Paradiso · Canto III ·
Paradiso III — The Faint Faces
Reading Divine Comedy · canto 70 of 100 · Paradiso, Canto III
Before reading
This is the first canto in which a blessed soul speaks at length. Canto II gave a tutorial; canto III gives an encounter. The pilgrim and Beatrice are still in the heaven of the Moon, the lowest of the spheres, and the figures who appear here are the only ones in Paradiso who will explicitly carry the mark of an unfulfilled religious vow. Their condition is the cantica's first paradox: they are wholly, perfectly happy, and they appear in the slowest sphere because something in their earthly life was less than wholly perfect. The canto is built to make the reader hold these two facts at once.
Where the canto sits
In the Commedia's scheme the souls of Paradiso are arrayed across nine ascending heavens, but — as canto IV will make explicit — they all really dwell in the Empyrean. The sphere in which each appears to Dante signals a gradation of beatitude: more or less light received from a single source, as canto II has just taught. The Moon, the lowest sphere, holds those whose blessedness, by some measure of their earthly will, is the least intense. This is not a punishment and it is not a regret. The cantica's hardest doctrine is going to land here for the first time: the blessed do not want what they do not have. There is no envy in heaven. The hierarchy that an earthly reader sees as ranking, the saints themselves experience as completion.
What it helps to know
The principal soul of the canto is Piccarda Donati, sister of two figures who haunt the Commedia from other directions. Her brother Corso Donati was the leader of the Black Guelphs of Florence whose 1301 coup, in concert with Pope Boniface VIII, drove Dante into permanent exile. Her other brother Forese Donati was Dante's close friend in their younger days and appears at length in Purgatorio XXIII–XXIV. Piccarda was, by the surviving accounts, a young woman who had taken Franciscan vows at the convent of the Clarisses of Monticelli when Corso forcibly removed her — for political reasons, to marry her into the Black Guelph faction. She is said to have died shortly after the wedding. The poet is meeting his exile's sister, in heaven, and Corso is by this point already dead and in Hell.
The second soul named is the Empress Constance, last of the great Norman line of Sicily, who reportedly entered a convent as a young woman and was extracted from it (in various rival accounts) to marry the Emperor Henry VI of the Hohenstaufen house. From that marriage came Frederick II — the Stupor Mundi, the half-pagan emperor whose tomb Dante visits in Inferno X — and through him the whole short violent line that ended with the execution of the boy-king Conradin in 1268. Two extracted nuns; two doomed political marriages; one canto.
The canto opens with an image whose tactile precision rewards a careful reading. The faces of the souls appear to Dante like reflections so faint that he mistakes them, at first, for reflections coming from behind him rather than for actual presences in front. The misreading is itself the doctrine: the souls in this sphere are real — but they are faint, the way a faint reflection is faint, because the measure of their reception of light is less than the souls higher up will display.
What to read for
Listen for the canto's most famous line, a five-word Italian phrase — e 'n la sua volontate è nostra pace — that has shaped European devotional language for seven hundred years. Listen also for what it answers. The pilgrim's question that occasions it is one of the most ordinary a reader could ask: do you not wish to be higher? The answer is the cantica's whole proposition about the will.
Notice how Piccarda speaks. Her voice is grave and gentle; she calls Dante brother without ever mentioning the brothers they share. Her omission is authored.
Notice that the canto ends with Piccarda fading from view singing. The first song heard in Paradiso is sung by a woman whose vow was broken on earth.
From here on: illustrations and analysis. The three images below are scenes from the canto, and after them comes the close reading — famous lines quoted in full, paradoxes explained, political and theological freight unpacked. If you have not yet read the canto, stop here — read it, then come back.
After reading
What the canto did
The canto introduced the Paradiso's mode of encounter and the Paradiso's most consequential proposition about the will. The mode of encounter is faint: the souls of the Moon appear as reflections too pale to be reflections, and Dante mistakes them, at first, for images coming from somewhere behind him. The proposition about the will is delivered to the most natural question a reader could ask — do you not wish to be higher? — and the answer is the cantica's whole metaphysical signature. The blessed do not want what they do not have, because there is no gap between their will and God's. The hierarchy a reader sees in the spheres, the saints themselves do not experience as ranking. The canto is also a piece of authored political mourning. Piccarda Donati was the sister of Dante's exile's chief author and of his closest friend. The poet meets her here, in the lowest heaven, and she calls him brother without naming the brothers they share. Her omission speaks.
The faces, and the inverted Narcissus
The canto's opening simile is one of Paradiso's great early jokes against perception.
Such as through polished and transparent glass, Or waters crystalline and undisturbed, But not so deep as that their bed be lost, (Par. III.10–12)
The faint faces of the blessed appear like reflections in glass or shallow water, and the pilgrim turns to look behind him to find the bodies they reflect. There is nothing behind him; the faces in front of him are not reflections but real presences faintly seen. The mistake inverts Narcissus exactly. Narcissus saw a reflection and thought it was a person; Dante sees persons and thinks they are reflections. The canto is teaching a habit of looking that Paradiso will require for thirty more cantos: what looks faint may be solid; what looks like an image may be the thing.
