Paradiso 33: Song of the Return1 Arielle Saiber And now the Pilgrim is about to encounter God, and the Poet is about to write the last words of the Commedia. Neither Pilgrim nor Poet will have an easy time with closure—if closure this actually is—nor will the reader. This last song—which sings of the Pilgrim’s return both to his Divine Home and to his mundane one— invites our vision to lift itself più alto verso l'ultima salute (Par. 33.27–28).2 This canto, offering the highest verses of the poem, is among the most beautiful penned in Western literature. How can one convey in words That Which is beyond words? Can the ineffable be expressed only through sleight of hand, in the negative space that exists between words? Or does that task demand the total of all words resounding together? Or, if in the beginning was the Word (John 1:1), then perhaps That Word is the only one that can speak Itself? “Seeing God,” as William Franke states, “could only be a form of ‘writing.’ ”3 Metaphors for God, he continues, “are fundamentally metaphors of language.”4 Whether the Pilgrim actually sees God in his essence, or has a mediated experience of God, or imagines what it would be like if he did see God, or merely understands that the nature of the Incarnation is a matter of continued debate, the Poet chose to indicate that such a meeting, which he calls a visïone (62), took place. As the Pilgrim/Poet circles the Word with words, but does not speak It, centuries of readers wheel around with him, co-performing the encounter. [End Page 188] The Pilgrim and Poet are twice impaired: first by the a-verbal experience itself, and then by the memory that cannot recall even a fraction of the Pilgrim’s vision. What ensues in Canto 33 is a monument to paradox, metaphor, simile, and periphrasis. Time flickers between past, present, future, and eternity. The distinction between beginning and end dissolves, or rather, “comes unsealed” (disigilla, 64). Circles are everywhere. Threes are everywhere. The Trinity-Incarnation is “internalized” (s'interna, 85) within the volume of the universe, and then becomes the bookbinder eternally gathering together all things—the sun, stars, Poet, Pilgrim, and reader included—with Love, into that volume. Here, in a lightning-fast flash, is the Vision within the vision, and the simultaneous return to Home and home. Here is the Commedia’s happy ending and, as centuries of commentators have suggested, its beginning: Dante’s true vita nova. Prayer to the Virgin Par. 33 opens with a feeling of urgency. It is written in the present tense and in direct discourse, rich with enjambment and exalted passion. This santa orazione (Par. 32, 151) continues the previous canto, which ended with a colon and caused the poem to “jump.”5 Saint Bernard—the Pilgrim’s last guide, as well as the last character to speak in the Commedia—prays to the Virgin for help in facilitating the Pilgrim’s encounter with God, his words recalling those of his sermon on the Song of Songs.6 This great devotee of Mary, the “pupil of her eye,”7 knows that only Mary can make the appeal to God for such a thing. But Bernard is not the only one who prays to Mary on Dante’s behalf. Beatrice, and many saints with her (con quanti beati, 38), as well as the Pilgrim himself, clasp their hands in appeal to the Virgin. The word prego/priego appears in various forms six times in this canto, more than anywhere else in the text except Purg. 6, which includes seven variations. Here, in Par. 33, the supplicants petition for Dante’s final purification.8 Scholars have discussed how the prayer may be parsed into the five sections of the medieval ars dictamini: salutation (1–12), exhortation (13–21), narration (22–24), petition (25–36), and conclusion (37–39). Most have divided Bernard’s prayer into two main sections, seeing in this structure a parallel to classical eulogy, which Boethius is thought to have [End Page 189] introduced to the Christian...
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Feb 15, 2024
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