Paradiso, Canto 4

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Summary

The words of Piccarda have aroused in Dante two doubts: (1) if both she and Constance were forcibly prevented from fulfilling their vows, how can they be on that account less deserving of beatitude? (2) Piccarda spoke of the moon as her allotted sphere; was Plato then right after all in teaching that souls returned to the stars after death? Beatrice explains that all the souls of the blessed dwell only in the Empyrean, where all share “one sweet life, diversified”. They have appeared to Dante in the moon not because they reside there but in order that their less exalted state may thus be signified to him. His doubt concerning heavenly justice is removed when Beatrice distinguishes between what we wish to do and what, under pressure, we consent to do, for “our least acquiescence signs a pact with force.”

​Dante’s mind, now clarified as to his two doubts, conceives yet a third: can man by good works render satisfaction for unfulfilled vows? To this Beatrice gives her answer in Canto V.

The Prepatory Lecture

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Questions for Reflection

• What are Dante’s two questions? Which is the more poisonous and why?
• Why do the blessed souls appear to Dante at various levels of the heavens (4.34-45)?
• Piccarda’s life story raises the issue of the will. How can Piccarda be culpable for breaking her vows when it was her brother who forced her to break her vows under the threat of death (4.70-87)?
• What are the absolute and the conditional will and what is the relationship between them (4.100-114)? How does this way of understanding the will make some sense of Piccarda’s situation?

Paradiso, Canto 4 © Jan Hearn

The Images

The resolving of Dante’s dilemma and the allaying of his doubts: In the story, the discourses by Beatrice upon existence in Heaven and upon absolute and qualified will are occasioned by words uttered by Piccarda in the preceding Canto. Allegorically the freeing of Dante from the paralysis of his will, and the illuminating of his mind by revealed theology (Beatrice), represents a step forward in the soul’s progress towards God. The desire of the mind for knowledge and understanding is in itself a natural image of the desire of the soul to see God; in another sense the two desires may be seen to be identical, since the mind can be satisfied only by the ultimate Truth, which is God. Throughout Paradise, Dante’s advancement in understanding is a symbol and a measure of his progress towards his ultimate vision in the last canto.

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