Frightened by the great shout he heard at the end of the previous Canto, Dante turns to Beatrice for comfort. She reminds him that he is in Heaven and that everything here happens for a holy purpose. The shout, she tells him, was a call for God’s holy retribution against those who corrupt the Church. Soon, one of the glowing souls moves toward Dante and tells him that the power of heavenly love directs him to answer his hidden question. This is the soul of St. Benedict who tells Dante that contemplative souls inhabit this sphere, and he introduces him to two of his early monks. Dante feels empowered to ask a further question: he wants to know if he can actually see St. Benedict’s face. This desire, the Saint tells him, will be fulfilled only in the Empyrean which is beyond space and time, and where every desire comes to its holy perfection. After another brief apostrophe against corrupted monks and Church leaders, the Saint recedes back among his fellow souls and all of them soar back up the great ladder. Beatrice leads Dante right up after them. Dante finds himself in the Constellation of Gemini, his birth star, and prays for the strength to reach the end of his heavenly journey. Before moving on, Beatrice tells Dante to look down through the vast universe and to admire how far they have traveled. Dante is amazed at what he sees, particularly the tiny globe of the Earth amid the immensity of the spheres through which he has traveled with his guide. He then turns back to gaze upon her lovely eyes.
(To read a footnote, click the number in the text. To come back from a footnote, click the up arrow at the note number.)
Hearing such a shout, I turned quickly to Beatrice, like a child who runs back to the one he trusts. And like a mother, whose calm voice reassured her troubled child, she asked: “Have you forgotten that you are in Heaven? Do you not realize that everything here is holy and that everything that happens here has its origin in holy zeal? If such a shout has shaken you so, just imagine if they had sung, or if I had smiled! Within that shout was a prayer which, if you had heard it, would have warned you of the vengeance of God about to come. But you will see it happen before you die. The sword of retribution here cuts neither fast nor slow, except for those who expect it – either in hope or fear. But enough of this. Attend to everything you see around you and let my words guide you for there are many illustrious souls here.”[1]Like a child frightened at the great shout by the souls at the end of the previous canto, Dante looks to Beatrice like a mother for some reassuring explanation. Reminding him that he is in Heaven … Continue reading
As she pointed them out to me, I saw hundreds of small fiery spheres that grew in brilliance the more they shared each other’s light. And once again, fearing to offend, I was forced to rein in the strong desire to speak – until, that is, the most lovely of those fiery globes approached me and answered the question I was stifling. From within that small fire came these words: “If you knew, as I do, the love that burns within us, you would have shared your hidden thoughts with us. Without further delay I am happy to answer your hidden question.[2]In the previous canto, it was the brightly lit spirit of St. Peter Damian who came down the Golden Ladder to speak with Dante. Now, as Beatrice shows them to him, hundreds of fiery globes come down … Continue reading The mountain behind the town of Cassino was once the home to many people of pagan beliefs.[3]The city of Cassino is located about 80 miles south of Rome and half way to Naples. On a high mountaintop behind the city sits the first monastery of the Order of St. Benedict of Nursia (the … Continue reading I was the first one to bring them the name of Him Who became one of us to bring us back to our true home within these heavens. I was filled with such grace and zeal that I succeeded in converting all of them from their evil ways.[4]It is St. Benedict himself who now speaks with Dante. The Poet had obviously read St. Gregory the Great’s biography of him, where he wrote about the Saint’s conversion of the local pagan … Continue reading All these others here with me were contemplative souls, enkindled from up here by the warmth that gives life down there and produces the fruits of holiness. Here I present to you Macarius and Romuald, and here are all my stout-hearted brethren who never abandoned their cloisters.”[5]Rounding out one of Dante’s likely questions about the spirits who have come to meet him in the Sphere of Saturn, St. Benedict tells him that they were all contemplatives, whose vocations to a life … Continue reading
And I replied to him: “Now I feel fully confident to open my heart to you, not only because of the love you have shown in your answer, but for all the good I see shining from within you. Your light is like the sun that warms the rose until it is fully bloomed. In this confidence, then, I ask you, holy father, please tell me whether I am sufficiently worthy to look upon your unveiled face.”[6]Although Dante’s words here are addressed to St. Benedict, we can take them as addressed to all the souls who have come down the Great Ladder to meet him. By virtue of the love and affection he … Continue reading
