Paradiso (135 page)

88–90.
   All that is just in the world accords with God’s will; on the other hand, no created good draws God’s will to itself; its goodness is the manifestation of that will, not its cause. Scartazzini/Vandelli (comm. to this tercet) point to Dante’s similar phrasing in
Monarchia
II.ii.5, a passage that, in turn, may reflect the concept of God’s inability to be unjust in Romans 9:14–15.

Having set himself up as a “liberal” on the question of the eternal punishment of virtuous pagans, Dante now embraces the “conservative”
position, which has it that pagans are justly damned for not having intuited the truth of Christ. He will play this hand out again in the next canto, where he will see saved pagans (their presence in Heaven surely reflects a “liberal” mind-set), but will contrive to convince us (and himself?) that they had somehow found Christ. As we will see, moral perfection alone will not procure the most just among pagans a place in Heaven, this poet’s Christian pantheon.
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91–96.
   For the earlier and related avian simile, see the note to vv. 34–39.
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96.
   The meaning of this expression is that the Eagle is propelled by the shared wills of its constituent souls.
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97–99.
   Just as the second avian simile completed the first one (see the notes to vv. 34–39 and 91–96), so this second simile, pronounced by the Eagle itself, completes the pattern established by the first simile. There (vv. 19–21), many were resolved as one (many embers sensed as a single heat, many affectionate voices heard as a single song); here celestial harmony is not audible to human ears, which can hear only the individual voices and cannot make sense of them. See
Inferno
XX.29–30 for a similar insistence on the necessary failure of humans to understand God’s justice.
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101–102.
   This formulation might help clarify an issue that confuses some readers. The Eagle is not so much a symbol of Roman
imperium
as it is of God’s justice made apparent in this world in whatever embodiment it should happen to take.
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103–105.
   The Eagle’s words are pellucidly clear; nevertheless, some readers contrive not to understand them. Salvation without belief in Christ is simply not possible. We should tuck this notice away in order to reexamine it in the light of the salvation of both Trajan and Ripheus in the next canto; in the light of this absolute qualification, their salvations seem dubious, at the very least.

For an excursus (in English) on the concept of implicit faith, which alone can make a bit more understandable Dante’s unshakable embrace of the Church’s firm ruling in this matter, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 79–84).
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104–108.
   This is the third set (there will eventually be four [see
Par.
XXXII.83–87] of identical rhymes on the word
Cristo
. See the notes to
Paradiso
XII.71–75 and XIV.103–108.
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106–108.
   Mowbray Allan (Alla.1993.1)
restates and widens some of his earlier conclusions about the poem’s openness to the possibility of Virgil’s salvation. He reads this tercet as promising more than Dante probably intends. The text states only that, after the Judgment, some of these failed Christians will be still farther from God than certain pagans. That statement probably should not be interpreted as arguing for the possible eventual salvation of Virgil (or other pagans). They are
already
nearer God, in the Limbus (see Baranski [Bara.1995.4], p. 292, making this point), than most of the damned, who are predominantly (at least nominally) Christians. There is nothing here that requires us to think that Dante thinks that God will change his mind about Virgil—although of course He has the ability to do exactly that should He choose. The evidence of the text, however, does not in any way suggest that Dante thought that He would. For example, Virgil is allowed to describe his place in Limbo as eternal (
Purg.
XXI.18), not something the poet would have put in his mouth were he to have disagreed, as is (or ought to be) abundantly clear.
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109–114.
   In response to this passage, perhaps Venturi (comm. to this verse) was the first commentator to cite the following pertinent text in Matthew (12:41–42): “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here.”
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110.
   This verse has been a stumbling block for some readers. The clause “when the two assemblies go their separate ways” almost certainly does not mean, as some have taken it to do, that the Ethiopians shall depart from the wicked Christians and go to Heaven. Rather, it signifies that when the sheep (the saved “soldiery of Heaven”) are separated from the goats (both decent Ethiopian nonbelievers
and
sinful Christians), these virtuous heathen will (justly) castigate their Christian counterparts, who were given the key to Heaven and chose not even to try to unlock its gates.
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112.
   The word “kings” sets up the acrostic with its list of those rotten rulers that fills the rest of the canto.
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113.
   The noun
volume
was first used, we may remember, to indicate Virgil’s
Aeneid
(see
Inf.
1.84 and note). Of its nine occurrences in the poem
(see Hollander [Holl.1969.1], pp. 78–79, unaccountably mentioning only seven of these, omitting the two occurrences found at
Par.
XXIII.112 and XXVI.119), only this one refers more or less directly to the Bible, more precisely, to the Apocalypse (20:12), as was first pointed out in specific terms by Pietro Alighieri ([Pietro1] comm. to vv. 112–114). These two uses do not make Virgil’s book a Christian book by association; rather, they underline the tragic distance separating Virgil from salvation. The biblical text refers to the Book of Life, in which are recorded the names of the saved, and other unnamed “Books of the Dead” (see discussion of
Inf.
XXIX.57 in Hollander [Holl.1982.1]): “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” It is more than sufficiently clear that Dante is here referring not to the “good” book in Revelation 20:12, but to the “bad” one(s).
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114.
   That the word
dispregio
(here translated “infamy”) has already been seen at
Inferno
VIII.51 has been noted in the commentaries at least since the appearance of Poletto’s (1894, to vv. 112–114). This is its seventh and last appearance in the poem, in one form or another.
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115–139.
   Dante’s second (and last) full-scale acrostic in the poem (for the first, see the note to
Purgatorio
XII.25–63). There can be little doubt but that this one, too, is a deliberate contrivance, whatever the strength of the feelings one happens to harbor against such literary behavior. Three sets of three consecutive tercets begin with the same letter, L, V, and E, respectively, thus spelling the word
lue
, or “plague.” However, even such astute readers as Bosco and Reggio (comm. to verse 115) seem to want to join Savi-Lopez (
BSDI
10 [1903], p. 328) in thinking Dante’s LVE the result of mere chance. While that seems extreme, at the other end of extremity we find Taylor (Tayl.1987.1), who wants to extend the acrostic by adding the “i” and “emme” of its central tercet (vv. 128–129) so as to get the scrambled word “lueim,” an anagram for
umile
(humble). For her more than questionable procedure in so doing, see Barolini’s complaint (Baro.1992.1), pp. 309–10. Barolini (pp. 308–9) also dismisses three other “discoverers” of “acrostics” elsewhere in the poem. However, see Allegretti (Alle.2004.2) for a study of yet another (and hitherto unobserved) acrostic in Dante’s poetic response to Giovanni del Virgilio’s invitation to compose a pastoral eclogue.
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115–117.
   
