Ora sen va per un secreto calle,
tra 'l muro de la terra e li martìri,
lo mio maestro, e io dopo le spalle.
“O virtù somma, che per li empi giri
mi volvi,” cominciai, “com' a te piace,
parlami, e sodisfammi a' miei disiri.
La gente che per li sepolcri giace
potrebbesi veder? già son levati
tutt' i coperchi, e nessun guardia face.”
E quelli a me: “Tutti saran serrati
quando di Iosafàt qui torneranno
coi corpi che là sù hanno lasciati.
Suo cimitero da questa parte hanno
con Epicuro tutti suoi seguaci,
che l'anima col corpo morta fanno.
Però a la dimanda che mi faci
quinc' entro satisfatto sarà tosto,
e al disio ancor che tu mi taci.”
E io: “Buon duca, non tegno riposto
a te mio cuor se non per dicer poco,
e tu m'hai non pur mo a ciò disposto.”
“O Tosco che per la città del foco
vivo ten vai così parlando onesto,
piacciati di restare in questo loco.
La tua loquela ti fa manifesto
di quella nobil patrïa natio,
a la qual forse fui troppo molesto.”
Subitamente questo suono uscìo
d'una de l'arche; però m'accostai,
temendo, un poco più al duca mio.
Ed el mi disse: “Volgiti! Che fai?
Vedi là Farinata che s'è dritto:
da la cintola in sù tutto 'l vedrai.”
Io avea già il mio viso nel suo fitto;
ed el s'ergea col petto e con la fronte
com' avesse l'inferno a gran dispitto.
E l'animose man del duca e pronte
mi pinser tra le sepulture a lui,
dicendo: “Le parole tue sien conte.”
Com' io al piè de la sua tomba fui,
guardommi un poco, e poi, quasi sdegnoso,
mi dimandò: “Chi fuor li maggior tui?”
Io ch'era d'ubidir disideroso,
non gliel celai, ma tutto gliel' apersi;
ond' ei levò le ciglia un poco in suso;
poi disse: “Fieramente furo avversi
a me e a miei primi e a mia parte,
sì che per due fïate li dispersi.”
“S'ei fur cacciati, ei tornar d'ogne parte,”
rispuos' io lui, “l'una e l'altra fïata;
ma i vostri non appreser ben quell' arte.”
Allor surse a la vista scoperchiata
un'ombra, lungo questa, infino al mento:
credo che s'era in ginocchie levata.
Dintorno mi guardò, come talento
avesse di veder s'altri era meco;
e poi che 'l sospecciar fu tutto spento,
piangendo disse: “Se per questo cieco
carcere vai per altezza d'ingegno,
mio figlio ov' è? e perché non è teco?”
E io a lui: “Da me stesso non vegno:
colui ch'attende là per qui mi mena,
forse cui Guido vostro ebbe a disdegno.”
Le sue parole e 'l modo de la pena
m'avean di costui già letto il nome;
però fu la risposta così piena.
Di sùbito drizzato gridò: “Come?
dicesti 'elli ebbe'? non viv' elli ancora?
non fiere li occhi suoi lo dolce lume?”
Quando s'accorse d'alcuna dimora
ch'io facëa dinanzi a la risposta,
supin ricadde e più non parve fora.
Ma quell' altro magnanimo, a cui posta
restato m'era, non mutò aspetto,
né mosse collo, né piegò sua costa;
e sé continüando al primo detto,
“S'elli han quell' arte,” disse, “male appresa,
ciò mi tormenta più che questo letto.
Ma non cinquanta volte fia raccesa
la faccia de la donna che qui regge,
che tu saprai quanto quell' arte pesa.
E se tu mai nel dolce mondo regge,
dimmi: perché quel popolo è sì empio
incontr' a' miei in ciascuna sua legge?”
Ond' io a lui: “Lo strazio e 'l grande scempio
che fece l'Arbia colorata in rosso,
tal orazion fa far nel nostro tempio.”
Poi ch'ebbe sospirando il capo mosso,
“A ciò non fu' io sol,” disse, “né certo
sanza cagion con li altri sarei mosso.
Ma fu' io solo, là dove sofferto
fu per ciascun di tòrre via Fiorenza,
colui che la difesi a viso aperto.”
