Paradiso · Canto V ·
Paradiso V — Beatrice on Vows
Reading Divine Comedy · canto 72 of 100 · Paradiso, Canto V
Before reading
This is the canto in which the pilgrim leaves the heaven of the Moon. The first half is Beatrice's third tutorial of the cantica, and her hardest yet: on the gravity of vows, why they may not be lightly exchanged or revoked, and what it means to bind one's own will to God by a sworn promise. The second half is a quick, joyful ascent to the second sphere — the heaven of Mercury — and a brief encounter with a single bright soul who will speak in the next canto. The canto sits at a hinge. It closes the Moon's argument; it opens Mercury's.
Where the canto sits
The Moon was the heaven of those whose vows had wavered. Beatrice cannot leave that sphere without saying, with full theological weight, what a vow is. Her central proposition is that of all God's gifts to humanity, the greatest is the freedom of the will — and that a vow is the only gift the human soul can make in return that gives back the gift itself. To vow is to surrender freedom to its source. To break the vow is to take back what one has already given. The canto's gravity follows from the asymmetry: there is no greater gift human beings can make, and there is no greater promise to abandon.
After the tutorial, the ascent. Mercury is the second sphere, the smallest of the seven planetary heavens. It receives the souls of those who acted in the world for the sake of honour and fame, did good work in public life, but whose love of human glory diluted, slightly, their love of God. Mercury is also the sphere closest to the sun and so the most often hidden in its glare — a planet you can rarely see with the naked eye. Dante's choice of sphere for these souls is precise. They are almost lost in the brightness of greater souls, the way Mercury is almost lost in the Sun's.
What it helps to know
A vow, in medieval theology, was a votum — a sworn promise made to God, by which the maker bound the freedom of the will to a future course of action. The classical typology divided vows into two: the substance of the vow (the thing promised: chastity, poverty, pilgrimage, a particular work) and the matter of the vow (the specific way of fulfilling it). A vow's substance could not normally be revoked; the matter could be commuted by ecclesiastical authority for greater substance, but never for lesser, and never for less than the original. This is the technical framework Beatrice will assume. The reader does not need to follow every distinction; the moral weight is what the canto is asking for.
The canto names two classical examples of rash vows that came to grief. Jephthah was the Hebrew judge in the Book of Judges who vowed to sacrifice to God whatever first came out of his door if he was granted victory — and was met at his return by his only daughter. Agamemnon vowed at Aulis that he would sacrifice the most beautiful thing the goddess Artemis sent him that year, and was held to it when his own daughter Iphigenia came of age. Beatrice's invocation of these two is precise: both kept their vows, and both should have broken them, because the vows themselves were sins. Vow-keeping is grave; but rash vowing is graver. Let mortals never take a vow in jest is the canto's hard line.
The figure who appears at the close, in Mercury, is unnamed in this canto but will identify himself in the next as the Emperor Justinian — Byzantine emperor of the sixth century, codifier of Roman law, central figure of canto VI.
What to read for
Notice the canto's pace. Beatrice's tutorial is dense and grave; the ascent to Mercury is sudden and luminous. The transition between the two registers is unmarked. Paradiso will keep doing this: doctrine and joy interleaved without warning.
Notice the simile of the fish-pond. The souls of Mercury crowd toward Dante like fish in a clear pool darting toward something cast from outside that they mistake for food. The image is the cantica's first glimpse of the eagerness with which the blessed greet a living visitor. It will recur.
Notice Beatrice's direct address to the Christian reader, mid-canto. She turns from the pilgrim and speaks to Christians as a body — admonishing them not to swap vows lightly, not to trust counsellors who say it does not matter. The address is one of the few moments in the cantica where a guide steps outside the narrative to address the audience by name.
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 closed the Moon's argument and opened Mercury's. Beatrice's tutorial on vows is the cantica's most stringent treatment of the relationship between human freedom and divine claim, and the foundation for everything the Commedia will later say about commitment — to a religious order, to a marriage, to the work of one's life. The first half is grave; the second half lifts. The ascent to Mercury is sudden and joyful. A bright soul, not yet named, comes forward eagerly and asks to be questioned. The canto ends in mid-encounter, the way Paradiso often does — handing the reader the next canto's beginning as the close of this one.
The greatest gift
Beatrice's argument for the gravity of vows rests on one premise: that of all God's gifts to humanity, the greatest is the freedom of the will.
The greatest gift that in his largess God Creating made, and unto his own goodness (Par. V.19–20, with surrounding)
The full proposition: God made everything in his largess; the gift most conformed to his own goodness, the one that most resembles its giver, the one most prized by him — is the freedom of the will granted to creatures with intellect, by which they can choose and merit. From this, the gravity of vows follows in a single move. A vow is the only gift human beings can offer in return that gives back the gift itself. To vow is to surrender freedom to its source. Every other gift one might offer to God is itself a gift God has given; only the vow gives back the very faculty by which gifts can be offered. The asymmetry is the canto's whole moral charge.
Let mortals never take a vow in jest (Par. V.64)
The line is the canto's hardest single sentence. Not let no one take a vow rashly. Let mortals never take a vow in jest. The italic in jest — a ciancia in the Italian — does double duty: do not vow lightly, and do not vow what does not match the gravity of the act. Vows are not games; the will being given is not a toy.
