Discussion Questions

Beatrice explains Dante's ascent as the natural course of a creature that moves to the port that suits it, and says that the deviation comes from false pleasure. At what point in this explanation does the choice of the one who rises come in?

Dante answers Beatrice that the spots of the Moon come from rare and dense bodies, and she refutes him with an argument and an experiment. Which steps of her reasoning depend on what is seen, and which depend on a principle that is not seen?

Piccarda and Constance were taken from the cloister by men, and Piccarda says that the two are in the slowest sphere because they neglected their vows. What does the canto show of each one that helps weigh that cause?

Beatrice distinguishes absolute will, which does not consent to harm, from the will that consents out of fear of a greater evil, and says that Piccarda spoke of the first and she of the second. What, in that distinction, supports the claim that the souls nevertheless occupy the lowest step?

Beatrice says that the vow makes a victim of the freedom of the will, and that every exchange is foolish if the thing given up is not contained in the thing taken, as four is in six. What, in this argument, makes the exchange possible, and what makes it insufficient?

Justinian tells the history of the eagle to judge who appropriates the sign and who opposes it, and ends with a pilgrim badly paid. What does the list of deeds prove, and what does the text leave unproven about who is right?

Beatrice says that, to repair man, God could forgive alone or let him satisfy by himself, and that the incarnation was more generous than forgiveness alone. Which steps of the argument show why each of these two ways, taken apart, would fall short?

The spirit says that nature imprints everyone like a seal and that providence overcomes generation, and gives the pairs Solon and Xerxes, Esau and Jacob, Quirinus and the base father. What do these pairs show about the relation between lineage and vocation?

Cunizza forgives herself gladly, and Folquet says that there no one repents, but laughs. What do the two speeches say has changed in these souls' relation to the love that marked them on earth?

Folquet speaks of the love that burned him and, shortly after, of the cursed flower that led the sheep astray. What relation does the canto suggest between the two things?

Thomas names the lights of the crown and gives each one a single mark: the treasure offered, the wisdom without a second, the body in Cieldauro, the truths that aroused envy. What does the canto choose to tell of each sage, and what does it leave aside?

Dante forgets Beatrice while thanking God, and she smiles. What role does the canto give to the one who guides, if Beatrice rejoices at being forgotten?

Thomas tells the life of Francis as a marriage to Poverty and ends by denouncing his own flock. What relation does the canto establish between loving Poverty and remaining close to the shepherd?

The canto begins by calling the syllogisms of mortals defective and ends with Thomas saying that his own order strays from the path. What does one thing say about the other?

Thomas praised Francis and criticized the Dominicans, and Bonaventure praises Dominic and criticizes the Franciscans. What does the symmetry of the two cantos do with each accusation?

Bonaventure says that the order of Francis became mold where there was crust, and points to two extremes, one that flees the rule and another that tightens it. What place does the canto give to the rule in its description of the founder?

Thomas explains why Solomon is without peer by distinguishing knowledge from kingly prudence. What does the distinction resolve in Dante's doubt, and what does it leave unresolved?

The canto ends by warning against hasty judgment, and the whole poem is full of sentences about people. What does the canto say about who may judge, and what does it leave unsaid?

Beatrice asks, on Dante's behalf, what he has not yet put into words, and the light that tradition reads as Solomon answers with an image of an ember. What does each of these two speeches presuppose about what seeing is, and about what the body adds to vision?

Dante says that the cross flashed Christ and that, because of it, he stopped looking at Beatrice. What does the canto say about the relation between what is seen and whoever guides the sight?

Cacciaguida describes ancient Florence through absences: no necklace, no crown, no empty houses. What does the canto choose to show in order to say that people lived in peace there?

Cacciaguida says that ancient Florence was at peace and that he came from martyrdom to the peace of heaven. What does the same word connect in the two descriptions?

Dante glories in his blood in heaven, and soon compares nobility to a cloak that shortens. What does the canto suggest must be added to blood, and what does the rest of the speech show that made the houses lose?

Cacciaguida laments the mixing of peoples and soon says that cities and lineages die. How do the two parts of the speech relate to each other, and what does the canto leave unresolved between them?

Cacciaguida tells Dante that the future is painted in eternal sight without for that reason being necessary. What does that distinction change in the sense of the exile foretold, for the one who will live it and for the one who provokes it?

Dante fears losing his life among those who will call this time ancient if he is a timid friend of the truth, and Cacciaguida answers with the order to manifest the whole vision. What does each of them put on the scale of silence, and what on the scale of speech?

