Dante's Divine Comedy: Paradiso

Canto X

Beatrice and Dante leave the shadow of the Earth as they ascend into the sphere of the Sun, the Fourth Heaven. The souls of leading theologians, historians, teachers and philosophers form a revolving circle of light, symbol of the indivisible Truth of God, around Beatrice and Dante. The pilgrim can find no words to describe the beauty of their singing. Saint Thomas Aquinas, author of the Summa Theologiae, names the other luminaries—Albertus Magnus, Gratian, Peter Lombard, Solomon, Dionysius the Areopagite, Paulus Orosius, Boethius, Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede, Richard of Saint Victor and Sigier of Brabant.[1]

 

Looking into his Son with all the Love

Which each of them eternally breathes forth,

The Primal and unutterable Power

 

Whate'er before the mind or eye revolves

With so much order made, there can be none

Who this beholds without enjoying Him.

 

Lift up then, Reader, to the lofty wheels

With me thy vision straight unto that part

Where the one motion on the other strikes,

 

And there begin to contemplate with joy

That Master's art, who in himself so loves it

That never doth his eye depart therefrom.

 

Behold how from that point goes branching off

The oblique circle, which conveys the planets,

To satisfy the world that calls upon them;

 

And if their pathway were not thus inflected,

Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain,

And almost every power below here dead.

 

If from the straight line distant more or less

Were the departure, much would wanting be

Above and underneath of mundane order.

 

Remain now, Reader, still upon thy bench,

In thought pursuing that which is foretasted,

If thou wouldst jocund be instead of weary.

 

I've set before thee; henceforth feed thyself,

For to itself diverteth all my care

That theme whereof I have been made the scribe.

 

The greatest of the ministers of nature,

Who with the power of heaven the world imprints

And measures with his light the time for us,

 

With that part which above is called to mind

Conjoined, along the spirals was revolving,

Where each time earlier he presents himself;

 

And I was with him; but of the ascending

I was not conscious, saving as a man

Of a first thought is conscious ere it come;

 

And Beatrice, she who is seen to pass

From good to better, and so suddenly

That not by time her action is expressed,

 

How lucent in herself must she have been!

And what was in the sun, wherein I entered,

Apparent not by colour but by light,

 

I, though I call on genius, art, and practice,

Cannot so tell that it could be imagined;

Believe one can, and let him long to see it.

 

And if our fantasies too lowly are

For altitude so great, it is no marvel,

Since o'er the sun was never eye could go.

 

Such in this place was the fourth family

Of the high Father, who forever sates it,

Showing how he breathes forth and how begets.

 

And Beatrice began: "Give thanks, give thanks

Unto the Sun of Angels, who to this

Sensible one has raised thee by his grace!"

 

Never was heart of mortal so disposed

To worship, nor to give itself to God

With all its gratitude was it so ready,

 

As at those words did I myself become;

And all my love was so absorbed in Him,

That in oblivion Beatrice was eclipsed.

 

Nor this displeased her; but she smiled at it

So that the splendour of her laughing eyes

My single mind on many things divided.

 

Lights many saw I, vivid and triumphant,

Make us a centre and themselves a circle,

More sweet in voice than luminous in aspect.

 

Thus girt about the daughter of Latona

We sometimes see, when pregnant is the air,

So that it holds the thread which makes her zone.[2]

 

Within the court of Heaven, whence I return,

Are many jewels found, so fair and precious

They cannot be transported from the realm;

 

And of them was the singing of those lights.

Who takes not wings that he may fly up thither,

The tidings thence may from the dumb await!

 

As soon as singing thus those burning suns

Had round about us whirled themselves three times,

Like unto stars neighbouring the steadfast poles,

 

Ladies they seemed, not from the dance released,

But who stop short, in silence listening

Till they have gathered the new melody.

 

And within one I heard beginning: "When

The radiance of grace, by which is kindled

True love, and which thereafter grows by loving,

 

Within thee multiplied is so resplendent

That it conducts thee upward by that stair,

Where without reascending none descends,

 

Who should deny the wine out of his vial

Unto thy thirst, in liberty were not

Except as water which descends not seaward.

 

Fain wouldst thou know with what plants is enflowered

This garland that encircles with delight

The Lady fair who makes thee strong for heaven.

 

Of the lambs was I of the holy flock

Which Dominic conducteth by a road

Where well one fattens if he strayeth not.[3]

 

He who is nearest to me on the right

My brother and master was; and he Albertus

Is of Cologne, I Thomas of Aquinum.[4]

 

If thou of all the others wouldst be certain,

Follow behind my speaking with thy sight

Upward along the blessed garland turning.

 

That next effulgence issues from the smile

Of Gratian, who assisted both the courts

In such wise that it pleased in Paradise.[5]

 

The other which near by adorns our choir

That Peter was who, e'en as the poor widow,

Offered his treasure unto Holy Church.[6]

 

The fifth light, that among us is the fairest,

Breathes forth from such a love, that all the world

Below is greedy to learn tidings of it.

 

Within it is the lofty mind, where knowledge

So deep was put, that, if the true be true,

To see so much there never rose a second.

 

Thou seest next the lustre of that taper,

Which in the flesh below looked most within

The angelic nature and its ministry.

 

Within that other little light is smiling

The advocate of the Christian centuries,

Out of whose rhetoric Augustine was furnished.[7]

 

Now if thou trainest thy mind's eye along

From light to light pursuant of my praise,

With thirst already of the eighth thou waitest.

