Dante's Divine Comedy: Paradiso
Canto XXII
Beatrice prophesies that Dante will live to see God's vengeance rain down on the Church's corrupters. Looking up, he sees one hundred radiant orbs. The soul of Saint Benedict, founder of the Monte Cassino monastery, draws near to lament the scarcity of Benedictine monks committed to going up the golden ladder which, like the contemplative life, leads to the summit of God's glory. He presages change before being swept up into the choir of lights. Dante and Beatrice follow him to the Eighth Heaven: the Fixed Stars. Dante looks down through the preceding seven Heavens and smiles at the insignificance of the Earth.[1]
Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide
Turned like a little child who always runs
For refuge there where he confideth most;
And she, even as a mother who straightway
Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy
With voice whose wont it is to reassure him,
Said to me: "Knowest thou not thou art in heaven,
And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all
And what is done here cometh from good zeal?
After what wise the singing would have changed thee
And I by smiling, thou canst now imagine,
Since that the cry has startled thee so much,
In which if thou hadst understood its prayers
Already would be known to thee the vengeance
Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest.
The sword above here smiteth not in haste
Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him
Who fearing or desiring waits for it.
But turn thee round towards the others now,
For very illustrious spirits shalt thou see,
If thou thy sight directest as I say."
As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned,
And saw a hundred spherules that together
With mutual rays each other more embellished.
I stood as one who in himself represses
The point of his desire, and ventures not
To question, he so feareth the too much.
And now the largest and most luculent
Among those pearls came forward, that it might
Make my desire concerning it content.
Within it then I heard: "If thou couldst see
Even as myself the charity that burns
Among us, thy conceits would be expressed;
But, that by waiting thou mayst not come late
To the high end, I will make answer even
Unto the thought of which thou art so chary.[2]
That mountain on whose slope Cassino stands
Was frequented of old upon its summit
By a deluded folk and ill-disposed;[3]
And I am he who first up thither bore
The name of Him who brought upon the Earth
The truth that so much sublimateth us.[4]
And such abundant grace upon me shone
That all the neighboring towns I drew away
From the impious worship that seduced the world.
These other fires, each one of them, were men
Contemplative, enkindled by that heat
Which maketh holy flowers and fruits spring up.
Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus,
Here are my brethren, who within the cloisters
Their footsteps stayed and kept a steadfast heart."[5]
And I to him: "The affection which thou showest
Speaking with me, and the good countenance
Which I behold and note in all your ardors,
In me have so my confidence dilated
As the sun doth the rose, when it becomes
As far unfolded as it hath the power.
Therefore I pray, and thou assure me, father,
If I may so much grace receive, that I
May thee behold with countenance unveiled."
He thereupon: "Brother, thy high desire
In the remotest sphere shall be fulfilled,
Where are fulfilled all others and my own.
There perfect is, and ripened, and complete,
Every desire; within that one alone
Is every part where it has always been;
For it is not in space, nor turns on poles,
And unto it our stairway reaches up,
Whence thus from out thy sight it steals away.
Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it
Extending its supernal part, what time
So thronged with angels it appeared to him.
But to ascend it now no one uplifts
His feet from off the earth, and now my Rule
Below remaineth for mere waste of paper.
The walls that used of old to be an Abbey
Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls
Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.
But heavy usury is not taken up
So much against God's pleasure as that fruit
Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;
For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping
Is for the folk that ask it in God's name,
Not for one's kindred or for something worse.
The flesh of mortals is so very soft,
That good beginnings down below suffice not
From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.
Peter began with neither gold nor silver,
And I with orison and abstinence,
And Francis with humility his convent.
And if thou lookest at each one's beginning,
And then regardest whither he has run,
Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.
In verity the Jordan backward turned,
And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more
A wonder to behold, than succor here."[6]
Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew
To his own band, and the band closed together;
Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.
The gentle Lady urged me on behind them
Up o'er that stairway by a single sign,
So did her virtue overcome my nature;
Nor here below, where one goes up and down
By natural law, was motion e'er so swift
That it could be compared unto my wing.
