Dante regularly refers to planets as stars. Sense of these lines: “If the star could be so changed (being material), how could I not change, who was created with soul as my essence, hence born to be transformed through all there is, from dust to Godliness.”

100 ff. THOSE WHO SOUGHT HONOR BUSILY (THE PERSONALLY AMBITIOUS). The souls in the sphere of Mercury worked, in their earthly lives, for honor and glory. On seeing the newcomers they burst into joyous revels (as in their heart’s wish they had sought themselves to be honored by such revels? each giving what is most nearly of himself?). These souls sought the good actively and for good reason, but, in a sense, for the least of all good reasons. The light they give forth is so bright that they are often lost to Dante’s sight in their own radiance—a double felicity, first, as it describes the essence of their natures, and, second, because Mercury is so near the Sun that it is often hard to see because it is swallowed into the Sun’s glow.

107-108. each shade made visible, in the radiance: The counterplay of “shade” and “radiance” seems to imply that the lineaments of these souls were traced upon the radiance that enclosed them.

114. the instant they had shown themselves to me: Note here and hereafter how regularly Dante speaks of the Paradisal souls as showing themselves rather than as being seen by him. (Cf. III, 109.) It is the nature of what belongs to Heaven to reveal itself of its own love and volition rather than to be apprehended by mortal means. There is also, of course, the fact that these souls are here only as symbolic manifestations, their real seat being in the Empyrean (IV, 28-63 and note).

117. while still embattled: Dante says, literally, “before your time in the militia is left behind.” The essential point is that Heaven is the Eternal Triumph of which mortal life (for man) is the battle. Cf. the common phrase, “the church militant.”

128-129. this sphere that hides itself from men’s eyes in the rays of another star: The other star is the Sun. As noted above (note to 100 ff.) Mercury is often lost in the Sun’s aura.

CANTO VI

THE SECOND SPHERE: MERCURY

Seekers of Honor: Justinian
The Roman Eagle

THE SPIRIT IDENTIFIES ITSELF as the soul of THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN and proceeds to recount its life on earth, its conversion by AGAPETUS, and its subsequent dedication to THE CODIFICATION OF THE LAW.

It proceeds next to a DISCOURSE ON THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EAGLE. It concludes by identifying the spirit of ROMEO DA VILLANOVA as one among the souls of the Second Heaven.

“Once Constantine had turned the eagle’s wing
against the course of Heaven, which it had followed
behind the new son of the Latian king,

two hundred years and more, as mankind knows,
God’s bird stayed on at Europe’s furthest edge,
close to the mountains out of which it rose.

And there, his wings spread over land and sea,
he ruled the world, passing from hand to hand;
and so, through many changes, came to me.

Caesar I was, Justinian I am.
By the will of the First Love, which I now feel,
I pruned the law of waste, excess, and sham.

Before my work absorbed my whole intent
I knew Christ in one nature only, not two;
and so believing, I was well content.

But Agapetus, blessed of the Lord,
he, the supreme shepherd pure in faith,
showed me the true way by his holy word.

Him I believed, and in my present view
I see the truth as clearly as you see
how a contradiction is both false and true.

As soon as I came to walk in the True Faith’s way
God’s grace moved all my heart to my great work;
and to it I gave myself without delay.

To my Belisarius I left my spear
and God’s right hand so moved his that the omen
for me to rest from war was more than clear.

Of the two things you asked about before
this puts a period to my first reply.
But this much said impels me to say more

that you may see with how much right men go
against the sacred standard when they plot
its subornation or its overthrow.

You know what heroes bled to consecrate
its holy destiny from that first hour
when Pallas died to give it its first state.

You know that for two centuries then its home
was Alba, till the time came when the three
fought with the three and carried it to Rome.

What it did then from the Sabine’s day of woe
to good Lucretia’s, under the seven kings
who plundered the neighboring lands, you also know,

and how it led the Chosen Romans forward
against the powers of Brennus, and of Pyrrhus,
and of many a rival state and warring lord.

Thence the fame of Torquatus, curly Quintius,
and the Decii and Fabii. How gladly
I bring it myrrh to keep it glorious.

It dashed to earth the hot Arabian pride
that followed Hannibal through the rocky Alps,
from which, you, Po, sweet river, rise and glide.

Under it triumphed at an early age
Scipio and Pompey. Against the mountain
that looked down on your birth it
screamed its rage.

Then as that age dawned in which Heaven planned
the whole world to its harmony, Caesar came,
and by the will of Rome, took it in hand.

What it did then from the Var to the Rhine is known
to Isère, Arar, Seine, and every valley
from which the waters of the Rhone flow down.

And what it did when it had taken flight
from Ravenna and across the Rubicon
no tongue may hope to speak nor pen to write.

It turned and led the cohorts into Spain;
then to Dyrrachium; and then struck Pharsalus
so hard that even the hot Nile felt the pain.

