It is dawn, and as Dante looks lovingly at Beatrice, he tells his reader that she is now so beautiful that everything he’s said about her before is merely a trifle. Portraying himself as utterly defeated by his theme, he admits that he could always rely on his poems to convey her wondrous beauty. But now he must leave that task to someone more gifted as he brings his grand poem to a conclusion. Beatrice tells him that they have passed from the Primum Mobile to the Empyrean – from the very top of the Cosmos into the realm of Heaven proper. She tells Dante that they are now in a place of pure light where, in a few moments, he will be privileged to see the angels and the saints – and the latter with their bodies as they will be seen at the Last Day. Immediately, Dante is enveloped by a flash of light that blinds him momentarily. Beatrice tells him this is Heaven’s way of welcoming him. Quickly realizing that his senses are heightened as never before, Dante sees before him a river of pure light with great sparks flying out of it and into the flowers on the river’s banks – and from the flowers back into the river. His guide also tells him that what he sees are only shadowy semblances of what they really are, and she urges him to put his face directly into the river of light. As soon as he does so, the river turns into a circular lake and, for the first time, Dante sees all the saints and angels within a great rose-like amphitheater whose breadth and height are impossible to measure, though he can see it all perfectly. Quietly, Beatrice escorts Dante to the center of this great Rose and tells him to take in all the grandeur of Heaven and its holy citizens. She brings the canto a close by pointing out a throne reserved for the Emperor Henry VII, and she rebukes Pope Clement V for his greedy hypocrisy.
(To read a footnote, click the number in the text. To come back from a footnote, click the up arrow at the note number.)
Perhaps six thousand miles away from us it is noontime and the shadow of our world is already inclining toward a level bed.[1]Once again, Dante opens with an astronomical allusion to an event that we take for granted: sunrise. What he tells us is simple enough, but rather involved to explain. First of all, while we are … Continue reading Far above us in the high heavens a change begins, and here and there stars begin to fade as Dawn, the sun’s bright handmaid,[2]This can be either Aurora or Venus. advances and heaven’s brightest lights dim away from sight.[3]Writing this opening to Canto 30, Dante most likely had in mind this gorgeous passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (2:112-114):“See, watchful Aurora from the shining east throws wide her crimson … Continue reading In the same way the grand Triumph of rejoicing angels playing round the dazzling Point that overcame me – which seems contained by what it actually contains – Itself faded slowly from my sight, and seeing nothing else, I happily fixed my eyes on Beatrice once more.[4]Here Dante moves his focus from the rising sun to what he calls “the grand Triumph of the rejoicing angels.” In this context, a triumph is a great festive procession, and in the Italian, he calls … Continue reading
If it were possible to sum up everything I have said about her up to this point[5]In the Vita Nuova, for example. and put it into a hymn of praise, it would be a trifling thing. What I now saw there in her face escapes mortal telling, and I believe that only God Who created her can fully enjoy what He made![6]This burst of praise from Dante, one might say, has been a long time in coming. If we look back to the moment when he first recognized Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise at the top of the Mount of … Continue reading At this point I have to admit that I am utterly defeated: more than any other tragic or comic poet ever was, I am done in by my theme. Just as sunlight will blind feeble eyes, even so the faintest memory of her gracious smile leaves me senseless. From the first time I saw her in life until this moment, I could always rely on my poems to give voice to my praise. But her beauty has surpassed my poetry, and though I have done the best any artist might do, I can no longer capture her in words. Alas, I must now leave the sound of her glorious beauty to a trumpet greater than mine as I prepare to bring this grand theme to a close.[7]It is difficult to imagine Dante, the man of such genius who created this Poem, making this admission and admitting defeat. Back in Canto 23 he made a similar admission when he was stunned by the … Continue reading)
Then, with the voice and bearing of a guide whose task is completed, she said: “We have left the greatest of the spheres and have arrived at the heaven of pure light – light of the intellect, filled with the love of what is truly good, filled with an ecstasy that surpasses all joy. In this place you will see both armies of Paradise – Angels and Saints – the latter with their bodies as you will see them on the Last Day.”[8]At this moment, now, we leave the Primum Mobile and enter into the Empyrean where Beatrice will no longer acts as Dante’s guide because this is her true home, the abode of God. Remember that in … Continue reading
