Paradiso

Canto XXI

The Seventh Heaven, or that of Saturn, where are seen the spirits of the contemplative—The Celestial Stairway—St. Peter Damiano—His invectives against the luxury of the Prelates.

Already on my Lady’s face mine eyes¹Again were fastened, and with these my mind,And from all other purpose was withdrawn;And she smiled not; but “If I were to smile,”She unto me began, “thou wouldst becomeLike Semele, when she was turned to ashes.²Because my beauty, that along the stairsOf the eternal palace more enkindles,As thou hast seen, the farther we ascend,If it were tempered not, is so resplendentThat all thy mortal power in its effulgenceWould seem a leaflet that the thunder crushes.We are uplifted to the seventh splendor,³That underneath the burning Lion’s breastNow radiates downward mingled with his power.Fix in direction of thine eyes the mind,And make of them a mirror for the figureThat in this mirror shall appear to thee.”He who could know what was the pasturageMy sight had in that blessed countenance,When I transferred me to another care,Would recognize how grateful was to meObedience unto my celestial escort,By counterpoising one side with the other.Within the crystal which, around the worldRevolving, bears the name of its dear leader,Under whom every wickedness lay dead,⁴Coloured like gold, on which the sunshine gleams,A stairway I beheld to such a height⁵Uplifted, that mine eye pursued it not.Likewise beheld I down the steps descendingSo many splendors, that I thought each lightThat in the heaven appears was there diffused.And as accordant with their natural customThe rooks together at the break of day⁶Bestir themselves to warm their feathers cold;Then some of them fly off without return,Others come back to where they started from,And others, wheeling round, still keep at home;Such fashion it appeared to me was thereWithin the sparkling that together came,As soon as on a certain step it struck,And that which nearest unto us remained⁷Became so clear, that in my thought I said,“Well I perceive the love thou showest me;But she, from whom I wait the how and when⁸Of speech and silence, standeth still; whence IAgainst desire do well if I ask not.”She thereupon, who saw my silentnessIn the sight of Him who seeth everything,Said unto me, “Let loose thy warm desire.”And I began: “No merit of my ownRenders me worthy of response from thee;But for her sake who granteth me the asking,Thou blessed life that dost remain concealedIn thy beatitude, make known to meThe cause which draweth thee so near my side;And tell me why is silent in this wheelThe dulcet symphony of Paradise,That through the rest below sounds so devoutly.”“Thou hast thy hearing mortal as thy sight,”It answer made to me; “they sing not here,For the same cause that Beatrice has not smiled.⁹Thus far adown the holy stairway’s stepsHave I descended but to give thee welcomeWith words, and with the light that mantles me;Nor did more love cause me to be more ready,For love as much and more up there is burning,As doth the flaming manifest to thee.But the high charity, that makes us servantsPrompt to the counsel which controls the world,Allotteth here, even as thou dost observe.”“I see full well,” said I, “O sacred lamp!How love unfettered in this court sufficethTo follow the eternal Providence;But this is what seems hard for me to see,Wherefore predestinate wast thou aloneUnto this office from among thy consorts.”No sooner had I come to the last word,Than of its middle made the light a centre,Whirling itself about like a swift millstone.¹⁰When answer made the love that was therein:“On me directed is a light divine,Piercing through this in which I am embosomed,Of which the virtue with my sight conjoinedLifts me above myself so far, I seeThe supreme essence from which this is drawn.Hence comes the joyfulness with which I flame,For to my sight, as far as it is clear,The clearness of the flame I equal make.¹¹But that soul in the heaven which is most pure,That seraph which his eye on God most fixes,Could this demand of thine not satisfy;Because so deeply sinks in the abyssOf the eternal statute what thou askest,From all created sight it is cut off.And to the mortal world, when thou returnest,This carry back, that it may not presumeLonger tow’rd such a goal to move its feet.The mind, that shineth here, on earth doth smoke;From this observe how can it do belowThat which it cannot though the heaven assume it?”Such limit did its words prescribe to me,The question I relinquished, and restrictedMyself to ask it humbly who it was.