This passage is surely one of the most personal statements Dante makes in the entire poem. However, it tends to cause disagreement, the central issue of which is whether Dante presents himself as vigorous in his hope for laureation or as sardonic about its likelihood. As representative of the first school of thought, which has its roots in Jacopo della Lana (comm. to verse 1) and, more vociferously, in the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 1-12), one might choose the recent treatment of John Scott (Understanding Dante [Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2004]). His “optimistic” reading, one which it is at least apparently in keeping with Dante's “hopefulness,” the subject, after all, on which he is being examined by St. James) is found both in Scott's translation and in his paraphrase of these lines. In the first, he supplies the following (the square brackets are in his text): “If it comes [and may it come] to pass that the sacred poem to which both heaven and earth have lent a hand...” (p. 98); in the second, he offers his eventual sense of the passage, intrinsically denying to Dante a proper Christian sense of the contingency of all earthly things. Scott considers the two subjunctives in vv. 1 and 4 optative (as do others, including Edoardo Fumagalli [“Canto XXV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone {Florence: Cesati, 2002}, p. 393], who goes on to remind us that Petrocchi's punctuation of the text supports this reading; however, as we know, it is probable that Petrocchi's interpretation dictated his choice of punctuation), expressing “what the exiled poet longs for with all his being, a burning desire that opens the canto dedicated to the theological value of hope” (p. 395).

On the other hand, see, among others, Gian Roberto Sarolli (Prolegomena alla “Divina Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1971], pp. 384-89), Marguerite Mills Chiarenza (“Time and Eternity in the Myths of Paradiso XVII,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini [Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983], pp. 147-48) and Anna Chiavacci Leonardi (“'Le bianche stole': il tema della resurrezione nel Paradiso,” in Dante e la Bibbia, ed. G. Barblan [Florence: Olschki, 1988], p. 268) for appreciations of the contingent nature of Dante's hope for laureation in Florence, which they find in the passage. Such an attitude is typified by a resigned tone rather than the hopeful one that most readers, like Scott, assign to him. A playful paraphrase in tune with this second view of the passage might run as follows: “Should it ever fall out [even if it seems most unlikely to do so] that I return to Florence [but those bastards will never allow me to come back home] and then [perhaps equally implausibly] that those fools decide to give me the laurel [which Giovanni del Virgilio has already offered me if I write a Latin poem for those sharing his dreadful Bolognese taste in poetry]....” In such a view, where the first two verbs are circumspectly (and correctly) dubious, and thus in the subjunctive mood, the last two are triumphantly (and illogically) indicative (“I shall return,” “I shall take”). (The subjunctive in a dependent clause almost necessarily causes a reader or a listener to expect the conditional [“I would return,” “I would take”]. Human behavior being what it is, however, one must admit that practice in this regard is various. See Franca Brambilla Ageno, “Congiuntivo” and “'Consecutio temporis” in ED VI [1978], pp. 233-61 and 426-38.) Indeed, in one sense Dante already has crowned himself (he allows St. Peter to be the agent of his heavenly “laureation” at the conclusion of Canto XXIV, an “event” he refers to in verse 12.) In this reading, the desired but improbable hometown laureation is represented as being both totally unlikely and as inescapable, were the world (and particularly Florence) only honest; thus the truculently aggressive tone of the indicatives. To summarize, to those of this persuasion, Dante seems to be saying, “Well, I do not think it is really likely to occur but, if I do make it back home, I'm going to take the laurel (since I deserve it and since no one else is going to give it to me).” It is notable that Dante, on both occasions on which he considers the prospect of his own laureation (see Par. I.26, coronarmi [crown myself]), imagines the wreath, not as being bestowed upon him by some benevolent figure, but as being taken by himself. (For this appreciation, see Mattalia [comm. to verse 9].)

