Paradiso (106 page)

28–39.
   The ascent to the Sun, we are perhaps surprised to discover, has not until now been accomplished. We must surmise that the view of the heavens purveyed in vv. 1–27 derives from what Dante saw looking up from the planet Venus. His movement up from there, as is Beatrice’s guidance while leading him up, seems instantaneous, seems not to occur in time. Compare the earlier insistence on the sense of the ascent to a higher sphere without awareness of time in
Paradiso
I.91–93; V.91–93; and VIII.13.
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28–30.
   The Sun is seen as redirecting God’s beneficial gifts (e.g., the warmth that causes vegetative growth) down to earth, as well as, while everlasting itself, giving us, who live here, our main means of telling time.
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31.
   This “point,” to which the poet has referred (in verse 9), is in the constellation Aries.
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32–33.
   For this motion, see Dante’s description of the diurnal movement of the Sun in
Convivio
III.v.14, “rising upward like the screw of a[n olive] press” (tr. R. Lansing). The spring ushers in the lengthening sunlight of early summer (March 21 to June 21), which begins to subside only after the summer solstice.
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35–36.
   Grandgent (comm. to vv. 35–36) cites A. Fazzi (
GSLI
, vol. 73, p. 112), making the distinction between an uncaused, spontaneous thought, which is what Dante is describing here, and the sort of thought he had referred to earlier (
Inf.
XXIII.10: “Just as one thought issues from another, / so, from the first, another now was born”).
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37–39.
   Beatrice is described in terms that recall
Convivio
I.ii.14, describing the life of St. Augustine: “the progress of his life, which proceeded from bad to good, good to better, and better to best” (tr. R. Lansing).
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40–42.
   Placella (Plac.1987.1), p. 222, follows Petrocchi in thinking that this effulgence is not that emanating from Beatrice (as most early
commentators believed, perhaps encouraged by her presence in the preceding
terzina
), but of the souls in the Sun, who are so bright that they outshine even that brightest of all celestial bodies. For a fairly early instance (ca. 1791) of the current majority sense of this tercet, see Lombardi (comm. to vv. 40–45), citing the prophet Daniel, whose final vision (Daniel 12:3) portrays the wise as shining with the brightness of the sun.
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43–48.
   The brightness that Dante saw in these souls, which made them stand out from the Sun, not by being a different color, but by being even brighter than the brightest thing known to our mortal vision, simply cannot be described by the poet, outdone by God’s art, as it were. For discussion of this contrast in these lines between Dante’s limited ability as artist in comparison to God’s, see Barolini (Baro.1992.1), pp. 196–97.
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49–51.
   Dante refers to those who show themselves in the Sun, the fourth of the planets, as the “fourth family”; God makes them happy by demonstrating his other two Trinitarian aspects, Wisdom (manifest in the Son) and Love (present in the Holy Spirit). See the opening of this canto, vv. 1–3.