“Deh, se riposi mai vostra semenza,”
prega' io lui, “solvetemi quel nodo
che qui ha 'nviluppata mia sentenza.
El par che voi veggiate, se ben odo,
dinanzi quel che 'l tempo seco adduce,
e nel presente tenete altro modo.”
“Noi veggiam, come quei c'ha mala luce,
le cose,” disse, “che ne son lontano;
cotanto ancor ne splende il sommo duce.
Quando s'appressano o son, tutto è vano
nostro intelletto; e s'altri non ci apporta,
nulla sapem di vostro stato umano.
Però comprender puoi che tutta morta
fia nostra conoscenza da quel punto
che del futuro fia chiusa la porta.”
Allor, come di mia colpa compunto,
dissi: “Or direte dunque a quel caduto
che 'l suo nato è co' vivi ancor congiunto;
e s'i' fui, dianzi, a la risposta muto,
fate i saper che 'l fei perché pensava
già ne l'error che m'avete soluto.”
E già 'l maestro mio mi richiamava;
per ch'i' pregai lo spirto più avaccio
che mi dicesse chi con lu' istava.
Dissemi: “Qui con più di mille giaccio:
qua dentro è 'l secondo Federico
e 'l Cardinale; e de li altri mi taccio.”
Indi s'ascose; e io inver' l'antico
poeta volsi i passi, ripensando
a quel parlar che mi parea nemico.
Elli si mosse; e poi, così andando,
mi disse: “Perché se' tu sì smarrito?”
E io li sodisfeci al suo dimando.
“La mente tua conservi quel ch'udito
hai contra te,” mi comandò quel saggio;
“e ora attendi qui,” e drizzò 'l dito:
“quando sarai dinanzi al dolce raggio
di quella il cui bell' occhio tutto vede,
da lei saprai di tua vita il vïaggio.”
Appresso mosse a man sinistra il piede:
lasciammo il muro e gimmo inver' lo mezzo
per un sentier ch'a una valle fiede,
che 'nfin là sù facea spiacer suo lezzo.
Now onward goes, along a narrow path
Between the torments and the city wall,
My Master, and I follow at his back.
"O power supreme, that through these impious circles
Turnest me," I began, "as pleases thee,
Speak to me, and my longings satisfy;
The people who are lying in these tombs,
Might they be seen? already are uplifted
The covers all, and no one keepeth guard."
And he to me: "They all will be closed up
When from Jehoshaphat they shall return
Here with the bodies they have left above.
Their cemetery have upon this side
With Epicurus all his followers,
Who with the body mortal make the soul;
But in the question thou dost put to me,
Within here shalt thou soon be satisfied,
And likewise in the wish thou keepest silent."
And I: "Good Leader, I but keep concealed
From thee my heart, that I may speak the less,
Nor only now hast thou thereto disposed me."
"O Tuscan, thou who through the city of fire
Goest alive, thus speaking modestly,
Be pleased to stay thy footsteps in this place.
Thy mode of speaking makes thee manifest
A native of that noble fatherland,
To which perhaps I too molestful was."
Upon a sudden issued forth this sound
From out one of the tombs; wherefore I pressed,
Fearing, a little nearer to my Leader.
And unto me he said: "Turn thee; what dost thou?
Behold there Farinata who has risen;
From the waist upwards wholly shalt thou see him."
I had already fixed mine eyes on his,
And he uprose erect with breast and front
E'en as if Hell he had in great despite.
And with courageous hands and prompt my Leader
Thrust me between the sepulchres towards him,
Exclaiming, "Let thy words explicit be."
As soon as I was at the foot of his tomb
Somewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful,
Then asked of me, "Who were thine ancestors?"
I, who desirous of obeying was,
Concealed it not, but all revealed to him;
Whereat he raised his brows a little upward.
Then said he: "Fiercely adverse have they been
To me, and to my fathers, and my party;
So that two several times I scattered them."
"If they were banished, they returned on all sides,"
I answered him, "the first time and the second;
But yours have not acquired that art aright."
Then there uprose upon the sight, uncovered
Down to the chin, a shadow at his side;
I think that he had risen on his knees.