“Between two shores of Italy rise cliffs,¹²And not far distant from thy native place,So high, the thunders far below them sound,And form a ridge that Catria is called,’Neath which is consecrate a hermitage¹³Wont to be dedicate to worship only.”Thus unto me the third speech recommenced,¹⁴And then, continuing, it said: “ThereinUnto God’s service I became so steadfast,That feeding only on the juice of olivesLightly I passed away the heats and frosts,Contented in my thoughts contemplative.That cloister used to render to these heavensAbundantly, and now is empty grown,So that perforce it soon must be revealed.I in that place was Peter Damiano;¹⁵And Peter the Sinner was I in the house¹⁶Of Our Lady on the Adriatic shore.Little of mortal life remained to me,When I was called and dragged forth to the hat¹⁷Which shifteth evermore from bad to worse.Came Cephas, and the mighty Vessel came¹⁸Of the Holy Spirit, meagre and barefooted,Taking the food of any hostelry.¹⁹Now someone to support them on each side²⁰The modern shepherds need, and some to lead them,So heavy are they, and to hold their trains.They cover up their palfreys with their cloaks,So that two beasts go underneath one skin;O Patience, that dost tolerate so much!”At this voice saw I many little flamesFrom step to step descending and revolving,And every revolution made them fairer.Round about this one came they and stood still,And a cry uttered of so loud a sound,It here could find no parallel, nor IDistinguished it, the thunder so o’ercame me.²¹

The Heaven of Saturn, where are seen the Spirits of the Contemplative. “This planet,” says Brunetto Latini, “is cruel, felonious, and of a cold nature.” Dante, Convito, II 14, makes it the symbol of Astrology:— “The Heaven of Saturn,” he says, “has two properties by which it may be compared to Astrology. The first is the slowness of its movement through the twelve signs; for, according to the writings of Astrologers, its revolution requires twenty-nine years and more. The second is, that it is the highest of all the planets. And these two properties are in Astrology; for in completing its circle, that is, in learning it, a great space of time passes; both on account of its demonstrations, which are more than in any of the above-mentioned sciences, and on account of the experience which is necessary to judge rightly in it. And, moreover, it is the highest of all; for, as Aristotle says at the beginning of his treatise on the Soul, Science is of high nobility, from the nobleness of its subject, and from its certainty; and this more than any of the above-mentioned is noble and high, from its noble and high subject, which is the movement of the heavens; and high and noble from its certainty, which is without any defect, as one that proceeds from a most perfect and regular source. And if any one thinks there is any defect in it, the defect is not on the side of the Science, but, as Ptolemy says, it comes from our negligence, and to that it should be attributed.” Of the influences of Saturn, Buti, quoting Albumasar, says:— “The nature of Saturn is cold, dry, melancholy, sombre, of grave asperity, and may be cold and moist, and of ugly color, and is of much eating and of true love, … And it signifies ships at sea, and journeyings long and perilous, and malice, and envy, and tricks, and seductions, and boldness in dangers, … and singularity, and little companionship of men, and pride and magnanimity, and simulation and boasting, and servitude of rulers, and every deed done with force and malice, and injuries, and anger, and strife, and bonds and imprisonment, truth in words, delight, and beauty, and intellect; experiments and diligence in cunning, and affluence of thought, and profoundness of counsel … And it signifies old and ponderous men, and gravity and fear, lamentation and sadness, embarrassment of mind, and fraud, and affliction, and destruction, and loss, and dead men, and remains of the dead; weeping and orphanhood, and ancient things, ancestors, uncles, elder brothers, servants and muleteers, and men despised, and robbers, and those who dig graves, and those who steal the garments of the dead, and tanners, vituperators, magicians, and warriors, and vile men.” ↩
Semele, the daughter of Cadmus, who besought her lover, Jupiter, to come to her, as he went to Juno, “in all the pomp of his divinity.” Ovid, Metamorphoses, III, Addison’s Tr.:— “The mortal dame, too feeble to engage / The lightning’s flashes and the thunder’s rage, / Consumed amidst the glories she desired, / And in the terrible embrace expired.” ↩
To the planet Saturn, which was now in the sign of the Lion, and sent down its influence warmed by the heat of this constellation. ↩
The peaceful reign of Saturn, in the Age of Gold. ↩
“As in Mars,” comments the Ottimo, “he placed the Cross for a stairway, to denote that through martyrdom the spirits had ascended to God; and in Jupiter, the Eagle, as a sign of the Empire; so here he places a golden stairway, to denote that the ascent of these souls, which was by contemplation, is more supreme and more lofty than any other.” ↩
