere decreases, since the “gravitational pull” of the Empyrean naturally increases as one nears it. [Note revised 24 August 2013; see the revised note to Par. IX.10-12.]
The poet allows us to learn, inferentially, where his visit to the Starry Sphere has been situated by Providence, in “the sign following the Bull” (Taurus), and thus in Gemini, the sign under which, in 1265, he was born and which shaped whatever genius he possesses. With Gemini the Sun rose and set the day Dante was born in Tuscany; and now he comes to this heaven in that constellation. (Singleton [cited in the note to Par. XXII.127-154] cites an interesting observation of Grandgent's: “Thus, in a spiritual sense, [Dante] returns, like Plato's departed, to his native star: cf. Par. IV.52-57.”) From the stars of Gemini he invokes aid in acquiring the necessary capacity to tell of the final things of Heaven, beginning in the next canto with the appearance of the “hosts of Christ's triumph” (Par. XXIII.20-21).
The by now fairly familiar trope hysteron proteron is used to describe the speed of their upward movement and attainment of the next sphere. See the note to Paradiso I.23-26.
Adding to the reader's sense of the poet's self-consciousness at this moment in his creation, this seventh invocation also underlines the importance of the visit to the stars that shaped his human abilities. In Inferno II.7, when Dante invoked alto ingegno for aid, it is at least possible that he was invoking God's power to help him make his poem (see the notes to Inf. II.7-9 and Par. XXV.2). Here, especially in light of the equation between God's powers and that of the heavenly spheres suggested by Paradiso II.9, Dante would seem to be aligning his own powers as a poet with those specifically allotted him by God through the agency of the alignment of the stars at his birth, when the Sun (“he who is father to all mortal life”) was under the sign of Gemini.
This is the seventeenth (of eighteen in all) appearance of the word ingegno in the poem. The next and last (Par. XXIV.81), in the biting phrase “ingegno di sofista,” offers us the picture of those who used their “genius” perversely, and to widely different ends.
The actual invocation occurs only now, as the first three tercets of the passage define the power of these stars and give the nature and history of Dante's relationship with them. What is the specific “daunting task” for which the poet seeks heavenly aid? Most commentators are content to see this as a general appeal, called for by the heightening of the poem's subject, rising above the realms in which Dante and we are allowed to see the temporarily present souls of saved mortals and looking forward to the final vision in the poem's final canto. This seems a sensible view. (For a review of the varied [and rather vague or general] interpretations offered through the nineteenth century, see Scartazzini [comm. to vv. 122-123].) Del Lungo (comm. to this tercet) offers a stronger reading, arguing that the specific appeal is made for a specific reason: Dante in the next canto must describe the triumph presided over by Christ and Mary. Indeed, in Canto XXIII the protagonist will be seeing “face-to-face.” And what he will see is the ultimate destination of the justified portion of our race, the Church Triumphant, which will descend from the Empyrean in order to make itself visible to a mortal (for the first [and only!] time in human history, we may embarrassedly consider). And thus this invocation is “special” for that reason. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this tercet) make two questionable gestures, first attributing this interpretation to Chimenz rather than to Del Lungo, who preceded him; second, casting doubt upon it. Having made it, the poet reports first on his downward glance, as he readies himself to see better things; the passage describing that vision will complete this canto. In the next, the intricate opening simile leads directly into the vision of the Church Triumphant, the first thing above him that Dante will describe after the invocation (see Par. XXIII.19-21, Beatrice's words, “Now look upon the hosts / of Christ in triumph, all the fruit / gathered from the wheeling of these spheres!”). It is with this immediate destination in mind that one might want to understand the “clue” to such an understanding found in Beatrice's earlier statement, a few lines farther on in this canto, at verse 124 (“You are so near the final blessedness”), as a reference not to his eventual destination in the Empyrean, as most imagine it to be, but in fact to this immediately proximate vision of the citizenry of that place in the next canto. In fact, the vast majority of commentators believe the passage looks forward only to the last canto, drawn by the phrase ultima salute, for God, in Paradiso XXXIII.27. Only Trucchi (comm. to vv. 124-126) resists this “easy” solution, seeing that the presence of Christ in the next one is what is at stake.
Of similar effect is Beatrice's ensuing remark (vv. 131-132), encouraging Dante to look back to see how much heavenly territory he has already traversed, a journey that makes him ready to appear before “the triumphant throng / that comes rejoicing to this celestial sphere.” In light of such indications, it seems more than likely that the invocation is meant to be read as a preparation for that near-at-hand experience, not one some ten cantos distant.
The phrase “passo forte” (daunting task) caught Benvenuto's attention (comm. to vv. 121-123). Why is it so? “Because,” Benvenuto says, “here is that which all things strive toward. In what follows [Dante] describes God's Church in its triumph, with all the celestial court, including God.”
See Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle (“Closure in Paradise: Dante Outsings Aquinas,” Modern Language Notes 115 [2000]: 3-5) on Dante's awareness of Thomas's failure to complete his three-part Summa and consequent diminution in comparison with Dante's tripartite poem. She continues by claiming that the Comedy uses both agricultural and navigational metaphors to demonstrate that poetry is more fitting than philosophy or theology to articulate “the ascent to divine contemplation.” While her sense of Dante's hostility to Thomas is surely overblown, she is among those who realize that all is not peaches and cream in Dante's presentation of his relations with Thomas.
Beatrice is not so much admonishing Dante to prepare his eyes for such exalted vision as insisting that, trained as they have been, they are now necessarily ready for that vision, and will be so for the duration of his visit to the rest of the heavens and to the Empyrean. This is to agree with Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this tercet). For the sense in which Dante is at this moment near his “final blessedness,” see the note to vv. 121-123.
Dante's neologism here is close to untranslatable. The coinage is possibly to be taken as a verb of the first conjugation, “inleiarsi,” to “in-it oneself,” that is, to make oneself one with something external to one's being.
Beatrice's reference to the great extent of the universe that Dante can now make out “beneath his feet” reminds us again that we are still not sure whether we are meant to understand that Dante is in Paradiso in the flesh. While something like certainty awaits us, as will be made clear in a few cantos, here we sense a certain coyness. Beatrice may be speaking figuratively, meaning “Look down beneath you, where your feet would be if you were here in the flesh.” Or she may simply be saying, “Look beneath your feet,” feet that are really there, dangling beneath him in the heaven of the Fixed Stars.
Once again Beatrice clearly alludes to what Dante will see next, in the verses early in the next canto (19ff.), the Church Triumphant, having left Heaven to appear to Dante in this heaven.
The word etera, literally translated, means “(a)ether,” in Aristotle's sense of the “fifth element,” as understood by Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 130-132), that which composes the “stuff” of which a celestial sphere consists and in which other bodies (e.g., the stars) are contained. It is thus differentiated from both stars (and what we refer to as planets) and nothingness (what we used to refer to as “space”).
This remarkable passage is almost as interesting in its antecedence as in its immediate progeny. There are similar scenes in Boccaccio's Filostrato and Teseida; Chaucer visits both of these, in the moment that is perhaps central to the understanding of his intentions for the ending of the Troilus; and both writers evidently pay close attention to Dante as well as to his and their classical precursors. While there continues to be debate about Dante's first-hand knowledge of the portion of Cicero's lost De re publica known as the “Dream of Scipio,” it really does seem to most that Dante knew this text (VI.xvi.16). On the other hand, there is and can be no debate about his knowledge of the similar passage in Boethius's De consolatione (II.m7.1-6), if that seems less directly resemblant. (Singleton [comm. to vv. 127-154] presents both texts, with English translations.) In Cicero, Dante's great Roman hero Scipio, appearing in a dream to his grandson after his death, speaks of this paltry world, seen from the heavens, in much the same tone as we find here; in Boethius, there is a vision of this narrow earth.
