Paradiso Read online

  FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, SEPTEMBER 2008

  Copyright © 2007 by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2007.

  Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Excerpt from Virgil’s The Aeneid, translation © Robert Fagles, 2006. Reprinted by kind permission of Viking Penguin, a division of the Penguin Group, Inc., and Robert Fagles.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:

  Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321.

  [Paradiso. English]

  Paradiso / Dante Alighieri ; a verse translation by Robert & Jean Hollander ; introduction & notes by Robert Hollander.

  p. cm.

  I. Hollander, Robert, 1933– II. Hollander, Jean, 1928–

  III. Title.

  PQ4315.4.H65 2007

  851’.1—dc22

  2007018070

  eISBN: 978-0-307-80595-9

  Author photographs © Pryde Brown

  Cover painting: Annunciatory Angel by Fra Angelico,

  Bequest of Eleanor Clay Ford/The Detroit Institute of Arts/The Bridgeman Art Library

  Cover design by Kathy DiGrado

  Book design by Pei Loi Koay

  www.anchorbooks.com

  v3.1

  for

  Cornelia (A.R.)

  & Dr. Buzz

  Contents

  Cover

  Title page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Note on Using This eBook

  Note on the Translation

  Table of Abbreviations and List of Commentators

  Introduction

  Map of Dante’s Paradise

  The Paradiso: English Paradiso I

  Paradiso II

  Paradiso III

  Paradiso IV

  Paradiso V

  Paradiso VI

  Paradiso VII

  Paradiso VIII

  Paradiso IX

  Paradiso X

  Paradiso XI

  Paradiso XII

  Paradiso XIII

  Paradiso XIV

  Paradiso XV

  Paradiso XVI

  Paradiso XVII

  Paradiso XVIII

  Paradiso XIX

  Paradiso XX

  Paradiso XXI

  Paradiso XXII

  Paradiso XXIII

  Paradiso XXIV

  Paradiso XXV

  Paradiso XXVI

  Paradiso XXVII

  Paradiso XXVIII

  Paradiso XXIX

  Paradiso XXX

  Paradiso XXXI

  Paradiso XXXII

  Paradiso XXXIII

  The Paradiso: Italian Paradiso I

  Paradiso II

  Paradiso III

  Paradiso IV

  Paradiso V

  Paradiso VI

  Paradiso VII

  Paradiso VIII

  Paradiso IX

  Paradiso X

  Paradiso XI

  Paradiso XII

  Paradiso XIII

  Paradiso XIV

  Paradiso XV

  Paradiso XVI

  Paradiso XVII

  Paradiso XVIII

  Paradiso XIX

  Paradiso XX

  Paradiso XXI

  Paradiso XXII

  Paradiso XXIII

  Paradiso XXIV

  Paradiso XXV

  Paradiso XXVI

  Paradiso XXVII

  Paradiso XXVIII

  Paradiso XXIX

  Paradiso XXX

  Paradiso XXXI

  Paradiso XXXII

  Paradiso XXXIII

  Notes

  Index of Names and Places

  Index of Subjects Treated in the Notes

  List of Works Cited

  About the Translators

  Acclaim for The Hollander Translations

  Other Books by Robert and Jean Hollander

  A Note on Using This eBook

  In this eBook edition of Paradiso, you will find two types of hyperlinks.

  The first type is embedded in the line numbers to the left of the text: these links allow you to click back and forth between the English translation and the original Italian text while still holding your place.

  The second type of link, which is indicated by an arrow (→) at the end of a line of poetry, will bring you to an explanatory a note.

  You can click on an arrow to navigate to the appropriate note; you can then use the links at the end of each note to return to your location in either the English translation or the original Italian text. You can also click on the note number to return to your location in the English translation.

  NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION

  * * *

  Since our goals in translating the third cantica of Dante’s poem are not in substance different from those that animated our translation of the first and second, the reader is asked to consult the similar notices that precede our translations of Inferno (Doubleday 2000; Anchor 2002) and of Purgatorio (Doubleday 2003; Anchor 2004). Paradiso, however, presents some challenges different from those encountered in the first two cantiche. Needless to say, we have again attempted to give as accurate a sense of the poetry and meaning of the Italian text as the English language and our abilities allow. The language and style of this part of the poem are, in many respects, dramatically different from those to which the reader has become accustomed in the previous cantiche. As we suggested in the front matter for the second volume, “While surely we must acknowledge that Inferno and Purgatorio are very different poetic places, they nonetheless maintain some arrestingly similar elements. From the vantage point of Paradiso the second canticle looks much more like its predecessor than like its successor.” Indeed, Paradiso is not only unique within Dante’s oeuvre; it is simply unique. Theology set to music, as it were, it pushes its reader (not to mention its translators) to the limit.

  A particular problem facing translators of the Paradiso involves one of its distinguishing features: neologisms, or words new to the Italian language and essentially invented by their creator. The current estimate of the number of neologisms in the poem runs to around ninety, with the great bulk of these appearing in Paradiso (see Ferrante [Ferr.1983.1], p. 131, n. 10). It seems appropriate that the requirements of expressing the higher realities of God’s realm involve linguistic novelties of the most radical kind. Some of these we have attempted to bring over into English, when Dante’s coinage seems so striking that any reader would have to pay astonished attention to the violence done “standard Italian”; for example, the verb intrearsi (Par. XIII.57), literally “to inthree itself,” which Dante employs to speak of the Holy Spirit’s involvement with the other two Persons of the Trinity, and which we have translated with an English neologism, “the Love that is intrined with them.” Others we have not, especially when it seemed to us that his usage borders on the “ordinarily daring” language one associates with almost any poetic making, for example, the verb ingigliarsi (Par. XVIII.113), which literally means “to enlily itself,” but is fairly obviously meant to indicate what our translation suggests it does, i.e., “to make itself into a lily.” In other words, the first class of neologisms is the linguistic equivalent of self-consciously audacious metaphor, and, like it, is obviously intended to make a reader reel, while the second is closer to our normal expectations of heightened poetic language; it may surprise, but does not shock. It is, naturally, not exactly easy to make such distinctions. It is also true that the difficulty of b
ringing the effect of a neologism into a second language is another complicating factor. Sometimes Dante’s daring thrusts simply do not “feel right” in English. In short, the reader should be aware that our practice in this regard is various.

  We are once again grateful to two friends born in Italy and born to Dante for their willingness to sample our translations and my footnotes with a knowing eye. Margherita Frankel, formerly a professor of Italian at New York University, was her usual careful and exacting self as she examined our materials. The same must be said of Simone Marchesi, who studied with me when he was a graduate student at Princeton and has now returned to the university to teach students how to read Dante in his own courses. We are pleased to express our continuing gratitude to them both. This translation has brought us into contact with people whom we did not know before. It has been pleasing to hear from readers in this country, England, and Australia who have enjoyed our English-speaking Dante. And two of them were not only appreciative, but helpful. Professors of law Clayton Gillette (NYU) and Stephen Morse (Pennsylvania) paid for their enjoyment of Inferno by reading the penultimate drafts of Purgatorio and of Paradiso and sharing their questions and comments with us; we are deeply grateful to both of them, in part for demonstrating to me exactly why I have always used the adjective “lawyerly” (as in “a lawyerly argument”) in a positive sense. Finally, I would like to acknowledge those graduate students who worked with me on this cantica, first in 1980 (Carolyn Calvert Phipps, Micaela Janan, Albert Rossi, Stephen Rupp, Alex Sheers) and then in 1986 (Sheila Colwell, Roberta Davidson, Martin Elzinga, Frank Ordiway, Lauren Scancarelli Seem). I hope that their memories of those seminars glow half as bright as mine.

  Gerald Howard, in addition to his more significant titles and duties at Random House, has been our editor for some years now. It was his support that made publication of our work possible and his continuing clear-headed and keen-eyed editorial supervision that has helped keep the project on an even keel. And we are grateful as well to all at Random House and Anchor Books (including three former students of mine at Princeton: Rakesh Satyal, Alice Van Straalen, and Anne Merrow) who have taken such obvious pleasure in their association with this project.

  27 November 2005 (Hopewell)

  This first Anchor edition has some sixty changes in the translation, some thirty in the commentary, and six additions to the bibliography.

  30 January 2008 (Hopewell)

  This second edition includes some dozen changes in the translation and some fifty in the notes.