Piccarda, and the politics of who calls whom brother
Piccarda Donati was, in the years before the writing of the Commedia, the centre of a small Florentine scandal whose political stakes were enormous. Her brother Corso Donati was the leader of the Black Guelphs whose 1301 coup with Pope Boniface VIII delivered Florence to Dante's enemies and Dante to permanent exile. Her other brother Forese was Dante's dear friend, dead in 1296, named in Purgatorio XXIII–XXIV. To put Piccarda in the lowest heaven of the cantica is to perform an act of authored grace: the sister of the man who exiled him is saved, and the poet hears it from her own veiled mouth.
She names herself with the canto's first piece of doctrinal weight.
But thou shalt recognise I am Piccarda, Who, stationed here among these other blessed, Myself am blessed in the slowest sphere. (Par. III.49–51)
She calls Dante brother throughout. She does not name Corso. She does not name Forese. The omission is the canto's quietest piece of authored politics: in heaven, the brothers in flesh do not matter; the brotherhood with the soul who comes to listen does. Compare the silence around Celestine V in Inferno III. The poem teaches by ear that its silences are written.
The proposition about the will
The pilgrim asks the question any reader would ask — do you not wish to be higher up? — and Piccarda answers with the line that has shaped European devotional speech for seven hundred years.
And his will is our peace; this is the sea To which is moving onward whatsoever It doth create, and all that nature makes. (Par. III.85–87)
E 'n la sua volontate è nostra pace. The line is theologically maximalist. It does not say the blessed have accepted their place; it says their will and God's will are one, with no remainder. The earlier-quoted lines complete the doctrine.
All our affections, that alone inflamed Are in the pleasure of the Holy Ghost, Rejoice at being of his order formed; (Par. III.52–54, with surrounding)
The proposition is harder than it looks. It denies that there is any form of holy aspiration in heaven — any wishing one were further along. Every gradation of beatitude is, from inside, complete. The cantica will not relax this claim anywhere. The blessed in Mars and the blessed in Saturn will, in their own cantos, restate it. Heaven is the country in which longing has been retired because reception is total.
Broken vows, and the question the canto leaves open
Piccarda explains, in her last speech before fading, why she is in the slowest sphere.
Therefore is given us, because our vows Have been neglected and in some part void. (Par. III.56–57)
The exact theology of broken vows will be Beatrice's subject in canto IV — the distinction between the absolute will (which Piccarda kept) and the conditional will (which her body did not, when Corso seized her from the convent). The canto leaves the puzzle open: Piccarda's will did not consent to leaving the cloister, but in some technical sense her vow was incomplete, and her sphere reflects the incompleteness. Why incompleteness even of the conditional will should register at all in the country whose central doctrine is the perfect alignment of wills is the question the next canto exists to answer.
Constance and the political memory of the canto
The canto's closing speech turns from Piccarda to her companion.
Of great Costanza this is the effulgence, Who from the second wind of Suabia Brought forth the third and latest puissance. (Par. III.118–120)
The second wind of Suabia is Henry VI Hohenstaufen, second emperor of that line; the third and latest puissance is Frederick II, the last great Hohenstaufen, whose tomb the pilgrim visited in Inferno X. Two extracted nuns — Piccarda and Constance — and one canto. Both were taken from the cloister into political marriage by male relatives; both became the mothers (one literal, one figurative) of houses that ended in catastrophe. The canto does not editorialise. It places them side by side in the slowest sphere and lets the reader notice.
Famous and meaningful passages
The opening simile.
Such as through polished and transparent glass, Or waters crystalline and undisturbed, But not so deep as that their bed be lost, (Par. III.10–12)
The inverted Narcissus. The cantica's first lesson in how to look.
Piccarda names herself.
But thou shalt recognise I am Piccarda, Who, stationed here among these other blessed, Myself am blessed in the slowest sphere. (Par. III.49–51)
Myself am blessed in the slowest sphere. The verb is am. Not was, not resigned to being.
The line on which all of Paradiso rests.
And his will is our peace; this is the sea To which is moving onward whatsoever It doth create, and all that nature makes. (Par. III.85–87)
Memorise this. It is the cantica's whole answer to the problem of hierarchy.
Constance.
Of great Costanza this is the effulgence, Who from the second wind of Suabia Brought forth the third and latest puissance. (Par. III.118–120)
The Hohenstaufen line in three lines. The political weight of the canto's quiet closing.
What to watch for
Watch the technical theology of broken vows. Canto IV will distinguish the absolute will from the conditional will and resolve the puzzle the canto leaves open. Until then, hold the puzzle.
Watch what Piccarda does not say. She does not name Corso, does not name Forese, does not mention exile. The omissions are the canto's politics.
Watch the doctrine of equal happiness, unequal degree. From here onward every soul in Paradiso will restate Piccarda's his will is our peace in their own voice and on their own sphere. Track the restatements; the cantica's argument is cumulative.
This post is part of Reading Divine Comedy, a slow daily companion to Dante's Commedia in the Longfellow translation — read one canto at a time, with a short orientation before and a close reading after. From Inferno I to Paradiso XXXIII.