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The Final Image: Paradiso XXXIII, 144Author(s): John FrecceroReviewed work(s):Source: MLN, Vol. 79, No. 1, Italian Issue (Jan., 1964), pp. 14-27Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3042718 .

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THE FINAL IMAGE: PARADISOXXXIII, 144

JOHN FRECCERO

At the end of the poem,when the pilgrim'svision is complete,his powersfailhim and he is toucheddirectly y the hand ofGod:A l'alta fantasiaqui manc6 possa;ma git volgeva il mio disio e il velle,si come rota ch'igualmente mossa,l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.(Par. XXXIII, 142-45.)

High fantasy ailedhim then,beforethe pilgrimbecame the poetwhose account we have just finishedreading. Now, however,hehas a responsibilityo approximatethatmoment n his verses. Hisexperience-perhaps ll experience, ltimately-remainsncommuni-cable. Nevertheless, poet who would bear witnessof the Lightmustmake his peace with the limitations f the flesh. The finalsimile is Dante's compromise,here and now, the closesthis artcan come to what for us is out of reach.To refuse o examine thatsimiletoo closelyon the ratherfacilegrounds hat t transcends ur understandings to confuse henowof the poet with the then of his persona. If, as Natalino Sapegnosuggests,hefailureof fantasia coincideswiththefailureofpoeticrepresentation, hen it is no longer possible to distinguishtheintricacy f the simile fromthe ineffable uality of the vision itseeks to approximate. But the failurehere is ours, not Dante's,forwhile the finalsimile is profound, t is totallycoherent; the

ILa Divina commedia, edited by N. Sapegno (La letteratura italiana, storiae testi, V; Milan, 1957), p. 1197.14

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M L N 15mysticalfervor t recalls remains a memory,ndelible,to be sure,butnot so overwhelminghatthepoet can forget itherhis learningor his art as he seeksto recapture t. Until the last stagesof thepilgrim's ourney, his was a faith seeking understanding;fidesquaerens ntellectum.Now thathe has attained all thathe sought,we musttake the poetic facton faithand seek an understandingof our own-which is to say that although we cannot followthepilgrim o theheights,we can at leastriseto thepoet'scompro-mise. To fall short s merelyto approximatewhat is alreadyanapproximation.For all its poetic immediacy, he final magemakes considerabledemandsupon our learning. In thefirst lace, although thevisionitself ranscended ll humanunderstanding, ante does nothesitateto use a technicalscholasticterm,velle, as he describes ts effect.There can be nothingvague about theword, for t is used in con-junctionwithdisio,so close to it in meaningthatunlesswe defineboth precisely,velle seems redundant and its use here pedantic.Secondly,although no image will suffice o recall that intenselypersonalexperience, hepoet neverthelessurnsto a commonplacemystical heme,the circularturningof the stars,to describethefinal integration. Moreover,because he has also used the wordstelle at the close of both of thepreceding antiche, t seemsclearthat he has transformedhecommonplace nto a structurallementof some importance n the poem and has thereforemade of itsomethingprofoundlyhis own. Finally, the comparisonof thewheel needs some clarification.The syntaxof the precedingversesets up a barrierto our visualizationof it, for it is one imagestandingfortwo movements.The Love thatmoves the sun andtheother tarsturnedtwopowers,disio and velle, as a singlewheelis moved. Eitherthefinalmovement s not so simple as it appearsto be,or disioand vellearenot so distinct s poeticprecisionwouldseemto require.There is moreat stakehere, n thepreciseunderstanding f thesimile,thanmerely formalprinciple. If, alongwith themajorityof critics,2we take the final mage to be that of a circlemovingaround a divine point,which is at once the source of the soul'smotion and its most intimatepossession, point withwhich the

2 For a summaryof critical opinion, see Siro A. Chimenz, 11 canto XXXIIIdel "Paradiso" (Nuova "Lectura Dantis "; Rome, 1956), esp. p. 33.