Some readers may benefit from a reminder: For Dante the seven “planets” circling over our earth are Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. All the stars are contained in the next sphere, the heaven of the Fixed Stars, to which point the protagonist has just now risen (see vv. 100-111).
Dante examines the planets beneath his feet; these are seen in a somewhat unusual order and are mainly named by their “parents”: (1) Moon (daughter of Latona), (4) Sun (son of Hyperion), (2) Mercury (son of Maia), (3) Venus (daughter of Dïone), (6) Jupiter (son of Saturn), (7) Saturn, (5) Mars (son of Jupiter).
Carroll (comm. to these verses) makes a helpful distinction between St. Bernard's terms consideratio and contemplatio: “St. Bernard (De Consideratione [II.ii]) thus distinguishes: 'Contemplation may be defined as the soul's true unerring intuition, or as the unhesitating apprehension of truth. But consideration is thought (cogitatio) earnestly directed to research, or the application of the mind to the search for truth; though in practice the two terms are indifferently used for one another' (Lewis' transl.). Both words are believed to come from augurial rites: Contemplation, from com and templum, the marking out of a templum, or sacred space open to the sky; and consideration, from com and sidus (sideris) a star, or constellation, observation of the stars.” In Bernard's language then, Dante is “considering” the stars; contemplation of God remains ahead of him.
The reference is, obviously, to the Moon (Latona's daughter, Diana) and to Dante's earlier misprisions of the reasons for its differing degrees of brightness (see Par. II.49-51). Now that he is seeing her from “behind,” from the side turned away from earth, her surface is uniform in appearance.
Dante's improved eyesight (see vv. 124-126) quickly bestows a new benefit: He can look directly at the Sun, the son of Hyperion in some classical myths, including Ovid's (Metam. IV.192).
Referring to them by the names of their mothers, Dante sees Mercury (Maia) and Venus (Dïone). The literal sense of this tercet has caused problems; Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 143-144) propose a reading that is mirrored in our translation.
Perhaps the best gloss available for these verses was written by Dante himself (Conv. II.xiii.25): “The heaven of Jupiter may be compared to Geometry because of two properties: one is that it moves between two heavens that are antithetical to its fine temperance, namely that of Mars and that of Saturn; consequently Ptolemy says, in the book referred to [Dante mentions his Quadripartitus in section 21], that Jupiter is a star of temperate constitution between the cold of Saturn and the heat of Mars; the other is that among all the stars it appears white, almost silvery” ([italics added] tr. R. Lansing).
Saturn, the father of Jupiter, thus lent his name to the only planet that cannot be named by a parent.
From his vantage point in the eighth celestial sphere, Dante is now able to observe the relationships among the seven planets (see the note to verse 134) with regard to their varying sizes, the differing speeds of their rotations around the earth, and the distances between their ripari, that is what medieval astronomers refer to as their “houses,” or their stations in the heavens.
The word “aiuola,” frequently translated as “threshing floor,” is almost without a doubt, as John Scott (“Paradiso 22.151: 'L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci': Philology and Hermeneutics,” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [April 2003]) has argued, without the biblical resonance of Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17 that is heard by some from the nineteenth century into our own time. He also believes that the word reflects its presence in a phrase found in Boethius's De consolatione, II.7[pr], angustissima... area. Scott cites Kay (Dante's “Monarchia,” translated, with a commentary, by Richard Kay [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998], p. 317, n. 22), glossing Monarchia III.xvi.11, where Dante uses the Latin equivalent of “aiuola”: “Latin areola is a diminutive form of area, and hence is 'a little space'” (see also Emilio Pasquini, “Canto XXII,” in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: “Paradiso,” ed. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1988}], p. 439). (For the long-standing but frequently overlooked knowledge of the reference to Boethius, see first Pietro di Dante [Pietro1, comm. to vv. 145-150] and then Francesco da Buti [comm. to vv. 149-154], who are joined by several later practitioners, including Landino, Daniello, and Tommaseo. Longfellow [comm. to this verse] gets the Boethius right but is responsible [according to Scott] for the invention of “threshing floor” in his translation.) This rendering of the word has had a long run, and may in fact still need winnowing. Scott continues: “Dante uses it here in this general, etymological sense, although often both areola and its Italian calc aiuola are used for specific small spaces, e.g. a flowerbed, seedbed, open courtyard, threshing floor, or even a blank space on a page [...]. Dante probably had in mind Boethius's description of the inhabitable world as an 'angustissimum [sic]... area' (Cons. Phil. II.7[pr].3), which Dante echoed in Epist. [VII.15]: 'in angustissima mundi area' [in such a narrow corner of the world].” And see Dante's second use of aiuola at Paradiso XXVII.86.
However, for a biblical use of area to mean “threshing floor,” see Daniel 2:35, “aestivae areae”: “Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” This is the stuff of Dante's vision of the Old Man of Crete in Inferno XIV. One can understand the temptation to read this passage in light of that one. And see Carroll (comm. to vv. 151-154), who is aware that the word area can mean other things, but argues here for the resonance of Jeremiah 51:33, where it clearly does mean “threshing floor.” However, on balance, the cooler heads of Kay and Scott should probably be allowed to regulate the overheated rhetorical enthusiasm that, as Scott argues, perhaps has its Anglo-Saxon origin in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Romantic view of this verse.
Gian Biagio Conte (see Atene e Roma 22, fasc. 3-4 [1977]: 162, his review of Alfonso Traina's article), citing Traina's previous observation (in “'L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci': per la storia di un topos,” in his Poeti latini [e neolatini]: note e saggi filosofici [Bologna: Pàtron, 1975], pp. 305-35), has suggested that a line in the proem of Seneca's Naturales Quaestiones (“puntum... in quo bellatis, in quo regno disponitis”) perhaps furnished the substance of this thought. Conte goes on to add his own sense that Lucan (Phars. IX.14) supplied the phrasing for Dante's expression of his scorn for the affairs of this paltry earth. However, it seems clear that, in the this verse (which is what most directly concerns us here), Dante is closer to Boethius than to Seneca.
Because of the high-speed revolution of the celestial sphere in which he is currently lodged, the protagonist is able to see all of the physical contour of our earth. He does so without particular enthusiasm, and is quick to turn his eyes back to the eyes of Beatrice, which are undoubtedly to be understood as gazing up toward God and not down toward Dante's (and our) paltry patch of earth.
For the relationship among this concluding passage of the canto and Convivio III.v.3-8, Dante's Questio, the Somnium Scipionis, as well as Honorius of Autun's Imago mundi, see Francesco Mazzoni (“Dante 'misuratore di mondi.'” in Dante e la scienza, ed. P. Boyde and V. Russo [Ravenna: Longo, 1995], p. 44).
This passage inevitably leads a reader to wonder exactly how much time Dante spent in the heavens (and in the Empyrean). He left our terrestrial globe at noon on Wednesday (either 30 March or 13 April in the year 1300, as the reader will recall [see the note to Inf. I.1]). How long was he in Paradise? When did he come “home”? For discussion, see the note to Paradiso XXVII.79-81.
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Oppresso di stupore, a la mia guida
mi volsi, come parvol che ricorre .
sempre colà dove più si confida;
e quella, come madre che soccorre
sùbito al figlio palido e anelo
con la sua voce, che 'l suol ben disporre,
mi disse: “Non sai tu che tu se' in cielo?
e non sai tu che 'l cielo è tutto santo,
e ciò che ci si fa vien da buon zelo?
Come t'avrebbe trasmutato il canto,
e io ridendo, mo pensar lo puoi,
poscia che 'l grido t'ha mosso cotanto;
nel qual, se 'nteso avessi i prieghi suoi,
già ti sarebbe nota la vendetta
che tu vedrai innanzi che tu muoi.
La spada di qua sù non taglia in fretta
né tardo, ma' ch'al parer di colui
che disïando o temendo l'aspetta.
