Who She Is
Mary is, in Paradise, the queen of heaven whom the poem shows little and through effects. She speaks in no canto. She is named by others, described by what she causes, and invoked by those who pray, and her only answer is a gesture of the eyes. In canto II of Inferno she already was, according to the common reading, the first movement of the journey: a Lady of heaven takes pity on the lost man and moves Saint Lucy, who moves Beatrice, who moves Virgil. In Paradise Dante sees her as the rose in which the Word became flesh (XXIII), as the beauty that laughs at the games and songs of the angels (XXXI), as the one whom every choir of saints looks to as they take their seats (XXXII), and as the addressee of the longest prayer in the poem (XXXIII). An angel calls her lady of heaven and says he will circle as long as she follows her son into the Empyrean. Whoever describes her cannot: Dante confesses that, even with a richness of speech equal to that of imagining, he would not dare attempt the least of her delight. She is the highest figure in the canticle after the Trinity, and the only one to whom the poem grants the power to dissolve the cloud of Dante's mortality.
Trajectory
In canto XXIII Beatrice rebukes Dante for looking at her face and not at the garden beneath the rays of Christ:
«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.
An angel descends in the form of a crown, encircles the greatest flame, and turns around it:
«Io sono amore angelico, che giro / l’alta letizia che spira del ventre / che fu albergo del nostro disiro; / e girerommi, donna del ciel, mentre / che seguirai tuo figlio, e farai dia / più la spera suprema perché lì entre»., I am angelic love, who circles the high joy that breathes from the womb that was the dwelling of our desire; and I shall circle, lady of heaven, as long as you follow your son, and you will make the highest sphere brighter by entering it there.
The other lights make the name of Mary resound, and they sing Regina celi so sweetly that the pleasure never leaves the poet. In canto XXXI she is described by her effect:
Vidi a lor giochi quivi e a lor canti / ridere una bellezza, che letizia / era ne li occhi a tutti li altri santi; / e s’io avessi in dir tanta divizia / quanta ad imaginar, non ardirei / lo minimo tentar di sua delizia, I saw there, at their games and songs, a beauty laughing, which was joy in the eyes of all the other saints; and if I had in speech as much richness as in imagining, I would not dare attempt the least of her delight.
In canto XXXII she is above Eve, who opened the wound that she closed:
«La piaga che Maria richiuse e unse, / quella ch’è tanto bella da’ suoi piedi / è colei che l’aperse e che la punse, the wound that Mary closed and anointed, the one so beautiful at her feet, is she who opened it and pricked it.
Bernard tells Dante to ask grace of her:
Veramente, ne forse tu t’arretri / movendo l’ali tue, credendo oltrarti, / orando grazia conven che s’impetri / grazia da quella che puote aiutarti; / e tu mi seguirai con l’affezione, / sì che dal dicer mio lo cor non parti», truly, lest you draw back, moving your wings, thinking you advance, it is fitting to obtain by prayer grace from her who can help you; and you will follow me with affection, so that your heart does not depart from what I say.
In canto XXXIII the prayer defines her through paradoxes:
Saint Bernard's prayer to the Virgin (canto XXXIII).Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio, / umile e alta più che creatura, / termine fisso d’etterno consiglio,Virgin Mother, daughter of her own son, humble and higher than any creature, fixed term of the eternal counsel. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux asks Mary for the grace that Beatrice can no longer attain alone: the last step is not won, it is asked for.
And because of her function as mediator:
Donna, se’ tanto grande e tanto vali, / che qual vuol grazia e a te non ricorre, / sua disïanza vuol volar sanz’ ali, lady, you are so great and so worthy that whoever wants grace and does not run to you wants his desire to fly without wings.
Her answer is only the glance:
Li occhi da Dio diletti e venerati, / fissi ne l’orator, ne dimostraro / quanto i devoti prieghi le son grati; / indi a l’etterno lume s’addrizzaro, / nel qual non si dee creder che s’invii / per creatura l’occhio tanto chiaro, the eyes beloved and revered by God, fixed on the one who prayed, showed us how pleasing devout prayers are to her; then they turned toward the eternal light, in which one must not believe that a creature's eye travels so clearly.
Themes Embodied
Mary embodies mediation: the Faith that is asked for and the Love that comes before the request, a torch of charity at full midday among the blessed and a living fountain of hope among mortals. She is also the figure in whom God and the divine draw near to the human, for in her, the prayer says, the maker did not disdain to become his own creature.
The text sustains two readings of her silence. In the first, it is the economy of the poem: Bernard prays in place of Dante, and the queen answers with her gaze so that the answer is only gesture. In the second, the lack of words is what makes her greater, because what is heard from a figure so high is the scene she causes, not the speech. The poem suggests both and does not choose.
Relationships
- Saint Bernard: the faithful man who directs the prayer to her.
- Beatrice: the one who names her as the rose in which the Word became flesh.
- Dante: the living man whose gaze she directs, through mediation, to the eternal light.