At that instant, as a flash of lightning will so blind the eyes that even the clearest objects will fade for a moment, just so I was suddenly enveloped in such a glorious effulgence of living light that all I could see was light. And I heard Beatrice say: “This is how the Love that rules this heaven greets all who enter here. In this way you are the candle made ready for Its flame.”[9]Having stepped through the door of the Empyrean, as it were, Dante is greeted by and enveloped in a blinding flash of light. One can imagine Beatrice enjoying this moment with a big smile, telling … Continue reading
Immediately upon hearing these words, I became aware that all my senses had become heightened far beyond their mortal powers. I now had such sight that I could gaze with ease upon the most brilliant of lights. And indeed, what I now beheld was a river of blazing light shooting up great magnificent sparks between two banks profuse with the gorgeous colors of Spring. Those marvelous living sparks flew up out of that river and came to rest on the flowers edging its bank, looking like great rubies set in precious gold. But only for a moment. Intoxicated by the sweet fragrance of those flowers they streamed back into the river causing other great sparks to flare out and settle again among the flowers.[10]Having entered the Empyrean and been permeated by God’s enveloping light, Dante realizes that his mortal senses have been “heavenized” and their powers vastly increased making him ready for the … Continue reading
“Once again I see your burning desire to ask questions,” Beatrice said softly. “And the more I see that the more it pleases me. But before this great thirst of yours can be satisfied you must first drink from the waters here. This river, the brilliant gems you see flying in and out of it, and the laughter among these happy flowers – all of them are shadowy prefaces of their truth. They are not lacking anything in themselves; rather, it is your sight that is still not strong enough to take in such sublime things.”[11]Delighted that Dante is filled with questions about what he is seeing, Beatrice tells him that, the final step in his initiation into the Empyrean is literally a baptism. Presently, he is like a … Continue reading
No infant, having overslept and missed its accustomed feeding, could seek its mother’s milk more eagerly than I as I bent down and put my face into those waters to make my eyes more polished mirrors, the better to take in their pure light. And no sooner had I done this than that wondrous straight-flowing river changed into a round lake. Behold! As at a masquerade the revelers take off their masks to reveal the true selves they have been hiding, so there before my eyes those sparks and the flowers changed into a sublime celebration of spectacular proportions: there in front of me I saw, as they truly are and in their entirety, the two courts of Heaven![12]Dante, the hungry baby, more than ready to follow Beatrice’s directive, doesn’t just drink from the river of light, he puts his whole face into it. Robert Hollander says he literally “drinks … Continue reading
O splendor of God through which I witnessed the triumph of that one true kingdom, grant me the grace and the power to put into words what I now saw! There is a light in Heaven whose resplendence makes the Creator visible to those who reside there and whose sole pleasure is in looking upon Him forever. This light spreads out into a circle so vast that, were it a belt for the sun, it would be too loose. The size of this immense circle of light originates in a single ray of divine light that shines down upon the outermost sphere, the Primum Mobile, and gives it its movement and its power. Just as a verdant hillside is mirrored in a lake, enjoying the richness of its beauty reflected back, just so I saw there, reflected in that great light, tier upon tier of countless souls enjoying their eternal reward. But…if such splendor was contained within the first tier alone, just imagine the vastness of this heavenly Rose to its outer petals![13]Nearly outdone, once again, Dante prays for the inspiration to write down what he saw. He begins by noting how the Divine Light illuminates the entire Empyrean, enabling both angels and saints to … Continue reading