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16 M L Nsoul coincides,we simplify,nd therefore alsify, ante's idea ofthesoul's ultimaterelationship o God. The finalmovement f thesoul is not simply heprivatefruition f a personalpossession. InDante's view,which is not the view of a solipsist,the completefulfillment f the soul's desires s at the same time an integrationwiththerestof creation.The circular urning f the soutdoes notshut out externalrealitybut rather oins with it in the majesticsweepofthe finalverse. If thiswere a purely ubjectivefulfillment,a romantic potheosisoftheselfto theexclusionof all others, herewould be littleneed of a complexapproximation-a closed circleor a Mallarmeanpage blanchewould have done equally well. Butprecisely ecause thatpersonalfulfillment as at the same timeanobjectivecommitmento the cosmicorder, t entailed a responsi-bility o bearwitness fthe Light, s do the sun and theother tars-therein ies its complexity.The finalsimile, then,is not only amost intimateexpressionof self-fulfillment,ut also public testi-monyof God's grace: " l'essemplo basti/ a cui esperienzagraziaserba" (Par. I, 71-72). It is to the finalessemplothat we mustnow turn.

Dante could hardlyhave been more explicit. The last imageis not of a circle, but of a wheel: " si come rota ch'igualmentemossa." Yet, in spite of the apparentsimplicity f the comparison,or perhaps because of it, it does not seem to have evoked anycoherent mage in the minds of itsnumerouscommentators. ene-dettoCroce,3forexample,called into questionthe poeticworthofthelast cantoprecisely n the groundsthatDante had surrenderedpoeticvision to abstract hought; nd, whilemanyhave quarreledwith the verdict,4 ew have debated the evidence. No one, so faras I know,has bothered to considerthe difference etween thecircle, geometricbstraction,nd the concrete bjectthat mbodiesit. Such an oversights easy to understand.We are so accustomedto the symbolof the circle in the mysticaltraditionand in theworksof Dante himself hat we read it here, into the word rota,and explain the verbal discrepancywith more scholarship,thistimeof the exegeticvariety:givena context uch as this, scholarmight be reminded of the famous vision of another prophet-Ezekiel-and ofthe wheelshe saw.5 Because Biblical exegetes ften

8" L'ultimo canto della Commedia," in Poesia antica e moderns (Bari, 1943).4 See S. A. Chimenz,op. cit., pp. 1 ff.5Ezek. 1:16 and 10:2.

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M L N 17glossed the vision of the prophet in anagogic terms,6t seemslogical enough to referto Ezekiel'swinged and fierywheels here,in ordertoexplain thepresence f thewordrota whereour learninghad led us to expecta circle,pure and simple.If thiswere some other poet, such a referencewould perhapsbe enough. The staticallegoryof this for that,characteristicfthe mainstreamof medieval exegesis,ordinarilydoes quite wellfor the extractionof generalmeaningfrom particularstatement,although n theprocess t usuallyreducesdialecticto juxtapositionand poetic experienceto banality. For Dante, however, t will notdo. The poet whosought ogivedynamic ncarnation o his experi-ence began fromthe image and communicatedmeaning in it aswell as through t. He could scarcelyhave been contentwithpointingvaguely n thedirection fBiblical traditionwithan imagethatmeant nothing n itself. It is with the image that we musttherefore egin, and it is with the image that Ezekiel's texthelpsus not at all. The Biblical wheel, we are told, is, among otherthings, wheel within a wheel,rota in medio rotae, a mysteriousdescription hatwas takenby various exegetesto mean anythingfrom elestialcoluresto fiery ubcaps.7 To explain Dante's wheelbymeansofEzekiel's,therefore,s to beg the questionand to enterupon a logical circleof our own. The text of Ezekiel providesuswithonlythe Biblical resonance f Dante's verse.For the substance,however,we shall have to leave staticallegoryand turn to thedynamics f ChristianNeoplatonism.The problem of understandingDante's image of the wheel isprobably denticalwiththe problemofvisualizingEzekiel'swheelas Dante visualized it. The solutionof both problems, believe,begins to become apparent froma closer reading of a text thatDante scholarshave knownabout for a long time. Bruno Nardi 8has suggestedthat the commentary f Pseudo-Dionysiuson thewheelsof Ezekiel was of some importanceforthe introduction fNeoplatonicideas into thescholastic octrines f beatitude. Diony-sius applies the figure f thewheel to the angels and attempts nanagogicreadingofEzek. 1:16 and 10:2:

