{"id":63097,"date":"2018-07-19T23:56:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T05:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=63097"},"modified":"2018-09-05T09:53:00","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T15:53:00","slug":"light-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/07\/light-c.html","title":{"rendered":"Light (C)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Paradiso<\/a>
Gustave Dor\u00e9\u2019s depiction of Dante\u2019s \u201cParadiso\u201d \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

From a manuscript of mine:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The medieval Florentine poet Dante Alighieri (d. 1321), author of the immortal Divina Commedia<\/em>, concludes his famous journey through the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, in the Empyrean, or tenth heaven, where, a lone mortal among immortals, he beholds the \u201cEternal Light.\u201d\u00a0 He is overwhelmed, and, later, professes to have forgotten most of what he briefly knew.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

. . . [M]y sight, becoming pure, was able<\/span><\/p>\n

to penetrate the ray of Light more deeply\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

that Light, sublime, which in Itself is true.<\/span><\/p>\n

From that point on, what I could see was greater<\/span><\/p>\n

than speech can show: at such a sight, it fails\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

and memory fails when faced with such excess.<\/span><\/p>\n

As one who sees within a dream, and, later,<\/span><\/p>\n

the passion that had been imprinted stays,<\/span><\/p>\n

but nothing of the rest returns to mind,<\/span><\/p>\n

such am I, for my vision almost fades<\/span><\/p>\n

Completely, yet it still distills within<\/span><\/p>\n

my heart the sweetness that was born of it. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

In its profundity I saw\u2014ingathered<\/span><\/p>\n

and bound by love into one single volume\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

what, in the universe, seems separate, scattered:<\/span><\/p>\n

substances, accidents, and dispositions<\/span><\/p>\n

as if conjoined\u2014in such a way that what<\/span><\/p>\n

I tell is only rudimentary.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, though, while, for a brief and precious moment everything seemed to make sense and to fit together into a seamless whole, and while traces linger of the joy, love, and satisfaction that the poet felt, standing in that all-comprehending and all-explaining light, it now seems, Dante says, as if more than twenty-five centuries have passed.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 All is vague, and exceedingly difficult to recall.\u00a0 Accordingly, the poet prays for divine assistance to bring back to his memory what he once knew, so that he can convey it to his readers:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

O Highest Light, You, raised so far above<\/span><\/p>\n

the minds of mortals, to my memory<\/span><\/p>\n

give back something of Your epiphany,<\/span><\/p>\n

and make my tongue so powerful that I<\/span><\/p>\n

may leave to people of the future one<\/span><\/p>\n

gleam of the glory that is Yours, for by<\/span><\/p>\n

returning somewhat to my memory<\/span><\/p>\n

and echoing awhile within these lines,<\/span><\/p>\n

Your victory will be more understood.[3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But his request is not granted.\u00a0 As a consequence, he reports,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

What little I recall is to be told.<\/span><\/p>\n

from this point on, in words more weak than those<\/span><\/p>\n

of one whose infant tongue still bathes at the breast, . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

How incomplete is speech, how weak, when set<\/span><\/p>\n

Against my thought!\u00a0 And this, to what I saw<\/span><\/p>\n

Is such\u2014to call it little is too much.[4]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Divine Comedy<\/em>, of course, is poetic fiction.\u00a0 But Dante\u2019s portrayal of his encounter with an intense light, full of love and intelligence, may be far more than merely a literary conceit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Allen Mandelbaum, trans., The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Paradiso<\/em> (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), 299, 301 (canto 33, lines 52-63, 85-90).\u00a0 The original Italian, given on the facing pages (298, 300) of the Mandelbaum translation, reads as follows:\u00a0 \u201c. . . la mia vista, venendo sincera, e pi\u00f9 e pi\u00f9 intrava per lo raggio de l\u2019alta luce che da s\u00e9 \u00e8 vera.\u00a0 Da quinci innanzi il mio veder fu maggio che \u2018l parlar mostra, ch\u2019a tal vista cede, e cede la memoria a tanto oltraggio.\u00a0 Qual \u00e8 col\u00fci che sognando vede, che dopo \u2018l sogno la passione impressa rimane, e l\u2019altro a la mente non riede, cotal son io, ch\u00e9 quasi tutta cessa mia vis\u00efone, e ancor mi distilla nel core il dolce che nacque da essa. . . .\u00a0 Nel suo profondo vidi che s\u2019interna, legato con amore in un volume, ci\u00f2 che per l\u2019universo si squaderna: sustanze e accidenti e lor costume quasi conflati insieme, per tal modo che ci\u00f2 ch\u2019i\u2019 dico \u00e8 un semplice lume.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Dante, Paradiso<\/em> 33:93-96.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Mandelbaum, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Paradiso<\/em>, 299, 301, (33:67-75).\u00a0 The Italian original, on pages 298, 300, reads:\u00a0 \u201cO soma luce che tanto ti levi da\u2019 concetti mortali, a la mia mente represta un poco di quel che parevi, e fa la lingua mia tanto possente, ch\u2019una favilla sol de la tua Gloria possa lasciare a la futura gente; ch\u00e9, per tornare alquanto a mia memora e per sonare un poco in questi versi, pi\u00f9 si concepar\u00e0 di tua vittoria.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Mandelbaum, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Paradiso<\/em>, 301, 303 (33:106-108, 121-123).\u00a0 The Italian original, on pages 300, 302, reads:\u00a0 \u201cOmai sar\u00e0 pi\u00f9 corta ma favella, pur a quell ch\u2019io ricordo, che d\u2019un fante che bagni ancor la lingua a la mammella. . . .\u00a0 Oh quanto \u00e8 corto il dire e como fioco al mio concetto! e questo, a quell chi\u2019i\u2019 vidi, \u00e8 tanto, che non basta a dicer \u2018poco.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Victoria, British Columbia<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 From a manuscript of mine: \u00a0 The medieval Florentine poet Dante Alighieri (d. 1321), author of the immortal Divina Commedia, concludes his famous journey through the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, in the Empyrean, or tenth heaven, where, a lone mortal among immortals, he beholds the \u201cEternal Light.\u201d\u00a0 He is overwhelmed, and, later, professes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLight (C)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    From a manuscript of mine:   The medieval Florentine poet Dante Alighieri (d. 1321), author of the immortal Divina Commedia, concludes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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