“My dear brother,” he replied kindly, “this great desire of yours will be fulfilled in the highest of these spheres. In that place every wish is granted and there every desire becomes perfect. That sphere is beyond space, and in that place things are as they have always been. Our ladder here reaches up to such heights, but your sight cannot follow its true extent. However, the patriarch Jacob did see its top when he dreamed of it teeming with angels. Sadly, no one on earth today tries to climb it, and the Rule I wrote for my brothers is all but trash. The walls of our monastic cells now house beasts, and the monks’ cowls are used as sacks filled with rotting grain![7]Note that Dante had addressed his question to St. Benedict as “holy father.” Here, however, Benedict addresses Dante as “my dear brother.” Benedict wants to avoid the verticality of the term … Continue reading
“Terrible as it is, the sin of usury is less offensive to God than the greed that infects monks’ hearts. The goods of the Church are for the care of the poor and needy, not for the families of monks – or worse! Mortal flesh is so weak that it takes the oak less time to sprout acorns than for good intentions to bear fruit. Peter built the Church without money, I built my Order with prayer and fasting, and Francis built his with humility. If you compare the origins of these with what they have become, you will see how the white has become badly faded. And yet the waters of the Jordan flowing backward or the Red Sea split in two are miracles greater than if God now came to the assistance of His Church.”[8]In Dante’s day, and all through earlier Christian history, usury, the lending of money at interest, was considered sinful. Virgil had also explained this to Dante in Cantos 11 and 17 in the … Continue reading
When that holy father finished speaking to me, he withdrew back into the crowd of flaming spirits and, like a whirlwind, all of them were swept back to the highest heaven. And with a simple movement of her hand, Beatrice swept me right up behind them, her greater power overcoming my mortal nature.[9]With hardly a chance to catch one’s breath, this transition scene takes place in an instant. Having finished his condemnation against greedy church figures, St. Benedict and all the contemplative … Continue reading
On earth, we go up and down by natural means, but there was never a speed to match my flight up here. I tell you this, dear Reader, my strongest hope is to return to this holy triumph, and I repent of all my sins to attain a place here. Faster than you could have put your finger in and out of a flame – that quickly were we already in the Zodiac among the stars that follow Taurus.[10]Dante affirms the great speed with which he and Beatrice moved from the Sphere of Saturn to the Heaven of the Fixed Stars: it’s faster, even, than the lightning speed he described in Canto 1 when … Continue reading O glorious Gemini! O stars filled with holy power, O source of my genius: within your holy sign the Sun rose and set when I was born in Tuscany. And as God’s grace enables me to enter this great sphere within which you turn, I rejoice to find myself again among those stars that marked my birth! I humbly pray that you will fill me with some of your power that I might have the strength to travel through this hardest phase of my journey and reach its destined end.[11]The constellation of Gemini is special to Dante because it is the astrological sign under which he was born. Obviously, it’s more than a coincidence that his rising to the Heaven of the Zodiac, … Continue reading
“Do you realize how close you are to that final blessedness toward which we fly,” asked Beatrice? “Therefore, keep your sight clear and your vision sharp.[12]This “final blessedness” is the Empyrean, the Abode of God where Dante will see all the citizens of Heaven. As for keeping his sight clear, one might say that his entire journey through the … Continue reading And before we proceed, take a moment to look down and behold the vast universe that lies beneath your feet, so that your heart, filled with joy, will be ready to meet the rejoicing throngs of God’s Triumphant who now come to meet you.”[13]“But before we go any farther,” Beatrice tells Dante, “look down now at what lies below.” This is the first of two occasions when Dante is told to look down on the universe beneath him. … Continue reading
As I did what she asked, I looked down through the seven spheres we had passed through and smiled when I saw our Earth so tiny there. It made me realize how insignificant our world is and how truly wise is the man who directs his thoughts toward higher things. I gazed upon our Moon glowing at its fullest and without those spots I once believed were caused by different densities in her surface. Full upon your brilliant face, O Sun, I was able to gaze, and close to you moved Mercury and the lovely Venus. From there I also saw Jupiter, temperate between the cool of Saturn and the heat of Mars, and I saw how they changed positions as they moved across the heavens. I could see all seven spheres at once: how immense they were, how swiftly they turned, and how far they were from each other. But as for this tiny threshing-floor that makes us so fierce – as I turned there with those timeless Twins, I saw the whole of it, from mountains to seas. And then, back to those beautiful eyes of Beatrice I turned my own.[14]On several levels, this is one of the more lovely, moving, and fascinating passages in the Paradiso. It is a clear account, like a journal entry, of everything Dante saw as he looked down through the … Continue reading
