Authors: Dante
67–72.
The Sun is in Capricorn (the Goat) in late December and the first two-thirds of January, when we earthlings may well witness snowflakes falling downward through the air. Just so did Dante see the souls in whom
the celestial Rose consists making their way back up (and thus through the Primum Mobile) to the Empyrean. This is not, as we may first think, a reversal of gravity. The celestial pull is the obverse of the terrestrial one, upward toward God. They are snowing themselves back home. They have been away since
Paradiso
XXIII.19, more than five hundred verses in five cantos, and for roughly the same six hours that Dante has spent here.
Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 67–68) was apparently the first to cite as “source” the upside-down “rain of manna” of angels returning to Heaven in
Vita nuova
XXIII.25, in the
canzone
“Donna pietosa e di novella etate.” The context of that central poem (sixteenth of thirty-one poems in all, second of three
canzoni
) is, however, the opposite of this passage, for in it Dante imagines the death of Beatrice, and does so in human, tragic terms. Here, Beatrice is very much alive, watching as her companions in beatitude joyfully return to their immortal stations.
It seems extraordinary that
leggere Dante con Dante
(“reading Dante through the lens of Dante,” in a free translation), as Scartazzini is doing here, took so long to establish itself as a critical method. There is very little reference to other
loci
in the
Commedia
(and hardly any to Dante’s other works) in the first five hundred years of the poem’s life among its commentators. And, in a related phenomenon, there is hardly any citation of the poet’s “competitors” in vernacular lyric; the major sources of literary reference are the Bible and the Latin classics. Today, readers take all of these as necessary and useful avenues for exploring the poem. See, for example, Pasquini, “Fra Dante e Guido: la neve e i suoi segreti” (in Pasq.2001.1, pp. 66–67), discussing the Cavalcantian elements of this simile.
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70.
Standing at either end of this heaven is a reference to it as “aether” (
etera
), the denser-than-air substance of the planetary spheres (see the note to
Par.
XXII.132).
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71.
The adjective attached to these souls (
trïunfanti
) is both descriptive and designative, the latter insofar as they are members of the Church Triumphant—in case we had forgot.
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73–75.
The space is that between the Starry Sphere and the Empyrean (i.e., situated above the Crystalline Sphere), and thus defeats Dante’s ability to see them return.
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76–78.
Beatrice, seeing that Dante can no longer make out the members of the Church Triumphant as they return home, invites him, once again, to
look beneath his feet, down through the universe, toward the earth (see
Par.
XXII.127–129).
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79–87.
The formally similar beginnings and conclusions of the two passages (this one and
Par.
XXII.133–153) devoted to the protagonist’s earthward gazing back down through the heavens underline the formulaic aspect of both scenes. See Moore (Moor.1903.1), pp. 62–71, for a full discussion.
Dante’s reference points are noteworthy: He is over the trackless ocean to the west of the two islands referred to as Gades (
Insulae Gades
[see the note to verse 82]) where Ulysses began his
folle volo
(
Inf.
XXVI.125) and can almost see the shore of Asia Minor, where Europa was raped by Jupiter. Some suggest that these two myths reflect the two most insistent temptations of man, prideful or transgressive intellectual behavior and lust. It may also be tempting to see them in autobiographical terms for Dante, his besetting sins of wayward philosophizing and sexual misconduct, these two sins finding an echo (and a model?) in St. Augustine’s
Confessions
(see Hollander [Holl.1969.1], p. 165n.).
As Jacoff points out (Jaco.1991.2), p. 237, Ovid tells the story of Europa in three different places (
Metamorphoses
II and VI;
Fasti
II) with quite diverse treatments; she meditates upon the possibility that Dante has at once paired Europa with Ulysses
in malo
, as transgressive voyager (even if she is a victim of Jove’s lustful forcing), and also
in bono
, as a sort of classical prefiguration of Dante, in that she was conjoined with the divine. On this passage, see Moevs (Moev.2005.1), pp. 132–33, arguing that Ulysses and Europa have opposed valuations, he being identified with selfish seeking, while she represents “loving surrender to the divine.” For expression of the more usual view, see Scott (Scot.1977.1), p. 223, finding in Ulysses a man who fell victim to the temptations of the intellect and the will, while seeing in Europa a victim of her own sensual desires. However, it might be objected that Europa is not the character who is paired with Ulysses, but that Jove is. That is, Ulysses and Jupiter are both portrayed as embarking on voyages, spurred by curiosity in the first case and by lust in the second, that are harmful to their “mates.”
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79–81.
How long was Dante away from our terrestrial globe? In Carroll’s words (comm. to
Par.
XXII. 151–154), this is “one of the most difficult problems in the poem.” But then Carroll himself neglects the question of how long Dante actually remained in the heavens. Most Dantists today seem likely to agree that he was there some thirty hours.
If we limit our inquiry to how long he was in
this
heaven, we can establish that period from the celestial details we are given here (see, e.g., Moore [Moor.1903.1], p. 68): Six hours have passed since the protagonist last looked down (at the conclusion of
Par.
XXII). And see the note to
Paradiso
XXVI.139–142, pointing out that Dante spends six hours in the Starry Sphere, as did Adam in Eden. (This is not to mention that [all but two] members of the Church Triumphant were also present here for that amount of time [see the note to vv. 67–72]).
