And as those glories came to where we were
each shade made visible, in the radiance
that each gave off, the joy that filled it there.
Imagine, reader, that I had started so
and not gone on—think what an anguished famine
would then oppress your hungry will to know.
So may you, of yourself, be able to see
how much I longed to know their names and nature
the instant they had shown themselves to me.
—“O well born soul, permitted by God’s grace
to see the thrones of the Eternal Triumph
while still embattled in the mortal trace,
the lamp that shines through all the vaults of Heaven
is lit in us; if, therefore, you seek light
on any point, ask and it shall be given.”
—So spoke one of those pious entities.
And my lady said: “Speak. Speak with full assurance.
And credit them as you would deities!”
“I do indeed see that you make your nest
in your own light, and beam it through your eyes
that dazzle when you smile, o spirit blest.
But I know not who you are, nor why you are
assigned here, to this sphere that hides itself
from men’s eyes in the rays of another star.”
These were my words, my face turned to the light
that had just spoken; at which it made itself
far more resplendent yet upon my sight.
Just as the sun, when its rays have broken through
a screen of heavy vapors, will itself
conceal itself in too much light—just so,
in its excess of joy that sacred soul
hid itself from my sight in its own ray,
and so concealed within its aureole,
it answered me, unfolding many things,
the manner of which the following canto sings.
NOTES
9-12. some other thing: The light of God, once seen, kindles eternal love and no soul so kindled can stray from it. Since Dante’s soul has already been so kindled, the only possible error remaining to him is that he could mistakenly believe he sees the light of God in some lesser object and so be seduced by that lesser thing, not because his love is lacking, but because his understanding is.
15. litigation: At the bar of judgment. 16-18. An odd tercet. In it Dante pauses only to say Beatrice did not pause but spoke and went on speaking. A literal rendering (I have had to take liberties) would be: “So Beatrice began this canto; and, like a man who does not interrupt his discourse, continued her sacred process [of reasoning and explication] as follows:”
19-33. THE SANCTITY OF HOLY VOWS. Dante has asked if a man may not, by other good works, make amends for an unfulfilled vow. Beatrice replies that God’s greatest gift to man is his free will, and that a vow is a direct compact with God wherein man, of his free will, offers that freedom back to God. Once God accepts, the man’s will is no longer free for it has been given to God. How then is man free to will what is good, his will and freedom now belonging to God? To assert a free will that is no longer his is to seek to embezzle his way to the good.
23. All his intelligent creatures: Angels and men.
43. this sacrificial act: It need not, of course, be restricted to the vows taken for religious orders. One might, for example, vow to fast, or to go on a pilgrimage, or to give some or all of his goods to the poor, or to live in a specified way.
49-57. Thus it was mandatory: The law of the Jews absolutely required them to offer sacrifices to the Lord (the substance of the covenant) but allowed them some latitude in what might be sacrificed (the manner). The manner of the vow may be changed if its substance is kept, but the change must not be arbitrary (for man, having given away his will, may not choose at his own pleasure), and no man should make such a change without having submitted his case to Church authority (whereby the gold and silver keys of papal authority are turned for him).
58-60. Sense of this tercet: Let no man think it worthy (even with Church authority) to change the substance of his vow to a lesser thing. Rather, the new substance should be greater than the former at least as six is to four. It is always well to look for a special significance in Dante’s use of numbers, but I know of none here. He seems to be using six-to-four simply as a reasonable ratio of increase.
61-62. things whose weight and worth tip every scale: A vow of chastity would involve such a thing, virginity being irreplaceable. A vow of a lifetime of service would, similarly, involve what is irreplaceable. By contrast, a man who vowed to make a gift of money to charity every year of his life, and who then loses all his money, might satisfy his vow by substituting labor, or even, if he grows infirm, prayer. Were he, on the other hand, to steal in order to keep his money vow, that would be an evil thing.
66. Jephthah: King of Israel. He fought the Ammonites and vowed that if he were victorious he would offer up to God the first thing he saw coming out of the door of his house. The first thing he saw was his daughter and he sacrificed her (Judges, xi).
67. have cried, ‘I had no right to speak!’: No right to speak such a vow. In so crying he would have renounced the vow, and better so, says Dante, than to do worse in the act of keeping it.
