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Paradise · Cantos XXI to XXIV

Saturn and the fixed stars

Language and NarrationFaithGod and the Divine

Summary of the cantos

These four cantos climb one step at a time, and in each one what is left behind becomes matter for the poem. In Canto XXI, Beatrice does not laugh and the heavenly symphony falls silent, because Dante's mortal hearing could not bear it, and Peter Damian says that the reason for his choice is closed to every created sight. In Canto XXII, Benedict says that the ladder reaches to the last sphere and that no one else lifts his feet from the earth to climb it, and Dante looks down and sees the Earth as a small threshing floor. In Canto XXIII the poet admits that the poem must leap, and in Canto XXIV the ascent becomes an examination: Peter asks what faith is, and Dante's answer is a syllogism. The ladder is the image that stitches the part together: in Canto XVII exile meant descending and climbing other people's stairs, and here the ladder is the one Jacob saw, which only contemplatives climb. The canto that goes unwritten is the second thread: the cry of the saints, Beatrice's laughter, Peter's music. What the poet cannot tell is as much a part of the matter as what he does tell.

Canto XXI: The Ladder of Saturn and Peter Damian

Summary of the canto

Dante again has his eyes on the face of Beatrice, and she does not laugh. She explains why: if she laughed, her beauty, which grows with each step of the climb, would leave him as Semele was when she was reduced to ash.

Analysis

E quella non ridea; ma «S’io ridessi», / mi cominciò, «tu ti faresti quale / fu Semelè quando di cener fessi, and she was not laughing; but "If I laughed," she began to me, "you would become like Semele when she was reduced to ash."

Beatrice explains her serious face: her beauty kindles more with each step of the eternal palace, and Dante's mortal power, faced with that blaze, would be a branch that thunder splits. Semele saw Zeus in glory and turned to ash, and the comparison gives Beatrice's laughter the weight of a theophany. The smile that consoled in Canto XVIII becomes here a danger, and grace is measured by the capacity of the one who receives it.

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Canto XXII: Benedict and the View of the Earth

Home, Exile, and ReturnJustice and Law

Summary of the canto

Dante, overwhelmed with astonishment at the cry, turns to Beatrice like a boy who runs to where he trusts most, and she, like a mother who promptly comes to the aid of her pale, panting son, reminds him that he is in heaven, that it is all holy and that everything here is done with good zeal. She adds, laughing, that the song would have transformed him, and that if he had understood the prayers within the cry, he would already know the vengeance he will see before he dies:

Analysis

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Canto XXIII: The Triumph of Christ and Mary

Language and NarrationHome, Exile, and Return

Summary of the canto

Beatrice stands alert and attentive, turned toward the region of the sky where the sun shows less haste, like the bird that, perched on the open branch, waits for dawn to see its young. Dante sees her suspended and eager, and becomes like one who, wishing for something else, is content to wait:

Analysis

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Canto XXIV: Saint Peter Examines Faith

Language and NarrationFaithGod and the DivineKnowledge and Wisdom

Summary of the canto

Beatrice asks the elect of the great supper of the Lamb to shower Dante with a little of it, since he tastes what falls from their table before death marks his time, because they always drink from the fountain from which comes what he thinks. The souls form themselves into spheres around fixed poles, flaming like comets, and turn in dances of different rhythms, like the wheels of a clock, in which the first seems still and the last seems to fly. From the most precious one comes a fire so joyful that none shines brighter, and it circles three times around Beatrice with a song so divine that Dante's imagination cannot give it back:

Analysis

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Reading of the block of cantos

Analysis

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