Paradise, page 28
l. 106: “… full many shall cry aloud: ‘Christ! Christ!’” etc.: Compare Matt. vii. 21–23: “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven”, etc.
l. 108: “Farther from Him than they who know not Christ”: i.e. deeper down in Hell than the Limbo.
ll. 110–11: “… to taste the wealth that springs eterne, or chew the eternal empty grudge”: i.e. the sheep and the goats, the souls in Heaven and the souls in Hell.
l. 112: “the Persians”: here intended as representing all non-Christians (cf. “the Ethiop”, l. 109).
l. 113: “When the Book’s opened”: i.e. the Book of Judgement. Compare Revelations xx. 12: “The books were opened;… and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”
l. 115: “They’ll read therein” etc.: From here on until the end of the canto, Dante represents the Eagle as uttering a condemnation of contemporary monarchs. Cf. Purg. vi. 91–136. In the original the opening letters of nine terzains (ll. 115–14) form the word LUE (pestilence), each letter being three times repeated. Cf. the similar acrostic in Purgatory xii. 25–63.
ll. 116–17: “That deed – already trembling on the pen – which shall lay Prague and all her kingdom waste”: Albert of Austria, the son of Rudolf of Hapsburg, was elected Emperor (though never crowned) in 1298. In 1304, jealous of the growing power of Wenceslas IV, he invaded and devastated his kingdom of Bohemia.
ll. 118–19:”… he that’s fated to be slain by the wild sanglier’s thrust” etc.: This is Philip IV of France, who died in 1314 while out hunting when his horse was overthrown by the charge of a wild boar. In all the references to him in the Divine Comedy he is not once mentioned by name. The issue of base coinage at nominal value (to pay the expenses of his war against Flanders) had a serious effect on the economy of France.
ll. 121–3: “They’ll read with what insensate greed and pride”: Dante is thought to be alluding here to the wars between Edward I and Wallace.
l. 124: “the kings of Spain and of Bohenny”: The king of Spain is thought to be Ferdinand IV of Castile; the king of Bohemia is Wenceslas IV.
l. 127: “the Cripple of Jerusalem”: Charles II, King of Naples, son of Charles of Anjou, was surnamed “Le Boiteux”. The title of Jerusalem was attached to the Crown of Naples when Mary of Antioch ceded her claim to Charles I. His virtues may be indicated by the figure 1, but for his crimes the figure M (1,000) is required. The solitary virtue here alluded to is thought to be his liberality.
ll. 130–31: “the guardian of the Isle of Fire where old Anchises died”: Anchises, the father of Aeneas, died soon after the arrival of the Trojans in Sicily (“the Isle of Fire”, so named from its volcano, Etna). The “guardian” of Sicily is Frederick, son of Pedro of Aragon, whose crime was to have first espoused the cause of the Imperialists and then to abandon it on the death of Henry VII.
l. 134: “Close-writ with cramped contractions”: The record of Frederick is so paltry that the old scribal contractions will suffice to record the account of his evil deeds which are not worthy to be written out in an unabbreviated hand.
ll. 137–8: “Uncle and brother set the brand of shame upon two crowns, and on a princely line”: The uncle of Frederick is James, King of the Balearic Islands; the brother is James, King of Aragon.
ll. 139–41: “And Portugal shall be held up to blame” etc.: In these three lines, the Eagle mentions together Dionysius, King of Portugal (1279–1325), Haakon, King of Norway (1299–1319) and Stephen Ouros, King of Rascia (Dalmatia), who in 1307 struck coins which counterfeited the Venetian ducat.
ll. 142–3: “O blest is Hungary, if she now defies further ill-usage”: In 1301 the son of Charles Martel, Carobert, succeeded to the throne of Hungary (cf. Canto viii and Genealogical Tables, p. 398).
Blest Navarre etc.: Navarre was an independent kingdom until 1314, when it was united to the French crown on the accession of Louis X. The “mountain fortalice” of Navarre is the Western Pyrenees.
ll. 145–8: “In pledge whereof, let all the world allow that Nicosia and Famagusta speak” etc.: Nicosia and Famagusta, two towns in Cyprus, may serve as a warning of what Navarre may expect if she falls under French rule, for Cyprus now suffers under the misrule of the Frenchman, Henry II of Lusignan, here referred to as the “beast, that hard as he knows how, runs with the pack”, i.e. who in his dissolute life keeps pace with the evil monarchs already mentioned.
