Paradise, page 7
l. 61: day seemed joined to day: Dante, without knowing it, has risen from the earth and is approaching the sphere of fire, which according to the science of his day was believed to encircle the globe at some distance between it and the moon (see chart at end of book).
l. 65: the eternal wheels: the heavenly spheres; Beatrice was gazing upwards.
ll. 68–72: As Glaucus (see Glossary) was changed into a sea-god, so Dante, gazing on Beatrice, who continues to gaze heavenwards, is “transhumanised”, an experience so far beyond human limits that he cannot convey it in words; he can only adduce, for comparison, the experience of Glaucus.
l. 74: that of me which Thou didst last create: i.e. the rational human soul. In Purgatory Statius has explained that God breathes the soul into the body last of all (cf. Purg. xxv. 67–75). Dante here implies that he could not tell whether his ascent into Heaven was made in the body or by his soul alone. St Paul (II Corinthians xii. 2–3) expressed a similar doubt. Elsewhere in Paradise, however, Dante conveys that he is in Heaven in his mortal body (cf. 98–9, 103–42 and note).
l. 76: The wheel thou mak’st eternal etc.: This is the combined rotatory movement of the heavens, of which the driving force is the desire of the Primum Mobile (see Glossary) to be conjoined with the Empyrean or abode of God. The belief that the spheres emitted music as they revolved was first taught by Pythagoras, disputed by Aristotle and revived by Plato. In Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis the younger Scipio, raised in his dream to the Milky Way, hears the heavenly harmony and enquires of the soul of his grandfather: “What is this great and pleasing sound that fills my ears?” The elder Scipio explains that it is a concord of tones separated by unequal, carefully proportioned intervals and caused by the motion of the spheres. The outermost sphere, the star-bearer, having the swiftest motion, gives form the highest note, while the lunar sphere, being the nearest to the earth and the slowest in motion, gives form the lowest tone. Macrobius, in his Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, confirms Cicero’s explanation in some detail, adding that the breath constraining the spheres is stronger the nearer it is to its source. Other cosmographers, however, assigned the lowest note to the outermost sphere and the highest to the sphere of the moon. Milton evidently followed this view when he wrote of the “bass of Heaven’s deep organ” in his Hymn on the Nativity. Dante does not reveal which view he took as to the order of the notes, contenting himself (l. 78) with referring to God as the ultimate source of all such harmony. (It is interesting to notice that Shakespeare apparently understood that the music was believed to emanate from the planets themselves rather than from the spheres in which they were thought to revolve:
“There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings
Still quiring to the young-ey’d cherubims.”
The Merchant of Venice, v. 1)
l. 79: so vast a sphere: this is perhaps the light of the sun itself, or light from the moon which they are approaching, or the sphere of fire through which they had to pass (see chart at end of book).
l. 82: The unwonted sound: Scipio the elder had explained to his grandson: “The ears of mortals are filled with this sound, but they are unable to hear it”; and Macrobius commented, “we do not catch the sound of the music arising in the constant swirl of the spheres because it is too full to be taken into the narrow range of our ears.” Dante refers to the music of the spheres a second time when he reaches the heaven of Saturn, where, for a while, he can no longer hear it (cf. Canto xxi. 58–60).
l. 92: Lightning from its sphere falling: the sphere of lightning is the sphere of fire (cf. Canto xxiii. 41–2).
l. 93: returning there: Dante is returning to his sphere, that is, Heaven, whence his soul came.
ll. 98–9:… how come I to fly through these light spheres? i.e. through the sphere of air and the sphere of fire. This question would seem to confirm that Dante is ascending to Heaven in the body.
l. 103: All beings great and small etc.: From this line until the end of the Canto, Beatrice explains to Dante how he is enabled to ascend from earth into the heavens. Her exposition may be summarized as follows: all created things are governed by order, wherein resides the likeness of the universe to God. The natural law by which fire burns upwards, heavy bodies are drawn earthwards, and brute creatures are impelled by instinct, is the same force by which creatures endowed by love and understanding (angels and men) are drawn upwards to their appointed site, the abode of God. Some, it is true, since men are endowed with free will, prove unresponsive to the upward thrust and go astray. However, since Dante has now been purged of sin and his will is rightly fixed, the fact that he is rising towards Heaven should no more surprise him than the sight of a stream rushing downhill.
On the poetic level, it would seem a logical continuation of the story that since he descended the circles of Hell and ascended the Mountain of Purgatory in his mortal state, having now experienced purification in his physical as well as his spiritual being, he should likewise ascend to Heaven in the body. On the anagogical (or spiritual) level, the significance of Beatrice’s speech would seem to be that as God is the source of all movement, the same power which speeds all created things to their appointed ends likewise impels the soul, in whom the will is rightly directed, to ascend towards Him. Sin is the weight which keeps the soul earthbound.
l. 123: that heav’n wherein the swiftest heav’n doth roll: i.e. the Empyrean, or abode of God, within which revolves the Primum Mobile, the outermost and swiftest of the material heavens. (See also Cantos ii. 112–14, xxii, 67, xxvii. 106–20, xxx. 38–42, 52, and Glossary.)
