At last, Beatrice begins to reveal the truth about moon spots: They can’t be understood with natural philosophy (or physics), but only with metaphysics. The universe rains being down onto itself, diversifying “what is” to hold the final unity of “to be” behind everything.
Read MoreOur smartypants pilgrim Dante thinks he has the answer to why the moon has spots. It’s not that shoddy folklore. It’s all about natural philosophy. Problem is, Virgil was all about the folkloric explanation. And Beatrice is having none of it since he’s clearly “submerged” in fallacy, about the way Virgil was.
Read MoreDante opens the third canticle of COMEDY by renegotiating some of the terms of the poem itself: He is indeed like St. Paul (maybe even more profound than the great saint) and memory isn’t able to carry the weight of the poem ahead, its flight to the unmoved mover in its ascent to the heaven that takes in more of the light of glory than any other.
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