ing hours (midday to sunset) here {di qua) in the
ordinary v^orld. The southern hemisphere was all
bright, and the hemisphere of the earth dark ;
the poet's soul was all illuminated with the divine
grace and prepared to gaze upon things eternal and
divine, whereas the souls of men upon earth were
mostly dark in ignorance and sin, and immersed
in worldly cares. Indeed those virtues, the ' four
cardinal and three theological, were not only vivid
in his soul, but had even taken visible form as the
seven maidens to accompany him to the wondrous
waters of Eunoe, holding in their hands the seven
lights —

Che son sicuri cl'Aquilone e d'Avistro.'

It was at midday that Eunoe had been reached,
and Dante had drunk of its mystical waters. At
once, purified and prepared, he had returned to the
side of Beatrice. Almost all the earlier commenta-
tors seem to have supposed that it was sunrise on
the next day, when he saw Beatrice gazing upon
the sun, and rose up with her into the Kingdom
of Heaven ; and some more modern writers have
even offered various suggestions as to how the
eighteen hours that intervene may have been spent.
But it is quite certain that there has been no interval
of time between the end of the Piirgatorio and the
beginning of the Paradiso ; '"* at noontide, as soon

^ Which are secure from Aqviilo and Auster. Purg. xxxii. 99
(that is. lights that no assaults of the winds can extingiiish).

^ See Vaccheri and Bertacchi, La Visione di Dante AUghieri
considerata nello spazio e nel tempo (Torino, 1881) ; Q. Agnelli,
Topocronografia del viaggio Dantesco (Milano, 1891).

39



DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS

as Dante returns from Eunoe, the ascent takes place.
Dante distinctly tells us that the sun had risen where
he was, and was illuminating all the southern hemi-
sphere — that is, that it was midday in the Earthly
Paradise. The executive part of this Canto is there-
fore an immediate continuation of the last Canto
of the Purgatorio. The narrative has been merely
interrupted for the sake of that most solemn pro-
logue, a hymn of thanksgiving for his purification
and sanctification, for the poet to sing of the glory
of God and give greater solemnity to the close of
his ecstatic pilgrimage. As Beatrice tells him pre-
sently : —

Maraviglia sarebbe in te, se privo
D'impedimento giu ti fossi assiso,
Come in terra quiete in foco vivo.*

Dante entered Hell at nightfall, and he reached
the shores of Purgatory very early in the morning.
It might, perhaps, seem that sunrise would have
been the most fitting time for his ascent to Para-
dise. Now he has told us that the season of the
year was the noblest and most virtuous, and surely
the hour of the day should correspond with this.
It follows very clearly from two passages in the
Convivio that for Dante the noblest and most
virtuous hour of the day is not sunrise, but midday.
In that famous chapter, where he likens the life
of man to an arch and holds that for jDerfect
natures the summit of the arch is in the thirty-
fifth year, for it pleased our Saviour to die in the
thirty-fourth year of His age, because He desired

* Marvel would it be in tbee, if, free from imi^ediment, thou
wert seated down below, even as on the earth quiet in a living
flame. Par. I 136.

40



THE PRELUDE TO PARADISE

to remain in our life up to its culmination, he
adds : —

" E cio ne manifesta I'ora del giorno della sua
morte, che voile quella consomigliare colla vita sua ;
onde dice Luca, che era quasi ora sesta quando
morio, che e a dire lo colmo del di ; onde si puo
comprendere per quello quasi, che al trentacinques-
imo anno di Cristo era il colmo della sua eta." ^

It is in this thirty-fifth year of his life that Dante
has his vision, and he clearly wishes us to notice
such analogies. So also he was dead and buried,
so to speak, in Hell part of three days like our
Lord in the tomb. Just as Christ died at the colmo
del di, so that should be the hour for the commence-
ment of the consummation of Dante's vision. And
again, further on, he says : La sesta ora, cioh il
tnezzo di, e la piu nobile di tutto il cZ), e la piit
virtuosa.'^

And finally let us turn again to the Purgatorio,
to the words that Virgil addressed to Dante when
he awoke on that morning after the purging fire
had been passed through {Purg. xxvii. 115-

117) :—

Quel dolce pome, die per tanti rami
Cercando va la cura del mortali,
Oggi porra in pace le ttie fami.^

' And this the hour of the day of His death makes manifest to
us, for He willed this to correspond with His life ; wherefore
Luke saith that it was almost the sixth hour when He died, that
is to say, the culmination of the day ; whence we can understand
by this, as it were, that the culmination of Christ's life was at
His thirty-fifth year. Conv. iv. 23.