The Warning to Readers – The Novelty of the Theme
CANTO II
THE STORY. Beatrice gazes upwards into the heavens and Dante fixes his eyes upon her. By this means they rise beyond the sphere of fire into the First Heaven, where they enter the moon. Dante asks Beatrice for an explanation of the markings which are visible from earth on the face of the moon and which popular fancy identifies as Cain and the thornbush. Refuting Dante’s own suggestion that they may be due to a variation in density of the moon's substance, Beatrice explains that they derive ultimately from varying degrees of power residing in the Angelic beings which move the nine heavens. The moon, being the furthest removed from the Empyrean, receives from it less of excellence than the other planets, with the result that the very parts of the moon so differ from one another that they receive and reflect the light of the sun unequally.
O you that follow in light cockle-shells,
For the song’s sake, my ship that sails before,
Carving her course and singing as she sails,
4 Turn back and seek the safety of the shore;
Tempt not the deep, lest, losing unawares
Me and yourselves, you come to port no more.
7 Oceans as yet undared my vessel dares;
Apollo steers, Minerva lends the breeze,
And the nine Muses point me to the Bears.
10 But you, rare souls, that have reached up to seize
Betimes the bread of angels, food for men
To live on here, whereof no surfeit is,
13 You may commit your bark unto the main,
Hard on my keel, where ridge and furrow flee
Ere the vext waters level out again.
16 The heroes that to Colchis fared might see,
Amazed, great Jason at the plough-tail ply,
But greater far shall your amazement be.
19 That which is born with us and cannot die,
Thirst for the godlike realm, had made us skirr
Almost as swiftly as the visible sky.
22 Beatrice gazed on heav’n and I on her;
Then, while a quarrel might thud home, and wing,
And from the nocking-point unloose, as ’twere,
25 I found I’d come where a most wondrous thing
Enthralled my sight; whence she, being privy thus
To my whole thought and secret questioning,
28 Turning to me, as blithe as beautëous:
“Lift up to God”, said she, “thy grateful sense,
Who with the first star now uniteth us.”
31 Meseemed a cloud enclosed us, lucid, dense,
Solid, and smooth, like to the diamond stone
Smitten upon by the sun’s radiance.
34 Into itself the eternal union
Received us both, as water doth receive
A ray of light and still remains all one.
37 If I was body—though we can’t conceive
How two dimensions in one space can bide,
As must be, if two bodies interweave –
40 How must our eagerness be multiplied
To see Him in His essence, in whose being
God’s nature and our own were unified!
43 What faith holds here shall there be known by seeing;
Not demonstrated, but self-evident
Like those prime truths that brook no disagreeing.
46 “Lady,” said I, “with most devout intent
I give Him thanks who has advanced me so
Out of the mortal world by this ascent.
49 But tell me now, what are the marks that show
So dusky on this body, and suggest
The tale of Cain to people down below?”
52 She smiled a little: “And if men have guessed
Wrongly,” said she, “where sense cannot avail
To solve the riddle, though they try their best,
55 Thee should the shafts of wonder not assail,
For, though sense lead the way, thou’rt now aware
Of heights the wings of reason cannot scale.
58 But thou thyself, how think’st thou? Come, declare!”
And I: “What shows diverse at this great height
Derives, I think, from bodies dense and rare.”
61 “Truly”, said she, “thy thought is sunk outright
In error; now, if thou wilt hear me through,
I shall by argument refute it quite.
64 Full many lights the eighth sphere shows to you,
And you observe how their appearances
Differ in quality and number too.
67 If rare and dense alone made differences,
One single virtue were in all the lot,
Distributed all over, more or less.
70 But divers virtues surely are begot
By divers formal principles; yet those,
Save one, thy reasoning alloweth not.
73 Besides, if rarity were what bestows
These stains that puzzle thee, ’twould either mean
That of this planet parts are tenuous
76 All through, or else that thin leaves lie between
The thick leaves of its volume – like enough
To meat that alternates the fat and lean.
79 The first, if true, would offer easy proof,
For when the sun’s eclipsed we’d see his rays
Shine through, as through all other tenuous stuff.
82 That is not so. Now put the other case,
And if, belike, I quash that too, I doubt
Thy theory’s bankrupt, and can go its ways.
85 If this rare stuff do not extend throughout,
There needs must be a point it cannot pass,
Because its contrary doth bar it out;
88 This would turn back the ray that smites it, as
The coloured images return reflected
From the lead lining of a looking-glass.
91 But (thou wilt urge) the ray, being thus projected
From farther back, is dimmer in that part
Than in the rest: that was to be expected.
94 From this new cavil, if thou have the heart
To try, experiment shall set thee free –
That source whence all your science has to start.
97 Arrange three mirrors so that two shall be
Equally distant, and the third in sight
Between the two, but farther off from thee.