Ma rivolgiti omai inverso altrui;
ch'assai illustri spiriti vedrai,
se com' io dico l'aspetto redui.”
Come a lei piacque, li occhi ritornai,
e vidi cento sperule che 'nsieme
più s'abbellivan con mutüi rai.
Io stava come quei che 'n sé repreme
la punta del disio, e non s'attenta
di domandar, sì del troppo si teme;
e la maggiore e la più luculenta
di quelle margherite innanzi fessi,
per far di sé la mia voglia contenta.
Poi dentro a lei udi': “Se tu vedessi
com' io la carità che tra noi arde,
li tuoi concetti sarebbero espressi.
Ma perché tu, aspettando, non tarde
a l'alto fine, io ti farò risposta
pur al pensier, da che sì ti riguarde.
Quel monte a cui Cassino è ne la costa
fu frequentato già in su la cima
da la gente ingannata e mal disposta;
e quel son io che sù vi portai prima
lo nome di colui che 'n terra addusse
la verità che tanto ci soblima;
e tanta grazia sopra me relusse,
ch'io ritrassi le ville circunstanti
da l'empio cólto che 'l mondo sedusse.
Questi altri fuochi tutti contemplanti
uomini fuoro, accesi di quel caldo
che fa nascere i fiori e ' frutti santi.
Qui è Maccario, qui è Romoaldo,
qui son li frati miei che dentro ai chiostri
fermar li piedi e tennero il cor saldo.”
E io a lui: “L'affetto che dimostri
meco parlando, e la buona sembianza
ch'io veggio e noto in tutti li ardor vostri,
così m'ha dilatata mia fidanza,
come 'l sol fa la rosa quando aperta
tanto divien quant' ell' ha di possanza.
Però ti priego, e tu, padre, m'accerta
s'io posso prender tanta grazia, ch'io
ti veggia con imagine scoverta.”
Ond' elli: “Frate, il tuo alto disio
s'adempierà in su l'ultima spera,
ove s'adempion tutti li altri e 'l mio.
Ivi è perfetta, matura e intera
ciascuna disïanza; in quella sola
è ogne parte là ove sempr' era,
perché non è in loco e non s'impola;
e nostra scala infino ad essa varca,
onde così dal viso ti s'invola.
Infin là sù la vide il patriarca
Iacobbe porger la superna parte,
quando li apparve d'angeli sì carca.
Ma, per salirla, mo nessun diparte
da terra i piedi, e la regola mia
rimasa è per danno de le carte.
Le mura che solieno esser badia
fatte sono spelonche, e le cocolle
sacca son piene di farina ria.
Ma grave usura tanto non si tolle
contra 'l piacer di Dio, quanto quel frutto
che fa il cor de' monaci sì folle;
ché quantunque la Chiesa guarda, tutto
è de la gente che per Dio dimanda;
non di parenti né d'altro più brutto.
La carne d'i mortali è tanto blanda,
che giù non basta buon cominciamento
dal nascer de la quercia al far la ghianda.
Pier cominciò sanz' oro e sanz' argento,
e io con orazione e con digiuno,
e Francesco umilmente il suo convento;
e se guardi 'l principio di ciascuno,
poscia riguardi là dov' è trascorso,
tu vederai del bianco fatto bruno.
Veramente Iordan vòlto retrorso
più fu, e 'l mar fuggir, quando Dio volse,
mirabile a veder che qui 'l soccorso.”
Così mi disse, e indi si raccolse
al suo collegio, e 'l collegio si strinse;
poi, come turbo, in sù tutto s'avvolse.
La dolce donna dietro a lor mi pinse
con un sol cenno su per quella scala,
sì sua virtù la mia natura vinse;
né mai qua giù dove si monta e cala
naturalmente, fu sì ratto moto
ch'agguagliar si potesse a la mia ala.
S'io torni mai, lettore, a quel divoto
trïunfo per lo quale io piango spesso
le mie peccata e 'l petto mi percuoto,
tu non avresti in tanto tratto e messo
nel foco il dito, in quant' io vidi 'l segno
che segue il Tauro e fui dentro da esso.
O glorïose stelle, o lume pregno
di gran virtù, dal quale io riconosco
tutto, qual che si sia, il mio ingegno,
con voi nasceva e s'ascondeva vosco
quelli ch'è padre d'ogne mortal vita,
quand' io senti' di prima l'aere tosco;
e poi, quando mi fu grazia largita
d'entrar ne l'alta rota che vi gira,
la vostra regïon mi fu sortita.
A voi divotamente ora sospira
l'anima mia, per acquistar virtute
al passo forte che a sé la tira.
“Tu se' sì presso a l'ultima salute,”
cominciò Bëatrice, “che tu dei
aver le luci tue chiare e acute;
e però, prima che tu più t'inlei,
rimira in giù, e vedi quanto mondo
sotto li piedi già esser ti fei;
sì che 'l tuo cor, quantunque può, giocondo
s'appresenti a la turba trïunfante
che lieta vien per questo etera tondo.”
Col viso ritornai per tutte quante
le sette spere, e vidi questo globo
tal, ch'io sorrisi del suo vil sembiante;
e quel consiglio per migliore approbo
che l'ha per meno; e chi ad altro pensa
chiamar si puote veramente probo.
Vidi la figlia di Latona incensa
sanza quell' ombra che mi fu cagione
per che già la credetti rara e densa.
L'aspetto del tuo nato, Iperïone,
quivi sostenni, e vidi com' si move
circa e vicino a lui Maia e Dïone.
Quindi m'apparve il temperar di Giove
tra 'l padre e 'l figlio; e quindi mi fu chiaro
il varïar che fanno di lor dove;
e tutti e sette mi si dimostraro
quanto son grandi e quanto son veloci
e come sono in distante riparo.
L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci,
volgendom' io con li etterni Gemelli,
tutta m'apparve da' colli a le foci;
poscia rivolsi li occhi a li occhi belli.
Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide
Turned like a little child who always runs
For refuge there where he confideth most;
And she, even as a mother who straightway
Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy
With voice whose wont it is to reassure him,
Said to me: "Knowest thou not thou art in heaven,
And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all
And what is done here cometh from good zeal?
After what wise the singing would have changed thee
And I by smiling, thou canst now imagine,
Since that the cry has startled thee so much,
In which if thou hadst understood its prayers
Already would be known to thee the vengeance
Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest.
The sword above here smiteth not in haste
Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him
Who fearing or desiring waits for it.
But turn thee round towards the others now,
For very illustrious spirits shalt thou see,
If thou thy sight directest as I say."
As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned,
And saw a hundred spherules that together
With mutual rays each other more embellished.
I stood as one who in himself represses
The point of his desire, and ventures not
To question, he so feareth the too much.
And now the largest and most luculent
Among those pearls came forward, that it might
Make my desire concerning it content.
Within it then I heard: "If thou couldst see
Even as myself the charity that burns
Among us, thy conceits would be expressed;
But, that by waiting thou mayst not come late
To the high end, I will make answer even
Unto the thought of which thou art so chary.
That mountain on whose slope Cassino stands
Was frequented of old upon its summit
By a deluded folk and ill-disposed;
And I am he who first up thither bore
The name of Him who brought upon the earth
The truth that so much sublimateth us.
And such abundant grace upon me shone
That all the neighbouring towns I drew away
From the impious worship that seduced the world.
These other fires, each one of them, were men
Contemplative, enkindled by that heat
Which maketh holy flowers and fruits spring up.
Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus,
Here are my brethren, who within the cloisters
Their footsteps stayed and kept a steadfast heart."
And I to him: "The affection which thou showest
Speaking with me, and the good countenance
Which I behold and note in all your ardours,
In me have so my confidence dilated
As the sun doth the rose, when it becomes
As far unfolded as it hath the power.
Therefore I pray, and thou assure me, father,
If I may so much grace receive, that I
May thee behold with countenance unveiled."
