Authors: Dante
40–42.
In the first of two “interlaced” tercets, Solomon, like Gabriel in verse 35, is modest, more modest than reading him might prepare us to find. The more grace he and his fellow saints experience, the better they see God; the better they see Him, the more they love Him; the more they love Him, the brighter they will shine. The verses run back down the chain of cause and effect. Compare the tercet at vv. 49–51 for a second example of this sort of interlacing. There the order is natural, that is, we move from seeing to loving to shining.
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52–57.
In marked contrast to Thomas, who only rarely sounds “poetic” (but see the note to
Par.
XI.19–21), Solomon here is granted one of the few similes allowed a speaker in the poem (we have not encountered a simile since the one on Iris in
Par.
XII.10–21). This further identifies him with Dante and the world of poetry, eclipsing Thomas at least a little. This is not to say that Dante does not value Thomas; he values hardly anyone more. But it is also time for taking some good-natured revenge on the man who labored to belittle poetry and poets.
There are some 628 verses in the heaven of the Sun, nearly half of them (287) spoken by Thomas, poetry’s confirmed enemy. Further, Dante is silent in all of this heaven, as though to match Thomas by opposition, switching roles with him. This is the only “zone” of the entire poem in which the protagonist does not say a single word.
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58–60.
Solomon concludes by responding to Beatrice’s representation of Dante’s second question (see vv. 16–18). The glorified body will not be too strongly bright for the eyes of the saved, perhaps because their own resurrected bodies will possess capacities their earthly ones did not, in this case superhuman eyesight. Dante’s question was based solely on a normal human understanding of immortality, that is, on ignorance.
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61–66.
The twenty-four souls in the first two circles, moved by Solomon’s words, show their desire to put on their resurrected flesh, and perhaps for the same result for all those other saved souls whom they love.
The reader who believes that Dante is not sympathetic to our physical selves will have to acknowledge that this passage establishes his credibility as a human being who, like Solomon, accepts the fact of our corporeal existence and finds it good. For Dante’s view of the resurrected body, see Jacoff (Jaco.2000.1). See also Bynum (Bynu.1995.1), pp. 291–305. And see Picone (Pico.2002.4), pp. 212–13, n. 21, for a bibliography of some European contributions on this subject.
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62.
The Hebrew word “amen” is given here in its Tuscan form,
amme
, as part of Dante’s program of expressing sacred truth in the low vernacular. See the note to verse 64.
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64.
The use of the word
mamme
, although forced by rhyme, is nonetheless striking. Such usage of the low-vernacular “mommies” is at one with the context, a soft-hued family portrait of saved humanity, as it were. Our translation deploys the less disturbing “mothers” because of its pairing with
padri
(rather than
babbi
, “daddies”). See the notes to
Inferno
XXXII.1–9 and
Purgatorio
XXI.97–99.
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67–78.
This supercharged passage has begun to be understood only in the past 101 years. An undergraduate student, Randy Mamiaro (Princeton ’80), caused a stir in class when (in December 1979) he suggested that this third circle, tacitly parallel in number with the first two, contained the twelve apostles, who manifested themselves here as a sign of their approval of Solomon’s words. Were not the apostles closely associated with the Holy Spirit, referred to in verse 76, represented as descending on them with the gift of tongues (Acts 2:3–4)? And would not they represent a fitting final group of twelve to accompany the first two that have come forward? Mamiaro’s might still be a promising hypothesis, had not Peter Dronke in an article (Dron.1975.2, esp. pp. 10–16) shown convincingly that what Dante has built into his poem is a highly structured reference to Joachim of Flora’s “Third Age,” “the Age of the [Holy] Spirit,” when the Church shall be taken up and each Christian living in the Spirit will be his or her own priest (and thus the numerically unspecified multitude of these many souls [a problem not well dealt with by Mamiaro’s hypothesis]). Consequently, the first two circles in the Sun probably are related to Joachim’s Age of the Father and Age of the Son, respectively. Dronke’s
thesis should have found more favor than it has. But see Picone (Pico.2002.4), p. 211, and Merlante and Prandi (Merl.2005.1), in notes to vv. 28 and 76–78, acknowledging his contribution. How often in Dante studies can one say that a new reading has completely altered our sense not only of the meaning of a text, but of its intellectual provenance as well? However, Dronke’s discovery (he gives credit, for a first effort in this direction, to Leone Tondelli [Tond.1940.1, pp. 260–62]), had in fact been made by another, some three score and ten years earlier, John S. Carroll (comm. to these verses). (And Carroll, as far as one can see, has been omitted from the post-Dronke discussion.) In a long gloss, a portion of which follows, Carroll makes his case: “Now, it seems to me clear that Dante in this third circle wished to show how far his sympathy with these Joachimite views went. In general, he accepts the doctrine of a third era of the Holy Spirit. If we take the three circles to correspond to the Trinity, we may say that the first, the Dominican, represents the Father, the reign of law and fear; and the second, the Franciscan, the Son, the favour of the grace of Christ, whose image St. Francis bore. But Dante believes that these two types do not exhaust the possibilities of Theology. Joachim and his followers were not mistaken in their hope of a third era worthy to be called, in comparison with the others, the ‘true sparkling of the Holy Spirit,’ far wider in its range, far more brilliant in its shining. Dante cannot describe it definitely; it lies far off on the dim horizon of the future. It has the mystery of the evening when the stars are scarcely seen, for it is the passing away of one era. It has the mystery of the morning when the dawn whitens, for it is the beginning of a new day of the Spirit—perhaps the eternal day itself.” John Saly (Saly.1989.1), pp. 14–15, also sees this third circle of souls as signifying Joachim’s Third Age, but seems unaware of his precursors in this belief.
