3
before it could complete its first full round a second circle was enclosing it: motion with motion, matching song with song—
6
song that in those sweet instruments surpassed the best our Sirens or our Muses sing, as source of light outshines what it reflects.
9
As two concentric arcs of equal hue, are seen as they bend through the misty clouds when Juno tells her handmaid to appear—
12
the outer from the inner one an echo, like to the longing voice of her whom love consumed as morning sun consumes the dew—
15
and reassure the people here below that by the covenant God made with Noah, they have no need to fear another Flood—
18
even so those sempiternal roses wreathed twin garlands round us as the outer one was lovingly responding to the inner.
21
1. The “blessed flame” is the spirit of St. Thomas, who had been speaking up to this point.
2-3. The “millstone” is the circle of spirits.
12. Juno’s handmaiden is Iris, goddess of the rainbow and messenger of the gods.
14-15. Because Narcissus failed to return her love, Echo faded away until only her voice remained.
17-18. The appearance of the rainbow was a promise to Noah that God would never again destroy the earth by water (Genesis 9:8-17).
When dancing and sublime festivity and all the singing, all the gleaming flames (a loving jubilee of light with light),
24
with one accord, at the same instant, ceased (as our two eyes responding to our will, together have to open and to close),
27
then, from the heart of one of those new lights there came a voice that drew me to itself (I was the needle pointing to the star);
30
it spoke: “The love that makes me beautiful moves me to speak about that other guide, the cause of such high praise concerning mine.
33
We should not mention one without the other, since both did battle for a single cause, so let their fame shine gloriously as one.
36
The troops of Christ, rearmed at such great cost, with tardy pace were following their standard, fearful and few, divided in their ranks,
39
when the Emperor who reigns eternally, of His own grace (for they were not deserving) provided for his soldiers in their peril—
42
and, as you have been told, He sent His bride two champions who through their words and deeds helped reunite the scattered company.
45
Within that region where the sweet west wind comes blowing, opening up the fresh new leaves with which all Europe is about to bloom,
48
29. The voice is that of St. Bonaventure (Giovanni di Fidanza), born 1221 at Bagnoregio near Orvieto, a Franciscan monk who became general of the Franciscan Order in 1255 or 1256.
32. The other leader is St. Dominic.
37. Christ’s troops, or humanity, were “rearmed” with the blood of Christ, through His sacrifice on the Cross.
46. The region is Spain, near the Bay of Biscay, which is the area nearest the source of the west wind, or Zephyr.
not far from where the waves break on the shore behind which, when its longest course is done, the sun, at times, will hide from every man,
51
lies Calaroga, fortune-favored town, protected by the mighty shield that bears two lions: one as subject, one as sovereign.
54
There the staunch lover of the Christian faith was born into the world: God’s holy athlete, kind to his own and ruthless to his foes.
57
His mind, the instant God created it, possessed extraordinary power: within his mother’s womb he made her prophesy.
60
The day that he was wed to Christian Faith at the baptismal font, when each of them promised the other mutual salvation,
63
the lady who had answered for him there saw in a dream the marvelous rich fruit that he and all his heirs were to produce,
66
and that he might be known for what he was, a spirit sent from Heaven named the child with His possessive, Whose alone he was:
69
Dominic he was named. I see in him the husbandman, the one chosen by Christ to help Him in the garden of His Church.
72
52-54. The village blessed by Fortune (because Dominic was born there) is Calerucga in Old Castile, which was ruled by kings whose arms consisted of quartered castles and lions, one lion below a castle and one above, thus “one as subject, one as sovereign. ”
55. The “staunch lover” is Dominic, who was born between 1170 and 1175, supposedly into the noble family of Guzmán, and studied theology, beginning at the age of fourteen, at the University of Valencia.
56. Dominic was “God’s holy athlete “in the sense of defender of the Faith.
69. The name Dominic means “the Lord’s” in Latin.
Close servant and true messenger of Christ, he made it manifest that his first love was love for the first counsel given by Christ.
75
Often his nurse would find him out of bed, awake and silent, lying on the ground, as if to say, “For this end was I sent. ”
78
O father Felix, felicitously named! O mother called Giovanna, ‘grace of God!’ And these names truly mean what they express.
81
Not like those men who toil for worldly gain, studying Thaddeus and the Ostian, but for the love of the eternal bread,
84
he soon became a mighty theologian, a diligent inspector of the vineyard, where the vine withers if the keeper fails.
87
And from the See which once was so benign to its deserving poor (but now corrupt, not in itself but in its occupant)
90
no right to pay out two or three for six, nor first choice of some fat and vacant post, nor decimas quae sunt pauperum Dei,
93
did he request, but just the right to fight the sinful world for that true seed whence sprang the four and twenty plants surrounding you.