He thereupon: "Brother, thy high desire
In the remotest sphere shall be fulfilled,
Where are fulfilled all others and my own.
There perfect is, and ripened, and complete,
Every desire; within that one alone
Is every part where it has always been;
For it is not in space, nor turns on poles,
And unto it our stairway reaches up,
Whence thus from out thy sight it steals away.
Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it
Extending its supernal part, what time
So thronged with angels it appeared to him.
But to ascend it now no one uplifts
His feet from off the earth, and now my Rule
Below remaineth for mere waste of paper.
The walls that used of old to be an Abbey
Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls
Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.
But heavy usury is not taken up
So much against God's pleasure as that fruit
Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;
For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping
Is for the folk that ask it in God's name,
Not for one's kindred or for something worse.
The flesh of mortals is so very soft,
That good beginnings down below suffice not
From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.
Peter began with neither gold nor silver,
And I with orison and abstinence,
And Francis with humility his convent.
And if thou lookest at each one's beginning,
And then regardest whither he has run,
Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.
In verity the Jordan backward turned,
And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more
A wonder to behold, than succour here."
Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew
To his own band, and the band closed together;
Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.
The gentle Lady urged me on behind them
Up o'er that stairway by a single sign,
So did her virtue overcome my nature;
Nor here below, where one goes up and down
By natural law, was motion e'er so swift
That it could be compared unto my wing.
Reader, as I may unto that devout
Triumph return, on whose account I often
For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,—
Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire
And drawn it out again, before I saw
The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.
O glorious stars, O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be,
With you was born, and hid himself with you,
He who is father of all mortal life,
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air;
And then when grace was freely given to me
To enter the high wheel which turns you round,
Your region was allotted unto me.
To you devoutly at this hour my soul
Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire
For the stern pass that draws it to itself.
"Thou art so near unto the last salvation,"
Thus Beatrice began, "thou oughtest now
To have thine eves unclouded and acute;
And therefore, ere thou enter farther in,
Look down once more, and see how vast a world
Thou hast already put beneath thy feet;
So that thy heart, as jocund as it may,
Present itself to the triumphant throng
That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether."
I with my sight returned through one and all
The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe
Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance;
And that opinion I approve as best
Which doth account it least; and he who thinks
Of something else may truly be called just.
I saw the daughter of Latona shining
Without that shadow, which to me was cause
That once I had believed her rare and dense.
The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,
Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves
Around and near him Maia and Dione.
Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove
'Twixt son and father, and to me was clear
The change that of their whereabout they make;
And all the seven made manifest to me
How great they are, and eke how swift they are,
And how they are in distant habitations.
The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,
To me revolving with the eternal Twins,
Was all apparent made from hill to harbour!
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.
This simile is perhaps better described as two simple comparisons combined into a single trope. (Francesco da Buti [comm. to vv. 1-21] did, however, describe it as a “similitudine.”) It first compares Dante to a distressed child running to its mother and then portrays Beatrice as a mother calming her child. Poletto (comm. to vv. 1-3) was apparently the first to indicate the nearly certain reference to Purg. XXX.43-45 (Dante as child [fantolin] running to his mommy [mamma]), but the Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to vv. 1-3) pretty clearly had been thinking of that same text.
These verses continue the action of the preceding canto, which ended with Dante being unable to make out the meaning of a thunder-like utterance (one of the loudest noises we hear from the pages of the poem, perhaps bringing to mind the similarly stunning noise of the infernal waterfall at Inferno XVI.94-105). This shout emanated from Peter Damian's outraged colleagues, departing from the silent meditation that marked their presence once they descended toward this sphere (see Par. XXI.58). Naturally enough, the protagonist, unable to make out their words, fears lest their rebuke, so loud as to be incomprehensible, be aimed at him. His apparent logic is clear enough: In this realm, if Beatrice does not smile and if the souls do not sing, he must be being rebuked for something he has (or has not) done.
Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 1-3) was perhaps the first to identify the citation here of Boethius (Cons. Phil. I.2[pr]): Philosophy appearing to the befuddled “hero” at the beginning of that work (the two passages share versions of the phrase stupor oppressit). Thus the text of the Consolatio stands behind Dantean expressions at either end of the canto. See the note to verse 151 (but also see the note to Par. XXI.28-30). Zygmunt Baranski (“Canto XXII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 357) makes the telling point that Boethius presents the Lady Philosophy's gown as bearing a ladder that moves from lower practical matters to higher and theological concerns, an emblem resembling the ladder we see here in Saturn, which configures both ascent and descent, the life of meditation and of work in the world, the monastic practices of meditation and labor. (Benedict's “motto,” as is reported by Fallani [comm. to verse 40], was “ora et labora” [pray and work].)
Beatrice's increasing feminization (for her “male” attributes, see Purg. XXX.19, 43-48, 58, and the notes thereto) is, clearly, not the sign of her sexualization, as some contrive to believe. Never in the poem does she appear as other than chaste, here, in simile, as Dante's mother.
Beatrice corrects his misapprehension, explaining that anger in the heavens cannot be produced by anything but righteous indignation (buon zelo). Thus the shout he heard could not have been directed against him, but rather against those on earth who offend in their desecration of the religious life, “li moderni pastori” (modern shepherds [Par. XXI.131]). Once again we are made to see how poorly prepared this mortal is for this higher realm.
Beatrice explains that Dante's inability to comprehend the “prayers” of the visitors to Saturn, prophesying God's vengeance on His enemies, is in itself proof that he was not ready to bear either Beatrice's beatific smile or the contemplatives' singing, both of which were, for that reason, withheld from him.
Carroll (comm. to vv. 1-18) restates a passage in St. Bernard's De Consideratione (V.xiv) that may throw considerable light on this tercet: There are four kinds of divine judgments, each one defined by its breadth, or length, or depth, or height. Consideration of God's judgments coincides with “depth.” Carroll continues: “This kind of contemplation (now in Bernard's words) 'may violently shock the beholder with the fearful vision, but it puts vice to flight, firmly bases virtue, initiates in wisdom, preserves humility.' It is plainly the shock of this contemplation of the 'depth' which here stuns the Pilgrim. The cry is an echo from the Thrones of the Divine judgments who preside over this Heaven, and the very echo shakes Dante to the soul; and Beatrice asks how, if the 'depth' so shook him, he could have borne the 'height' – the lofty ecstatic joy of contemplation represented by her smile.”
This sort of righteous indignation is itself a sort of joy, since it involves, as Beatrice says, the celebration of just punishment, visible in the vengeance of God, that Dante will be able to observe on earth before he dies. This “minor prophecy” (for another see Purg. XXIII.97-102) about the punishment of the corrupt clergy resembles the similar promise (Par. XVII.98-99), made by Cacciaguida, that Dante will witness the just punishment of his Florentine enemies. How are we to take these “personal prophecies”? It is perhaps best to understand that both Cacciaguida's and this one spoken by Beatrice are promissory notes Dante has written to himself. He surely has in mind the completion of his hope for the political redemption of Florence; once this were accomplished, he was certain that his political enemies and the corrupt clergy who seem to support them (and perhaps often did) would come to a bad end indeed. But like all successful prophecies, this one had to provide at least some sure results in order to be taken as veracious. The death of any of Dante's major adversaries, occurring while he was still alive, would indeed seem to make elements of these “prophecies” correct. On the religious side of the roster, major deaths that succored Dante's hopes included those of the popes Boniface VIII (1303) and Clement V (1314); in the secular ledger, that of Corso Donati (1308 [see Purg. XXIV.82-90]). It may be argued convincingly that, in fact, Dante did not triumph over his enemies; nonetheless, he could, from the vantage point of 1317 or so, count on us to recognize that some of his greatest foes had died, thus preserving, for the moment, the possible happy outcome of this essentially botched prediction. It comes more as the result of wishful thinking (and the accompanying conviction that his political views were simply correct) than of revelation.