d For a convenientresume of the history of exegetic opinion, see Corneliusa Lapide, Commentaria in quatuor prophetas maiores (Antwerp, 1703), pp.944-45 and 960-64.7Ibid., p. 944: " Erant ergo hae quatuor currus Dei rotae quasi quatuorcoluri . . ."; or " erat modiolus, qui solet esse in rotis."8Nel mondo di Dante (Rome, 1944), pp. 339 ff.

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18 M L NAs forthewingedwheelsthatadvanceunerringly ithout werving,they ignifyhe powerto advance straighthead, in a straight ine,on the straightway unerringly,hanksto a perfect otation,whichis notofthisworld.... These fiery heels,whichreceivethedivineform,have the power to turn upon themselves ecause theymoveperpetually round the highestgood.9Nardi's intentionin his justly famous article was to trace thestruggleof the Schoolmen to reconcile the Aristotelian dea ofbeatitude as eternal restwith the Platonic idea of eternalcircula-tion, an idea which was transmitted o them throughDionysiusthe Areopagite n texts uchas theone just quoted. The relevanceof the discussionfor the historicaland philosophicalbackgroundof Dante's verse was considerable, lthough t contributed ittle toour literal understanding f the verse itself. It mighthave con-tributedmore, however,had the learnedDantist noticed that thepassage fromthe Areopagitedescribesnot only circulation,butforwardmotion as well: a circle turnsendlesslyn the abstract nddescribesa single simplemotion,and is for thatveryreason thetraditionalsymbol of perfection r eternity.But when a wheelturns, t goes somewhere. So Dionysius mentions" perfectrota-tion," wheels turning" upon themselves," heir perpetual move-ment" around the highestGood "; but at the same timehe addsthat the wheels "advance . . . straight head, in a straight ine,on the straightway." Thus, the productof angelic rotation s aforwardmotion. A wheel is movedby itscenter, s is thecircle ofthemystics; imultaneously,owever, hewheel's point of tangencywith the groundgives it rectilinear hrust, nd it movesforwardas well as around. Like themovement f the pilgrim, hemotionofthewheel itself s uniform igualmentemossa) and yet ogicallytwofold.The distinction etweenthe movement f a wheel and the move-ment of a circle was as obvious to Dante's contemporaries s itis to us. Thomas Aquinas, forexample,unlikemost commentatorson the Divine Comedy,takes pains not to confuse the two. Hiscommentaryn Aristotle'sdefinition f circulatio as the first ndmostperfect fmotions ntroduces he distinctionn an unexpected

9De caelesti hierarchia XV, 9 [my translation]. Because ProfessorNardi'sessay studies the subsequent historyof this passage in scholastic thought, Ihave not thoughtit necessaryto repeat the surveyhere.