^ The sixth hour, that is, midday, is the most noble of all the
day, and has the most virtue. Ibid.

^ That apple sweet, which through so many branches
The care of mortals goeth in pursuit of,
To-day shall put in peace thy hungerings.

Longfellow.

41



DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS

This sweet apple cannot be the Earthly Paradise,
for blessedness of this life is not Dante's last end
and therefore could not put at peace all his desires.
Neither can it be the sight of Beatrice herself in
that gorgeous pageant, for, after all, Beatrice is
merely the guide to lead him on to the supreme
>^ and universal good. " Nothing," says St. Thomas,
" can set the will of man to rest but universal
good, which is not found in anything created but
in God alone. Hence God alone can fill the breast
of man."

It was the last day of Dante's j)ilgrimage of
which the morning broke on the steps that led up
to the Earthly Paradise. Oggi, to-day, was the
w^ord he heard from his master's lips before he
resigned his guidance. And w^hat a wondrous day
it was to be ! heralded by the dream of Rachel and
Leah, followed by the glorious pageant of the
Church with the reunion with Beatrice, and the
mystical visions of the past, j^resent and future
of the Church and Empire. He had mounted the
last steps as the sun rose, it was midday as he
stooped to drink of Eunoe, but Dante was to see
no evening of that day. The sun of the last day
of his pilgrimage rose on the Earthly Paradise, but
the poet passed beyond it into Eternity, and was
with Beatrice : —

suso in cielo
Cotanto gloriosaniente accolto.*

As he ascended, so much was the light increased
that it seemed that day to day was added, as if
God had adorned the heaven with another sun.
This apparent addition of day to day is the divine

* On liigh in heaven so glorioii3l3- received. Par. xi. 11.

42



THE PRELUDE TO PARADISE

answer to Dante's invocation. According to St.
Augustine, day is a figure of knowledge ; and by
this addition of day to day is mystically signified
the addition of divine knowledge to human know-
ledge ; both peaks of Parnassus are needed for this
last achievement.^ Dante turns his gaze from the
sun upon Beatrice, for she is invested with the
ecclesiastical authority appointed by God to lead
mankind to eternal life in accordance with revela-
tion, and by means of theology to interpret the
mysteries which would otherwise dazzle our intel-
lectual eyesight.

Nel suo aspetto tal deiitro mi fei,

Qual si fe' Glauco nel gustar dell'erba,
Clie il fe' consorte in mar degii altri dei.

Trasiimanar significar 7:)e/' verba

Noil si poria ; pero I'esempio basti
A cui esperienza grazia serba.

S'io era sol di me quel cbe creasti

Norellamente, Amor cbe il ciel governi,
Tu il sai, che col tuo lume mi levasti.

Par. i. 67.'

^ Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa I. q. 74 a. 2 : " According to
St. Augustine, by day is meant tbe knowledge of the angelical
mind, so that the first day is the knowledge of the first divine
Avork, the second daj- the knowledge of the second work, and so for
the others. Angelical knowledge can properly and truly be called
day, since light, which is the cause of daj', is properly to be found
in spiritual things — Cognitio autevi angelica j)Toprie et vere dies
nominari jJotesf, cum lux, quae est causa diet, proprie in spirit-
iialibus inveniatur.''^

* Such at her asjiect (I) inwardly became

As Glaucus, tasting of the herb that made him
Peer of the other gods beneath the sea.
To represent transumanise in words

Impossible were ; the example, then, suffice
Him for whom Grace the experience reserves.
If I was merely what of mo thou newly

Createdst, Love, who governest the heaven.
Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light !

Longfellow.
43



DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS

Benvenuto da Imola waxes enthusiastic concerning
this comparison which Dante makes of himself to
Glaucus the fisherman, and indeed it is an apt one.
Glaucus tasted of the grass and, entering into the
sea, became a God ; so Dante, tasting these new
V spiritual delights, enters into the sea of Paradise,
contemplating things eternal and divine, and his
mind becomes in a certain way god-like (cf. St.
Thomas Aquinas, Contra Gentiles, ii. 2, and Summa
Theologica i. q. 12. a. 5). Benvenuto works out the
analogy in many quaint ways, showing how Dante
too was a fisherman, fishing for and taking captive
the souls of men with his song ; he, after fishing in
the waters of Hell and Purgatory, had at last come
to a green meadow where never any other poet had
been — the Earthly Paradise. There he landed his
fishes, who, tasting the new grass or doctrine, entered
the sea. And then this new Glaucus, having left
the earth, becomes like Glaucus first a semi-god,
and then, after tasting of those sweet waters of
the rivers of the Earthly Paradise, becomes a god
in the great sea of Paradise with the other souls
of the blessed, a i)artaker now in divinity and
immortality.