And yet, such immense breadth and height did not confound my sight in the least. I was able to see all of Heaven’s hosts both in number and the fullness of their joy, because where God governs directly, the laws of Nature are unnecessary.[14]After being enveloped by the Divine Light and then putting his head into the river of Light, Dante’s new “heaven-sight” enables him to take in with perfect clarity the entirety of the Rose … Continue reading Though I longed to speak, Beatrice led me silently into the golden center of that eternal Rose, whose tiers of fragrant petals opened in praise to that Sun of everlasting spring. “Behold,” she said, “how vast is the white-robed council of Saints. Look upon the limitless expanse of our city. It is nearly full and only a few seats remain. See that great seat with the crown fixed above it? It is destined for the Emperor Henry VII who will sit there before you receive the final summons to join this eternal wedding feast. He will strive to set Italy on the path of righteousness before she is ready to accept it.[15]Dante, as we’ve come to expect, is dying to speak. But Beatrice quietly takes him to the center of the arena for a better view – as if he needs it! Recall that all the saints have their glorified … Continue reading Italy you are bewitched! Like a child dying of hunger you have a nurse, but you drive her away. Your blind greed is starving you to death. When Henry comes Pope Clement V will act as though he is in agreement but do the opposite in secret. Nevertheless, God will not allow him to occupy that holy office for long. He will be crammed into the hole where Simon Magus pays for his crimes, and he will shove Boniface VIII further down!”[16]Beatrice brings her scan of the heavenly Rose arena to an end when, before all of Heaven, she makes a scathing denunciation of the greed and its attendant evils that infect the social fabric of Italy … Continue reading
Notes & Commentary
| ↑1 | Once again, Dante opens with an astronomical allusion to an event that we take for granted: sunrise. What he tells us is simple enough, but rather involved to explain. First of all, while we are moving toward the Empyrean, the (supposed) observer of this sunrise would have to be in Italy, not in the Empyrean. Understanding this helps us appreciate the science beneath the allusion. This, by the way, will be the first of three allusions to sunrise in the Empyrean (the others will appear in the following two cantos). So, Dante is describing the dawn in Italy in a very round-about way. The reference to 6,000 miles away would take us to India where it would be noontime. It takes about seven hours for the sun to travel that distance which would make it about an hour before sunrise at 6am where the observer is. For this computation, Dante was using the measurements of Alfraganus, one of the most famous Arab astronomers of the ninth century, who determined that the earth had a circumference of 20,400 miles. The number Dante uses, 6,000, is arrived at with the following simple math: 20,400 x 7/24 = 5,950 (rounded up to 6,000). Actually, the earth is about 25,000 miles in circumference. See a diagram of Dante’s allusion to the sunrise in the Art section for this canto in the website. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | This can be either Aurora or Venus. |
| ↑3 | Writing this opening to Canto 30, Dante most likely had in mind this gorgeous passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (2:112-114): “See, watchful Aurora from the shining east throws wide her crimson doors and rose-filled halls: the stars flee, gathered in flocks by the light bearer Lucifer, and he is last to depart his post in the sky.” |
| ↑4 | Here Dante moves his focus from the rising sun to what he calls “the grand Triumph of the rejoicing angels.” In this context, a triumph is a great festive procession, and in the Italian, he calls it: “…il trïunfo che lude (the triumph that plays)…,” suggesting that the angels “play” in the Light of God as they rejoice in its glory. Recalling how that Light blinded him earlier, he notes that, though It seems contained by the nine circles of angels, It actually contains them! He has obviously taken this idea from the 12th-century Liber XXIV philosophorum (Proposition II) where we find this dictum: “God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” We can read this entire opening section on two levels. First and literally, this is what happens at sunrise. The stars, beginning with the faintest, gradually fade as the sun rises. On a deeper level, the sunrise (recall that the Sun is a symbol of God) is a wonderful representation of enlightenment and revelation. Mark Musa captures this nicely in his commentary here: “Just as revelation comes gradually, so the Pilgrim’s entry into the Empyrean happens in stages. The imagery of the opening of this canto emphasizes the notion of slow progression: as dawn approaches the sky begins to brighten, and one by one the stars fade into the total light of day. In the same way, the point that is the light of God, once beheld as a distinct entity, now is seen to encompass everything, thus containing and absorbing all the light the Pilgrim has encountered up to this point in his journey.” Then, as everything fades – and this all happens rather quickly – Dante lovingly turns his eyes from the Light to the loving eyes of Beatrice. |