For Dante's enemies, obviously, this sword will make itself felt all too soon, while for him it will be slow indeed in coming.
This feeling had already raced through Dante's veins. Mattalia (comm. to verse 16) indicates the second of Dante's “political epistles” (Ep. VI.4, written in March of 1311), addressed to Henry VII, for the sword of God and vendetta. The text speaks of the “gladius Eius qui dicit: 'Mea est ultio'” (the sword of Him who says, “Vengeance is mine”).
Beatrice's urging would lead us to believe that we shall learn of the presence of at least a number of great contemplatives in this sphere. We shall, however, meet only one more, St. Benedict (named only by periphrasis at verses 40-42), although he is accompanied by two other named monastics, Macarius and Romuald (verse 49), who are merely said to be here and must share a single line of verse. The others, of whom we are about to see many dozens, do not receive even that much notice, a perhaps fitting anonymity in this environment of self-abnegation. For whatever reason, Dante has limited his panoply of great contemplatives to Peter Damian and Benedict of Norcia, with an assisting cast of only two named supporting players.
The phrasing of her command to Dante reflects similar urgings on Virgil's part (Inf. IX.55, X.31; Purg. XXVII.31-32) and one earlier one by Beatrice herself (Par. XVIII.20). The ability to turn and face that which he fears or has not yet understood is what his two guides both encourage in him.
For the phrase illustri spiriti (glorious spirits), Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 19-21) adduces a Virgilian text (Aen. VI.758): “inlustris animas.”
These “one hundred little globes” are neither precisely one hundred in number nor little globes, but a large number of descended saints who, in their joy (we remember that they are spending eternity in the most joyful place there is) make one another more joyous, as can be perceived by their increasing brightness.
The protagonist, getting with the spirit of this place, overrules “la punta del disio” (the spur of his desire) and suppresses his desire to know who these spirits are – but of course he has communicated with them in God, despite his reticence. One light, the best and the brightest “pearl” among them, advances to reveal his identity.
For a study of Dante's adaptation of sexually charged terms to express the desire for God, see Lino Pertile (“'La punta del disio': storia di una metafora dantesca,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 7 [1990]: 3-28), using verse 26 as his point of departure. And now see his book (La punta del disio: Semantica del desiderio nella “Commedia” [Fiesole: Cadmo, 2005]), which includes this essay and builds upon it.
Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 100, draws this desire and that referred to at Paradiso XXI.48 into relation with the disio mentioned in Inferno XXVI, first that of the protagonist (verse 69), then that of Ulysses (his ardore, verse 97), and finally that of his shipmates (he has made them aguti [...] al cammino, vv. 121-122).
We know, as did those who painted and those who “read” medieval paintings, that size is a measure of importance; this is, accordingly, the most important personage of the group (as is also underlined by his greater brightness among the margherite [pearls] who make up his company). Thus it is that Mary will be the greatest among the flames (at least once Christ goes back to the Empyrean) seen in the descended Church Triumphant (Par. XXIII.90).
Benedict will make his identity knowable (he will not actually name himself then or ever) at vv. 40-42. See the note to vv. 37-45.
Once again a personage of Paradise alludes to the fact that speech is here an unnecessary form of communication (to any understanding but that of mortal Dante). The speaker assures him that, had he only known the inner dispositions of these “globes,” he would have spoken up (even as we remind ourselves that there obviously was no need to, since they know his thoughts even as he suppresses his desire to give voice to them).
For the extraordinary number of verbs of seeing in this canto (twenty-one), all but two of them referring to Dante's sight, see Baranski (“Canto XXII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 344n.).
Benedict (480-543), born in the Umbrian city of Norcia, became the founder of what is considered the oldest monastic order in the West, which bears his name. Son of wealthy parents, he went to Rome to study, and there witnessed the debauchery of the clergy. His response was to take up a solitary eremitic life in a cave. His fame brought him the attention of those who had chosen to live a cloistered life. He agreed to become the head of the convent of Vicovaro, thus moving from the existence of a hermit to that of a cenobite. This was not in all respects a propitious decision on his part, since his fellow monks, resentful of his extremely strict Rule, tried to poison him. He managed to survive the attempt on his life and once again retreated to his cave. Monks loyal to him and to his vision of the cenobitic life eventually followed him to Montecassino, where he destroyed a temple of Apollo and a grove sacred to Venus (according to Oelsner [comm. to vv. 37-39]), converted the locals (until his advent, still pagans), and founded his order. As commentators point out, beginning with Jacopo della Lana (Nota to this canto), Dante's brief version of Benedict's vita is indebted to that found in his biographer, St. Gregory the Great, Dialogues, II.2. It may seem surprising that Benedict was canonized only in 1220, nearly seven centuries after his death, while Francis had to wait only two years for his sainthood (1228).
The adjectives assigned to the indigenous pagan locals pretty clearly seem to distinguish between, in Tommaseo's view (comm. to vv. 37-39), their confused mental state and their misdirected affections (in Oelsner's formulation [see the note to vv. 37-45], worship of Apollo and devotions to Venus).
As opposed to verse 39, which seems to point to two unacceptable forms of behavior among the locals, this one would rather indicate the worship of Apollo alone, even if a more universal victory over paganism is probably indicated.
Once again (see the note to verse 1) the text indicates the special nature of the monastic vocation, a combination of prayerful meditation and labor, in Benedict's own prescription for cenobitic activity, “ora et labora.”
The souls that Dante had in mind as models for this kind of ecstatic appreciation of God are, according to Claudia Di Fonzo (“'La dolce donna dietro a lor mi pinse / con un sol cenno su per quella scala' [Par. XXII.100-101],” Studi Danteschi 63 [1991 {1997}]: 141-75), Anselm, Benedict, Bonaventure, and (especially) Bernard.
Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 37-51) resolves the metaphoric fiori (flowers) and frutti (fruits) into “words” and “deeds.” It seems at least possible, given Benedict's own division of monkish occupation into prayer and work, that this is how we should interpret the “flowers” that Dante has in mind: the words that give shape to prayer.
Saints Macarius and Romuald were surely also monks, but, especially with regard to the first, there is little certainty as to his absolute identity. For Macarius, the two main candidates were both dead before Benedict was born. “It is uncertain which of the several saints of the name of Macarius is the one intended by Dante. The two best known, between whom perhaps Dante did not very clearly distinguish, are St. Macarius the Elder, called the Egyptian, and St. Macarius the Younger of Alexandria – both disciples of St. Anthony. St. Macarius the Elder (born in 301) retired at the age of 30 into the Libyan desert, where he remained for sixty years, passing his time between prayer and manual labour, until his death, at the age of 90, in 391. St. Macarius the Younger had nearly 5,000 monks under his charge (d. 404); he is credited with having established the monastic rule of the East, as St. Benedict did that of the West” (Toynbee, “Macario” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).
As for St. Romuald (956-1027), he began (in 1012) the Camaldolese Order, a reformed group of Benedictines. It was named for the donor of its holding, campus Maldoli (the field of Maldolus), or “Camaldoli.” (Its monastery, in Tuscany, is referred to in Purgatorio V.96.) Thus Benedict is bracketed, chronologically, by a precursor and a follower. Dante may have learned about Romuald, born in Ravenna, from the vita Romualdi composed by his townsman, Peter Damian.
It sounds as though Benedict is readying himself to give a denunciation of the corruption of his order, in the style of Peter Damian (Par. XXI.130-135); however, Dante interrupts him with a surprising question, one that detains him for some time; he will deliver his broadside only at vv. 73-96.
See Annibale Ilari (“Il Canto XXII,” in “Paradiso”: Letture degli anni 1979-81, ed. S. Zennaro [Rome: Bonacci, 1989], pp. 573-624) for the view that Dante's sense of the purpose of the monastic life, particularly in its Benedictine form, was shaped by the sense of monasticism that he found in the writings of Joachim of Flora.
