Having understood the answers Beatrice gave to his previous questions about the nature of the Moon, Dante quite unexpectedly sees what he thinks are reflections of faces before him. Turning around, but seeing no one, he turns back and Beatrice explains that what he sees are real spirits who are here because they broke their vows. The first spirit reveals that she was Dante’s cousin, Piccarda Donati. Dante wants to know whether the spirits here wish to be higher in Heaven than they are. Piccarda tells Dante more about her life and then states that all of spirits here are completely happy and fulfilled exactly where they are because their station here is in complete accord with the will of God. Then Piccarda introduces the empress Constance whose life as a nun and forcible removal from the convent mirrored her own.
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She, who like the sun, had filled my heart with love when we were young, had now filled it with the beauty of truth revealed in her arguments and proofs. And as I raised my eyes to hers, both to acknowledge my errors and her wisdom, there appeared in front of me an unexpected vision that captured my attention so deeply that all intention of thanking Beatrice went out of my head.
Just as we can see a faint image of ourselves reflected back when we look through a clear pane of glass, or the faint image that reflects back at us in a clear pool of still water – an image so pale that, for example, we might not distinguish a lovely pearl upon a white brow – well, such faces as these I saw there, and they were eager to speak with me. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image in a pool of water and never looked away, when I saw these faces I thought they were reflections, so I turned around to find out who they were. And there was no one there![1]Dante looks at Beatrice with the loving intention of thanking her for revealing the truth in their discussion that took up most of the previous canto. It was she who first kindled love in his heart … Continue reading
Puzzled at this, I turned around again and looked at Beatrice, whose gorgeous eyes sparkled as she smiled at me. “Don’t be surprised at me smiling,” she said. “Your reaction just now – turning around to stare at nothing – shows that you still don’t trust the evidence before you. What you see here before you are real beings. They appear in this place because they failed to keep their vows. You are most welcome to speak with them. Listen to what they tell you and trust what they say because the very light of God fills them with the truth.”[2]First of all here, keep a “bookmark” in your mind about references to Beatrice’s eyes and her smile as we progress through the Paradiso. With her sparkling eyes and gorgeous smile, she chides … Continue reading
And so I, filled with desire, said to that spirit who seemed most anxious to speak: “O soul so beautifully created, O you who taste the sweetness of everlasting life which can only be known in Heaven, I would be pleased if you would graciously reveal to me your identity and tell me how you come to be here.”[3]This is the first soul Dante speaks with in Heaven, and his introduction is the epitome of grace, filled with as much desire to know as the soul is to speak. He captures with his words here that all … Continue reading
With eyes lit by her smile, she replied: “The love that fills us could never deny your request because He wills that our love be like Love Himself. In life I was a virgin sister, and if you probe your memory you will remember me as your cousin Piccarda, though I am far more beautiful now than I was. I am here among all these other blessed spirits within this slowest of the heavenly spheres. What we desire is stirred within us by God’s Holy Spirit, and in conforming to his will we rejoice. Our position here in this lowly sphere has been allotted to us because we failed to fully keep the vows we made or gave less than what we had promised.”[4]What this lovely soul immediately manifests in her response to Dante’s gracious invitation is that every thing and every one in Paradise is connected by love and is a manifestation of God’s Love … Continue reading
And I replied, “I did not immediately recall your face because all of your faces here shine with a divine radiance that transforms them far beyond mere memory. But as you speak the recollection of your face comes quickly to me. Please tell me, though: don’t all of you happy souls here long to be even higher in Heaven than this place? Don’t you long to see more and to be loved more by Love?”[5]Recall that when Dante met Piccarda’s brother, Forese, among the gluttons in Purgatory, he was so emaciated that he didn’t recognize his face, but his voice. Here again, it is when Piccarda … Continue reading
