Dante's Paradiso
Dante’s Paradiso: Reading and Commentary
“Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them; there is no third.”
–T.S. Eliot
Conclusion
Let us begin the last installment by taking a brief look at Canto 8. One of the main themes of the Paradiso is the movement from failure to inadequacy and frustration. One experiences the same sentiment in trying to teach the poem; it is partially the poet’s intent but it is also an unpleasant feeling. I will thus allow the poem to speak for itself.
In Canto 8, the Pilgrim has been talking to Charles Martel, from the Anjou family. He is hearing about the doctrine of heredity and how it works. At the end of the Canto, he is talking about the difference between two orders: the cosmic order where God dwells, which we are visiting in the Paradiso, which is perfection, and the earthly order, reflected in history and our personal lives, which tends toward disorder. The work contains much political talk as well as criticism of religious disputes of the time; throughout the poem these discussions draw this distinction between the earthly order and the heavenly order, a gulf that remains always with us.
If you are going to study cosmology, not modern astronomy but the medieval idea of order of the spheres, this study of cosmic order will move you to God, Who is perfection. The vision will be complete and perfect if you can grasp it. But if you are going to look at earth, where we live, you are going to see inadequacy, the failures of fallen man, and hence, earthly disorder. The poet expresses this through his sense of the defeat of language itself to express what he wants to express. In a sense, we cannot reach the ultimate and Dante expresses his own inability to lead us there.
Remember: Dante lived in an age of faith. He still felt he had trouble expressing it. The best the modern Catholic artist can do is give a little hint of the Purgatorio vision; that is how far gone we are. For most of us to even attempt to grasp the notion of Paradise seems impossible; it lies so outside our age that we are forced to feel frustration.
In Canto 8, Martel tells the Pilgrim that he is giving him a gift:
Should natural disposition find itself
not in accord with Fortune, then it must
fail as a seed in alien soil must die.
Of course, he here means “Fortune” not in the modern sense, but as Providence.
If men on earth were to pay greater heed
to the foundation Nature has laid down,
and build on that, they would build better men.
But those men bent to wear the sword you twist
into the priesthood, and you make a king
out of a man whose calling was to preach:
you find yourselves on roads not meant for you.
This is a fascinating vision. The point is that gifts can be given, although we are still left with the burden of discerning what those gifts are and using them for their intended purpose.
When we left the Pilgrim, he was moving upwards. We had moved into the sphere of the theologians. Let us go to the opening of Canto 14, immediately after he has spoken to St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure. What happens is very interesting: we are entering the Canto that will give us the martyrs and crusaders, who are in the sphere of Mars, appropriately enough. (In classical terms, Mars was the god of war.) But we are seeing movement of whirling lights, figures, and souls into patterns. And these patterns change as we move from sphere to sphere.
One reason the Pilgrim and Beatrice leave the sphere of the theologians is because it gets to be too much for Dante. He is overwhelmed, so she lifts him upward. Remember, there was one circle of lights out of which St. Thomas spoke, another circle of lights out of which St. Bonaventure spoke, and then a third circle. (Again, note the presence of three.) All these lights and circles are rotating at the same time. Before anyone can speak from the third circle, Dante has to be taken out. It is fascinating to note that, at the end of the poem, when the Pilgrim is granted his vision of God, God will be three inter-linking circles of lights. Of course, the theologians, who taught us about God, reflect God in being circles of lights as well—although the theologians are not whole or complete; each soul makes up a circle. So we have the divine creative light coming down and illuminating the theologians, who point us back toward the Creator.
At this point, though, Dante is lifted up into the sphere of the martyrs and crusaders. You will note he is still obsessed with the image of the circles. The beginning of Canto 14 is illustrative of the way the poetry works throughout the Paradiso. The Canto opens with an image of concentric rings:
The water in a round container moves
center to rim rippling or rim to center,
when struck first from within, then from without:
this image suddenly occurred to me
the moment that the glorious, living light
of Thomas had concluded its remarks
because of the resemblance that was born
between his flow of words and Beatrice’s,
she being moved to speak once he had spoken...
