Coming to the end of his conversation with Cacciaguida, Dante’s heart is heavy. But Beatrice comforts him, and as he looks at her she becomes even more radiant as she reflects the rays of Eternal Joy into his face. Dante is dazzled by her beauty, but she reminds him that Paradise is not only to be found in her eyes. Cacciaguida concludes his meeting with Dante by pointing out various famous souls whose lights sparkle brightly in the great cross as he names them. Then Cacciaguida rejoins them. Looking at Beatrice for some direction, Dante realizes that her beauty is increasing because they are rising even farther into the heavenly realms. Now at the sphere of Jupiter, they witness countless spirits flying above them creating letters which spell out the first words of the Book of Wisdom: Diligite iustitiam, qui judicatis terram (Love justice you who judge the earth.) To Dante’s amazement, the last letter of these words gradually changes into the shape of a great eagle. Seeing this, Dante makes a short apostrophe against Church leaders who forsake justice in favor of money.
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That sainted mirror continued to reflect the brilliance of God as he quietly rejoiced in his own thoughts while mine were mingled together – the bitter ones and the sweet.[1]This is a moment of quiet, where Cacciaguida is the “mirror” who, like all the Saints in Heaven, reflects the glory of God. Dante, too, is reflective as he ponders (literally tastes) the bitter … Continue reading And then that lovely lady leading me to God spoke gently: “Put your heavy thoughts to rest. Think about other things, and remember that I live with the One Who lifts up those who suffer from the burdens they carry.” Her compassionate words made me turn around, and such tender love within those eyes of hers greeted me then that I don’t think I can express it clearly. Not only that, but I fear that I could never rise my thoughts again to such heights without God’s help. All I know is this: as I stood there looking at her she was gazing at the Eternal Joy and reflecting it directly into my face. At that moment every other care was lifted from my heart. Then, dazzling me with her gorgeous smile, she spoke again: “Turn around now and listen to your blessed sire, for Paradise is not only in my eyes.”[2]Understanding the weight of Dante’s thoughts because she can see them in the Mind of God, Beatrice reminds him that the God with whom she is united is mindful of those who suffer. Her words bring … Continue reading
Sometimes it happens that a person’s eyes will convey their heart’s wishes to another if they are wished with the strength to capture another’s soul. Just so, as the sacred fire of my ancestor flamed up before me, I saw that he desired to say more to me.[3]Observe how having experienced the depth of Beatrice’s loving eyes, and how they captured Dante with her compassion and tenderness without speaking, so now, he sees Cacciaguida’s soul burn more … Continue reading “Here at this fifth level of Heaven’s great tree, whose leaves never shed, whose life pours down from above, and whose fruit is always ripe, live blessèd spirits who were so famous before they came here that any poet would be glad to write about them.[4]We are already familiar with various tree images from the Purgatorio, e.g., the fruited trees (one watered from above) tantalizing the gluttons (one of them an offshoot of the tree of knowledge), the … Continue reading Look up now and gaze upon the arms of our cross and see the souls flash brightly as I name them.” And as he named Joshua I saw a great light flash across the cross and disappear.[5]This heavenly light show highlights eight great warriors of the faith and begins with Joshua, the successor of Moses, who led the Israelites into the Promised Land. When he pointed out the great Maccabee another great light flamed out with joy.[6]This is Judas Maccabeus, the oldest of the heroic brothers who led the Jewish revolt against the tyranny of Syria in the second century BC. As he continued, I followed the brilliant lights of Charlemagne[7]Eighth-century King of the Franks and Lombards and first of the Holy Roman Emperors. and Roland[8]A nephew of Charlemagne, one of his great knights, and hero of the Medieval epic poem, The Song of Roland. as hunters might watch their falcons soaring. After these came William of Orange,[9]A contemporary of Charlemagne, and one of his advisors, famous in the Medieval French chansons de geste, epic poems celebrating famous military figures and their deeds. Renouard[10]Said to be a companion of William, a character in one of the many chansons de geste, and a convert from Islam, but probably not a historical figure. and the Duke Godfrey,[11]He led the first Crusade (1091) and became the first King of Jerusalem. and Robert Guiscard.[12]He defeated the Saracens in southern Italy and Sicily in the second half of the eleventh century. Then, finally, that great light who had so honored me by his presence moved back into that holy cross of lights letting me hear his beautiful voice as he joined that heavenly choir.[13]Recall that toward the end of Canto 14, as Dante first took in the immense Cross of the Spirits, he heard them singing a great anthem of which he could only comprehend the words “Arise and … Continue reading