Pointing a moral, in his characteristic way, from
the impossibility of representing transumanise in
words, and uttering the doubt with St. Paul whether
he was in the body or out of the body, Dante
continues his account of their ascent, swifter than
lightning. A vast sea of light and flame seems
around him, either because the sphere of fire has
been reached or merely from the reflection of the
light of the sun ; and a wondrous harmony is heard,
the perpetual music of the heavenly spheres caused
by their continually revolving, swiftest of all the

U



THE PRELUDE TO PARADISE

Primum Mobile from the ferveut longing that each
part has to be conjoined with the divinest Heaven,
from the desire of God — therefore a perpetual
hymn of divine love and longing. The notion of
the music of the spheres was taught by Pythagoras,
but rejected by Aristotle. Dante perhaps took it
from Cicero's Dream of Sclpio. Benvenuto is some-
what concerned at Dante's doctrine. He clearly
finds it a hard saying, and, holding with Aristotle
non concedendum quod musica sit in c<xlo, thinks
Dante must mean something else : " Perhaps by this
harmony our author understands the wonderful
proportion of the heaven, which ever moveth uni-
formly so that every part replies to every part " ;
but, although himself holding that Albertus Mag-
nus has conclusively proved that no sound is made
in heaven, Benvenuto thinks it safest to explain
that, even if Dante really meant that there was
music in heaven, it was a view that had plenty to be
said for it, for great authors both before and after
Aristotle, such as Pythagoras and Plato, Tully and
Boethius, affirm this thing for certain.

So rapid is their ascent that Dante does not at
fii'st perceive that they have left the earth ; and
then, on learning from Beatrice that he is returning
to Heaven, from whence the soul departed when first
created by God, he would further know from her
how it is that he is transcending these light bodies,
air, fire and ether. He cannot comprehend — so
the Ottimo interprets this passage — how human
nature acquires beatitude and can possess such grace
as Paradise. Beatrice answers with a profound
IDhilosophical discourse concerning the form and ^
order of the Universe, equally full of poetry and
of the devout wisdom of the schoolmen.

45



DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS

Le cose tutte e quante
Hann' ordine tra loro ; e qiiesto e forma
Che I'universo a Dio fa simigliante.
Qui veggion I'alte creature I'orma
Dell'eterno valore, il quale b fine,
Al quale e fatta la toccata norma.

Par. i. 103.»

Certain words of St. Thomas might be taken as the
text of this discourse of Beatrice's : " To take away
order from created beings is to take away what is
best in them ; the individual things are good in them-
selves, yet all of them together are best because of
the order of the Universe. For the whole is always
better than the parts, and is indeed the end to which
they tend." ^ All properties and actions of corporeal
substances, all things that exist in heaven and earth,
inanimate and living creatures with all their capa-
bilities, mankind in their relations to each other and
to things below and above them — the whole of nature
is ordained to make vip the order and beauty of the
Universe, the form that makes the Universe like to
God and from which intellectual and rational beings
(Valte creature) gather the image of the perfection of
God, who is the end that all creatures seek. Just as
the products of any art represent and give us some
notion of the art itself, so, by meditating upon what
God has made, we can to some extent contemplate
the Divine Wisdom. For God brought things into
being by His Wisdom, and upon the things that He

* All things whate'er they be
Have order among themselves, and this is form.
That makes the universe resemble God.
Here do the higher creatures see the foot-prints
Of the Eternal Pov^er, which is the end
Whereto is made the law already mentioned.

Longfellow.
^ Contra Gentiles, iii. 69.
46



THE PRELUDE TO PARADISE

has made there is stamped a certain comm^unication
or likeness of the Divine Wisdom. The beauty of
the Universe depends upon its order, and the Uni-
verse is the image of God, for in creating it He took
the exemplar or idea from within Himself.

Nell' ordine cli'io dico sono accline
Tutte nature, per diverse sorti,
Piu al principio loro e meu vicine;

Onde si movouo a diversi porti

Per lo gi-an mar dell' essere, e ciascuna
Con istinto a lei dato clie la porti.

Questi ne porta il foco inver la luna ;
Questi nei cor mortali e permotore ;
Questi la terra in se stringe ed aduna.