Scott (p. 296) observes that the vello (fleece) in verse 7 aligns Dante, as well as with Jason, with the biblical prophet John the Baptist, that patron of Florence and figure celebrated by its Baptistry, who wore camel skins as his garment in the wilderness, his fleece. For the only slightly more widely recognized reference here, to Jason's search for the Golden Fleece, see Gian Roberto Sarolli (Prolegomena alla “Divina Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1971], p. 401) and Marie Catherine Pohndorf (“Conceptual Imagery Related to the Journey Theme in Dante's Commedia” [Doctoral dissertation, University of Denver, 1965], p. 189), the latter in particular supported by Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 223-24. (It is a perhaps surprising fact that no commentator in the current version of the DDP seems to have associated this vello with Jason, although their connection here seems obvious.)

The rhyme words in vv. 2, 4, and 6 had appeared in the envoi of the canzone known as “La montanina” (Rime CXVI.76-84). According to Scott (Understanding Dante [Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2004], p. 97), this conscious visitation of the past (the “mountain song” is thought to have been composed ca. 1307), of the sadness of his exile, is put forward here in a bittersweet mood. For Dante's letter to Moroello Malaspina accompanying the poem, see Emilio Pasquini (“Il Paradiso e una nuova idea di figuralismo,” Intersezioni 16 [1996], p. 427).

We may do well to remember the offer made to Dante by Giovanni del Virgilio, that he should follow his vernacular Commedia with a more worthy instrument of procuring the laurel (see the note to Par. XV.28-30), a Latin poem with a political subject. If the hypothesis shared by John Carroll and Lino Pertile is correct (see the note to Par. XXIII.130-132), Dante composed his answering eclogue soon after he was writing that canto. It is inviting to think that this insistence on his poem's being, on the contrary, dedicated to sacred things, is a defiant answer to that invitation, even if that may stretch chronological possibilities a bit much. However, for Dante's sense of a recent (1315) Italian laureation and its impact on him, see the note to Paradiso IX.29-30. And see Hollander (“Dante's Pride,” in Studi sul canone letterario del Trecento: Per Michelangelo Picone, a cura di J. Bartuschat and L. Rossi [Ravenna: Longo, 2003], pp. 54-55) for the poet's handling of the temptations of fame.

Claudia Villa (“Comoedia: laus in canticis dicta? Schede per Dante: Paradiso, XXV.1 e Inferno, XVIII,” Rivista di Studi Danteschi 1 [2001]: 325-31) considers both the term poema sacro and the related phrase “sacrato poema” at Paradiso XXIII.62.

This is the only presence in the poem of the verb contingere. For the occurrences of the noun contingenza (Par. XIII.63; XIII.64; XVII.37) and the participial adjective contingente (Par. XIII.99; XVII.16), see the entries for those terms, both prepared by Alfonso Maierù, ED II (1970).

In response to this challenging verse, Emilio Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001], pp. 145, 147) moves away from the traditional exegesis, which has it that the words cielo and terra both refer to what God has created, the twin subject of the poem, as it were, heaven and earth. That is, he realizes that the verse is not about the subject of the poem but about its heavenly agency. However, while an improvement in one respect, his reading seems deficient in the main one. For what may seem a radical (but perhaps only a necessary) view of the matter, see Hollander (“'Al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra' [Paradiso 25.2],” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [January 1997]) and, for a similar view, Baranski (“Canto XXV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001], pp. 393-94). Such a reading of this line has it that Dante insists, however covertly, that the poem has two makers, God (the divine “dictator”) and himself (the human “scribe”). The notion that he thus portrays his own hand writing the poem finds support in Rime CXIV.8, Dante's answer to a sonnet from Cino da Pistoia, in which he portrays his tired fingers grasping the pen with which he writes his own responsive sonnet. Recently (25 Feb. 2006) John Scott was kind enough to call the present writer's attention to the following relevant passage from an encyclopedist whose work Dante nearly certainly knew. His self-presentation is remarkably similar to what is here being proposed as Dante's in this tercet: “Si quis querat huius operis quis autor, dicendum est quia Deus; si querat huius operis quis fuerit instrumentum, respondendum est quia patria pisanus, nomine Uguitio quasi eugetio, idest bona terra [...]. Igitur Sancti Spiritus assistente gratia, ut qui est omnium bonorum distributor nobis verborum copiam auctim suppeditare dignetur, a verbo augmenti nostre assertionis auspicium sortiamur” (Uguccione da Pisa, Derivationes, ed. Enzo Cecchini and others [Florence: SISMEL - Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2004], vol. II, p. 4).