Shakespeare, Macbeth, III 2:— “The crow / Makes wing to the rooky wood.” Henry Vaughan, “The Bee”:— “And hard by shelters on some bough / Hilarion’s servant, the wise crow.” And Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”:— “As the many-wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery home.” ↩
The spirit of Peter Damiano. ↩
Beatrice. ↩
Because your mortal ear could not endure the sound of our singing, as your mortal eye could not the splendor of Beatrice’s smile. ↩
As in Canto XII 3:— “Began the holy millstone to revolve.” ↩
As in Canto XIV 40:— “Its brightness is proportioned to its ardor, / The ardor to the vision; and the vision / Equals what grace it has above its worth.” ↩
Among the Apennines, east of Arezzo, rises Mount Catria, sometimes called, from its forked or double summit, the Forca di Fano. On its slope stands the monastery of Santa Croce di Fonte Avellama. Troya, in his Veltro Allegorico, as quoted in Balbo’s Life and Times of Dante, Mrs. Bunbury’s Tr., II 218, describes this region as follows:— “The monastery is built on the steepest mountains of Umbria. Catria, the giant of the Apennines, hangs over it, and so overshadows it that in some months of the year the light is frequently shut out. A difficult and lonely path through the forests leads to the ancient hospitium of these courteous hermits, who point out the apartments where their predecessors lodged Alighieri. We may read his name repeatedly on the walls; the marble effigy of him bears witness to the honorable care with which the memory of the great Italian is preserved from age to age in that silent retirement. The Prior Moricone received him there in 1318, and the annals of Avellana relate this event with pride. But if they had been silent, it would be quite sufficient to have seen Catria, and to have read Dante’s description of it, to be assured that he ascended it. There, from the woody summit of the rock, he gazed upon his country, and rejoiced in the thought that he was not far from her. He struggled with his desire to return to her; and when he was able to return, he banished himself anew, not to submit to dishonor. Having descended the mountain, he admired the ancient manners of the inhabitants of Avellana, but he showed little indulgence to his hosts, who appeared to him to have lost their old virtues. At this time, and during his residence near Gubbio, it seems that he must have written the five cantos of the Paradiso after the twentieth; because when he mentions Florence in the twenty-first canto he speaks of Catria, and in what he says in the twenty-fifth, of wishing to receive his poetic crown at his baptismal font, we can perceive his hope to be restored to his country and his beautiful fold (ovile) when time should have overcome the difficulties of the manner of his return.” Ampère, Voyage Dantesque, p. 265, describes his visit to the monastery of Fonte Avellana, and closes thus:— “They took particular pleasure in leading us to an echo, the wonder of Avellana, and the most powerful I ever heard. It repeats distinctly a whole line of verse, and even a line and a half. I amused myself in making the rocks address to the great poet, whom they had seen wandering among their summits, what he said of Homer— “Onorate l’ altissimo poeta.” The line was distinctly articulated by the voice of the mountain, which seemed to be the far-off and mysterious voice of the poet himself. … “In order to find the recollection of Dante more present than in the cells, and even in the chamber of the inscription, I went out at night, and sat upon a stone a little above the monastery. The moon was not visible, being still hidden by the immense peaks; but I could see some of the less elevated summits struck by her first glimmerings. The chants of the monks came up to me through the darkness, and mingled with the bleating of a kid lost in the mountains. I saw through the window of the choir a white monk prostrate in prayer. I thought that perhaps Dante had sat upon that stone, that he had contemplated those rocks, that moon, and heard those chants always the same, like the sky and the mountains.” ↩
This hermitage, according to Butler, Lives of the Saints, II 212, was founded by the blessed Ludolf, about twenty years before Peter Damiano came to it. ↩
Thus it began speaking for the third time. ↩