The imagery here is fantastic: light and water, motion outward and motion inward, Thomas and Beatrice. It is a beautiful vision of unity in particulars.
“This man, though he cannot express his need,
and has not even thought the thought as yet,
must dig the roots of yet another truth.
Explain to him about the radiance with which your substance blooms. Will it remain eternally, just as it shines forth now?
And if it does remain, explain to him
how, once your sight has been restored, you can
endure the brilliance of each other’s form.”
In other words: the light is so great, one wonders how any of the souls in Paradise can bear to look at one another.
As partners in a dance whirl in their reel,
caught in a sudden surge of joy, will often
quicken their steps and raise their voices high,
so at her eager and devout request
the holy circles showed new happiness
through their miraculous music and their dance.
Joy, music, dance, light, whirling motion: Beatrice’s question is so excellent that the souls become excited and can hardly wait to answer it.
Those who regret that we die here on earth
to live above, have never known the freshening
downpour of God’s eternal grace up here.
Dante uses the image of rain to represent God’s grace. It is wonderful imagery. But we have to pause and raise our intellects to the point of understanding the poetic image. It is not the kind of passionate imagery from the Inferno. The imagery there works on the lower passions: rivers of blood and men holding their own heads. The images themselves are the stuff of the passions. In the Purgatorio, we feel and suffer in human sympathy with those souls. We feel the weight of the stones on the backs of the proud. Those images work on us in an emotional way. The images of the Paradiso work on the mind. They are intellectual and demand that we raise our minds.
That One and Two and Three which never ends
and ever reigns in Three and Two and One,
uncircumscribed and circumscribing all,
three separate times was sung by all those spirits,
and unbelievably melodious
it sounded—Heaven’s consummate reward.
But the poet does not give it to us. He will not tell us what was sung. There are other moments like this. Her question is answered, they explain it, we are told it is glorious, but there is neither attempt to explain nor apology for not doing so. Let me quote the original Italian, so you can simply hear the music of the language:
Quell’uno e due e tre che sempre vive
e regna sempre in tre e ‘n due e ‘n uno,
non circunscritto, e tutto circunscrive,
tre volte era cantato da ciascuno.
The Italian has a wonderful beauty to it that no English translation of any degree can quite catch. If you want Dante in the original language—and I recommend you do this at some time—some versions have the Italian and English side-by-side. I do not know of any side by side with a great English translation, but the original Italian is not hard to find. You do not need to know much Italian to catch the beauty of the poem’s sound, of the music of the language.
As we move upward, these circling lights assume different forms. The theologians formed concentric circles. The martyrs and crusaders form a cross. Suddenly the Pilgrim sees a gigantic lighted cross before him. This is appropriate because these souls put forward the cross of Christ on earth. Thus, either having fought for the Faith, or having died for the Faith, they become part of the vision of the Cross in Heaven. Of course, they were the men of action on earth. But when we see them on the Cross, they are singing a hymn (which appears at the end of Canto 14). They are singing “Arise and Conquer,” calling for, in some sense, the Pilgrim to keep moving forward, seeking the final conquering of himself, so that he can see the ultimate vision.
Suddenly, a star falls down from the right arm of the Cross; a shooting star. This star begins glowing like fire. Then it speaks to Dante. It turns out to be Dante’s great-great-grandfather. After all of these famous figures, he now encounters a member of his own family. Needless to say, he is pleased to meet this former relative of his, Cacciguida. This relative will dominate Cantos 15 and 16.
So we are at the center of Paradise, the central cantos, and the poem gets very personal. Dante is first told by his great-great-grandfather that his great-grandfather is on the first terrace of Mt. Purgatory. This, of course, puts a burden on Dante since he is more aware of his family tradition. Dante is told he must pray for his relative when he gets back to earth. Then we get another lengthy description of Florence and its political problems. Recall that Dante is writing this poem in exile, having been shut out of Florence for almost twenty years. The Paradiso is being written at the end of his life; apparently he lived not long after writing its final verses. (In fact, the final cantos were lost for a while. Legend says that his son found them after being shown them in a dream. Great legends are always true.)
