Dante's Paradiso: Canto II
The First Heaven, the Moon: Spirits who, having taken Sacred Vows, were forced to violate them. The Lunar Spots.
O Ye, who in some pretty little boat,
Eager to listen, have been following
Behind my ship, that singing sails along,
Turn back to look again upon your shores;
Do not put out to sea, lest peradventure, 5
In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.
The sea I sail has never yet been passed;
Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,
And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.
Ye other few who have the neck uplifted 10
Betimes to th' bread of Angels upon which
One liveth here and grows not sated by it,
Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea
Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you
Upon the water that grows smooth again. 15
Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed
Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be,
When Jason they beheld a ploughman made!
The con-created and perpetual thirst
For the realm deiform did bear us on, 20
As swift almost as ye the heavens behold.
Upward gazed Beatrice, and I at her;
And in such space perchance as strikes a bolt
And flies, and from the notch unlocks itself,
Arrived I saw me where a wondrous thing 25
Drew to itself my sight; and therefore she
From whom no care of mine could be concealed,
Towards me turning, blithe as beautiful,
Said unto me: "Fix gratefully thy mind
On God, who unto the first star has brought us." 30
It seemed to me a cloud encompassed us,
Luminous, dense, consolidate and bright
As adamant on which the sun is striking.
Into itself did the eternal pearl
Receive us, even as water doth receive 35
A ray of light, remaining still unbroken.
If I was body, (and we here conceive not
How one dimension tolerates another,
Which needs must be if body enter body,)
More the desire should be enkindled in us 40
That essence to behold, wherein is seen
How God and our own nature were united.
There will be seen what we receive by faith,
Not demonstrated, but self-evident
In guise of the first truth that man believes. 45
I made reply: "Madonna, as devoutly
As most I can do I give thanks to Him
Who has removed me from the mortal world.
But tell me what the dusky spots may be
Upon this body, which below on earth 50
Make people tell that fabulous tale of Cain?"
Somewhat she smiled; and then, "If the opinion
Of mortals be erroneous," she said,
"Where'er the key of sense doth not unlock,
Certes, the shafts of wonder should not pierce thee 55
Now, forasmuch as, following the senses,
Thou seest that the reason has short wings.
But tell me what thou think'st of it thyself."
And I: "What seems to us up here diverse,
Is caused, I think, by bodies rare and dense." 60
And she: "Right truly shalt thou see immersed
In error thy belief, if well thou hearest
The argument that I shall make against it.
Lights many the eighth sphere displays to you
Which in their quality and quantity 65
May noted be of aspects different.
If this were caused by rare and dense alone,
One only virtue would there be in all
Or more or less diffused, or equally.
Virtues diverse must be perforce the fruits 70
Of formal principles; and these, save one,
Of course would by thy reasoning be destroyed.
Besides, if rarity were of this dimness
The cause thou askest, either through and through
This planet thus attenuate were of matter, 75
Or else, as in a body is apportioned
The fat and lean, so in like manner this
Would in its volume interchange the leaves.
Were it the former, in the sun's eclipse
It would be manifest by the shining through 80
Of light, as through aught tenuous interfused.
This is not so; hence we must scan the other,
And if it chance the other I demolish,
Then falsified will thy opinion be.
But if this rarity go not through and through, 85
There needs must be a limit, beyond which
Its contrary prevents the further passing,
And thence the foreign radiance is reflected,
Even as a colour cometh back from glass,
The which behind itself concealeth lead. 90
Now thou wilt say the sunbeam shows itself
More dimly there than in the other parts,
By being there reflected farther back.
From this reply experiment will free thee
If e'er thou try it, which is wont to be 95
The fountain to the rivers of your arts.
Three mirrors shalt thou take, and two remove
Alike from thee, the other more remote
Between the former two shall meet thine eyes.
Turned towards these, cause that behind thy back 100
Be placed a light, illuming the three mirrors
And coming back to thee by all reflected.
Though in its quantity be not so ample
The image most remote, there shalt thou see
How it perforce is equally resplendent. 105
Now, as beneath the touches of warm rays
Naked the subject of the snow remains
Both of its former colour and its cold,
Thee thus remaining in thy intellect,
Will I inform with such a living light, 110
That it shall tremble in its aspect to thee.