I turned toward Beatrice now to get from her a sense of what she thought I should do next. But what a sight greeted me: her eyes were filled with such a great new brilliance – such joy, such purity – that she was now more beautiful than I had ever seen her! And just as a man who does good every day feels virtue growing in him, so, seeing Beatrice more luminous like that I realized that I was now moving into a much larger sphere of the heavens. As when the blush fades from a fair lady’s face, a transformation took place all around us as we now entered the soft glowing light of Jupiter.[14]Realizing that their visit to Mars is over, Dante turns to his guide to see what comes next. Once again, she overwhelms him with the beauty and brilliance of God whom she sees, making her more … Continue reading
Within that jovial planet there sparkled the lights of countless rejoicing souls forming themselves into words for me to read. Like great flocks of birds that rise into the sky after feeding along a river bank, forming different patterns as they fly, so those blessèd spirits whirled here and there in great masses as they sang and shaped themselves into letters – a D first, then an I, and then an L. They made these letters as they followed the rhythm of their music and then kept the form and stopped singing for a while.[15]So many unusual things happen to greet Dante’s arrival at Jupiter. First, note the pun with the word jovial. Like the Great Cross of Souls in Mars, here we have countless rejoicing souls forming … Continue reading
O holy Muse of Pegasus, you inspire men of genius and give them glory and long life, and they, in turn, spread their genius everywhere. Let it be that your holy light shall shine on me so that I might keep these letters in my mind and thus let your power flow through my poem![16]From time to time in the Poem, Dante has made these kinds of invocations, both to acknowledge the classical power of the gods and Muses, and to call upon them to empower him. This is the sixth … Continue reading All the while those flying lights continued to write for me in thirty-five letters I was able to put into words. The first words they wrote were DILIGITE IUSTITIAM, and these were followed by the words QUI IUDICATIS TERRAM.[17]The letter-writing spirits continue forming words until they have written the first line from the Book of Wisdom in the Bible: “Love Justice, you who judge the earth.” And Robert Hollander notes … Continue reading
But that was not all.[18]Here Dante, the poetic virtuoso, unleashes his imagination and something marvelous happens. The golden M of the final letter remained stable as the silver of the Jovian sphere became a background for it. Now more spirits came and settled upon that M, singing from its top about the goodness of God who summoned them there.[19]It would seem from what was noted earlier that only one letter at a time of this biblical sentence was formed while the previous letter faded, Dante, obviously remembering each of them. Each letter … Continue reading Then, just as thousands of sparks fly upward when a smoldering log is poked (in which foolish seers saw omens), so thousands of glowing spirits rose up to different heights as God chose, finding their place and shaping for me the head and neck of a great eagle made in those fiery sparks of light.[20]Like other “ordinary” experiences Dante has lifted up into his Poem, the image of poking a smoldering log and the resulting shower of sparks fits perfectly here. In Dante’s day there were … Continue reading The Artist who paints here has no need for a guiding hand. He is Himself the Guide. It is He who instills in birds the skill to build their nests. The rest of those blessèd spirits shaped themselves into wings like a lily and completed the great bird.[21]The Artist, of course, is God, who needs no help in his work as Creator, and whose creative work can be as unseen as the instinct of birds to build their nests – which are, themselves, works of … Continue reading
