Plato and Beatrice, Together At Last: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 49 - 63

Beatrice continues her rectification of Dante's doubts by using a passage from Plato's TIMAEUS to turn her argument from accommodation to free will.

This passage contains perhaps the heart of Beatrice's second grand discourse in PARADISO. But even so, it's a tad garbled as it attempts to answer Plato while giving his works full authority.

The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:25] My English translation of PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 49 - 63. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment about this episode, please scroll down this page.

[03:14] Summarizing the sense and intricacies of the passage: Plato's understanding of the origins and fate of human souls.

[10:05] Dante's reluctance to charge Plato's work with error, since ancient texts are forming an important matrix of authority.

[15:35] The garbled conclusion about naming the stars (or planets) Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars.

[22:34] Full-throated medieval feminism: Beatrice reads Plato!

[25:00] Rereading the passage: PARADISO, Canto IV, lines 49 - 63.

My English translation of PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 49 - 63:

[Beatrice continued:] “That which the Timaeus argues about souls

Is not like what’s seen here,

Since it seems as if what he says is what he means.

“He says that the soul goes back to its own star;

He believes that it had detached from there

When nature gave it its form.

“Perhaps what he means is in another costume

From what his voice proclaims and it may

Mean something that’s not to be derided.

“If his intention is to return to these wheels

The honor of their influence as well as their blame, perhaps

His arrow strikes some sort of truth.

“This principle, poorly understood, turned

Almost the whole world in this way when it went astray

To give Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars their names. . . .”