On the threshhold

Dante's celebration of the freedom of the will comes at the beginning of the fifth canto of Paradiso, where it serves as the preface to a discussion of the most paradoxical use of our freedom, and as the climactic summary of what the protagonist has learnt during his first encounter in the heavens. It is to that encounter we must now return in order to clarify the nature and limits of human freedom.

As we saw in chapter 6, the episode takes place inside the moon itself and it begins when the protagonist catches sight of a group of welcoming faces. These appear so faintly within the luminous and cloud-like body of the moon that he jumps to the conclusion that they must be reflections of people who are standing behind him. His false deduction is corrected first by his sense of sight – he turns round and sees nothing – and then by the words of Beatrice.

His ‘sweet guide’ smilingly teases him for his ‘childish thought’, which still lacks the confidence to ‘rest its feet upon the truth’. She assures him that the apparitions are ‘true beings’; and she urges him to believe what they will say, because their desires are fully satisfied by the ‘True Light’ who will ‘not allow their feet to stray’.