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Paradise · Cantos XXV to XXVIII

The Three Virtues and the Primum Mobile

LoveLanguage and NarrationHome, Exile, and ReturnGod and the DivineJustice and Law

Summary of the cantos

This part of Paradise has three movements. In the first, in Cantos XXV and XXVI, the pilgrim completes the examination on the three theological virtues before the apostles who were closest to Christ: James asks about hope, John about charity, and between the two trials appears the soul that tradition reads as Adam, the first man, to say what Dante did not ask aloud: how long he stayed in the garden, why he was expelled, and what language he spoke. In the second, in Canto XXVII, Peter warns that he is about to change color, the whole heaven blushes, and the first pope speaks of wolves in shepherd's clothing and of a cemetery that has become a sewer. In the third, from the end of Canto XXVII to Canto XXVIII, the poem leaves the fixed stars for the Primum Mobile and sees God as a point of light surrounded by nine circles of angels. The question that runs through the four cantos is why each ascent leaves a task of speaking: John sends word to the world about the correction concerning his body, Peter orders him to open his mouth and hide nothing, and Dante, who opens Canto XXV hoping to return to Florence as a poet, is the only one of those who speak there who is able to obey.

Canto XXV: Hope and the Body of John

Home, Exile, and ReturnFaith

Summary of the canto

The canto opens with a hope of the poet himself. If the sacred poem, to which heaven and earth have set their hand and which has made him thin for many years, overcomes the cruelty that shuts him outside the beautiful fold where he slept as a lamb, Dante will return a poet to the place where he was baptized, the font that the commentators identify with the Baptistery of Florence, to receive there the laurel crown.

Analysis

vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra / del bello ovile ov’ io dormi’ agnello, / nimico ai lupi che li danno guerra; / con altra voce omai, con altro vello / ritornerò poeta, e in sul fonte / del mio battesmo prenderò ’l cappello, may the cruelty that shuts me out of the fair fold where I slept as a lamb, enemy to the wolves that wage war on it, be overcome; with another voice now, with another fleece, I will return a poet, and on the font of my baptism I will take the laurel crown.

Dante imagines his return as a coronation, not as a pardon: what he wants is the laurel in the place of baptism, given by those who expelled him. The condition, if ever, leaves the return uncertain, and the different fleece warns that he will not return the same. The text sustains two readings: the hope of one who still counts on the city, or the hope of one who already gives the prize to the poem and not to the city.

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Canto XXVI: Charity and Adam

LoveLanguage and NarrationHome, Exile, and ReturnFaith

Summary of the canto

Dante had lost his sight from gazing at John's light, and from the same fire comes a voice that makes him attentive: while he recovers, it is fitting to compensate by reasoning. Let him say where his soul is aimed, and let him be certain that his sight is lost, not dead, because the lady who guides him has in her gaze the power of Ananias's hand, which restored sight to Paul. Dante answers that the good which pleases that court is the Alpha and the Omega of all the writing that Love reads to him. John asks who directed his bow to such a target, and Dante says that it was philosophical arguments and the authority that descends from there: good kindles love the more it contains goodness, and every good outside the essence of God is only a light from one of its rays. This truth was extended to him by the one who demonstrates the first love of all eternal substances (the commentators read Aristotle here), by the voice of the true author, who tells Moses that he will make all worth pass before him, and by John himself, in the high prologue that cries out the mystery from here all the way down. John approves, and adds:

Analysis

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Canto XXVII: Saint Peter and the Primum Mobile

God and the Divine

Summary of the canto

All of Paradise sings glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, and the sweet song intoxicates Dante:

Analysis

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Canto XXVIII: The Point of Light and the Nine Choirs

LoveGod and the DivineKnowledge and Wisdom

Summary of the canto

After Beatrice, who fills Dante's mind with paradise, has opened the truth against the present life of wretched mortals, Dante recalls what he did, and makes a comparison: as one who sees in a mirror the flame of a lit candelabrum behind him and turns to see whether the glass tells the truth, finding that it agrees with the thing as a note agrees with its measure, so he did, gazing at the lovely eyes from which Love made the cord that bound him. As he turned, Dante recounts:

Analysis

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Reading of the block of cantos

Analysis

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