Dante Alighieri - The divine comedy - Paradise

2007 Modern Library Paperback Edition Translation, introduction, and notes copyright 2004 by Random House, Inc.
Biographical note copyright 1996 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. M ODERN L IBRARY and the T ORCHBEARER Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2004. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Dante Alighieri, 12651321
[Paradiso.

English & Italian]
Paradise/Dante Alighieri; translated, edited, and with an introduction by Anthony Esolen; illustrations by Gustave Dor.
p. cm.
Text of Dantes Paradise in English and Italian.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-42254-5
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8129-7726-4
I. Esolen, Anthony M. II. Title. PQ4315.4.E7613 2004
851.1dc22 2004049940 www.modernlibrary.com v3.1

A PPENDIX A
Dante, Letter to Cangrande della Scala A PPENDIX B
Dante, from the Convivio A PPENDIX C
Thomas Aquinas, Eucharistic Hymns A PPENDIX D
Saint Francis of Assisi, The Canticle of Brother Sun A PPENDIX E
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, from Commentary on the Song of Songs and from a Sermon on the Virgin Mary In this eBook edition of Paradise, you will find several types of hyperlinks.

The first type is embedded in the line numbers to the left of the text: these links allow you to click back and forth between the English translation and the original Italian text while still holding your place. The second type of link, which is indicated by a superscript number, will bring you to a note on the text. The third type of link, which is indicated by an arrow () at the end of a line of poetry, will bring you to a thematic endnote. You can click on an arrow to navigate to the appropriate endnote; you can then use the links at the end of each endnote to return to your location in either the English translation or the original Italian text. You can also click on the note number to return to your location in the English translation.

Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet whose great allegory The Divine Comedy has exerted a profound effect on Western literature and thought, was born in Florence in May 1265.

He came from a noble though impoverished family, descendants of the citys Roman founders. Relatively little is known with certainty about Dantes early life, but it is noteworthy that he grew up during the restless period that followed decades of blood rivalry between two Florentine political groups, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. His childhood was doubtless colored by stories of this partisan strife from which, as Machiavelli later wrote, there resulted more murders, banishments, and destruction of families than ever in any city known to history. Dante probably received his early schooling from the Franciscans and the Dominicans; later, he studied rhetoric with the Guelph statesman and scholar Brunetto Latini. Another significant mentor was the aristocratic poet Guido Cavalcanti, who strongly influenced his early work. For the young Dante, writing poetry became an important expression of his passion for art and learning, and of his abiding concern with the nature of love and spiritual fulfillment.

A Florentine woman of exceptional beauty, Beatrice Portinari, provided a powerful stimulus to the poets artistic development. Dante idealized her as the bringer of blessings, a beatific guide capable of pointing him toward the inner perfection sought by every noble mind. Following her untimely death in 1290, Dante, overcome with grief, celebrated her grace and virtue in La vita nuova (129294), a small book of memory written in verse and prose. He then sought renewal in an extensive study of theology and philosophy. In 1295 Dante entered public life and within a few years emerged as a prominent figure in Florentine politics. By then he had entered into an arranged marriage with Gemma Donati, a gentlewoman with whom he had several children.

In the summer of 1300 Dante was named one of the six governing magistrates of Florence. During this time he was involved in the clash between two hostile factions of the Guelph party, the Whites and the Blacks. Aligning himself with the White Guelphs, Dante campaigned to preserve the independence of Florence and repeatedly opposed the machinations of Pope Boniface VIII, who was attempting to place all of Tuscany under papal control. In 1301, however, the Black Guelphs seized power, and Dante was banished at once on trumped-up charges of graft, embezzlement, and other transgressions. Later sentenced to death by fire if he returned to Florence, Dante never entered his native city again. Dantes remaining years were spent with a series of patrons in various courts of Italy.

Two uncompleted works date from his early period of exile. De vulgari eloquentia (13034), a scholarly tract in Latin on the eloquence of the Italian vernacular, is generally acknowledged to be the key to Dantes artistic inquiries. Il convivio (13047), a glorification of moral philosophy, is viewed as the cornerstone of his investigations into knowledge and wisdom. Perhaps as early as 1306, Dante began to compose The Divine Comedy, the greatest poem of the Middle Ages and the first masterpiece of world literature written in a modern European language. The Latin treatise De monarchia (131213), a practical guide calling for the restoration of peace in Europe under a secular ruler in Rome, is a statement of the poets political theories.

In a dark and superstitious age, with even the memory of learning fading like a dream, when the cultural conditions of life prevent most people from deriving real pleasure from the simple duties of home and family and village, mens vain imaginations invent for themselves another world. In a dark and superstitious age, with even the memory of learning fading like a dream, when the cultural conditions of life prevent most people from deriving real pleasure from the simple duties of home and family and village, mens vain imaginations invent for themselves another world.

They project into that world what little they know of this one, imagining a God like a great and kindly old man, who forgives their failings unconditionally and allows them to continue in their present pastimes: to fish, to hunt, to gossip with friends, to lounge in the sun at the side of a lake. Such a God is a wonderfully convenient balm to their bruised hearts and egos; for in this world of ours, man is terribly small, born in pain, living through trouble and heartache, and dying in doubt or despair. Men cry not so much to be made whole and good as to be let off the hook, to get away without dying, and so they attribute magical powers, even on this side of the grave, to cards, stones, powders, herbs, and ointments, reducing the almighty Creator of the universe to an easily manipulable force, to a tool, like a stock or a stone. Thankfully, it has not always been so. It is commonly said that the Paradise is the most medieval of the three canticles of Dantes masterpiece. I am not sure what the epithet means.

If it means that it is the most firmly grounded in Dantes culture, in the embroilments of Dantes time and place, I must wonder what has happened to all the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Hell, and all the poets and patriots making their slow way up the Mountain of Purgatory. With the exception of the Cacciaguida cantos, what the annotator of