96
75. The first counsel is the first of the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3); that is, love of poverty.
79-81. Names were believed to derive from the quality of the things named.
83. This is probably Thaddeus of Alderotto (ca. 1235-1295), a well-known physician and the presumed founder of the school of medicine at the University of Bologna, who wrote commentaries on the works of Galen and Hippocrates. Enrico da Susa, “the Ostian” (from the village of Ostia about twenty miles southwest of Rome), was a theologian who taught canon law in Paris and Bologna and was famous for his commentary on the decretals or papal decrees on ecclesiastical law.
84. The “eternal bread” is true knowledge, or “the bread of angels, ” as opposed to that learned for material gain.
Then, armed with doctrine and a zealous will with apostolic sanction, he burst forth —a mighty torrent gushing from on high;
99
sending its crushing force against the barren thickets of heresy, and where they were toughest, it struck with greatest violence.
102
And from him many other streams branched off to give their waters to the Catholic fields so that its saplings might have greener life.
105
If such was one wheel of the chariot that Holy Church used to defend herself and conquer on the field of civil strife,
108
you cannot fail to see how excellent the other must have been, about whom Thomas, before I came, spoke with such courtesy.
111
But now the track made by the topmost part of that great wheel’s circumference is gone, and there is only mold where once was crust.
114
His family, which once walked straight ahead in his own footprints, now are so turned round
they walk along by putting toe to heel.
117
Soon comes the harvest time and we shall see how bad the tillage was: the tares will mourn that access to the storehouse is denied.
120
I will admit that if you search our book page after page you might find one that reads: ’I still am now what I have always been, ’
123
98. Dominic’s order was officially sanctioned in 1216 by Pope Honorius III.
101-102. In Provence the Albigensians had their strongest foothold.
but such cannot be said of those who come from Acquasparta or Casal and read our rule too loosely or too narrowly.
126
I am the living soul of Bonaventure from Bagnoregio; temporal concerns always came last when I was in command.
129
Illuminato and Augustine are here, they were the first of God’s barefooted poor who wore the cord to show they were His friends.
132
Hugh of St. Victor is among them too, with Peter Mangiador, and Peter of Spain who in twelve books illumines men below,
135
125. Matthew of Acquasparta was appointed general of the Franciscan order in the year 1287. As general he introduced relaxations in the Franciscan rule, which unfortunately paved the way for abuses. Casal (a town in northern Italy thirty miles east of Turin) specifically refers in this case to Ubertino of Casal, leader of the Franciscan “Spirituals, ” who opposed the relaxations and preferred a more literal adherence to the rule.
130. Bonaventure begins his introduction of the spirits in the outer circle with these two early followers of St. Francis. Both men joined the saint in 1210. Illuminato, from a noble family of Rieti, went with Francis on his mission to the Orient. He died ca. 1280, late enough to have witnessed the corruption already present in his Order. Augustine, like St. Francis, was from Assisi. He became head of the Franciscan Order in Campania (1216) and was said to have died on the same day and at the same hour as his leader, St. Francis.
133. Hugh of St. Victor, born in Flanders around 1097, was a famous theologian and mystic of the early twelfth century who wrote numerous works characterized by great learning.
134. Peter Mangiador, also known as Petrus Comestor, was born in Troyes, France. His best-known work, the Historia scbolastica, is a compilation of the historical books of the Bible accompanied by a commentary. Peter of Spain, born in Lisbon (ca. 1226), became Pope John XXI. His reign lasted only eight months; he was killed when a ceiling collapsed in one of the rooms in his palace at Viterbo. His Summulae logicales, a manual of logic, was divided into twelve parts and expanded the traditional logic of the Scholastics.
Nathan the prophet, and the Patriarch Chrysostom, Anselm, and Donatus who devoted all his thought to the first art.
138
Rabanus, too, is here, and at my side shines the Calabrian Abbot Joachim who had received the gift of prophecy.
141
The glowing courtesy of Brother Thomas, his modesty of words, have prompted me to praise this paladin as I have done
144
and moved this fellowship to join with me. ”
CANTO XIII
DANTE, IN ATTEMPTING to convey the grandeur of the two encircling wreaths of illustrious souls, opens the canto with a grandiose image of the heavenly contellations. Once the singing ceases, St. Thomas begins to speak again, explaining to the Pilgrim what he meant when he said earlier in regard to Solomon: “there never arose a second with such vision” (X, 114). After demonstrating that the greatest amount of wisdom was that which God gave Adam and Christ when he created them (they were direct products of the Creator and therefore perfect), St. Thomas explains that what he meant when he used the phrase in relation to Solomon was that God had given Solomon the greatest amount of wisdom that He ever gave to a king, not a man. So, then, it was in the context of kingly prudence or perfection that Solomon had no equal. St. Thomas uses this occasion to warn the Pilgrim about drawing rash conclusions and making quick judgments, and he mentions a number of ancient philosophers and heretics as examples of those who fell into error precisely because they did not examine all the circumstances and make clear distinctions. He concludes by saying that one must be especially prudent when it comes to second-guessing the Almighty: just because we see one man steal and another make offerings does not necessarily mean that the thief will be damned and the do-gooder saved by God.
