Commentary Par IV 43-48

The phenomenon referred to by Beatrice, of ancient Christian lineage, is known as 'accommodative metaphor.'  Put simply (and Dante's text does this admirably), it is the metaphoric presentation of higher things and higher beings that ordinary mortals simply have not the experiential background to understand.  (For the closeness of Dante's presentation of it here to the exposition made by St. Thomas, see Hollander [Holl.1969.1], p. 192, and Dumol [Dumo.1998.1], pp. 5-6.)  E.g., angels are pure being (or, as Dante would say, 'pure act' [see [Par XXIX 33]]) and have no visible aspect.  So that we may better conceive them, we are allowed to think of them as having wings, faces, voices, etc.  Similarly, God Himself is beyond any anthropomorphic human imagining, but Scripture allows us to think of Him as having hands and feet, etc.  St. Thomas, in fact, has discussed the passage in Isaiah that thus became perhaps the locus classicus for discussions of the phenomenon (Isaiah 51:9).  Interestingly enough, these remarks are imbedded in his discussion of fourfold allegory that is so densely reflected in the Epistle to Cangrande.  Here is what Thomas has to say about accommodative metaphor (Summa I.i.10): 'Per voces significatur aliquid proprie, et aliquid figurative. Nec est litteralis sensus ipsa figura, sed id quod est figuratum. Non enim cum Scriptura nominat Dei brachium, est litteralis sensus quod in Deo sit membrum hujusmodi corporale: sed id quod per hoc membrum significatur, scilicet virtus operativa' (The parabolic sense is contained in the literal, for by words things are signified properly or figuratively.  Nor is the figure itself, but that which is figured, the literal sense.  When Scripture speaks of God's arm, its literal sense is not that God has such a member, but only what is signified by this member, namely, operative power).  Metaphor, in Thomas's discussion, is associated with the parabolic sense, a sub-category of the literal sense, in which things that are literally untrue nevertheless may have a significance other than that which they seem to possess.  Thomas is quite clear that one must not confuse a metaphoric literal sense with a historical/literal sense that does have further (historical) meaning.  It would not be overbold to suggest that the central distinction between the 'allegory of the poets' and the 'allegory of the theologians' first referred to by Dante in Convivio (Conv.II.i.4) is based on this distinction.  And for a similar Dantean concern for scriptural language and its potential relation to the Comedy, see also Monarchia (Mon.III.iv.7): 'Augustine says in the De civitate Dei: "It must not be thought that every reported event has a further meaning; but those which have no further meaning are also included for the sake of those which do have such a meaning.  Only the ploughshare breaks up the soil, but for this to happen the other parts of the plough are necessary as well"' (tr. P. Shaw).  Dante's own concern with the problem of metaphor, expressed in the Epistle to Cangrande, is also directly related to his thoughts about Plato's possible use of this trope, a subject confronted in this canto (see discussion in C.Par.IV.55-63).  See Epist.XIII.84: 'For we perceive many things by the intellect for which language has no terms -- a fact which Plato indicates plainly enough in his books by his employment of metaphors; for he perceived many things by the light of the intellect which his everyday language was inadequate to express'(tr. P. Toynbee).

In an important sense, almost all of Dante's experience of the afterworld in the first thirty cantos of this canticle is metaphoric, i.e., what he sees in the stars is there only temporarily and for illustrative purposes.  For similar understandings, see Freccero, 'Paradiso X: The Dance of the Stars,' (Frec.1986.1 [1968]), pp. 221-26; Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 192-201; Chiarenza (Chia.1972.1); Mazzotta (Mazz.1979.1), pp. 246-47; Barolini (Baro.1992.1), pp. 143-65; Moevs (Moev.1999.1).  And see the appreciation of a Harvard freshman, Chris Hampson, in a seminar in the autumn of 2005: 'The whole point is that this is not what it's really like.'