Dissertation on Birds of Prey and the Sport - the Falconry Heritage ...

very falconlike as well, circular: "vidi movesi un altro roteando, e letizia era ferza del
paleo." (41) It is joy that causes these falcons to fly in circles. They contrast sharply
with another circling falcon, Geryon in Inferno, who was circling in defeat, falling, with
no lure and no purpose. He makes quite a contrast with these heavenly falcons who live
in the ultimate lure, the heavenly spheres.
The heavenly eagle of the just rulers that follows these knightly souls is
intertwined with both falcons and cranes. It transforms from spelling out a divine
message to earthly rulers, as cranes write while flying, into an imperial eagle, and thence
to an eagle that acts like an unhooded falcon.
In Canto XVIII of Paradiso, Dante finally and literally encounters direct
divine writing in action. He acknowledges the limits of his own poetic ability, which,
though divinely inspired, is still written by a mere human: in order to simply retell
what he sees here he needs to invoke the aid of all the muses. The direct prompting of
divine love causes the souls in the heaven of Jupiter to form the letters that spell
DILIGITE IUSTITIAM QUI IUDICATIS TERRAM. These spirits inspire the last of
the four crane similes:
E come augelli surti di rivera
quasi congratulando a lor pasture,
fanno di se or tonda or altra schiera,
si dentro ai lumi sante creature
volitando cantavano, e faciensi
or D, or I, or L in sue figure.
(Paradiso XVIII, 73-8)
Here is emphasized the ability of cranes to form letters. However, the cranes
involved are no longer forming letters on a migratory flight. These are cranes that
have reached their destination, have fed, and are fulfilled. Likewise, the souls
14 Knoespel, 134.