If the preceding six verses described Dante’s inability to portray the brightness of God’s creatures, this tercet proclaims God’s “art” in demonstrating His triune nature.
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52–54.
   Beatrice plays with one of the most present medieval metaphors, the Sun as representing God (see
Conv.
III.xii.7), the “sun” of the angels, his “planets” in the Empyrean, who has raised Dante to the height of this heaven, home of the physical sun.
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59–60.
   Discussing these lines, Curti (Curt.2002.1), pp. 150–52, paraphrases them as follows: “…  my mind, so concentrated on God that Beatrice was eclipsed and forgotten, divided His splendor into many things, so that I saw many splendors sparkling” (p. 151). As opposed to his “forgetting” of Beatrice while he was still on earth, looked back upon with horror in
Purgatorio
XXX and XXXI, this forgetful behavior is laudable, as, in the next tercet, Beatrice’s own reaction indicates.
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61–63.
   Beatrice’s delighted smile at being forgotten in favor of God brings Dante’s attention back to her and, surely we are meant to understand, to the souls in the Sun.
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64–69.
   The souls in the Sun make Beatrice and Dante the center of their circle (“crown”) just as the halo around the Moon (dwelling of the former
huntress, Diana) is formed by the vapor in our atmosphere that attaches “cloth” to the “belt” of Latona’s daughter.
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70–75.
   In the Empyrean (
la corte del cielo
), whence Dante has returned, there are jewels (the saints and/or the angels?) so precious that they may not be removed from the kingdom (resolved from metaphor, be described here on earth), and it was of them that these souls in the Sun sang. In this canto we are given less indication than in any we have read (in which the souls are making musical tribute) about what exactly the souls were singing; eventually we learn that the conjoined choruses of the two groups of twelve theologians are singing of the Incarnation (
Par.
XIII.27) and of the Trinity (
Par.
XIII.26; XIV.28–31), as Carroll has pointed out (comm. to vv. 70–93). One who does not put wings on himself (Icarus-like?), as Dante has, to fly up to see these “jewels” might as well await word about them from the dumb. One has to see for oneself, apparently (since not even Dante is telling), that is, take the trip through the heavens that, as far as we learn, only Paul and Dante were privileged to enjoy while still in this life.

A question remains unanswered in the commentaries. Are the singing souls, clearly presented as being situated in the Sun, distinguished from the “jewels,” about whom they are singing and who are in the Empyrean, or are they counted among their companions here in the Sun? While many commentators cite
Inferno
II.125 for the phrase
corte del cielo
, no one seems to be bothered by the fact that it there clearly refers to the Empyrean, specifically referring to Mary, Lucy, Rachel, and Beatrice. It seems necessary to understand that the twelve theologians are singing of exalted “colleagues” whom they have temporarily left behind them in the Empyrean, for instance, the Virgin Mary, possibly St. Francis himself, and other “stars” of the afterlife, too precious to be sent below for Dante’s instruction or to be identified by their descending colleagues in beatitude.

To explain the mercantile reference in this passage, Torraca (comm. to vv. 70–73) refers to Marco Polo’s
II milione
(XXV, LXXIX), where the traveler reports that the Great Khan would not allow rubies (see
Par.
IX.69 and note), in the first case, or pearls, in the second, to leave his kingdom in order to protect their value, not letting them become common by allowing their export. For Portirelli’s views on Dante’s knowledge of Marco Polo’s voyage, see the note to
Purgatorio
I.22–24.
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76–81.
   After the “suns” in the Sun had circled Dante and Beatrice three times, like the stars that circle the poles, they seemed to Dante to resemble ladies in the dance who pause, awaiting the resumption of singing in order
to continue with their dance steps. See the description of the practice of ladies who danced to the singing of
ballate
in Dante’s time in Casini/Barbi (comm. to verse 79).

For a meditation on this canto that takes its departure from these lines, see Freccero, “The Dance of the Stars” (1968), in
Dante: The Poetics of Conversion
(Frec.1986.1), pp. 221–44.
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82–99.
   Thomas’s first word, “Quando,” is matched by only one other speaker’s first word similarly occupying the last place in its line, that uttered by Ulysses (
Inf.
XXVI.90). Where Ulysses has epic pretensions in his self-narrative (see the note to
Inf.
XXVI.90–93), Thomas, another kind of “hero,” one who indeed vigorously pursued virtue and knowledge (and not merely in what we might regard as an advertisement for himself) is a foil to prideful Ulysses. The Greek adventurer’s pride is matched by Thomas’s humility. (His name occurs only after he finishes the eighteen-line introductory portion of his speech, and then only after he has named his teacher. Can anyone imagine Ulysses referring to someone who had been his teacher?) His first self-description (vv. 94–96) intrinsically suggests that he is dramatically different from Ulysses, who in his pursuit of knowledge had companions whom he treated as the mere instruments of his own adventure and whom he destroyed along with himself; Thomas, on the other hand, “was a lamb among the holy flock / led by Dominic along the road / where sheep are fattened if they do not stray.” That last word (
vaneggia
) surely has a kinship with Ulysses, whose wandering brings him under the spell of the Siren (at least according to Dante: See
Purg.
XIX.19–24). What Ulysses did, Thomas chose not to do.
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86–96.
   It is interesting that this portion of the first utterance of St. Thomas, the great opponent of poetry for its seductive figurative quality, beautiful but simply untrue, contains several metaphors: the “stair” (the ascent of the heavens toward God) that Dante is on; the “wine” (knowledge) that Thomas will share with Dante; the “plants” (souls) that surround Beatrice and him; the “lambs” (friars) who were Thomas and his fellow Dominicans on earth; the “path” (the way to God) that led to his salvation; the “fattening” (knowledge of God’s truth) found in the nourishment of the Word. One can only imagine Thomas’s objection had he been able to read those words, put by Dante into his mouth. The last metaphor will have its second moment in the next canto (
Par.
XI.25), and then its last and triumphal appearance in the final verse of that canto (XI.139).
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87.
   