| ↑5 | In the Vita Nuova, for example. |
| ↑6 | This burst of praise from Dante, one might say, has been a long time in coming. If we look back to the moment when he first recognized Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise at the top of the Mount of Purgatory, and then move forward through all he has experienced up to this moment, we can begin to understand not only how she has conquered him with her beauty – the beauty of the Divine Face she gazes on eternally – but appreciate fully how she has led him, step by step, up through the cosmos, and now prepares him to step into the Empyrean, the abode of God. Not only this, but we, as readers, have to step back and realize, again, that she has been the energy, the motivating force, behind this entire Poem! Recall the moment he first recognized her at the beginning of Canto 30 in the Purgatorio: “Let me tell you now, though many years had passed since I stood before her, trembling and stunned by her beauty, within my spirit I was once again prostrate before the power of her love.” There is an irony here, of course. The “hymn of praise” is, in fact, the Commedia. Yet, in enjoying her beauty, the transcendent beauty of the Divine Face, he realizes his Poem is, in fact, “a trifling thing.” A humble admission. Mark Musa notes at this point: “Dante imagines condensing all he knows of Beatrice in one poem, then finds it wanting, since no one poem could contain the full beauty of God’s idea of her.” |
| ↑7 | It is difficult to imagine Dante, the man of such genius who created this Poem, making this admission and admitting defeat. Back in Canto 23 he made a similar admission when he was stunned by the beauty of Beatrice’s face and found himself unable to put it into words. Both there and here she resists his attempts to describe her in detail because she is no longer mortal. In his commentary here, John Ciardi remarks: “Now fully disclosed in the direct light of the Empyrean she surpasses conception: only God can realize her full beauty. On another level it is only natural that Dante stand inarticulate before the full beauty of Divine Revelation. What religious man could think himself equal to describing the entire beauty of Revelation?” Even so, we know that the Poem is not finished yet and that there is more to come. Yet, as he steps from the mortal world of the cosmos into the Empyrean, the last thing he does is to divest himself of what he prizes the most – the very Poem he’s writing, the Poem that has kept him alive and given him light in the darkness of his exile. It’s a kind of poetic death, and what now follows will be nothing short of a resurrection, an apotheosis, as he “comes home” and brings us with him. In Canto 23 he called his Commedia “il sacrato poema,” (the sacred poem). Here perhaps, as he enters the precincts of the Empyrean, the heart of his “Sacred Poem” begins. Teodolinda Barolini notes that the medieval term tëodia (“divine song”), originally used for the Psalms, can be “easily transferred to Dante’s own poema sacro [sacred poem].” In Paradiso XXV, she writes, David – the sommo cantor del sommo duce [the supreme singer of the Supreme Lord] – embodies the scriptural tëodia that Dante now continues in a new key: his Commedia becomes the final God-song, a synthesis of classical epic and biblical hymn. Following from this, then, it’s as though Dante’s change of key signifies his having done with mortal poetry and mortal beauty as he “sings” this great epic to its transcendent conclusion. Teodolinda Barolini, Dante’s Poets: Textuality and Truth in the Comedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984, 277. (One is reminded of St. Thomas Aquinas here. Three months before he died, on December 6, 1273, the Feast of St. Nicholas, he had such a profound mystical experience of God that afterward he told a confrere: “I can write no more. All that I have written seems to me as so much straw.” Neither Dante nor Aquinas are repudiating their work. It’s just that, in the face of the Divine, no human endeavor can match up. |
| ↑8 | At this moment, now, we leave the Primum Mobile and enter into the Empyrean where Beatrice will no longer acts as Dante’s guide because this is her true home, the abode of God. Remember that in Canto 28, Beatrice explained that the cosmos is a reflection or copy of the Empyrean. We now enter the realm of the “original” and upon doing so, we find it filled with joy and suffused with the Light of God that reflects the highest thoughts, the deepest love, and the truly good. Note these key words: light, love, and ecstasy. Not only this, Beatrice tells Dante that here he will see the angels and the saints – the two “armies”of Heaven. And perhaps most special will be the privilege of seeing all the saints clothed in their glorified (post-resurrection, post-Final