of the allegory is implied, as in the former lines
149
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
there had been an ecclesiastical sufforestion of fasts
and vigils.
eso^
diva Pegasea, clie gl'ingegni
Fai gloriosi, e rendili longevi,
Ed essi teco le cittadi e i regni,
lUustrami di te, si cli'io rilevi
Le lor figure com' io I'lio concette ;
Paia Uia possa in qiiesti versi brevi.
Par. xviii. 82.'
For the poet's theme is Justice in its relations to
the Empire and the di^'ine origin of that universal
Roman Monarchy, of which the knowledge is "among
truths ill understood yet profitable at once the most
profitable and the most obscure." Letter by letter,
pausing after each to enable Dante to perfectly take
in their meaning, these spirits form to his eyes the
text, DiUgite iustitiam qui iudicatis terratn, " Love ^
' divine Pegasea, tliou who genius
Dost glorious make, and render it long-lived,
And this through thee the cities and the kingdoms,
Illume me with thj-self, that I may bring
Their figures out as I have them conceived !
Apparent be thy power in these brief verses !
Longfellow.
Cf . the analogous passage in Purg xxix. 37.
sacrosante Vergini, se fami,
Freddi, o vigilie mai per voi soffersi,
Cagion mi sprona, ch'io merce ne chiami.
Or convien ch'Elicona per me versi,
Ed Urania m'aiuti col suo coro,
Forti cose a pensar, mettere in versi.
O Virgins sacrosanct ! if ever hunger,
Vigils or cold for you I have endured,
The occasion spurs me their reward to claim !
Now Helicon must needs pour forth for me,
And with her choir Urania must assist me,
To put in verse things difficult to think.
Longfellow
150
THE HEAVEN OF JUPITER
justice, ye who judge the earth," traced letter by
letter successively in burning gold against the silvery
white background of the planet. When the M of
terram has been formed, they rest ; so that a great
golden M stands described within the silver back-
ground of Jove, the M being the initial letter of
Monarchia or Monarchy, which with Dante is synony-
mous w4th the Empire. This then is the first lesson
of this heaven, for Dante himself says in the De
Monarchia, " The world is ordered best when Justice
is paramount therein. . . . But Justice is para-
mount only in a monarchy, and therefore a monarchy,
that is, the Empire, is needed if the world is to
be ordered for the best." ^ So, too, in line 71, he
says that these letters were signed by the sparkling
of the love of the heaven, Lo sfavillar delTaTnor che
li era ; and in the De Monarchia we read, " It is
evidently necessary for the welfare of the world for
there to be a monarchy, or single Princedom, which
men call the Empire. And this thought did Boethius
breathe when he said, ' O happy race of men, if
your hearts are ruled by the love which rules the
heaven.' " ^
We have seen that in the De Monarchia Dante
solved these three questions concerning the Empire :
is it necessary for the welfare of the world ; did the
Roman People take to itself by right this office ;
does the authority of monarchy, or empire, come
directly from God ? Just as, besides the direct
answer in the De Monarchia, Dante answered the
' Mon. i. 11.
» Mon. i. 9.
" felix hominum genus,
Si vestros animos amor,
Quo coelum regitur, regat ! "
151
V-'
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
second question in a poetical way in the sixth Canto
of Paradise, so here, in the first lesson of this sphere,
he has indirectly answered the first question again :
The Monarchy is necessary for the welfare of the
world. So now in a second lesson, while drawing
a moral for the Guelfic powers who oppose the
Lily to the sacrosanct emblem of the Emj)ire, he
would emphatically, though not directly, answer the
third question, and declare that the authority of
the Roman Empire comes directly from God.
Other spirits descend upon the summit of the M
and rest there singing. Then, in accordance with the
divine disposition —
Si come il Sol, che 1' accende, sortille,*
rising to various heights, those higher (probably those
who have attained a more perfect degree of beati-
tude) form the head and neck of an eagle, while those
below at first form a lily upon the M. The Justice
that those who judge the earth must love can, in
Dante's conception, only be found under the sway of
the ideal Roman Empire of the De Monarchia, and
only flourish beneath the j^rotecting wings of the
Imperial Eagle. So the lower spirits, that first
formed the Lily, now follow the higher spirits in
forming one complete body of the sacred Bird, one
perfect Eagle. It is clearly an allegory of how the
Guelfic powers must submit to the Empire, and
form peacefully an integral part in this complete
universal Monarchy —
E quietata ciascuna in suo loco.^
^ Even as the Sun, that lights them, had allotted. — Par. xviii. 105.