What can and cannot be exchanged
The technical doctrine that follows is precise. A vow's substance (the thing promised) cannot be revoked. Its matter (the way it is fulfilled) can be commuted, but only by ecclesiastical authority, and only for greater substance — never less. The argument's purpose is to insulate the gravity of the vow from the human wish to escape it. The reader does not need to follow every distinction; the takeaway is the asymmetry. A vow, once made, can be made more but cannot be made less. The exchange of vow-substance for any lesser thing is vain. Some vows are so weighty that no exchange of any other vow can equal them.
The two who should have broken their vows
Beatrice closes the tutorial with the two classical exempla of rash vows kept when they should have been broken.
If their will had been perfect, like to that Which Lawrence fast upon his gridiron held, And Mutius made severe to his own hand (Par. IV.82–84 — invoked in V.66–69)
— and then, more directly in canto V's own arc:
The reference to Jephthah (Judges 11) — who vowed to sacrifice whatever first came from his door if granted victory and was met by his only daughter — and to Agamemnon at Aulis — who vowed to sacrifice the most beautiful thing the goddess sent him that year and was held to it when Iphigenia came of age — is the canto's most exact moral diagnostic. Both kept their vows. Both should not have. Vow-keeping is grave; rash vowing is graver. The two examples are pagan and Hebrew, classical and scriptural, and the doctrine is the same: a vow whose substance is itself sinful binds nothing.
The address to the Christians
Mid-canto, Beatrice steps outside the narrative and speaks not to Dante but to her readership.
Christians, be ye more serious in your movements; Be ye not like a feather at each wind (Par. V.73–74)
The address is the canto's most public moment. It is also one of the Commedia's few moments in which the guide does what the poet does — break the fourth wall, name the audience, lay an instruction across the page directly. The instruction is austere: do not trust every counsellor who tells you a vow may be lightly transferred. The implication, in the political context of 1300, is sharp. The medieval church had developed a substantial commerce in vow-commutations — for example, the substitution of a small payment to a crusading fund for a vowed pilgrimage. Beatrice does not name the trade. The reader knew. Be ye not like a feather at each wind is the line that named it for them.
The ascent
The transition between Beatrice's gravity and the ascent to Mercury is the canto's most striking single move. There is no pause; no metaphor of journey; no description of intermediate space. One tercet ends in tutorial, the next begins in light. The pilgrim looks at Beatrice, finds her transfigured by the new sphere's radiance, and is already arrived.
The simile that follows is one of the cantica's loveliest small images.
As in a fish-pond which is pure and tranquil, The fishes draw to that which from without Comes in such fashion that their food they deem it (Par. V.100–102)
The blessed of Mercury come crowding toward the pilgrim as fish in a clear pond dart toward something cast from outside that they take for food. The image is exact: they think it is food. The blessed in Mercury take the pilgrim's presence as nourishment because every living approach to them is a giving of love, and love is the only food of the country they are in. The simile is the cantica's first picture of the eagerness of the saints. Hell's souls had to be drawn out by skill; Purgatory's souls came forward willingly; Paradiso's souls crowd.
This little planet
Then a single light comes forward and names the sphere.
This little planet doth adorn itself With the good spirits that have active been, That fame and honour might come after them; (Par. V.115–117)
This little planet — questa picciola stella — places the sphere in its smallness. Mercury is the smallest of the seven planetary heavens, the most often hidden in the Sun's glare, and the cantica's chosen home for souls whose love of God was diluted by a love of human glory. The diagnosis is precise. These souls did good, but their motive included fame. They are blessed; they are also slightly less brightly blessed than those whose motive was pure. The same gradation that placed Piccarda in the Moon places Justinian in Mercury — different cause, same kind of accommodation.
The canto's final tercets show the still-unnamed soul withdrawing into his own brightness, the pilgrim asking him to speak, and the response held over for canto VI. The cantica's procedure is established: each sphere will have its long single speech, and that speech will arrive in the canto after its speaker arrives.
Famous and meaningful passages
The greatest gift.
The greatest gift that in his largess God Creating made, and unto his own goodness (Par. V.19–20)
The premise of the canto's whole moral architecture. Freedom of the will is what most resembles its giver.
The hard line.
Let mortals never take a vow in jest (Par. V.64)
A ciancia. Not lightly, not as a game, not in any spirit but the gravity of giving back the will.
The address to the Christians.
Christians, be ye more serious in your movements; Be ye not like a feather at each wind (Par. V.73–74)
The fourth wall broken. The audience named directly.
The fish-pond.
As in a fish-pond which is pure and tranquil, The fishes draw to that which from without Comes in such fashion that their food they deem it (Par. V.100–102)
The first picture of the eagerness of the blessed. They take the living for food.
This little planet.
This little planet doth adorn itself With the good spirits that have active been, That fame and honour might come after them; (Par. V.115–117)
The diagnosis of Mercury. Active virtue, slightly diluted by love of fame.
What to watch for
Watch the structural rhythm. From here on, each sphere will get a long monologue from one principal soul in the canto after its sphere is introduced. Justinian in VI, Beatrice on the Incarnation in VII (delayed but originating here), Charles Martel in VIII. The pattern starts now.
Watch the word vow. It will return in Paradiso XII (Dominic's mendicant vow), in the apostle Peter's examination of faith in XXIV, and at the very end of the cantica when the pilgrim's own will is finally vowed to the source. The vocabulary the canto installed is not exhausted.
Watch the eagerness. From canto V onward, the souls of Paradiso do not wait to be questioned. They come forward. The change in the dynamic between guide and visited is one of the cantica's quiet pedagogies.
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.