Summary
Beatrice begins canto fourteen by asking Aquinas to tell Dante if their souls will forever remain in this light, and if so, how. The lights wheel giddily in response to her question; full of joy, they sing of “That ever-living One and Two and Three/who reigns forever in Three and Two and One.” A voice, who we will learn is Solomon, speaks up, explaining that they will remain in their light but eventually put on flesh again, which (perhaps surprisingly) will only increase their light and beauty. As he states, “‘From that light, vision must increase, / and love increase what vision kindles,/and radiance increase, which comes from love.’” When he goes silent, the lights say an “Amen” to show “their desire for their dead bodies.”
Other rings appear to Dante, and once again his eyes fail him. Beatrice intercedes, and seeing her, he regains his sight and becomes even more blissful. Now they have risen higher; now on Mars, Dante makes a spoken “burnt-offering” to God. Dante the poet’s memory fails him, but he assures the reader that he then saw Christ “shining in that dawn.” He is overwhelmed with love, listening to the light’s melody and harmony.
As canto fifteen begins, the spirits of Mars quickly fall silent to prompt Dante to speak. A star shoots “from the arm of that great cross” of lights towards Dante, singing in Latin, reaching out towards him like “Anchises’ shade”—Aeneas’ father. This light is the spirit of Dante’s great ancestor, Cacciaguida, who thanks God for blessing his descendent. Although he knows Dante’s thoughts, he asks him to voice them such that “sacred love…may be more happily fulfilled.” Dante looks at Beatrice, and his will is reassured; he asks Cacciaguida for his name. Cacciaguida responds by giving something like a family history, describing how the name Alighiero (or Aligheri) comes from Dante’s “great-grandfather and [Cacciaguida’s] son.” He then describes an idealized version of Florence, nearly free of excess, artifice, and the political and moral ills Dante sees in his contemporaries. Much of this, notably, is described with reference to women’s lives. He ends by describing his mother, brother, wife, and relationship to Emperor Conrad, “who girded [him] to be his knight.”
Dante opens canto sixteen with a somewhat ambiguous set of tercets, which both criticize the “insignificant nobility of blood” and make clear that he “gloried” in it when he saw Cacciaguida in heaven. He goes on to address his ancestor with the formal “You” (voi in Italian), a gesture that makes Beatrice slyly smile. When Dante asks him further questions, Cacciaguida tells him about his birth and “forebears;” he also speaks about some of the Florentine families that were once notable but have now lost status, as well as those who have grown in status; yet again, Dante’s politics shade the discussion. Many of the families he lists are “now quite undone by pride,” and he even describes one person—Buondelmonte—as “a sacrificial victim” of Florence. Still, he ends his speech and the canto as a whole by noting that this was a time before the violence of the Ghibellines and the Guelphs, before “‘the lily/… [was] reversed upon the lance/… [or] by dissension changed to red.’”
In the first lines of canto seventeen, Dante compares himself to the mythic Phaeton, who attempted to ensure Helios (the sun god) was really his father. Beatrice tells him to voice his desire so that he can “rehearse the telling of [his] thirst / so that the drink be poured for [him].” Dante reveals that he is still troubled by the prophecy given to him while he was still with Virgil, as it boded poorly for his future. Cacciaguida responds “in plain words and with clear speech,” letting him know he will be exiled from Florence just as Hippolytus was from Athens; “the populace will blame the injured party”—in this case, Dante—and Dante will have to contend with a set of “utterly ungrateful, made, and faithless” companions.
Yet, Cacciaguida makes clear that Dante will find “the courtesy of the noble Lombard” and meet a young Cangrande, who will prove virtuous. He goes on to share more information with Dante, but it is to be kept secret—even from the reader. Dante states that he is now “armed” with “forethought” and able to better prepare for the trials ahead; he adds that he is somewhat afraid of telling the whole truth in his writing, but Cacciaguida assures him that he must “forswear all falsehood”; the canto ends on further words of encouragement.
Analysis
It is worthwhile to spend a moment unpacking a few lines from canto fourteen: “‘From that light, vision must increase,/and love increase what vision kindles,/and radiance increase, which comes from love.’” These lines notably bring together the motif of light and the themes of vision and love, as well as Dante’s significant support of the body and sensuality. The repetition of “increase” creates a sort of chain throughout the stanza, in which each new addition—light, vision, love, and radiance—interlocks and increases the last, building to a crescendo on the word “love.” Thus these lines suggest that, even with Dante’s limited vision and memory, there is a promise that in paradise, the senses will become both more powerful and more full of love.
Although the Paradiso may not have as many classical allusions as does the Inferno, we should note that canto fifteen is rife with such allusions. In a way, Dante makes himself a sort of Aeneas by composing Cacciaguida as Anchises, alluding to their meeting in the underworld in Virgil's Aeneid. But why does Dante do this? It may be to reinforce continuity between both Dante’s epic and Virgil’s epic; it also reinforces continuity or lineage between ancient Rome and Dante’s Italy, thus suggesting a sort of providential movement from the Roman Empire and its poetry all the way to Dante’s contemporary Holy Roman Empire.
In canto sixteen, Dante provides us with a more sustained vision of what Florence was like before his time; by calling attention to his use of the formal “You,” he brings to the fore the reverence he holds not only for his family but for this earlier period in Florentine history. Still, much of Cacciaguida’s speech emphasizes the impermanence of earthly things and the violence of political life, focusing ultimately not on earth but on heaven. Additionally, Dante’s final image—the lily turned to red—alludes to the Guelph’s decision to turn the lily on the Florentine flag red and recalls the wars between the Ghibellines and Guelphs, evoking the image of a lily covered in blood. Thus Cacciaguida's speech inevitably turns back to the violent politics of Dante's contemporaries, even as it looks back to (somewhat mythologized) better times.
In canto seventeen, Dante’s early allusion to Phaeton—as well as what may seem like a strange digression about Cacciaguida’s clear speech—both work together to relate this canto to pagan practices but also subtly differentiate itself from them. Phaeton, for example, is notable for riding in the chariot of the sun and burning to death; but where Phaeton’s father mourns his death, Dante’s “Father”—God—allows him to remain in the heavens and be unharmed in the sun. Subtly, Dante emphasizes what he perceives as the superiority of the Christian God. Similarly, Dante’s praise of Cacciaguida’s clear prophecies stands in sharp contrast to the sorts of prophecies described in Virgil or other classical texts, which are often veiled in metaphors in riddles.
