The troublesome verb assonnare in Par. 32.139 has so defied interpretation that there is still no critical consensus on the meaning of that verse. Michele Barbi's gloss does, however, stand out as the most frequently cited. Barbi's point of departure is the conviction that the Commedia describes a journey in the body, not a dream. Noting that Dante contemplates the highest mysteries of the faith in the Empyrean, and asserting that this requires "la totale astrazione dai sensi," he proposes that the protagonist is to be viewed as being in the sleep-like state of ecstasis while in the tenth heaven, so that the time which is rapidly nearing its end is the period of time allocated to keeping Dante in this contemplative "sleep." A brief reference to Augustine on John's apocalyptic vision and Paul's rapture may be intended to suggest that we are to imagine that Dante ascends bodily to the Empyrean and that, once there, he has an ecstatic imaginative vision like John's, followed, at the poem's end, by a Pauline intellectual vision of the divine essence.[1]

In fact, Dante is not in the least alienated from his senses until that final vision. In any case, Aquinas twice argues that such alienation is not essential to the illumination of the intellect with respect to divine truth.[2] Rather than substantiate these criticisms, however, I will simply propose an alternative interpretation, one which perhaps amounts to no more than a refinement of Barbi's, by suggesting that the poet's version of Paul's brief experience of beatitude, the teleological "end" of the journey and the conclusion of the text, may well be precisely the "sleep" which Bernard has in mind.

Barbi's gloss assumes that assonnare, which is used transitively in the problematic verse, has the literal meaning "to keep asleep," "to hold in sleep," so that its metaphorical sense is "to hold in the state of ecstasy." However, if the poet is being consistent with his three previous intransitive uses of the verb, then its meaning is subtly but significantly different. In Par. 7.15, "mi richinava come l'uom ch'assonna," assonnare looks much like a synonym of addormentarsi, so that it seems to signify not the state of sleep but the transition to sleep. This meaning is made abundantly clear in Purg. 32.64-70, where that very transition is the problem:

S'io potessi ritrar come assonnaro
li occhi spietati udendo di Siringa,
li occhi a cui pur vegghiar costò sì caro;
come pintor che con essempro pinga,
disegnerei com' io m'addormentai;
ma qual vuol sia che l'assonnar ben finga.
Però trascorro a quando mi svegliai.

Here, assonnare is manifestly a synonym of addormentarsi, "to fall asleep" (not of dormire, "to be asleep") and their common opposite is svegliarsi, "to wake up" (not vegliare, "to be awake"). Assonnare in this sense has its own antagonistic partner in disonnare, "to wake up" (Par. 26.70). Thus, if intransitive assonnare, like addormentarsi, means "to fall asleep," not "to be asleep," then the most natural meaning of transitive assonnare in Par. 32.139 is the same as addormentare, "to send to sleep," not "to hold in sleep." If this is correct, then I need only have quoted my Zingarelli, which gives the transitive sense of the verb as "indurre al sonno, far addormentare," and notes that it is composed of a and sonno.[3] A very plausible literal translation of "il tempo che t'assonna" would therefore be: "the time which is sending you to sleep." The sleep is yet to come, as the end result of the process of assonnare.

This process is going on as Bernard speaks, and it will continue until the pilgrim actually "falls asleep." The present tense is used because, although Dante's "sleep" is in the future, "'l tempo" is the grammatical subject of assonnare, and it is sending the pilgrim to "sleep." If Virgil's "lo tempo è poco omai che n'è concesso" (Inf. 29.11) and Bernard's "Ma perché 'l tempo fugge che t'assonna" are as alike thematically as they are syntactically, then the time in question is the time allocated by Providence to this process, and the protagonist's sleep is its "end." Bernard's point would then be that this end, which is identical with the sleep, is immanent. The ultimate end of the journey, and of the text, is the final vision, when the divine light elevates Dante beyond sensation, imagination and discursive reason, so that he may have a brief experience of beatitude (Par. 33.140-145). Since some medieval writers thought of the beatific vision as a "sleep," Saint Bernard and one "pseudo-Bernard" included, it may be that the protagonist's experience of that vision is the slumber which Dante's Bernard anticipates in Par. 32.139.