The only problem inherent in the Carroll/Dronke hypothesis is that, while the souls in the first two circles have all finished their lives on earth and assumed their seats in the Empyrean, those in Joachim’s prophetic text have not. On the other hand, there is no reason to believe that Dante thought Joachim’s Third Age had begun yet. Thus his text, like Joachim’s, is prophetic, and Joachim is not the only presence in the poem “di spirito profetico dotato” (endowed with the spirit of prophecy—
Par.
XII.141). Further, the imprecise nature of their number and the fact that they are not recognizable to Dante accords with their status as the unnumbered and unnamed ranks of a Joachite New Age. Singleton (comm. to vv. 74–76) correctly notes that “the context and simile clearly suggest that they are a multitude and not merely twelve lights.”
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67.
Bosco/Reggio point out (comm. to this verse) that, as usual, the phrasing “Ed ecco” (And lo) alerts the reader to a change in focus. We might expect, as a result, a change of venue, that is, the ascent to a higher sphere. But this is rather a totally new experience contained within the current heaven, one that is marked off as being exceptional in every way.
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68.
The word
lustro
(the noun “shining”) occurs only one other time in the poem (
Purg.
XXIX.16). There it describes the brightness of the Church Triumphant in procession as Matelda and Dante first behold that pageant.
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70–75.
This simile, matching in its sweet tones and glowing, soft colors the tranquility of verses 61–66, misled Vellutello (comm. to vv. 70–78) into thinking the
novelle sussistenze
were angels (as they were in
Par.
XIII.59) rather than souls, and Lombardi (comm. to vv. 70–75) into believing this circle is the first thing seen in the sphere of Mars rather than the last in the Sun.
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73.
The word
sussistenza
(see the note to
Par.
XIII.59) is here used, by the consent of most discussants, to refer not to angelic substances but to saved souls. Tommaseo is quite sure, however, that even that last use of the word refers to angels. Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 70–75) was perhaps the first reader to identify the
sussistenze
as “the blessed souls in this third circle.”
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76–81.
If Dante is unable to look upon the working of the Holy Spirit, evident in the movements of this circle, he can fix his eyes on Beatrice’s smile—if he cannot bring that back to mind, for her increased beauty is beyond the capacity of his memory.
While one can understand the theological reasons that make it imperative to realize that Beatrice becomes more beautiful both as she gets closer to God and as Dante’s capacity to perceive her true nature improves, had the poet stinted on the number of occasions he informs us of their reciprocal progress, the likelihood is that few of us would have complained.
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82–87.
The ascent to Mars is accomplished with relatively little fanfare and as little poetic space as all but one ascent to a higher sphere (Venus, at
Par.
VIII.13–15) before it. Compare
Paradiso
I.61–81; V.88–99; X.28–39.
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83.
This is Dante’s only use in his poem of the Latinism
translato
(in this context, literally “carried up to”). See Sowell (Sowe.1995.1), p. 201, for
the recognition of a biblical precursor. Paul speaks of God’s having snatched us from the power of darkness and
translated
us to His Son’s kingdom, where we will dwell in light (Colossians 1:13). But see as well the only other presence of
transferre
in the New Testament, also Pauline (as far as Dante knew, Paul was the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews): Hebrews 11:5.
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86–87.
That Mars is the “red planet” is an ancient tradition. That it becomes more red as a sign of welcome to Beatrice echoes the sign made in response to her arrival in the planet Mercury (
Par.
V.96).
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88–96.
If the ascent to Mars is not particularly noteworthy, the description of Dante’s prayer of thanksgiving most certainly is. There are nine occurrences of hapax in these nine verses (
olocausto, essausto, litare, accetto, fausto, lucore, robbi, Elïòs, addobbi
), a sure sign of heightened emotion. And the passage concludes with Dante’s first spoken words since Canto X (verse 81), as Barolini (Baro.1992.1), p. 334, n. 8, has observed. Language, as we shall see, is a continuing concern as we move through this entire sphere. Those who like to find Dante’s identification of the seven liberal arts with the planets in the
Convivio
(II.xiii.8–30) at work in
Paradiso
must here justify the prior identification of Mars with music (
Conv
. II.xiii.20), a relationship in
Paradiso
perhaps more plausibly adduced from the sphere of the Sun.
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88.
Portirelli (comm. to vv. 88–96) interprets the phrase “that tongue which is the same for all” as meaning “the inner feelings of the mind, the same in all languages,” a view that had been widely embraced as early as the fourteenth century. Dante is evidently referring to mental constructions, preverbal thoughts, which match one another perfectly until they are put into expression in various languages, when they may have small resemblance to one another. See John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 88–90): “Conceptus mentis sunt idem in omnibus hominibus, loquela vero non sic” (Mental constructs are identical in all humans, but not the words [that are used to express them]). Dante is perhaps suggesting that there exists an ideal universal vernacular innate in all of us. See the note to
Paradiso
XV.39.
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89.
The word
olocausto
means, literally, “burnt offering,” as verse 92 makes plain. For such sacrifice recorded in the Old Testament, most memorably in Abraham’s eventually jettisoned intention to make a burnt offering of his son Isaac, see Genesis 22:2, 22:7, 22:8, 22:13. See the prior reference in
Paradiso
V.29.
Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 88–90), the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 88–89), and Pietro Alighieri (comm. to vv. 85–90) all say that “olocausto” involves sacrifice of the whole object, while “sacrificio” involves only a part of it.
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