Ne pur le creature che son fuore
D'intelligenza, quest' arco saetta,
Ma quelle c' hanno intelletto ed amore.

Par. i. 109.1

This is practically Dante's poetical statement of what
scholastic philosophy calls The Eternal Late, which a
modern writer on the subject defines thus : — " That
God wills to bind His creatures to certain lines of
action, not arbitrary lines, but the natural lines of
each creature's being," or, " That every creature,
rational and irrational, shall act according to its kind
or nature " (J. Rickaby, Moral Philosophy). In Pnr-

' In the order tlaat I speak of are inclined
All natures, by their destinies diverse,
More or less near unto their origin;
Hence they move onward unto ports diverse
O'er the great sea of being ; and each one
With instinct given it which bears it on.
This bears away the fire towards the moon ;
This is in mortal hearts the motive power ;
This binds together and \inites the earth.
Nor only the created things that are

Withoixt intelligence, this bow shoots forth,
But those that have both intellect and love.

Longfellow.
47



DANTES TEN HEAVENS

gatorio xvii., Dante through Virgil enunciates a
universal law of love : —

Ne ci'eator, ne creatura mai,
Comincio ei, figliuol, fu senza amore,
uaturale o cl'aniino ; ^

and all creatures from inanimate stones up to men
and Angels are included by Dante in this golden law
of love. This is of course a part of the Eternal
Law, which Aquinas tells us is the sovereign plan of
government existing in the mind of God, as director
of all acts and movements, moving all things to their
due end: the law to which all the movements and
actions of all nature are subject. Over this great sea
of being, all created things seek their diverse ports, a
honum, the end for which they are ordered and dis-
posed, whether they have knowledge or have not.
But although Dante here and a few lines further on
makes use of the simile of a bow and its arrows, he
would not have us suppose that even inanimate
things are merely imi)elled to an end from without,
as an arrow is aimed at a mark by the archer ; but
that every thing has a natural inclination from within,
because it has received from its director or mover
some form by which that inclination or direction is
determined. This is what he calls the istinfo a lei
dato che la porti, the principle of inclination which
God gives to natural things, a draw, uniform in it-
self but differenced by the nature or form upon
which it acts, by which He draws all things that He
has created back to Himself.

Now Dante, in the above lines (115-120), indicates
the three ways in which created things are said by

^ "Neither Creator nor creature, son," lie commenced, "was
ever without love, natural or rational."

48



THE PRELUDE TO PARADISE

scholastic philosophers to seek their end, the honum
to which they tend.^ The inanimate or insensible
bodies {il foco, la terra), being the furthest removed
from God by reason of their materiality, seek the end
to which they are inclined not by moving themselves
but by that inherent principle of inclination, which
is determined by the substantial form. The sensitive
natures or brutes {i cor tnortali), being a step nearer
to God, have this natural movement further deter-
mined by sense images, but the inclination that —

nei cor mortali e i)erm.otore

is not in their own power. They do not seek their
end freely, but the inclination is determined from
without. Rational beings {Quelle c hanno intelletto ed
atnore) are the nearest to God, and have in their own
intellectual knowledge the known honum that inclines
them. They include what the inanimate and sensi-
tive natures possess, but, besides, they have the incli-
nation in their own power and freely move them-
selves. These three principles of motion are called
the natural appetite, the sensitive appetite, and the
rational appetite, which last is the human will and
is freely determined by the reason. But upon this
terrible power of the rational nature to incline or
not incline, this apparent power to resist the Eternal
Law, Beatrice has yet another word to say before she
closes her discourse.

Yer' e che, come forma non s'accorda
Molte fiate alia intenzion deU'arte,
Perch' a risponder la materia e sorda ;

* Of. Cornoldi, T/te Physical System of St. Thomas, translated by
E. H. Bering.

The student of Dante will find this hook a most excellent intro-
duction to the scholastic notions underlying the Divine Comedy.

49 E



X



DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS

Cosl da qixesto corso si diparte
Talor la creatura, c'lia potere
Di piegar, cosi pinta, in altra parte,

(E si come veder si puo cadere

Foco di nube), se I'iinpeto primo
A terra e torto da falso piacere.