Round me he gazed, as if solicitude
He had to see if some one else were with me,
But after his suspicion was all spent,
Weeping, he said to me: "If through this blind
Prison thou goest by loftiness of genius,
Where is my son? and why is he not with thee?"
And I to him: "I come not of myself;
He who is waiting yonder leads me here,
Whom in disdain perhaps your Guido had."
His language and the mode of punishment
Already unto me had read his name;
On that account my answer was so full.
Up starting suddenly, he cried out: "How
Saidst thou,—he had? Is he not still alive?
Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?"
When he became aware of some delay,
Which I before my answer made, supine
He fell again, and forth appeared no more.
But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire
I had remained, did not his aspect change,
Neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side.
"And if," continuing his first discourse,
"They have that art," he said, "not learned aright,
That more tormenteth me, than doth this bed.
But fifty times shall not rekindled be
The countenance of the Lady who reigns here,
Ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art;
And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return,
Say why that people is so pitiless
Against my race in each one of its laws?"
Whence I to him: "The slaughter and great carnage
Which have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause
Such orisons in our temple to be made."
After his head he with a sigh had shaken,
"There I was not alone," he said, "nor surely
Without a cause had with the others moved.
But there I was alone, where every one
Consented to the laying waste of Florence,
He who defended her with open face."
"Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,"
I him entreated, "solve for me that knot,
Which has entangled my conceptions here.
It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly,
Beforehand whatsoe'er time brings with it,
And in the present have another mode."
"We see, like those who have imperfect sight,
The things," he said, "that distant are from us;
So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler.
When they draw near, or are, is wholly vain
Our intellect, and if none brings it to us,
Not anything know we of your human state.
Hence thou canst understand, that wholly dead
Will be our knowledge from the moment when
The portal of the future shall be closed."
Then I, as if compunctious for my fault,
Said: "Now, then, you will tell that fallen one,
That still his son is with the living joined.
And if just now, in answering, I was dumb,
Tell him I did it because I was thinking
Already of the error you have solved me."
And now my Master was recalling me,
Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit
That he would tell me who was with him there.
He said: "With more than a thousand here I lie;
Within here is the second Frederick,
And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not."
Thereon he hid himself; and I towards
The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting
Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me.
He moved along; and afterward thus going,
He said to me, "Why art thou so bewildered?"
And I in his inquiry satisfied him.
"Let memory preserve what thou hast heard
Against thyself," that Sage commanded me,
"And now attend here;" and he raised his finger.
"When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet
Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold,
From her thou'lt know the journey of thy life."
Unto the left hand then he turned his feet;
We left the wall, and went towards the middle,
Along a path that strikes into a valley,
Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.
The path is 'hidden' because it lies between the walls of Dis and the sepulchers. See Virgil, Aeneid VI.443, the secreti [...] calles that lead into the Lugentes Campi (Fields of Mourning [VI.441]) where Aeneas encounters the mournful spirit of Dido.
Dante is apparently alluding to the new direction, to the right, in which Virgil is now leading him.
The image of the uncovered tombs and the reference to 'guards,' as Durling and Martinez point out in their commentary (The “Divine Comedy” of Dante Alighieri, Notes by R. M. Durling and Ronald Martinez [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996]), suggest details of the scene surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. The actual position of the covering slabs of these funeral monuments is not clear. The passage in Inferno XI.6 would make it appear that they may be propped against the sides of the tombs, as Durling and Martinez suggest.
Jehosaphat is the valley in Palestine in which, according to Joel 3:2, all will be gathered for the Last Judgment (Joel 3.1-21). Cf. also Matth. 25:31-46, where Jesus is described as separating the sheep (oves) from the goats (hedos – 25.33) on that day. Unlike the Hebrew prophet, Matthew makes no explicit reference to the valley of Jehosaphat. Further, neither passage mentions the resurrection of the body; however, see John 11:24, where Martha says to Jesus that she is confident that her brother Lazarus shall rise again at the resurrection of the last day. See the article “General Resurrection” in the (on-line) Catholic Encyclopedia for five Hebrew biblical texts that seem clearly to refer to the resurrection of the flesh, outnumbered by some twenty in the New Testament, a half dozen of these in the Gospels and more than twice that number in various of Paul's Epistles.
