Authors: Dante
5–12.
The reference to Ovid’s Semele (
Metam.
III.256–315) may at first seem out of place in this context (as it did not when it occurred in
Inf.
XXX.1–2, where the vengeance of God upon the counterfeiters is compared to the vengeance taken by Juno upon Semele). “Semele, daughter of Cadmus, king of Thebes; she was beloved by Jupiter, by whom she became the mother of Bacchus. Juno, in order to avenge herself upon Jupiter, appeared to Semele in the disguise of her aged nurse Beroe, and induced her to ask Jupiter to show himself to her in the same splendour and majesty in which he appeared to Juno. Jupiter, after warning Semele of the danger, complied with her request, and appeared before her as the god of thunder, whereupon she was struck by lightning and consumed to ashes”
(T)
. Here, Beatrice, as Jove, withholds her sovereign and celestial beauty from her mortal “lover” until such time as he will be able to bear her divine beauty. Thus Ovid’s “tragic” tale, embellished with a Christian and “comic” conclusion, is rewritten; unlike Semele, Dante will become capable of beholding the immortals face-to-face. See Brownlee (Brow.1991.2) for a discussion in this vein, also demonstrating that this myth functions as the “spine” of the narrative of Dante’s spiritual growth in this heaven.
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8.
The phrase
l’etterno palazzo
(eternal palace) recalls, according to Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 94, the
domus Dei
(house of God) mentioned by Jacob in Genesis 28:17, a passage not distant from the one describing his
dream of the ladder, so prominently visited in this canto. See the note to vv. 28–30.
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13–15.
Beatrice announces that they have arrived in the seventh heaven, that of Saturn, characterized, as we shall find, by monastic silence. As the tenth canto of this
cantica
marked a transition to a higher realm (from the subsolar heavens of Moon, Mercury, and Venus), so does this canto lift the pilgrim into a still higher realm, beyond that dedicated to the praise of those associated with knowledge, just warfare, and just rulership, for Dante the highest forms of human activity in the world. Contemplation, as a form of direct contact with divinity, is thus marked off as a still higher form of human activity, one that itself borders on the divine. The major exemplary figures in this realm, Peter Damian and Benedict, are presented as, even during their lives on earth, having been nearly angelic in their comprehension, if, however, maintaining contact with the ordinary in their daily rituals of monastic labor (a monastery was, among other things, a sort of single-sex farming community). The eighth sphere will present us with still holier humans, writers of the Christian Bible (Saints Peter, James, and John), while in the ninth we find the reflection of the angelic intelligences. Thus we are here entering the final triad in the poet’s tripartite division of the created universe.
That the constellation Leo should be described as warm (“ardente”—v. 14) seems to allow the understanding that Dante is speaking only metaphorically (the Sun being in Leo, and thus “warming” it). But, as Torraca (comm. to vv. 13–15) and others, after him, point out, an antecedent text (
Par.
XVI.39) also seems to make the constellation itself heat-producing.
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16–18.
Beatrice’s monitory metaphor is precise: Dante should put his mind/memory behind his eyes in order to make them mirrors, by agency of such “backing,” in order to understand and remember what he is about to see in Saturn.
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19–24.
As Tozer (comm. to these verses) paraphrases: “The man who could conceive the greatness of my joy in feasting my eyes on Beatrice’s face, would also be able to understand that I felt still greater delight in obeying her injunctions, when I looked away from her to the object which she indicated.”
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19.
It is not unusual for Dante to present his intellectual quest in terms of metaphors of ingestion. See the note to
Paradiso
X.22–27.
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24.
The line “balancing the one side of the scale against the other” reflects the strength of the protagonist’s desire to look at Beatrice as measured against his even greater desire to obey her.
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25–27.
For a previous (and similarly circumlocutory) reference to Saturn, see
Inferno
XIV.95–96; and, for Dante’s overall assessment of this best of the pagan gods, who presided over a golden age, see Iannucci (Iann.1992.2).
The planet is mentioned by name only once in the poem (
Purg.
XIX.3). It is a larger presence in
Convivio
, where it is mentioned several times, including in the following description: “The heaven of Saturn has two properties by which it may be compared to Astrology: one is the slowness of its movement through the 12 signs, for according to the writings of the astrologers, a time of more than 29 years is required for its revolution; the other is that it is high above all the other planets” (
Conv.
II.xiii.28—tr. R. Lansing). This makes it symbolically the most lofty philosophical pursuit of all, since astrology is the highest and most difficult science for its students to master. Theology alone is more lofty—and more difficult.
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28–30.
This ladder, as has been recognized at least since the fourteenth century (see the Codice Cassinese, comm. to
Par.
XXII.67), derives from the Bible, the ladder to Heaven seen by Jacob in his dream (Genesis 28:12), as Dante’s reference in the next canto will underline (
Par.
XXII.70–72). Further, and as Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 29–30) point out, both these saints, Peter Damian and Benedict, had written of Jacob’s Ladder as emblematizing the purpose of (monastic) life. However, we probably ought also to consider Boethius, who presents the Lady Philosophy as having the image of a ladder on her gown (
Cons. Phil
. I.1[pr]), connecting the Greek letters
pi
(at the bottom, for practical knowledge) and
theta
(at the top, for theoretical or, we might say, contemplative knowledge [Dante knew enough Greek to realize that
theta
is also the first letter of the word for God,
theos
]). Singleton (comm. to vv. 29–30) credits Grandgent for the reference to Boethius. See the note to Paradiso XXII.1.