All the shades there smiled gently at my question, and her reply came in words so filled with bliss she seemed to burn with the very fire of love. “My dear brother, the power of God’s love moderates our will in such a way that we desire no more than what we have. We long for this alone. If we wanted a place higher than this, then our wills would not be in harmony with His will which wills us to be here. Think about how love works and it will be clear to you that there is no discord here because to be here is to exist in Love itself. To be sure, the very essence of our existence in this most blessèd place is to live here within the happy confines of His will alone. The varying ranks within this heavenly realm are as much a part of the nature of this glorious place as is that King Whose will is our will too. In His will we are at peace. It is the sea from which all being and all creation come.”[6]It seems most likely that Piccarda and the other spirits with her smile at the naivete of Dante’s question, but there is no meanness implied on their part. Dante is still learning the workings of … Continue reading
As she spoke this, it became clear to me that every place in Heaven is Heaven, and that God’s light shines in different ways in all these places. But just as at table we might find ourselves filled with one food but desiring another, saying thank you for this one but asking for that, so did I wish to know more about Piccarda’s unfulfilled vows.[7]As Piccarda finishes, Dante has a major insight into the workings of Paradise and an answer to his earlier question: Everywhere, every possible place in Heaven, is Heaven, including the moon, so far … Continue reading
She began, “As a young girl, I chose to follow in the footsteps of St. Clare, whose holy life and virtue are praised higher up. I took her veil and chose to follow till death her rule that wedded me to the Bridegroom who was pleased to accept my sacred vows. But then by violence, hateful men forced me away from the happy seclusion of my cloister, and only God knows what then became of me.[8]In a few words, Piccarda tells a story of tragedy. We know from history that she was a member of the prominent Donati family in Florence, and as a teenager she entered the convent of Santa Maria di … Continue reading
“This lovely splendor to my right, my companion who shines with the full radiance of our lowly sphere, knows well what I say because her life mirrored mine. She was also a sister, and from her, too, our holy veil was ripped away by men of worldly strife. And yet she kept that veil over heart for the rest of her days. This lovely light is the spirit of the Empress Constance. She was compelled to marry Henry VI and became the mother of Frederick II.”[9]Having finished her story and answered Dante’s last question, Piccarda offers him (and his reader) a bonus as she includes the story of the Empress Constance which, on the surface, was similar to … Continue reading
Having supplied me with the answer I sought, this gracious and lightsome spirit began to sing “Ave, Maria,” and as she did so, she faded slowly from my sight as though sinking into the deeps.[10]This singing of the Ave, Maria adds a monastic effect to the image of the two “nuns” presented here, as though we are hearing them move deeper into the cloister and all that remains of them is … Continue reading
When she had vanished completely, I turned my eyes back to my lovely Beatrice – now completely absorbed in her. But the brilliance of her own light suddenly burst upon me so brightly that it was hard for me to look at her, and even harder now to question her.[11]This canto ends as it began, with the focus on Beatrice as a kind of sun. She never speaks in this canto, but we can infer from the way Dante ends it that the whole time he had been speaking with … Continue reading
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | Dante looks at Beatrice with the loving intention of thanking her for revealing the truth in their discussion that took up most of the previous canto. It was she who first kindled love in his heart when they were young, and referring to her as a “sun” reminds us again that he uses this image as a symbol of God who, in this case, is the light of Truth by which he has been freed from error. But now a faint image appears in front of him and so distracts him that he forgets about Beatrice for the moment as he tries to make sense out of what he sees. As will become clear to Dante and to us in a moment, this is not a vision in the sense of a mystical experience. Deeply curious, he likens the faint image in front of him to how we might see ourselves dimly reflected as we might look through a clear pane of glass or, perhaps, in a pool of still water. The Narcissus reference here is important because, contrary to Ovid’s tragic figure (Metamorphoses 3:432ff), Dante does the opposite and thereby mistakes the real image for a reflection. This, of course, leads to a correction and then deeper into the story that is about to unfold. The tragedy for Narcissus was that once he saw his reflection he never turned around because he thought it was real. Dante, on the other hand, thinks the faces are reflections and turns around. And, furthermore, his reference to the whiteness of a pearl reminds us of his first experience in the moon in the previous canto, likening it to a “celestial pearl.” Instantly, however, he realizes that what he sees is not his own face. As a matter of fact, there are several faces, and they all seem eager to speak. This leads him to do what almost anyone would do – he turns around to see who they are. |