O lovely star, bedecked with countless jeweled souls – it is from you that earthly justice derives. And so I pray to that Mind, where your power and movement arise, to find where that smoke arises that overshadows your effects. Let its wrath once more fall down upon those who buy and sell in the Temple of your Church built with miracles and martyrs. O Soldiers of Heaven, raise your prayers for those on earth who are led astray by the bad example of the Church’s leaders. In olden times wars were fought with swords. Now their weapon is the very Bread of Life, which they withhold from those whom our Heavenly Father never denies it! And remember, you who threaten and then rescind excommunications, Peter and Paul died to save the vineyard you are plundering. But they are alive in this kingdom – and you reply: “I care only for the florin on whose face the image of the Baptist is stamped. I know neither the Fisherman nor Paul!”[22]Again, as with the other planets, Dante references the influencing power of Jupiter and all the souls he sees here, asking that they continue to fill the administration of earthly justice with its … Continue reading
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | This is a moment of quiet, where Cacciaguida is the “mirror” who, like all the Saints in Heaven, reflects the glory of God. Dante, too, is reflective as he ponders (literally tastes) the bitter prophecies (exile, etc.) and the sweet ones (the divine plan includes the lasting fame of his Poem). |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Understanding the weight of Dante’s thoughts because she can see them in the Mind of God, Beatrice reminds him that the God with whom she is united is mindful of those who suffer. Her words bring to mind those of Jesus in the Gospel of St. Matthew (11:28): “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” Hearing her speak, he turns to look at her and, again, he is so stunned by the love in her tender gaze that he’s left without words to describe it. No wonder: all the while, as we know, she’s looking directly at God and, like a mirror, she reflects more of what she sees than he can handle and he forgets his earlier concerns. Breaking this small “Beatrice moment” into sequential pieces, Dante is at first stunned by her eyes and left speechless. Now, she smiles, and he’s left undone. But in a moment of heavenly humor, she directs him to look back at Cacciaguida, reminding him that heaven’s glory isn’t only in her eyes. There’s much more. As he was reminded in Canto 3 (88f), “every where (sic) in Heaven is Paradise.” Beatrice’s eyes and smiles will return, even more powerfully. |
| ↑3 | Observe how having experienced the depth of Beatrice’s loving eyes, and how they captured Dante with her compassion and tenderness without speaking, so now, he sees Cacciaguida’s soul burn more brightly as a sign that he has more to say. |
| ↑4 | We are already familiar with various tree images from the Purgatorio, e.g., the fruited trees (one watered from above) tantalizing the gluttons (one of them an offshoot of the tree of knowledge), the trees in the earthly paradise, the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge. Dante calls these images back to mind in Cacciaguida’s comparison of Heaven to a great tree. And note that this heavenly tree is always in season, nourished from above, from the Empyrean, the abode of God. The “fruit” of these trees are souls, and in the case of this tree (Mars) there are famous spirits, worthy of great epics. |
| ↑5 | This heavenly light show highlights eight great warriors of the faith and begins with Joshua, the successor of Moses, who led the Israelites into the Promised Land. |
| ↑6 | This is Judas Maccabeus, the oldest of the heroic brothers who led the Jewish revolt against the tyranny of Syria in the second century BC. |
| ↑7 | Eighth-century King of the Franks and Lombards and first of the Holy Roman Emperors. |
| ↑8 | A nephew of Charlemagne, one of his great knights, and hero of the Medieval epic poem, The Song of Roland. |
| ↑9 | A contemporary of Charlemagne, and one of his advisors, famous in the Medieval French chansons de geste, epic poems celebrating famous military figures and their deeds. |
| ↑10 | Said to be a companion of William, a character in one of the many chansons de geste, and a convert from Islam, but probably not a historical figure. |
| ↑11 | He led the first Crusade (1091) and became the first King of Jerusalem. |
| ↑12 | He defeated the Saracens in southern Italy and Sicily in the second half of the eleventh century. |