  18 January 2012 (Hopewell)

  TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS & LIST OF COMMENTATORS

  * * *

  1. Dante’s works:

  Conv. Convivio

  Dve De vulgari eloquentia

  Egl. Egloghe

  Epist. Epistole

  Inf. Inferno

  Mon. Monarchia

  Par. Paradiso

  Purg. Purgatorio

  Quest. Questio de aqua et terra

  Rime Rime

  Rime dub. Rime dubbie

  VN Vita nuova

  Detto Il Detto d’Amore (“attributable to Dante” [Contini])

  Fiore Il Fiore (“attributable to Dante” [Contini])

  2. Commentators on the Commedia. These seventy-three texts are all currently available in the database known as the Dartmouth Dante Project (http://dante.dartmouth.edu). Dates, particularly of the early commentators, are often approximate. The order followed here is that found in the DDP, which at times seems to violate chronology, and sometimes does so, in order to keep various versions of the same commentator (e.g., Pietro Alighieri) or teacher and pupil (e.g., Trifon Gabriele and Bernardino Daniello) next to one another.

  Jacopo Alighieri (1322) (Inferno only)

  Graziolo de’ Bambaglioli (1324) (Latin) (Inferno only)

  Jacopo della Lana (1324)

  Anonymus Lombardus (1325[?]) (Latin) (Purgatorio only)

  Guido da Pisa (1327) (Latin) (Inferno only)

  L’Ottimo (1333)

  Anonimo Selmiano (1337) (Inferno only)

  Pietro Alighieri (1) (1340–42) (Latin)

  Pietro Alighieri (2) (1344–55[?])

  Pietro Alighieri (3) (1359–64[?])

  Codice cassinese (1350–75[?]) (Latin)

  Chiose ambrosiane (1355[?])

  Guglielmo Maramauro (1369–73)

  Chiose cagliaritane (1370[?])

  Giovanni Boccaccio (1373–75) (Inferno I–XVII only)

  Benvenuto da Imola (1380) (Latin)

  Francesco da Buti (1385)

  “Falso Boccaccio” (1390[?])

  Anonimo Fiorentino (1400)

  Filippo Villani (1405) (Inferno I only)

  Giovanni da Serravalle (1416) (Latin)

  Guiniforto Barzizza (1440) (Inferno only)

  Cristoforo Landino (1481)

  Alessandro Vellutello (1544)

  Pier Francesco Giambullari (1538–48)

  Giovan Battista Gelli (1541–63)

  Benedetto Varchi (1545) (Paradiso I & II only)

  Trifon Gabriele (1525–41)

  Bernardino Daniello (1547–68)

  Torquato Tasso (1555–68)

  Lodovico Castelvetro (1570)

  Pompeo Venturi (1732)

  Baldassare Lombardi (1791–92)

  Luigi Portirelli (1804–5)

  Paolo Costa (1819–21)

  Gabriele Rossetti (1826–40) (Inferno & Purgatorio only)

  Niccolò Tommaseo (1837)

  Raffaello Andreoli (1856)

  Luigi Bennassuti (1864)

  Henry W. Longfellow (1867) (English)

  Gregorio Di Siena (1867) (Inferno only)

  Brunone Bianchi (1868)

  G. A. Scartazzini (1874; but the 2nd ed. of 1900 is used)

  Giuseppe Campi (1888)

  Gioachino Berthier (1892)

  Giacomo Poletto (1894)

  Hermann Oelsner (1899) (English)

  H. F. Tozer (1901) (English)

  John Ruskin (1903) (English; not in fact a “commentary”)

  John S. Carroll (1904) (English)

  Francesco Torraca (1905)

  C. H. Grandgent (1909) (English)

  Enrico Mestica (1921)

  Casini/Barbi (1921)

  Carlo Steiner (1921)

  Isidoro Del Lungo (1926)

  Carlo Grabher (1934)

  Ernesto Trucchi (1936)

  Luigi Pietrobono (1946)

  Attilio Momigliano (1946)

  Manfredi Porena (1946)

  Natalino Sapegno (1955)

  Daniele Mattalia (1960)

  Siro A. Chimenz (1962)

  Giovanni Fallani (1965)