Reader, as I may unto that devout
Triumph return, on whose account I often
For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,--
Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire
And drawn it out again, before I saw
The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.[7]
O glorious stars, O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be,
With you was born, and hid himself with you,
He who is father of all mortal life,
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air;
And then when grace was freely given to me
To enter the high wheel which turns you round,
Your region was allotted unto me.
To you devoutly at this hour my soul
Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire
For the stern pass that draws it to itself.
"Thou art so near unto the last salvation,"
Thus Beatrice began, "thou oughtest now
To have thine eves unclouded and acute;
And therefore, ere thou enter farther in,
Look down once more, and see how vast a world
Thou hast already put beneath thy feet;
So that thy heart, as jocund as it may,
Present itself to the triumphant throng
That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether."
I with my sight returned through one and all
The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe
Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance;
And that opinion I approve as best
Which doth account it least; and he who thinks
Of something else may truly be called just.
I saw the daughter of Latona shining
Without that shadow, which to me was cause
That once I had believed her rare and dense.[8]
The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,
Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves
Around and near him Maia and Dione.[9]
Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove
'Twixt son and father, and to me was clear
The change that of their whereabout they make;[10]
And all the seven made manifest to me
How great they are, and eke how swift they are,
And how they are in distant habitations.
The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,
To me revolving with the eternal Twins,
Was all apparent made from hill to harbor!
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.
Footnotes
1. At the end of Canto 21, Dante had two nearly opposite experiences of sound: an unearthly silence followed by an ear-splitting cry. Like the dazzling brightness Dante seems to encounter everywhere, unusual sounds and silences are a reminder of Dante's "guest " status in Heaven. The further he climbs the more apparent becomes the gap between his powers of perception and the spiritual realities surrounding him. He can easily hear, understand, and even enjoy the songs sung by the souls in the fourth and fifth spheres. In the sixth sphere (Jupiter), Dante finds himself able to take in the song but not able to retain it in his memory: it "glides" out of his mind "like falling leaves." Then, in the sphere of Saturn, he cannot hear the song at all. It consists, in spiritual terms, of notes too high for his mortal ears.
The loud cry troubles Dante even more than the silence preceding it. His perplexity underscores an important point about Heaven, one Dante the character is still learning in this canto. The joy of Paradise is not, as Saint Benedict demonstrates, incompatible with anger. One can be full of the divine presence and still ardently wish for change, even violent change, on Earth. To exist in these seemingly incompatible states, however, requires trust in God's plan and a willingness to wait for His justice. Without these qualities, one lapses into sinful wrath—a state proper to Hell or Purgatory, not to Heaven. Many of the wrathful in Dante's Inferno are, in fact, fully justified in feeling angered at the crimes committed against them. Their sin, from Dante's viewpoint, lies in giving in to that anger and taking matters into their own hands.
2. Middle English, chari, charre, charri, chary, cearig, chariȝ, “concerned with, diligent; sad, sorrowful; of a person: cherished, loved”, Old English ċeariġ, “careful; pensive; chary, wary; anxious, sad, sorrowful; dire, grievous”, Proto-West Germanic, *karag, “anxious; sad”, Proto-Germanic, karō + gaz, Proto-Indo-European, ǵeh₂r + "kos, “exclamation; voice” + "pertaining to".
3. Abbey of Monte Cassino is a Benedictine monastery on a rocky hill about 130 kilometers southeast of Rome, in the Latin Valley. Located on the site of the ancient Roman town of Casinum, it is the first house of the Benedictine Order, having been established by Benedict of Nursia himself around 529. It was for the community of Monte Cassino that the Rule of Saint Benedict was composed.
The first monastery on Monte Cassino was sacked by the invading Lombards around 570 and abandoned. Of the first monastery almost nothing is known. The second monastery was established by Petronax of Brescia around 718, at the suggestion of Pope Gregory II and with the support of the Lombard Duke Romuald II of Benevento. It was directly subject to the pope and many monasteries in Italy were under its authority. In 883, the monastery was sacked by Saracens and abandoned again. The community of monks resided fir st at Teano and then from 914 at Capua before the monastery was rebuilt in 949. During the period of exile, the Cluniac Reforms were introduced into the community.
