Who She Is
Beatrice is, in Paradise, the guide who teaches and then steps away. From the first verses to canto XXXI she reads Dante's face, answers questions he has not yet asked, corrects what he imagines, and leads him from heaven to heaven through the simple gesture of looking up. In the thirty-first canto she yields her place as guide to Saint Bernard and returns to the throne that is hers. The woman who in Eden judged and accused appears here as a teacher: she smiles, explains, laughs when the pilgrim forgets her for God, and in canto XXI she refuses to laugh, because her beauty, kindled at every step, would reduce a mortal body to ash. She teaches through principles and through examples from craft (the reflected ray, the glowing coal, the knot no one attempts), and she asks Dante what he thinks before refuting him with proof. The identification with the Florentine Beatrice Portinari comes from the tradition of the earliest commentators, not from the poem: within the Commedia she is never given a surname or a verifiable biography. What matters here is what she does after forgiving.
Trajectory
Before Paradise, what Beatrice is to the journey has already been stated by her own mouth, in canto II of Inferno, when she descends to Limbo to send Virgil to rescue the pilgrim. Whoever descends does not come out of obligation, but out of love, and it is in that voice that she reappears in canto I of Paradise:
I’ son Beatrice che ti faccio andare; / vegno del loco ove tornar disio; / amor mi mosse, che mi fa parlare, I am Beatrice, the one who sends you on; I come from the place I long to return to; love moved me, and it makes me speak.
In canto I she looks straight at the sun, and Dante looks at her, and it is from her gaze that his own gesture is born. When he thinks he is on earth, she corrects him before he can ask:
Tu non se’ in terra, sì come tu credi; / ma folgore, fuggendo il proprio sito, / non corse come tu ch’ad esso riedi, you are not on earth, as you believe; but not even lightning, fleeing its own place, ran as you do, returning to yours.
The explanation that follows does not describe the ascent; it describes the order in which rising is natural:
Le cose tutte quante / hanno ordine tra loro, e questo è forma / che l’universo a Dio fa simigliante, all things have order among themselves, and this is the form that makes the universe like God.
She closes with the image of the river that descends from the mountain, and what would be astonishing, she says, is Dante standing still:
Non dei più ammirar, se bene stimo, / lo tuo salir, se non come d’un rivo / se d’alto monte scende giuso ad imo. / Maraviglia sarebbe in te se, privo / d’impedimento, giù ti fossi assiso, / com’ a terra quïete in foco vivo, you should no longer marvel, if I judge well, at your ascent, any more than at a stream that descends from a high mountain to the bottom. It would be a wonder in you if, free of hindrance, you had settled below, as stillness would be for living fire upon the earth.
In canto II the first lesson turns into a dispute: Dante says the spots on the Moon come from bodies that are rare and dense, and she refutes him step by step, with an argument and an experiment with three mirrors. Before answering, she smiles and shows where the method fails:
certo non ti dovrien punger li strali / d’ammirazione omai, poi dietro ai sensi / vedi che la ragione ha corte l’ali, surely the arrows of admiration should no longer pierce you, since you see that behind the senses reason has short wings.
In canto III she explains that the faces Dante sees as reflections are true substances, and she tells him to speak with them. In canto IV she reads in his face the two doubts that keep him silent. Before answering, she ranks the one with less venom:
Parere ingiusta la nostra giustizia / ne li occhi d’i mortali, è argomento / di fede e non d’eretica nequizia, that our justice seems unjust in the eyes of mortals is a sign of faith, and not of heretical wickedness.
And she answers with a physical image, that of fire that rises again no matter how it is twisted:
ché volontà, se non vuol, non s’ammorza, / ma fa come natura face in foco, / se mille volte vïolenza il torza, for will, if it does not want to, is not extinguished, but does as nature does in fire, even if violence twists it a thousand times.
In canto V her radiance already overpowers Dante's eyes, and she begins her answer about the vow by way of the worth of freedom:
Lo maggior don che Dio per sua larghezza / fesse creando, e a la sua bontate / più conformato, e quel ch’e’ più apprezza, / fu de la volontà la libertate; / di che le creature intelligenti, / e tutte e sole, fuoro e son dotate, the greatest gift that God, in his generosity, made in creating, the one most conformed to his goodness, and the one he values most, was the freedom of the will; with which intelligent creatures, all of them and only them, were and are endowed.
In canto VII, after Justinian's hymn, she laughs and dissolves the question of the cross. She admits that the decree is hidden and gives the criterion for whoever sees it:
Questo decreto, frate, sta sepulto / a li occhi di ciascuno il cui ingegno / ne la fiamma d’amor non è adulto, this decree, brother, is buried from the eyes of everyone whose intellect is not yet mature in the flame of love.