69-70. the great Greek whose Iphigenia: Agamemnon. Iphigenia was his daughter. Dante follows the legend in which Agamemnon vowed before the birth of Iphigenia that he would sacrifice to Artemis the loveliest creature the year brought forth. Rather than sacrifice Iphigenia, he did not keep his vow. Years later, however, when the Greek ships were becalmed at Aulis, the other Greek leaders, especially Menelaus, blamed their distress on the unkept vow and Agamemnon was finally persuaded to send for Iphigenia and to sacrifice her.
79. cunning greed: The greed of those who offer dispensations and other holy offices for money. To Dante such practices were damnable simony.
80. lest the Jew among you: The Jew could then point his finger in derision because his law was incorruptible in the matter of sacrifices.
86-87. To avoid a volume of scholarly disputation, let these lines be taken to mean that Beatrice turned to both the Sun (it was at the equator) and the Empyrean (thus toward the “True Light” in both senses) and that she and Dante ascended in the same way as before. In an instant, then, they soar to Mercury, their arrival signified by the increase in Beatrice’s radiance.
94. glowed with such a joyous essence: Both the joy and the light are greater because she is now nearer God and has more of His essence breathed into her.
97-99. the star: Mercury. Dante regularly refers to planets as stars. Sense of these lines: “If the star could be so changed (being material), how could I not change, who was created with soul as my essence, hence born to be transformed through all there is, from dust to Godliness.”
100 ff. THOSE WHO SOUGHT HONOR BUSILY (THE PERSONALLY AMBITIOUS). The souls in the sphere of Mercury worked, in their earthly lives, for honor and glory. On seeing the newcomers they burst into joyous revels (as in their heart’s wish they had sought themselves to be honored by such revels? each giving what is most nearly of himself?). These souls sought the good actively and for good reason, but, in a sense, for the least of all good reasons. The light they give forth is so bright that they are often lost to Dante’s sight in their own radiance—a double felicity, first, as it describes the essence of their natures, and, second, because Mercury is so near the Sun that it is often hard to see because it is swallowed into the Sun’s glow.
107-108. each shade made visible, in the radiance: The counterplay of “shade” and “radiance” seems to imply that the lineaments of these souls were traced upon the radiance that enclosed them.
114. the instant they had shown themselves to me: Note here and hereafter how regularly Dante speaks of the Paradisal souls as showing themselves rather than as being seen by him. (Cf. III, 109.) It is the nature of what belongs to Heaven to reveal i
tself of its own love and volition rather than to be apprehended by mortal means. There is also, of course, the fact that these souls are here only as symbolic manifestations, their real seat being in the Empyrean (IV, 28-63 and note).
117. while still embattled: Dante says, literally, “before your time in the militia is left behind.” The essential point is that Heaven is the Eternal Triumph of which mortal life (for man) is the battle. Cf. the common phrase, “the Church militant.”
128-129. this sphere that hides itself from men’s eyes in the rays of another star: The other star is the Sun. As noted above (note to 100 ff.) Mercury is often lost in the Sun’s aura.
Canto VI
THE SECOND SPHERE: MERCURY
Seekers of Honor: Justinian
The Roman Eagle
THE SPIRIT IDENTIFIES ITSELF as the soul of THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN and proceeds to recount its life on earth, its conversion by AGAPETUS, and its subsequent dedication to THE CODIFICATION OF THE LAW.
It proceeds next to a DISCOURSE ON THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EAGLE. It concludes by identifying the spirit of ROMEO DA VILLANOVA as one among the souls of the Second Heaven.
“Once Constantine had turned the eagle’s wing
against the course of Heaven, which it had followed
behind the new son of the Latian king,
two hundred years and more, as mankind knows,
God’s bird stayed on at Europe’s furthest edge,
close to the mountains out of which it rose.
And there, his wings spread over land and sea,
he ruled the world, passing from hand to hand;
and so, through many changes, came to me.
Caesar I was, Justinian I am.
By the will of the First Love, which I now feel,
I pruned the law of waste, excess, and sham.
Before my work absorbed my whole intent
I knew Christ in one nature only, not two;
and so believing, I was well content.
But Agapetus, blessed of the Lord,
he, the supreme shepherd pure in faith,
showed me the true way by his holy word.
Him I believed, and in my present view
I see the truth as clearly as you see
how a contradiction is both false and true.
As soon as I came to walk in the True Faith’s way
God’s grace moved all my heart to my great work;
and to it I gave myself without delay.
