Commentary Par XIII 112-142

The final 31 lines of this canto, a text that has, on the authority of none other than Thomas Aquinas, just established Solomon's kingly wisdom as a defining part of Dante's theocratic view of the world's affairs, nonetheless offer a warning to all of us who tend to rush to judgment, whether in relation to matters philosophical or theological.  As we shall see ([Par XIII 133-138]), there is an autobiographical component to this plea.

For Dante to have used so much poetic space on so apparently simple, even banal, a topic tells his readers how keenly he felt involved in the problem.  Once again we sense how, as he looks back over his intellectual development from the vantage point of the making of this great work, he realizes how self-centered some of his earlier attitudes were.  (See Hollander [Holl.2003.2]).