The great painting of Dante in the Duomo of Florence shows Dante pointing to the Divine Comedy with one hand and pointing upward with the other. The sense is: “Look at my poem, but see where it should lead you.” In the background of this painting is the city of Florence with the doors being closed to him. It is, in some sense, an admission from Florence that they exiled their greatest citizen. Dante was a pilgrim in the poem, but a pilgrim in his life as well.
So Cacciaguida, his great-great-grandfather, tells Dante about the mess in Florence and then tells him what is going to happen to him. Remember that the poem takes place in 1300, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. When the great-great-grandfather is telling Dante Florence’s future, in the poem’s time frame this future has not yet arrived. His ancestor tells Dante of the forthcoming exile and says that he should prepare for suffering. The sense of corruption has gone from the religious orders, criticized by the saints, to political corruption, criticized by Cacciaguida. But it is made clear that Dante will be touched personally.
The Pilgrim then moves upward to Jupiter, the next and sixth sphere, where we meet the righteous rulers. We have just heard about lousy rulers in Florence; now we will encounter some good ones. Specifically, we are going to hear about the glory of what it means to be a good ruler. The form that they take is the form of an eagle, but they do not first appear as such. Dante first sees these lights form a Latin phrase: Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram. This is from the Book of Wisdom: “Love justice, you who judge on earth.” So, one by one, the letters are formed until the last “m” becomes an eagle. We then learn about righteous rule. Mark Musa in the notes to his translation provides actual diagrams of the stages of this formation. The eagle, of course, was the symbol on the standard of the Roman Empire.
As Dante stares at the eagle and speaks with it, the eagle introduces itself. Many of the just rulers speak out of it as well. The eye of the eagle is King David. The image is wonderful. Then there are five lights that form the eyebrow above David: Trajan, Hezekiah, William II of Naples and Sicily, Constantine, and Ripheus: “As the brow guards the eye.” All of these figures, including two pagans, speak to Dante. His puzzlement over the appearance of the two pagans in Paradise leads to a fascinating discussion This ends the visit to the middle heavens and the Pilgrim is taken upward.
Now we come to the upper heavens. The first sphere of the upper heavens is Saturn. This is where we meet the contemplatives. We get something fascinating formed here: a ladder. The contemplatives form a lighted latter. This is because the contemplative life, placed in the upper heavens where the angels who rule are praising God the Father, is meant to be a ladder for climbing up to God. The ladder leads them first toward the triumph of Christ, then to the angels praising God, and finally to the vision of the Trinity itself.
It is at this point that we meet St. Benedict. He also complains about his order and gives a brief account of his own life. He hopes that his own order would climb this ladder, but says that men no longer climb. Written in the age of faith, the poem presents a sense that things are already breaking down. But, again, we must recall that the problems come from earthly failures. St. Benedict says all the monastic orders are not what they should be, that they are relaxing their disciplines.
The Pilgrim looks back down through the seven celestial spheres he has already traveled and suddenly sees the earth as puny and insignificant. Then he turns and looks at Beatrice. Now we recall that the first time Dante the Pilgrim looked at Beatrice, in the Purgatorio, he passed out. All the way through this heavenly journey, he has been too blinded by light to look upon her fully. Now, having come to the sphere of the contemplatives, after being instructed by St. Benedict, Canto 22 ends thus:
I, turning with the timeless Twins,
saw all of it, from hilltops to its shores.
Then, to the eyes of beauty my eyes turned.
The timeless Twins is a reference to Gemini, whose sphere they are in, the sign under which Dante was born. Dante is looking at Beatrice’s eyes after turning away from the visible, physical universe. The eyes of Beatrice represent spiritual beauty. We are about to move upward once again, toward the fixed stars which represent the triumph of Christ. The beauty is now purely spiritual beauty.
