The sea I sail has never yet been passed.
Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,
And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.
Ye other few, who have the neck uplifted
Betimes to th' bread of Angels upon which
One liveth here and grows not sated by it,
Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea
Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you
Upon the water that grows smooth again.
Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed
Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be,
When Jason they beheld a ploughman made."
(II, 1.)
The song which Dante sings in the Paradiso is the eternal happiness of
man in vision, love and enjoyment united to his Creator. In preparation
for this final consummation the poet, as he ascends to the Empyrean,
gives a most beautiful epitome of the principal mysteries of religion
and of some of the tenets of scholastic philosophy, treating especially
the Fall of Man, Predestination, Free Will, the Redemption, the
Immortality of the Soul and the theory of Human Knowledge. Allegorically
considered, the poem is a veil, under which we see the ideal life of man
upon earth, exercising virtue and gaining virtue's rewards.
To exhibit man's supreme, happiness in the next life, the Christian
poet, insisting that his purpose is the inculcation of truth, both to
save and to adorn the soul, must base his theme upon the doctrines of
the Church.
Pages:
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214