The 11th and 12th centuries were the abbey's golden age. It acquired a large secular territory around Monte Cassino, the so-called Terra Sancti Benedicti ("Land of Saint Benedict"), which it heavily fortified with castles. It maintained good relations with the Eastern Church, even receiving patronage from Byzantine emperors. It encouraged fine art and craftsmanship by employing Byzantine artisans. In 1057, Pope Victor II recognized the abbot of Monte Cassino as having precedence over all other abbots. Many monks rose to become bishops and cardinals, and three popes were drawn from the abbey: Stephen IX (1057–58), Victor III (1086–87) and Gelasius II (1118–19). During this period, a monastic chronicle, Chronica sacri monasterii casinensis was written by two of its own, Cardinal Leo of Ostia and Peter the Deacon.
4. Benedict of Nursia (480–547 AD), often known as Saint Benedict, was a Christian monk. He is famed in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Anglican Communion, and Old Catholic Churches.
Benedict founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco in present-day Lazio, Italy (about 65 kilometers to the east of Rome), before moving southeast to Monte Cassino in the mountains of central Italy. The present-day Order of Saint Benedict emerged later and, moreover, is not an "order" as the term is commonly understood, but a confederation of autonomous congregations.
Benedict's main achievement, his Rule of Saint Benedict, contains a set of rules for his monks to follow. Heavily influenced by the writings of John Cassian (360–435 AD), it shows strong affinity with the earlier Rule of the Master, but it also has a unique spirit of balance, moderation and reasonableness (ἐπιείκεια, epieíkeia), which persuaded most Christian religious communities founded throughout the Middle Ages to adopt it. As a result, Benedict's Rule became one of the most influential religious rules in Western Christendom. For this reason, Giuseppe Carletti regarded Benedict as the founder of Western Christian monasticism.
5. Macarius of Egypt (300–391 AD) was a Christian monk and grazer hermit. He is also known as Macarius the Elder or Macarius the Great. Macarius was born in Lower Egypt. A late tradition places his birthplace in the village of Shabsheer (Shanshour), Roman Egypt around 300 AD. He tended cattle as a boy. As a young man, with a strong call to solitude, he constructed near his home a small cell where he prayed continually and wove mats. At some point before his pursuit of asceticism, Macarius made his living smuggling saltpeter in the vicinity of Nitria, a vocation which taught him how to survive in and travel across the wastes in that area.
Macarius is known for his wisdom. His friends and close kin used to call him Paidarion Geron which meant the "old young man", or "the young man with the elders' wisdom."
At the wish of his parents Macarius entered into marriage, but was soon widowed. Shortly after, his parents died as well. Macarius subsequently distributed all his money among the poor and needy. He found a teacher in an experienced Elder, who lived in the desert not far from the village. The Elder accepted the youth, guided him in the spiritual science of watchfulness, fasting and prayer, and taught him the handicraft of weaving baskets.
A while later, a pregnant woman accused him of having defiled her. Macarius did not attempt to defend himself, and accepted the accusation in silence. However, when the woman's delivery drew near, her labor became exceedingly difficult. She did not manage t o give birth until she confessed Macarius's innocence. A multitude of people then came asking for his forgiveness, but he fled to the Nitrian Desert to escape all mundane glory.
As a hermit, Macarius spent seven years living on only pulse and raw herbs. He spent the following three years consuming four or five ounces of bread a day and only one vessel of oil a year. While at the desert, he visited Anthony the Great and learned from him the laws and rules of monasticism. When he returned to the Scetic Desert at the age of forty, he became a priest. The fame of his sanctity drew many followers. The community, which took up its residence in the desert, was of the semi-eremitical type. T he monks were not bound by any fixed rule; their cells were close together, and they met for Divine worship only on Saturdays or Sundays. He presided over this monastic community for the rest of his life.
