Paradiso (147 page)
Authors: Dante
95.
For the Virgin’s crown, created by Gabriel’s circling, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 91–108): “Aquinas distinguishes between the
essential bliss
of heaven and the
accidental reward
. The essential bliss he calls the
corona aurea
, or simply
aurea
; and the accidental reward,
aureola
, a diminutive of
aurea
. All saints in the Fatherland receive the
aurea
, the essential bliss of perfect union of the soul with God; but the
aureola
, or accidental reward, is given only to those who, in the earthly warfare, have won an excellent victory over some special foe: virgins, martyrs, and doctors and preachers [
Summa
, Supp., q. xcvi, a. 1].”
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97–102.
Similetic in its feeling, this passage does without the trope’s traditional markers but surely has telling effect: “Ave Maria,” for instance, would sound like a cloud crackling with thunder if compared with the “song” created by the angelic affection for Mary.
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100.
While the poet never explicitly says that Gabriel is singing, he makes it clear that the angel is indeed doing so by referring to him as a “lyre.”
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103–108.
The Starry Sphere is the one most characterized by singing. (For the program of song in the last
cantica
, see the note to
Par.
XXI.58–60.)
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104.
The word
ventre
(womb, belly), about as explicitly a low-vernacular word as a Christian poet could employ in this exalted context, brought forth a wonderfully numb-brained remark in complaint by Raffaele Andreoli (comm. to vv. 103–105): “più nobilmente il Petrarca: ‘Virginal chiostro’ ” (Petrarch says this more nobly: “virginal cloister”). His insistence on the desirability of a “higher,” more “civilized” stylistic level strikes a reader sympathetic to Dante’s strategy as inept.
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107–108.
If we needed clarification, here it is: Jesus has returned, and Mary is about to return, to the Empyrean. As far as we can tell, all the other members of the Church Triumphant are meant to be understood as still being present down here in the eighth heaven.
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110.
The “other lights” are clearly the members of the Church Triumphant, not including Jesus and Mary.
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112–120.
Trucchi (comm. to these verses) considers this scene, surmounting those that previously reflected the Annunciation and the Coronation of
the Virgin, a revisitation of her Assumption; as Carroll already had suggested (comm. to vv. 91–108), this scene represents “the heavenly counterpart of the Assumption of the body of Mary, which, according to the belief of the Church, God did not suffer to see corruption. Like her Son, she rose from the dead on the third day, and was received by Him and the angels into the joy of Paradise.”
It would be like Dante to have worked those three major episodes in her life into his scene, the first representing her being chosen, the second her victory over death, and the third her bodily Assumption into Heaven, a reward she shares with her Son alone. The other commentators, with the exception of Carroll (comm. to vv. 109–129), do not mention it.
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112–114.
The poet refers to the
primo mobile
, the ninth sphere, also known as the Crystalline Sphere (because, even though it is material, it contains no other heavenly bodies in addition to itself). It is “royal” because it is the closest of the nine “volumes” (revolving heavens, or spheres) to God.
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115–120.
Since his eyes could not yet see the Crystalline Sphere, they of course could not follow Mary’s rising still farther, that is, beyond that sphere and back “home” into the Empyrean.
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121–126.
This final simile of the canto portrays the denizens of the Empyrean, currently visiting Dante in the eighth heaven, as infants reaching up with gratitude to their mommies who have just nursed them. We remember that, in the non-invocation (vv. 55–60), Dante referred to the Muses’ milk that had nourished classical poets (verse 57), whose songs would not be much help at all in singing Beatrice’s smile. That milk is evidently in contrast with the one referred to here. This milk, we understand, is a nourishing vernacular, one quite different from the Latin
latte
that is of little nutritional value for a Christian poet. (See Hollander [Holl.1980.2].)
The word “mamma” has an interesting presence in this poem (see the notes to
Inf.
XXXII.1–9 and to
Purg.
XXI.97–99). It is used a total of five times, once in
Inferno
, twice in
Purgatorio
(last in
Purg.
XXX.44), and twice in this final canticle (first in
Par.
XIV.64). Here it picks up on its last use in
Purgatorio
. It is always a part of Dante’s rather boisterous championing of the “low vernacular,” and never more naturally than in this warmly affectionate
scene that represents the members of the Church Triumphant stretching upward in expression of their love for Mary.
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128.
In the wake of Mary’s ascent, following Jesus back up to the Empyrean, the rest of the members of the Church Triumphant sing her praise. From the beginning of the commentary tradition, with Jacopo della Lana (comm. to this verse), the hymn “Queen of Heaven” has been identified as an antiphon sung at Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. (An antiphon is a responsive song, based on a psalm, sung by the congregation, after the reading of that psalm, which forms the text of the lesson at Matins or Vespers. This particular antiphon was used in the eight-day period defining the Easter season, Palm Sunday to Easter itself.) Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) gives the complete Latin text, six verses, each ending with the cry of praise “hallelujah.” (For the English text, see Singleton [comm. to this verse].) Both the third and sixth verses of the antiphon refer to the resurrection of Jesus; since He has recently (verse 86) Himself gone back up, we probably (and are meant to) think of His first ascent, in the flesh then as now.
