In the Paradise, however, the allegorical and abstract element in the conception of Beatrice is generally the ruling one. She is the impersonation of Divine Philosophy, under whose guidance the spiritual discernment is so quickened and the moral perceptions so purified, that the intellect can thread its way through subtlest intricacies of casuistry and theology, and where the intellect fails the eye of faith still sees.
Even in this allegorical character Beatrice is a veritable personality, as are Lucia, the Divine Grace, and the other attributes or agents of the Deity, who appear in the Comedy as personal beings with personal affections and feelings, though at the same time representing abstract ideas. Thus Beatrice, as Divine Philosophy impersonated, is at once an abstraction and a personality. 'The eyes of Philosophy,' says Dante elsewhere, 'are her demonstrations, the smile of Philosophy her persuasions.'[80] And this mystic significance must never be lost sight of when we read of Beatrice's eyes kindling with an ever brighter glow and her smile beaming through them with a diviner sweetness as she ascends through heaven after heaven ever nearer to the presence of God. The demonstrations of Divine Philosophy become more piercing, more joyous, more triumphant, her persuasions more soul-subduing and entrancing, as the spirit draws nearer to its source.
But though we shall never understand the Paradise unless we perceive the allegorical significance and appropriateness not only of the general conception of Beatrice, but also of many details in Dante's descriptions of her, yet we should be equally far from the truth if we imagined her a mere allegory. She is a glorified and as it were divine personality, and watches over and guides her pupil with the tenderness and love of a gentle and patient mother. The poet constantly likens himself to a wayward, a delirious, or a frightened child, as he flies for refuge to his blessed guide's maternal care.[81]
Again, they are in the eighth heaven, and Beatrice knows that a glorious manifestation of saints and angels is soon to be vouchsafed to Dante. Listen to his description of her as she stands waiting: 'E'en as a bird amongst the leaves she loves, brooding upon the nest of her sweet young throughout the night wherein all things are hid, foreruns the time to see their loved aspect and find them food, wherein her heavy toil is sweet to her, there on the open spray, waiting with yearning longing for the sun, fixedly gazing till the morn shall rise; so did she stand erect, her eyes intent on the meridian. And seeing her suspended in such longing I became as one who yearns for what he knows not, and who rests in hope.'[82]
Under Beatrice's guidance, then, Dante ascends through the nine heavens into the empyrean heights of Paradise. Here in reality are the souls of all the blessed, rejoicing in the immediate presence and light of God,[83] and here Dante sees them in the glorified forms which they will wear after the resurrection. But in order to bring home to his human understanding the varied grades of merit and beatitude in Paradise, he meets or appears to meet the souls of the departed in the successive heavens through which he passes, sweeping with the spheres in wider and ever wider arc, as he rises towards the eternal rest by which all other things are moved.
It is in these successive heavens that Dante converses with the souls of the blessed. In the lower spheres they appear to him in a kind of faint bodily form like the reflections cast by glass unsilvered; but in the higher spheres they are like gems of glowing light, like stars that blaze into sight or fade away in the depths of the sky; and these living topaz and ruby lights, like the morning stars that sing together in Job, break into strains of ineffable praise and joy as they glow upon their way in rhythmic measure both of voice and movement.
Thus in the fourth Heaven, the Heaven of the Sun, Dante meets the souls of the great doctors of the Church. Thomas Aquinas is there, and Albertus Magnus and the Venerable Bede and many more. A circle of these glorious lights is shining round Dante and Beatrice as Aquinas tells the poet who they were on earth. 'Then like the horologue, that summons us, what hour the spouse of God rises to sing her matins to her spouse, to win his love, wherein each part urges and draws its fellow, making a tinkling sound of so sweet note that the well-ordered spirit swells with love: so did I see the glorious wheel revolve, and render voice to voice in melody and sweetness such as ne'er could noted be save where joy stretches to eternity.
'Oh, senseless care of mortals! Ah, how false the thoughts that urge thee in thy downward flight! One was pursuing law, and medicine one, another hunting after priesthood, and a fourth would rule by force or fraud; one toiled in robbery, and one in civil business, and a third was moiling in the pleasures of the flesh all surfeit-weary, and a fourth surrendered him to sloth. And I the while, released from all these things, thus gloriously with Beatrice was received in Heaven.'[84]
When Beatrice fixes her eyes—remember their allegorical significance as the demonstrations of Divine philosophy—upon the light of God, and Dante gazes upon them, then quick as thought and without sense of motion, the two arise into a higher heaven, like the arrow that finds its mark while yet the bow-string trembles; and Dante knows by the kindling beauty that glows in his guardian's eyes that they are nearer to the presence of God and are sweeping Heaven in a wider arc.