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Canto 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Paradiso, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Earthly and Heavenly Justice
Creation and God’s Providence
God’s Character and Will
Vision, Knowledge, and the Pursuit of God
Language and the Ineffable
Summary
Analysis
Before Dante can reply to Beatrice’s scientific explanation, a sight distracts him. He sees indistinct reflections of faces and turns around, thinking people must be standing behind him. Beatrice teases him, calling him a “baby” in his pursuit of truth. She explains that the beings he sees are real souls, not reflections. The reason that they’re in this sphere—and why they appear so cloudy—is because of their inconstancy during life. Beatrice encourages Dante to speak to them.
Just as there are different levels in the heavenly spheres, so there is a hierarchy of blessedness in Heaven. An inverted version of this appears in Dante’s Inferno—as Dante travels deeper and deeper into the layers of Hell, the souls he meets are increasingly sinful. The souls in this heavenly sphere reflect their cloudy, variable environment because they behaved inconstantly in life—their wills changing like the changeable moon.
Themes
Dante asks the nearest spirit to reveal her name and destiny. Smiling, she identifies herself as Piccarda, a former nun who’d been pulled from the cloister and made to marry. She explains that she and her fellow souls are assigned to this slower-moving sphere of Heaven because they neglected their vows in life. Noticing how happy she appears, Dante wonders if she’d prefer to be in a higher sphere, where she’d be closer to God. Still radiant, Piccarda replies that God’s love causes her to want nothing other than what she has been given. If she wished to be placed higher, then her will would be “out of tune” with God’s—but, in Heaven, that simply cannot be. In God’s will, in other words, she finds her peace.
Piccarda dei Donati was a woman whom Dante knew in real life. As she alludes to here, she was persuaded to leave a Florentine convent in order to marry for her brother’s political advantage. Piccarda’s story is an example of God’s providence, meaning how God’s grace is distributed in various ways. Every soul’s destiny is a gift of God’s grace, but grace is not granted in the same way or to the same degree everywhere. Yet souls do not suffer any sense of deficiency or injustice because of this. That’s because, in Heaven, their wills are completely aligned with God’s will and find their peace and happiness only there.
Themes
Piccarda points out the soul of another former nun, Empress Constance. Constance was also pulled from the cloister, but “she never let the veil fall from her heart.” Piccarda then fades from Dante’s sight, singing Ave Maria. Dante turns to look at Beatrice again, and his eyes are overwhelmed by her radiant light.
Empress Constance died in 1198, daughter of the King of Naples and Sicily and wife of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. Like Piccarda, Constance, is portrayed as a religiously devout figure who nevertheless yielded to the pressure to serve the political world. Dante’s ability to withstand Beatrice’s radiance will grow as the story goes on, symbolizing his maturing in the knowledge of God.
Themes