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | Like a child frightened at the great shout by the souls at the end of the previous canto, Dante looks to Beatrice like a mother for some reassuring explanation. Reminding him that he is in Heaven where all things are holy, she explains that everything that happens here has its source in holy zeal. Note that, though the souls here are contemplatives, this does not mean they’re passive. Their excited shout, she says, was actually a prayer expressing their righteous zeal for God’s vengeance on those monks and church leaders who callously abuse His Church and ignore the message of the Gospel. Dante, of course, still has not advanced enough in heavenly maturity to comprehended such experiences. So, one can imagine Beatrice, with tongue in cheek, warning him that if the shout frightened him that much, imagine if those souls had sung, of if she had smiled! He would have burned to ashes. Nevertheless, she assures him, God’s retribution takes its own good time, not too fast, and not too slow. Then, like a caring mother to her distressed child, she reminds him to pay attention to his surroundings, and assures him that she will explain everything. Recall that in her explanation above, Beatrice told Dante that he would live to see the vengeance she prophesied. Though the Reader has not been told what this prophecy will look like, I think Robert Hollander has an objective analysis worth considering here in his commentary: “This ‘minor prophecy’ about the punishment of the corrupt clergy resembles the similar promise, made by Cacciaguida, that Dante will witness the just punishment of his Florentine enemies. But 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). 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.” |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | In the previous canto, it was the brightly lit spirit of St. Peter Damian who came down the Golden Ladder to speak with Dante. Now, as Beatrice shows them to him, hundreds of fiery globes come down the ladder from the heavens above to greet Dante. And once again, he is reticent to speak up. But the most brilliant of those spirits, coming close and already knowing his thoughts, is happy to answer his questions. |
| ↑3 | The city of Cassino is located about 80 miles south of Rome and half way to Naples. On a high mountaintop behind the city sits the first monastery of the Order of St. Benedict of Nursia (the Benedictines), the founder of western monasticism. The monastery was built in the mid 6th century on the site of a pagan temple of Apollo and a grove sacred to Venus. |
| ↑4 | It is St. Benedict himself who now speaks with Dante. The Poet had obviously read St. Gregory the Great’s biography of him, where he wrote about the Saint’s conversion of the local pagan population (the same Gregory whom we met in Canto 20, who was responsible for Trajan’s conversion). John Ciardi notes in his commentary here that well into the Middle Ages pagan cults could still be found in outlying areas. The Saint tells Dante that he was the first to bring Christianity to the area around Cassino. Indeed Benedict was a man of zeal. He was born to a noble family in the region of Umbria in central Italy. He studied in Rome, but was eventually scandalized by Roman mores and ran away to live as a hermit in a cave near Subiaco (in the mountains about 40 miles east of Rome). There he acquired a reputation for holiness and a group of local monks who chose him as their leader. However, Benedict’s rule of life was so strict that the monks tried to poison him. Surviving this attempt on his life, he went down to Cassino with a group of monks who were loyal to him. The Rule of life he set forth for his monks at Monte Cassino, in addition to regular times of prayer and meditation, also included times for work, manual labor, and teaching. This Rule became the standard for virtually all later monasteries throughout Europe – a common motto was ora et labora, prayer and work. |
| ↑5 | Rounding out one of Dante’s likely questions about the spirits who have come to meet him in the Sphere of Saturn, St. Benedict tells him that they were all contemplatives, whose vocations to a life of prayer and meditation were kindled by the holy warmth of Divine Love which flows down from this place upon them. Two famous monks, whom Benedict calls his “stout-hearted brethren,” though not of his Order, are now introduced by him as Saints Macarius and Romuald. Notable as they are in monastic history, as humble monks they do not speak. As it turns out, there are several Saints with the name of Macarius, two of the most famous were Egyptian monks who were also followers of Saint Antony, one of the earliest-known monk/desert hermits in Christian history. Macarius the Elder (301-391) spent 60 years as a hermit in the desert. Macarius the Younger (d. 404), who is said to have had thousands of monks under his care, is known as the founder of eastern monasticism as Benedict was later known for western monasticism. Dante probably conflated the two