Divine Comedy Ch. 51: Understanding Love's

Summary

Reader, if you have ever been taken by cloud on a mountain, seeing no better than a mole through membrane, then watched the vapours melt until the sun seemed to wade: so Dante first re-beholds the sun, already bedward, as he matches Virgil's feet out of the fog. A quick forgetive power can rob us of ourselves until a thousand trumpets would clang unmarked. What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light kindled in heaven, or gliding down by will divine. Portrayed before him come the traces of her whose form was changed into the bird that most delights in song. Then a crucified shape whose visage speaks fell rancour, with Ahasuerus, Esther, and blameless Mordecai; the coinage bursts like a bubble. A damsel weeps: O queen, O mother, intemperate ire has driven thee to loathe thy being; not to lose Lavinia thou hast slain thyself, and now hast lost me. New radiance on closed lids breaks the sleep. A voice: Here ye mount. Dante's virtue fails as before a sun that veils itself in light. This is a spirit from above who marshals the way unsought and shrouds himself in his own light. Who waits to be implored, seeing the need, prepares for blunt denial. Haste before it darken. At the first stair a wing fans Dante's face: Blessed they the peacemakers; they know not evil wrath.

The last beams rise, followed by hooded night, and many a star shines. Why partest from me, O my strength? The sinews slacken. They are fixed like a bark arrived at land. If our feet rest, Dante says, no need thy speech should pause: declare what guilt this circle purges. The love of good, whatever wanted of just proportion, here fulfils. Here plies afresh the oar that loitered ill.

Creator nor created being was ever without love, natural or the free spirit's growth. The natural is without error; the other swerves if bent on an ill object, or through excess or defect of vigour. Love is germin of each virtue and of each act that merits pain. None can hate himself, nor hate the first being on which he depends; so the evil loved must be another's. Three ways such love is gendered in your clay: he who hopes, his neighbour's worth depressed, for preeminence; he who so fears a fellow's rise in power, fame, favour, glory that he loves their opposite; and he whom wrong so galls that he thirsts for vengeance and dotes on another's evil. Here beneath, this threefold love is mourned. Of the other sort: all yearn after a bliss on which the soul may rest. If ye seek it with a love remiss and lax, this cornice after repenting lays its torment. Other good is not true fruition; love too lavishly bestowed on that is mourned along three circles over us. Expect not the tripartite account; it is fitter for thine own research.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Ply the Oar That Loitered

A feeling can fill you before anything outside has moved. Dante walks out of fog through pictures of a song-bird, a crucified rancour, and Lavinia's weeping, then hears that this circle plies afresh the oar that loitered in love of good.

This week, name the inner picture that stole the hour, and take one delayed good at a living pace.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Virgil

Out of the fog he names the circle that plies afresh the oar that loitered in love of good. A feeling can fill Dante before anything outside has moved. The guide treats sloth as a stalled stroke, not as a mood. Love that would not row is still love, and that is the charge.

Continue this thoughtA Mountain That Will Not Hurry

Coming Up in Chapter 52

Virgil will read the question Dante is afraid to ask, and name a threshold of assent that still belongs to you even if the first glow does not. Then a swift crowd of holy love will overtake them in the dark.

PreviousPrevious Chapter NextNext Chapter

Original text

1,067 wordscomplete

Chapter 51

Understanding Love's Three Forms

Call to remembrance, reader, if thou e’er Hast, on a mountain top, been ta’en by cloud, Through which thou saw’st no better, than the mole Doth through opacous membrane; then, whene’er The wat’ry vapours dense began to melt Into thin air, how faintly the sun’s sphere Seem’d wading through them; so thy nimble thought May image, how at first I re-beheld The sun, that bedward now his couch o’erhung. Thus with my leader’s feet still equaling pace From forth that cloud I came, when now expir’d The parting beams from off the nether shores. O quick and forgetive power! that…

Public-domain chapter text, formatted for reading.

Master this chapter. Complete your experience

Purchase the complete book to access all chapters and support classic literature

Buy atAmazon.com

Available in paperback, hardcover, and e-book formats

The Book of Job

Anonymous

Explores morality & ethics

Ecclesiastes

Qoheleth

Explores morality & ethics

The Consolation of Philosophy

Boethius

Explores morality & ethics

The Idiot

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Explores morality & ethics

Lessons from Divine Comedy

Theme-by-theme analyses that connect this book to modern life skills.

Deep diving the literary elements.

Understanding Love's Three Forms

Summary

Why This Matters