Paradiso XXXIII — The Prayer of Bernard

Before reading

This is the final canto of the Divine Comedy and the most famous single canto in any literature written in Italian. Every line in it is famous. Read it as slowly as you have read anything. The journey that began a hundred cantos ago in a dark wood at the midpoint of a life is about to end with the seeing of God and the moving of the stars. Nothing else in Western literature is exactly equivalent to what is about to happen on the page.

Where the canto sits

We are in the Empyrean, at the foot of the white rose, with Bernard as guide and Mary above. The previous canto ended with Bernard beginning a prayer. The first twenty-one lines of this canto are the prayer itself — Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio — Virgin mother, daughter of thy Son. It is one of the most quoted prayers in Christendom, written in this poem and afterwards adopted into Italian devotional life. After the prayer, Mary turns her eyes to God; God permits the vision to be shown; the pilgrim's sight is purified; and the rest of the canto is the Beatific Vision and the closing tercet that has been the destination of the entire poem.

What it helps to know

The prayer Bernard offers is one of the great Italian compressed pieces of theology. Virgin mother, daughter of thy Son, / humble and high beyond all other creature, / the limit fixed of the eternal counsel. Every line carries a paradox: the daughter of her son, the human creature who limits the eternal counsel (because Mary's fiat was the condition of the Incarnation). The prayer asks Mary to grant Dante the vision and, after the vision, to preserve his affections sound. The intercession is double: it asks for the seeing and for the survival of the seeing.

The geometer image in the middle of the canto is one of the most famous similes in medieval poetry. As the geometrician, who endeavours / to square the circle, and discovers not, / by taking thought, the principle he wants, / even such was I. The squaring of the circle is the classic insoluble mathematical problem of antiquity. Dante uses it to figure his own attempt to comprehend how the human figure he sees inside the second of the Trinity's three circles conforms to the circle. The image is precise: the pilgrim is in the position of a mathematician who has glimpsed the answer but cannot prove it. The flash that follows — a flash of lightning, wherein came its wish — is the medieval image for the act of intellectus by which the truth is grasped without being derived. The geometer's flash is the vision's mode.

The three circles of the Trinity are figured in the most austere geometric vocabulary the poem has. Three circles, / of threefold colour and of one dimension. The second circle reflects the first as Iris is by Iris (one rainbow reflecting another). The third seems fire that equally from both is breathed. The Father is the first circle; the Son the second, reflected from the Father; the Holy Spirit the third, breathing from both. Inside the second circle (the Son), the pilgrim sees our effigy — the human face painted with the very colour of the circle. The Incarnation is visible in the Trinity as geometry.

The closing tercet has the same word as the last word of Inferno, Purgatorio, and now Paradiso: stelle, stars. Each cantica ends on this word. The Commedia is sealed by it three times.

What to read for

Read the prayer of St Bernard not as a piece of theology but as a piece of Italian. Read it aloud if you can. The compression of the paradoxes — Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio — is what the poem has been preparing the reader to hear. The whole Commedia is a cantica of paradoxes folded down into single lines.

Notice the pacing. The canto's first eighty lines are slow. The vision's centre is unhurried. The last twenty lines compress the entire Beatific Vision into the most economical writing Dante has ever produced. Read the final tercets very slowly. The poem ends quickly, which is part of the ending.

Notice the we. The poem opened, in Inferno I, with the journey of our life — nostra vita. It closes with the Love which moves the sun and the other stars. The first word and the last word are part of the same gesture: this is a poem about all of us, and the love that moved the journey is the love that turns the universe.

This is also where the entire companion ends. After you have read this canto, return to Inferno I. The dark wood and the moving stars are the same poem.

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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.

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After reading

What the canto did

The canto delivered the end of the Commedia. Bernard's prayer to the Virgin was answered. Mary turned her gaze to God. The pilgrim's sight was strengthened, then strengthened again, then strengthened a third time, until at last his eye was fortified enough to enter the high light which of itself is true. He saw the bound volume of all things — substance, and accident, and their operations — interfused in a single light. He saw the three circles of the Trinity, the second reflected from the first, the third breathed from both. He saw, inside the second circle, the human figure that is the Incarnation, and he stood in the position of the geometer who has glimpsed how the figure conforms to the circle but cannot yet prove it. Then a flash of lightning came; the wish was granted; the high fantasy failed; and the very last lines of the Commedia said what had moved the pilgrim's desire and his will at the same moment, as a wheel equally moved: the Love which moves the sun and the other stars. The poem that opened at the midpoint of a life closed with the moving of the heavens. Read together, the first canto and the last form one statement: the same Love that began the journey moves the universe.

The prayer of St Bernard

The canto's first twenty-one lines are the most quoted prayer in Italian Catholicism after the Pater noster and the Ave. Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio: Virgin mother, daughter of thy Son. The opening tercet folds three of medieval Mariology's central paradoxes into a single utterance: virgin (the Annunciation), mother (the Incarnation), daughter of thy Son (Mary is the creature; her Son, as God, is her Creator). Bernard then unfolds the further paradox — humble and high beyond all other creature, / the limit fixed of the eternal counsel — Mary is the fixed term in God's eternal decree because the Incarnation could not have happened without her fiat. The prayer continues by naming her offices: the noonday torch of charity, the living fountain-head of hope. It then makes its request: that this man, who from the lowest depth of the universe has seen the spiritual lives, may now uplift himself higher toward the uttermost salvation. And it makes a second request, which is the more important one: that after the vision, Mary preserve his affections sound. The intercession is double. The vision matters; but so does what becomes of the seer afterward.

