This month we’re honored to bring our readers an excerpt from MARY JO BANG’s new translation of Dante’s Paradiso, out soon from Graywolf Press.
From Paradiso: Canto XI
The first eighteen lines of this canto are Dante’s elaboration of human difference, his lament over the failure of some humans to realize their gifts, and an exultation for the opportunity he’s been given—which is to enter Heaven before he has died.
Thomas Aquinas’s clarification of “where they fatten up” begins at line 22 and continues without interruption until the end of the canto. In lines 124 to 126, Thomas complains that Saint Dominic’s flock, the Dominican friars, are showing signs of ambition and greed, seeking honors and offices. They are wandering away from the tenets of the order, which are to live a life of humility and self-sacrifice. In lines 137 to 139, he says, “You’ll see what has splintered the tree, / And how the remedy for that can be deduced from // ‘Where they fatten up, if they don’t lose their way.’” The tree is the Dominican order, and it has been scheggia (“splintered” or “chipped away at”) because so many of the sheep have strayed. If the monks and clergy remain true to the principles set out by Saint Dominic, they will be enriched with the “milk” of spiritual nourishment and “fatten up” the way sheep are meant to.
Throughout the Divine Comedy, Dante is concerned with the ways in which selfishness destroys the social fabric. He details how people pay for that selfishness in Hell or by having to trudge up the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory. But Dante isn’t only interested in what happens after death, he is also talking about how we live while on earth. His life was destroyed by the petty grudges of partisan politics. As an exile, he was under constant threat of death. He takes great risks in writing his poem because he hopes that by addressing the greed and megalomania that is destroying Italy, he can help put a stop to it. He also knows that this is not a time-limited problem but a timeless one, which is why he wrote the poem in the vernacular—so that, unlike poems written in literary Latin, it would change over time. He said he was also writing his poem in the vernacular so that it could be read by everyone. That is why I translated the poem into the American vernacular.
—Mary Jo Bang
Canto XI
O pointless fretting of mortals,
How defective that deductive reasoning
That makes you flap your wings below.
One was heading for law, one was drawn
To doctoring, one to pursuing the priesthood,
One was ruling by force or by fraud.
One was robbing, one wheeling and dealing,
One was acting like a tapped-out sex addict,
One was lying on a lazy bed all the livelong day,
While I—freed from all that—
Was being so gloriously welcomed
High up in Heaven with Beatrice.
When each flame had returned to that point
Of the circle where it had been, it stopped
Stock still, like a candlestick candle. 15
Inside that light that had first spoken to me,
And which became even more clarified—
As if he were smiling—I heard him begin:
“Even as I’m illuminated by Its rays,
So, staring into the Eternal Light,
I’m aware of your thoughts and what causes them.
You have doubts. And want things explained
In such detail and in such language
That it’s made perfectly clear to you what I meant
When I said earlier, ‘where they fatten up,’ and
Back there where I said, ‘no second was ever born’;
Here one needs to make a clear distinction.
The Providence that rules the world
With such insight that every created vision
Is overcome before its depths are ever plumbed— 30
In order that the Bride of Him who cried out loudly
When He married her with His sacred blood
Might gladly go to her beloved
Feeling sure in herself and with more faith
In Him—He ordained two princes
To serve her, one on either side, as guides.
One was totally seraphic in his fiery passion;
The other, through wisdom, had
When on earth, the radiance of cherubic light.
I’ll talk about one, because whichever one
I take up, I’m praising both,
Since both worked toward the same end.
Between Topino and the stream that flows
Down the hill chosen by Saint Ubaldo,
The fertile side of Mount Subasio descends. 45
From there, Perugia feels the summer heat
And winter wind at Porta Sole, and behind it,
Nocera and Gualdo mourn the heavy yoke.
Right where the steepness of this slope
Flattens out the most, a sun rose on this world
As it sometimes does from the Ganges.
So, whoever talks about this place,
Don’t call it Assisi, which would be saying
Too little, but The East, if you want to be precise.
It wasn’t very long after his rising
That he began to make the earth
Feel sustained by his great power.
When still a young man, he went up against
His father over that lady to whom—
As with death—no one wants to open the door. 60
And before her spiritual court, and before
His father, he married her and, from that day on,
He loved her more deeply every day.
Bereft of her first husband—scorned and shut away
For well over eleven hundred years—
No one invited her in until that one arrived.
Nor did it help to hear about how she’d stood
Firm with Amyclas, even at the sound
Of Caesar’s voice, which the whole world feared.
Nor did it help when, steadfast and fearless,
She cried on the cross with Christ
While Mary stayed below.
But so I don’t go on too obscurely—
From now on, take Francis and Poverty
As those two lovers in everything I’m saying. 75
Their harmony and happy manner,
Their love and wonder, their sweet glances,
Made them the source of holy thoughts.
So much so that the venerable Bernard,
The first to go barefoot, went chasing after peace
Running, yet it seemed to him he was slow.
Oh, unknown riches! Oh, prolific good!
Giles goes barefoot, Sylvester goes barefoot,
Right behind the groom, the bride so delights them.
And afterward, that father and teacher
Set out with his bride, and with that family
That was already bound by the humble cord.
Neither shamefaced about being the son
Of Pietro Bernadone, nor at being mocked
To the point of amazement, 90
With the grandeur of royalty, he revealed
His stern resolve to Pope Innocent,
And received from him the first seal of his Order.
When more and more of those who chose poverty
Got behind him whose admirable life
Would best be sung in the glory of Heaven,
The sacred purpose of this abbot of many
Monasteries was wreathed with a second crown
By the Holy Spirit through Pope Honorius.
After that, longing for martyrdom, he preached
Of Christ and those who followed him
In the presence of the arrogant sultan.
Finding those people too early for conversion,
Rather than wasting his time there,
He went back to reap what he’d planted in Italy. 105
On the rugged cliff between the Tiber and Arno
He received, from Christ, the final seal: stigmata
That his limbs bore for his last two years.
When He who’d chosen him for such goodness
Was pleased to bring him up to the reward
He deserved for having humbled himself,
He commended his most beloved lady
To his brothers, as his rightful heirs,
And commanded them to faithfully love her.
When his illustrious soul decided to set out
From her lap, returning to its realm,
He wanted no other coffin for his body.
Now think which of his worthy colleagues
Was to keep Saint Peter’s boat
On the right course on the high seas; 120
And this was our patriarch. Whoever follows
Him as he commands, you can see
The freight they lade is goodness.
But his flock has become so greedy
For tasty new treats, it can’t help but scatter
Over far-flung pastures.
The more remote his sheep are, and the more
They go a roving, that much more
They come back to the fold empty of milk.
Sure, there are some who fear harm, so stay close
To the shepherd, but so few that all their cowls
Can be made from a scrap of fabric.
Now, if my words aren’t too faint,
If you’ve listened very carefully,
If you call to mind what’s been said, 135
Your wish will at least be partially satisfied,
Since you’ll see what has splintered the tree,
And how the remedy for that can be deduced from
‘Where they fatten up, if they don’t lose their way.’”
Mary Jo Bang is the author of nine books of poems—including A Film in Which I Play Everyone, which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, A Doll for Throwing, and Elegy, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has published translations of Dante’s Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher, Purgatorio, and Colonies of Paradise: Poems by Matthias Göritz. She is also the co-translator, with Yuki Tanaka, of A Kiss for the Absolute: Selected Poems of Shuzo Takaguchi. She teaches creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis. Her translation of Paradiso will be published by Graywolf in July 2025.