Antandros and the Simoïs, where it first saw light,
it saw again, and Hector’s grave, and then-woe
to Ptolemy—sprang again to flight.

Like a thunderbolt it struck at Juba next;
then turned once more and swooped down on your West
and heard again the Pompeian trumpet vexed.

For what it did above its next great chief
Brutus and Cassius wail in Cocytus;
and Modena and Perugia came to grief.

For that, the tears still choke the wretched wraith
of Cleopatra, who running to escape it,
took from the asp her black and sudden death.

With him it traveled far as the Red Sea;
and with him brought the world such peace that Janus
was sealed up in his temple with lock and key.

But what this sign that moves my present theme
had done before, all it was meant to do
through the mortal realm it conquered—all must seem

dim shadows of poor things, if it be scanned
with a clear eye and pure and honest heart,
as it appears in the third Caesar’s hand;

for the Living Justice whose breath I here breathe in
gave it the glory, while in that same hand,
of avenging His just wrath at Adam’s sin.

Now ponder the double marvel I unfold:
later, under Titus, it avenged
the vengeance taken for that crime of old!

And when the sharp tooth of the Lombard bit
the Holy Church, victorious Charlemagne,
under those same wings, came and rescued it.

Now are you truly able to judge those
whom I accused above, and their wrongdoing,
which is the cause of all your present woes.

One speeds the golden lilies on to force
the public standard; and one seizes it
for private gain—and who knows which is worse?

Let them scheme, the Ghibellines, let them plot and weave
under some other standard, for all who use
this bird iniquitously find cause to grieve!

Nor let the new Charles think his Guelfs will be
its overthrow, but let him fear the talons
that have ripped the mane from fiercer lions than he.

Many a father’s sinfulness has sealed
his children’s doom: let him not think his lilies
will take the place of God’s bird on His shield.

—This little star embellishes its crown
with the light of those good spirits who were zealous
in order to win honor and renown;

and when desire leans to such things, being bent
from the true good, the rays of the true Love
thrust upward with less force for the ascent;

but in the balance of our reward and due
is part of our delight, because we see
no shade of difference between the two.

By this means the True Judge sweetens our will,
so moving us that in all eternity
nothing can twist our beings to any ill.

Unequal voices make sweet tones down there.
Just so, in our life, these unequal stations
make a sweet harmony from sphere to sphere.

Within this pearl shines, too, the radiance
of Romeo, whose good and beautiful works
were answered by ingratitude and bad chance.

But the Provençals who worked his overthrow
have no last laugh: he walks an evil road
who finds his loss in the good that others do.

Four daughters had Count Raymond, each the wife
of a Christian king, thanks to this Romeo,
a humble man, a pilgrim in his life.

Envy and calumny so moved Raymond then
that he demanded accounting of this just soul
whose management had returned him twelve for ten.

For this he wandered, aged, poor, and bent,
into the world again; and could the world
know what was in his heart that road he went

begging his life by crusts from door to door,
much as it praises him now, it would praise him more.

Notes

General Note: THE FIGURE OF JUSTINIAN. The glowing spirit identifies itself as the soul of Justinian (482-565) who became Emperor of Rome in 527.

He emerges, in his own account, as a luminous and magnanimous spirit. A Christian, he subscribed to the Monophysitic Heresy, which accepted the divine nature of Christ but rejected his incarnation in mortal flesh. From this heresy he was converted by Agapetus (Pope from 535-536). As soon as he was converted, God’s grace moved him to his great task of codifying the Roman Law, and to that work he gave himself wholly, leaving the conduct of his armies (which he had led with great success) to his general, Belisarius. So Dante sees him.

Another reading of history might have suggested several pits of Hell that might have claimed Justinian. Dante seems not to have known of the tyrannies of Justinian’s reign, nor that the Justinian codification was the work of Tribonius, undertaken by him on Imperial command.

Whatever one’s reading of history, one should note as part of Dante’s structure that in Inferno VI he summarizes the condition of Florence, in Purgatorio VI the state of Italy, and here in Paradiso VI, the history of the Roman Empire.

1-3. turned the eagle’s wing: The Imperial Eagle, standard and symbol of Rome. In 330 Constantine moved the seat of Empire to Byzantium. Thus the Roman eagle flew east “against the course of Heaven,” which turns from east to west, but also against the will of heaven, for Dante believed God had decreed Rome to be the seat of His church and the Roman Empire to be its earthly arm.

He also believed that Constantine moved the seat of empire to Byzantium in order to give Rome to the church. This gift was the “Donation of Constantine” (see Inferno, XIX, 109-111 note) whereby the church (as Dante believed) grew rich and corrupt, hence, once more “against the course of Heaven.”

The “new son of the Latian king” was Aeneas. He came from Troy (with the course of heaven), married Lavinia, daughter of the Latian king, and founded the line of the Roman Empire.

4.