That sun that breathed love’s fire into my youth Quel sol che pria d'amor mi scaldò 'l petto,

had thus resolved for me, feature by feature – di bella verità m'avea scoverto,

proving, disproving – the sweet face of truth. provando e riprovando, il dolce aspetto;

(Paradiso, Canto III, ll. 1-3)

The first image of this passage refers to Beatrice as the sun. Throughout the Commedia, Virgil is used as a symbol for human reason, while Beatrice is a symbol for divine love. So, by extension, likening Beatrice to the sun is equivalent to likening all that is divine to the sun. By doing this, Dante continues a trend most explicitly started by Plato, though it no doubt existed long before him, in which the sun is used as a metaphor for the ultimate Good. However, while Plato used the sun primarily for its brightness, this stanza exploits both its light and its heat. “Love’s fire” recalls the wall of fire in Purgatory, through which Dante had to pass in order to be absolved from the sin of lust. This refers to the fact that, in his youth, Dante lusted after Beatrice’s body more than he truly loved her. More generally and allegorically, though, it shows us that warmth is a sign of God’s love, so both love and warmth are completely absent in the frozen central pit of the Inferno. (Interestingly, the first line of this stanza also conjures up an image of Beatrice as a fire-breathing dragon of some sort, but this is most likely not the intended meaning of either Dante or Ciardi.)

The next two lines refer to Beatrice’s explanation in the previous canto of why the moon appears to have varying levels of light and dark on its surface. Thus, in revealing to Dante the “sweet face of truth”, she also reveals to him the true nature of the face of the moon. Her revelation is described in terms of light, which can “resolve” visible things “feature by feature”. It is possible to think of this metaphor in at least two different ways. On the one hand, the level of knowledge can increase overall, while on the other, the level can stay roughly the same, with the finer details becoming gradually clearer. The first case is like the rising sun, which may remind us of the dawn in the very first canto of the Commedia. This interpretation also connects the passage to the rest of the Paradiso, in which Dante experiences an ever-increasing brilliance of light as he ascends through the heavens toward God. The second case is like the adjustment of the eyes when one first steps outside into the sun, having previously been in some dimly lit place. This interpretation refers to the adjustments Dante constantly has to make, throughout the Paradiso, in order to discern any of the details of what he first sees only as a blinding light.

Anyone who has read Plato and who notices the second possible interpretation will no doubt recollect the allegory of the cave in The Republic, in which the person who leaves the cave is initially blinded by the brilliance of the sun. Plato uses the sun as a metaphor for the form of the Good, which imparts truth on intelligible things, allowing us to comprehend them, just as the sun imparts light on visible things, allowing us to see them. What is interesting about Dante’s metaphor is that truth itself is the object revealed by the sun, rather than being the medium by which other knowable things are revealed. God’s light, then, seems to symbolize something other than, or perhaps more than, the mere source of truth. This would make sense, because Dante puts Plato in Limbo, believing that human reason alone, which is the way to know the truth, is not enough to actually encounter God. In the first stanza of the Paradiso, Dante describes how God’s glory “rays forth” and “is reflected” from the things in the universe. More accurately, Ciardi uses those descriptions in order to fit a rhyme, whereas Dante tells of a glory that “penetrates” the entire universe, and “shines” in all of its parts. Nevertheless, it is clear that Dante intends us to interpret the glory of God as the light that illuminates all things. This glory is more than Plato’s form of the Good, in that Dante’s god is an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-merciful entity, whereas the Good is only an all-revealing form. In Plato’s world, truth is something that’s just there, and human reason, all by itself, can use that truth to know everything knowable. In Dante’s world, on the other hand, truth itself can only be fully revealed by God’s glory, so human reason can only access and make use of the truth when it is accompanied by God’s glory.