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M L N 19context.His point is thatnot all circularityan qualifyas simplemotion:Dicit ergo primoquod " circulatio," destmotuscircularis, icitur" qui est circamedium." Et est ntelligendum irca mundi medium:rota enim,quae movetur circa mediumsui, non moveturpropriecirculariter; ed motus eius est compositusex elevatione et de-pressione.10The example of the turningwheel serves here as an illustrationof circular motion that is not simple,but compound: a terrestrialwheel turnsaround its own center n a circle,but withrespecttothe earth t moves n a rectilinear ashion. So, in the passagefromPseudo-Dionysius,he angelic wheelsrotate,but at the same timeascend to heaven. Similarly,Dante's celestialwheel moves in twodirections, nd thus he calls it a wheel and not a circle. Hispersonal fulfillments representedby a perfectrotationaroundGod, upon whom he is centered. At the same time, however,because he moves n harmonywith therestofcreation, epresentedby the heavenlybodies, the forwardmotion is along the circulartrack that surrounds God. The pilgrim'smotion is not only arotation around the interior bject of his desire, but also, becausethe contact with realityis never lost, a revolutionaround thespiritual centerof theuniverse. The same revolutioncarrieswithit the angelicIntelligences f the spheres;they n turntransmithemotivepowerof PrimalLove to the sun and the otherstars.All of this s implicit n the iteral mage. In order to understandits tropologicmplicationsmore fully,wemustturnnowtoexaminethe sourceof the image of the wheel, commonboth to Dionysiusand toDante. Withoutmuch doubt,we can affirmhat fthe wheelof beatitude s Ezekiel's, t is also Plato's. Here again, as throughoutthepoem, twas to thetradition ftheTimaeus thatDante turnedin orderto find poeticrepresentation f a spiritualdevelopment.For Plato,paideia was notsimply goal,but was rather develop-ment,a shaping or evolutionof the human personality. n orderto capture its dynamism,however, and to translate into staticconceptswhat he believed to be spiritualbecoming,he needed a10 Opera omnia (Commentaria in libros Arist. de Caelo et mundo . . .;Rome, 1886), III, p. 11 (I, 2, lect. 3, n. 27). [Italics added.] The passage isquoted and brieflydiscussed in Thomas Litt, Les corps celestes dans l'universde saint Thomas d'Aquin (Philosophes medievaux VII; Louvain and Paris,1963), p. 342.

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20 MLNpoetic language thatwould captureboth the immutabletruthofthe goal and the vitalityof the process. He chose a corporealanalogy n orderto givepoeticsubstance o his theory f education.To distinguishmodes ofknowledge,forexample,he establishedsymbolicdichotomybetweenthe eye of the body and the eye ofthe soul, while the dynamic tselfwas translated nto its physicalanalogues: the ourneyor theflight. t was thePythagoreanystemof the Timaeus, however,that insertedboth the poetic substanceand thedynamic f thePlatonic allegoryntoa symbolic osmologythat gave to man a centralplace in the universeand at the sametimegave to the physical aws of that universea moral,which isto saya human,dimension.WernerJaeger 1has shownthatwhenthemorphosis f Plato changed its name to deificatio, hehumananabasis became divine, and Plato's paideia was transmitted oposterityn a new form, s imitatioChristi.This amalgam of Platonic imagery nd Christian doctrine waspreciselyhe compromise o whichDante turned n orderto expresshis vision. In a seriesofprevious tudies have attempted o showhow several hemesn theDivine Comedy re ultimately ependent,if noton Plato's text, hen t least on his influence.12What concernsus now is thefinal cene of thedrama ofhumanperfections Platostages it, for it is against that Platonic backgroundthat Dante'sfinalverses re to be understood. Because oftheanalogy establishedby Plato between physicalmovementand spiritual development,perfectionn the spiritualorder was symbolizedn the Timaeus byperfectmotion n theuniverse:the diurnal movement f thefixedstars.The soul began its pre-existencen the stars, nd it is to thestarsthat theperfectoul will return,whenthe perfect circlingsof itsmind will exactlymatchthe circlingsof the universe. Thefirstmovement f the heavens,the twenty-four-hourirclingof allheavenlybodies, is a manifestation f the perfect ntelligenceofthe world-soul, he anima mundi,whichcarriesaround withit allthings,ncludingthestar-soulshemselves. n thisPlatonicversionof the microcosm-macrocosmnalogy, the Demiurge created thestar-soulsccording o the samepattern nd with thesamematerialthathe used fortheworld-soul, o that each individual soul also"1Early Christianity nd GreekPaideia (Cambridge, Mass., 1961). Accordingto Jaeger, t was Gregoryof Nyssa who was primarilyresponsible for the Chris-tian adaptation of these themes.12 See esp. " Dante's Pilgrim in a Gyre," PMLA, LXXVI (June, 1961).