Macariuses into the one that St. Benedict introduces here. St. Romuald (956-1027) was born in Ravenna and was the founder of the Order of Camaldoli, a reformed version of Benedictines who spent their entire lives in prayer and contemplation. After introducing these two great monks to Dante, St. Benedict introduces all the rest of the souls who have come down the Ladder to greet him as “those who never abandoned their cloisters.” He may be making a distinction here between monks who spent much, if not all, of their lives in monasteries (the Benedictines and Camaldolese), and monks who were attached to a particular monastery but who spent a great deal of their time as wandering preachers (the Franciscans and Dominicans). At the same time, Benedict may be preparing for a condemnation against the abuses of the monastic life similar to the earlier condemnations against clerical abuses by St. Peter Damian. |
| ↑6 | Although Dante’s words here are addressed to St. Benedict, we can take them as addressed to all the souls who have come down the Great Ladder to meet him. By virtue of the love and affection he feels from all of them, he has, as it were, become like a lovely blooming rose in the light of their warmth. And in that warmth, his confidence has grown such that he humbly asks Benedict what he has not asked of any other soul before this: to see him unveiled, face-to-face. In other words, he wants to see Benedict as he is, without the flaming light within which he is sheathed. This request is directly related to a similar request in the Book of Exodus (33:17-23): “The Lord said to Moses … ‘you have found favor with me and you are my intimate friend.’ Then Moses said, ‘Please let me see your glory!’ The Lord answered: ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim my name, “Lord,” before you; I who show favor to whom I will, I who grant mercy to whom I will. But you cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live. Here,’ continued the Lord, ‘is a place near me where you shall station yourself on the rock. When my glory passes I will set you in the cleft of the rock and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand, so that you may see my back; but my face may not be seen.’” Dante’s question also points directly to the goal of the contemplative life, celebrated here in the Sphere of Saturn: an intimate union with the Divine, as much as that might be possible, a union that goes beyond the material and intellectual and leads to a deep personal and spiritual transformation. The great Golden Ladder here is nothing more than a symbol for contemplation. All of the Paradiso, as a matter of fact, can be taken as the journey of contemplation to God. It is, in a sense, what connects this world with Heaven. The top of the ladder cannot be seen because ultimately it leans against God. The practice of contemplation is imagined here, and in much spiritual literature, as a climbing of that ladder. The glowing souls that have come down the Golden Ladder have devoted their lives to that climb, and here in Paradise they have finally attained their hearts’ only desire: union with God. |
| ↑7 | Note that Dante had addressed his question to St. Benedict as “holy father.” Here, however, Benedict addresses Dante as “my dear brother.” Benedict wants to avoid the verticality of the term “father,” and uses the horizontal term “brother” (or “sister”) to image all the souls’ relationship to Christ. As God indicated to Moses in the passage quoted above, he cannot be seen face-to-face. And here, St. Benedict tells Dante the same thing. However, this is not to say that Dante will never have the privilege he is asking for now. But Benedict tells him that seeing the souls face-to-face will only take place in the Empyrean above, where everyone also sees God face-to-face. As noted earlier, the Ladder does reach the abode of God, but Dante is not ready for that place yet. In the mean time, though, Benedict tells Dante that Jacob did, in fact, see the top filled with angels when he dreamt of the Ladder in Exodus 28:10-19. Unfortunately, he tells Dante, nowadays (Dante the Poet referring to his own time) no one seems inclined to climb the ladder of contemplation (whose first rung is humility), and his Rule of life is ignored. And with this he begins his tirade against the monastic laxity that seems to infect his monks. The cells (monks’ rooms) in monasteries seem fit only to house animals, not monks, and the material used to make their cowls (hoods) is good for nothing but to make sacks to hold rotten grain! One can read here echoes of Jesus’ denunciation of the merchants in the Temple (Matthew 21:13): “My house is a house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.” |