Judgment) bodies. Recall that in Canto 22, Dante asked the spirit of St. Benedict if he would show himself with his body. The saint told Dante that he would, indeed, see all the saints in their bodily form in the Empyrean. And so the promise is about to be fulfilled. Charles Singleton expands on this in his commentary here, showing how Dante takes theology into the realm of the imagination: “By a very special privilege the wayfarer, a living man who has attained to this ultimate goal, is to be shown the human souls of the elect as they will be seen after the Last Judgment, when they will have their bodies (glorified bodies) again. Here the poet is quite on his own, for no accepted doctrine concerning the attainment of this pinnacle of contemplation on the part of a living man allows any such privilege. But now the poet allows it and crowns his poem with such embodied vision (by special privilege), thus climaxing the whole structure with the kind of vision which is the very substance of his poetry. Human souls that have been flames, without human countenance or bodily semblance throughout most of the Paradiso, are now to be seen in their glorified bodies.” |
| ↑9 | Having stepped through the door of the Empyrean, as it were, Dante is greeted by and enveloped in a blinding flash of light. One can imagine Beatrice enjoying this moment with a big smile, telling the “newbie” Dante: “This is how Heaven says ‘Hello!’” And with a wonderful simile, she tells him that he is a candle ready to be lit. In the Book of Proverbs (20:27) we read: “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.” John Ciardi in his commentary adds: “Dante has several times been blinded by the light that prepared him for better vision. Here the candle of his soul is put out by the splendor of the Empyrean to be relit by the light of God Himself.” Some commentators liken this moment to that experienced by St. Paul at his conversion. According to the three accounts in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 9:3ff, 22:6ff, 26:13ff), he didn’t just “see” a flash of light. It was an encounter with Jesus who surrounded him, enveloped him, and filled him with Himself: “…suddenly there shone from Heaven a great light round about me…” In a sense, this is exactly what is happening to Dante. And one might go so far as to imagine that this is the kind of welcome everyone in Heaven has received. Recall, also, that St. Paul related in his Second Letter to the Corinthians (12:2-4) how he was caught up into Heaven…and “heard things that cannot be told.” |
| ↑10 | Having entered the Empyrean and been permeated by God’s enveloping light, Dante realizes that his mortal senses have been “heavenized” and their powers vastly increased making him ready for the rapturous experiences awaiting him. This canto, particularly, is filled with amazing things for Dante (and us) to see with his heightened visual ability. The first thing he sees is a feast for the imagination: light in the form of a dazzling river. Dante uses the word fulvido to describe this river which comes from the Latin fulvus (which means yellow-reddish). Out of this river great sparks (yellow-reddish?) fly back and forth into the magnificent gem-like flowers arrayed along the banks in a myriad of brilliant colors. Picture the fiery sparks that fly out of the furnace when molten iron is poured out. Commentators here often point to the Book of Revelation (22:1-5) where readers will recognize a passage there about the City of God related to this river of light image and what will follow: “Then the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of its street. On either side of the river grew the tree of life that produces fruit twelve times a year, once each month; the leaves of the trees serve as medicine for the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there anymore. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will look upon his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more, nor will they need light from lamp or sun, for the Lord God shall give them light, and they shall reign forever and ever.” As Readers have come to know Dante, they can expect that the light, the river, the sparks (later angels as bees), the flowers, the rubies and precious gold all have symbolic significance as part of the Poet’s mystical initiation into the Empyrean. The light itself is a visible manifestation of the presence of God. Recall that this light is not only “outside,” as it were, something to see by. Here in the Empyrean it fully penetrates bodies of the Saints, and Dante. That this light takes the form of a river is often likened to divine grace, which flows out to us from God. The sparks, probably taking their reddish color from the river, are angels who bring the refreshment of God’s grace to the flowers along the banks of the river. Later, they are likened to bees. The flowers, of course, are the Saints. The ruby-like