Seeing Is (Almost) Believing: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 28 - 48

Beatrice begins to take apart the two questions (or doubts) that she has intuited the pilgrim Dante is holding in silence.

She first takes on the one with more "poison" in this passage, in which she reveals that the souls in the moon aren't really in the moon but appear here as an accommodation to the pilgrim's limited understanding, based on sensory data.

The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:33] My English translation of PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 28 - 48. If you'd like to read along or continue the discussion, please scroll down this page.

[03:51] Dante's frustration of even anger may be connected to the accommodating nature of revelation.

[07:09] Beatrice reveals the status of souls in the highest heaven . . . and in the moon at the same time.

[20:18] Possible irony: Beatrice argues from her observation while telling the pilgrim Dante that he shouldn't trust his powers of observation.

[23:04] Does the poet intend any irony in this passage?

[26:36] Rereading the passage: PARADISO, Canto IV, lines 28 - 48.

My translation of PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 28 - 48:

[Beatrice continued:] “Not the one among the Seraphim who most ingods himself,

[Nor] Moses, Samuel, or whichever John

You’d like to pick—not even Mary, I say—

“Has their thrones in any other heaven

Than do the spirits that have just appeared to you;

Nor have they fewer or more years to their being.

“But all make the first circle beautiful

And have the sweet life differently

As they feel more or less of the eternal breath.

“They show themselves here, not because

This sphere is their lot, but to signal

The one in the heavens that is less exalted.

“It’s necessary to speak to your understanding this way,

Since only in the apprehension of [your] senses

Can it be made fit for your intellect.

“For this reason Scripture condescends

To your faculties when it attributes feet and hands

To God, although meaning something else;

“And for you, Holy Church will represent

Gabriel and Micheal with human characteristics,

As well as that other one that made Tobit healthy again. . . .”