Of Natural Instincts and Their Natural Ends: PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 115 - 142

Beatrice continues in her discourse about our natural instincts, making the bold claim that they can lead us to our natural ends . . . which are the good, not the catastrophic bad.

Her Scholastic theology is tinted with poetic metaphors in a bold move to explain how the arrow, once shot, can deviate from its preordained track.

The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:39] My English translation of PARADISO, Canto I, Lines 115 - 142. To read along or continue the conversation about this passage, scroll down this page.

[03:50] Paraphrasing Beatrice's discourse on instinct, order, and ends.

[06:41] Keeping the instinct to a predetermined end fuzzy.

[09:29] Highlighting Beatrice's poetics in two metaphors: archery and art.

[14:43] Swerving with the lightning.

[16:02] Drawing further conclusions from Beatrice's first major discourse in PARADISO.

[21:05] Rereading the passage: PARADISO, Canto I, lines 115 - 142.

My English translation of PARADISO, Canto I, lines 115 - 142:

[She went on]: “This [instinct] carries fire toward the moon.

This is that which propels things in mortal hearts.

This presses the earth into itself and unifies it.

“This bow is the force behind not only created things

Without intelligence but also [behind]

Those who have intelligence and love.

“With its light, providence, which synchronizes all things,

Makes forever calm the heaven

Which holds the one that spins the fastest;

“And toward that now, like toward a destined place,

The power of the bow carries us,

Aimed, once loosed, toward a happy target.

“In truth, as a form will sometimes fail to correspond

To the purpose of its art,

Because its material appears deaf and unresponsive,

“So a creature will also depart from

This sort of track, because even with the push, it has the power

To swerve into other places;

“And just as we can see fire

Fall from a cloud, so the first impulse

Turns toward earth out of a false [sense of] pleasure.

“If I’m right, you shouldn’t be more amazed

At your rising than at a river’s

Descent from a high mountain to its base.

“It would be more marvelous if you, set free

From every impediment, had sat around below,

As if a living flame were content to rest easy.”

Then she turned her face to the heavens.