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M L N 21moves s the world-soul, ccording owhat Plato called " themotionof the same and uniform."As the world-soulrotates endlessly na perfect ircle (i. e., the diurnal turning f the heavens), so eachindividual soul rotates upon its own center. But the individualsouls are also carried roundbytheperfectmovement f the world-soul because of the universal symphony,harmonia, that reignsthroughout he cosmos. Thus, the souls move with two motions,and thestars,whichmanifest he movement f thosesouls,rotateaswell as revolve. In the followingpassage, Plato explains themeaningof the twomotionsthat theDemiurgegivesto the stellargods:And he assignedto each two motions: one uniform n the sameplace, as each always thinksthe same thoughtsabout the samethings; the other a forwardmotion, as each is subjected to therevolution f thesame and uniform i.e., thediurnal motion]....For thisreason came into being all the unwandering tars, ivingbeingsdivine and everlasting,whichabide foreverrevolvinguni-formly pon themselves.13By assuming hatthe fixed tarsnot onlyrevolve round theheavensbut also rotate on their own axes, Plato providedhimselfwith aperfectnalogueofthe twin spect of ntellectual erfection: erfectcirclingwithin,because of a fixity f knowledgeand purpose,aswell as perfect ircling without,because of a perfect ntegrationinto a harmonious osmicorder. It is thisrepresentationftwofoldperfection hat is the ancestorof Dante's celestialwheel. For con-firmation f what at thispoint seemsonly likely,we have merelyto turn to the Latin translationof this passage by Chalcidius.Describingthe twomovements, e says:alterum ircum eperque eandemorbitam emper beuntem adem-que semperdeliberantem c de isdemratiocinantem,lterumverotalem,qui semperultra procederegestiens iusdematque inmuta-bilis naturae coercitionentraobiectum ius rotabundus eneretur.14The unusual adjectiverotabundus,whichdoes not appear in LatinbeforeChalcidiusso faras I know, ssociates hetwofoldmovement

13 Timaeus 40A-B, trans. by F. M. Cornford in Plato's Cosmology: TheTimaeus of Plato (The Libraryof Liberal Arts; New York, 1957; reprinted fromoriginal ed., Cambridge, 1937), p. 118.I' Platonis Timaeus interprete Chalcidio, edited by J. Wrobel (Leipzig,1876), pp. 40-41. [Italics added.]

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22 M L Nof theheavenswiththeword rota,so that the phrasemotusrota-bundusmightwell be translated nto Italian by thewords" comerota ch'igualmente mossa." In a context uch as this,combininga twofoldhuman perfectionwithastronomical magery, sophisti-cated contemporary f Dante would not have failed to associatethe two expressions.Because Plato's assertion hat the starsrotateon theirown axeswas based upon an a priorimetaphysical ssumptionratherthanupon a desireto account for appearances, t was rejectedby Aris-totle in the De caelo, and therefore y most of his followers. Itnevertheless emained as one of the alternativeanswers to anempirically nsoluble question concerningthe motus proprius ofthe fixedstars.15Of more interest o us than the history f thepurely scientific uestion, however, s the survival of the meta-physical xigency, owhichPlato hoped to respondwithhis stellartheory.16 ccording o Plato, a starwas a beingwitha soul,whichis to say,a self-movingrinciple:apx- KLVfucus.t therefore ad tohave a movement roperto itself,ndependentof, but in harmonywith, hemovement fthesame and uniform.Moreover, o perfectwas such a soul that the movement t caused had to be the mostperfect f all, a selfsamemovement,whichcould be onlya rotationin thesameplace. Thus, whilethestarrevolves round theheavenwith the diurnal motionbecause of its perfect ubjugationto thedominionof theworld-soul,t also rotateswitha uniform ircularmotionbecause of its individual perfection.Aristotledid not sharePlato's theory f the soul and thereforehad to accountforcelestialmovementn terms fhis own theoryofmotion.17He accomplishedthisby substituting orPlato's star-souls the Intelligencesof the spheres,which the Christiansweremuch later to adopt into their own cosmologiesby identifying

