Mercury Is So Bright, You Can See The Poetry: PARADISO, Canto V, Lines 115 - 139

In the sphere of Mercury, the souls have come up like fish in a pond. One now comes forward to speak.

At first, Dante can see his eyes and maybe his laughing mouth. But even those features are obliterated in the light that flashes from his eyes.

The poetry, too, is getting brighter as Dante highlights his rhetorical skills so that we understand he is fulfilling his vow to his readers to craft a beautiful journey across the known universe.

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The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:01] My English translation of PARADISO, Canto V, Lines 115 - 139. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment on this episode, scroll down this page.

[03:15] The passage's structure: an interplay of what's hidden and what's revealed.

[06:23] The increasing brightness that hides the first soul in Mercury.

[09:00] Two dominant images in the passage: battlements and nests.

[12:39] Theological slippage in the narrative flow: a hint of predestination in a hymn to free will and the concept of gods in a monotheistic poem.

[17:22] Links back to previous moments in Canto V and even to the sphere of the moon.

[20:08] Repeated words and the self-conscious text that keeps its artistic promises to its reader.

[24:49] Rereading PARADISO, Canto V, lines 115 - 139.

My English translation of PARADISO, Canto V, Lines 115 - 139:

“O well-born one, whom grace permits

To see the thrones of the eternal triumph

Before the military encampments are abandonned,

“We are ablaze with the light that so fills

All of heaven—and thus, if you desire

That we light you up, satisfy yourself as you please.”

Like that, it was given to me from one of these

Devout spirits; and from Beatrice: “Speak, speak

In all confidence and believe [what they say] as if [it came] from gods.”

“I clearly see that you are nested

In your own light and that you pull it out of your eyes,

Because it glitters so much when you laugh.

“But I don’t know who [you are], worthy spirit,

Nor why you’re here in the rank of the sphere

That is most veiled from mortals with the rays of another.”

This I said directly to the light

That had spoken to me first, which was then made

To be more brilliant than it had been before.

As with the sun that hides itself

In its excessive light, once its heat has burned off

The tempering [effects] of the dense vapors,

So out of increased happiness the holy form

Was hidden from me in its rays

And thus concealed, concealed it replied to me

In the manner that the next song sings.