That the ladder is golden reminds us that Saturn reigned in the golden age.
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29.
See Pecoraro (Peco.1968.1), pp. 745–49, for a discussion of this
scaleo
, which eventually settles on the traditional interpretation; the ladder, built of rungs of humility, leads to the contemplation of God. Pecoraro takes an
interesting detour through the writings of Paolo Amaducci, a neglected figure in Dante studies, who effectively was the first modern critic (Filippo Villani was arguably the first ancient one) to apply the fourfold method of Scriptural exegesis to interpreting Dante (for Amaducci, without reference to Pecoraro’s earlier notice, see Hollander [Holl.1976.1, pp. 128–29, n. 49, and Holl.2001.1, p. 187, n. 45]). (Pecoraro discusses only one of his five studies of Dante’s supposed reliance on Peter Damian [Amad.1921.1].)
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31–33.
It is eventually clear (e.g., vv. 64–66) that all these spirits (compared to all the stars in the nighttime sky), descending, are coming from the Empyrean for the sole purpose of welcoming Dante to his higher degree of contemplative awareness; that they, like all the spirits we see in the heavens, are only temporary visitors to these realms; that all the saved souls and the angels populate the Empyrean (as far as we can tell, they have never manifested themselves to anyone in a lower heaven before Dante’s most extraordinary visit to the heavens that concludes his journey through the afterworld).
Jacob saw angels on the ladder in his dream, ascending
and
descending. Dante sees the souls of the blessed only descending, at least for now.
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34–42.
This is the sole “classical” simile in these two cantos devoted to the monastic sphere of Saturn (but see
Par.
XXII.1–6) and perhaps represents the only joyous moment in them. It describes those souls who descend from the Empyrean, where such behavior is not only appropriate but natural, for it is the realm of everlasting joy.
This fairly extended simile is complex enough to have caused considerable difficulty. For an interesting and original interpretation, see Carroll (comm. to these verses). He argues that Dante has carefully followed Thomas Aquinas (
ST
II–II, q. 180, a. 3–6) for every detail of this passage (Torraca [comm. to these verses] will later cite the same passage without treating it as fully). Here is an abbreviated version of Carroll’s argument: Thomas is responding to Richard of St. Victor’s six steps of contemplation, reduced by Richard himself to three:
Cogitatio
,
Meditatio
,
Contemplatio
. When the descending spirits, the jackdaws in the simile, reach a certain step, groups of them begin moving in one of three ways (about which there will be more shortly). That step, Carroll says, represents Richard’s second step, Meditation, or speculation, an intellectual activity that draws, in Aquinas’s treatment here, on the image of mirroring (as Carroll points out Dante has done in vv. 17–18). The descending spirits, we must
remember, are used to seeing in the third way, Contemplation. Now, reentering the protagonist’s realm of experience, which necessarily falls short of seeing face-to-face (as even he will be able to do shortly, once he enters the Empyrean), these saved souls behave in three different ways. Carroll associates each of these behaviors in turn with Thomas’s discussion of Richard of St. Victor’s three modes of intellectual activity: “Some of the souls ‘go away without return,’ that is, without doubling back: they represent the
straight
motion which goes direct from things of sense to things of intellect. Some ‘turn back to where they started from’—to the certain step from which their flight began: they represent the
oblique
motion, which is composed, says Aquinas, of a mixture of straight and circular, of reason and divine illumination. And some, ‘wheeling, make a sojourn’: they represent the
circular
motion,—that perfect movement by which the intellect turns uniformly round one centre of Divine truth, the ‘sojourn’ signifying the immobility of this motion, as of a revolving wheel that sleeps upon the axle.”
As for the birds themselves, Carroll cites Benvenuto (comm. to these verses) to the effect that they love solitude and choose the desert for their habitation.
Pole
, according to some commentators, are
cornacchie grige
(gray crows, or jackdaws), having black wings, silver eyes, and large red beaks encircled by yellow.
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34.
For
costume
as “natural instinct” or “inner law,” see the note at its first appearance in the poem, where it also seems to have this sense (
Inf.
III.73).
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37–39.
It is perhaps needless to say that there have been several ingenious attempts to explain these three movements of the birds. It is perhaps fair to say that none has seemed ultimately convincing. Carroll’s, based in the texts of Richard of St. Victor and of Aquinas (see the note to vv. 34–42), remains the most interesting.
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42.
It may be fair to suggest that the significance of this “rung” of Jacob’s Ladder has also escaped even the few who choose to discuss it. It seems unlikely to represent a mere “realistic” detail, for example, the “rung” of the “ladder” that is at a level with the heaven of Saturn. Again, see Carroll’s interesting hypothesis (see the note to vv. 34–42), that this is the “grade” of meditation, the earthly form of divine contemplation, as it were.
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43.
This soul will eventually identify himself as Peter Damian at verse 121. See the note to vv. 106–126.
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46–48.
Dante underlines his obedience to Beatrice as the reason he does not respond more fully to Peter Damian’s affection for this special visitor to the sphere of Saturn. This tercet casts her in the role of leader of a monastic community, setting the rules for conversation and all other aspects of the social life of the “monk” under her care, Dante Alighieri.
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49–50.
Once again we are given to understand that the souls in bliss are able to know all that may be known in their contemplation of the mind of God, the mirror of all creation. The identical nature of such knowledge with its source is suggested by the three uses of the verb
vedere
in these two lines.
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