Par. i. 127.*

La creatura in question is of course the rational
being, and this pote^^e to turn aside is that power
which it has to incline or not incline. Just as some-
times the form of the statue does not adequately
represent the idea that the artist has in his mind,
because of the defective nature of the material he
employs, so men, to whom the Creator has given free
will, deceived by false pleasure, do not follow the
inclination that God has given them to impel them
in segno lleto — to a joyful mark. Rectitude of the
will is as requisite for the attainment of man's last
end as a due disposition of the matter is needed for
the attainment of the form. Irrational creatures
have not power to turn aside to evil the natural
inclination or instinct, and so they never depart from
the way to which they are moved by the Creator.
But man has liberty ; he is subject to the Eternal
Law, not only as irrational creatures are, as being set
in motion by Divine Providence, but also as having
some knowledge of good. Although necessarily
urged by the nature that God has given him to the

^ True is it, that as oftentimes the form

Accords not with the intention of the art,
Because in answering is matter deaf,

So likewise from this course doth deviate

Sometimes the creature, who the power possesses,
Though thus impelled, to move some other way

(In the same wise as one may see the fire
Fall from a cloud), if the first impetus
Earthward is wrested by some false delight.

Longfellow.

50



THE PRELUDE TO PARADISE

universal good, yet man's will can freely turn aside X
to a particular good which in reality may be
false and contrary to the divine will. Cornoldi in
his commentary gives a very apt illustration : " A
ship is moved towards the west by the wind, but the
pilot by turning the helm can freely direct it to this
or that port of the west."

Thus in rational creatures sin can for a time defeat
the Eternal Law ; but Beatrice has no need to explain
to Dante how this breach in the order of the Universe
is made up on the side of suffering, " the wicked
suffering what the Eternal Law dictates concerning
them, to that exact extent to which they fail to do
what is in accordance with that law." ^ All this has
been already fully investigated in his passage through
the Inferno and the Purgatorio. All that is passed.
He has now only to study the condition of the good,
" those who are perfectly subject to the Eternal Law
as ever acting according to it." Thus, having finished
her discourse, Beatrice bids him note that, now that
he is purified and prepared, this ascent of his is
natural and inevitable, just as much a part of the
order of the Universe as the inevitable rush of a
torrent from a lofty mountain down to the valley
below, or the mounting aloft of living flame to the
sphere of fire. It is in accordance with the Eternal
Law, that plan of Divine Wisdom moving all things /^
to their due end, that the purified soul as a living
flame mounts upwards on the wings of love, to the
universal good which is found in God alone.

^ Summa I.— 2. q. 93. a. 6 (Aquinas Ethicus).



51



CHAPTER II
WITHIN EARTH'S SHADOW



THE HEAVEN OF THE MOON

" Totus infernus, totus mundus, totus denique militiee
cgelestis exercitus in vinum concurrat, in hoc vmum con-
juret, imus ex libero arbitrio consensus in qualicumque
re invito extorqueri non valet."

EiCHARD OF St. Victor, De Statu Interiorls Hominis.

ONE of the striking features of the Paradiso is
the j)redoniinance of the lyrical element, the
frequent introduction of exquisite lyrical passages
amidst its theology and philosophy. Such passages
in the Divine Comedy are analogous to what
Coleridge called the " lyrical interbreathings " in
the Elizabethan drama. Thiis, as prelude to the
heaven of the Moon, the second Canto opens with
a lyrical exordium in which Dante warns his readers yC
of the difficulty and lofty character of the Paradiso,
lays stress upon the need of preparatory knowledge,
and promises wonders in store for those that can
follow him. The little boat (navicella), with which\/
he had passed over the cruel sea of the Inferno and
the better water of the Piirgatorio, has become the
legno, the ship sufficient and strong enough to
voyage upon the deep ocean of Paradise. Minerva
and Apollo, Wisdom and Divine Grace, inspire and
guide him, and the Muses point out the way. It

55



DANTE'S TEN HEAVENS

is noteworthy how forcibly Dante insists upon his
readers keeping close to his doctrine —

Servando mio solco
Dinanzi all'acqua che ritorna eguale :

" Keeping in my wake before the water that is
growing smooth again," that is, as close as possible
in the path of my keel : a distinct warning to
commentators to resist the temptation of reading
their own ideas into his poem.

Beatrice gazing upwards and Dante gazing upon
her, they ascend with the utmost rapidity, borne
up by man's concreated and perpetual thirst for
God, and are received into the eternal pearl of the
Moon. In each heaven, as Dante ascends, he has
problems and difficulties of various kinds to be
solved by Beatrice, or by the spirits that appear to
him. In each case these questions are not asked
casually, but are very closely correspondent to the
character of the heaven and its place in the whole
celestial scheme. The heavens are as steps after
•^f steps in knowledge, leading up to Universal Truth ;
and therefore in this lowest sphere the preliminary