For the sense of this verse, Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 1-9) looks back to the fami, freddi o vigilie that Dante claims to have suffered on behalf of his poem. See Purgatorio XXIX.37-38: “O sacred Virgins, if fasting, cold, or sleepless nights / I've ever suffered for your sake....”

For fuor mi serra (locks me out), see the envoy of Rime CXVI, the so-called “Montanina”: “My mountain song, go your way. Perhaps you will see Florence, my city, that shuts me out from her [che fuor di sè mi serra], void of love and stripped of compassion” (tr. Foster and Boyde). The self-citation was first noted by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 4-6).

And see Giuseppe Velli (“Petrarca, Dante, la poesia classica: 'Ne la stagion che'l ciel rapido inchina' [RVF, L] 'Io son venuto al punto de la rota' (Rime, C),” Studi petrarcheschi 15 [2002.1]: 88), first demonstrating a clear dependency of elements in Rime C, “Io son venuto,” very likely the first among the rime petrose to be composed, on Ovid's Tristia, and then, p. 92, for the curious relationship among Virgil (Georgics III.365), several lines of Ovid's in the Tristia and ex Ponto, “Io son venuto” (Rime C.60-61), Inf. XXXIII.22, and this verse.

The figurative speech is oversimplified and dramatic: Florence as “sheepfold,” youthful Dante as “lamb,” his enemies (Black Guelphs, others) as “wolves.”

altra voce... altro vello: lit., deeper voice and facial hair or gray hair (see Dante, Eclogue I.42-44) of the mature man; metaphorically, with prophetic speech and this book, written on vellum (?); in addition, new “golden fleece” (see Ovid, Metam. VI.720: “vellera,” and Dante, in his first Eclogue [II.1]: “Velleribus Colchis” [Colchian fleece]) – Dante as Jason (cf. Par. II.16-18; XXXIII.94-96).

See Giuseppe Velli (“Dante e la memoria della poesia classica,” Annali della Facoltà di lettere e di filosofia della Università di Macerata 22-23 [1989-90], pp. 36-38) for the possible echo in Dante's voce and vello of Statius's use of these two words in Thebaid II.96.

Tommaseo (comm. to this tercet) was perhaps the first to point to a passage in Dante's first Eclogue, which is addressed to Giovanni del Virgilio, who had made a conditional invitation that he come to Bologna to receive the poet's crown there. In that poem Dante says (vv. 42-44): “Nonne triumphales melius pexare capillos, / et, patrio redeam si quando, abscondere canos / fronde sub inserta solitum flavescere, Sarno?” (Were it not better my triumphant locks should hide beneath the green their hoariness, erst auburn-glowing, by the ancestral stream, should ever I return to deck them there, of Arno? [tr. Wicksteed and Gardner]). It seems evident that either this passage is reflected in that one – unless, as seems less likely, this one was written after that one. In any case, it seems clear that Dante was much involved with thoughts reflecting both Mussato's laureation in 1315 and his own desire for that reward, whether before Giovanni's goading offer or after it. See the note to verse 1.

“in sul fonte... battesimo”: John Scott, in an e-mail in 2005, points to an observation made by Augustine Thompson (Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes 1125-1325 [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005], pp. 26-27: “Baptism, above all else, identified the first church of the city. For thirteenth-century Italians, too, the religious heart of the commune was not the cathedral but the baptistery. [...] Until the mid-1900s, all Florentines received baptism [there].”

