Authors: Dante
52–69.
The ascent from Mars to Jupiter is accomplished during the course of a single action (Dante looks into Beatrice’s eyes [vv. 52–57]), which is amplified by two similes (vv. 58–63, 64–69). The first combines awareness of the slowness of process with the suddenness of the realization that a change has finally occurred; the second presents a subtle change (the return of normal complexion) that follows a fairly dramatic event (a blush of modesty in response to some sort of embarrassment) that recedes perceptibly over a brief period. See the note to vv. 64–66. The first simile refers to the ascent from Mars and arrival in Jupiter in spatial terms, while the second reflects the colors of the two planets, respectively red and silvery white. Each refers to a subtle process, occurring over an indeterminate period of time, that is suddenly perceived as having involved fairly dramatic change.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
56–57.
As we may have suspected, Beatrice, in this her latest presence to Dante as they both ascend to a new realm, is even more beautiful than ever. See vv. 7–21, the last time he looked upon his lady in the heaven of Mars.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
61–62.
Dante has become aware that the segment of the ideal circle traversed by his body in each sphere is increasing in circumference the higher he rises, a natural result of his progress up through the heavens.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
64–66.
Beginning with Scartazzini (comm. to verse 64) and Poletto (comm. to vv. 64–69), some readers have turned to Ovid for a source for this blush in Arachne’s face (
Metam.
VI.45–49). The scene is a troubling one: Athena appears (first disguised as an old woman) to accept Arachne’s challenge to a contest in weaving. When the goddess reveals herself, the other mortals present show reverence, except for Arachne, whose involuntary
blush is only momentary, and quickly fades, like the red sky at dawn. Picone (Pico.2002.5), p. 272, points out that the figuring element and the thing figured are reversed in Dante’s use of the passage, reflecting an even more significant reversal, from a negative experience (Arachne’s transformation into a spider) to a positive one (the letter M’s transmutation into a lily and then an eagle).
For some resonances of this Ovidian moment, see, among others, Barolini (Baro.1987.1) and Macfie (Macf.1991.1).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
70.
As Poletto (comm. to vv. 70–72) points out, the word
facella
(from Latin
fax
, “torch”) has been used once before to mean “star”; see
Purgatorio
VIII.89.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
72.
The phrase
nostra favella
has caused minor difficulty among those who (rightly) understand the noun usually to refer to vernacular speech and who therefore wonder why Dante uses this term for words that are Latin, and not Italian. The rhyme position obviously forced Dante’s hand a little here. Most readers understand, along with Steiner (comm. to this verse) and, even more pointedly, Momigliano (comm. to vv. 70–72), that we should take the phrase more broadly and as referring to human speech in general.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
73–78.
Poletto (comm. to these verses) seems to have been the first to link them to
Purgatorio
XXIV.64–69. And Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 73–78) the first to see that this image is derived from Lucan (
Phars
. V.711–716).
Picone (Pico.2002.5), p. 274, points out that, while the avian “skywriting” observed by Lucan is aleatory and quickly obliterated, Dante’s is lasting, by virtue of its inscription here in his pages.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
73.
Carroll (comm. to vv. 70–81) succinctly ties together the avian imagery that, beginning here, is so present in Jupiter: “It is to be noted that in this Heaven of the Eagle nearly all the similes are taken from bird-life (e.g., in addition to the Eagle and the present passage: XVIII.111, the mysterious reference to
nests
; XIX.34, the
falcon
issuing from its hood; XIX.91, the comparison of the Eagle to the
stork
hovering over its young; XX.73, the
lark
pausing, content with ‘the last sweetness’ of its song. See the chap. on ‘The Birds of Dante’ in Christopher Hare’s
Dante the Wayfarer
).”
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
74.
Cf. the doves, also at their
pastura
(feeding), in an earlier simile:
Purgatorio
II.124–125, as Torraca (comm. to vv. 73–75) suggests. These birds
seem of better purpose. While those earlier “doves,” temporarily seduced by an ode from Dante’s
Convivio
, failed to distinguish between wheat and tares (see the note to
Purg.