St. Peter Damiano was born of a poor family at Ravenna, about 988; and, being left an orphan in his childhood, went to live with an elder brother, who set him to tending swine. Another brother, who was a priest at Ravenna, took compassion on him, and educated him. He in turn became a teacher; and, being of an ascetic turn of mind, he called himself Peter the Sinner, wore a hair shirt, and was assiduous in fasting and prayer. Two Benedictine monks of the monastery of Fonte Avellana, passing through Ravenna, stopped at the house where he lodged; and he resolved to join their brotherhood, which he did soon afterward. In 1041 he became Abbot of the monastery, and in 1057, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia. In 1062 he returned to Fonte Avellana; and in 1072, being “fourscore and three years old,” died on his way to Rome, in the convent of Our Lady near Faenza. Of his life at Fonte Avellana, Butler, Lives of the Saints, (Feb. 23,) II 217, says:— “Whatever austerities he prescribed to others he was the first to practise himself, remitting nothing of them even in his old age. He lived shut up in his cell as in a prison, fasted every day, except festivals, and allowed himself no other subsistence than coarse bread, bran, herbs, and water, and this he never drank fresh, but what he had kept from the day before. He tortured his body with iron girdles and frequent disciplines, to render it more obedient to the spirit. He passed the three first days of every Lent and Advent without taking any kind of nourishment whatsoever; and often for forty days together lived only on raw herbs and fruits, or on pulse steeped in cold water, without touching so much as bread, or anything which had passed the fire. A mat spread on the floor was his bed. He used to make wooden spoons and suchlike useful mean things, to exercise himself at certain hours in manual labor.” ↩
It is a question whether Peter Damiano and Peter the Sinner are the same person, or whether by the latter is meant Peter Onesti of Ravenna; for both in their humility took that name. The solution of the question depends upon the reading fui or fu in this line; and of twenty-eight printed editions consulted by Barlow, fourteen were for fui, and fourteen for fu. Of the older commentators, the Ottimo thinks two distinct persons are meant; Benvenuto and Buti decide in favor of one. Benvenuto interprets thus:— “In Catria I was called Peter Damiano, and I was Peter the Sinner in the monastery of Santa Maria in Porto at Ravenna on the shore of the Adriatic. Some persons maintain, that this Peter the Sinner was another monk of the order, which is evidently false, because Damiano gives his real name in Catria, and here names himself [Sinner] from humility.” Buti says:— “I was first a friar called Peter the Sinner, in the Order of Santa Maria. … And afterwards he went from there to the monastery at the hermitage of Catria, having become a monk.” ↩
In 1057, when he was made Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia. ↩
Cephas is St. Peter. John 1:42:— “Thou art Simon the son of Jona; Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation, a stone.” The Ottimo seems to have forgotten this passage of Scripture when he wrote:— “Cephas, that is, St. Peter, so called from the large head he had (cephas, that is to say, head).” The mighty Vessel of the Holy Spirit is St. Paul. Acts 9:15:— “He is a chosen vessel unto me.” ↩
Luke 10:7:— “And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the laborer is worthy of his hire.” ↩
The commentary of Benvenuto da Imola upon this passage is too striking to be omitted here. The reader may imagine the impression it produced upon the audience when the Professor first read it publicly in his lectures at Bologna, in 1389, eighty-eight years after Dante’s death, though this impression may have been somewhat softened by its being delivered in Latin:— “Here Peter Damiano openly rebukes the modern shepherds as being the opposite of the Apostles before-mentioned, saying, ‘Now some one to support them on each side / The modern shepherds need’; that is to say, on the right and on the left; ‘And some to lead them, / So heavy are they’; that is, so fat and corpulent. I have seen many such at the court of Rome. And this is in contrast with the leanness of Peter and Paul before mentioned. ‘And to hold their trains,’ because they have long cloaks, sweeping the ground with their trains. And this too is in contrast with the nakedness of the aforementioned Apostles. And therefore, stung with grief, he adds, ‘They cover up their palfreys with their cloaks,’ fat and sleek, as they themselves are; for their mantles are so long, ample, and capacious, that they cover man and horse. Hence he says, ‘So that two beasts go underneath one skin’; that is, the beast who carries, and he who is carried, and is more beastly than the beast himself. And, truly, had the author lived at the present day he might have changed this phrase and said, ‘So that three beasts go underneath one skin’; namely, cardinal, concubine, and horse; as I have heard of one, whom I knew well, who used to carry his concubine to hunt on the crupper of his horse or mule. And truly he was like a horse or mule, in which there is no understanding; that is, without reason. On account of these things, Peter in anger cries out to God, ‘O Patience, that dost tolerate so much!’ ” ↩
A cry so loud that he could not distinguish the words these spirits uttered. ↩