With All Your Free Will, Move Deliberately: PARADISO, Canto V, Lines 64 - 84

Beatrice concludes her giant discourse on free will with a Biblical and a classical example of a foolish vow. Then she turns to Christians to exhort them to move with greater deliberation . . . before descending to a nasty bit of antisemitism.

Hers is a curious ending to her reasoning in the sphere of the moon, not just because of the pernicious talk of "the Jew," but also because her final tercets offer interpretive knots not easily unwound.

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The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:12] My English translation of PARADISO, Canto V, Lines 64 - 84. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation, please find the entry for this episode on my website, markscabrough.com.

[03:09] A Biblical and a classical reference: Jephthah and Iphigenia.

[07:27] Beatrice, unanchored from the pilgrim Dante, addressing the church (or the poem's readers).

[10:10] Unabashed antisemitism and its tie to the rites of sacrifice.

[12:49] The nature of proper movement in PARADISO: deliberate and orderly.

[15:15] Beatrice's almost uninterpretable ending to the discourse on free will.

[22:08] Rereading PARADISO, Canto V, lines 64 - 84.

My English translation of PARADISO, Canto V, Lines 64 - 84:

[Beatrice concluded:] “Don’t let mortals take vows as whimsies.

Be faithful and at the same time not blinkered,

As Jephthah [was] with his first offering.

“He should have said, “I’ve done wrong,”

Rather than doing worse while fulfilling [his vow]. And you can find

Equal idiocy in the grand leader of the Greeks

“Who made Iphigenia bemoan her fair face

And who made others likewise bemoan, whether the foolish or the savvy,

Those who heard reports of the completed rite.

“Christians, be more solemn in your movements.

Don’t be like a feather in the wind

And don’t believe that any water will clean you up.

“You have the new and the old testament

As well as the shepherd of the church to guide you.

Let these be enough for your salvation.

“If evil greed should otherwise call out to you,

Be humans, not insane sheep,

So that the Jew among you doesn’t make fun of you.

“Don’t be like the lamb that leaves its

Mother’s milk. Simple-minded and wanton,

It pretends to battle itself for its own pleasure!”