The protagonist allows that he has interpreted (correctly) his temporary companions' increased brightness as an expression of their affection for him.
Benedict is awarded the role of Dante's penultimate “father” in this poem, with only St. Bernard to come (for the others, see the note to Par. XVI.16).
He also has the honor of preceding St. John (see Par. XXV.122-129) in causing Dante to ask questions about the fleshly aspect of the condition of the blessed. There also circulated a medieval legend that St. John, for his particular closeness to Jesus, was unique among the rest of the blessed (Jesus and Mary being the sole other exceptions) in having his resurrected body in Heaven before the general resurrection (see Rachel Jacoff [“Dante and the Legend(s) of St. John,” Dante Studies 117 {1999}: 45-57]). Dante's curiosity about Benedict's actual appearance, however, has no ascertainable “source,” at least none supported by Dante's commentators. In the case of Benedict, the protagonist's question (and his desire) is somewhat different. He would like to see Benedict now as he shall be when he is found again, seated in Heaven (Par. XXXII.35), that is, with his sheathing flame removed so that his face's features will be utterly plain to a beholder. Once in the Empyrean, Dante will see all the blessed as though they had already been given back their fleshly selves (Par. XXX.43-45), that is, even before the general resurrection. Thus he will there experience the reality of Benedict and of John (and of all the other saints) in identical ways.
Why, the commentators are left to ask, does Dante introduce this concern here, one that seems to have no historical footing? The least that one can hazard is that, given his “fatherhood” and this exceptional request, Benedict played a more vital role in Dante's intellectual and spiritual development than has been ascertained, if in what precise ways remains unknown.
Kevin Brownlee points out (“Ovid's Semele and Dante's Metamorphosis: Paradiso 21-22,” in Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, eds., The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia” [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991], pp. 227-28) that Dante's desire to see Benedict in his flesh uncomfortably parallels Semele's request to Jove, but that he will see Benedict as though resurrected in the flesh in Paradiso XXXII.35. His story, unlike hers, has a happy ending.
At some length Benedict corrects the supposition that lay behind Dante's desire to see him in his true human resemblance. His conclusion, with its reference to Jacob's Ladder and its function as the connecting point between the rest of the time-bound universe and the unchanging Empyrean, brings his attention back to his monks, last heard of at verse 51.
This represents the last use of the word “brother” (frate) as a term of address in the poem. See the note to Purgatorio IV.127.
See Carroll (comm. to vv. 61-63) for the notion (attributed only to Chimenz [comm. to vv. 61-63] by Bosco/Reggio [comm. to this verse]) that Benedict is gently reproving Dante for having called him “father” (verse 58) by insisting that they are better considered brothers in Christ. Compare the desire of Pope Adrian V not to have Dante kneel before him in obeisance, since they enjoy a similar brotherhood (Purg. XIX.133-135).
Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 101, points out that, rather than redundant through some failing on the poet's part, as some commentators hold, these three adjectives reproduce a phrase in an apostolic epistle (James 1:4): “And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (perfecti et integri, in nullo deficientes). The only other reference to this passage (if not in this context) in the entire commentary tradition seems to be found in Bernardino Daniello (comm. to Par. XXV.29).
The Empyrean non s'impola (does not turn on poles), as does the terrestrial globe and as do the planets, but is the place that T.S. Eliot might have described as “the still point of the turning world” (the phrase occurs once in the second section of “Burnt Norton,” the first of the Four Quartets, and once again in the fourth).
This ladder “mounts right up to it,” that is, to the Empyrean, which is why Dante cannot yet see its terminus.
The tercet puts into play, in case we have missed it, the reference to Genesis 28:12: “And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”
Beginning with the foot of Jacob's Ladder, as it were, Benedict now rounds on the current members of his order. Their degeneracy is reflected in the crumbling physical plant of the monastery; in the attempt to find some use for the cowls of the monks (since apparently those who wear them are few) as bags for flour; in the flagrant usury employed by them (quel frutto, the disgraceful “harvest” of their misguided lavoro). On this last charge, see Tozer (comm. to vv. 79-84), describing it as “covetousness in misappropriating the revenues of the Church, which rightfully belong to God's poor, to the purposes of nepotism and licentiousness. This in the sight of God is a worse sin than usury.”
Benedict's remarks come to momentary cessation in the image of human sinfulness quickly undoing even fresh and worthy initiatives; these are snuffed out soon after inception.
Christ, driving the moneychangers from the temple (Matthew 21:12-13), portrays them as turning His “house of prayer” into a “den of thieves” (speluncam latronum), as was noted by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 76-78). Dante's spelonche nearly certainly reflects that passage.
Oaks take a while to grow mature enough to produce acorns - twenty years, according to Jacopo della Lana (comm. to this tercet) and Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 73-87). However, Dante seems to be underlining the relative brevity of their acornless state. Sapegno (comm. to this tercet) looks forward to a similar sense of the brief durance, there of innocence among us humans, at Paradiso XXVII.121-138.
In the first of these three tercets, Benedict reviews high points in the establishments of communities within the Church: the apostle Peter's first “papacy” (first century); the founding of his own order (sixth century); the founding of Francis's (twelfth century). The reader has a clear sense that Benedict does not expect any major renewal in the Church. And yet his speech ends with a curiously optimistic (and typically Dantean) reversal, in the promise of better days, with which his harangue comes to its close. If bodies of water could have been halted in their flow to let the Hebrews cross to safety, as Psalms 113:3 (114:5) attests, that would still seem a greater miracle than if God were to intervene in the world now. In short, as unlikely as that possibility seems, its odds are shorter than they were for the miracles of Jordan and of the Red Sea. In Dante's scheme of things, there is always room for hope, a view that we will find again in Paradiso XXVII.142-148, in a passage that similarly surmounts a decidedly pessimistic view of human sinfulness with hopes for a better world in the near future.
See the relevant passage in Acts 3:6: “Petrus autem dicit: Argentum et aurum non est mihi” (But Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none”), its relevance first suggested in the Chiose ambrosiane (comm. to this verse).
A possible arrière pensée of Ugolino (Inf. XXXIII.75), who knew digiuno (fasting) all too well, but prayer too little. See the note to Inferno XXXIII.49.
See Paradiso XXVII.136 for a similar description of a thing changed into its opposite, in that case, innocence into sinfulness.
God's miracles (Joshua 3:14-17), Jordan turned back and (Exodus 14:21-29) the crossing of the Red Sea (both remembered in Psalms 113:3 [114:5]), will have accustomed the eventual witnesses of His vengeance against these prelates to see that such relatively minor miracles are also signs of His power.
The departure of Benedict and his fellow monastics, headed back “home,” to the Empyrean at the upper end of Jacob's Ladder, where, we may assume, they will no longer think of the world's many corruptions, is accompanied by a whirlwind, sign of God's power and of His love for these saints.
In their wake, Beatrice leads Dante up the “ladder,” not yet to Benedict's companions' goal, the Empyrean, but to the eighth of the nine heavenly spheres, that of the Fixed Stars. The ascent is brief and briefly described, but the point of arrival will be treated at greater length.
This verse lies at the boundary line of the next heaven. Since in the Starry Sphere Dante will experience the Church Triumphant, has the poet used this perfect number as the number of its border deliberately?
Andreoli (comm. to this verse) paraphrases as follows: “the natural gravity of my body.” Is this an admission that Dante indeed visited the heavens in the body? However, it could suggest that the protagonist thinks of himself in corporeal terms out of habit. But see the note to Paradiso I.73.