This verse returns to a concern, first encountered in Inf. VI.94-99, that will run through the rest of the poem: the posthumous reunification of soul and body. Once Inferno is behind the protagonist, a far more happy conjunction of soul and body will confront the reader, beginning with Cato of Utica. We learn that his flesh, 'la vesta,' will be glorified on Judgment Day, when it will shine radiantly ('al gran dì sarà sì chiara'). See the note to Purg. I.75.
'Epicurus, celebrated Greek philosopher, B.C. 342-270; he started at Athens the philosophic school called after him, which taught that the summum bonum, or highest good, is happiness – not sensual enjoyment, but peace of mind, as the result of the cultivation of the virtues. He held that virtue was to be practised because it led to happiness, whereas the Stoics held that virtue should be cultivated for its own sake' (cited from Toynbee, “Epicuro,” Concise Dante Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 (1898)]). While in the Convivio (IV.vi.11-12) Dante defines Epicureanism as the pleasure principle without speaking of it as specifically heretical, here he falls in with a more stringent Christian view, perhaps echoing St. Paul who, in I Corinthians 15:32, cites the standard tag for Epicureanism, 'Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,' as the unworthy countering view to the Resurrection. It is in keeping with this attitude that Dante presents 'Epicureans' as those who deny the immortality of the soul. For a full discussion along these lines of the change in attitude toward the Epicureans from Ciceronian to a more 'orthodox' view see Joseph A. Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante's “Comedy” (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960), pp. 174-204. And for a possible source of Dante's phrasing see Mazzoni's gloss to a verse in Inferno V (62): “Il canto V dell'Inferno” (Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76; Rome: Bonacci, 1977), p. 137, suggesting that Servius's gloss to Aeneid IV.34, 'dicit autem secundum Epicureos, qui animam cum corpore dicunt perire,' may inform Dante's choice of words.
See the wish expressed by Dante in vv. 6-8, above, which Virgil realizes hides Dante's real desire: he hopes to see, now that he is among 'the blacker souls' where Ciacco had said he would find Farinata and four other Florentines (Inf. VI.85), some or one of these, and perhaps the first he there named, Farinata.
Has Virgil literally read the pilgrim's mind? Or is he rather to be perceived as having made a rapid calculation as to what Dante's thoughts are likely to have been just now? For discussion, see the notes to Inf. XVI.115-123, XXI.58-62, XXIII.25-30; Purg. XV.130-132 and 133-135.
Dante, once chidden by Virgil for his curiosity (Inf. III.76-78), has been keeping that curiosity under wraps. Nonetheless, Virgil has him figured out.
The speaker is Farinata degli Uberti: 'Manente, called Farinata, son of Jacopo degli Uberti, the “Saviour of Florence,” was born in Florence at the beginning of Century xiii; while still a boy he witnessed the introduction into the city of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions, of the latter of which his family became the leaders; in 1239 be became the head of his house, and in 1248 he took a prominent part in the expulsion of the Guelfs, who however returned in 1251, and a few years later (in 1258) expelled the Ghibellines in their turn, Farinata among them; the latter, who was now acknowledged head of his party, took refuge with the rest of the Ghibelline exiles in Siena, where he organized the measures which led to the crushing defeat of the Florentine Guelfs and their allies at Montaperti, and left the Ghibellines masters of Tuscany (Sept. 4, 1260). After their victory the Ghibellines held a council at Empoli, about twenty miles from Florence, at which it was proposed, in order to put an end once for all to the power of the Florentines, that the city of Florence should be razed to the ground. To this proposal, which was generally approved, Farinata offered the most determined opposition, declaring that he would defend his native city with his own sword as long as he had breath in his body, even though he should have to do it single-handed. In consequence of this protest the proposal was abandoned and Florence was saved from destruction. The Florentines subsequently showed little gratitude to Farinata for his patriotic intervention, for they always expressly included the Uberti with the other Ghibelline families who were excepted from the terms offered to the other exiles. After Montaperti Farinata returned to Florence, where he died in or about 1264, the year before Dante's birth' (cited from Toynbee, “Farinata,” in his Concise Dante Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 (1898)]). For bibliography on his significance to Dante see Anthony K. Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), p. 117.
His manner is both courteous and firm, that of a man used to command. Dante is obviously more than a little flustered, and needs to be reassured by Virgil (vv. 29-31).