| ↑13 | Recall that toward the end of Canto 14, as Dante first took in the immense Cross of the Spirits, he heard them singing a great anthem of which he could only comprehend the words “Arise and Conquer.” Since then, he has devoted 550 lines to his Cacciaguida who, now singing with a beautiful voice, rejoins that choir of spirits. This great finale marks the end of his time at Mars and an amazing experience for Dante. He met his great-great-grandfather, heard a long narrative lesson about old Florentine history, had an explanation of the dark prophecies about himself he heard in Hell and Purgatory, and was reassured that his great Poem will survive to become a classic. Cacciaguida named eight great warriors of the faith and he now joins them as the ninth. Note that nine is a structurally significant number in the Comedy: there are nine circles of Hell, nine levels of Purgatory, and nine spheres in Paradise. And nine is the sum of three threes, three being a symbol for the Trinity. |
| ↑14 | Realizing that their visit to Mars is over, Dante turns to his guide to see what comes next. Once again, she overwhelms him with the beauty and brilliance of God whom she sees, making her more beautiful than he’s ever seen her. Seeing in her wondrous aspect an affirmation of his virtuous strivings, he realizes that they are moving upward as a transformation takes place all around them. As we’ve seen (and will see) throughout the Paradiso, Beatrice increases in beauty the higher they ascend. The image of the blush fading from a lovely woman’s face emphasizes the move from the reddish color of Mars to the silvery white of Jupiter, our next stop. |
| ↑15 | So many unusual things happen to greet Dante’s arrival at Jupiter. First, note the pun with the word jovial. Like the Great Cross of Souls in Mars, here we have countless rejoicing souls forming words for the Poet to read. The basic image he’s using here is of a massive murmuration of starlings (see http //www.murmuration of starlings.com). At sunset, hundreds of thousands of these birds fly around in great black clouds, constantly changing into amazingly convoluted shapes. Dante had obviously seen this event in nature and uses it here to great effect. And, again, all the spirits are singing as they happily write words and letters in the sky. Here they shape themselves into the letters D, I, and L. Dante is very clever here. Observe that the singing souls fly upward and gradually form a letter of the alphabet. Then they stop singing and pause before they sing again and form the next letter, giving Dante time to read the one they’ve formed. Recall also that, while the planets do not have a direct effect on our lives, they do have influences: Venus for love, Mars for courage, and now Jupiter for joviality. |
| ↑16 | From time to time in the Poem, Dante has made these kinds of invocations, both to acknowledge the classical power of the gods and Muses, and to call upon them to empower him. This is the sixth invocation, with two in Hell, two in Purgatory, and two so far in Paradise. There will be more. Pegasus, the winged horse of mythology, is said to have struck his hoof on the ground of Mt. Helicon creating the fountain of Hippocrene, sacred to the Muses who resided there. At the same time, there is considerable debate among commentators as to which of the Muses Dante invokes here because there are several possible candidates. On the other hand, he might simply be calling on all of them. My choice falls on Calliope, the Muse of Epic Poetry, the oldest of the nine, and the most prominent. In his commentary, Robert Martinez also notes here: “The grand upsurge of the invocation derives from the idea of the flight of the great winged horse as that of poetry, mirroring the flight of the birdlike souls but greatly enlarging the symbol.” Dante also highlights how this Muse inspires men of genius and prays that she will inspire him too, particularly as he will strive to incorporate the meaning and significance of the letters he’s reading in the sky into his Poem. |
| ↑17 | The letter-writing spirits continue forming words until they have written the first line from the Book of Wisdom in the Bible: “Love Justice, you who judge the earth.” And Robert Hollander notes here: “It seems probable that this is the third passage in the poem to involve a phenomenon that might be described as “visible speech,” formally similar expressions that also prominently involve the idea of justice. This one joins the “visible speech” found in the writing over the gate of Hell (Inf. III.1-9) and the words “seen” in the wall carving presenting Trajan and the widow (Purg. X.73-96).” |
| ↑18 | Here Dante, the poetic virtuoso, unleashes his imagination and something marvelous happens. |
