Commentary Par X 61-63

Beatrice's delighted smile at being forgotten in favor of God brings Dante's attention back to her and, surely we are meant to understand, to the souls in the Sun. Albert Rossi, while a graduate student at Princeton some twenty-five years ago, suggested that the phrase 'li occhi suoi ridenti' (verse 62) reflected a passage in Convivio (Conv.III.xv.2): 'The text [of the canzone Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona] says then that "in her face there appear things which manifest some part of the joy of Paradise," and it identifies the place where it appears, namely her eyes and her smile [st. iv, vv. 1-3].  Here it is necessary to know that the eyes of wisdom are her demonstrations, by which truth is seen with the greatest certainty, and her smiles are her persuasions, in which the inner light of wisdom is revealed behind a kind of veil; and in each of them is felt the highest joy of blessedness, which is the greatest good of Paradise' [tr. R. Lansing].