In his typology of the kinds of sleep which are to be found in Scripture, Peter Cantor describes a somnus gloriae which is "alienus . . . et a mundo, et a culpa, et omni poena." The very systematic typology by Innocent III, which Filippo Villani quotes verbatim in his gloss on Inf. 1.10-12, includes a somnus vitae aeternalis which comes "ex gloria." Aquinas was equally systematic in his catalogue of sleeps, in which he mentions two kinds of "somnus gratiae," the second being "quies aeternae gloriae." All three theologians cite Psalm 4.9, "In peace in the selfsame I will sleep, and I will rest" ("In pace in id ipsum dormiam et requiescam").[4]

The notion that the sleep of Ps. 4.9 is the beatific vision may have originated with Augustine. Of the faithful few who strive to detach themselves from the things of this world, Augustine says:

Rightly do they hope for the complete alienation of the mind from mortal things, the total oblivion to the miseries of this life, which is aptly and prophetically termed sleep and rest, the supreme peace which no tumult can disturb. This is not to be attained in this life; rather, we must hope for it in the next, as the psalmist's use of the future tense reveals. For he says neither 'I slept and rested' nor 'I sleep and rest,' but 'I will sleep, and I will rest.' Then will this corruptible put on incorruptibility, and this mortal put on immortality; then death shall be swallowed up in victory.[5]

Cassiodorus and Peter Lombard rely on Augustine in their glosses on Ps. 4.9.[6] Saint Bernard argues that even the saints in heaven, who have already been granted beatific repose, will not enjoy the full visio Dei of Psalm 4.9 until after the general resurrection:

For regarding that future consummation we have their words at the end of the psalm about which we spoke earlier. For each individual soul to whom it has already been given to attain this repose says: 'In peace in the self same I will sleep, and I will rest.'[7]

Guerric of Igny, in a sermon which was included among the works of Bernard in Dante's time, dwells on the urgent need for purgation, highlighting the sleep of Psalm 4.9 as the ultimate reward. The exemplary figure is Simeon (cf. Luke 2.29-32), whose "days of purgation" were fulfilled when he beheld Christ, just as his "days of expectation" are fulfilled now:

For nothing then remained for him, according to the word of the Lord, after he had seen Christ, Christ the peace of God and man, but to depart in peace, and to sleep in peace in the selfsame; that is, to be taken to the Jerusalem of eternal peace, and to be presented to the Lord in order to contemplate the peace which surpasses all understanding.[8]

Dante evokes his version of this peace, his version of the "sleep of eternal glory," in the poem's final image:

ma già volgeva il mio disio e 'l velle,
sì come rota ch'igualmente è mossa,
l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle. (Par. 33. 143-45)

If there is no apparent allusion to sleep here, it may be because the theme is eternal life, not eternal sleep. This does not prevent Bernard anticipating this conclusion by telling the pilgrim that "the time which is bringing you to the sleep of glory" is rapidly nearing its end.

[2] Summa Theologiae 2a2ae.173.3, De Veritate 12.9.

[3] Vocabolario della lingua italiana, 12th ed., ed.s M. Dogliotti and L. Rosiello (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1999).

[4] Peter Cantor, Verbum Abbreviatum 81 (PL 205.248), Innocent III, Sermones de Tempore 2 (PL 217.320-21), DDP, Filippo Villani (1405), Inf. 1.10-12, Thomas Aquinas, Super Epistolam ad Romanos Lectura 13.3.1062, in Super Epistolas S. Pauli Lectura, 2 vols., 8th ed., R. Cai, (Turin-Rome: Marietti, 1953), Vol. 1, 197. I use the "Stuttgart version" (1994) for the Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims translation.

[5] Enarrationes in Psalmos 4.9 (PL 36.82-83); see also Confessiones 9.4.11 (PL 32.768)

[6] Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psalterium 4 (PL 70.52), Peter Lombard, Commentarium in Psalmos 4 (PL 191.89).

[7] In Festo Omnium Sanctorum 2.6 (PL 183.467).

[8] In Festo Purificationis 6.1 (PL 185.89); see also 3.3 (PL 185.74).