Ever since the time of Guido da Pisa (1328?) commentators have, on occasion, noted the echo here of the words of the bystanders who heard Peter deny his knowledge of Christ a second time; surely, they say, you are one of his followers from Galilee, for your speech makes you plainly so ('loquela tua manifestum te facit' – Matthew 26:73). See Guido's comm. to Inf. X.25-27. Pier Angelo Perotti (“Farinata, Dante e Pietro,” L'Alighieri 31 [1990], pp. 3-7) seems unaware of his precursors in this observation.
Against the more usual understanding, that Farinata's 'forse' (perhaps) reveals regret at his harshness against his fellow citizens at the battle of Montaperti, consider the judgment of Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), p. 19): Farinata displays 'the false modesty of gloating understatement.' And see Christopher Kleinhenz, “The Poetics of Citation: Dante's Divina Commedia and the Bible,” in Italiana 1988: Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Italian, November 18-20, 1988, Monterey, CA., ed. Albert N. Mancini, Paolo A. Giordano, and Anthony J. Tamburri [= Rosary College Italian Studies 4 (1990)], pp. 13-14, for a possible source in Micah (6:3) of Farinata's statement: 'Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut quid molestus fui tibi?' (O my people, what have I done to thee? and wherein have I wearied thee?). But for a still earlier discussion of this source by Alessandro Ronconi, “Per Dante interprete dei poeti latini,” Studi Danteschi 41 (1964): 28, in Fosca (comm. vv. 22-27).
The interplay between pupil and teacher here is handled particularly adroitly (and with a sure comic hand), revealing once more Dante's distanced and controlled narrative technique. Farinata's dramatic rising from the tomb is quite frightening enough in itself to the eyes of the beholder; joined to his huge sepulchral voice, its resulting power becomes terrifying, overwhelming, not one, but two senses. The narrator (ashamed?) indeed tells us little of his resultant craven behavior. However, the words of Virgil that, as faithful historian of events, he must record, tell us all we need to know: Our hero is cravenly trying to flee the scene – another sign that he has entered a new 'cycle of fear, pity, and firmness' (see the note to Inf. IX.51).
Farinata, who did not believe in Christ's resurrection, here replays it, as it were, rising from his tomb, at this instant making his punishment clearly fit his crime. See Convivio II.viii.8 for Dante's own outcry against such failure of belief: 'Dico che intra tutte le bestialitadi quello è stoltissima, vilissima e dannosissima, chi crede dopo questa vita non essere altra vita' (I say that of all the follies the most foolish, the basest, and the most pernicious is the belief that beyond this life there is no other [tr. Lansing]).
Rising like the bust of a Roman emperor out of his tomb, and as Durling (“Farinata and the Body of Christ,” Stanford Italian Review 2 [1981], pp. 11-14) and Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984], pp. 24-26) have independently discovered, still more importantly, in imitation of the 'Man of Sorrows' (see Isaiah 53:3: virum dolorum), that image (the so-called imago pietatis) of Jesus rising from the tomb, naked, showing the signs of his torture, not yet having taken on majesty. With this image in our minds, Farinata's heresy seems all the less pardonable, since Christ had come and suffered for him, too.
That the features of Farinata upon which Dante fastens are his chest and brow underlines his prideful nature. And pride, which we have seen behind the sinful actions of such as Filippo Argenti in canto VIII, the 'root sin' that stands behind so much human failure in the eyes of Dante's Church, is easily understood as a root of heresy, the stiff-necked refusal to believe what has been given as manifest by Christ and his Church. For the association of raised brows with pride, see the notes to Inf. XXXIV.35; Purg. III.111 and VII.9-13, linking prideful Farinata with Satan and Manfred.
Farinata's 'heroic' stance has pleased at least Romantic readers, who are driven to enthusiastic approval of his disdain (see also Inf. X.41) for the hell that contains him.
Perhaps mindful of the way in which his pupil ran on when he spoke with Francesca, far more eager to share in her experience than to learn from it, Virgil warns Dante to control his speech.
Farinata's first words reveal his pride in familial background. He is an Uberti and a Ghibelline; let all others tremble before him.
