Paralyzed by Free Will: PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 1 - 27

Piccarda may have vanished but questions remain. The pilgrim Dante is caught between them, unable to voice them.

Beatrice to the rescue! She voices what he cannot say . . . or perhaps what he is afraid to say.

She articulates his two questions, makes one of them very personal, and attempts to mitigate the anger of King Nebuchadnezzar . . . or maybe the pilgrim's anger.

The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:01] My English translation of PARADISO, Canto IV, lines 1 - 27. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please scroll down this page.

[03:24] PURGATORIO Canto XVIII as the background for PARADISO Cantos IV and V.

[06:27] The multivalent, triplicate, opening simile--a man, a lamb, and a dog; hunger, fear, hunger--which embellishes a simile from PARADISO Canto III.

[12:51] Beatrice : Daniel :: Nebuchadnezzar : Dante?

[15:09] Beatrice's two intuited doubts from the pilgrim: the souls' origins and destinations, as well as the problem of coercion and the will.

[20:01] The Latin in the text, the veil of the will.

[22:22] The canto's opening simile again: paralysis, perhaps between women, certainly because of desire, hardly a hymn to rational free will.

[26:14] Rereading the passage: PARADISO, Canto IV, lines 1 - 27.

My English translation of PARADISO, Canto IV, Lines 1 - 27:

Between two foods, equally removed

And enticing, a free man would die of hunger

Before he could set his teeth into one of them;

So a lamb would stand still between two

Hungry, ferocious wolves, terrified equally of both;

So a dog would stand between two does—

In the same way I don’t condemn myself if I kept quiet,

Since I was pushed by my doubts,

Which were then necessary [if] not commendable.

I kept quiet, but my desire was painted

On my face—and my questions with it,

Much hotter even that if [they were] delineated in speech.

Therefore, Beatrice did as Daniel did

When he comforted Nebuchadnezzar’s anger,

Which had made [the king] unjustly poisonous.

[Beatrice] said, “I see fully how you are pulled

By one and the other desire, such that your care

Is bound into itself and cannot breathe.

“You reason [like this]: If the good will endures,

By what standard does the violence of another

Reduce the measure of my merit?

“Yet another cause of your doubt

Appears to be that the souls return to their stars,

As follows from Plato’s thesis.

“These are the propositions that weigh equally

On your velle—and therefore, I will treat

The one first that has more poison. . . .”