* Each one being quiet in its place. — xviii. 106.
152
THE HEAVEN OF JUPITER
And in this they followed the imprint of God's
hand : —
Con poco moto seguito la imprenta.^
That this form of government is ordained by God, "^
that it comes directly from Him and is the only one
beneath â– which justice is possible, is clearly indi-
cated : —
Quel che dipinge li non ha clii il guidi,
Ma esso guida, e da Ivii si rammenta
Quella virtu chi'e forma per li nidi.
* * ^ ij: *
dolce Stella, quali e quanta gemnie
Mi diniostraro die nostra giustizia
Effetto sia del ciel che tu ingemme !
Far. xviii. 109, IIS.^
The great doctrine of the De Monarchia is implied
throughout : " It is therefore clear that the authority U^
of temporal monarchy comes down, \vath no inter-
mediate will, from the fountain of universal authority ;
and this fountain, one in its unity, flows through
many channels out of the abundance of the goodness
of God." ^ But on earth the rays of justice that pro-
ceed from the Di^-ine Mind are obscured by the smoke j^, - -
of ecclesiastical corruption, which leads the Church
to oppose the imperial authority. So, from the
spectacle of the Eagle, Dante turns to an animated
^ With a slight motion followed the imprint. — xviii. 114.
Cf. Par. yi. 110 : Kon si crecla che Dio trasmuti Varmi per
suoi giglL
* He who there paints has none to be His guide
But Himself guides ; and is from Him remembered
That virtue which is form imto the nest.
*****
O gentle star ! what and how many gems
Did demonstrate to me, that all our justice
Effect is of that heaven which thou ingemmest.
L0XGFELL0"W.
* Mon. iii. 16.
153
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
invective against those ecclesiastics who, by their
^ simony, traffic in sacred things and lead men astray
by their evil example. He especially bitterly blames
the frequent excommunications as party weapons,
and ends the eighteenth Canto in a sudden tremen-
dous burst of satire, apparently addressed not to
Boniface VIII. or Clement V., but to Pope John
XXII., the reigning pontiff at the time when he was
writing : —
Ma tu, che sol per cancellare scrivi,
Pensa cLe Pietro e Paolo, che moriro
Per la vigna che guasti, ancor son vivi.
Ben puoi tu dire : I' ho f ermo il disiro
Si a colui che voile viver solo
E che per salti fu tratto al martiro,
Ch'io non conosco il Pescator n^ Polo.
Far. xviii. 130.*
* Yet thou, who writest but to cancel, think
That Peter and that Paul, who for this vineyard
"Which thou art spoiling died, are still alive !
Well canst thou say : " So steadfast my desire
Is unto him who willed to live alone,
And for a dance was led to martyrdom,
That I know not the Fisherman nor Paul."
Longfellow.
His Holiness is of course showing his devotion to St. John by
collecting his images upon the golden coins of Florence, and so has
no leisure to even remember the Apostles. One or two of the early
commentators piously pretend not to see the joke ! Cf . Paradiso,
ix. 127, etc. John XXII. was supposed to be massing up a vast
treasure in Avignon. The Florentine florin bore the Baptist on
one side and the Lily on the other ; in 1322 the Pope raised a storm
of indignation by himself coining florins like those of Florence, but
marked with his own initials and papal mitre on the side of St.
John, and the monogram of the Apostles by the Lily. When some
Italian nobles imitated his example, in 1324, John promptly excom-
municated them for their trouble (Villani, ix. 169 and 278). How-
ever, in spite of their financial and political enormities, Dr. Pastor
points out that there was a better side to the history of these
Avignon pontiffs ; they seem to have made considerable efforts for
the propagation of Christianity in the East.