Beatrice announces the arrival of the Church triumphant. Dante is actually to see the triumph of Christ. At this moment we have a glorious passage where Dante is granted the first glimpse of the Blessed Virgin herself. This is in Canto 23:
I saw her face aflame with so much light,
her eyes so bright with holy happiness,
that I shall have to leave it undescribed.
Here Dante does it again: the vision is so magnificent that he cannot describe it. He then, however, goes on to give whatever description he can:
As in the clearness of a fullmooned sky
Trivia smiles among eternal nymphs
who paint the depths of Heaven everywhere...
This is a classical vision which Dante knows is totally inadequate. He is toying around, mimicking classical poetry. The Poem is trying to climb the contemplative ladder to give us an adequate poetic description of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I saw, above a myriad of lights,
one Sun that lit them all, even as our sun
illuminates the stars of his domain;
and through its living light there poured the glow
of its translucent substance, bright,
so bright that my poor eyes could not endure the sight.
O Beatrice, loving guide, sweet one!
She answered: “That which overcomes you now
is strength against which nothing has defense.
Within it dwell the wisdom and the power
that opened between Heaven and earth the road
mankind for ages longed for ardently.”
As fire when it expands within a cloud
must soon explode because it has no space,
and, though against its nature, crash to earth,
so my mind there amid so rich a feast
began to swell until it broke its bounds,
and what became of it, it does not know.
“Open your eyes, look straight into my face!
Such things have you been witness to that now
you have the power to endure my smile.”
He has been looking into Beatrice’s eyes, and now he can take her smile. He is now strong enough.
As one just shaken from a dreamy sleep
who having dreamed has now forgotten all
and strives in vain to bring it back to mind,
so I was hearing her self-offering,
an invitation that can never be
erased within the book of my past life.
If at this moment all the tongues of verse,
which Polyhymnia and her sisters nourished
with their sweet milk, sang to assist my art,
their singing would not come to one one-thousandth
part of the truth about her sacred smile
nor how it set her holy face aglow...
All this focus and contemplation of Beatrice is necessary to get us toward that which is about to occur.
So I find that my consecrated poem
describing Paradise will have to make
a leap, like one who finds his road is blocked.
Now bear in mind the weight of my poem’s theme,
think of the mortal shoulders it rests on,
and do not blame me if I stagger here:
this stretch of sea my vessel’s prow now dares
to cut is no place for a little boat
nor for a captain who would spare himself.
Again, we see the sense of inadequacy.
“Why are you so enamored of my face
that you do not turn to the lovely garden
flowering in the radiance of Christ?
There is the Rose in which the Word of God
took on the flesh, and there the lilies are
whose fragrance led mankind down the good path.”
Beatrice tells Dante not to look at her, but rather at the Rose.
Thus Beatrice. And I, eager to serve
her every wish, surrendered once again
my frail eyes to the battle of the light.
Here we have another poetic image. He’s trying to give us images so that we have some understanding of what he saw.
Sometimes on cloudy days my eyes have seen
a ray of pure sunlight come streaming through
the broken clouds and light a field of flowers,
just so I saw there hosts of countless splendors
struck from above by ardent rays of love,
but could not see the source of such a blaze.
O Mighty Force that seals them with such light,
You raised yourself on high so that my eyes,
powerless in your presence, might perceive.
The sound of that sweet flower’s name, the one
I pray to night and day, drew all my soul
into the vision of that flame of flames;
and when both of my eyes revealed to me
how rich and glorious was that living star
that reigns in Heaven, as it had reigned on Earth,
down from Heaven’s height there came a flaming torch
shaped in a ring, as if it were a crown,
that spun around the glory of her light.
An angel is coming to him to help him.
The sweetest sounding notes enrapturing
a man’s soul here below would sound just like
a clap of thunder crashing from a cloud
compared to the melodious tones that poured
from the sweet lyre crowning the lovely sapphire
whose grace ensapphires the heaven’s brightest sphere:
“I am angelic love encompassing
the joy supreme who breathed from out the womb
which was the place where our Desire dwelt,
and I shall circle you, Heavenly Lady
while you follow your Son, to highest heaven
and with your presence make it more divine.”