136. Nathan was the Hebrew prophet who rebuked King David for having caused the death of Uriah the Hittite in order to marry Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:1-15).
127-138. St. John Chrysostom, fourth-century patriarch of Constantinople, was noted for his preaching. Anselm, eleventh-century archbishop of Canterbury, was author of Cur Deus Homo, a treatise on the Atonement which attempts to prove the necessity of the Incarnation. Donatus, a fourth-century Roman rhetorician, was author of commentaries on Virgil and Terence but was best known for his widely used Latin grammar text Ars grammatica.
139. Archbishop of Mainz from 847 until his death in 856, Rabanus Maurus Magnentius (born ca. 776) was considered one of the most learned men of his time.
140. Joachim, preacher and prophet, born 1145 in Calabria, originated the doctrine that the dispensation of the Father (Old Testament) and of the Son (New Testament) would be followed by the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, a period of perfection and peace.
144. The “paladin” is St. Dominic, God’s athlete and warrior.
Imagine, you who wish to visualize what I saw next (and while I speak hold hard as rock in your mind’s eye this image),
3
the fifteen brightest stars in all of heaven, the ones whose light is of such magnitude that it can penetrate the thickest mist;
6
imagine next the turnings of the Wain through night and day and all contained within the spacious vault of heaven’s hemisphere;
9
imagine, too, the bell-mouth of that Horn whose tip is marked by that bright star which serves as axis for the Primum Mobile—
12
all joined into a double constellation (like that one which the daughter of Minos left in the sky when stricken by Death’s chill),
15
13-15. When the daughter of Minos, Ariadne, died, the wreath she wore at her wedding to Bacchus was transformed into a constellation called Ariadne’s crown, or the Corona Borealis.
one’s rays within the other shining forth, and both of them revolving, synchronized at different speeds but moving light with light—
18
and you will have some shadowy idea of the true nature of that constellation and of the double dance encircling me,
21
for these things far exceed our cognizance, as far as movement of the swiftest sphere outspeeds the current of Chiana’s flow.
24
No Bacchic hymn or Paean did they sing, but of three Persons in one God they sang and in One Person human and Divine.
27
When song and circling reached the final note, those holy lights then turned to wait on us, rejoicing as they moved from task to task.
30
The hush of that concordant group of souls was broken by that light from which had poured the wondrous story of God’s pauper-saint;
33
and he said: “Now that one sheaf has been threshed and all its grain is garnered, God’s sweet love invites me now to thresh the other one.
36
Into that breast, you think, from which was drawn the rib that was to form the lovely face whose palate was to cost mankind so dear,
39
and into That One Who pierced by the lance gave satisfaction for future and past, such that it outweighed all of mankind’s guilt,
42
24. The Chiana is a river in Tuscany that was nearly stagnant in Dante’s day.
32. The “light” is St. Thomas.
37. The “breast” is Adam’s.
39. The “lovely face” is Eve’s.
40. The “One” is Christ.
as much of wisdom’s radiance as is given to human nature was infused by Him whose power created their humanity;
45
and so, you must have been surprised to hear what I said earlier of our fifth light: that he possessed a wisdom without equal.
48
Open your eyes to what I now reveal, and you will see your thoughts and my words join as one truth at the center of the round.
51
All that which dies and all that cannot die reflect the radiance of that Idea which God the Father through His love begets:
54
that Living Light, which from its radiant Source streams forth Its light but never parts from It nor from the Love which tri-unites with them,
57
of Its own grace sends down its rays, as if reflected, through the nine subsistencies, remaining sempiternally Itself.
60
Then it descends to the last potencies, from act to act, becoming so diminished, it brings forth only brief contingencies;
63
and by this term I mean things generated, things which the moving heavens produce from seed or not from seed. The wax of things like these
66
is more or less receptive, and the power that shapes it, more or less effective—stamped with the idea, it shines accordingly.
69
59. These are the nine orders of angels that reflect the “Living Light” (55) of God within Whom rests the plan of the universe.
61-62. The “Living Light” (55) of God finally reaches the sublunar world, having been transmitted from sphere to sphere.
63-66. The result of this filtering down of God’s light is the creation of things that do not have a lasting existence.
So trees of the same species may produce dissimilar fruit, some better and some worse; so men are born with diverse natural gifts.
72
And if the wax were perfectly disposed, and if the heavens were at their highest power, the brilliance of the seal would shine forth full;