Heaven of Jupiter – The Eagle Sings –
It Identifies Daivd, Trajan, Hezekiah, Constantine
CANTO XX
THE STORY. As the Eagle falls silent, the multiple voices burst into heavenly song; this is followed by a murmuring which, rising up through the neck of the sacred ensign, is converted once more into a single utterance. The Eagle bids Dante fix his gaze upon the six lights which compose its pupil and the curve above its eye; these it identifies as David, Trajan, Hezekiah, Constantine, William II of Sicily and Rhipeus the Trojan. Dante expresses his amazement at the presence of Trajan and Rhipeus, who are declared by the Eagle to have died in the true faith.
When from this hemisphere of ours descending
The universal lamp so far has gone
That on all sides the daylight hath its ending,
4 The sky, lit heretofore by him alone,
Straight reappears, with myriad lights made quick,
And all reflected splendours of the one.
7 As the world’s ensign and the sacred beak
Which held its leaders paused, it brought to mind
This act of heaven; for, when it ceased to speak,
10 Out broke those living lights, the while they shined
Brighter by far, in songs – alas! which slide,
Slip out of memory and are left behind.
13 Sweet, smiling love! How fervently did glide
Thy warblings through the vents of that sweet flute
Breathed on by holy thoughts and naught beside!
16 When those rare gems, precious beyond compute,
Wherewith I saw the sixth of heav’ns a-gleam,
Bade silence, and the angelic chimes were mute,
19 I heard a murmuring, as of some clear stream
Dropping from rock to rock, whose din denotes
How thick with springs its mountain-sources teem;
22 And, as the music’s sound forms into notes
In the lute’s neck, or in the pipes that swallow
Wind and expel it through their unstopped throats,
25 So did the murmuring of the eagle follow
That pause of expectation, and it floated
Up through the neck, as though it had been hollow.
28 There it took form and voice, to pour full-throated
Out of the beak in words, which in my heart,
Being there expected, were devoutly noted.
31 “Fix firm thy gaze on me, and view that part
Which in your earthly eagles”, thus it said,
“Sees and endures the sun’s most fiery smart;
34 For of the fires wherewith I’ve architected
My figured shape, the chief of rank and mark
Are those with whom the eye shines in my head.
37 Midmost, as ’twere the pupil, burns that spark
Which was the minstrel of the Holy Spirit,
And once from town to town bare forth the ark;
40 And now he knows how much his own songs merit,
So far as ’twas his art that shaped the strain,
For even as he deserved, he doth inherit.
43 Five in the eyebrow’s arch – mark these again!
The one that nearest to the beak doth sit
Consoled the widow when her son was slain;
46 And now he knows how dear they pay for it
Who serve not Christ, by his experience
Of this sweet life and of the opposite.
49 He that lies next on the circumference,
Where springs that arch which now is my concern,
Delayed his death by his true penitence;
52 And now he knows that the decrees eterne
Alter not, though good prayer should get today’s
Portion postponed to serve tomorrow’s turn.
55 Next, he that with high purpose – though but base
Its fruit – going eastward with the laws and me,
Turned Greek, to let the Pastor take his place;
58 And now he knows that all the iniquity
Springing from his good action hurts not him,
Though it should make the world in flinders flee.
61 And he thou see’st where downward slopes the rim
Was William, mourned in his own land, which grieves
That Charles and Frederick live, and groans for them;
64 And now he knows how warmly Heaven receives
And loves a righteous king; his sparklings show
The deathless glory that he here achieves.
67 Who’d credit, in the erring world below,
That Trojan Rhipeus is the fifth of these
Most holy lights that in the circle glow?
70 And now he knows the grace of God, and sees
Much that the world is powerless to descry,
Though sounding not its last profundities.”
73 Like to the lark which soars into the sky
Singing at first, and then, with utter bliss
Filled to the full, falls silent by and by,
76 So seemed to me yon image of the impress
Of that eternal Will by love whereto
Each thing becomes that which it really is;
79 And though, as through stained glass the stain shows through,
Amazement showed through me as clear as clear,
To hold my peace was more than I could do;
82 So that a cry burst forth, “What’s this I hear?”
As though its own weight forced my lips asunder.