Dante apostrophizes us (for the distribution of the addresses to the reader throughout the poem, see the notes to Inf. VIII.94-96 and to Par. X.22-27) for the final time in the poem (as Tommaseo noted). It comes as a surprise of some magnitude when one reads Scartazzini on this passage (comm. to verse 106) and finds that stubbornly thorough assembler of data coming up several addresses to the reader short in his quick survey. He undercounts occurrences of the phenomenon by two in Inferno and by two again here in the third cantica. Are we to think it a coincidence that this last occurrence falls just before the first of the final triad of invocations, now to higher powers directly (God's creative powers in the stars and then the Deity Itself in Par. XXX and XXXIII)? It is as though the poet is underlining the distance between human and divine experience by leaving us behind. After Dante looks down through the planets, the next sight he will see is the Church Triumphant, which we will see again in the penultimate canto of the poem. For all of the next canto, for the last third of the thirtieth, and for all the final three we are seeing “face-to-face.” As the space travelers near their eventual goal, the time taken for the ascent from sphere to sphere decreases, since the “gravitational pull” of the Empyrean naturally increases as one nears it. [Note revised 24 August 2013; see the revised note to Par. IX.10-12.]
The poet allows us to learn, inferentially, where his visit to the Starry Sphere has been situated by Providence, in “the sign following the Bull” (Taurus), and thus in Gemini, the sign under which, in 1265, he was born and which shaped whatever genius he possesses. With Gemini the Sun rose and set the day Dante was born in Tuscany; and now he comes to this heaven in that constellation. (Singleton [cited in the note to Par. XXII.127-154] cites an interesting observation of Grandgent's: “Thus, in a spiritual sense, [Dante] returns, like Plato's departed, to his native star: cf. Par. IV.52-57.”) From the stars of Gemini he invokes aid in acquiring the necessary capacity to tell of the final things of Heaven, beginning in the next canto with the appearance of the “hosts of Christ's triumph” (Par. XXIII.20-21).
The by now fairly familiar trope hysteron proteron is used to describe the speed of their upward movement and attainment of the next sphere. See the note to Paradiso I.23-26.
Adding to the reader's sense of the poet's self-consciousness at this moment in his creation, this seventh invocation also underlines the importance of the visit to the stars that shaped his human abilities. In Inferno II.7, when Dante invoked alto ingegno for aid, it is at least possible that he was invoking God's power to help him make his poem (see the notes to Inf. II.7-9 and Par. XXV.2). Here, especially in light of the equation between God's powers and that of the heavenly spheres suggested by Paradiso II.9, Dante would seem to be aligning his own powers as a poet with those specifically allotted him by God through the agency of the alignment of the stars at his birth, when the Sun (“he who is father to all mortal life”) was under the sign of Gemini.
This is the seventeenth (of eighteen in all) appearance of the word ingegno in the poem. The next and last (Par. XXIV.81), in the biting phrase “ingegno di sofista,” offers us the picture of those who used their “genius” perversely, and to widely different ends.
The actual invocation occurs only now, as the first three tercets of the passage define the power of these stars and give the nature and history of Dante's relationship with them. What is the specific “daunting task” for which the poet seeks heavenly aid? Most commentators are content to see this as a general appeal, called for by the heightening of the poem's subject, rising above the realms in which Dante and we are allowed to see the temporarily present souls of saved mortals and looking forward to the final vision in the poem's final canto. This seems a sensible view. (For a review of the varied [and rather vague or general] interpretations offered through the nineteenth century, see Scartazzini [comm. to vv. 122-123].) Del Lungo (comm. to this tercet) offers a stronger reading, arguing that the specific appeal is made for a specific reason: Dante in the next canto must describe the triumph presided over by Christ and Mary. Indeed, in Canto XXIII the protagonist will be seeing “face-to-face.” And what he will see is the ultimate destination of the justified portion of our race, the Church Triumphant, which will descend from the Empyrean in order to make itself visible to a mortal (for the first [and only!] time in human history, we may embarrassedly consider). And thus this invocation is “special” for that reason. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this tercet) make two questionable gestures, first attributing this interpretation to Chimenz rather than to Del Lungo, who preceded him; second, casting doubt upon it. Having made it, the poet reports first on his downward glance, as he readies himself to see better things; the passage describing that vision will complete this canto. In the next, the intricate opening simile leads directly into the vision of the Church Triumphant, the first thing above him that Dante will describe after the invocation (see Par. XXIII.19-21, Beatrice's words, “Now look upon the hosts / of Christ in triumph, all the fruit / gathered from the wheeling of these spheres!”). It is with this immediate destination in mind that one might want to understand the “clue” to such an understanding found in Beatrice's earlier statement, a few lines farther on in this canto, at verse 124 (“You are so near the final blessedness”), as a reference not to his eventual destination in the Empyrean, as most imagine it to be, but in fact to this immediately proximate vision of the citizenry of that place in the next canto. In fact, the vast majority of commentators believe the passage looks forward only to the last canto, drawn by the phrase ultima salute, for God, in Paradiso XXXIII.27. Only Trucchi (comm. to vv. 124-126) resists this “easy” solution, seeing that the presence of Christ in the next one is what is at stake.
Of similar effect is Beatrice's ensuing remark (vv. 131-132), encouraging Dante to look back to see how much heavenly territory he has already traversed, a journey that makes him ready to appear before “the triumphant throng / that comes rejoicing to this celestial sphere.” In light of such indications, it seems more than likely that the invocation is meant to be read as a preparation for that near-at-hand experience, not one some ten cantos distant.
The phrase “passo forte” (daunting task) caught Benvenuto's attention (comm. to vv. 121-123). Why is it so? “Because,” Benvenuto says, “here is that which all things strive toward. In what follows [Dante] describes God's Church in its triumph, with all the celestial court, including God.”
See Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle (“Closure in Paradise: Dante Outsings Aquinas,” Modern Language Notes 115 [2000]: 3-5) on Dante's awareness of Thomas's failure to complete his three-part Summa and consequent diminution in comparison with Dante's tripartite poem. She continues by claiming that the Comedy uses both agricultural and navigational metaphors to demonstrate that poetry is more fitting than philosophy or theology to articulate “the ascent to divine contemplation.” While her sense of Dante's hostility to Thomas is surely overblown, she is among those who realize that all is not peaches and cream in Dante's presentation of his relations with Thomas.
Beatrice is not so much admonishing Dante to prepare his eyes for such exalted vision as insisting that, trained as they have been, they are now necessarily ready for that vision, and will be so for the duration of his visit to the rest of the heavens and to the Empyrean. This is to agree with Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this tercet). For the sense in which Dante is at this moment near his “final blessedness,” see the note to vv. 121-123.
Dante's neologism here is close to untranslatable. The coinage is possibly to be taken as a verb of the first conjugation, “inleiarsi,” to “in-it oneself,” that is, to make oneself one with something external to one's being.
Beatrice's reference to the great extent of the universe that Dante can now make out “beneath his feet” reminds us again that we are still not sure whether we are meant to understand that Dante is in Paradiso in the flesh. While something like certainty awaits us, as will be made clear in a few cantos, here we sense a certain coyness. Beatrice may be speaking figuratively, meaning “Look down beneath you, where your feet would be if you were here in the flesh.” Or she may simply be saying, “Look beneath your feet,” feet that are really there, dangling beneath him in the heaven of the Fixed Stars.
Once again Beatrice clearly alludes to what Dante will see next, in the verses early in the next canto (19ff.), the Church Triumphant, having left Heaven to appear to Dante in this heaven.
The word etera, literally translated, means “(a)ether,” in Aristotle's sense of the “fifth element,” as understood by Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 130-132), that which composes the “stuff” of which a celestial sphere consists and in which other bodies (e.g., the stars) are contained. It is thus differentiated from both stars (and what we refer to as planets) and nothingness (what we used to refer to as “space”).