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| ↑2 | First of all here, keep a “bookmark” in your mind about references to Beatrice’s eyes and her smile as we progress through the Paradiso. With her sparkling eyes and gorgeous smile, she chides Dante for his lack of faith in what he sees right in front of him, though we might be more inclined to forgive him this once. At the same time, one might hope that he had learned his lesson in the previous canto where he mistook what he saw in front of him for something else. So she tells him plainly, these are “real beings.” Why are they here? Because they either neglected the vows they made while on earth, or they broke them. Nevertheless, she tells Dante, since these souls will be happy to speak with him, he should pay careful attention to what they say because they are filled with the light of God’s truth – from which he will learn many things. Notice, by the way, how the light of God’s truth contrasts with their dim appearance. At the same time, however, we (and Dante) are being prepared for the rest of the journey upward through Paradise where everyone will be more than happy to speak – and tell the truth. |
| ↑3 | This is the first soul Dante speaks with in Heaven, and his introduction is the epitome of grace, filled with as much desire to know as the soul is to speak. He captures with his words here that all souls are created with infinite beauty, a reflection of their eternal destination. |
| ↑4 | What this lovely soul immediately manifests in her response to Dante’s gracious invitation is that every thing and every one in Paradise is connected by love and is a manifestation of God’s Love – literally of God Himself. Note how this act of love comes before her name or her history, which she will happily reveal. She seems to be amused that Dante doesn’t recognize her, admitting that she is now far more beautiful than when she was alive. There is no pride in this statement; that would be impossible here. Rather, it’s another fundamental truth of Heaven: everything is more beautiful here because it is the abode of God. Then, as Dante quickly learns, this is his cousin (by marriage), Piccarda Donati. Dante’s wife, Gemma, was a Donati, and the Donatis and Alighieris were neighbors in Florence. Piccarda was a cloistered nun in the Order of St. Clare, and the sister of Dante’s best friend, Forese, whom we met among the gluttons in the Purgatorio. They also had a wicked brother, Corso, who was the leader of the Black Guelf party in Florence and the cause of great calamity for the city until he was finally murdered. (See note 13 in Canto 24 of my Purgatorio.) In the Purgatorio, Forese told Dante that Corso was in Hell, but Dante doesn’t report in the Inferno that he encountered him there. He was also involved in Dante’s being exiled from Florence. We will learn more about him in a few more lines. As she continues, Piccarda tells Dante that she and the other spirits with her are here in the moon because they either broke their vows or neglected to keep them faithfully. Dante’s Italian has Piccarda saying: “…perché fuor negletti li nostri voti, e vòti in alcun canto.” In his commentary here, Ronald Martinez makes a fascinating linguistic observation: “Dante’s Italian includes a pun on religious vows (voti), which, if unfulfilled, are ‘empty’ (vòti).” As we think more about this, it becomes clear that the moon, being the slowest and most changeable of the cosmic spheres – and farthest from the Empyrean – is an appropriate place for these souls. One might almost think this is a kind of contrapasso as we would have seen for sinners in the Inferno, where their punishment fit their crimes (or sins). Except, of course, this is not a punishment and, as we will see, these souls didn’t really sin. As a matter of fact, it will become apparent that these spirits are overjoyed to be where they are because it is a manifestation of God’s will. But Piccarda will be clearer about this in a moment as Dante seeks to understand exactly how these sinners’ placement in the moon is part of the will of God. |
| ↑5 | Recall that when Dante met Piccarda’s brother, Forese, among the gluttons in Purgatory, he was so emaciated that he didn’t recognize his face, but his voice. Here again, it is when Piccarda speaks that Dante recognizes her. It seems as though his memory was clouded by the heavenly beauty of the souls he sees here. He has moved from the great “face” in the moon (which he misunderstood), to the shadowy reflection of the faces, to the heavenly beauty of faces transformed in the glory of paradise, and reflecting God Himself. To understand how special this is both for Dante the Poet and Dante the Pilgrim, Marguerite Mills Chiarenza notes how unique these faces actually are: “In no other part of the Paradiso do souls bear any resemblance to the human form.” (Chiarenza, Marguerite Mills, The Imageless Vision and Dante’s Paradiso. In Dante, edited by Harold Bloom, pp. 83-95. New York: Chelsea House, 1986.) But Dante the Pilgrim (and the Reader, surely) has a more immediate issue. Still thinking in earthly terms of hierarchies, status, and more or less, he asks Piccarda: “You’re here in the moon, the slowest of the planets, the farthest from the Empyrean. This is Heaven. Don’t you want to be in a higher place than this?” Now the matter is out in the open. How is it that Paradise is permeated with the Love of God, and yet He wills that (it seems, at this point) some are higher and others are lower? Wouldn’t you think that it would all be “even” somehow? The Pilgrim seems to think that this “low” place in Heaven is permanent for Piccarda and her companions in this place. His words betray a certain disappointment and sadness – twice he speaks of “longing,” and implies it a third time. He asks: “Don’t you long to be even higher?” “Don’t you long to see more?” “Don’t you long to be more loved by God?” Having known Piccarda before she entered the convent, her brother Forese his best friend, there’s some emotion here. Is he making another mistake? Has he forgotten the experiment with the mirrors? |