16 See, for instance,Pseudo-Honorius (William of Conches?), De philosophiamundi II, 7, entitled" De infixis tellis utrummoveantur,"where the followingstatement is rejected: " Alii dicunt eas etiam proprio motu moveri, quiaigneae sunt naturae, nec aliquid in aethere vel in aere sine motu possit sustinerised semper in eodem loco et circum se moveri" (PL 172:59).1"The following resume is taken from A. E. Taylor, Commentaryon Plato'sTimaeus (Oxford, 1928), p. 225. For the dissenting view of the Timaeusand a general view of motion in the dialogue (apart from that of Cornford,op. cit.), see J. B. Skemp, The Theory of Motion in Plato's Later Dialogues(Cambridge, 1942), esp. pp. 81, 83, 101.17 See the resum& of Aristotle's doctrine in B. Nardi, op. cit., pp. 344ff.

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MMLN 23themwith the angels of revelation.1sThe symbolicmechanicsofPlato's Timaeus was not,however,neglectedbyChristianthinkers;it entered nto the angelology nd mysticismf Pseudo-Dionysius,who used the patternsof motion contained in the Timaeus todescribethe spiritualmovement f the angels.19ProfessorNardi 20has demonstratedhatDante presented reconciliation fPlatonicand Aristoteliantheoriesof motion when he staged the circulardance of the moversof the spheres around God-derived fromDionysius-in orderto explain themovement f the spheres roundtheearth, ccording to the theories fAristotle. t should also benoted that, thanks to the analogy between the human and theangelicor stellar oul, a keypartof thedoctrineofbothDionysiusand Plato, the symbolicmovements f thehuman soul, in thiscaseofthepilgrim, re also analogous to themovement f theheavens,throughout he poem, but especiallyhere at the finalmoment.21The angels are the analogical link betweenthe perfectmotionofthe pilgrim nd themotionof the stars. This explains theassocia-tion of human perfectionwith themovementof " il sole e l'altrestelle." We may expect that a closer look at Dante's angelologywill shed some further ighton the specificmeaningof the imageof the wheel.In the twenty-eighthanto of theParadiso, Dante explains thatthe angels move like circlesof fire around God, the point fromwhichall lightradiates. They are movedby the desireto " somi-gliarsi al punto quanto ponno; / posson quanto a veder sonsublimi (Par. XXVIII, 100-102) The same s trueofthe pilgrim'sfinalmovement:he is movedby Love to whirlaround the DivineEssence,but his abilityto do so is governedby his abilityto seethat essence. His final blinding vision is the fulfillmentf hisintellectualdesire by the grace of God, to which his will subse-quentlyrespondswiththerevolutionof Love.The precedenceof vision over action,or of intellectover will,

18 Ibid.; see also Pierre Duhem, Le systemedu monde (Paris, 1916), IV, pp.422-559.19J. Freccero, rt. cit. (n. 12), pp. 174-76.20 op. cit.,pp. 347-48.21 See, for example, Averro&s'resume of the theme of the Timaeus: " idestquod actiones celi sunt eedem cum actionibus anime" [AverroisCordubensiscommentariummagnum in Aristotelis de anima libros, edited by F. StuartCrawford (Corpus commentariorumAverrois n AristotelemVI, 1; Cambridge,Mass., 1953), p. 63].

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24 MLNis a rationalisticprinciplederivedfromAristotle o whichDantealwaysremainedfaithful.22n his fallen state, ccordingto Dante,man's abilityto understand xceedshis abilityto will,while in thefaithful, vogliae argomento.. diversamenteonpennuti n ali "(Par. XV, 79-81), because, while the will approaches perfectionthanks o sanctifying race,the reason s still dependentupon faithand must go on, quaerens intellectum.But in the souls of theblessed,as the pilgrim aysto Beatrice,

... L'affetto '1senno,come la prima equalita v'apparse,d'un peso per ciascundi voi si fenno;pero che '1 sol che v'allumo e arsecol caldo e con la luce, b si iguali,che tuttesimiglianze ono scarse.(Par. XV, 73-78.)