Dante's self-identification as minor nobility and a Guelph does not much impress Farinata, who raises his eyebrows – another sign of his pridefulness. See Inferno XXXIV.35, where Satan is described as having raised his brows against God.
Farinata now wins the second round of his little battle with Dante: yes, he knows Dante's people, and twice over has sent them into exile (1248 and 1260). This canto's scenes play out against a series of dates spread over the second half of the thirteenth century in Florence: 1248, expulsion of the Guelphs; 1258, expulsion of the Ghibellines; 1260, Montaperti and the second explusion of the Guelphs; 1264, death of Farinata; 1266, defeat of Manfred and the imperial forces at the battle of Benevento and banishment of the Uberti family; 1280, death of Cavalcante the elder; 1289, battle of Campaldino, another Guelph triumph (in which Dante took part); 1290, death of Beatrice; 1300, death of Guido Cavalcanti; 1302, exile of Dante Alighieri.
But now the little Guelph bites back: our family was twice exiled and came back home twice; yours has not done quite so well (since the Uberti have remained in exile since the aftermath of the battle of Benevento in 1266). We witness again, as we did in the scene with Filippo Argenti, Dante's revisitation of the poetic form of the tenzone (see the note to Inf. VIII.31-39).
The reader may note that the adjective 'Yours' in v. 51 is capitalized. We have followed the practice of capitalizing the English translation of the honorific plural form for the singular 'you' and 'yours,' so as to alert the reader to their use in Dante's Italian. Only three Florentines in hell receive this treatment: Farinata and Cavalcante here, and Brunetto Latini in canto XV.
The interruption of the tenzone between Dante and Farinata will last for seven tercets, until Farinata, 'on hold' while this other drama is played out, will continue the conversation as though there had been no interruption to it.
The far less imposing figure who rises out of the same tomb alongside Farinata is Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti (died ca. 1280), a Guelph and the father of Dante's former 'first friend' (see VN III.14, XXIV.6, XXX.3), Guido Cavalcanti. Since Guido was alive at the imagined date of Dante's journey, he cannot be found in the afterworld. However, his reputation as a 'materialist' makes it seem at least likely that Dante was certain that this aristocratic and independent-minded poet and thinker was coming right here to join his father. It is not accidental that the entire conversation between the father and his son's former friend concerns that son. If Farinata believes in family and party, Cavalcante is the archetypal doting father. Their portraits, showing them in such different lights, are perhaps the finest example we have of such close, contrastive 'portraiture' in verse since the classical era. See the study of Erich Auerbach, “Farinata and Cavalcante,” in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, tr. W. Trask (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1957 [1946]), pp. 151-77.
One of the finest lyric poets of his time, Guido Cavalcanti was from six to ten years older than Dante. He was married by his family to a woman named Beatrice, in fact the daughter of Farinata. In other words, these two heretical Florentines are in-laws; it is notable that, divided by party loyalty as they are, they do not speak to one another. Guido was an ardent Guelph, siding with the Whites (Dante's party also) when the Guelphs divided into two factions. He had a street brawl with the leader of the Black Guelphs, Corso Donati, who had once tried to kill him. 'In the summer of 1300, during Dante's priorate (June 15-Aug. 15), it was decided (June 24), in order to put an end to the disturbances caused by the continued hostilities between the two factions, to banish the leaders of both sides,... among those who approved this decision being Dante, in his capacity as Prior. It thus came about that Dante was instrumental in sending his own friend into exile, and, as it proved, to his death; for though the exiles were recalled very shortly after the expiry of Dante's term of office (Aug. 15), so that Guido only spent a few weeks at Sarzana, he never recovered from the effects of the malarious climate of the place, and died in Florence at the end of August in that same year; he was buried in the cemetery of Santa Reparata on Aug. 29...' (cited from Toynbee, “Cavalcanti, Guido,” Concise Dante Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 (1898)]). One might wish to consider the fact that each of these two main characters, one Ghibelline and one Guelf, in the sepulchral scene of this canto had been banished by the Priors of Florence, Farinata in 1258, Cavalcanti in 1300. And mindful of the afterlives of these two exiles is the exiled Dante Alighieri, former Prior, now himself exiled by the Priors of the city.