Now, understand: the angel has fallen down and is circling and singing. Now he says he will follow upward. He descended in order to lead Dante back up. The pattern continues: the light comes down, re-glows, goes back up. It continues throughout the poem.
With this the circling melody was sealed,
and all the other lights within that sphere
sang out the Blessed Virgin Mary’s name.
Suddenly, the multitude of lights we saw are singing. Our senses should be confused. That which we are seeing we now hear. This is not confusion but unity and wholeness. Things are not separated any longer.
The regal mantle folding itself round
the turning spheres, and nearest to the breath
and ways of God it burns and quickens most,
was curving round us with its inner shore
at such a distance that from where I stood
as yet there was no sign that it was there;
He is being encompassed by the mantle. The mantle is going around him.
And so my mortal eyes did not have strength
enough to see the crowned flame as it rose,
higher and higher, following her son.
And as an infant after it has suckled
will raise its arms up searching for its mother,
expressing all the love with which it glows...
The image is fascinating: he is as a baby in the presence of the Divine Mother.
So I saw all those radiances stretch,
their flame on high, thus making clear to me
how deep their love, how much they cherished Mary.
There they remained suspended in my sight
singing “Regina coeli” in tones so sweet,
the joy of it will never leave my mind.
O what abundant grace is stored up here
inside those richest coffers who below
in our world sowed the land with their good seed!
Herein they truly live and they enjoy
the wealth their tears had won for them while they
in Babylonian exile scorned all gold.
And here, victorious, beneath the Son
of God and Mary and amid the good
souls of the Old and the New Covenant
triumphs the one who holds the keys to glory.
The images are piled so thickly atop one another that we are not entirely sure what we are seeing or where we are. We are just moving upward. It is not confusion; it is glory. The mind can barely describe because the eye can barely see. The sense is that we are just flying upward.
A brief schema of cantos 24-26: I encourage you to read these closely because they are particularly magnificent. We are about to approach the Godhead Itself here. We are going up to the Primum Mobile. While we are there, before we can finally enter the Empyrean and see the vision of God, there is a quiz. It’s essentially a pop quiz. Please note: the Pilgrim has been in ecstasy, being overwhelmed by love. But once again we are told the intellect must precede love. Wisdom has to come first. We have to first know what we want before we can desire it. It demands that there is a balance between mind and heart.
So immediately following this glorious rapture, this hint of the vision of the Blessed Mother herself, the Poet, soaring upward, suddenly has a test to take before going further. He has to prove that he knows where he is and understands enough to be allowed to glimpse the vision that is coming. The test is in three parts. In Canto 24, he is given a test on faith. St. Peter himself gives the Pilgrim the test on faith. It is rather intimidating. You need to read it, but let us say the Pilgrim passes the test.
Having made it through that, Canto 25 brings us a test on hope, given by St. James. Of course, the pattern completes itself: in Canto 26, he is given a test on the nature of charity by St. John. They are wonderful Cantos; they are the stuff of the intellect.
Let us look at Canto 27. At this point, he has passed the tests. All the souls of the blessed are singing the Gloria. The Pilgrim has made it this far. Suddenly, the brilliant light of St. Peter turns red. The souls stop singing. St. Peter begins a discussion about the corruption of the Church. He begins railing against his successors. It is important to realize that there are certain perpetual problems; the history of the Church is not a bed of roses. It is rather daring of Dante to put these words in the mouth of St. Peter, this invective against the state of the Church. Part of this is criticism of a particular moment in history. On another level, it is part of the design of the poem: the falling of from perfection in the beginning, the need for perfection as one draws near the end, and the disorder of history as opposed to the perfection of the cosmos:
and I heard: “Do not marvel at my change
of color, for you are about to see
all of these souls change color as I speak.
Here we have St. Peter speaking, and all the souls turn red.