| ↑8 | In Dante’s day, and all through earlier Christian history, usury, the lending of money at interest, was considered sinful. Virgil had also explained this to Dante in Cantos 11 and 17 in the Inferno. Basically, art (or labor) is a way of advancing and augmenting God’s creation through work. Usury (lending money at interest), on the other hand, is a sterile, impersonal form of art in which no labor or work is involved. It was, therefore, considered sinful because it was against nature, and is punished in the Inferno along with other sins against nature, blasphemy and sodomy. Here, on the other hand, St. Benedict makes usury a lesser sin in comparison to greed which, he claims, has infected the hearts of monks (and other clerics and church leaders). What these greater sinners have done is to take the goods (wealth) of the Church, of which they are the stewards, and appropriated it to themselves and their families instead of the poor and marginalized to whom it properly belongs. This being the case, Benedict compares an oak tree to humans, saying it takes less time for an oak to mature enough to sprout acorns (many years) than it does for good intentions to grow in human hearts. The Saint tells Dante that St. Peter and his fellow apostles built the church without money, that he (Benedict) built his Order on prayer and fasting, and that St. Francis built his Order with humility. But these values are now like faded cloth. Yet, on a more hopeful note, St. Benedict ends by suggesting that the renewal of the Church would be – in a manner of speaking – a lesser (easier) miracle compared with something like the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14.13–31) or the reversal of the Jordan River (Joshua 3:14-17). |
| ↑9 | With hardly a chance to catch one’s breath, this transition scene takes place in an instant. Having finished his condemnation against greedy church figures, St. Benedict and all the contemplative souls swirl back up to the Empyrean. Immediately, with a simple uplifting of her hand, Beatrice and Dante fly up right behind them. Furthermore, it’s important to note here that Dante rises up bodily. Beatrice’s heavenly power continues to overcome any earthly gravity that might pull him downward. |
| ↑10 | Dante affirms the great speed with which he and Beatrice moved from the Sphere of Saturn to the Heaven of the Fixed Stars: it’s faster, even, than the lightning speed he described in Canto 1 when they rose up from the Earthly Paradise. Actually, his “homey” image of pulling back after touching a flame seems deliberately slow compared to the speeds he has noted. And as they have traveled from the Earth through seven of the nine planetary spheres, note how the power of the Empyrean, like a kind of celestial magnetism draws them ever faster on their way. Astounded by all of this, the Poet who, on many occasions opened his soul to the Reader, does so for the last time, and humbly expresses his willingness to repent of all his sins if only he can return to this place of “holy triumph,” the which, in fact, is only beginning. The stars that follow Taurus in the Zodiac make up the constellation of Gemini. See more in the following note. |
| ↑11 | The constellation of Gemini is special to Dante because it is the astrological sign under which he was born. Obviously, it’s more than a coincidence that his rising to the Heaven of the Zodiac, should bring him directly into his own sign. We don’t actually know the date of his birth, but the sign brings us fairly close – between May 18 and June 17 in 1265. The season is late Spring, and in the Church calendar Easter would have been celebrated on April 10, and the Feast of Pentecost on May 29. Thus, Dante has come home to his stars, and he prays to be filled with some of their power as he begins the most difficult part of his inspired journey. Recall that he believed that the stars have “some” influence over us, but only some. Perhaps the difficult part of his journey, then, has less to do with his reaching the Empyrean than it does with carrying the Poem to its conclusion. In a later canto he will claim that it is all he can do to carry its weight. Is it any wonder, then, that he invokes the stars of Gemini as the “source” of his genius to carry him through to the end? Recall how, in Canto 15 of the Inferno (55f), Brunetto Latini told him: “If you follow your star, you will arrive at a glorious port.” In the Italian, Dante’s language here is wonderful: “O glorïose stelle, o lume pregno di gran virtù.” “O glorious stars, O light pregnant with great virtue.” Without stretching the significance of these words too far, one might say that the stars of Dante’s own constellation are “pregnant” with the Commedia, which will be “born,” as it were, when the Poem is finished, the last word of which will be “stars.” Note also that when addressing the stars in Gemini, he says, “…within your holy sign the Sun rose and set when I was born in Tuscany.” The “Sun” here is first a symbol of Christ, the Light of the world, and then the sun at the center of our solar system. It is this Light, this “pregnant” light, that fuels his genius. |
| ↑12 | This “final blessedness” is the Empyrean, the Abode of God where Dante will see all the citizens of Heaven. As for keeping his sight clear, one might say that his entire journey through the Commedia to this point has been a sharpening of his vision and his powers of understanding. With this in mind, Beatrice now urges him to keep these powers ready at hand to fully appreciate the many amazing experiences that await him. |