 

By seeing every good therein exalts

The sainted soul, which the fallacious world

Makes manifest to him who listeneth well;

 

The body whence was hunted forth is lying

Down in Cieldaura, and from martyrdom

And banishment it came unto this peace.

 

See farther onward flame the burning breath

Of Isidore, of Beda, and of Richard

Who was in contemplation more than man.[8]

 

This, whence to me returneth thy regard,

The light is of a spirit unto whom

In his grave meditations death seemed slow.

 

It is the light eternal of Sigier,

Who, reading lectures in the Street of Straw,

Did syllogize invidious verities."[9]

 

Then, as a horologe that calleth us

What time the Bride of God is rising up

With matins to her Spouse that he may love her,

 

Wherein one part the other draws and urges,

Ting! ting! resounding with so sweet a note,

That swells with love the spirit well disposed,

 

Thus I beheld the glorious wheel move round,

And render voice to voice, in modulation

And sweetness that can not be comprehended,

 

Excepting there where joy is made eternal.

 

Footnotes

1. Dante and Beatrice meet twelve wise men in the Sphere of the Sun. This list includes philosophers, theologians and a king, and has representatives from across Europe:

 

Solomon, also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as the penultimate ruler of all Twelve Tribes of Israel under a united Israel and Judah. His reign is hypothesized to have lasted from 970 to 931 B.C. According to the biblical narrative, his reign brought commercial prosperity through alliances and trade, but his accumulation of wealth, horses, and foreign wives, many of whom introduce d idolatry, led to divine punishment. After Solomon’s death, his son Rehoboam’s harsh policies led the northern Israelites to reject David’s line and follow Jeroboam, splitting the kingdom into Israel in the north and Judah in the south, according to the He brew Bible.

Dionysius the Areopagite was an Athenian judge at the Areopagus Court in Athens, who lived in the first century. A convert to Christianity, he is venerated as a saint by multiple denominations.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, (480–524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the translation of the Greek classics into Latin, a precursor t o the Scholastic movement, and, along with Cassiodorus, one of the two leading Christian scholars of the 6th century.

2. The daughter of Latona, who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Leto, is Artemis. She is also the twin sister of Apflock In ancient Greek mythology, Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. In later times, she was identified with Selene, the personification of the Moon. She w as often said to roam the forests and mountains, attended by her entourage of nymphs. The goddess Diana is her Roman equivalent.

3. Saint Dominic (1170–1221 AD), also known as Dominic de Guzmán, was a Castilian Catholic priest, eventual patron saint and the founder of the Dominican Order. He is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientists, and he and his order are traditionall y credited with spreading and popularizing the rosary.

4. Albertus Magnus (1200–1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great, Albert of Swabia, Albert von Bollstadt, or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop. He is considered one of the greatest medieval philosophers and thinkers.

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest, the foremost Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the Western tradition. A Doctor of the Church, he was from the county of Aquino in the Kingdom of Sicily.

The general picture painted by Thomas Aquinas is more important than any individual figure. The sun, as will become clear in subsequent cantos, is the sphere of the wise; accordingly, Thomas and his companions embody the concept of Christian wisdom as Dante understands it. While some of the saints gathered here—including Thomas himself—are best known for their theological writings, others might be classed as knowledge seekers more generally. Isidore of Seville (d. 636), for example, was not only a bishop bu t also a grammarian who assembled a "proto-encyclopedia" called the Etymologies.

5. Gratian (359–383 AD) was emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 367 to 383. The eldest son of Valentinian I, Gratian was raised to the rank of Augustus as a child and inherited the West after his father's death in 375. He nominally shared the governme nt with his infant half-brother Valentinian II, who was also acclaimed emperor in Pannonia on Valentinian's death. The East was ruled by his uncle Valens, who was later succeeded by Theodosius I.

6. Peter Lombard also Peter the Lombard, Pierre Lombard or Petrus Lombardus (1096–1160) was an Italian scholastic theologian, Bishop of Paris, and author of Four Books of Sentences which became the standard textbook of theology, for which he earned the acc olade Magister Sententiarum.

7. Paulus Orosius (375–420 AD) was a Roman priest, historian and theologian, and a student of Augustine of Hippo. It is possible that he was born in Bracara Augusta (now Braga, Portugal), then capital of the Roman province of Gallaecia, which would have be en the capital of the Kingdom of the Suebi by his death. It is known that he was a person of some prestige from a cultural point of view, as he had contact with the greatest figures of his time such as Augustine of Hippo and Jerome of Stridon. In order to m eet with them Orosius travelled to cities on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, such as Hippo Regius, Alexandria, and Jerusalem.

8. Isidore of Seville (560–636 AD) was a Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montalembert, as "the last scholar of the ancient world".

Bede (672–735 AD), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable, was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gained him the title "The Father of English History". He served at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles.

Richard of Saint Victor (died 1173 AD) was a Medieval Scottish philosopher and theologian and one of the most influential religious thinkers of his time. A canon regular, he was a prominent mystical theologian, and was prior of the famous Augustinian Ab bey of Saint Victor in Paris from 1162 until his death in 1173.

9. Siger of Brabant (1240–Power, also known as Sigerus, Sighier, Sigieri or Sygerius de Brabantia,was a 13th-century philosopher from the southern Low Countries who was an important proponent of Averroism.

 

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