To my Belisarius I left my spear
and God’s right hand so moved his that the omen
for me to rest from war was more than clear.
Of the two things you asked about before
this puts a period to my first reply.
But this much said impels me to say more
that you may see with how much right men go
against the sacred standard when they plot
its subornation or its overthrow.
You know what heroes bled to consecrate
its holy destiny from that first hour
when Pallas died to give it its first state.
You know that for two centuries then its home
was Alba, till the time came when the three
fought with the three and carried it to Rome.
What it did then from the Sabine’s day of woe
to good Lucretia’s, under the seven kings
who plundered the neighboring lands, you also know,
and how it led the Chosen Romans forward
against the powers of Brennus, and of Pyrrhus,
and of many a rival state and warring lord.
Thence the fame of Torquatus, curly Quintius,
and the Decii and Fabii. How gladly
I bring it myrrh to keep it glorious.
It dashed to earth the hot Arabian pride
that followed Hannibal through the rocky Alps,
from which, you, Po, sweet river, rise and glide.
Under it triumphed at an early age
Scipio and Pompey. Against the mountain
that looked down on your birth it screamed its rage.
Then as that age dawned in which Heaven planned
the whole world to its harmony, Caesar came,
and by the will of Rome, took it in hand.
What it did then from the Var to the Rhine is known
to Isère, Arar, Seine, and every valley
from which the waters of the Rhone flow down.
And what it did when it had taken flight
from Ravenna and across the Rubicon
no tongue may hope to speak nor pen to write.
It turned and led the cohorts into Spain;
then to Dyrrachium; and then struck Pharsalus
so hard that even the hot Nile felt the pain.
Antandros and the Simoïs, where it first saw light,
it saw again, and Hector’s grave, and then—
woe to Ptolemy—sprang again to flight.
Like a thunderbolt it struck at Juba next;
then turned once more and swooped down on your West
and heard again the Pompeian trumpet vexed.
For what it did above its next great chief
Brutus and Cassius wail in Cocytus;
and Modena and Perugia came to grief.
For that, the tears still choke the wretched wraith
of Cleopatra, who running to escape it,
took from the asp her black and sudden death.
With him it traveled far as the Red Sea;
and with him brought the world such peace that Janus
was sealed up in his temple with lock and key.
But what this sign that moves my present theme
had done before, all it was meant to do
through the mortal realm it conquered—all must seem
dim shadows of poor things, if it be scanned
with a clear eye and pure and honest heart,
as it appears in the third Caesar’s hand;
for the Living Justice whose breath I here breathe in
gave it the glory, while in that same hand,
of avenging His just wrath at Adam’s sin.
Now ponder the double marvel I unfold:
later, under Titus, it avenged
the vengeance taken for that crime of old!
And when the sharp tooth of the Lombard bit
the Holy Church, victorious Charlemagne,
under those same wings, came and rescued it.
Now are you truly able to judge those
whom I accused above, and their wrongdoing,
which is the cause of all your present woes.
One speeds the golden lilies on to force
the public standard; and one seizes it
for private gain—and who knows which is worse?
Let them scheme, the Ghibellines, let them plot and weave
under some other standard, for all who use
this bird iniquitously find cause to grieve!
Nor let the new Charles think his Guelphs will be
its overthrow, but let him fear the talons
that have ripped the mane from fiercer lions than he.
Many a father’s sinfulness has sealed
his children’s doom: let him not think his lilies
will take the place of God’s bird on His shield.
—This little star embellishes its crown
with the light of those good spirits who were zealous
in order to win honor and renown;
and when desire leans to such things, being bent
from the true good, the rays of the true Love
thrust upward with less force for the ascent;
but in the balance of our reward and due
is part of our delight, because we see
no shade of difference between the two.
By this means the True Judge sweetens our will,
so moving us that in all eternity
nothing c
an twist our beings to any ill.
Unequal voices make sweet tones down there.
Just so, in our life, these unequal stations
make a sweet harmony from sphere to sphere.
Within this pearl shines, too, the radiance
of Romeo, whose good and beautiful works
were answered by ingratitude and bad chance.
But the Provençals who worked his overthrow
have no last laugh: he walks an evil road
who finds his loss in the good that others do.
Four daughters had Count Raymond, each the wife
of a Christian king, thanks to this Romeo,
a humble man, a pilgrim in his life.
Envy and calumny so moved Raymond then