II.124–132), these “cranes” are singing God’s song to Dante.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
76.
These “holy creatures” (
sante creature
) will later (
Par.
XIX.100–101) be identified as “lucenti incendi / de lo Spirito Santo” (the Holy Spirit’s fiery lights).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
82–87.
This is the sixth invocation of the poem and second in
Paradiso
. What the Muse is asked to perform, the inspiration of Dante so that he may give long life to cities and kingdoms, might seem to require that Clio, the Muse of history, is called upon here. However, only one commentator even mentions her as a possibility (Momigliano [comm. to verse 82]), and he says only that the imperial context most fits Calliope or Clio.
The words
ingegno
(
Inf.
II.7; here;
Par.
XXII.114) and
concetto
(
Inf.
XXXII.4; here;
Par.
XXXIII.68) are both twice elsewhere present in passages containing invocations.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
82.
The winged horse Pegasus struck the ground on Mt. Helicon with his hoof. There sprang forth Hippocrene, the fountain sacred to the Muses. Which one of them does the poet invoke here? The most popular choices (given in historical order) are (1) Minerva, “Wisdom,” as a sort of “super muse” (first suggested by Jacopo della Lana [comm. to vv. 82–87]); (2) a nonspecific, “generic” muse (first, Benvenuto [comm. to vv. 82–87]); (3) invoked for the second time in the poem (see
Purg.
I.9), Calliope, the Muse of epic (first, Vellutello [comm. to vv. 82–84], and the “majority candidate”); (4) also invoked for the second time (see
Purg.
XXIX.41), Urania, the heavenly Muse (first, Andreoli [comm. to this verse]). This is a vexed question, with four fairly popular solutions (and a few others, e.g., Euterpe [Torraca, comm. to vv. 82–84] and Clio [Momigliano, comm. to this verse]) and no clear consensus. All one can say is that the poet really seems to have a particular Muse in mind, since he addresses her with the singular “tu” in verse 87.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
88–96.
Perhaps the single most self-conscious, “artificial” passage in a poem that hardly lacks aesthetic exertion, the sort of thing Romantic readers, in the wake of De Sanctis and Croce, despise in the
Commedia
. However, for the view that this sort of calculated performance is a sign of the poet’s “bello stile,” see Parodi (Paro.1915.1).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
88–89.
For the poet to have counted his letters (there are 13 different ones in all), 35 instances of vowels (18, with “i” dominant [occurring 10 times]) and consonants (17, with “t” dominant [occurring 5 times]), tells us that he was making a point that he considered central to his purpose.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
91–93.
These seven words (“Love justice, you who judge the earth”) constitute the opening sentence of the book of the Bible called “Sapientia” (Wisdom), attributed, by Dante at least, to Solomon. That attribution was a matter of some dispute for Christians, from the early Fathers on (e.g., in a fairly rare moment of concord, both Jerome and Augustine deny Solomon paternity [if both err in attributing it to Philo Judaeus]). For discussions of Dante’s knowledge of this text, see G. R. Sarolli, “Salomone” (
ED
IV [1973]) and the unsigned article (apparently by Alessandro Niccoli), “Sapientia, Libro della” (
ED
V [1976]). Sarolli shows that Dante, in one of his many references to the biblical king (
Conv
. IV.xvi.1), refers, by citing Wisdom 6:23, to Solomon as the author of that now-apocryphal book. This passage in
Paradiso
is treated by most (including Sarolli) as the only reference to Wisdom in the
Commedia
(but see the note to verse 101), if there are two references in the
Epistle to Cangrande
(
Epist
. XIII.6 and XIII.62).
For the program of St. Paul’s “five words with understanding” in the poem and its possible relevance here, see Hollander (Holl.1992.1), pp. 39–43.
It seems probable that this is the third passage in the poem to involve a phenomenon that might be described as “visible speech,” formally similar expressions that also prominently involve the idea of justice. This one joins the “visible speech” found in the writing over the gate of Hell (
Inf.
