Once again, for the third and last time, he has a prophetic dream in the early dawn; and if we compare these three parallel passages, we find that each begins with the same words “Nell’ ora.”[484] The first time the ideas connected with the time are wholly sorrowful, for it is said to be the hour when the swallow begins to twitter, perchance in memory of her former woes—alluding to the tragic tale of Procne and Philomel. The second is a depressing time, for it is the cold hour when, the day’s heat being all spent, the chilled earth cannot overcome the influence of the cold planets such as the moon or Saturn, but there is a thought of hope in the stars of the Greater Fortune seen rising in the east, in a sky which is now scarcely dark to them. The third is all joy, for it is the hour when Cytherea (the planet Venus), burning ever in the fire of love, shines first upon the mountain. Dante’s sleep flees from him as the shades of darkness flee on all sides, chased by the brightness before sunrise; and when Virgil tells him that to-day he shall reach the goal of his desires, he speeds up the remaining steps of the stair, almost as if on wings.
The poets arrived on the shores of Purgatory, as we saw, facing east, and now that they have attained the summit of the mountain, coming up the western slope, they again face east, and the just risen sun shines in their faces. Dante walks towards it: a breeze fans his forehead and causes all the trees to bend in the direction of the shadow thrown at sunrise by the Mountain (i.e. westwards), and the murmur of this gentle wind in the branches forms a bass to the treble of the singing birds who are greeting the morning hours. For a few steps the stream of Lethe stays his steps in this direction, but he soon reaches a bend, and once more “a levante mi rendei.”[485] The symbolical procession which accompanies Beatrice comes towards him from the east, and after he has crossed the river Lethe and joined the procession beside the Car in which Beatrice is throned, all turn to the sun, which by this time must have travelled some distance towards the north. After the vision of the disasters which befell the holy Car, and after Beatrice has spoken with Dante again, they reach the fountain whence Eunoe flows, and now the sun is on the meridian and it is noon, though (as Dante reminds us) different places have different meridians, so that it is not noon everywhere else. He is bathed in the holy waters, and thus, all having been accomplished for which he has visited these regions, he is “puro e disposto a salire alle stelle.”[486]
Hell was entered at twilight, Purgatory at dawn, the ascent to Paradise is made at noon, “il colmo del dì.”[487] The time spent in Purgatory is three days and the morning of a fourth, which is the seventh from the beginning of the vision.
4. PARADISE.
That the time of ascent to the spheres was noon is again stated in the opening Canto of the Paradiso, where Dante says that the sun had brought morning there (Purgatory) and evening here (the inhabited hemisphere), and that now the whole of that hemisphere was bright while the whole of this was dark.[488] The sun is therefore now due north. While Beatrice stood beside the waters of Eunoe, after walking towards the sun, it had moved to her left, so she now turns in that direction to gaze upon it.[489] She, like Virgil, takes as her guide that sun which Dante has said is the fittest symbol of God, and it is through the power of this heavenly light that he is raised from earth. Compare
“Amor che il ciel governi ... col tuo lume mi levasti.”[490]
He is not conscious of any effort, or even movement, but is astonished by a great light and strange music, and learns that he is in the sphere of fire and listening to the harmony of the spheres. His soul, freed from all that bound it to earth, is soaring towards its natural goal, as fire mounts up and rivers run down.
The upward gaze to the sun or to the skies, and its power to raise them, is again described in Par. i. 142: Beatrice “rivolse inver lo cielo il viso,”[491] and in ii. 22, “Beatrice in suso ed io in lei guardava.”[492] Thus they rise to the First Heaven, of the moon. In answer to an eager question of Dante’s about the markings of the moon, Beatrice is led to discourse on the spheres and their movers. Spirits appear, and Dante learns that although all the redeemed dwell in the Empyrean, those of different degrees of blessedness will manifest themselves to him in each sphere. After explaining this and other things, Beatrice once more
“si rivolse tutta disiante A quelle parte ove il mondo è più vivo,”[493]
and swift as an arrow that strikes its mark before the cord has ceased to quiver, they ascend to the Second Heaven, of Mercury. To understand the above lines we must remember that the sun, as Dante told us in the introductory Canto,[494] is at the equinox, or near it, and therefore on the equator; also that the equator of a sphere, where motion is quickest, is its most living part.[495] Beatrice is therefore looking again at the sun. Some understand “quella parte”[496] to refer directly to the sun, “quegli ch’ è padre d’ogni mortal vita,”[497] some to the equinoctial point;[498] others think that the east is meant; others the Empyrean, in which is the true life of all the Universe.