154
THE HEAVEN OF JUPITER
This image of the Eagle, the standard and emblem of
the divinely instituted universal Monarchy, has thus
appeared completed in the sphere of Jove. It is a
sign to Dante of God's will concerning Temporal
Monarchy ; for he tells us in the De Monarchia that
the will of God must be sought by signs, even as the
human will, except to the person who wills, can only
be gathered from signs ; the will of God is like an
invisible seal, which has left its manifest impression
upon visible things as upon wax. This blessed sign
was woven of praise of the Divine grace ; and the
perfect unity and concord of the spirits that compose
it, the " perpetual flowers of eternal joy," are vividly
expressed. They speak with one single voice of their
beatitude, as though it were the beak of the Eagle
that spoke, and of their memory which men on earth
honour, but do not imitate ; one sound of many loves,
as one heat from many burning coals in the fire of
celestial charity, and one indistinguishable odour
from many flowers. We are reminded of the de-
scription, in the Purgaforio, of the mingled sweetness
of a thousand odours that rose from the Valley of
the Princes. These are the souls of just and faithful
rulers, now in Paradise united with the celestial
Dominations, that angelic order which is " an express
image of the true and archetypal dominion in God,"
to influence the rulers of the earth to love justice and
to imitate the dominion in God by submission to the
Empire. The giusto and 'pio of their song refer to
the judgment and justice which must be the pre-
eminent attributes of the monarch, and which David
prayed for from God when he said : " Give to the
king Thy judgment, O God : and to the king's son
Thy justice." Their perfect unity and concord repre-
sent the perfect unity and concord which must exist
155
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
on earth, between the constituent rulers and states
of the Empire. " Concord is the uniform motion of
many walls," says the De Monarchia, " and all concord
depends on unity which is in wills. Therefore there
must be one will to be the single mistress and regu-
lating influence of all the rest." ^ This sovereign will
is indicated in the single sound of the Eagle, issuing
from many loves.
^ Human justice and human laws being modelled
upon the Divine Justice and the Divine Laws, Dante
is eager to have an old question solved touching
Di^-ine Justice, which the Eagle knows without his
expressing it. The Eagle does not at once mention
Dante's special point, but enters upon a profound dis-
course on the Di\'ine Justice in general, for, in that
boundless and unfathomable ocean, Dante's difficulty
is a mere trifling drop, to be swallowed up and over-
whelmed. And it first touches upon the creation of
the Universe, for, according to scholastic philosophy,
the order of the Universe shows the justice of God,
as the order of any multitude shows the justice of its
ruler. This, therefore, is indicated in the opening
lines of the Eagle's discourse, and we may remember
in illustration Blake's noble design of the Ancient of
Days setting a compass to the earth : —
Colui che volse il sesto
Alio stremo del mondo, e dentro ad esso
Distinse tanto occiilto e manifesto,
Non pote suo valor si fare impresso
In tutto I'uni verso, clie il suo verbo
Non rimanesse in infinito eccesso.
Par. xix. 40.^
' Mon. i. 15.
^ He who a compass turned
On the world's outer verge, and who within it
Devised so much occult and manifest,
1.56
THE HEAVEN OF JUPITER
Since in the Word, or Divine Wisdom, is the arche-
typal idea of all things possible ; therefore, however
vast creation may be, to whatever perfection created
beings may attain, still the Word must remain in
infinite excess to what is actually created, and in-
finitely above every created intelligence, however
perfect (Cornoldi). For God is infinitely more than
the finite image of Himself presented to us by His
visible creation. Lucifer himself had need of light ;
much more, then, must every lesser nature be too
small a vessel to receive the fulness of God's infinite
light and love. Hence Dante's question is already
answered, before it is stated : human intellect can
enter just so much into the Divine Justice, as our
eyes can penetrate into the depths of the sea : —
Dunque nostra veduta, clie conviene
Essere alcun dei raggi della mente
Di che tutte le cose son ripiene,
Non puo da sua natura esser possente
Tanto, che suo principio non discerna
Molto di la, da quel che I'e parvente.
Pero nella giustizia sempiterna
La vista che riceve il vostro mondo,
Com'occhio per lo mar, dentro s'interna ;
Che, benche dalla proda veggia il fondo,
In pelago nol vede ; e nondimeno
E 11, ma cela lui I'esser profondo.
Par. xix. 52.'
Could not the impress of His power so make
On all the universe, as that His Word
Should not remain in infinite excess.
Longfellow.
' In consequence our vision, which perforce
Must be some ray of that intelligence
With which all things whatever are replete,
Cannot in its own nature be so potent,
That it shall not its origin discern
Far bej^ond that which is apparent to it.
157
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
Thus all light comes from God ; and Dante's query as
to the justice of the fate of the just heathen, who
dies unbaptized, proceeds from insufficiency of human
intellect. The Eagle rebukes the presumption of such
questions : who art thou that wouldst judge from a
thousand miles away with the short sight of one
span ? The Di^dne Will is immutable, always essen-
tially just, and only what corresponds to it is just : —
Cotanto e giiisto, quanto a lei consuona ;
" So much is just as is accordant with it." In the De
Monarchia (ii. 2) Dante uses a somewhat similar
argument in support of the divinely ordained supre-
macy of the Roman Empire : " Whatever does not
agree T%dth the Divine Will cannot be right, and
whatever does agree "v^"ith the Divine Will is Right
itself." The final point in the lesson is given by the
Eagle wheeling round with a mysterious song that
passes Dante's understanding : " As incomprehensible
as my song to thee, so is the eternal judgment to you
mortals."