This roused great sparkling and much joyous cheer;
85 And with an eye yet brighter and jocunder
The blessed emblem answered me straightway,
As loth to keep me thus suspense in wonder:
88 “I see thou dost believe, because I say,
That these things are; the How escapes thy sight;
So, though believed, they’re hid, and thou dost stay
91 Like one who knows a thing by name aright,
Yet of its quiddity makes no pretence
To knowledge, till some other give him light.
94 Regnum coelorum suffereth violence
From ardent love and living hope, which still
Conquer God’s will and beat down His defence –
97 Not as man beats down man; Himself doth will
To suffer conquest, who by His own love
Conquered, conies conquering and unconquerable.
100 The brow’s first life, yea, and the fifth thereof
Make thee amazed to see them deck the seat
Of angels. Know, these put the body off,
103 Not gentiles, as thou deemest, but complete
In Christian faith, dinging – as each had scope – To
the passion-pierced, to the yet-to-be-passible Feet.
106 For one from Hell (where spirits never grope
Back to right will), into his flesh and bone
Returned; this was the guerdon of living hope,
109 The living hope that nerved the orison
Made unto God to raise him up, and dower
His will once more with motions of its own;
112 Which glorious soul, when for a little hour
It thus resumed the body whence it came,
Believed on Him that hath the saving power,
115 And, so believing, loved, with ardent flame
So bright, that at the second death ’twas found
Worthy to join our high celestial game.
118 The other, by a grace from such deep ground
Gushing that no created eye can plumb
Its hidden well-springs where they run profound,
121 On righteousness spent all his earthly sum
Of love; whence God from grace to grace unsealed
His eyes to the redemption yet to come.
124 Then he, believing in the truth revealed,
The stench of pagan filth no more could bear,
And scourged the vice with which the land was filled.
127 Ere ever baptism was, a thousand year,
He was baptised; thou, at the car’s right wheel,
Saw’st those three ladies who his proxies were.
130 Predestination! what far depths conceal
From feeble sight, unable to detect
The First Cause whole, thy root of woe and weal!
133 And, mortals, keep your judgement straitly checked,
For here we see God face to face, and still
We know not all the roll of His elect;
136 Yet sweet to us appears our lack of skill,
Since this good doth our good the more refine,
That what God willeth, that we also will.”
139 On this wise did that image all-divine
Medicine to me a sweet and delicate
Balsam to clear this clouded sight of mine.
142 And even as the good lutanist will wait
On the good singer with his thrilling wires
Plucked right, for more delight, nor soon nor late,
145 Just so I mind me how, with twin desires
Moved, as two winking eyelids move the same,
The while it spake, I saw those two blest fires
148 Accompany the words with flicks of flame.
THE IMAGES. The Heaven of Jupiter: see Canto xviii, under Images.
The Eye of the Eagle: The six lights forming the pupil and the curve above the eye of the eagle are recognized by the body as the greatest representatives of justice on earth. David, the pupil of the eye, was the first true king of the chosen people. Of him Dante writes in the Convivio: “It was in the very same age that David was born and Rome was born, that is, that Aeneas came from Troy to Italy, which was the origin of the most noble city of Rome, as the records testify; so that the divine choice of the Roman Empire is manifest from the birth of the holy city being contemporaneous with the root of Mary’s race.” David represents a combination of spiritual and temporal authority on earth; he is the psalmist who sang of the Holy Ghost, he brought the ark, the tabernacle of the divine presence, to his city, and his kingdom was founded on worship. In Trajan, Hezekiah, and Constantine, Dante presents three instances of the wonder of God’s grace; for Trajan was restored to life and converted by the prayers of Pope Gregory the Great; to Hezekiah was granted a further lease of live in response to prayer and repentance; and Constantine’s bliss is shown to be undiminished by the iniquity which sprang from his good action. The only modern ruler, William II of Sicily, is a striking image in his isolation, at once a rebuke and an inspiration to the contemporary world.