Read the prayer aloud if you can. The first tercet alone is some of the most concentrated Italian ever written. Petrarch quoted it; T. S. Eliot quoted it; every saint who has ever taught Mariology from the West has quoted it. Dante did not invent the paradoxes — they were medieval commonplaces by 1300 — but he gave them the line that holds them.

The strengthening of sight

The middle section of the canto stages the preparation of the eye. Bernard beckons; the pilgrim's sight is already where Bernard wishes; his eye is purified and enters more and more into the ray of the High Light. The vision exceeds the discourse. The memory yields unto such excess. Then come three of the most striking similes in the whole Commedia, all about memory and loss. Even as he is who seeth in a dream, / and after dreaming the imprinted passion / remains, and to his mind the rest returns not. The vision is being given the texture of a dream: the feeling stays; the content fades. Even thus the snow is in the sun unsealed. The vision melts as snow melts. Even thus upon the wind in the light leaves / were the soothsayings of the Sibyl lost. The vision scatters as the Sibyl's leaves scattered. Each of the three images is a different way of saying the same thing: what the pilgrim saw is what cannot be carried back. The poem keeps insisting on this. The vision is real; its possession is partial.

The bound volume of the universe

The first of the canto's three great visions is the bound volume. I saw that in its depth far down is lying / bound up with love together in one volume, / what through the universe in leaves is scattered. The image is the medieval book, the manuscript bound between covers, every individual leaf a page that exists only as part of the whole. The cosmos is one bound volume; every created thing is one of its pages; the binding is love. The image solves, at the very end of the poem, the problem the Commedia has been working at since its first canto. The cosmos seemed, from inside the dark wood, to be a chaos of unrelated leaves. It turns out, from the height of the Beatific Vision, to be a single coherent book whose binding is love. Every particular soul Dante met — Francesca, Farinata, Ulysses, Cacciaguida, Beatrice — was a page of the volume. The volume is now seen whole.

The three circles, and the figure inside the Son

The second of the canto's great visions is the three circles. Within the deep and luminous subsistence / of the High Light appeared to me three circles, / of threefold colour and of one dimension. The Trinity figured as pure geometry. The Father is the first circle; the Son is the second, reflected from the first as Iris is by Iris (rainbow from rainbow); the Holy Spirit is the third, seemed fire that equally from both is breathed — the Latin doctrine of the Filioque given as image. Of threefold colour and of one dimension: three distinct persons in one substance. Dante has compressed the entire Quicumque vult of Athanasian theology into one tercet.

And then, inside the second circle, he sees something stranger. Within itself, of its own very colour, / seemed to me painted with our effigy, / wherefore my sight was all absorbed therein. The human figure of the Incarnation is painted inside the circle of the Son in the very colour of the circle itself. The Word became flesh; the flesh is visibly in the second circle of the Trinity; the human is of the same colour as the divine. The pilgrim's whole sight is absorbed in this image. The Incarnation is the only thing in the canto that holds his vision.

The geometer

The third of the canto's great moments is the geometer simile. As the geometrician, who endeavours / to square the circle, and discovers not, / by taking thought, the principle he wants, / even such was I at that new apparition; / I wished to see how the image to the circle / conformed itself, and how it there finds place. The pilgrim is trying to comprehend how the human figure fits inside the divine circle — that is, how the Incarnation is consistent with the Trinity, how the second Person can be both the eternal Son and the human Jesus without rupture. The squaring of the circle is the medieval emblem of the insoluble problem. His own wings were not enough for this. The reasoning failed.

And then: a flash of lightning, wherein came its wish. The pilgrim's question was answered without being argued. The flash is the medieval image for intellectus — the act by which the truth is grasped directly, without derivation. Aquinas had said this is how the angels know: not by reasoning from premises to conclusions but by seeing. The pilgrim is given, for one flash, the angelic mode of knowing.

The closing tercet

The whole Commedia ends in three lines.

Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy: / but now was turning my desire and will, / even as a wheel that equally is moved, / the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.

Read the lines in order. Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy — the imagining gave out. But now was turning my desire and will, / even as a wheel that equally is moved — the will and the desire, which had been pulling against each other for a hundred cantos, are now moving together, as a wheel moves at every point at the same rate. The pilgrim's two great faculties — what he desires and what he wills — are at last one. And the cause of their unity, given in the last line, is L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle — the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.

The verb is muove: moves. The same verb Beatrice used in Inferno II in line 72, when she told Virgil why she had come for Dante: Amor mi mosse, che mi fa parlare — Love moved me, which compelleth me to speak. The poem's first theological statement and its last use the same verb. The Love that moved the woman to descend into Limbo to send Virgil to find the lost pilgrim is the same Love that moves the sun and the other stars. The chain is unbroken from canto II of Inferno to line 145 of Paradiso. The whole poem has been a single sustained action of the same Love.