In canto X Dante gives all his love to God and forgets the one who guides him, and she, instead of complaining, laughs:
Cor di mortal non fu mai sì digesto / a divozione e a rendersi a Dio / con tutto ’l suo gradir cotanto presto, / come a quelle parole mi fec’ io; / e sì tutto ’l mio amore in lui si mise, / che Bëatrice eclissò ne l’oblio, no mortal heart was ever so disposed to devotion and to surrendering to God, with all its gratitude so ready, as I became at those words; and so entirely did my love place itself in him that Beatrice was eclipsed in oblivion.
In canto XIV she speaks for the pilgrim before he has formed the question, and afterward it is he who explains himself for having placed her eyes second to the cross:
A costui fa mestieri, e nol vi dice / né con la voce né pensando ancora, / d’un altro vero andare a la radice, this man needs it, and I do not tell it to you with voice or yet in thought: to go to the root of another truth.
Forse la mia parola par troppo osa, / posponendo il piacer de li occhi belli, / ne’ quai mirando mio disio ha posa, perhaps my word seems too bold, placing second the pleasure of those beautiful eyes, in which, gazing, my desire finds rest.
In canto XVIII, right after hearing about the exile from Cacciaguida, her first word turns the pilgrim's thought toward the one who relieves every wrong:
e quella donna ch’a Dio mi menava / disse: «Muta pensier; pensa ch’i’ sono / presso a colui ch’ogne torto disgrava»., and that lady who was leading me to God said: "Change your thought; think that I am near to him who undoes every wrong."
In canto XXI she does not laugh, and the reason is the measure of his body:
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 what Semele became when she turned to ash."
In canto XXIII the invitation is reversed, because Dante has seen things that have made him capable of bearing her laughter:
«Apri li occhi e riguarda qual son io; / tu hai vedute cose, che possente / se’ fatto a sostener lo riso mio»., open your eyes and look at what I am; you have seen things that have made you able to bear my laughter.
And she gently rebukes him for looking at her face rather than at the garden beneath the rays of Christ, where the rose is in which the Word became flesh:
«Perché la faccia mia sì t’innamora, / che tu non ti rivolgi al bel giardino / che sotto i raggi di Cristo s’infiora? / Quivi è la rosa in che ’l verbo divino / carne si fece; quivi son li gigli / al cui odor si prese il buon cammino»., why does my face enamor you so much that you do not turn to the beautiful garden that blooms beneath the rays of Christ? There is the rose in which the divine Word became flesh; there are the lilies, by whose fragrance the good way was taken.
In canto XXVII she changes her appearance on hearing Peter's wrath, like a modest lady who grows shy merely at hearing another's fault, and afterward she explains where they are:
«La natura del mondo, che quïeta / il mezzo e tutto l’altro intorno move, / quinci comincia come da sua meta; / e questo cielo non ha altro dove / che la mente divina, in che s’accende / l’amor che ’l volge e la virtù ch’ei piove, the nature of the world, which keeps the center still and moves all the rest around it, begins here, as from its goal; and this heaven has no other where than the divine mind, in which the love that turns it is kindled, and the power it rains down.
From the cosmos she passes to humankind without a bridge, and her word against greed is also a promise of reversal:
Oh cupidigia che i mortali affonde / sì sotto te, che nessuno ha podere / di trarre li occhi fuor de le tue onde! / Ben fiorisce ne li uomini il volere; / ma la pioggia continüa converte / in bozzacchioni le sosine vere, O greed, that sinks mortals so deep beneath you that no one has the power to draw their eyes out of your waves! Good will flowers well in men; but continuous rain turns the true plums into shriveled plums.
In canto XXVIII she answers Dante's bewilderment with a single sentence, and affectionately mocks his difficulty:
Da quel punto / depende il cielo e tutta la natura. / Mira quel cerchio che più li è congiunto; / e sappi che ’l suo muovere è sì tosto / per l’affocato amore ond’ elli è punto», from that point depend the heaven and all of nature. Look at that circle closest to it, and know that its motion is so swift because of the burning love by which it is pricked.
«Se li tuoi diti non sono a tal nodo / sufficïenti, non è maraviglia: / tanto, per non tentare, è fatto sodo!», if your fingers are not up to such a knot, it is no wonder: from never being attempted, it has grown hard!
She then gives the rule of Paradise and tells, without ceremony, that a pope and doctor of the Church laughed at himself upon seeing the choirs as they were:
Quinci si può veder come si fonda / l’esser beato ne l’atto che vede, / non in quel ch’ama, che poscia seconda; / e del vedere è misura mercede, / che grazia partorisce e buona voglia: / così di grado in grado si procede, from here one can see how being blessed is founded in the act of seeing, not in that of loving, which follows afterward; and merit is the measure of seeing, which grace and good will give birth to: thus one proceeds from rung to rung.