For a brief period of time, Macarius was banished to an island in the Nile by the Emperor Valens, along with Macarius of Alexandria, during a dispute over the doctrine of the Nicene Creed. Both men were victims of religious persecution by the followers of t hen Bishop Lucius of Alexandria. During their time on the island, the daughter of a pagan priest had become ill. The people of the island believed that she was possessed by an evil spirit. Both saints prayed over the daughter, which in turn had saved her. T he pagan people of the island were so impressed and grateful that they stopped their worship of the pagan gods and built a church. When word of this got back to the Emperor Valens and Bishop Lucius of Alexandria, they quickly allowed both men to return home . At their return on 13 Paremhat, they were met by a multitude of monks of the Nitrian Desert, numbered fifty thousand, among whom were Pishoy and John the Dwarf.
**Romuald, also known as Romualdus (951–1027 AD) was the founder of the Camaldolese order and a major figure in the eleventh-century "Renaissance of eremitical asceticism". Romuald spent about 30 years traversing Italy, founding and reforming monasteries an d hermitages.
According to the vita by Peter Damian, written about fifteen years after Romuald's death, Romuald was born in Ravenna, in northeastern Italy, to the aristocratic Onesti family. His father was Sergius degli Onesti and his mother was Traversara Traversari. As a youth, according to early accounts, Romuald indulged in the pleasures and sins of the world common to a tenth-century nobleman. At the age of twenty he served as second to his father, who killed a relative in a duel over property. Romuald was devastated, and went to the Basilica of San Apollinare in Classe to do 40 days of penance. After some indecision, Romuald became a monk there. San Apollinare had recently been reformed by St. Mayeul of Cluny Abbey, but still was not strict enough in its observance to satisfy Romuald. His injudicious correction of the less zealous aroused such enmity against him that he applied for, and was readily granted, permission to retire to Venice, where he placed himself under the direction of a hermit named Marinus and lived a life of extraordinary severity.
6. Jordan River, also known as Nahr Al-Sharieat, is a 251-kilometer-long endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead Sea. The river passes by or through Jordan, Syria, Israel, and the Pale stinian territories. Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights border the river to the east, while Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank lie to its west.
The reference to the Jordan River turning backwards symbolizes a miraculous event, emphasizing the divine power at work in Heaven. It suggests that the transformations and wonders in Paradise surpass even the most extraordinary miracles known from biblical accounts.
7. Taurus is typically associated with the time of year from April 20 to May 20. This period marks the second sign of the zodiac in Western astrology.
Taurus is one of the constellations of the zodiac and is located in the northern celestial hemisphere. Taurus is a large and prominent constellation in the Northern Hemisphere's winter sky. It is one of the oldest constellations, dating back to the Early Bronze Age at least, when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox. Its importance to the agricultural calendar influenced various bull figures in the mythologies of Ancient Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
This constellation forms part of the zodiac and hence is intersected by the ecliptic. This circle across the celestial sphere forms the apparent path of the Sun as the Earth completes its annual orbit. As the orbital plane of the Moon and the planets lie ne ar the ecliptic, they can usually be found in the constellation Taurus during some part of each year. The galactic plane of the Milky Way intersects the northeast corner of the constellation and the galactic anti-center is located near the border between Taurus and Auriga. Taurus is the only constellation crossed by all three of the galactic equator, celestial equator, and ecliptic. A ring-like galactic structure known as Gould's Belt passes through the constellation.
8. Leto, also called Letona, is a childhood goddess, the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, the sister of Asteria, and the mother of Apollo and Artemis.
In the Olympian scheme, the king of gods Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, whom Leto conceived after her hidden beauty accidentally caught the eye of Zeus. During her pregnancy, Leto sought for a place where she could give birth to Apollo and Artemis, since Hera, the wife of Zeus, in her jealousy, ordered all lands to shun her and deny her shelter. Hera is also the one to have sent the monstrous serpent Python and the giant Tityos against Leto to pursue and harm her. Leto eventually found a n island, Delos, that was not joined to the mainland or attached to the ocean floor, therefore it was not considered land or island and she could give birth. In some stories, Hera further tormented Leto by delaying her labor, leaving Leto in agony for days before she could deliver the twins, who proceed to slay her assailants.
