Our shared home
More is permitted to our power there
than is permitted here, by virtue of
that place, made for mankind as its true home.
Divine Comedy, Paradiso I, 55–57*
Paradiso begins with a proem, with Dante the poet addressing the reader about the work itself rather than Dante pilgrim talking solely about what he experienced. In a summary that would have most literary scholars calling for my exile, I would say this early part of the canticle boils down to “You can’t possibly comprehend what I saw there, so this is all just me doing my best to explain it to folks still alive in this world.”
The line that really draws me in is 57: “made for mankind as its true home.” Without getting into the nitty-gritty of theology — which I am woefully unprepared to say anything about — this is a wonderful little description of humanity’s participation in the divine (on which many traditions and philosophies can agree, at least in the broadest terms).
*Molto è licito là, che qui non lece
a le nostre virtù, mercé del loco
fatto per proprio de l’umana spece.