Within the heaven of the divine repose
Revolves a body, in whose virtue lies
The being of whatever it contains.
The following heaven, that has so many eyes, 115
Divides this being by essences diverse,
Distinguished from it, and by it contained.
The other spheres, by various differences,
All the distinctions which they have within them
Dispose unto their ends and their effects. 120
Thus do these organs of the world proceed,
As thou perceivest now, from grade to grade;
Since from above they take, and act beneath.
Observe me well, how through this place I come
Unto the truth thou wishest, that hereafter 125
Thou mayst alone know how to keep the ford
The power and motion of the holy spheres,
As from the artisan the hammer's craft,
Forth from the blessed motors must proceed.
The heaven, which lights so manifold make fair, 130
From the Intelligence profound, which turns it,
The image takes, and makes of it a seal.
And even as the soul within your dust
Through members different and accommodated
To faculties diverse expands itself, 135
So likewise this Intelligence diffuses
Its virtue multiplied among the stars.
Itself revolving on its unity.
Virtue diverse doth a diverse alloyage
Make with the precious body that it quickens, 140
In which, as life in you, it is combined.
From the glad nature whence it is derived,
The mingled virtue through the body shines,
Even as gladness through the living pupil.
From this proceeds whate'er from light to light 145
Appeareth different, not from dense and rare:
This is the formal principle that produces,
According to its goodness, dark and bright."
NOTES
1 - 1
The Heaven of the Moon, in which are seen the spirits of those who, having taken monastic vows, were forced to violate them.
In Dante's symbolism this heaven represents the first science of the Trivium Convito, II. 14: “I say that the heaven of the Moon resembles Grammar; because it may be compared therewith; for if the Moon be well observed, two things are seen peculiar to it, which are not seen in the other stars. One is the shadow in it, which is nothing but the rarity of its body, in which the rays of the sun cannot terminate and be reflected as in the other parts. The other is the variation of its brightness, which now shines on one side, and now upon the other, according as the sun looks upon it. And Grammar has these two properties since, on account of its infinity, the rays of reason do not terminate in it in any special part of its words; and it shines now on this side, and now on that, inasmuch as certain words, certain declinations, certain constructions, are in use which once were not, and many once were which will be again.”
For the influences of the Moon, see Canto III. Note 30.
The introduction to this canto is at once a warning and an invitation. Balbi, Life and Times of Dante, II. Ch. 15, Mrs. Bunbury's Tr., says: –
“The last part of the Commedia, which Dante finished about
this time (1320),....is said to be the most difficult and obscure
part of the whole poem. And it is so; and it would be in vain for
us to attempt to awaken in the generality of readers that
attention which Dante has not been able to obtain for himself.
Readers in general will always be repulsed by the difficulties of
its numerous allegories, by the series of heavens, arranged
according to the now forgotten Ptolemaic system, and more than all
by disquisitions on philosophy and theology which often degenerate
into mere scholastic themes. With the exception of the three
cantos relating to Cacciaguida, and a few other episodes which
recall us to earth, as well as those verses in which frequently
Dante's love for Beatrice shines forth, the Paradiso must not be
considered as pleasant reading for the general reader, but as an
especial recreation for those who find there, expressed in sublime
verse, those contemplations that have been the subjects of their
philosophical and theological studies. ....But few will always be
the students of philosophy and theology, and much fewer those who
look upon these sciences as almost one and the same thing, pursued
by two different methods; these, if I am not mistaken, will find
in Dante's Paradiso a treasure of thought, and the loftiest and
most soothing words of comfort, forerunners of the joys of Heaven
itself. Above all, the Paradiso will delight those who find
themselves, when they are reading it, in a somewhat similar
disposition of mind to that of Dante when he was writing it; those
in short who, after having in their youth lived in the world, and
sought happiness in it, have now arrived at maturity, old age, or
satiety, and seek by the means of philosophy and theology to know
as far as possible of that other world on which their hopes now
rest. Philosophy is the romance of the aged, and Religion the
only future history for us all. Both these subjects of
contemplation we find in Dante's Paradiso, and pursued with a rare
modesty, not beyond the limits of our understanding, and with due
submission to the Divine Law which placed these limits.”