And the last word is stelle. Stars. Inferno ended on stelle: and thence we came forth to behold again the stars. Purgatorio ended on stelle: pure and disposed to mount unto the stars. Paradiso ends on stelle. Three cantiche, three closings, three times the same word. The poem is sealed by the stars three times.

Famous and meaningful passages

The opening of the prayer.

Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, Humble and high beyond all other creature, The limit fixed of the eternal counsel, (Par. XXXIII.1–3)

Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio. The most quoted tercet of medieval Italian devotion. The three paradoxes of Mariology in a single utterance.

Mary's office.

Here unto us thou art a noonday torch Of charity, and below there among mortals Thou art the living fountain-head of hope. (Par. XXXIII.10–12)

The two great functions: charity above, hope below.

The double request.

Still farther do I pray thee, Queen, who canst Whate'er thou wilt, that sound thou mayst preserve After so great a vision his affections. (Par. XXXIII.34–36)

The second half of the intercession. The vision is asked for; the surviving of the vision is asked for as well.

The fading of memory.

Even as he is who seeth in a dream, And after dreaming the imprinted passion Remains, and to his mind the rest returns not, Even such am I, for almost utterly Ceases my vision, and distilleth yet Within my heart the sweetness born of it; (Par. XXXIII.58–63)

The vision's texture. The feeling stays; the content fades. One of the great descriptions of what visionary experience leaves behind.

The Sibyl's leaves.

Even thus the snow is in the sun unsealed, Even thus upon the wind in the light leaves Were the soothsayings of the Sibyl lost. (Par. XXXIII.64–66)

The two figures for the loss of the vision in memory. The snow under the sun; the leaves of the Sibyl scattered by the wind.

The bound volume.

I saw that in its depth far down is lying Bound up with love together in one volume, What through the universe in leaves is scattered; Substance, and accident, and their operations, All interfused together in such wise That what I speak of is one simple light. (Par. XXXIII.85–90)

The medieval book as figure for the cosmos. Legato con amore in un volume. The whole of metaphysics — substance, accident, and their operations — bound by love.

The three circles.

Within the deep and luminous subsistence Of the High Light appeared to me three circles, Of threefold colour and of one dimension, And by the second seemed the first reflected As Iris is by Iris, and the third Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed. (Par. XXXIII.115–120)

The Trinity as geometry. The Father, the Son reflected from the Father as rainbow from rainbow, the Holy Spirit breathed from both.

The Incarnation in the second circle.

That circulation, which being thus conceived Appeared in thee as a reflected light, When somewhat contemplated by mine eyes, Within itself, of its own very colour Seemed to me painted with our effigy, Wherefore my sight was all absorbed therein. (Par. XXXIII.127–132)

The human figure of the Incarnation inside the circle of the Son, painted in the colour of the circle itself. The Word made flesh given as a visible image.

The geometer.

As the geometrician, who endeavours To square the circle, and discovers not, By taking thought, the principle he wants, Even such was I at that new apparition; I wished to see how the image to the circle Conformed itself, and how it there finds place; (Par. XXXIII.133–138)

Qual è 'l geometra che tutto s'affige. The medieval emblem of the unsolvable problem applied to the highest mystery. The pilgrim's reasoning fails at the doorway of the Incarnation.

The flash.

But my own wings were not enough for this, Had it not been that then my mind there smote A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish. (Par. XXXIII.139–141)

The angelic mode of knowing given for one flash. Fulgore — the lightning by which the truth is seen rather than argued.

The final tercet.

Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy: But now was turning my desire and will, Even as a wheel that equally is moved, The Love which moves the sun and the other stars. (Par. XXXIII.142–145)

L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle. The last line of the Commedia. The same verb — muove, moves — that Beatrice used in Inferno II.72: Love moved me, which compelleth me to speak. The first theological statement of the poem and the last use the same verb.

What to watch for

This is the last canto. There is no forward to watch. Watch, instead, the backward. Return to Inferno I.

The poem you have just finished opened with a man lost in a dark wood at the midpoint of a life who could not climb the small hill in front of him because three beasts blocked his way. He had to be sent another way: down before he could go up. The journey he made was a hundred cantos long. The man who finished it — the pilgrim who saw the Trinity and was given, for a flash, the angelic mode of knowing — is, theologically, the same man. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle. The first line and the last line of the poem are connected by every line between them.

There is one image to hold from the very beginning. In Inferno I, Virgil came to the lost pilgrim and Dante said: Thou art my master, and my author thou, / thou art alone the one from whom I took / the beautiful style that has done me honour. The first tribute one poet ever paid another was paid to a pagan who could lead the pilgrim only as far as the gates of Heaven. The poem closes, ninety-nine cantos later, on a vision into which Virgil could never have come. The journey began with the worship of a teacher who could not see and ends with the seeing of what the teacher could never have shown. That is the Commedia's great arc, and you have walked it.

The dark wood and the moving stars are the same poem. Nostra vita — our life. The journey was yours.

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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.