sparks fly among the golden flowers creating the image of countless jeweled settings. Dante/Beatrice will refer to these flowers as laughing. The red and gold colors are symbolic of love. And note how the image of bees works so well here. The bees, as it were, “pollinate” the flowers with divine grace and then, drunk (angels!) on their nectar, they fly back to the river causing more sparks to fly out and back to nourish the Saints. Needless to say, there are some amazing Virgilian sources that Dante draws on here. Peter Dronke, referring to parts of Virgil’s Fourth Georgic, writes that “Virgil’s bees, like Dante’s angels, alternate between blossoms and river ‘…reaping the shining flowers and lightly sipping the surface of the streams, they become joyous with an indefinable sweetness….they swim to the stars of the firmament through liquid summer….Some have said bees share in the divine mind and drink ethereal draughts, for God indeed pervades all lands, the ocean’s realms and the deep heaven….To him, that is, all things return: they are reabsorbed in him.’” (Peter Dronke, “Symbolism and Structure in Paradiso 30,” Romance Philology 43, no. 1 [August 1989]: 39.) In the Aeneid (VI:707-709), Virgil writes: “And now Aeneas sees in the valley’s depths a sheltered grove and rustling wooded brakes and the Lethe flowing past the homes of peace. Around it hovered numberless races, nations of souls like bees in meadowlands on a cloudless summer day that settle on flowers, riots of color, swarming round the lilies’ lustrous sheen, and the whole field comes alive with a humming murmur.” Not only are these passages lovely in themselves, but they also show us both the breadth of Dante’s almost photographic knowledge of Virgil’s works and how they influenced his Comedy. Bosco and Reggio, in their commentary here write: “Note that, despite the presence of sensory elements (the river, the flowers, the sparks), the entire description becomes dematerialized – the representation of the paradisal scene is highly spiritualized. If one compares this portrayal with the clumsy, crudely material descriptions found in the visionary literature of Dante’s own age or slightly earlier (those whom older critics used to call the poet’s ‘precursors’), one can recognize the extraordinary imaginative power of Dante and the vast distance separating a true poet from mere versifiers. Observe also that in Dante there is no trace of annihilation or mystical stammering; everything is represented clearly and realistically.” A final source is hard to resist – from Psalm 136 (8-9): “They feast on the abundance of your house, / and you give them drink from the river of your delights. / For with you is the fountain of life; / in your light do we see light.” |
| ↑11 | Delighted that Dante is filled with questions about what he is seeing, Beatrice tells him that, the final step in his initiation into the Empyrean is literally a baptism. Presently, he is like a catechumen, a neophyte. He has seen the river, the sparks, and the flowers. But they are not what he thinks they are. They are only foreshadowings of the truth. There is so much more to see beyond their forms, to the truth behind them. To do this, to really see the Empyrean, he must drink from river of light. All of this, of course, heightens our anticipation and it stands in contrast with his earlier so-called “defeat.” The apotheosis is about to begin. |
| ↑12 | Dante, the hungry baby, more than ready to follow Beatrice’s directive, doesn’t just drink from the river of light, he puts his whole face into it. Robert Hollander says he literally “drinks his baptism.” Here, one is reminded of the two rivers (Lethe and Eunoë) he passed through in the Earthly Paradise at the top of the Mount of Purgatory. The image of a masquerade is perfect here: at the signal, all the masks come off and the identity of the jubilant revelers is made known. Instantly, the river turns into a lake (the signal), the sparks and flowers are revealed to be the angels and the saints, and the entire expanse of the Empyrean opens before him. He tastes and sees, as in Psalm 34:9: “O taste and see the goodness of the Lord.” Recall earlier (Canto 1:67f) how Glaucus was transformed after tasting the herb which turned him into a god, and recall how Adam and Eve, after tasting the forbidden fruit, saw that they were naked. Previously, he had looked into Beatrice’s eyes to see the Divine reflected there. Now his own eyes reflect the Divine Light. This is a moment quite unlike any other in poetry! And if, earlier, Dante had cause to be stunned and defeated by Beatrice’s beauty, imagine the breadth of thought and feeling this event brought upon him now. He has passed from time into eternity. Here, John Ciardi writes: “Dante has just experienced the first direct revelation of God. Until he drank from the stream he could not see things with the spontaneous intuition of heavenly souls, who partake directly of the mind of God. Now he, too, has achieved the beginnings of Paradisal power. This is the true rebirth, the spiritual enlargement to which the entire Journey has been directed.” |