| ↑6 | It seems most likely that Piccarda and the other spirits with her smile at the naivete of Dante’s question, but there is no meanness implied on their part. Dante is still learning the workings of Paradise, and the burning love he senses in Piccarda’s answer paves the way for his greater understanding. That she addresses Dante as “brother” highlights both the relational aspect of the L(l)ove Piccarda refers to and the horizontality of heavenly thinking as opposed to earthly, hierarchical, or willful thinking. The kind of love that makes Heaven work, she tells him, is not the result of our (the spirits’) will, but the will of God. If there were any willing or longing on our part, she notes, it would simply and happily be to have here what we have been given by God. This results in complete concord and harmony with the will of God throughout Paradise. If it were possible to want any more or less, this would cause discord. Here, there is no will of the lover and will of the beloved. There is only the eternal union of the two in One. This is what it means to be in Heaven, “the very essence of our existence” here. Finally, she tells him, by the very nature of this place (Heaven, but think of the cosmos as a whole) there is height and depth, but these characteristics are as glorious to this Kingdom as they are to its King. All that matters is that His will is our will, and in that will we are at peace. This eternal peace reflects the union of the souls’ love with Love Itself. The phrase, “In His will is our peace,” is a lovely summation of Heaven and of Piccarda’s explanations. Over the years commentators have sought to locate Dante’s source for it. They arrive at three sources, some scholars accepting all three possible sources, others highlighting only one over the others. Dante’s Italian, “E ‘n la sua volontade è nostra pace” is simple enough in English: “In his will is our peace.” The first source may be from the song of the angels in Chapter 2:14 of St. Luke’s Gospel: “And on earth peace to men of good will.” The second source may be from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (2:15): “For he is our peace.” And the third source may be from the Confessions of St. Augustine (13:9): “Our peace lies in willing the good.” Or “In good will there is peace for us.” In the end, all three are possible and useful. The grand metaphor at the end of this passage gives the Pilgrim and the reader another, perhaps ultimate, way to understand the will of God. It is a sea from which all being, all creation, comes. By putting it this way, Piccarda includes everything that can possibly be imagined, everything that exists, in Heaven, on earth, and throughout the entire cosmos, as a breaking forth, a manifestation of the will of God. Two New Testament passages come to mind here: (1) St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (2:10), “…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,” and (2) the Book of Revelation (5:13), “And I heard every creature that is in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth and those in the sea, and all that are in them, saying, ‘Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever!’” Not only is God’s will like a sea, but in keeping with Dante’s “ship imagery,” God Himself is the sea we cross. |
| ↑7 | As Piccarda finishes, Dante has a major insight into the workings of Paradise and an answer to his earlier question: Everywhere, every possible place in Heaven, is Heaven, including the moon, so far away from the Empyrean. And just as, in the previous canto, he learned that there is unimagined diversity in the cosmos, so too, the light of God shines with unimagined diversity throughout Heaven. There is no need to think of a higher or lower place or more or less blessedness. As will be seen in the next canto, all the souls in Heaven have different capacities for blessedness, but all are completely filled to their capacity. There also the question of higher or lower will be laid to rest. Following from such a sublime insight, though, Dante uses a common enough, almost humorous, image to convey his active curiosity. Having been filled with one “food” at the table, for which he is grateful, he’s not beyond asking for something different, and in the Italian he changes metaphors here from food to weaving. He writes that Piccarda’s explanations are now likened to cloth she is weaving. Except, he notices, she hasn’t yet pulled the “shuttle” of her unfulfilled vows all the way through, and thus her story isn’t complete. This is a very clever shift from a very clever observer who is bent on supplying both himself and his Reader with the fullest picture of Piccarda’s story. |