“He who on earth usurps that place of mine,
that place of mine, that place of mine which now
stands vacant in the eyes of Christ, God’s Son,
St. Peter looks down and says the seat is vacant!
“Has turned my sepulchre into a sewer
of blood and filth, at which the Evil One
who fell from here takes great delight down there.”
The color which paints clouds at break of day,
or in the evening when they face the sun–
that same tint I saw spread throughout that Heaven.
So it is a tint, not a dark red.
And as a modest lady, self-secure
in her own virtue, will at the mere mention
of someone else’s failings blush with shame,
so did the face of Beatrice change–
the heavens saw the same eclipse, I think,
when the Almighty suffered for our sins.
Beatrice is embarrassed for what she hears happening on earth.
Then he continued speaking, but the tone
his voice now had was no more different
than was the difference in the way he looked:
“The bride of Christ was not nourished on blood
that came from me, from Linus and from Cletus,
only that she be wooed for love of gold;
it was for love of this delightful life
that Sixtus, Pius, Calixtus, and Urban,
after the tears of torment, spilled their blood.
Never did we intend for Christendom
to be divided, some to take their stand
on this side or on that of our successors,
not that the keys which were consigned to me
become the emblem for a battleflag
warring against the baptized of the land,
nor that my head become the seal to stamp
those lying privileges bought and sold.
I burn with rage and shame to think of it!
This corruption will keep bubbling up and will be used to create a greater crisis some centuries on.
“From here we see down there in all your fields
rapacious wolves who dress in shepherd’s clothes.
O power of God, why do You still hold back?”
It is a common cry of those faced with corruption. The point is made. We are seeing again what Charles Martel spoke of earlier: the misuse of proper nature. Things are set up in a certain way, but we misuse them. Man does not understand.
Let us look at two moments at the end of the poem. The first is a particularly moving moment that very few are aware of; I think it is because so few readers continue to the poem’s end. Most people think Dante’s guides are only Virgil and Beatrice. But, in fact, he has three guides. The third one doesn’t come until the last few cantos of the Paradiso. Beatrice steps aside in Canto 31 after we have entered the Empyrean. We have transcended the nine spheres. He’s getting very close to the final vision of the Godhead:
By now, my eyes had quickly taken in
a general plan of all of Paradise
but had not fixed themselves on any part...
So he has a general sense of what he is seeing but cannot have knowledge of the full impact of the particulars until he returns to write the poem. The desire for wisdom increases as he goes higher.
And with new-kindled eagerness to know,
I turned around to ask my lady things
that to my mind were still not clear enough.
What I expected was not what I saw!
I thought to see Beatrice there but saw a
n elder in the robes of Heaven’s saints.
He is expecting the beautiful Beatrice but sees instead an old man. It turns out to be St. Bernard of Clairvaux. He is Dante’s third guide; he takes Dante the rest of the way. Why this change? If Virgil represented reason, and reason can tell you about sin and punishment, reason can teach us about Hell and take us to the Purgatorio. But we need Beatrice, divine wisdom that comes from grace, to enter Paradise. Please notice: we need the beauty of Beatrice, but this beauty is not earthly beauty; it is divine wisdom. It is the beauty of God’s grace that comes to the Pilgrim.
But divine wisdom will not get us all the all the way because we are about to come to the ultimate mystery. In front of the ultimate mystery, even the intellect fails. Even wisdom fails. Beatrice steps aside; what we need is a guide to the mystical vision. We’re about to penetrate the heart of the mystery. Therefore we get a new guide, St. Bernard the mystic.
But before we go to that final vision, we have to say goodbye to Beatrice. Dante leaves her and says goodbye:
I thought to see Beatrice there but saw
an elder in the robes of Heaven’s saints.
His eyes, his cheeks, were filled with the divine
joy of the blest, his attitude with love
that every tender-hearted father knows.
Notice: we go from the guide as mother, which is what Beatrice was, to a father who must take us into the mystery.
And “She, where is she?” instantly I asked.
