The Vision of the Empyrean and the Rose of Paradise

The Vision of the Empyrean and the Rose of Paradise is the final and most transcendent event of Dante Alighieri's journey through the afterlife, marking his passage from the temporal, hierarchical heavens into the eternal, formless light of God's immediate presence. Here, the pilgrim, guided first by Beatrice and then by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, beholds the celestial Rose—the vast, snow-white assembly of all the redeemed—and receives a vision of the divine essence that surpasses all earthly comprehension. This event is the poem's ultimate resolution, where the narrative's long arc of sin, purgation, and ascent culminates in the direct experience of the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

The Ascent to the Empyrean and the River of Light

After passing through the Primum Mobile, the ninth and swiftest of the physical heavens, Dante and Beatrice enter the Empyrean, a realm of pure light that is not subject to space or time. Beatrice announces this transition with a declaration: "We from the greatest body / Have issued to the heaven that is pure light; / Light intellectual replete with love, / Love of true good replete with ecstasy, / Ecstasy that transcendeth every sweetness." The pilgrim is momentarily blinded by a living light that envelops him, but his vision is renewed and strengthened. He then sees a river of light, "fulvid with its effulgence," flowing between two banks adorned with an eternal spring. From this river issue living sparks that sink into the flowers on the banks, like rubies set in gold, and then plunge back into the torrent, only to emerge again. Beatrice explains that this river and the topazes are "foreshadowing prefaces" of the truth, and that Dante must drink from it to slake his thirst for understanding. When he stoops to the water and drinks, the river's length transforms into a circular form, and the sparks and flowers are revealed to be the two courts of Heaven: the angels and the blessed souls.

The White Rose of Paradise

The blessed souls are arranged in the form of a vast, snow-white rose, which displays itself to Dante as "the saintly host, / Whom Christ in his own blood had made his bride." The petals of this rose are the seats of the redeemed, arranged in concentric circles that ascend toward the center. The angels, described as a swarm of bees, descend into the flower and reascend, carrying peace and ardour from God to the souls and back. Their faces are of living flame, their wings of gold, and their bodies so white that no snow can compare. The light of God penetrates the entire rose, and no obstacle can impede its radiance. Dante, like a pilgrim gazing upon the temple of his vow, directs his eyes over all the ranks, now up, now down, now all around, seeing faces of charity persuasive, embellished by divine light and their own smiles.

The Departure of Beatrice and the Guidance of St. Bernard

As Dante turns to question Beatrice about the mysteries before him, he finds that she has vanished. In her place stands an old man, "habited like the glorious people," with eyes and cheeks overflowing with joy benign and an attitude of pity. This is St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who explains that Beatrice has sent him from her own place to guide Dante to the final vision. Dante looks up and sees Beatrice enthroned in the third circle of the first rank, making herself a crown that reflects the eternal rays. He offers her a prayer of gratitude, acknowledging that she has brought him from slavery to freedom through all the ways and expedients by which she had the power to do it. Beatrice, far away, smiles and looks at him once more, then turns to the eternal fountain. St. Bernard then instructs Dante to fly with his eyes all around the garden of Paradise, for seeing it will discipline his sight to mount farther along the divine ray. He points out the Virgin Mary, the Queen of Heaven, enthroned at the center of the rose, surrounded by more than a thousand jubilant angels, each differing in effulgence and kind.

The Structure of the Celestial Rose

St. Bernard, assuming the office of a teacher, explains the arrangement of the blessed within the rose. The wound that Mary closed and anointed was opened and pierced by Eve, who sits at Mary's feet. Rachel sits lower than Beatrice in the third order of seats. Sarah, Rebecca, Judith, and Ruth, the ancestress of King David, descend in gradation from seat to seat. The Hebrew women occupy the seventh row and below, dividing the tresses of the flower according to the view which Faith in Christ had taken: on one side are those who believed in Christ to come, on the other those who looked to Christ already come. Opposite the seat of the Virgin Mary is that of John the Baptist, who endured desert and martyrdom and then two years in Hell. Beneath him are Francis, Benedict, and Augustine, and the rest from round to round. St. Bernard also explains that the souls in the lower ranks, including infants, are seated not by their own merit but by another's under fixed conditions, differing only in their first acuteness. The King, by means of whom this realm reposes in so great love and delight, dowers with grace diversely, and the effect suffices.

The Prayer to the Virgin and the Final Vision of God

St. Bernard then turns his eyes to the Virgin Mary and begins a holy orison, addressing her as "Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, / Humble and high beyond all other creature, / The limit fixed of the eternal counsel." He prays that Dante may be granted the power to uplift his eyes to the uttermost salvation, and that his affections may be preserved sound after so great a vision. The Virgin's eyes, beloved and revered of God, show how grateful to her are prayers devout, and then turn to the Eternal Light. Dante, now approaching the end of all desires, finds his sight purified and entering more and more into the ray of the High Light. He sees that in its depth is bound up with love together in one volume what through the universe is scattered in leaves—substance, accident, and their operations, all interfused into one simple light. Within the deep and luminous subsistence of the High Light, he perceives three circles of threefold colour and of one dimension, the first reflected by the second as Iris by Iris, and the third seeming fire breathed equally from both. He attempts to understand how the image of humanity conforms itself to the divine circle, but his own wings are not enough for this. A flash of lightning smites his mind, wherein its wish comes, and his desire and will are turned, even as a wheel that is equally moved, by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.