Lì
, here and in the next two tercets, means “in that volume,” that is, in the “Book of the Dead.” Albert (emperor from 1298–1308, i.e.,
in precedence of Henry VII), was previously denounced by Dante for his neglect of Italy (
Purg.
VI.97–126). In 1304 he invaded and devastated Bohemia. In the assemblage of fifteen crowned heads appearing here, Albert is the only one to be named, thus giving us a sense of how much knowledge of “current events” Dante believed he could count on in his readers.
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118–120.
   “On the banks of the Seine,” that is, at Paris, where Philip the Fair caused his subjects great distress when he adulterated the coinage. See the note to verse 119.
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119.
   For Philip’s monetarist failings, see Oelsner (comm. to vv. 119–120): “[the king] debased the coinage to one-third of its value, in order to meet the expenses of his Flemish campaigns in 1302. This is one of several passages in which we see the horror of tampering with the coinage entertained by Dante, the citizen of the greatest commercial city of Europe. As the symbol of greed the
Florin
was the ‘accursed flower’ of
Par.
IX.130, but as the foundation of all commercial relations it was worthy of such reverence that he who tampered with it was to be ranked with him who falsified the very personality of human beings, the ultimate basis of human intercourse.” Toynbee (“Filippo
²
”) points out that Philip is always named by periphrasis in the poem, never by his name, and lists his other main periphrastic appearances:
Inferno
XIX.87;
Purgatorio
VII.109, XX.91.
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120.
   This mention of the death of the French king dates the canto as having been composed (or, at least, modified) after November 1314, according to Campi (comm. to vv. 118–120); see also Foster (Fost.1976.1), p. 85. The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 118–120), writing in 1333, knew about the death of Philip the Fair, caused by a boar. (The word
cotenna
, in Tuscany, meant the hide of a wild pig and perhaps, in Dante’s day [as nineteenth-century commentators report, even then on the tongues of peasants in the Romagna], referred to the whole dangerous animal.) Lombardi (comm. to this verse) explains what happened (citing Villani [
Cron
. IX.66]): A boar ran among the legs of Philip’s horse and the frightened animal threw his royal rider, killing him.
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121–123.
   “The pride that makes men thirst” is evidently the craving to dominate. Dante is probably referring to the border wars between Scotland and England in the reign of Edward I (1272–1307). However, just which monarch Dante has in mind is debated. Since the poet had previously praised Edward I (
Purg.
VII.130–132), some readers have suggested
that Dante was thinking of Edward II, even if he ruled at a period that places him outside the limits established for everyone else mentioned in this list (i.e., to have been governing in 1300). Thus it probably seems necessary to believe one of two things: Either Dante had received information that made him change his mind about Edward I, or else he had incorrect dates for Edward II. The Scottish leader referred to is perhaps Robert the Bruce (1306–29). That would put him also outside the allotted time zone. However, as Tozer points out (comm. to this tercet), since Villani (
Cron
. VIII.90) represents him as the Scottish leader during Edward I’s reign, Dante may have fallen into the same error.
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124–126.
   Ferdinand IV of Castile and Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia. For the latter see
Purgatorio
VII.101–102, where he is described in much the same way.
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127–129.
   “The Cripple of Jerusalem” was the derogatory name for the lame Charles II, king of Apulia and Naples (1285–1309), who claimed the title “King of Jerusalem” enjoyed by his father, even though it never was granted to him as the son. Tozer (comm. to vv. 127–129) paraphrases and comments: “His virtues will be seen marked by a unit (I), his vices by an M (for Lat.
mille
, ‘a thousand’). The one virtue here intended was liberality, which Dante attributes to him in
Paradiso
VIII.82.” Steiner (comm. to vv. 128–130) says that others have suggested that “I” and “M” refer to the first and last letters of his desired and fraudulent title, “King of
I
erusale
m
.”
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