In canto XXIX she speaks for the last time in the tone of a lesson, about the creation of the angels, and begins with the reason that excludes any gain for the one who creates:
Non per aver a sé di bene acquisto, / ch’esser non può, ma perché suo splendore / potesse, risplendendo, dir “Subsisto”, / in sua etternità di tempo fore, / fuor d’ogne altro comprender, come i piacque, / s’aperse in nuovi amor l’etterno amore, not to have for itself an addition of good, which cannot be, but so that its splendor, shining, might be able to say "I subsist," in its eternity beyond time, beyond every other comprehension, as it pleased him, the eternal love opened itself in new loves.
In canto XXX the poet gives up describing her, and it is she who defines the Empyrean in linked terms, light, love, joy:
Dal primo giorno ch’i’ vidi il suo viso / in questa vita, infino a questa vista, / non m’è il seguire al mio cantar preciso; / ma or convien che mio seguir desista / più dietro a sua bellezza, poetando, / come a l’ultimo suo ciascuno artista, from the first day that I saw her face in this life, up to this vision, following her was not cut off from my singing; but now it is fitting that my following should cease, following her beauty further in poetry, as every artist does at its limit.
ricominciò: «Noi siamo usciti fore / del maggior corpo al ciel ch’è pura luce: / luce intellettüal, piena d’amore; / amor di vero ben, pien di letizia; / letizia che trascende ogne dolzore, she began again: "We have come out from the greatest body into the heaven that is pure light: intellectual light, full of love; love of the true good, full of joy; joy that transcends every sweetness.
She shows him the empty throne that tradition reads as Henry VII's, and she blames the greed that drives away the nurse:
sederà l’alma, che fia giù agosta, / de l’alto Arrigo, ch’a drizzare Italia / verrà in prima ch’ella sia disposta. / La cieca cupidigia che v’ammalia / simili fatti v’ha al fantolino / che muor per fame e caccia via la balia, the soul that will be august below will sit, of lofty Henry, who will come to straighten Italy before she is disposed. The blind greed that bewitches you has made you like the little child that dies of hunger and drives away the nurse.
In canto XXXI Dante turns to ask her something and finds an old man. The question he asks at once reveals what he was carrying:
E «Ov’ è ella?», sùbito diss’ io. / Ond’ elli: «A terminar lo tuo disiro / mosse Beatrice me del loco mio; / e se riguardi sù nel terzo giro / dal sommo grado, tu la rivedrai / nel trono che suoi merti le sortiro», and "Where is she?" I said at once. Whereupon he: "To fulfill your desire, Beatrice moved me from my place; and if you look up to the third circle from the highest rank, you will see her again on the throne that her merits assigned her."
He sees her crowned, far off, and addresses her with the last prayer, which thanks her for having come down to hell for him. She answers without words:
Così orai; e quella, sì lontana / come parea, sorrise e riguardommi; / poi si tornò a l’etterna fontana, thus I prayed; and she, as distant as she seemed, smiled and looked at me; then she turned back to the eternal fountain.
In canto XXXII Bernard shows her again, seated in the third row, just below Eve, beside Rachel, and it is the last time the poem names her outside of a prayer.
Themes Embodied
Beatrice embodies Knowledge and wisdom, which is asked for through love and given through grace. Each of her answers starts from a principle (the order of the universe, freedom, the goodness that gives itself) and descends to a case, and what sustains it is the Love that moved her to Limbo and that makes her repeat, canto after canto, that paradise is not only in her eyes. God and the divine that Dante sees at the end pass through her before they pass through Bernard: it was in her eyes that he first saw the flame of the point of light, and it is she who, by falling silent, hands the last step over to the one who can ask the Virgin.
Beatrice's function changes from lesson to lesson. In canto I she is the one who corrects the pilgrim's illusion. In V and VII, the one who applies the argument to a case, the vow and the cross. In X and XIV, the one who laughs at forgetfulness and reads the question. In XXI, the one who protects with seriousness. In XXIII, the one who presents the garden. In XXVII and XXVIII, the one who moves from the cosmos to the critique of humankind. In XXXI, the one who smiles and returns to the fountain. The same woman is teacher, guardian, and bridge, and what unites her roles is that in every lesson she speaks with Dante as with someone who can answer.
Divergent Readings
Beatrice has a voice in Paradise: she teaches, corrects, and answers, and is not merely an object of the canto.
The text sustains two readings of her exit in canto XXXI. In the first, it is the natural end of a craft: the guide has led the pilgrim as far as reason and theology reach, and the last step can be reached only by asking the Virgin, which Bernard knows how to do. In the second, she never left the fountain, and the pilgrim learns to see her this way only by seeing her smile turn toward the light. The poem does not choose, and the order of the dialogue shows that the change of guide came from her will, not from his.
Relationships
- Dante: the pupil whom she instructs, rebukes, and loses sight of in canto XXXI.
- Saint Bernard: the guide to whom she yields her place and who points her out on the throne.
- The Virgin Mary: the rose she points to in XXIII and to whom Bernard prays in her place.
- Saint Peter: Dante's examiner, whose wrath she accompanies with a change of color.
- Beatrice: the Beatrice of the summons from Inferno and of the rebuke in Eden.