| ↑19 | It would seem from what was noted earlier that only one letter at a time of this biblical sentence was formed while the previous letter faded, Dante, obviously remembering each of them. Each letter was golden. Here, now, the last letter of the sentence is formed, an M. But it does not fade. It most likely becomes more prominent as the silvery sheen of the planet makes for a background while more spirits settle on top of it, all the while singing of the goodness of God. |
| ↑20 | Like other “ordinary” experiences Dante has lifted up into his Poem, the image of poking a smoldering log and the resulting shower of sparks fits perfectly here. In Dante’s day there were fortune-tellers who claimed to see omens in the shower of sparks. As the letter-forming spirits are settling on top of the great M, countless other spirits (sparks) rise up around it, settling in different places as God directs them, slowly shaping the M into the head and neck of an enormous eagle. If the Great Cross of the Spirits at Mars was of immense proportions, one can imagine this eagle is similar to it in size. The letter M was usually interpreted to mean “monarchy,” and coupled with the eagle, it symbolized the Roman Empire. |
| ↑21 | The Artist, of course, is God, who needs no help in his work as Creator, and whose creative work can be as unseen as the instinct of birds to build their nests – which are, themselves, works of art. All the while, the spirits complete their work in shaping the M into the heraldic form of a great eagle. |
| ↑22 | Again, as with the other planets, Dante references the influencing power of Jupiter and all the souls he sees here, asking that they continue to fill the administration of earthly justice with its heavenly affects like integrity, fairness, security, honesty, and stability. The remainder of this canto is an apostrophe against the church and its highest leaders, who corrupt it with their simony, avarice, and bad example, starting with the reference to the buyers and sellers in the Temple. All four Gospels tell the story of Jesus rather violently disrupting the commerce that had infected the Jerusalem Temple, ending with him shouting over the chaos: “And Jesus entered the temple of God, and cast out all those who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold the doves, crying out: ‘My house is a house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of thieves’” (Mt.21:12ff). It’s not too far-fetched to hear Dante saying this about the Vatican of his day. Robert Hollander, in his commentary, calls this section an appendix to Canto 19 in the Inferno, where Dante encountered the simoniacs, including popes. The reference to the Bread of Life as a weapon was the Church’s use of Interdict. In the Middle Ages the Church used Interdict as a way of punishing certain individuals, cities, or regions for serious violations, disobedience, or defiance of religious authority. It was generally used to cause a major disruption of the spiritual life of individuals or a given population as an added pressure to bring about compliance. If a city were placed under Interdict, as Florence was for a time in Dante’s day, all the churches were closed, there would be no celebration of the sacraments (e.g., Baptism, Reconciliation, Eucharist), no weddings or funerals. To weaponize the means by which the faithful gained salvation was a terrible misuse of power and authority. At the same time, as we already know from earlier parts of the Comedy, the Church was far too involved in politics and the affairs of state. Interdict became a political as well as a spiritual weapon. Then Dante excoriates Church authorities for using Excommunication as another weapon. While Interdict cuts a person or city off from the spiritual life of the Church, Excommunication, as its Latin root suggests, cuts one off from the entire Christian community, either for a time or permanently. When he says “you who threaten and then rescind excommunications” he’s referring to payments or other less than honorable forms of satisfaction that would result in the lifting of the ban. Dante is most likely referring to Pope John XXII who, in Dante’s time, did this many times. And this is his reference to plundering the vineyard (the Church) and caring only for the gold florin. Perhaps the worst indictment he can make against the papacy is the very last sentence. It has become so degraded that the Pope only pays heed to the gold florin with the image of St. John the Baptist stamped on it. The great Saints, Peter and Paul, still very much a part of the life of the Church, have been ignored and forgotten. But St. Peter will have the last word in Canto 27. Though Dante seems to single out the Church here for these misuses of power, it would be consistent with his thinking, as he’s shown in other places, to include Kings and other rulers as similar kinds of abusers. |