The souls of Jupiter first write loose letters, D, I, L, and only afterward the whole phrase. What does the canto gain by making the reader wait for the phrase along with Dante?

The phrase drawn by the souls is addressed to whoever judges the earth, and the invective that follows speaks of trade inside the temple. What connection does the canto make between the justice written in heaven and the corruption on earth?

The Eagle speaks with "I" and "my" and is made of many souls. What does this singular subject, made of plural ones, change in what it says about justice?

Dante asks about the man of the Indus, and the Eagle answers with questions about the place of the one who judges. What does the answer explain, and what does it leave unexplained?

The canto places a pagan Trojan among the saved, and the Eagle says that the wandering world would not expect him there. What does the world's surprise, used as an argument, teach about judging?

The Eagle says that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence from ardent love and living hope, which win because the divine will wants to be overcome. What kind of power is this, and what room does it leave in it for the merit of the one who conquers?

Beatrice does not laugh because laughter would reduce Dante to ash, and the saints do not sing because he could not bear the song. What does Saturn's silence say about the relation between heaven's grace and the measure of the one who receives it?

Peter Damian says that not even the seraph nearest God would know how to say why he was chosen, and sends Dante to carry this to the world. What does the canto do with the question of predestination, and what does it ask of the mortal world?

Benedict says that the ladder reaches to the last sphere and that no one else lifts their feet from the earth to climb it. What does the image say about his rule and about the state of the abbeys?

Dante looks at the Earth from above, smiles at its base appearance, and promptly approves whoever holds it in lesser regard. What does this view do to the poet's attachment to his city and to his little threshing floor?

Beatrice tells Dante, in Canto XXI, that her laughter would reduce him to ash, and in Canto XXIII she invites him to open his eyes because he can now bear it. What did he see between the two cantos that made him capable?

The confession that the poem must leap comes in the middle of the canto, between the vision of the sun and the vision of the rose. What effect does the place of the confession have on what the reader understands of the triumph?

Peter objects that the works that prove the faith are guaranteed by the very text that is to be proved, and Dante answers with an argument about the world's conversion. What does this answer presuppose, and what does it leave unproven?

Dante defines faith as the substance of things hoped for and the argument for things not seen, and explains why both words fit. What does each word do, and why does Peter approve the answer before asking for the coin in the purse?

Dante defines hope as a certain expectation and rests it on two sources, the psalmist and the epistle. What difference does the poem make by calling certain what is usually uncertain?

John corrects the belief that his body rose to heaven and sends Dante to carry the correction to the world. Why does the poem link this correction to Dante's blindness when he looks at him?

At the beginning of the canto, Dante says he will return a poet to the font of his baptism. What relation does the poem establish between the promised laurel and the faith examined in the earlier cantos?

John asks Dante to say who directed his bow to the target, and then with how many teeth love bites him. What does each question make Dante show that the previous one did not show?

Adam says that his language was extinct before the work of Nimrod. What changes in the reading of Babel, and in the reading of Canto XXXI of the Inferno, with this information?

Adam states that the cause of the exile was the overstepping of the sign, and not the tasting of the wood. What difference does the poem make between the two descriptions of the fall?

Peter warns that he is about to change color, and the whole heaven changes with him. What does the poem gain by showing anger as a phenomenon of the sky, and not merely as the speech of a saint?

From above, Dante sees Odysseus's passage and Europa's shore, and says nothing. What relation does the poem establish between his own journey and that of Odysseus in Canto XXVI of the Inferno?

Beatrice says that greed sinks mortals and then explains human disorientation by saying that on earth there is no one who governs. What connection does she make between the desire of men and the lack of government?

Dante sees the point of light first reflected in Beatrice's eyes and only afterward turns toward it. What does the order of the scene say about Beatrice's place between Dante and what he sees?

Dante finds it strange that the circles nearest the point are the fastest, the opposite of what is seen in the sensible world. How does Beatrice resolve the objection, and what does she say Dante was measuring wrongly?

Beatrice tells how Gregory laughed at himself on seeing the choirs as they were. What effect does the poem achieve by correcting, through her mouth, one of the greatest doctors of the Church?

Beatrice says that God created not to acquire good, but so that his splendor might say "I subsist." What does this reason exclude, and what does it affirm about the relation between the one who creates and what is created?