This remarkable passage is almost as interesting in its antecedence as in its immediate progeny. There are similar scenes in Boccaccio's Filostrato and Teseida; Chaucer visits both of these, in the moment that is perhaps central to the understanding of his intentions for the ending of the Troilus; and both writers evidently pay close attention to Dante as well as to his and their classical precursors. While there continues to be debate about Dante's first-hand knowledge of the portion of Cicero's lost De re publica known as the “Dream of Scipio,” it really does seem to most that Dante knew this text (VI.xvi.16). On the other hand, there is and can be no debate about his knowledge of the similar passage in Boethius's De consolatione (II.m7.1-6), if that seems less directly resemblant. (Singleton [comm. to vv. 127-154] presents both texts, with English translations.) In Cicero, Dante's great Roman hero Scipio, appearing in a dream to his grandson after his death, speaks of this paltry world, seen from the heavens, in much the same tone as we find here; in Boethius, there is a vision of this narrow earth.
Some readers may benefit from a reminder: For Dante the seven “planets” circling over our earth are Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. All the stars are contained in the next sphere, the heaven of the Fixed Stars, to which point the protagonist has just now risen (see vv. 100-111).
Dante examines the planets beneath his feet; these are seen in a somewhat unusual order and are mainly named by their “parents”: (1) Moon (daughter of Latona), (4) Sun (son of Hyperion), (2) Mercury (son of Maia), (3) Venus (daughter of Dïone), (6) Jupiter (son of Saturn), (7) Saturn, (5) Mars (son of Jupiter).
Carroll (comm. to these verses) makes a helpful distinction between St. Bernard's terms consideratio and contemplatio: “St. Bernard (De Consideratione [II.ii]) thus distinguishes: 'Contemplation may be defined as the soul's true unerring intuition, or as the unhesitating apprehension of truth. But consideration is thought (cogitatio) earnestly directed to research, or the application of the mind to the search for truth; though in practice the two terms are indifferently used for one another' (Lewis' transl.). Both words are believed to come from augurial rites: Contemplation, from com and templum, the marking out of a templum, or sacred space open to the sky; and consideration, from com and sidus (sideris) a star, or constellation, observation of the stars.” In Bernard's language then, Dante is “considering” the stars; contemplation of God remains ahead of him.
The reference is, obviously, to the Moon (Latona's daughter, Diana) and to Dante's earlier misprisions of the reasons for its differing degrees of brightness (see Par. II.49-51). Now that he is seeing her from “behind,” from the side turned away from earth, her surface is uniform in appearance.
Dante's improved eyesight (see vv. 124-126) quickly bestows a new benefit: He can look directly at the Sun, the son of Hyperion in some classical myths, including Ovid's (Metam. IV.192).
Referring to them by the names of their mothers, Dante sees Mercury (Maia) and Venus (Dïone). The literal sense of this tercet has caused problems; Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 143-144) propose a reading that is mirrored in our translation.
Perhaps the best gloss available for these verses was written by Dante himself (Conv. II.xiii.25): “The heaven of Jupiter may be compared to Geometry because of two properties: one is that it moves between two heavens that are antithetical to its fine temperance, namely that of Mars and that of Saturn; consequently Ptolemy says, in the book referred to [Dante mentions his Quadripartitus in section 21], that Jupiter is a star of temperate constitution between the cold of Saturn and the heat of Mars; the other is that among all the stars it appears white, almost silvery” ([italics added] tr. R. Lansing).
Saturn, the father of Jupiter, thus lent his name to the only planet that cannot be named by a parent.
From his vantage point in the eighth celestial sphere, Dante is now able to observe the relationships among the seven planets (see the note to verse 134) with regard to their varying sizes, the differing speeds of their rotations around the earth, and the distances between their ripari, that is what medieval astronomers refer to as their “houses,” or their stations in the heavens.
The word “aiuola,” frequently translated as “threshing floor,” is almost without a doubt, as John Scott (“Paradiso 22.151: 'L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci': Philology and Hermeneutics,” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [April 2003]) has argued, without the biblical resonance of Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17 that is heard by some from the nineteenth century into our own time. He also believes that the word reflects its presence in a phrase found in Boethius's De consolatione, II.7[pr], angustissima... area. Scott cites Kay (Dante's “Monarchia,” translated, with a commentary, by Richard Kay [Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998], p. 317, n. 22), glossing Monarchia III.xvi.11, where Dante uses the Latin equivalent of “aiuola”: “Latin areola is a diminutive form of area, and hence is 'a little space'” (see also Emilio Pasquini, “Canto XXII,” in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: “Paradiso,” ed. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1988}], p. 439). (For the long-standing but frequently overlooked knowledge of the reference to Boethius, see first Pietro di Dante [Pietro1, comm. to vv. 145-150] and then Francesco da Buti [comm. to vv. 149-154], who are joined by several later practitioners, including Landino, Daniello, and Tommaseo. Longfellow [comm. to this verse] gets the Boethius right but is responsible [according to Scott] for the invention of “threshing floor” in his translation.) This rendering of the word has had a long run, and may in fact still need winnowing. Scott continues: “Dante uses it here in this general, etymological sense, although often both areola and its Italian calc aiuola are used for specific small spaces, e.g. a flowerbed, seedbed, open courtyard, threshing floor, or even a blank space on a page [...]. Dante probably had in mind Boethius's description of the inhabitable world as an 'angustissimum [sic]... area' (Cons. Phil. II.7[pr].3), which Dante echoed in Epist. [VII.15]: 'in angustissima mundi area' [in such a narrow corner of the world].” And see Dante's second use of aiuola at Paradiso XXVII.86.
However, for a biblical use of area to mean “threshing floor,” see Daniel 2:35, “aestivae areae”: “Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” This is the stuff of Dante's vision of the Old Man of Crete in Inferno XIV. One can understand the temptation to read this passage in light of that one. And see Carroll (comm. to vv. 151-154), who is aware that the word area can mean other things, but argues here for the resonance of Jeremiah 51:33, where it clearly does mean “threshing floor.” However, on balance, the cooler heads of Kay and Scott should probably be allowed to regulate the overheated rhetorical enthusiasm that, as Scott argues, perhaps has its Anglo-Saxon origin in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Romantic view of this verse.
Gian Biagio Conte (see Atene e Roma 22, fasc. 3-4 [1977]: 162, his review of Alfonso Traina's article), citing Traina's previous observation (in “'L'aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci': per la storia di un topos,” in his Poeti latini [e neolatini]: note e saggi filosofici [Bologna: Pàtron, 1975], pp. 305-35), has suggested that a line in the proem of Seneca's Naturales Quaestiones (“puntum... in quo bellatis, in quo regno disponitis”) perhaps furnished the substance of this thought. Conte goes on to add his own sense that Lucan (Phars. IX.14) supplied the phrasing for Dante's expression of his scorn for the affairs of this paltry earth. However, it seems clear that, in the this verse (which is what most directly concerns us here), Dante is closer to Boethius than to Seneca.
Because of the high-speed revolution of the celestial sphere in which he is currently lodged, the protagonist is able to see all of the physical contour of our earth. He does so without particular enthusiasm, and is quick to turn his eyes back to the eyes of Beatrice, which are undoubtedly to be understood as gazing up toward God and not down toward Dante's (and our) paltry patch of earth.
For the relationship among this concluding passage of the canto and Convivio III.v.3-8, Dante's Questio, the Somnium Scipionis, as well as Honorius of Autun's Imago mundi, see Francesco Mazzoni (“Dante 'misuratore di mondi.'” in Dante e la scienza, ed. P. Boyde and V. Russo [Ravenna: Longo, 1995], p. 44).
This passage inevitably leads a reader to wonder exactly how much time Dante spent in the heavens (and in the Empyrean). He left our terrestrial globe at noon on Wednesday (either 30 March or 13 April in the year 1300, as the reader will recall [see the note to Inf. I.1]). How long was he in Paradise? When did he come “home”? For discussion, see the note to Paradiso XXVII.79-81.
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