Authors: Dante
76–78.
This tercet, if understood as a general statement, would badly undercut the role of the clergy in the human search for salvation, as a sort of Catholic version of each believer praying in his or her closet (albeit guided by the pope). The word “salvamento” occurs only here in the poem, and in final-rhyme position (where the poet’s imagination is most forced, one admits, to find ingenious rhymes). Could it be used with a more limited sense? That is, does it mean “solution” to a particular problem involving vows? This would be a difficult argument to sustain. Among the earliest commentators (e.g., Jacopo della Lana to these verses, interpreting “ ’l pastor de la Chiesa” as follows: “le predicazioni che vi fanno li pastori della Chiesa” [the preaching that the priests of the Church make for you]), the reading “ ’l pastor” was plural (“ ’i pastor”). However, Benvenuto’s text was as ours, and he nevertheless interprets the singular as a plural (comm. to vv. 73–78): “praelatos praedicantes et dirigentes vos” (prelates offering you direction in their preaching). Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 73–84) is the first to understand the pope (and only the pope), but he seems totally comfortable with that meaning. In any case, and as Carroll suggests (comm. to vv. 64–84), what Dante, through Beatrice, is really saying is that vows are not necessary to salvation, that we
should enter into them only with due consideration. Porena (comm. to this tercet) puts the matter with admirable concision: “Per salvare l’anima basta, invece, osservare i comandamenti di Dio, i precetti di Cristo nel Vangelo e i precetti della Chiesa guidata dal papa” (To save one’s soul, on the other hand, it is sufficient to follow God’s commandments, Christ’s precepts, and those of His Church, guided by the pope).
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79–81.
See Carroll’s gloss on this tercet (comm. to vv. 64–84): “Dante appeals to Christians to be on their guard against the wicked greed which will tell them that the Old and the New Testament and the Shepherd of the Church are not sufficient to salvation, and induces them to take vows under promise of an easy absolution for the breaking of them.”
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81.
The Jew (introduced to this subject at verse 49) living among Christians knows the Law, and therefore the rules regarding the making and keeping of vows, as well as they do; he is thus uniquely, among non-Christians, capable of recognizing their hypocrisy.
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85.
Here the poet presents himself as the “scribe” of Beatrice. (Mestica [comm. on this verse] looks back to two moments in the earthly paradise in which his lady requires such duty of him,
Purg
. XXXII.104–5 and XXXIII.52–54.) What, however, is lacking in some such comments, those that tend to emphasize Dante’s loyalty to his beloved guide, is the force of the gesture, which reinforces his pose, one that makes him not the inventor of a fiction but the reporter of a series of actual encounters. In
Paradiso
X.27, Dante will again refer to himself as a scribe (
scriba
), only setting down (and not inventing) what has been revealed to him. This verse anticipates that gesture, presenting him as
scriba Beatricis
, seventy lines ago herself presented as the “author” of this canto (see verse 16). For the influential and groundbreaking study of the poet’s self-presentation as “scriba Dei,” see Sarolli (Saro.1971.1), esp. pp. 215–16, 233–43, 335–36.
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87.
There is surprisingly much debate about the exact location of this brightness upon which Beatrice fastens her gaze. Suffice it to say that, since they are still beneath the Sun, that is a possible terminus; but where the universe is brightest is where God is, the Empyrean. Compare the similar view expressed by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 85–87).
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88–99.
The ascent to the second heaven, that of Mercury, is, like all of the ascents from sphere to sphere, instantaneous, God drawing Dante and Beatrice up another level toward Him.
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90.
The nature of Dante’s unasked questions, which some have attempted to puzzle out, is never made known. It is probably best simply to understand that he, naturally enough, has many of them.
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94–99.
Beatrice’s increased joy at being, with Dante, closer to God makes even the immutable planet glow more brightly. If this is so, we are asked to imagine how much changed was mortal and transmutable Dante himself.
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100–104.
This simile immediately reminds the reader of the similar formal comparison that preceded the exchange between Dante and the souls who appeared to him in the Moon (
Par
. III.10–18), in a position parallel, that is, to this one’s. There Dante believes that the forms he sees as though they were under water or glass are reflections of himself and of Beatrice. He avoids such Narcissistic error here, where he understands at once that these are souls that welcome him with love. We can see that, having experienced a single heaven, he has learned much about heavenly love.
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105.
Their loves are for one another in God. How will Dante help increase these? This line has been variously interpreted. It seems first of all true that these saved souls, finding a mortal in the heavens, know that they will help him become more holy by answering his questions and preparing him for Paradise, thus increasing the objects of their affection by one and the heat of their affection for one another. It also seems at least possible that they refer to a second future increase in their affections, for one another and for him, when he joins them after his death, one more to love and be loved in God.
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107.
This marks the last (of three occurrences) in this final
cantica
of the word
ombra
(shade), perhaps surprisingly used to indicate a saved soul. See the note to
Paradiso
III.34.
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109–114.
The second address to the reader in
Paradiso
underlines the importance of the scene that will follow. Once we realize that we are about to encounter Justinian, we have some sense of heightened expectation; first-time readers are merely encouraged to pay close attention.
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115.
The speaker, as we shall learn in the next canto (verse 10), is the shade of the Roman emperor Justinian. His reference to Dante as “bene nato” (born for bliss) has Virgilian (and thus imperial?) resonance, in that in the
Aeneid
the hero is referred to as
natus
(meaning “son”) some three
dozen times (see Hollander [Holl.1989.1], p. 90, n. 28). He greets Dante, then, as the new Aeneas.
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116–117.