The souls who have seen God enjoy a perfect qualityof powers,forthe twinpowersof the soul reach theirown specific erfectionwhen the soul beholds la prima equalita in His essence. The in-tellect,whichdesiresunceasingly oknow, s at last satisfied,ecausein knowingGod it knowsall that it possibly an know. The will,theperfection fwhich s to love,celebrates hePrimal Love in aneternalfruition.23But the objects of these two powers are not, strictlypeaking,the same, for,as Aristotle ays in the Metaphysics,24he Good issomething xterior o us (in rebus), while theTrue, on the otherhand, is always within (in mente). Therefore,the will, whoseobject is theGood, alwaystendstowardwhat is exterior o it andis contentedonly when it encircles ts object in eternal fruition,while the Intellect,whose object is the True, is contentedonlywhen it possessesthe Truth at the verycenterof its being,by a

22 See, among others,B. Nardi, op. cit., pp. 295 ff.For man in his fallen state,cf. Thomas Aquinas, In quat. sent. d. XVII, q. I, a. 3, sol. 3, and esp. his citationof Augustine: " Praecedit intellectus, equitur tardus aut nullus affectus."28 For Thomas's doctrine of the will's fruition, ee Summa theol. I-II, q. 11:"De fruitione, uae est actus voluntatis."24 V, c. 4, n. 1 (1027b 25) . Thomas uses the distinction to show that initself the intellect is a higher power than the will. When, however, " res inqua est bonum est nobilior ipsa anima, in qua est ratio intellecta . . . voluntasest altior intellectu." In the poem, the blinding vision " equalizes " the twopowers,so that intellectand will are equally matched.

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MLN 25connaturalitywhich is a mirror mage of what it sees.25 In thebeatificvision,when the soul standsin the presenceof the One,True, and Good, the FirstEquality is somehowboth the centerof an action, outside,and the centerof a visionwithin. It is onepoint, which moves the soul uniformly, oth from within andwithout, ike a wheel whose forward evolution s constantly ndexactlyproportional o itsrotationbecause of itsuniformmotion.26If it is true that the reason and the will are logicallydistinct,it is also truethat theyare ontologically ne, just as theirobjectis ontologicallyOne. The rotating nd revolvingwheel thereforesymbolizes hemperfectly,nd its uniformityf motionperfectlyrepresentshe exactproportion hatexistsbetweenthetwo spiritualmotionsof the soul. The Divine Point is perfectly eflectednthemind and coincideswith the soul-but the forceof the posses-sive pronoun in Dante's verse (il mio disio) is directedagainstthetotalabsorptionofpersonalitynto that dentity.The intellectreaches its most profounddesire and is thereforemost perfectlyitself,n all its individuality,when it coincideswithGod. Dante'sdoctrineconcerningthe mind's desire forGod and the ultimatesatisfaction f that desire is expressed n the fourth anto of theParadiso (124-29) :

Io veggio ben che gia' mai non si sazianostrointelletto, e '1 ver non lo illustradi fuordal qual nessun vero si spazia.Posasi in esso come fera n lustra,tostoche giuntol'ha; e guignerpuollo:se non, ciascun disio sarebbefrustra.25 The famous lines of the ninth meter of Book III of the Consolation ofPhilosophy are interpreted n this epistemologicalsense by Erigena (?). Of thelines, " In semet reditura meat mentemque profundam/Circuit et simili con-vertit magine caelum," he says, ". . . melius est in hoc loco animam humanamintelligamus." Thus the germ of Dante's interpretation f the Timaeus analogyis already contained in Erigena [Saeculi nonis auctoris in Boetii Con. philos.comm.,edited by E. T. Silk (Papers and Monographsof the AmericanAcademyin Rome; Rome, 1935), p. 186].28 B. Nardi (op. cit., pp. 349-50) effectively efuted previous attempts tointerpretthe word igualmente in termsof some other unspecifiedwheel. Hesuggested that the word aequaliter in scholastic textssimplymeans "uniform."But because the intellect is brought to superhuman vision at this point, itis also true to say that the soul is equally moved by its now equal intellectand will. The motion of the soul is uniformpreciselybecause of the exactcorrespondence f the poet's vision and fruition.

