Canto 21, Paradiso - A Smokey Mind
As we ascend into the seventh sphere, Beatrice refuses to smile, not because she has all of a sudden become a grumpy Gus but because, as she claims, to smile this high up in Heaven would be like Zeus revealing himself to Semele in his full splendor as the lightning bolt, and so the pilgrim, who is still mortal, would be burnt to a crisp. We see in this canto another facet of the incomprehensibility of Heaven to us mere mortals, for it isn’t just Beatrice who refuses to smile, but the whole celestial machinery has toned itself down, so that the pilgrim can experience it without being blasted to bits. This implies the intensity of the love Heaven embodies, so intense that all other loves and all other objects for those loves pale in comparison.
For the first time, the pilgrim asks what is revealed to be an impertinent question.
Ma quell’ alma nel ciel che più si schiara, / quel serafin che ‘n Dio più l’occhio ha fisso, / a la dimanda tua non satisfara, / però che sì s’innoltra ne lo abisso / de l’etterno statuto quel che chiedi, / che da ogne creata vista è scisso. / E al mondo mortal, quando tu riedi, / questo rapporta, sì che non presumma / a tanto segno più mover li piedi. / La mente, che qui luce, in terra fumma; / onde riguarda come può là giùe / quel che non pote perché ‘l ciel l’assumma.
But that soul in Heaven who is more illumined, / that seraph whose eye is more fixed on God, / would not satisfy your question, / for it goes so far into the abyss / of the eternal statute, that which you ask, / that it is cut off from every created vision. / And to the mortal world, when you return, / relate this, so that it won’t presume / to move its feet further to so great a sign. / The mind, which here lights up, on earth clouds over; / wherefore consider how it can there below / that which it cannot though Heaven receives it to itself.
We have covered this ground before with Satan, once the greatest of all created beings, who could not even begin to compare with the majesty of the Almighty. Likewise, no creature in Heaven who might speak to the pilgrim could possibly answer his question. The abyss mentioned here is, perhaps, another reference to a now persistent metaphor of one peering into the ocean and knowing that the bottom lies somewhere within its depths, even while being completely unable to see it. The question is knowable, but only to God, and as such is both unanswerable and a bit presumptuous.
The imperative, though, to “relate this” (questo rapporta) information to the mortal world, that is new. The mind is lit up in Heaven, so it can bear the force of celestial sensation, but on earth, in this world, it smokes (fumma). I still don’t like that translation–perhaps it would be best to say that it smolders like a wet log. Combustion is taking place, but the surrounding moisture dampens it to such an extent that very little, if any, heat or light are given off. The flames/souls of Heaven burn properly, and so their light and the dance of their flickering is readily apparent and pure. Our minds smolder, because they are weighed down by a number of concerns that press on us from all sides and distract us from what is important; our thoughts are only ever rarely “on fire,” in every sense of that phrase, because we lack the singularity of purpose and direction that the One True Love and its One True Object (i.e. God) inflame in us.
That doesn’t completely explain the imperative to remember this particular insight to the world. For that, we must draw our attention to what this sphere of Heaven represents:
Noi sem levati al settimo spledore, / che sotto ‘l petto del Leone ardente / raggia mo misto giù del suo valore. / Ficca di retro a li occhi tuoi le mente, / e fa di quelli specchi a la figura / che ‘n questo specchio ti sarà parvente.
We are risen to the seventh splendor, / that beneath the chest of the burning Lion / radiates down now mixed with its worth. / Fix your mind after your eyes, / and make of these mirrors to that figure / which in this mirror will appear to you.
Now, Singleton is not wrong to note that the sphere is that of Saturn, and so the “mirror” in question is that of the planet itself, but with only that in mind, the rest of the canto seems rather detached and “now for something completely different.” Astronomical phenomena are important to Dante and to the text, so I would never slight them, but I feel as if Beatrice’s brief introduction to the “seventh splendor” contains within it something of an answer as to why the pilgrim would be commanded to relate back to this world the smokiness of the mortal mind.
The image of mirrors to a mirror and the mind fixed to those mirrors, while a fancy way of saying, “hey, look, bro, it’s Saturn,” also appears to invoke the idea of the mind turned back upon and reflecting on, in every sense of that phrase, itself. This makes sense, given that the virtue of the seventh sphere is contemplation, and what is made clear both by Beatrice’s proem here and the latter bit about answers lying in the abyss is that contemplation ought not to be directed outward from oneself. Sure, it may be fun to argue over the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but, even if there is a correct answer, knowing it would satisfy no one.
What the Comedy has made abundantly clear in numerous ways, is that if there is something errant in the self, if there is, to put it more prosaically, something wrong with you, that thing, whatever it is, is always going to be in you, so the proper object of contemplation is always going to be yourself. Now, obviously this presupposes a moral universe where the prevailing concern is sin and not structural inequalities predicated upon institutions that rig the game in favor of some over the many, but what Buddhists too understand is that, if the world is suffering, there is great virtue in fixing and fortifying yourself against it and that tranquility is quite often found in letting go of the conscious mind’s ever pressing desire to know more and more.