Justinian’s words for triumph and warfare reflect his imperial background and concerns; here they have a modified sense, the triumph over death found in Christ and the Christian sense of militancy reflected, for example, in Job 7:1, “Life is a warfare,” cited by Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 24.
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118.
The light to which Justinian refers is the light of God’s love for his creatures.
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122–123.
The poetic playfulness of the canto, so evident near its beginning and at its end (see the second part of the note to vv. 16–18), is present here as well, both in the
rima composta “Dì, dì”
(Say, say) and in the rapidly repeated sounds of
di
in these verses (“
Dì, dì
… cre
di
come a
di
i … t’anni
di
”). Beatrice excitedly urges Dante (whose name happens to begin with that sound) on in his increasing hunger for knowledge of heavenly things. (For an even more exhilarated passage, see
Paradiso
VII. 10–12.)
Why all these repetitions in the concluding verses of the canto? Here
dì dì
(pronounced, in order to rhyme with
annidi
and
ridi
, “dìdi”), and then in verse 138:
chiusa chiusa
, and in 139:
canto canta
? Does the device of anaphora (repetition) have a thematic purpose, mirroring things that can be represented only by themselves (as is the case with vows)?
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124–126.
Whereas Dante could eventually make out the facial features of Piccarda (
Par
. III.58–63), as his ascent continues he is able to make out less of such detail in the next subsolar heaven; then, in the last of them, in Venus, Charles Martel (whom he knew on earth as he did Piccarda [at least within the claims made in the poem]) is, unlike Piccarda, not recognizable, and makes it clear that he is simply not visible as himself to Dante’s mortal sight (
Par
. VIII.52–54). Occupying a middle ground, as it were, Justinian’s former facial features are all, with the exception of his eyes, elided by his joy. This may reflect a “program” for the gradual effacement of the signs of human personality in Dante’s first three heavenly spheres.
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127–128.
Dante’s two questions addressed to Justinian will be answered in the next canto at vv. 1–27 and 112–126. His second question reflects his similar one to Piccarda (
Par
. III.64–66): Why is this spirit in so relatively
low a sphere? Dante may have forgotten Beatrice’s instruction in the last canto (
Purg
. IV.28–36), which makes it plain that such heavenly gradation is only temporary. Or he may have grasped the point that temporary presence in a planet is part of God’s universal plan for his instruction and wants to know more.
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129.
It was perhaps more than ten years earlier that Dante had compared the planet Mercury to the branch of knowledge known as dialectic (
Conv
. II.xiii.11): “The heaven of Mercury may be compared to Dialectics because of two properties: for Mercury is the smallest star of heaven, because the magnitude of its diameter is not more than 232 miles …; the other property is that in its passage it is veiled by the rays of the sun more than any other star” (tr. R. Lansing).
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130–137.
When the Sun finally overwhelms the cool temperatures that yield a mist through which we at times can look at its disk through that mediating layer, it burns that away, with the consequence that we now cannot look at this unveiled star, which seems wrapped in its own effulgence. Just so, Dante tells us, Justinian, the love he feels increased by Dante’s affection for him and by his own for Dante, was swathed increasingly in his own light so that he, too, becoming brighter, became less visible as a human semblance.
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138–139.
If anaphora has the result of intensifying the effect of what is said, here we confront two lines, each of which contains a repeated pair of words,
chiusa chiusa
and
canto canta
, a configuration that is perhaps unique in the poem. Justinian’s dramatic appearance on the scene has been carefully prepared for (see the note to vv. 122–123).
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1–27.
Justinian’s response to Dante’s first inquiry allows the poet to present his version of the biography of the emperor who codified Roman law. “Justinian I, surnamed the Great, emperor of Constantinople, a.d. 527–565. Justinian is best known for his legislation. He appointed a commission of jurists to draw up a complete body of law, which resulted in the compilation of two great works; one, called
Digesta
or
Pandectae
(533), in fifty books, contained all that was valuable in the works of preceding jurists; the other, called
codex constitutionum
, consisted of a collection of the imperial constitutions. To these two works was subsequently added an elementary treatise in four books, under the title of
Institutiones
(533); and at a later period Justinian published various new constitutions, to which he gave the name of
Novellae constitutiones
(534–65). These four works, under the general name of
Corpus iuris civilis
, form the Roman law as received in Europe”
(T)
.
The sixth canto in each
cantica
, as has often been appreciated, is devoted to an increasingly wide political focus: first to Florentine politics, then to Italian politics, and now to Dante’s theologically charged imperial politics. For a clear statement of what had become the standard view, see Brezzi (Brez.1968.1), p. 176. The three spokesmen for these three subjects are also of increasing distinction: Ciacco, Sordello, and Justinian; we get another clue as to Dante’s high esteem for Ciacco despite his deforming gluttony and resulting damnation.
The canto is divided into four parts, the first and third as direct responses to Dante’s preceding questions (
Par
. V.127–129). The second (vv. 28–111) is coyly characterized by Justinian himself, here serving as Dante’s stand-in, as a “digression” (
alcuna giunta
—verse 30). It is not only the longest but also clearly the central element in Justinian’s discourse. The final section (vv. 127–142) is devoted to a second spirit in Mercury, Romeo di Villanova. Mineo (Mine.1987.1), pp. 91–92, believes that the theme holding this canto together is earthly justice. And see Mazzoni (Mazz.1982.1), p. 159. We need look no farther than the first line of his
Institutiones
(I.i.1) to see how important that concept was to this man, who had the root of the word inscribed in his very name (
iustus
is Latin for “just”): “Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuens” (Justice is the constant and perpetual desire to render each his due).
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