The Banquet (Il Convito)

by Dante Alighieri

But if thou pass perchance by those who bring
No skill to give thee the attention due,
Then pray I, dear last-born, let them rejoice
At least to find a music in my voice.

For in this I desire to say no other according to what is said above, except "Oh, men, you who cannot see the meaning of this Song, do not therefore refuse it; but pay attention to its beauty, which is great, both for construction, which belongs to the Grammarians; and for the order of the discourse, which belongs to the Rhetoricians; as well as for the rhythm of its parts, which belongs to the Musicians." For which things he who looks well can see that there may be beauty in it. And this is the entire Literal meaning of the first Song which is prepared for the first dish in my Banquet.

CHAPTER XIII.

Since the Literal meaning has been sufficiently explained, we must now proceed to the Allegorical and true exposition. And, therefore, beginning again from the first head, I say that when I had lost the chief delight of my Soul in former time, I was left so stung with sadness that no consolation whatever availed me. Nevertheless, after some time, my mind, reasoning with itself to heal itself, took heed, since neither my own nor that of another availed to comfort it, to turn to the method which a certain disconsolate one had adopted when he looked for Consolation. And I set myself to read that book of Boethius, not known to many, in which, when a captive exile, he had consoled himself. And, again, hearing that Tullius had written another book, in which, treating of Friendship, he had spoken words for the consolation of Lælius, a most excellent man, on the death of his friend Scipio, I set myself to read it. And although at first it was difficult to me to enter into their meaning, yet, finally, I entered into it so much as the knowledge of grammar that I possessed, together with some slight power of intellect, enabled me to do: by which power of intellect I formerly beheld many things almost like a person in a dream, as may be seen in the Vita Nuova. And as it is wont to be that a man goes seeking for silver, and beyond his purpose he finds gold, whose hidden cause appears not perhaps without the Divine Will; I, who sought to console myself, found not only a remedy for my tears, but words of authors and of sciences and of books; reflecting on which I judged well that Philosophy, who was the Lady of these authors, of these sciences, and of these books, might be a supreme thing. And I imagined her in the form of a gentle Lady; and I could imagine her in no other attitude than a compassionate one, because if willingly the sense of Truth beheld her, hardly could it turn away from her. And with this imagination I began to go where she is demonstrated truthfully, that is, to the Schools of the Religious, and to the disputations of the Philosophers; so that in a short time, perhaps of thirty months, I began to feel her sweetness so much that my love for her chased away and destroyed all other thought. Wherefore I, feeling myself to rise from the thought of the first Love to the virtue of this new one, as if wondering at myself, opened my mouth in the speech of the proposed Song, showing my condition under the figure of other things: for of the Lady with whom I was enamoured, no rhyme of any Vernacular was worthy to speak openly, neither were the hearers so well prepared that they could have easily understood the words without figure: neither would faith have been given by them to the true meaning, as to the figurative; since if the truth of the whole was believed, that I was inclined to that love, it would not be believed of this. I then begin to speak: "Ye who, intent of thought, the third Heaven move."

And because, as has been said, this Lady was the daughter of God, the Queen of all, the most noble and most beautiful Philosophy, it remains to be seen who these Movers were, and what this third Heaven. And firstly of the third Heaven, according to the order which has been gone through. And here it is not needful to proceed to division, and to explanation of the letter, for, having turned the fictitious speech away from that which it utters to that which it means, by the exposition just gone through, this meaning is sufficiently made evident.

CHAPTER XIV.

In order to see what is meant by the "third Heaven," one has in the first place to perceive what I desire to express by this word Heaven alone: and then one will see how and why this third Heaven was needful to us. I say that by Heaven I mean Science, and by the Heavens "the Sciences," from three resemblances which the Heavens have with the Sciences, especially by the order and number in which they must appear; as will be seen by discussing that word Third. The first similitude is the revolution of the one and the other round one fixed centre. For each movable Heaven revolves round its centre, which, on account of its movement, moves not; and thus each Science moves round its subject, which itself moves not; for no Science demonstrates its own foundation, but presupposes that. The second similitude is the illumination of the one and the other. For each Heaven illuminates visible things; and thus each Science illuminates the things intelligible. And the third similitude is the inducing of perfection in the things so inclined. Of which induction, as to the first perfection, that is, of the substantial generation, all the philosophers agree that the Heavens are the cause, although they attribute this in different ways: some from the Movers, as Plato, Avicenna, and Algazel; some from the stars themselves, especially the human souls, as Socrates, and also Plato and Dionysius the Academician; and some from celestial virtue which is in the natural heat of the seed, as Aristotle and the other Peripatetics. Thus the Sciences are the cause in us of the induction of the second perfection; by the use of which we can speculate concerning the Truth, which is our ultimate perfection, as the Philosopher says in the sixth book of the Ethics, when he says that Truth is the good of the intellect. Because of these and many other resemblances, it is possible to call Science, Heaven.

Now it remains to see why it is called the third Heaven. Here it is requisite to reflect somewhat with regard to a comparison which exists between the order of the Heavens and that of the Sciences Wherefore, as has been previously described, the Seven Heavens next to us are those of the Planets; then there are two Heavens above these, the Mobile, and one above all, Quiet. To the Seven first correspond the Seven Sciences of the Trivium and of the Quadrivium, namely, Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astrology. To the eighth Sphere, i.e., to the starry, correspond Natural Science, which is termed Physics, and the first Science, which is termed Metaphysics. To the ninth Sphere corresponds Moral Science; and to the Quiet Heaven corresponds Divine Science, which is designated Theology.

And the reason why this is, remains briefly to be seen. I say that the Heaven of the Moon is likened unto Grammar because it is possible to find a comparison to it. For if you look at the Moon well, two things are seen to be proper to it which are not seen in the other stars: the one is the shadow which is in it, which is no other than the rarity of its body, in which the rays of the Sun can find no end wherefrom to strike back again as in the other parts; the other is the variation of its brightness, which now shines on one side, and now on the other, according as the Sun sees it. And these two properties Grammar has: for, because of its infinity, the rays of reason can find no end in it in parts, especially of the words; and it shines now on this side, now on that, inasmuch as certain words, certain declensions, certain constructions, are in use which were not formerly, and many formerly were which again will be; as Horace says in the beginning of his book on the art of Poetry, when he says: "Many words will spring up again which have now fallen out of use."

And the Heaven of Mercury may be compared to Logic because of two properties: that Mercury is the smallest star in Heaven, that the amount of its diameter is no more than two hundred and thirty-two miles, according as Alfergano puts it, who says that it is one twenty-eighth part of the diameter of the Earth, which is six thousand five hundred miles; the other property is, that it is more concealed by the rays of the Sun than any other star. And these two properties are in Logic: for Logic is less in substance than any other Science, for it is perfectly compiled and terminated in so much text as is found in the old Art and the new; and it is more concealed than any other Science, inasmuch as it proceeds with more sophistical and probable arguments than any other.