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26 M L NIt is in the last canto thatthe thirst f the intellect s satisfiedndthe pilgrim'sdisio fulfilled. As Dante uses the word disio in theverseswe have just quoted, it can refer nly to intellectualdesire,as it does mostof the time n thepoem.27To understandwhytheword has thisanagogic connotation,we have only to turnto thefirstwords of the Philosopher in his First Philosophy: " omneshominesnaturasciredesiderant."Dante in turnquotesAristotlenthefirst ine oftheConvivio,his " first philosophy, nd so beginsthe quest which will take him beyond philosophyto the visionof God.28The centerof theintellectual ircleof the soul is the point thatin turn traces the circumferencef anothercircle,with a muchwider sweep. This is the circle of velle, of the will, properlyspeaking. It symbolizes he perfect ct of fruition,which is thenecessarynd naturalend of thewill. The wordvelleheredenotes,as it does forThomas Aquinas,29 he unshakableadherenceof thewill to itsnaturalend,which t lovesin itself.As the angelswhirlaround God in thecircular trackthat s movedby Love, thevelleof the pilgrim oins themand the restof creation n a dance ofglory.The rateand proximity fhis orbit s governed, s is theirs,by the intensity f his vision at the centerof his being, which,because of the mechanismof intellect, s both God and himself(Fig. 1) 30GeorgesPoulet 1 has suggested hat n the final antosofDante's

27 E.g., Purg. V, 85; Par. II, 40; XXVIII, 52; XXX, 70; etc. My friendandteacher Charles Singleton has already discussed in his lectures at the Gaussseminars (Princeton, 1961) the importance of these two words here and inCanto V of the Inferno, where Dante describes a movement antithetical tothis. It is because I am convinced that when these studies are published theywill constitute definitiveiterary nterpretation f the closingof the Commediathat I have confined my efforts rimarily to describing the literal image ofv. 144.

28 See B. Nardi's remarkson the passage, op. cit.,pp. 43-46.29 For thesensesofvelle in Thomas Aquinas, see W. R. O'Connor, The EternalQuest (New York, 1947), pp. 121-25. My reading of the literal image mayhelp somewhat in the understandingof what has always seemed to me thecryptic nterpretationofferedby Pietro di Dante: " unde ejus desiderium exparte objecti, et ejus velle ex parte sui, volvebatur in non plus velle" [PetriAllegherii commentarium, dited by V. Nannucci (Florence, 1845), III, p. 739].The object here can only mean God, at the centerof the soul, whereas vellesignifiesthe wheel itself. The singular verb denotes the essential unity of thetwopowersof the soul.80I am indebted to my colleague David I. Grossvogel of Cornell Universityfor the illustration n Figure 1.81Les metamorphosesdu cercle (Paris, 1961), p. xv.

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M L N 27poem, the attributes f God are in a sense sharedby the pilgrim,inasmuch as the pilgrim's soul is a centerwhich contains theinfinitesphere of divinity. The movementby which the soulapproachesGod is thus a movementof " concentration that isaccomplished n thedepthsof the soul itself.But if the pilgrim'ssoul resemblesGod, thenthe mystical efinitionf God also appliesto it: a circumferences well as a center.32 ven in beatificvision,

/ 1..~~~~~~~' \/~~~~~~~~O;cE 0 IOSMO

FIG. 1. Motus rotabundus. (Sketchby D. 1. Grossvogel.)

whenGod becomesthe soul'smost ntimatepossession, heexternalworld ofsuns and starsnever ceasesto exist. The dialecticbetweenthehuman soul and God was for Dante neverto be dissolved ntoits two polarities, s it was later in the Renaissance. Justas indi-viduality ould not be totally bsorbed nto divinity,o God couldnot be completely educed to the proportions f the human soul.The dialectic was maintained by its synthesis, he Incarnation,whichis to say that the final mage maintains ts coherenceonlybythegraceof thevisionthatprecedes t.Cornell University

82 The phrase whose historyProfessor Poulet has traced, "Deus est sphaeracujus centrum ubique, circumferentianusquam," is quoted by Cornelius aLapide (who attributes it to Parmenides) in his remarks on the wheel ofEzekiel (loc. cit.).