100 Face them, and have behind thy head a light
Which, falling on them and cast back by them,
Shows all three mirrors with its splendour bright.
103 Thou’lt see then that the farthest from the flame,
Although in size it is inferior
To those in front, in brightness is the same.
106 Now, as the snow that yields to the warm thaw
Is stripped to its bare substrate, and lays by
The coldness and the whiteness it once wore,
109 Thine intellect lies stripped; and now will I
Inform thee with such living light as should
Dance like a twinkling star before thine eye.
112 Within that heaven which is God’s quietude
A body spins, whose virtue doth remit
Being unto all things which its bounds include.
115 The following heav’n, with countless beacons lit,
Metes out this being to divers essences,
Each one distinct from, yet contained in it.
118 The other spheres, by various differences,
To ends and origins direct the flow
Of those distinctive powers themselves possess.
121 The organs of the world, thou see’st, work so
From grade to grade, as each is acted on
By those above, and acts on those below.
124 Mark well the way I traverse, to make known
Now to thy mind the truth which it desires,
And learn henceforth to cross this ford alone.
127 The might and motion of the holy gyres
Must, like the hammer in the craftsman’s hand,
So work as the blest movers’ will inspires.
130 So too, the heaven with myriad fires made grand,
In likeness of the mind that wheels it, must
Be branded and in turn impose its brand.
133 And, as the soul that dwells within your dust
Diffuses through the limbs, that variously
To various powers shape themselves and adjust,
136 So through the stars in great diversity
The Intelligence its goodness multiplies,
Revolving still on its own unity.
139 With that rich body which it vivifies
Virtue diverse thus makes diverse alloy,
Blent as your life and you are blent likewise.
142 And as through sparkling pupils beams forth joy,
Beams through the body the commingled might,
So glad the Nature whence these powers deploy.
145 Hence, differences observed ’twixt light and light
Derive from this, and not from rare and dense;
This formal principle makes dim and bright,
148 Agreeably to its own excellence.”
THE IMAGES. The Moon. In the story, the moon is the first stage in Dante’s journey through the heavens, for in the natural universe it is the planet nearest the earth. In the allegory, the moon symbolizes a tendency in the soul towards inconstancy, or a will insufficiently steadfast to withstand coercion.
NOTES. ll. 1–6: Having induced in himself a humble awareness of his awesome task (Para. i), Dante now warns light-minded readers not to follow him into the uncharted spaces of deep Heaven lest they should lose him and destroy themselves; but those who have fed on the Bread of Angels (i.e. have attained knowledge and have studied theology and philosophy) are welcome companions. This is a disconcerting beginning, but the warning is expressed by so lovely an image that the reader who has followed so far mainly “for the song’s sake” is likely (and is intended) to be led on still further by the sheer beauty of the (original) language. Cf. Note to ll. 8–9.
l. 7: Oceans as yet undared: The subject of Paradise had previously been treated by Giacomino da Verona in his De Jerusalem coelesti and by Bonvesin della Riva, in Scrittura dorata, but such works are slight and primitive compared with Dante’s Paradise. (Cf. Canto xxiii. 67–9.)
l. 8–9: Apollo steers etc.: In this high poetic enterprise, the crown and summit of all his art, Dante submits himself to the guidance of the god of song, to the inspiration of wisdom and to the skill of poetic technique. The propelling force of the work is, then, divine knowledge and wisdom; poetry is the means of communicating it.
l. 16: The heroes that to Colchis fared: These are the Argonauts who set forth with Jason, in the first voyage ever dared, to obtain the Golden Fleece from King Aeëtes in Colchis. One of the tests which Jason had to undergo before he could gain the fleece was to plough with two wild bulls which had horns of iron and feet of bronze and which breathed fire from their nostrils. The meaning of the comparison seems to be that those who follow Dante now will be more amazed at seeing him in the role of theologian and poet of so sublime a theme than were the companions of Jason at seeing their leader turned ploughman. It is noteworthy that Dante again refers to the wonder aroused by Jason (as the first navigator) in the last canto of Paradise (ll. 94–6).
l. 19: That which is born with us and cannot die: The innate and imperishable desire in man is the insatiable longing to know God. This is the natural force by which, as Beatrice explained in Para. i, man divested of the weight of sin rises to Heaven. In Purgatory (xxi. 1) Dante has already spoken of “The natural thirst which nothing quenches” and in the Convivio (IV, xiii) he discourses at length on the way in which the desire for knowledge increases: “properly speaking, the enlargement of this desire is not growth but a transition from something small to something large”… and the final object of desire is God.
ll. 23–5: Dante and Beatrice have risen to the moon. The speed of their ascent is compared to that of a quarrel (a square-headed arrow used with the cross-bow, derived from the Latin word quadrellus) striking its target, winging towards it and being loosed from the bow. The order of events is reversed so as to convey an impression of a swift sequence which has taken place so rapidly that the mind is obliged to recapitulate it in reverse.
