Alcmaeon I mean,
who sought his piety in impiety.

Now weigh within your own intelligence
how will and violence interact, so joining
that no excuse can wipe out the offense.

Absolute will does not will its own harm,
but fearing worse may come if it resists,
consents the more, the greater its alarm.

Thus when Piccarda spoke as she did to you,
she meant the absolute will; and I, the other.
So both of us spoke only what was true.“

—Such was the flowing of that stream so blest
it flows down from the Fountain of All Truth.
Such was the power that laid my doubts to rest.

“Beloved of the First Love! O holy soull”
I said then, You whose words flow over me,
and with their warmth quicken and make me whole,

There is not depth enough within my love
to offer you due thanks, but may the One
who sees and can, answer for me above.

Man’s mind, I know, cannot win through the mist
unless it is illumined by that Truth
beyond which truth has nowhere to exist.

In That, once it has reached it, it can rest
like a beast within its den. And reach it can;
else were all longing vain, and vain the test.

Like a new tendril yearning from man’s will
doubt sprouts to the foot of truth. It is that in us
that drives us to the summit from hill to hill.

By this am I encouraged, by this bidden,
my lady, in all reverence, to ask
your guidance to a truth that still lies hidden:

can such as these who put away their veils
so compensate by other good works done
that they be not found wanting on your scales?”

Beatrice looked at me, and her glad eyes,
afire with their divinity, shot forth
such sparks of love that my poor faculties

gave up the reins. And with my eyes cast down
I stood entranced, my senses all but flown.

Notes

1-9. DANTE’S DOUBT. The phrasing of this passage is difficult. Nor am I sure I have found the right rendering of all the grammatical ambiguities. The intent, on the other hand, is clear. Piccarda’s account of herself has raised questions that, as we shall see, tear Dante’s understanding in two directions at once. Beatrice, as usual, senses his self-division and resolves all in the conversation that follows.

The difficulty of the phrasing is caused by the interplay of the ideas “free choice” and “necessity.” Dante follows Aquinas in this: if the choices offered to a man are entirely equal, no choice can be made and the man cannot act. Thus Dante takes neither blame nor praise for his indecisive doubts since he was unable to choose between them.

13. as Daniel had done: Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, condemned all his diviners to death because they could not interpret a dream he had forgotten. Daniel first divined the dream and then interpreted it, calming the fury of the king. (Daniel, II, 1-45.)

19. if the will that vowed stays true: Dante is thinking of what Piccarda said. If her will to keep her vows never faltered, how can the fact that her brother’s violence forced her to act against her will alter her just reward for the purity of her intentions (which, seemingly, should have earned her a higher place in Heaven).

24. as Plato taught: As Dante rendered the Timaeus, Plato taught that souls existed in the stars before they entered human bodies (Wordsworth’s “Ode on the Intimations of Immortality” is a well-known treatment of this theme) and returned, at the body’s death, to the same stars from which they had come. Such a doctrine, however, denies free will, the soul being pre-created to a fixed place in Heaven’s order. And yet the souls of the Inconstant seem to return to the inconstant Moon. Thus one thought negates the other, leaving Dante’s mind ensnared between the two.

27. whose venom has more power to kill: The doctrine within which lurks the greater danger of self-destroying heresy.

28-63. THE PLACE IN HEAVEN OF THE BLEST. Every soul in Heaven is equally a part of God. As Beatrice goes on to explain, all have their seats in the Empyrean. The various spheres in which they appear to Dante only symbolize the degree of their beatitude. It is necessary to use such symbols because the limited comprehension of mankind could not begin to grasp the truth in any other way. Thus, the Bible speaks of God as if he had a manlike body when he is in fact Essence. Beatrice’s point is that every elect soul is equally in God. All have their place in one Heaven, all are eternal. They vary only in the degree of their beatitude, which is determined by their own ability to absorb the infinity of God’s bliss.

36.