| ↑13 | Nearly outdone, once again, Dante prays for the inspiration to write down what he saw. He begins by noting how the Divine Light illuminates the entire Empyrean, enabling both angels and saints to literally see God in the face – the joyful privilege of all citizens of Heaven. This Light, emanating from God, spreads out in a circle (an image of Heaven) so large the sun would be dwarfed by it. Then he explains what that Light does. The whole material universe forms a globe, whose exterior is the Primum Mobile. One ray of God’s grace streams downward upon the convex surface of this sphere, and gives it life and motion which it transmits to the rest of the cosmos contained within it. And, reflected from the smooth, round surface of the Primum Mobile, that light is transformed into the circular ocean of light that appears as the “floor” of Paradise. In this Divine Light which is now showing itself as a great circular lake, Dante sees reflected in that lake a beautiful grassy hillside covered with flowers. More than this, the hillside, alive, as it were, looks at itself admiringly in its reflection in the lake. And now Dante departs from his symbols and begins to give us a sense of what he now sees with his new powers of sight. An arena of unimaginable proportions rises up before and around him, tier after tier filled with the saints. He tells us that the first tier alone is filled with countless saints and asks the Reader to imagine the immensity of the whole structure which he likens to a great Rose. While he was in Rome, just before his exile, Dante would surely have seen the Coliseum. Several years later, when he was living in Verona, he would have seen the ancient Arena there, which is older and slightly smaller than the one in Rome. While the one in Rome is mostly a tourist attraction, so is the one in Verona, but it is also still used for large-scale outdoor productions like operas. And there’s no reason not to believe that Dante, perhaps on more than one occasion, stood in the center of both structures and looked up to take in its vastness, which he later used as a model for our Rose. |
| ↑14 | After being enveloped by the Divine Light and then putting his head into the river of Light, Dante’s new “heaven-sight” enables him to take in with perfect clarity the entirety of the Rose arena from bottom to top and all its rejoicing saints. And, as we’ve noted several times before, in Paradise the laws of nature, the laws of physics, and human thinking in general not only do not work, they aren’t necessary. John Ciardi writes in his commentary here: “On earth we see near things in detail and far things indistinctly. The laws of nature, however, are God’s agencies and have no force where God rules without intermediaries. So, despite the galactic dimensions of the rose, Dante sees all in minute detail, not only each being in that multitude, but the quality of each one’s ecstasy.” |
| ↑15 | Dante, as we’ve come to expect, is dying to speak. But Beatrice quietly takes him to the center of the arena for a better view – as if he needs it! Recall that all the saints have their glorified bodies in order for him to have the fullest experience of the place he dearly hopes to return to. The saints are all robed in white garments as noted in the Book of Revelation (19:14): “And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him…” Recall also that Dante is an exile longing to return to his true home, a hope that fuels the entire Poem. And while Beatrice seems casually to note (with pride in her City) that most of the seats are filled, there’s more to her observation than meets the eye. Dante and many of his contemporaries believed that they were living at the end of an age, when the world would come to an end. He actually wrote about this in his Convivio (2,xiv,13), saying: “We are already in the final age of the world.” Thus, her remark about the few empty seats. Here, Beatrice points out one empty seat in particular. It is reserved for the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII (1275-1313) also known as Count Henry of Luxembourg and King of the Germans. He had great hopes of resolving the strife between Guelfs and Ghibellines that was ravaging northern Italy. Dante, who actually may have met him, had great hopes for him, and wrote what may be the most famous of his Epistles to/about him. This fifth Letter is entitled, Epistle to the Princes and Peoples of Italy. It is a piece of unabashedly high praise in which Dante virtually likens Henry’s arrival in Italy to the Second Coming, bringing with him a long-awaited era of peace! It is, without doubt, one of the most significant pieces of Dante’s political writing. Unfortunately, Henry’s program of peace between the