In this use of the word poeta, we have the closest Dante ever comes to calling himself “poet” outright, though he has been issuing statements that all but said as much as early as Vita nuova XXV. No vernacular writer of lyric had ever used this term for himself before; it is traditionally reserved for the classical (Latin and Greek) poets.

Exactly what Dante means by this word has been a matter of some dispute. See Paola Rigo (Memoria classica e memoria biblica in Dante [Florence: Olschki, 1994]), pp. 135-63) for a complex meditation on possible meanings of the poet's putting on the cappello (“crown,” according to her, in the sense of “reward for accomplishment in poetry”), in which she advances the theory that it refers most significantly to Dante's desire to be given back his Florentine citizenship. Edoardo Fumagalli (“Canto XXV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 395-96) resuscitates Francesco Novati's study of this passage (“La suprema aspirazione di Dante,” in his Indagini e postille dantesche. Serie prima [Bologna: Zanichelli, 1899], pp. 73-113). Novati had argued that Dante could not have hoped to be granted the laurel for a poem written in the vernacular, citing Mussato's Paduan coronation in 1315 for a Latin work that was deemed appropriate for such reward, while Dante must have realized that his vernacular poem would not be (a very weak argument, one wants to add). What he really wanted, Novati continued, was an “advanced degree” from the as yet unfounded Florentine university. Apparently, Novati has a precursor down this errant path. Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) cites from G. Todeschini at some length and to the same effect (Dante longed to be “Professor Alighieri”) before canceling his ticket.

For an earlier self-laureation, see Horace, Odes (III.30: “Exegi monumentum aere perennius,” which, the last poem in the third book of the collection, ends (vv. 14-16) with “Sume superbiam / quaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica / lauro cinge uolens, Melpomene, comam. The word cappello is now generally acknowledged to derive from OF chaplet, ”garland“; cf. Decameron I.i, the name of the scandalous protagonist Cepparello transmogrified by the Burgundians into Ciappelletto, from chaplet. Whatever one may eventually decide cappello may mean, one will probably not admire or accept Giuseppe Mazzotta's phrasing: ”poetic hat“ (”Dante and the Virtues of Exile,“ Poetics Today 5 [1984], p. 645).

Kevin Brownlee (”Why the Angels Speak Italian: Dante as Vernacular Poeta in Paradiso XXV,“ Poetics Today 5 [1984]: 597-610) finds a pattern of authorial strategy in the Commedia marked by an increasing use of the vernacular in religious contexts, in order to endow Italian with the authority to stand beside Latin for serious purposes and, along with this, an exaltation of Dante's status to that of poeta. Brownlee argues that this concern first surfaces in Vita Nuova XXV, then in Inferno XXV, in Purgatorio XXV, and culminates here in Paradiso XXV.

Whatever we make of the first nine verses (e.g., do they present Dante's hunger for a not truly Christian poetic immortality or his shrugging it off?), this tercet says the ”right“ things about the ”right“ kind of immortality. He wants to be ”crowned“ in the Baptistry because it was there he entered the Catholic faith. His belief in Jesus Christ has just now (Par. XXIV.152) been celebrated when his temples were thrice circled by St. Peter, named for the first time since his appearance in the last lines of Canto XXIII.

While James is never named, he is clearly identified (the same will be true of John at the end of this canto and in XXVI).

The spera (circle) referred to is surely that most precious one among those making up the Church Triumphant (see Par. XXIV.13-18 and note), the one containing at least some of the apostles. For primizie (first-fruits), see James 1:18: ”Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.“ James is speaking of all the apostles; here Dante uses his word in the singular to refer to Peter alone.

For the term barone, see the note to Paradiso XXIV.115.