The “stair” that is climbed only twice is the pathway to Heaven negotiated by a living soul in grace, who is thus promised a return trip (we again think of St. Paul, Dante’s only known precursor, though unreported miraculous journeys are not ruled out). Grandgent (comm. to this verse) notes that this is a clear prediction of Dante’s ultimate salvation, and refers the reader to a similar earlier gesture in
Purgatorio
II.91–92 (and see, of course,
Purg.
XXXII.100–102).
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97–99.
   Thomas begins his “catalogue of saints,” twelve in number perhaps to remind us of the original apostles, with Albertus Magnus (1193–1280), often referred to as “Doctor Universalis” because of his extensive learning; he taught at Cologne, where Aquinas was one of his pupils. In some quarters it has become fashionable, after the exertions of Bruno Nardi, to argue for the actual preeminence in Dante’s thought of Albert over Thomas. But see Cogan (Coga.1999.1), pp. xxiii–xxiv: “Despite Nardi’s efforts to convince us that Albert the Great was Dante’s preferred philosophical source, it is Aquinas whom Dante chooses as the principal spokesman for theology in the
Paradiso
, not Albert or any other theologian.” For more detailed arguments that are in basic agreement with this position, see Dumol (Dumo.1998.1), especially pp. 139–66.
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99.
   Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), often referred to as “Doctor Angelicus,” was, in the minds of many, the greatest theologian of his time. It is perhaps fair to say that the position of those of Dante’s readers most interested in the question has swung from the strict Thomistic construction of Dante sponsored by Giovanni Busnelli to the far more concessive views (which perhaps yield too much of Dante’s allegiance to Thomism) of Casella (Case.1950.1) and of two of the leading non-Italian students of the poet’s theology, Étienne Gilson and Kenelm Foster. For an extensive treatment of Dante’s intellectual response to Aquinas, see Gilson’s classic study (Gils.1939.1); and see Foster’s entry “Tommaso d’Aquino,”
ED
V (1976), pp. 626–49, as well as his much briefer English essay (Fost.1977.1), pp. 56–65. Dante criticism is currently a good deal more “ecumenical,” a position that undergirds Amilcare Iannucci’s fine, brief treatment of this subject (“Theology” in Lansing [Lans.2000.1], pp. 811–15). It would not be going too far to say that Dante is a precursor of at least one aspect of Renaissance humanism, its pleasure in syncretism, a delight in putting together things that would prefer to be kept separate, making new concepts out of the ideas of the unsuspecting (and defenseless) great figures of the past, about some of which they would, had they a voice, surely bellow
in complaint. For a cautionary note, indicating the complexity of the entire question of Dante’s various philosophic allegiances, see Simon Gilson (Gils.2001.2), passim. Indeed, while Dante may honor Thomas more than any other theologian, that does not mean that he always agrees with him—far from it.
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