Climax of the six is Rhipeus the pagan, at mention of whom an expression of amazement bursts from Dante’s lips. The presence in Heaven of both Rhipeus and Trajan at last provides Dante with the answer for which his soul has yearned for so long. Redemption is not, of necessity, denied to those who knew, or know, not Christ. The divine will, operating by grace in ways which man’s mind cannot fathom, grants salvation to the righteous. It would appear from this that Dante’s faith had broadened and deepened during his later years and that he came to know, and to rejoice in the knowledge, that Christian truth was not bounded by his understanding.
NOTES. l. 2: the universal lamp: i.e. the sun.
l. 10: Out broke those living lights: The multiple song of the lights which bursts forth when the beak is silent is compared to the shining form of starlight which occurs when the sky is dark. (The lights of the souls are not said to increase visibly in radiance.)
l. 18: the angelic chimes were mute: The singing, of which the beauty surpasses all mortal melody, is described as angelic, or heavenly (i.e. Dante does not intend to convey that it was uttered by any of the angelic orders).
ll. 22–30: And, as the music’s sound forms into notes etc.: This is not the first time that Dante has described the transformation of sound into articulated speech. In Inf. xxvi. 85–90, he has described “how the words the spirit speaks down at the root of the flame are first translated into ‘fire’s native speech’ – an inarticulate roaring – and then re-translated into words when they reach the tip: much on the principle of the telephone, by which the sound-waves are transmitted as electric vibrations and turned back into sound-waves when they reach the receiver.” (D. L. Sayers, Further Papers on Dante, p. 113.) In Inferno xiii. 40–45, the voice of Pier delle Vigne issuing from the broken splint of the thorn-tree is compared to the issuing of sound from a green branch:
“As, when you bum one end of a green brand,
Sap at the other oozes from the wood,
Sizzling as the imprisoned airs expand.”
ll. 31–3: “… that part which in your earthly eagles… sees and endures the sun’s most fiery smart”: i.e. Dante is to fix his gaze upon the eagle’s eye. The legend that eagles trained their young to gaze at the sun was current in Dante’s time. He has referred to their power of enduring the sunlight in Canto i (l. 48), a power which Beatrice, surpasses. Compare Milton’s eagle, “Kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam”.
ll. 35–6: “… the chief of rank and mark are those with whom the eye shines in my head”: The six souls here alluded to make up the Eagle’s eye. (Cf. diagram on p. 238.)
ll. 37–9: “… that spark which was the minstrel of the Holy Spirit” etc: David, the psalmist, who fetched the ark (the sign of the divine presence) from Gibea to Gath and from Gath to Jerusalem (cf. Purg. x. 57–64 and II Sam. vi. 6–18).
ll. 40–42: “And now he knows how much his own songs merit” etc.: Although David as the psalmist was “the minstrel of the Holy Spirit”, yet David’s own art, in as much as it proceeded from his own free will, entitled him to reward in Heaven. Inspiration, being vouchsafed to him by grace, did not constitute merit.
ll. 44–5: “The one that nearest to the beak doth sit consoled the widow” etc.: It is related of Trajan (Roman Emperor from A.D. 98–117) that as he was setting out for the wars, on being stopped by a poor widow who asked him for redress for the death of her son, he acceded to her request. The episode is mentioned in Purgatory as being sculpted among the examples of humility in the first Cornice (Purg. x. 73–96). According to another legend, St Gregory brought the dead Emperor back from Hell by his prayers and baptized him to salvation. A. P. Stanley says of Gregory before he became Pope, “His heart yearned towards those old Pagan heroes or sages who had been garnered to their fathers without hearing the name of Christ. He could not bear to think, with the belief that prevailed at the time, that they had been consigned to destruction. One especially mere was, of whom he was constantly reminded in his walks through Rome – the great Emperor Trajan, whose statue he always saw rising above him at the top of the tall column which stood in the market-place, called from him the Forum of Trajan. It is said that he was so impressed with the thought of the justice and goodness of this heathen sovereign, that he earnestly prayed in St Peter’s Church that God would even now give him grace to know the name of Christ and be converted. And it is believed that from the veneration which he entertained for Trajan’s memory, this column remained when all around it was shattered to pieces; and so it still remains, a monument both of the goodness of Trajan, and the true Christian charity of Gregory” (Historical Memorials of Canterbury, Dent, n.d., p. 13).