III.1–9) and the words “seen” in the intaglio presenting Trajan and the widow (
Purg.
X.73–96). See Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 297–300; Pertile (Pert.1991.3), p. 38; and Martinelli (Mart.2002.1), p. 283.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
91.
It is not surprising that justice, most blatantly evident as a guiding concern for this poet in this canto (where it is literally spelled out in capital letters), has caught the attention of nearly all who deal with it. Giglio’s
lectura
(Gigl.1988.1) is little more than a meditation on Dante’s conception of justice. And see Chimenz (Chim.1956.1), p. 1735, supporting a definition of the
Commedia
as a “poem of justice, both human and divine.” In this vein, see also Scott (Scot. 1996.1), p. 55, citing Dante’s epistle (
Epist
. XII.7), where he refers to himself as a “preacher of justice” (
vir predicans iustitiam
).
For a consideration of the centrality of justice to Cantos XVIII–XX and to the poem as a whole, see Took (Took.1997.1). Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 70–99) refers to two earlier passages that reveal Dante’s overwhelming respect for this ideal: “Thus, although every virtue in man is deserving of love, that is most deserving of love in him which is most human, and that is justice” (
Conv
. I.xii.9, tr. R. Lansing); “… Justice, which disposes us to love and conduct ourselves with rectitude in all things” (
Conv
. IV.xvii.6, tr. R. Lansing).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
94.
Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 94–108) says that the “m,” last letter of the word
terram
, stands for
mondo
(the world), a reading immediately supported by the meaning of the word itself in Wisdom 1:1. He continues by reading the souls making up the letter as being minor public officials and private citizens who have in common a love of justice; they will be the body politic for the emperor, figured in the eagle’s head into which the central stem of the letter will eventually be transformed at its top. It has become far more common, but only in the twentieth century, for interpreters to claim that the letter stands for
monarchia
. On the other hand, the early interpretation has the virtue of separating the human desire for justice from its expression in actual imperial rule, which would certainly correspond with Dante’s own experience, most of which was of a world that hoped for empire but was denied its presence. (See the note to vv. 100–108.)
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
95–96.
The planet itself is seen as a silver globe inlaid with ornamentation worked in gold, the mobile souls carrying out God’s artisanship for Dante’s pleasure and instruction.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
97–99.
Other souls, descending (from where we are not told, but it is difficult to imagine from anywhere else but the Empyrean), not those who had paused in their “skywriting,” appear to make a “cap” on the midpoint of the top of the “m,” which then resembles (as we learn in verse 113) a lily, as well as a capital “M” in Gothic script.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
99.
For the program of song in the last
cantica
, see the note to
Paradiso
XXI.58–60.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
100–108.
The simile accounts for the rising of the souls (probably from the second group alone [i.e., that which had just formed the cap] and not from both groups, as some would understand) to represent the head and
neck of an eagle. That physical detail remains a matter in question (i.e., whether the souls forming the eagle derived only from the new group or from both). Also a cause for debate is the more important question of what the three embodiments of the “m” represent. There are many solutions proposed. The more plausible explanations limit the possible choices to the following: (1) whether the “m” stands for
monarchia
or
mondo
, (2) whether the “M” (as lily) stands for France or Florence (its two most widely known identities), (3) whether the “M” (as eagle) stands for Christ or the empire. While arguments can and have been made for all these interpretations (and more), and in varying combinations, it does seem plausible to hold that the first image indicates the “world” of would-be imperial citizens, while the third indicates the empire once it is established (e.g., as Dante knew it briefly under Henry VII, 1310–13, and hoped to know it again). As for the second stage in the transformation (the most difficult to interpret—if no element of this puzzle is easily resolved), those who argue that it indicates the ideal primitive Florence (i.e., as Cacciaguida has described it in
Par.
XVI), a template for the civic virtues necessary to develop a populace capable of being led to empire, are most in accord with what we know of Dante’s predilections in these matters.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]