”St. James, to whose tomb at Compostella, in Galicia [Spain], pilgrimages were and are still made. The legend says that the body of St. James was put on board a ship and abandoned to the sea; but the ship, being guided by an angel, landed safely in Galicia. There the body was buried; but in the course of time the place of its burial was forgotten, and not discovered again till the year 800, when it was miraculously revealed to a friar“ (Longfellow, comm. to verse 17). Compostella, after Rome, was the most popular goal of pilgrims inside Europe's borders. See Dante's divisions of pilgrims into three groups in Vita nuova XL.7: ”palmers“ (to the Holy Land), ”pilgrims“ (to Galicia), ”romers“ (to Rome).

What was Dante's knowledge of the distinctions between the two saints named James? Historians distinguish between James the Major (son of Zebedee) and James the Minor (son of Alpheus). For the undeveloped claim (and death has deprived us of such development) that Dante here deliberately conflates the two James, see Karl Uitti (”The Codex Calixtinus and the European St. James the Major: Some Contextual Issues,“ in ”De sens rassis“: Essays in Honor of Rupert T. Pickens, ed. Keith Busby et al. [Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005], p. 650n.).

See R.A. Shoaf (”Dante's colombi and the Figuralism of Hope in the Divine Comedy,“ Dante Studies 93 [1975]: 27-59), who argues for the presence of a ”dove program“ in the poem, moving from the damned sinners Francesca and Paolo in Inferno V.82, through the muddled saved souls on the shore, unable to distinguish between wheat and tares in Purgatorio II.125, to these brotherly apostles, redeeming earthly affection by turning it toward heavenly nourishment (see Par. XXIV.1-2, ”the elect invited to / the glorious supper of the blessèd Lamb“), thus tacitly rebuking the careless eating habits of the freshly saved souls on the shore of Purgatory. There are only these three presences of doves in the poem, each in a carefully turned simile, one to a canticle; it is difficult to believe Dante was not paying close attention to their distribution and significance.

The reader has once before encountered the first word of the Latin phrase coram me (in front of me): See Paradiso XI.63: coram patre, when, ”in the presence of his father,“ Francis ”married“ Lady Poverty.

Tozer (comm. to vv. 29-30) says that the passages in St. James's epistle that are referred to are 1:5, ”If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him“; 1:17, ”Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights“; other commentators add 2:5, ”Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom?“ Tozer continues, ”It is to be remarked that Dante has here and in vv. 76-77, by a strange error, attributed this epistle, which was written by St. James the Less, to St. James the Greater; the same mistake is found in Brunetto Latini (Tesoro, Bk. II, Ch. 8).“ For the favor of Jesus, Grandgent (comm. to vv. 32-33) offers the following: ”Three of the disciples (Peter, James, John) were chosen by Jesus to be present, and to receive the clearest revelation of his character, on three different occasions: at the Transfiguration (Matth. 17:1-8), in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matth. 26:36-38), and at the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Luke 8:50-56). On these three occasions Peter, James, and John stand respectively for Faith, Hope, and Love.“

The Greek word ”basilica“ is defined by Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 29-30) as Domus regia (royal palace). Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 28-30) says that Beatrice is referring to the Church Triumphant (in the Empyrean, if it is now present here).

For James as the ”figure“ of Hope in the technical sense (i.e., he is said to ”figure“ it), see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's ”Commedia“ [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], pp. 64-66). For his more general association with hope, see Achille Tartaro (”Il Canto XXV,“ in ”Paradiso“: Letture degli anni 1979-81, ed. S. Zennaro [Rome: Bonacci, 1989], p. 680), referring to the earlier arguments of Davide Conrieri (”San Giacomo e la speranza: osservazioni su Paradiso XXV, vv. 13-99,“ Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 148 [1971]: 309-15) and Lucia Battaglia Ricci (”Paradiso XXV, 86-96,“ Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 149 [1972]: 333-38).

James, lending his presence to that of Peter, is the one who speaks.

The plain meaning of this circumlocution is that, at the invitation of James, Dante looked up at both apostles, since he had at first lowered his gaze in respect. See Psalm 120:1: ”Levavi oculos meos in montes, unde veniet auxilium mihi“ (I have lifted up my eyes to the hills, whence shall come my help).