Dante's difficulty is practically solved in the follow-
ing Canto, but, indirectly, it is answered now as well.
Although faith in Christ is necessary, yet many who
in speech are most aggressively Christian will be
found among the reprobate, and those that knew not
Christ among the elect. It is here that Dante first
Therefore into the justice sempiternal
The jMDwer of vision that your world receives,
As eye into the ocean, penetrates ;
Which though it see the bottom near the shore,
"Upon the deep perceives it not ; and yet
'Tis there, but it is hidden by the depth.
Longfellow.
Our vision is but a ray of the divine vision, and, however potent
it may be, knows that its source is far beyond what is apparent to
our senses.
158
THE HEAVEN OF JUPITER
absolutely states that it is in the Roman Eagle that
the blessed spirits of this sphere are at peace and
in harmony, Nel segno che fe i Rojnani al mondo
reverendi ; ^ and it is to prelude and justify the
Eagle's denunciation of the contemporary sovereigns.
Dante's method is characteristic of him ; Faith will /^
not avail without good works, so let all these persons
look to it ! When the book shall be opened in the
presence of the Throne and the dead be judged, the
very Persians will condemn these kings. Dante re-
members the injunction of Cacciaguida, fearlessly to
assail those in the highest places ; so he summons
before his poetical tribunal all the rulers of Christen-
dom from the Emperor elect to the king of Cyprus,
and, through the mouth of the Eagle, condemns them
all {Par', xix. 112-148). In that eternal volume will
be recorded their shameful lives and abominable deeds,
some of which Dante himself indicates and others
leaves till then ; perhaps he did not himself quite
know for what special wickedness the king of Nor-
way, for instance, was distinguished, but had no
doubt that he was like the rest, and that it would
all be finally revealed. His sometimes exaggerated
worship of the Empire did not prevent the Floren-
tine republican from judging sternly the actual in-
dividual sovereigns, and even the Emperor himself.
Dante's attitude is that of Solomon, " Unto you
therefore, O kings, do I speak, that ye may learn ^
wisdom and not fall from it." In the fourth book of
the Convivio he bids them unite the philosophical
with the imperial authority, to rule well and per-
fectly, and adds in the same spirit as in this Canto :
" O miserable ones 'who rule at present ! and O most
* In the sign that made the Romans reverend in the world.
— Par. xix. 101.
159
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
miserable ye who are ruled ! for no philosophical
authority is joined to your government, neither by
your own study nor by counsel, so that to all can be
said that word of Ecclesiastes, ' Woe to thee, O land,
where thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the
morning ! ' and to no land can be said that which
follows : ' Blessed art thou, O land, where thy king is
the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season,
for strength and not for drunkenness ! ' " ^
As after sunset the stars appear, so now, when the
Eagle becomes silent, the voices are heard of the
blessed spirits composing that sacred and imperial
sign (Canto xx.) ; the beak is silent ^lile the indi-
vidual spirits, growing more bright, break out each
into its special song of divine love. As the stars in
Dante's view receive their light from the Sun, so is
the power of kings and princes derived from the
Emperor as from their fount. This is indicated by
analogy in the line —
Per molte luci, in che una risplende.^
' Conv. iv. 6. The splendid denunciation of the kings of the
earth with which Dante closes the nineteenth Canto of the Para-
diso may be regarded as a kind of glorification of the political sir-
ventese, employed by the Provencal troubadours. The most famous
specimen of the kind is Bordello's Lament for Blacatz, in which,
on the death of that gallant warrior, he summons various sove-
reigns to partake of his heart to restore their courage, and rebukes
them all for their failings, commencing with the Emperor Fred-
erick II. It was probably this poem that made Dante assign to
Sordello in the Purgatorio the place he holds there, to pass judg-
ment upon the same princes, or their heirs or descendants, whom
he had rebuked during life. The influence of this poem of Bor-
dello's is clearly visible in this Canto, Paradiso xix., and in Pur-
gatorio vii., and there is perhaps a reminiscence of it in the first
sonnet of the Vita Nuova. See Vita e Poesie di Sordello di Goito
per Cesare de Loll is. (Halle, 1896.)
* By many lights wherein one gloweth back.
Par. XX. 6.