8 - 8
In the other parts of the poem “one summit of Parnassus” has sufficed; but in this Minerva, Apollo, and the nine Muses come to his aid, as wind, helmsman, and compass.
11 - 11
The bread of the Angels is Knowledge or Science, which Dante calls the “ultimate perfection.” Convito, I. 1: “Everything, impelled by the providence of its own nature, inclines towards its own perfection; whence, inasmuch as knowledge is the ultimate perfection of our soul, wherein consists our ultimate felicity, we are all naturally subject to its desire..... O blessed those few who sit at the table where the bread of the Angels is eaten.”
16 - 16
The Argonauts, when they saw their leader Jason ploughing with the wild bulls of AEetes, and sowing the land with serpents' teeth. Ovid, Met., VII., Tate's Tr.: –
“To unknown yokes their brawny necks they yield,
And, like tame oxen, plough the wondering field.
The Colchians stare; the Grecians shout, and raise
Their champion's courage with inspiring praise.
Emboldened now, on fresh attempts he goes,
With serpent's teeth the fertile furrows sows;
The glebe, fermenting with enchanted juice,
Makes the snake's teeth a human crop produce.”
19 - 19
This is generally interpreted as referring to the natural aspiration of the soul for higher things; characterized in Purg. XXI. 1, as
“The natural thirst that ne'er is satisfied,
Excepting with the water for whose grace
The woman of Samaria besought.”
But Venturi says that it means the “being borne onward by the motion of the Primum Mobile, and swept round so as to find himself directly beneath the moon.”
23 - 23
As if looking back upon his journey through the air, Dante thus rapidly describes it in an inverse order, the arrival, the ascent, the departure; – the striking of the shaft, the flight, the discharge from the bow-string. Here again we are reminded of the arrow of Pandarus, Iliad, IV. 120.
51 - 51
Cain with his bush of thorns. See Inf. XX. Note 126.
59 - 59
The spots in the Moon, which Dante thought were caused by rarity or density of the substance of the planet. Convito, II. 14: “The shadow in it, which is nothing but the rarity of its body, in which the rays of the sun cannot terminate and be reflected, as in the other parts.”
Milton, Par. Lost, V. 419: –
“Whence in her visage round those spots unpurged,
Vapors not yet into her substance turned.”
64 - 64
The Heaven of the Fixed Stars.
73 - 73
Either the diaphanous parts must run through the body of the Moon, or the rarity and density must be in layers one above the other.
90 - 90
As in a mirror, which Dante elsewhere, Inf. XXIII. 25, calls impiombato vetro, leaded glass.
107 - 107
The subject of the snow is what lies under it; “the mountain that remains naked,” says Buti. Others give a scholastic interpretation to the word, defining it “the cause of accident,” the cause of color and cold.
111 - 111
Shall tremble like a star. “When a man looks at the stars,” says Buti, “he sees their effulgence tremble, and this is because their splendor scintillates as fire does, and moves to and fro like the flame of the fire.” The brighter they burn, the more they tremble.
112 - 112
The Primum Mobile, revolving in the Empyrean, and giving motion to all the heavens beneath it.
115 - 115
The Heaven of the Fixed Stars. Greek Epigrams, III. 62: –
“If I were heaven,
With all the eyes of heaven would I look down on thee.”
Also Catullus, Carm., V.: –
“How many stars, when night is silent,
Look on the furtive loves of men.”
And Milton, Par. Lost, V.44: –
“Heaven wakes with all his eyes
Whom to behold but thee, nature's desire?”
131 - 131
The Intelligences, ruling and guiding the several heavens, (receiving power from above and distributing it downward, taking their impression from God and stamping it like a seal upon the spheres below,) according to Dionysius the Areopagite are as follows: –
The Seraphim, Primum Mobile.
The Cherubim, The Fixed Stars.
The Thrones, Saturn.
The Dominions, Jupiter.
The Virtues, Mars.
The Powers, The Sun.
The Principalities, Venus.
The Archangels, Mercury.
The Angels, The Moon.
See Canto XXVIII. Note 99, and also the article Cabala at the end of the volume.
147 - 147
The principle which gives being to all created things.