One might paraphrase the apostle's words as follows: ”Since the Emperor, in his grace, wants you to see his counts in his most secret hall while you still live so that, experiencing the truth of this court, you may make yourself stronger in Hope – and others, too.“ For the language of worldly titles, used of the members of the ”court“ of Heaven, see the note to Paradiso XXIV.115.

James asks the protagonist three questions: (1) ”What is Hope?“ (2) ”How does your mind blossom with it?“ (3) ”From where did it make its way to you?“

In the poet's barely suppressed reference to Daedalus, Beatrice is portrayed as having done well in guiding Dante's pens/wings to such lofty flight. She now intervenes for him, answering James's second question – perhaps because it would have been awkward for Dante to have responded, since his answer might have seemed self-praising.

Giuseppe Mazzotta (”Teologia ed esegesi biblica [Par. III-V],“ in Dante e la Bibbia, ed. G. Barblan [Florence: Olschki, 1988], p. 98) sees this passage as confirming the pattern of Exodus as a model for the poem, as has already been made explicit in Purgatorio II.46. It also contains two (of only three) uses of the verb militare in the poem. We are dealing here with an armed exodus, a Christian militancy. The other text, Paradiso XII.35, refers to the conjoined militancy of Dominic and Francis.

Beatrice presents Dante's claims to the theological virtue of Hope. Inscribed in Christ, he has been chosen to come from ”Egypt“ to ”Jerusalem“ and to this vision before he finishes his militancy (Daniello [comm. to vv. 55-57] was apparently the first commentator to cite Job 7:1 in this connection: ”Militia est vita hominis super terram“ [Man's life on this earth is a warfare]; Lombardi [comm. to verse 57] and Scartazzini [comm. to verse 57] also cite these words. It has since become fairly commonplace to do so).

Beatrice continues: As for the first and third questions, which you put to him not to know the answer but so that he may please you in his responses (cf. Par. XXIV.40-45), and which will not be difficult for him, let him reply.

See Singleton (comm. to this tercet): ”The definition of hope given by Dante here is that of Peter Lombard in Sentences III.xxvi.1: 'Est enim spes certa expectatio futurae beatitudinis, veniens ex Dei gratia et meritis praecedentibus' (Now hope is a certain expectation of future beatitude proceeding from God's grace and antecedent merits). He adds: 'Sine meritis aliquid sperare non spes sed praesumptio dici potest' (Without merits, to hope for something is not hope but presumption).“

See Psalm 9:11: ”And those who know your name shall put their trust in you [sperent in te]).“ The protagonist credits David with being the first who had instilled hope in his heart, and then James (James 1:12) instilled it there, too, so that Dante is filled with it and ”rerains“ both of these ”rains“ on others.

William Stephany (”Paradiso XXV,“ in Dante's ”Divine Comedy,“ Introductory Readings III: ”Paradiso,“ ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], pp. 377-78) invites a closer examination of these two tercets, which reveal, first, hidden in the words describing David's tëodia, Augustine's association of the name of God and hope; second, in the very words of the Epistle of James (see the note to Inf. XXVI.32 for the presence of James 3:4-6 behind that tercet), the imperative to be a maker of words producing a love for God, an imperative fulfilled by Dante's tëodia as well.

See Michel David (”Dante et sa théodie,“ in Omaggio a Gianfranco Folena, ed. Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo [Padua: Editoriale Programma, 1993]), pp. 441-44) on tëodia as a ”chant provenant de Dieu“ (song deriving from God) and as being, sub rosa, a generic denominator of the poem. But see Teodolinda Barolini's earlier (and fuller) exposition of this theme (Dante's Poets [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984], pp. 276-77).

James responds to Dante's formulation with an accepting lightning flash.