| ↑13 | “But before we go any farther,” Beatrice tells Dante, “look down now at what lies below.” This is the first of two occasions when Dante is told to look down on the universe beneath him. Compared with the scenes of the universe that modern space-based telescopes reveal to us every day, the sight through all the crystalline spheres below him must still have been stupendous. Yet, as we immediately learn, the purpose of this momentary stop is really to focus Dante on the glory of God’s handiwork in joyful preparation for what is about to happen. The words of Psalm 8:2-7 highlight the sentiments that Beatrice wants to instill in Dante by having him look down through the cosmos: “O Lord, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth! I will sing of your majesty above the heavens… When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place – what is man that you are mindful of him, and a son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him little less than a god, crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, put all things at his feet.” In the end, all of this is a way of getting Dante to take on a new perspective from God’s point of view, the vastness of His creation, and how special we (and Dante) are to Him, not to mention this Poem through which Dante brings all of us along to see and experience what he sees and experiences. This is preparation for meeting the “rejoicing throngs of God’s Triumphant” in the next canto. |
| ↑14 | On several levels, this is one of the more lovely, moving, and fascinating passages in the Paradiso. It is a clear account, like a journal entry, of everything Dante saw as he looked down through the spheres from the height of the Fixed Stars. Not only has his vision improved (and it will continue to do so the higher he goes), but the description of what he saw, while physically impossible, even nowadays as our probes travel through the solar system, became utterly real centuries before modern satellites and telescopes when his genius translated his imagination into the words of his Poem. For the first time since he began his journey through the heavens, he looks back down. He sees all the way to the Earth and he smiles to see it so tiny when compared with the ever larger spheres he’s passed through. This immense distance causes him to adjust his inner spiritual perspective on how insignificant we humans are when compared with the vastness of the universe created and ordered by God. And yet how precious. Then, seeing the full moon, he reminisces, most likely with tongue in cheek, on how mistaken he was about the nature of its “spots.” Note that he was actually seeing the back side the moon here, which he believed to be smooth. He looks directly into the Sun and sees the movements of Mercury and Venus across its face. The temperate planet Jupiter moves between the silent coolness of Saturn and the heat of Mars. Then seeing all the planets together, he’s filled with awe at their size, their speed, and the distances between them. In the Italian, by the way, he refers to the planets by their parents’ names: Latona, mother of the Moon; Hyperion, father of the Sun; Maia, mother of Mercury; Dione, mother of Venus; Jupiter; father of Mars; Saturn father of Jupiter; and Uranus, father of Saturn, though this relationship is not mentioned. By doing this, I suggest that Dante is establishing a familial relationship among all the planets that binds the cosmos into a community which points toward the community among the Saints, and ultimately to the community of the Trinity. As he continues to gaze downward at such an awesome spectacle his thoughts turn again to what he calls the “tiny threshing-floor” of this Earth, which he sees the whole of. The implication with this rural, dusty image is that the Earth is really rather insignificant in the larger scheme of things he has experienced on his journey. At the same time, the image also connects us to that of the harvest and the great “harvest of souls” Dante has (and will) experienced here in Paradise. Then, in contrast to the threshing-floor, the Poet is conscious of himself moving along in quiet peace with his “timeless Twins,” and considering the whole of what he sees before him, he wonders how we earthlings can be such unpeaceable creatures, failing to realize the glory that literally surrounds us. And with this he turns back to gaze at the heavenly beauty of Beatrice’s eyes, more beautiful than what he has just seen. Mark Musa tells us: “The Pilgrim’s eyes are now averted from the visible, physical universe, and return to Beatrice’s eyes, which represent the spiritual universe. As the canto ends the tone is serene and calm. All the fears and bewilderment of the ‘troubled child’ at the canto’s opening are gone.” Turning, for a moment, to some background on this amazing passage, it seems fairly certain that as he wrote this he also had several sources in mind. One of them would have been Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio,” in which Scipio is visited in a dream by his famous grandfather, Scipio Africanus. In this dream the elder Scipio, like Dante, sees the Earth from the heavens and speaks of it in rather paltry terms. Another source noted by commentators is The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. He makes the following observation: “…if you compare the earth with the circle of the universe, it must be reckoned as of no size at all.” And a third source might have been the apocryphal fourth century work known as the Apocalypse of Paul, where the Apostle says: “And I looked down from heaven upon the earth and beheld the whole world as it was as nothing in my sight.” |