  Francesco Mazzoni (1965–85) (Inf. I–VI, XI; Purg. XXXI; Par. VI)

  Giorgio Padoan (1967) (Inferno I–VIII only)

  Giuseppe Giacalone (1968)

  Charles S. Singleton (1973) (English)

  Bosco/Reggio (1979)

  Pasquini/Quaglio (1982)

  Robert Hollander (2000–7) (English)

  Nicola Fosca (2003–6) (Inferno & Purgatorio)

  NB: The text of the Paradiso is that established by Petrocchi, Dante Alighieri: La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, ed. Giorgio Petrocchi (Florence: Le Lettere, 1994 [1966–67]), vol. IV. (This later edition has two minor changes to the text of this cantica, which is thus essentially identical with the earlier text.) All references to other works are keyed to the List of Works Cited found at the back of this volume (e.g., Adve.1995.1), with the exception of references to commentaries contained in the Dartmouth Dante Project. Informational notes derived from Paget Toynbee’s Concise Dante Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante (Oxford: Clarendon, 1914) are followed by the siglum (T). References to the Enciclopedia dantesca, 6 vols. (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970–78) are indicated by the abbreviation ED. Commentaries by Robert Hollander are (at times) shorter versions of materials found in the Princeton Dante Project, a multimedia edition of the Commedia. Consultation (withou
t charge to the user) is possible at www.princeton.edu/dante.

  INTRODUCTION

  * * *

  (1) Paradiso: An Impossible Poem.

  It is difficult to imagine what life must have been like for Dante, having to manage the details of everyday existence in his exile while his mind was occupied with details of quite another sort. Indeed, the subjects treated in the last cantica represent both implausible and daring choices for a poet (an awareness reflected in the title of the three-part Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s series for radio in 2002, Dante, Poet of the Impossible). In fact, it seems almost beyond human capacity to have written the Comedy. The whole poem might be considered an experiment in pushing back the boundaries of human expression, at times surprising even its creator. What is most surprising (and, to some, offensive) is the incorporation of subjects previously reserved exclusively for prose in an Italian poem: for example, moral philosophy (Inf. XI and Purg. XVI) and biology (Purg. XXV). However, this tactic becomes most noteworthy in Paradiso. There we find astronomy (Par. II, where Dante takes on the task of a Ptolemy or an Alfraganus); free will (Canto V, where he rehearses this topic so dear to Augustine); the theology of history (VI, Orosius); municipal politics (XVI, Cicero and Brunetto Latini); and angelology and its relation to astronomy (XXVIII–XXIX, the Pseudo-Dionysius). If the entire project of the Divine Comedy must have caused its author understandable anxiety, the choice of a strategy for making the part of the poem that is called Paradiso must have caused its author considerable effort in wrestling with weighty concerns. If Giorgio Petrocchi’s work to establish the dates of composition for the various parts of the poem is correct (and it must be considered a provisional, if still the most convincing, attempt), Dante spent the years 1313 to 1317 revising Inferno and Purgatorio, and planning Paradiso (see Petrocchi [Petr.1957.1 and Petr.1969.1]). Perhaps because of the time he took for revision, only occasionally in the first two cantiche does one sense Dante laboring under his load (as, one might suggest, is apparent in the opening fifty or so verses of Inferno I). There is a “finished” quality to the first two cantiche that Paradiso sometimes does not have. To take a single example, the text of Canto III clearly suggests that Dante originally planned to portray the souls of the saved as dwelling in the stars (indeed, any number of commentators forget themselves from time to time and display a similar misunderstanding), while Canto IV makes it plain that they are ordinarily to be found in the Empyrean [pronounced em-PEER-ian] and only on this very special occasion manifest themselves to a celestial visitor in each of the first eight heavens. Further, a passage in Canto IX seems to drop back into the same mistake overruled in Canto IV. It is possible that a later revision of the poem would have done a better job ironing out this rather alarming inconsistency. And the issue seems worth raising. Are we reading, in Paradiso, less finished work than we found in the first two cantiche? Given the near-total absence of any hard evidence (there is anecdotal reference, narrated by Boccaccio in his biography of Dante, to the discovery of the last thirteen cantos by the poet’s sons only after his death), a resolution of this question is probably not possible.