See Tozer (comm. to vv. 83-84) for a paraphrase and explanation: ”St. James is still kindled with love for the virtue of Hope, though the Blessed can no longer feel hope themselves, because they have fruition; la palma: the palm of martyrdom, l'uscir del campo: his quitting the field of battle was his death. St. James was put to death by Herod Agrippa the Elder, Acts 12:1-2.“

Tozer (comm. to vv. 91-93): ”Isaiah 61:7: 'Therefore in their land they shall possess the double; everlasting joy shall be unto them.' Dante interprets 'the double' as meaning the blessedness of soul and body; cf. doppia vesta here with due stole in l. 127.“ And see John (in Apoc. 3:5 and Apoc. 7:9-17), speaking more directly of the general resurrection.

Stephany (”Paradiso XXV,“ in Dante's ”Divine Comedy,“ Introductory Readings III: ”Paradiso,“ ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], p. 381) suggests that, although not cited directly in this canto, Isaiah 61 offers an indirect gloss on it. In Luke 4, Jesus reads from this chapter of Isaiah in the temple; when he sees that his words are offensive he insists that ”no prophet is honored in his native land“ (Luke 4:24), words that certainly must have seemed to the exiled poet to fit his own condition as well.

Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi (”'Le bianche stole': il tema della resurrezione nel Paradiso,“ in Dante e la Bibbia, ed. G. Barblan [Florence: Olschki, 1988], p. 266n.) writes that segno here means, not termine a cui si tende or meta (”goal“), as is supposedly the ”general understanding among exegetes“ of this verse, but ”sign,“ citing Torraca (comm. to vv. 88-90) as her precursor. However, consultation of the full and sensible review of the problem by Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 88-90) would have revealed an earlier, better, and more convincing understanding of the line, taken in precisely this sense. Further, examination of the commentary tradition reveals that as long ago as the early fourteenth century readers like the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 88-89) possessed exactly such an understanding.

For a meditation upon resurrection, so clearly referred to here, as being the central concern of the entire poem, see Chiavacci Leonardi (”'Le bianche stole': il tema della resurrezione nel Paradiso,“ in Dante e la Bibbia, ed. G. Barblan [Florence: Olschki, 1988], pp. 249-71).

For the two previous appearances of the phrase dolce vita, see the note to Paradiso IV.35.

For the ”shining robes,“ see Apocalypse 3:5 and 7:9-17. And for the concept of the glorified body, see Manuele Gragnolati (Experiencing the Afterlife [Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2005], p. 198; also pp. 165-66, discussing St. James).

Among the commentators, only Carroll (comm. to these verses) looks up from this Latin ”translation“ of the vernacular version of a line from the ninth Psalm, which we have heard in verse 73, to think of Psalm 30, also involving hope in the Lord. This is what he has to say: ”It is probably meant to be the reversal of the incident in the Earthly Paradise.... There, when the Angels, pitying Dante's distress, sang 'In te, Domine, speravi,' they were promptly silenced by Beatrice – he had then no title to hope. Now everything is changed. Beatrice herself proclaims him a child of hope.“

The identity of the singer(s) of the words of the Psalm is not given. The commentators are universally puzzled (if only Chimenz [comm. to vv. 97-99] has the good sense to complain that Dante had left the issue unresolved and problematic). It is thus perhaps necessary to assume that angels, whether in the ninth sphere or, as seems more likely, in the Empyrean, are their source. The only human souls above them now are Jesus and Mary. And while one cannot rule out the possibility that it is one of them that we hear (or even both of them), that does not seem likely, nor has anyone, perhaps, ever argued for that solution. And so an angelic voice or group of voices is probably an acceptable solution, but not one that there is consensus about. However, the inhabitants of the ”spheres“ (circles) of the Church Triumphant are probably ruled out, since they are now here in the eighth heaven and not up above. It is as though whoever, singular or plural, is doing that singing, were answering Dante's Italian version of the Psalm in Latin, as though to underline his acceptance as a hopeful member of the Church.

For the dazzling brightness of John's transfigured body, Paget Toynbee (”Of the Legend of St. John the Evangelist [Par. XXV.100-2; 112-24],“ in his Dante Studies [Oxford: Clarendon, 1921 {1905}], pp. 92-95) refers to the legendary accounts found, for instance, in Vincent of Beauvais (whom he cites), Petrus Comestor, and Jacopo da Varagine.

