Summary of the cantos
What Dante finds on the riverbank, after the whole journey, is not consolation: it is an accusation made by the one he loved most. The part has four movements. In the first, Beatrice appears in a cloud of flowers and the old love takes hold of him before his eye recognizes her, but the loss of Virgil happens at the same instant, and Beatrice calls him by name, the only time the poem does so. In the second, she makes him confess, and the pain of confession undoes what the harsh words did not undo, until Matelda plunges him into Lethe. In the third, under a bare tree that flowers again, Dante sleeps, wakes and sees the chariot of the Church attacked by an eagle, a fox and a dragon, covered with feathers and transformed into a monster with a harlot and a giant. In the fourth, Beatrice announces, in language she herself calls obscure, that someone will come to punish the two, orders Dante to write what he has seen and hands him over to Matelda for the bath in Eunoe, with which the canticle closes. The question that runs through the four cantos is why purification passes through an accusation spoken aloud, and what Beatrice makes of Dante when she orders him to write.
Canto XXX: Beatrice and Virgil's departure
Summary of the canto
When the north of the first heaven, which never knew setting nor rising nor any other veil of mist than that of guilt, and which there makes each one fulfill his duty as the lower guide steers the helmsman to port, stops firm, the true people who were coming between it and the griffin turn toward the chariot as to their peace. One of them, like a messenger of heaven, cries three times Veni, sponsa, de Libano, and all the others follow him. As the blessed will rise ready, each from his tomb, at the last call, with the voice clothed, singing alleluia, so upon the divine chariot rise a hundred, ministers and messengers of eternal life, who cry Benedictus qui venis, and, casting flowers above and around, ask that lilies be given in full hands.
Analysis
Dante had already seen, at the beginning of the day, the east all rosy and the rest of the sky serene, and the face of the sun rising shaded, so that the eye can bear it for a long time; so, within a cloud of flowers that rises from the angelic hands and falls inside and outside the chariot, there appears to him a woman, with white veil, crowned with olive, beneath a green mantle, dressed in the color of living flame. His spirit, which had long not been broken with awe and trembling in her presence, feels, without his eyes knowing her:
sanza de li occhi aver più conoscenza, / per occulta virtù che da lei mosse, / d’antico amor sentì la gran potenza
, without having any further knowledge through the eyes, by a hidden virtue that moved from her, he felt the great power of ancient love.
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Canto XXXI: The confession and Lethe
Summary of the canto
Beatrice, who until now has spoken to the angels, returns her word to Dante at last, she who had seemed sharp to him even at the edge: O you who are beyond the sacred river, she says, and goes on without delay: say, say whether this is true; to so great an accusation your confession must be joined. Dante's virtue is so confused that the voice moves and goes out before it is released by the organs. She waits a little and asks: what are you thinking? Answer me, for sad memories have not yet been offended in you by the water. Confusion and fear together drag from him a yes, which had to be seen, not heard, to be understood. As the crossbow breaks its string and bow when it fires too taut, and the arrow reaches the mark with less force, so he bursts under the heavy weight, pouring out tears and sighs, and his voice slackens in the passage.
Analysis
Canto XXXII: The tree, the sleep and the chariot
Summary of the canto
Dante's eyes are so fixed and attentive on quenching the thirst of ten years that the other senses fade, and they have on either side a wall of disdain, so much did the holy smile draw them with the old net; until the goddesses turn him by force to the left, because they say: too fixed! The condition of eyes newly struck by the sun leaves him for a time without sight. When it is restored, a little, little compared with the great sensation from which he was torn, he sees the glorious army turned toward the right arm, turning with the sun and the seven flames on its face. As under shields a troop turns to save itself and wheels with its banner before it can change fully, so the militia of the celestial kingdom that went in front passed entirely before the chariot turned at the first tree. The ladies return to the wheels, and the griffin moves the blessed load without a single one of its feathers stirring. Matelda, Statius and Dante follow the wheel that made the orbit with the smaller arc. Thus, walking through the high empty forest, the fault of her who believed the serpent, an angelic note regulated their steps. Perhaps in three flights an unbridled arrow would have covered as much ground as they had moved away when Beatrice descended.
Analysis
Canto XXXIII: The riddle and Eunoe
Summary of the canto
The nymphs begin, alternating now three, now four, a sweet psalmody, Deus, venerunt gentes, and they weep; and Beatrice, sighing and pious, listens to them so changed that Mary herself changed no more at the cross. When the other virgins give her place to speak, she rises and answers, flushed like fire: Modicum, et non videbitis me; et iterum, sorelle mie dilette, modicum, et vos videbitis me. She places the seven before her and, with a single gesture, causes Dante to follow after her, the lady and the sage who had remained. Scarcely had her tenth step come to rest on the ground when she strikes him with her eyes into his eyes and, with a calm look, says: come faster, so that, if I speak with you, you will be well disposed to hear me. When he arrives, she asks: brother, why do you not dare to question me, now that you come with me?
Analysis
Reading of the block of cantos
Analysis