He answered: “I was urged by Beatrice
to leave my place and end all your desire;
you will behold her, if you raise your eyes,
to the third circle from the highest tier,
enthroned where her own merit destined her.”
This is the Rose. There are seats all around the petals of the Rose. She is in the third circle from the highest tier. It was destined that she be there.
I did not say a word but raised my eyes
to the third circle from the highest tier,
enthroned where her own merit destined her.
Not from that place where highest thunder roars
down to the very bottom of the sea,
is any mortal’s sight so far away
as my eyes were from Beatrice there;
but distance made no difference, for her image
came down to me unblurred by anything.
Dante feels as if she is beyond him once again. But here is his farewell, his last words to her:
“O lady in whom all my hope takes strength,
and who for my salvation did endure
to leave her footprints on the floor of Hell,
Remember she went down and got Virgil. She deigned to go down there to Hell itself to help this lost soul.
Through your own power, through your own excellence
I recognize the grace and the effect
of all those things I have seen with my eyes.
From bondage into freedom you led me
by all those paths, by using all those means
which were within the limits of your power.
Preserve in me your great munificence
so that my soul which you have healed may be
pleasing to you when it slips from the flesh.”
Such was my prayer. And she, so far away,
or so it seemed, looked down at me and smiled;
then to Eternal Light she turned once more.
In the last, Beatrice becomes a woman again. If she has been a symbol for much of the poem, in the end she is the woman whom Dante glimpsed on earth some years before. Now it is just the individual soul seated there, connecting with him; she smiles at him, then looks toward the eternal light. It is a vision of the communion of saints. She is the one who gave him that first glimpse, who set him on the journey. In the same way, God, in His mystery, has people who will touch us and give us a push down that road. There is a place for us reserved there if we get there, if we cooperate with God’s grace. Thus we leave Beatrice, the woman, the soul filled with grace, in the presence of God, staring at that eternal light.
Then, St. Bernard speaks:
“That you may reach
your journey’s perfect consummation now
I have been sent by sacred love and prayer...
St. Bernard will lead him to the end. Let us go to the very end where the Pilgrim is granted that glimpse. He looks and sees the three interconnected circles of light at the end. He is absolutely and totally stunned by it. In the final Canto, let us give Dante the last word:
Within Its depthless clarity of substance
I saw the Great Light shine into three circles
in three clear colors bound in one same space;
the first seemed to reflect the next like rainbow
on rainbow, and the third was like a flame
equally breathed forth by the other two.
How my weak words fall short of my conception,
which is itself so far from what I saw
that “weak” is much too weak a word to use!
So human language is here clearly insufficient.
O Light Eternal fixed in Self alone,
known only to Yourself, and knowing Self,
You love and glow, knowing and being known!
That circling which, as I conceived it, shone
in You and Your own first reflected light
when I had looked deep into It a while,
seemed in Itself and in Its own Self-color
to be depicted with man’s very image.
My eyes were totally absorbed in It.
He looks at the central section. And, suddenly, in the center circle, he sees an image of man: God the Son, God Incarnate. He is overwhelmed by it, trying to figure out what it is he has seen.
As the geometer who tries so hard
to square the circle, but cannot discover,
think as he may, the principle involved,
so did I strive with this new mystery:
I yearned to know how could our image fit
into that circle, how could it conform;
How could God become man? How could there be an image of man in the Godhead itself? How is it possible that God could become incarnate?
But my own wings could not take me so high–
then a great flash of understanding struck
my mind, and suddenly its wish was granted.
Dante is trying to figure it all out, but he cannot. But suddenly he understands and knows all.
At this point power failed high fantasy
but, like a wheel in perfect balance turning,
I felt my will and my desire impelled
by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.
He has a glimpse of it. He understands it all—and then his power of imagination to tell us what it was fails him. He wants to tell us because he is filled with the love that moves the universe. What is unspoken in the end is what he cannot tell us.
We end The Divine Comedy with the Poet telling us to make our own journey. Through God’s grace, and by taking the right path, with good guides, prayer, and love, we can get there. But the poem is at an end.
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