Commentary Par III 70-84

The bulk of Piccarda's answer to Dante's question (vv. 64-66) begins with the word frate (brother), the word that was nearly absent from Hell (eleven uses, predominantly to indicate a member of a religious order [nomenclature that the Infernal context makes obviously suspect at once], and only once to express human fraternity [by Ulysses, addressing his shipmates, at [Inf XXVI 112] -- with, according to some readers (see C.Inf.XXVI.112-113), an unmistakable whiff of Julius Caesar's fulsome address to his soldiers, captatio benevolentiae on all fours, as it were]).  It frequently appeared as a term of address in Purgatorio (thirteen times): [Purg IV 127]; [Purg XI 82]; [Purg XIII 94]; [Purg XVI 65]; [Purg XIX 133]; [Purg XXI 13]; [Purg XXI 131]; [Purg XXIII 97]; [Purg XXIII 112]; [Purg XXIV 55]; [Purg XXVI 115]; [Purg XXIX 15]; [Purg XXXIII 23]).  Now, in the heavens, it appears less frequently as a term of address (first here and then in [Par IV 100]; [Par IV VII58]; [Par IV VII130]; [Par IV XXII61]) and a total of four other times.  In a sense it contains a central message of Piccarda's speech in that it insists on the relationship that binds all saved Christians in their fellowship in God, a sense that overcomes the inevitable hierarchical distinctions found among them in this life.  The love that governs their will is nothing less than charity, with the result that it is impossible for them to want an advantage over their brothers and sisters in grace.  To wish things other than they are, to desire one's own 'advancement,' is nothing less than to oppose the will of God.  And thus all members of this community observe the gradations among themselves, but find in them the expression of their general and personal happiness.

The text ([Par III 80-85]) returns to forms for the word volontà (will), which opened (at [Par III 70]) Piccarda's concluding discourse as its main subject, five times (voglia, voglie, voler, 'nvoglia, volontade), underlining the importance of the will's direction of human love to divine ends.  The celestial form of will in brotherhood is vastly different from the will that destroys fraternity here on earth.  But it is as natural in the realms of Paradise as it is absent from Hell (and rarely enough found on earth).