9. Hyperion was one of/ the twelve Titan children of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky). With his sister, the Titaness Theia, Hyperion fathered Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon) and Eos (Dawn).
In the Theogony, Uranus imprisoned all the children that Gaia bore him, before he was overthrown. According to Apollodorus, Uranus only imprisoned the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopes but not the Titans, until Gaia persuaded her six Titan sons to overthrow their father Uranus and "they, all but Ocean, attacked him" as Cronus castrated him. Afterwards, in the words of Hesiod, Hyperion subjected his sister Theia to his love, and fathered three children with her, who became the lights of heaven: Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon), and Eos (Dawn). As is the case for most of the Titans, there are no myths or functions for Hyperion. He seems to exist only to provide a father for the three celestial deities. As a Titan, one of the oldest generation of gods, Hyperion was a fitting father for these three sky-gods who, as elements of the natural world, must have been conceived of as having come into being near the beginning of the cosmos.
Maia is one of the Pleiades and the mother of Hermes, one of the major Greek gods, by Zeus, the king of Olympus. Maia is the daughter of Atlas and Pleione the Oceanid, and is the oldest of the seven Pleiades. They were born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, and are sometimes called mountain nymphs, oreads; Simonides of Ceossang of "mountain Maia" (Maiados oureias) "of the lovely black eyes." Because they were daughters of Atlas, they were also called the Atlantides.
According to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, Zeus, in the dead of night so that his wife Hera would not find out, secretly made love to Maia, who avoided the company of the gods, in a cave of Cyllene. She became pregnant with Hermes. After giving birth to the b aby, Maia wrapped him in blankets and went to sleep. The rapidly maturing infant Hermes crawled away to Thessaly, where, by nightfall of his first day, he stole some of his half-brother Apollo's cattle and invented the lyre from a tortoise shell. Maia refused to believe Apollo when he claimed that Hermes was the thief, and Zeus then sided with Apollo. Finally, Apollo exchanged the cattle for the lyre, which became one of his identifying attributes.
At another time, when Maia was bathing with her sisters the Pleiads, Hermes snuck in stealthily and stole all their clothes. When the nymphs finished their bath they looked around naked not knowing what to do while Hermes laughed, and then returned them their garments.
Although the Homeric Hymn has Maia as Hermes' caretaker and guardian, in Sophocles's now lost satyr play Ichneutae, Maia entrusted the infant Hermes to Cyllene (the local mountain goddess) to nurse and raise, and thus it is her that the satyrs and Apollo confront when looking for the god's missing cattle.
Dione is an oracular goddess, a Titaness primarily known from Book V of Homer's Iliad, where she tends to the wounds suffered by her daughter Aphrodite. Dione is presented as either an Oceanid, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, or the thirteenth Titan, daughter of Gaia and Uranus.
In Book V of the Iliad, during the last year of the Trojan War, Aphrodite attempts to save her son Aeneas from the rampaging Greek hero Diomedes as she had previously saved her favorite Paris from his duel with Menelaus in Book III. Enraged, Diomedes chases her and drives his spear into her hand between the wrist and palm. Escorted by Iris to Ares, she borrows his horses and returns to Olympus. Dione consoles her with other examples of gods wounded by mortals—Ares bound by the Aloadae and Hera and Hades shot by Heracles—and notes that Diomedes is risking his life by fighting against the gods. Diomedes subsequently fought both Apollo and Ares but lived to an old age; his wife Aegialia, however, took other lovers and never permitted him to return home to Argo s after the war. Dione then heals her wounds and Zeus, while admonishing her to leave the battlefield, calls her daughter.
10. Jupiter, also known as Jove and Zeus, is the god of the sky and thunder, and king of the gods. Jupiter was the chief deity of Roman state religion throughout the Republican and Imperial eras, until Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire. In Roman mythology, he negotiates with Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, to establish principles of Roman religion such as offering, or sacrifice.
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