Guelfs and Ghibellines met with considerable resistance everywhere. Emperor for only a year, he died south of Siena at Buonconvento. With that, Dante’s hopes for the restoration of political justice, order, and peace in Italy were dashed, along with his hopes that Henry’s success would lead to the end of his exile and his restoration to his beloved Florence. Some commentators have been uncomfortable with Dante’s placing the Emperor’s chair in Heaven. But Charles Singleton, in his own commentary, offers valuable insights here: “It should be remembered, however, that in Dante’s view (as made clear in his treatise De Monarchia and throughout the Divine Comedy) the temporal power of the emperor, whoever he may be, is directly ordained by God, from Heaven, so that a special seat for an emperor there is not a total or entirely shocking incongruity. And an empty chair, in the fictional date of 1300, registers the fact that in that year, in Dante’s view, the seat of Empire is indeed empty.” Apart from the Emperor, in the end one can’t miss the fact that – speaking of seats – Dante seems, already, to be reserving one for himself here. Beatrice notes that he will take his seat after Henry dies. In fact, the Emperor died eight years before Dante did. An interesting postscript: The political climate being what it was when Henry died (most likely of a malarial fever), there were rumors that his death was anything but natural. One of them, among others, was recorded by the noted Florentine chronicler, Giovanni Villani. Here is an excerpt from his Nuova Cronica IX.62 / IX.66 ed. Muratori. I’ve italicized the rumor: “Then the Emperor Henry, having come into Tuscany and wishing to go to battle with King Robert, arrived at Buonconvento near Siena; and there he fell ill and died on the 24th day of August in the year 1313. And it is said that he was poisoned by a friar of the Order of Preachers, who gave him the Body of Christ poisoned; and thus he died. His death was a great loss to all Italy, for had he lived, he would have reformed Holy Church and the state of the world. He was honorably buried in the church of the Friars Minor at Buonconvento, and afterward his body was taken to Pisa and there honorably entombed in the church of St. Francis; and the body was found whole and sound and fair, as though still alive.” |
| ↑16 | Beatrice brings her scan of the heavenly Rose arena to an end when, before all of Heaven, she makes a scathing denunciation of the greed and its attendant evils that infect the social fabric of Italy as a result. For Dante, right from the beginning of the Inferno and throughout the Poem, greed, represented by the insatiable she-wolf, leads to nothing but grief. In this case, Dante is referring to the resistance of both the Papacy and the Guelf party to the prerogatives of Imperial authority. Note the contrast between Dante’s image of the child who, earlier, eagerly sought its mother’s milk on awakening, and this one who is starving and yet pushes away the nurse who would feed it – an image of a country gone mad. Furthermore, he is certain that when Henry came down into Italy from the north, Pope Clement V acted as though he was in solidarity with the Emperor. But he secretly betrayed him and did everything he could to subvert and ruin Henry’s plans. God, however, has different plans for Pope Clement, who died in 1314, eight months after Henry. It was Clement, intriguing with France’s Philip IV (aka Philip the Fair), who moved the papacy from Rome to Avignon in March of 1309, and whom Dante refers to in Canto 19 (83) of the Inferno as “a lawless shepherd.” In that canto, Dante encounters the simonists, who trafficked in money, property, and positions belonging to the Church. They are buried upside down in holes, crammed on top of the simonist ahead of them. In this case, it is Clement’s predecessor (Nicholas III) who, comically, because he can’t see who he’s talking with, thinks Dante is Pope Boniface VIII come to be buried in the hole on top of him! Nicholas III died in 1280, Boniface VIII in 1303, and Clement V in 1314. Simon Magus, the prototype of corrupt churchmen, first appears in the New Testament in Acts of the Apostles 8:9-24, trying to purchase the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit by which the Apostles were healing the sick. The word “simony” is derived from his name. These are the last words Beatrice speaks in the Paradiso. Charles Singleton writes in his commentary here: “These fearful words are the last spoken by Beatrice. As such words, it may be added, they amount to a kind of last look earthwards and a last denunciation of cupidity on earth as the sin that most besets mankind there, a fact that was conveyed in the action of the poem at its very beginning, when the she-wolf proved to be the most troublesome of the three beasts blocking the wayfarer’s progress up the mountainside. The poem, on this point, comes full circle.” |