| ↑8 | In a few words, Piccarda tells a story of tragedy. We know from history that she was a member of the prominent Donati family in Florence, and as a teenager she entered the convent of Santa Maria di Monticelli to become a nun in the Order of the Poor Clares. After she had taken her vows, her notorious brother, Corso, leader of the Black Guelf party in Florence, forced her out of the convent in order to marry her to his friend and ally, Rossellino della Tosa. Sadly, she died not long after the marriage. Dante undoubtedly knew this story and had himself suffered banishment in great part at the instigation of Corso. Commentators note similarities between Piccarda/Constance (Paradiso), Pia (Purgatorio), and Francesca (Inferno), all of whom suffered violence at the hands of their husbands. An interesting contrast presents itself here. St. Clare, the foundress of Piccarda’s Order, was from a noble family and a close friend of St. Francis of Assisi. Inspired by him, she joined him and his monks when she was 18, over the outrage and threats of her family, and soon founded the Order of nuns that became known as the Poor Clares. In spite of her family’s threats and attempts to force her out of the convent, she stayed and remained steadfast in her vows until she died in 1253. |
| ↑9 | Having finished her story and answered Dante’s last question, Piccarda offers him (and his reader) a bonus as she includes the story of the Empress Constance which, on the surface, was similar to her own. But, if the history of Piccarda is a simple one, the history of Constance is quite another (and complex) story in itself. More than that, the way Dante presents it is probably not quite accurate, but an attempt to rescue her reputation from the hands of her Guelf detractors. It makes sense that, in the Italian, Piccarda refers to her as …quest’ altro splendor, “this other splendor.” The 1979 translation of the Commedia by Bosco-Reggio offers an informative commentary on this passage: “Constance, daughter of Roger II, king of Sicily, was born in 1154, the last heir of the Norman kingdom of Puglia and Sicily. In 1185 she married Henry VI of Swabia, son of Frederick Barbarossa. With this marriage the emperor finally obtained dominion over southern Italy, which he had tried in vain to conquer by force of arms. From this marriage Frederick II was born in 1194. “Widowed in 1197, Constance was able to govern the kingdom with shrewd wisdom until her death in 1198. With great political intuition, feeling close to death, she appointed Pope Innocent III as guardian of her son Frederick, who was just a few years old. “During the reign of Frederick II, the Guelphs spread the legend that Constance had been a nun against her will; then removed from the cloister by the archbishop of Palermo, at the age of 52 she was united in marriage to Henry VI. Frederick II, the ‘Antichrist,’ would therefore be born from a former nun and an old woman, against every law, therefore, divine and human. Thus the Guelph propaganda to discredit the emperor. “Constance, however, was never a nun and married Henry at the age of 31. Dante accepted the legend of her monasticism, but excluded every negative aspect and was therefore able to illuminate the figure of the empress with a high poetic light, instead making her the innocent victim of machinations and political violence. The halo of light that surrounds her, the shining on her of all the splendor of the sky, the attributes with which she is defined, tell us Dante’s high esteem for the ‘great Norman’ and the negative elements of Guelph propaganda are transformed into a luminous attestation of reverence on the part of the poet. Constance was also remembered by her nephew Manfred in Purgatorio Canto 3.” Following from this, if we attend to the words Piccarda uses to describe Constance, “…who shines with the full radiance of our lowly sphere…,” there is a hint here that there may be “higher” and “lower” places in the sphere of the Moon, Constance having a higher place than Piccarda. |
| ↑10 | This singing of the Ave, Maria adds a monastic effect to the image of the two “nuns” presented here, as though we are hearing them move deeper into the cloister and all that remains of them is the sweet sound of their voices. Needless to say, commentators over the centuries have argued about why Dante ends this scene the way he does. Where do all these inconstant souls in the moon go? The answer will be given to us in the next canto. |
| ↑11 | This canto ends as it began, with the focus on Beatrice as a kind of sun. She never speaks in this canto, but we can infer from the way Dante ends it that the whole time he had been speaking with Piccarda and Constance she had been growing in brightness, so that when he finally returns his attention to her the burst of her presence so stuns him that he can hardly look at her, let alone ask more questions. A clever way to lead us right into the next canto. Dante scholar Mario Marti notes that at the beginning of this canto Beatrice was the “sun of love.” Now at the end, she is the “sun of knowledge.” |