He is so bright that were the constellation Cancer (which shines all night from mid-December to mid-January) to have in it a single star as bright, it would turn one month into unbroken ”day.“

See Grandgent (comm. to vv. 103-111): ”The three representatives of the Christian virtues dance before Beatrice, as the Virtues themselves did (in allegorical form) in Purg. XXIX.121-129.“ Grandgent's words are repeated verbatim, if without attribution, by Singleton (comm. to vv. 103-111).

John joins his fellow apostles (Peter and James) in song as Beatrice, as bride, looks on.

The references are to the disciple who leaned on Jesus (John 13:23) and who was chosen by Christ on the cross to care for Mary (John 19:27). The pelican seemed a fitting image of Christ because the bird was supposed to feed its young by piercing its own breast with its beak to feed them with its blood. The bird is mentioned (if not with these characteristics) in Psalm 101:7 (102:6). For a fairly extensive note devoted to Christ as pelican, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 100-114).

Dante's blindness, as Carroll observes (comm. to these verses), is a form of punishment for his vain curiosity about the bodily condition of the apostle's soul; he goes on to note that it is curious that Thomas (ST suppl., q. 77, a. 1, ad 2) supports the truth of the legend.

John says that his body has returned to earth as clay, and will so remain until the general resurrection; only Christ and Mary are in Heaven in the flesh, as Dante is instructed to tell those ”back home“ whom he shall meet when he returns. Tozer (comm. to vv. 127-129) claims that Dante has ignored Enoch and Elijah, of whom Scriptures affirm a presence in the Empyrean in the flesh; however, and as others point out, the texts involving Enoch (Gen. 5:24; Heb. 11:5) and Elijah (IV Re [II Kings] 2:3) make a less dramatic claim: both of them are in a place apart (the earthly paradise in some medieval legends), but not in Heaven.

Rachel Jacoff (”Dante and the Legend[s] of St. John,“ Dante Studies 117 [1999]: 52) believes that Dante cancels the version of the tale that has John being in Heaven in his flesh in order to privilege Mary. (When one considers that we are probably meant to share the understanding that the protagonist is on this journey in his flesh, one has to stifle a chuckle at his temporary ”superiority“ in this regard to St. John.)

John, who is the very model of the biblical scribe (see, e.g., Apoc. 22:18-19) here has become the dictator, with Dante acting as his scribe. He specifically licenses Dante to write the words he has just written.

Poletto (comm. to these verses), citing Casini, is the first commentator to find the original of this simile in Statius, mentioning Thebaid IV.804-807 and VI.799-801. But see Porena (comm. to these verses [actually his second ”nota finale“ to this canto in the printed version of his commentary]), who attacks such attributions as ”scholarship“ run amok. (Torraca [comm. to these verses] had previously suggested as much, if a bit more gently.) Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 133-135) are in accord with Porena. However, it should be pointed out that Porena does not discuss the Statian simile that is closest to Dante's text (that in the sixth book), but deals with the one in Thebaid IV and another not adduced by Poletto (Theb. X.774-777).

Our translation reflects James Gaffney's suggestion (”Dante's Blindness in Paradiso XXV-XXVI: An Allegorical Interpretation,“ Dante Studies 91 [1973]: 111) that the verb, si quietò, preserves the ambiguity between sound and movement. In May of 2003 Mike Addis, Princeton '05, suggested that these imagined and orderly oarsmen seem opposed in some way to those who propelled Ulysses on his folle volo in Inferno XXVI, careening wildly across unknown seas.

See Acts 9:7, when Saul's companions, ”hearing a voice but seeing no man,“ try to see Jesus. We may want to remember that John, as visionary, was frequently portrayed as ”blind“ (see, e.g., Purg. XXIX.143-144), a familiar iconographical representation of inner sight.