See Tozer’s clarifying paraphrase of this passage (comm. to this tercet): “Hence Dante, in describing himself as passing, while he was in Gemini, from the meridian of Jerusalem to that of Gades, says that he moved along the arc formed by the
primo clima
. The interval between those two points is represented as reaching from the middle to the end of the first
clima
, because to Alfraganus the
climata
were divisions not of the entire globe, but of the habitable globe (thus he says ‘Loca quadrantis
habitabilis
dividuntur in septem climata’), and he regarded their extension from E. to W. as corresponding to twelve hours in time (‘longitudo omnium climatum ab oriente in occasum spatio 12 horarum a revolutione caelesti conficitur’), which represent 180° in space. Consequently, the half of this extension (
dal mezzo al fine
) would be six hours in time, or 90° in space, thus corresponding to the difference between Jerusalem and Gades.
Fine
is appropriately used of the western extremity of the
clima
, because the movement of the sun, and that of Dante himself in the zodiac, which are here regarded, are from E. to W. It is hardly necessary to add that, when it is said that Dante was on the meridian of Jerusalem or of Gades, it does not follow that he was over those places, but only that he was in the same longitude with them.”
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82.
See Kirkham (Kirk.1995.1), p. 347n., on “Gade”: “Dante’s ‘Gades’ refers not to Cadiz, but to the
Gades Insulae
described by Paulus Orosius, the foundations upon which Hercules built his pillars, marking the outermost limit of the western world. See for this clarification M. A. Orr,
Dante and the Early Astronomers
(London: Wingate, 1913), p. 222.”
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83.
Ulysses reappears once more. Again he figures a voyage quite different from Dante’s, a voyage to destruction. Those who attempt to read the central character of
Inferno
XXVI as positive here must deal with Dante’s firm rejection of the hero, which surely makes it even more difficult to heroicize him than did the ironic treatment offered in the earlier episode. See, in a similar vein, Picone (Pico.2002.7), p. 430.
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86.
It is nearly certainly hazardous to translate
aiuola
(little patch of earth) as “threshing-floor”; see the note to
Paradiso
XXII.151. Boyle (Boyl.2000.1) is among the many who simply assume that it is what is meant by the word.
For the twin problems, exactly how far Dante had moved with the heavens and, consequently, how much of our globe he was able to observe, see Carroll (comm. to
Par.
XXII.151–154). His hypothesis is that the reader is supposed to identify each of the three apostles with whom Dante has conversed as having been particularly identified with efforts located in specific parts of the Mediterranean world, John with Asia Minor, Peter with Rome, and James with Spain. And thus, with regard to the second question, the protagonist’s vision of earth coincides with those regions.
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85–87.
This tercet repeats two distinctive elements we found at the arrival in the Starry Sphere: The poet again (see
Par.
XXII.151) refers to the little globe below as the “small patch of earth” that it seems (
aiuola
) and the protagonist again (
Par.
XXII.129) sees it beneath his feet (
sotto li piedi
)—see the appended note concerning the possibility that we are supposed to conclude that those feet make the protagonist present in his body. When we read the phrase now, however, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion, since Peter has already (see verse 64) referred to Dante’s “mortal burden”—with him now, his flesh.
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88–99.
Only the last of these four tercets allotted to the ascent to the next heaven, the Crystalline Sphere, is devoted to the ascent itself. Once again, Beatrice has become unspeakably more beautiful, outdoing either natural beauty or artistic rendering. With his eyes fixed on hers, Dante moves up to the next realm. The passage includes, perhaps surprisingly, a reference to Beatrice’s
physical
beauty (vv. 91–93). We are close enough to the Empyrean for that to come as a surprise, even as a shock. However, when we examine the text, we find that the poet tells us that such carnally delightful images would be nothing compared to her beauty as a reflection of God’s divinity.
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98.
Her eyes draw him aloft out of Gemini, the “nest of Leda,” a reference that may have been chosen to remind us of Jupiter, seducer of Europa (verse 84) and Leda, among others.
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100–102.
The Crystalline Sphere is uniform and transparent. Those of us who have been hoping to have confirmation that somehow the specifications
made in
Convivio
about the intellectual activities sponsored by the various heavens, as these are described there, might seem reflected in these same heavens, as they are described here, must once again suffer disappointment, as the Primum Mobile, according to
Convivio
(II.xiv.14–18), is supposed to resemble moral philosophy—not angelology. It certainly seems plain that Dante abandoned this schematic design of the earlier work in the
Comedy
, for whatever reason. But see Armour (Armo.1995.1), p. 410, claiming that Beatrice’s turning to invective is indeed the sign of this heaven’s alignment with moral philosophy.
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100.
There is considerable contention about the possible reading
vicissime
(nearest), defended vigorously and even nastily by Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 100–102). Petrocchi (Petr.1966.1), pp. 245–47, defends his choice of
vivissime
. As always, whatever our opinion, we have followed Petrocchi, who argues that it here means “moving most quickly.” There are a number of other candidates, as sketched by Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 100–102).
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103.
Beatrice, reading Dante’s mind, knows that he wants to find out exactly where he is.
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