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130–135.
In our translation, we have mainly followed Carroll (comm. to vv. 130–139), who has Dante turning from his admiration of Mary to “the heavenly treasures stored up in the Apostles. The metaphors, it must be confessed, are somewhat mixed. The Apostles are at once the sowers or the soil (depending on how we understand
bobolce
) and the chests in which the abundant harvest is stored. The harvest is not simply their own personal bliss, but the life and joy they have in the treasure of redeemed souls all round them in this Heaven, won in weeping in the Babylonian exile of earth, where for this wealth, they abandoned gold.”
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130–132.
Lino Pertile (Pert.2006.1) demonstrates that many elements found in this canto are reprocessed in Dante’s first
Eclogue
, and goes on to hypothesize that this, the first modern European classical eclogue, was written soon after Dante had finished working on this canto, and that his reference, in the eclogue, to the ten “pails of milk” that he hopes soon to send to Giovanni del Virgilio, his poetic correspondent, are precisely the final ten cantos of the
Paradiso
, a bold and interesting idea first proposed by Carroll (comm. to
Par.
XXV.1–12).
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132.
The word
bobolce
, a hapax, one, more than most, the deployment of which is obviously forced by rhyme. See Enrico Malato, “bobolca,”
ED
I
(1970), for the various interpretations. We believe that it probably refers, as most of the early commentators believed, to the apostles as “sowers” of the “seeds” of the new faith.
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133–135.
The first tercet of the concluding seven-line flourish celebrates the victory of the triumphant Church, seen for the last time in this realm. There is no valediction for them, only celebration.
Pietro Alighieri (Pietro1, comm. to vv. 130–136) was apparently the first (and remains one of the surprisingly few) to note the presence here of an allusion to Psalm 136 [137]:1: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion,” a text Dante himself had previously remembered in
Epistola
VII.30 (as was noted by Poletto [comm. to vv. 130–135]).
It is worth noting here (it will be unmistakably clear in
Paradiso
XXXII) that Dante specifically refers to the Hebrews who were saved (“the treasure / they gained with tears of exile, / in Babylon”). It will come as a shock to some readers to learn that fully half of those in Paradise are, in fact, ancient Hebrews who believed in Christ as their savior. (See
Par.
XXXII.22–24.)
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133.
For the importance (and changing significance) of the word
tesoro
(treasure), see the note to
Par.
XVII.121.
Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 133–135) here puts into play both Matthew 6:20 (about laying up
true
treasure in Heaven) and 19:29 (“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life”).
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136–139.
Now the poet sets all his attention on St. Peter, who will examine the protagonist on faith, the first of the three theological virtues, in Canto XXIV, serving as guide in the first and the last of the following four cantos. In this heaven, he will share speaking parts with two other of the original disciples, James and John, as well as with the first father, Adam. Peter will speak in both
Paradiso
XXIV (eight times for a total of 54 verses) and XXVII (an utterance in 36 verses and in two parts, both devoted to a ringing denunciation of the corrupt papacy).
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1–9.
Beatrice apostrophizes the heavenly host (minus Christ and Mary, who have now both ascended to the Empyrean) on behalf of Dante. She hopes that they will share their “meal,” as it were, with her pupil.
This is one of the three cantos (of the thirty-three in which she might have done so,
Purg.
XXXI through
Par.
XXX) in which she speaks the opening lines. See also
Purgatorio
XXXI and
Paradiso
V.
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1.
This verse/tercet is made up of “loaded” terms, the first of which is
sodalizio
: Jacopo della Lana says there are four kinds of fellowship: in battle, “cumpagni”; on voyages, “comiti”; in business, “cumlega”; at table, “sodali.” For a likely “source” for Dante’s choice of the word
eletto
, see Matthew 22:14: “Multi enim sunt vocati, pauci vero
electi
” (For many are called, but few are chosen). For the phrase
la gran cena
, see Apocalypse 19:9: “Beati qui ad
coenam
nuptiarum agni vocati sunt” (Blessed are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb) and Luke 14:16: “
coenam magnam
” (great banquet).
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4.
The verb
prelibare
(to have a foretaste) is a striking one. We have seen it once before (at
Par.
X.23). It has also been used in
De vulgari
(I.iv.5) and in
Epistle
VI.24. All these occurrences are recorded in the entry “prelibare” by Antonio Lanci in the
Enciclopedia dantesca
(
ED
IV [1971]), which, however, omits the two occurrences in the
Epistle to Cangrande
(XIII.42 and XIII.46). Its use here may remind us of its presence there, where it indicates the opening passage of the
cantica
, the foretaste of (or prologue to) what is coming.
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5.
For the crumbs of bread that fall from the banquet of philosophy, see
Convivio
I.i.10; is this a correction of that passage, substituting a better “meal,” communion in Christ, for the one portrayed there? For the last canticle as the “completed
Convivio
,” see the note to
Paradiso
III.91–96.
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