160
THE HEAVEN OF JUPITER
In the silence of the Eagle for the individual voices
of its constituent spirits to be heard, an allusion may
be traced to the teaching of the De Monay^chia (i. 14)
upon the liberty of the individual states composing
the Empire : —
" It must be carefully observed that, when we say
that mankind may be ruled by one supreme prince,
we do not mean that the most trifling judgments for
each particular town are to proceed immediately
from him. For nations and kingdoms and states
have each of them certain peculiarities, which must
be regulated by different laws. For law is the rule
which directs life. . . . But our meaning is that
it is in those matters which are common to all men,
that men should be ruled by one Monarch, and be
governed by a rule common to them all with a view
to their peace. And the individual princes must re-
ceive this rule of life or law from him."
When the single spirits are silent, the voice of the
Eagle speaks again, to set forth the example of just
and righteous kings of old and their reward, in con-
trast to the modern tyrants whom it has just re-
buked, and to further illustrate the difficult matter
of Dante's query. The poet's eagerness on the sub-
ject is vividly expressed in his description of the
Eagle's speech : —
Parole,
Quali aspettava il core ov'io le scrissi; ^
and, indeed, it is clear that Dante's worship of the
great names of antiquity might well cause his
anxiety to be no mere poetic fiction. The Eagle
therefore makes known the six highest spirits of the
' Words such as the heart awaited in which I wrote them.
Fa7\ XX. 29.
161 M
/
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
heaven of Jove, who form its eye. It will be noticed
'that Dante is apparently viewing the Eagle with its
head turned to one side. Of these six spirits, two ^
are rulers of God's chosen people of old, and two of
His divinely instituted universal Empire ; one is a y
solitary type of a just modern king ; and one a just
man from the ancestral nation of Rome. To each
is given an appropriate terzina as a motto. David,-
the singer of the Holy Spirit, is the pupil of the eye,
clearly the supreme spirit of this sphere, as Solomon
was of the heaven of the Sun. Trajan, Hezekiah
and Constantine form the upper arc of the eyebrow.
The act of justice of Trajan, w^hen he consoled the
widow for her son, was one of the examples of
humility that Dante had seen sculptured on the wall
in the first terrace of Purgatory ; it was a not unf re-
quent subject for representation in early Italian Art,
and there is an interesting example in the National
Gallery from the hand of some early Veronese
painter. He had learnt how dearly it costs not
following Christ by experience of both heaven and
hell, which, being in direct opposition to the passage
where the Eagle had declared that no one attained
ever to heaven without faith in Christ, produces a
difficulty to be presently solved. Likewise the ter-
zina assigned to Hezekiah, who postponed death by
sincere penitence, involves a question full of difficulty
not only for the mediaeval mind : — •
Ora conosce che il giudizio eterno
Non si trasmuta, quando degno preco
Fa crastino laggiu deH'odierno.
Par. XX. 52.^
* Now knoweth he that the eternal judgment
Suffers no change, albeit worthy prayer
Maketh below to-morrow of to-day.
Longfellow.
162
THE HEAVEN OF JUPITER
St. Thomas reconciles the immutabiHty of God's de-
crees with the efficacy of prayer by teaching that we
do not pray to alter the divine plan, but to obtain
what God has arranged to be fulfilled by prayers ;
" Men need to do sundry things, not that by their
acts they may alter the divine plan, but that by their
acts they may fulfil certain effects according to the
order arranged by God." ^ Constantine likewise illus-
trates the teachings of Aquinas as to good inten-
tions : a certain familiar proverb would hardly find
favour in Dante's eyes. Constantine with the laws and
the Eagle became Greek, to yield Rome to the Pope,
sotto huona intenzion che fe mal frutto,'^ or, as Dante
has elsewhere written of the Eagle's action in lining
the chariot with its feathers, Forse con intenzion sana
e benigna.^
Ora conosce come il mal, dedutto
Dal suo bene operar, non gii e nocivo,
Avvegna clie sia il mondo indi distrutto.
Par. XX. 58.*
The sequent event does not make an act evil which
was good, nor an act good which was evil. The
effect consequent upon an action — as here the breach
between the Papacy and the Empire, and the result-
ing ruin of Italy — does not affect the morality of the
action, unless chosen as a means or intended as an
end or annexed as a relevant circumstance to the
means chosen. None of these are here to be laid to
Constantine's charge, though in the De Monarchia
* Summa, I. — 2, q. 83, a. 2.
^ Under the good intention that bore bad fruit. — Par. xx. 56.
^ Perhaps with sound intention and benign. — Piirg. xxxii. 138.
* Now he knows how the evil, deduced from his good action, is
not harmful to him, albeit that the world is thence destroyed.
163
DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS
(ii. 12) Dante is more forcible : " Oh happy people, oh