In her accusation of the preachers, Beatrice says that the sheep return from pasture full of wind and that not seeing the harm does not excuse them. What share of the blame does the poem place on the listeners?

Beatrice says that the fall of the angels was faster than counting to twenty, and names the pride of Lucifer. What connection does the poem make between that origin and the Lucifer at the bottom of Hell?

Dante says that until now pursuing Beatrice's beauty in verse has never been cut short for him, and that now he gives it up. What changes in the poem with this announced giving up before the final vision?

Beatrice says that the river of light and the topazes are shadowy prefaces of the truth and that the defect is in Dante's eyes. What does the passage say about the relation between what the pilgrim sees and what he is capable of seeing?

Beatrice shows an empty throne for Henry VII and blames greed for Italy's failure. What place does contemporary politics occupy in the midst of the description of the rose?

Seeing the old man in Beatrice's place, Dante cries out where she is, and Bernard replies that she moved him from his place to bring Dante's desire to an end. What does the order of the dialogue show about who decides the change of guide?

Beatrice answers Dante's prayer with a smile and a glance, and returns to the eternal fountain. What does the absence of speech do to her farewell?

Dante looks at Bernard like the pilgrim who sees the Veronica and asks himself whether this was the face of Christ. What does this comparison say about what he expects from the one who contemplates?

Bernard places Eve at the feet of Mary and describes her as the one who opened and pricked the wound that Mary closed. What does the position say about the relation between the fall and its repair?

Bernard says that the children sit by the merit of others and, soon after, that nothing in the realm happens by chance. How does the second statement answer the doubt raised by the first?

Bernard warns that Dante may draw back by beating his own wings and tells him to ask Mary for grace. What does the warning say about the last step of the journey?

Bernard prays to Mary to dispel the clouds of Dante's mortality and, afterward, to keep his affections sound after so much seeing. Why does Bernard already ask, before the vision, for what will only be worth something after it?

Dante says that his seeing was greater than the telling shows and that memory yields to the excess. What does the poem expect from the reader of an account that declares itself incomplete?

The last verse closes on stars, as the other canticles do, and its verb already appears in the first verse of Paradise. What relation does the poem suggest between the end of this canticle and its beginning?

Piccarda says that to desire a higher place would be to disagree with the will that makes her happy (canto III), Justinian calls the difference of seats harmony (canto VI), and Bernard says that the children sit by the merit of others and that nothing in the kingdom happens by chance (canto XXXII). Is the peace the poem describes that of one who no longer desires, or that of one who was taught not to ask?

Thomas has lead put on his feet and warns against judging the harvest before it ripens (canto XIII), the Eagle asks Dante who he is to judge from a thousand miles away with the sight of a palm's breadth (canto XIX), and the whole poem is full of judgments about people and cities. Who can judge, and what does Paradise give Dante to do it?

The man of the Indus is described as without sin and without faith, and the Eagle answers with another question (canto XIX). Rhipeus and the light that common reading takes to be Trajan, two pagans, appear in her eyes (canto XX). What does their salvation explain, and what does she leave open for someone who has no such case?

Cacciaguida tells Dante to say everything, even if the voice is unpleasant at first taste (canto XVII), and Beatrice, further on, accuses the preachers who shout fables from the pulpit (canto XXIX). What does the poem gain by putting its criticism in the mouths of the dead, and what does it lose?

Thomas Aquinas praises Francis and ends by denouncing the flock of Dominic (canto XI); Bonaventure praises Dominic and ends by condemning the extremes of his own order (canto XII). Does the symmetry prove that praise is free, or does it build a defense against anyone who distrusts the mouth that praises?

The poem confesses that memory does not keep up (canto I), that it has to leap (canto XXIII), that the pen leaps (canto XXIV), and that the seeing was greater than the telling (canto XXXIII). Is the repeated confession humility, rhetoric, or the only way to tell the vision?

Peter changes the color of the sky and calls the cemetery where he is buried a sewer (canto XXVII). Beatrice reserves an empty throne for the high Arrigo, whom tradition reads as Henry VII, and blames cupidity (canto XXX). Does politics belong in the Empyrean, or does it clash with it?

Beatrice guides from the first canto to XXXI, answers with a smile, and returns to the fountain (canto XXXI), and Bernard concludes by asking Mary for what Dante cannot reach alone (canto XXXII, canto XXXIII). What does the exchange of guides say about the end of the path, and why is the question about Virgil, who is not among the blessed, left without an answer?