On his 'Epicureanism,' or failure to believe in the existence of a soul that lived beyond the life of the bodily senses, see the commentary of Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. X.64-66): Guido was a 'leggiadro e ricco cavaliere, e seguì l'oppinion d'Epicuro in non credere che l'anima dopo la morte del corpo vivesse e che il nostro sommo bene fosse ne' diletti carnali; e per questo, sì come eretico, è dannato' (a charming and wealthy gentleman; he followed Epicurus's opinion in not believing that the soul lived on after the death of the body and that our highest good was found in carnal delight; and for this he is damned as a heretic). Benvenuto (comm. ad loc.) reports that Guido used a biblical text (Ecclesiastes 3:19: 'The lot of man and beast is one, and their condition is the same') to demonstrate that the soul dies with the body (cited by Singleton [comm. to Inf. X.53]).
For review of the recent spate of articles on the problem of the adverse relationship between Guido and Dante as represented by Guido's canzone (Donna me prega) and Dante's Vita nuova see Nicolò Pasero, “Dante in Cavalcanti: ancora sui rapporti tra Vita nova e Donna me prega,” Medioevo romanzo 22 (1998), pp. 388-414. While the problem of the dating of the two works remains central, it does seem that, at some point in the 1290s, Dante and Guido had a falling out, and that these two works clearly reflect it. Barolini (“Dante and Cavalcanti [On Making Distinctions in Matters of Love]: Inferno V in Its Lyric Context,” Dante Studies 116 [1998]), pp. 60-63, points out that the evidence that we currently possess does not allow certainty in this matter, but that we can say that there clearly was a dispute between the two former friends that is mirrored in the two works. For an earlier suggestion that Dante was setting himself up as an opposer of Guido from the beginning of the poem, see Bacchelli's opinion, referred to at the end of the note to Inferno I.86-87.
We cannot understand the pathos of this little moment in the larger scene until we learn or realize that Cavalcante, seeing Dante before him and (rightly) believing him to be in hell for special and favorable reasons, surely a reward for his intellectual prowess, naturally believes that his son Guido, Dante's superior in station (as Farinata believed he was) and ability, ought to have been included by whoever arranged this visit.
Dante's phrase, 'cieco carcere' (dark prison), has long been considered an echo of the same words in Virgil's Latin, carcere caeco, at Aeneid VI.734. For a consideration of the essential differences between the Virgilian and the Dantean afterworld see M.C.J. Putnam, 'Virgil's Inferno,' in The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia,” ed. R. Jacoff and J. T. Schnapp (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 94-112.
The phrase 'per altezza d'ingegno' (by virtue of your lofty genius) is clearly meant to remind us of the similar phrase we heard in Dante's first invocation: 'O Muse, o alto ingegno' (O Muses, O lofty genius – Inf. II.7). However, how we are to interpret the resemblance is not easily resolved. Those who believe that in the first passage Dante was invoking his own poetic powers see in Cavalcanti's doting father's reaction a simple sense of rivalry: which of these two poets is more gifted? If, on the other hand, we believe that Dante, in the invocation, calls for aid from a Higher Power (see the note to Inf. II.7), then the father's question indicates that he doesn't understand, materialist that he is, the nature of true Christian poetic inspiration. His son's genius and that inspiring Dante are not commensurable.
Cavalcante's mournful question about his son's whereabouts has reminded some commentators (perhaps the first was Daniello, in 1568 [comm. to Inf. X.52-63]) of Andromache's equally mournful question about the whereabouts of her husband Hector, 'Hector ubi est?' (Aen. III.312). But see Durling (“Farinata and the Body of Christ,” Stanford Italian Review 2 [1981]), p. 25n., arguing for the resonance of Genesis 4:9: 'Ubi est Abel frater tuus?' (Where is Abel your brother?). Durling points out that both these 'fratricidal' stories culminate in an exile, Cain sent forth from the land a fugitive (Genesis 4:12-16), while Guido was literally sent into exile by the action of Dante and the five other Priors of Florence.
Dante's words may reflect the Gospel of John (8:28) when Jesus says 'a meipso facio nihil' (I do nothing of myself), but only through the Father.
One of the most debated passages in the poem. For a recent review, with bibliography, see Hollander (“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]), pp. 204-6, 222-23. Following the lead of Isidoro Del Lungo (“Il disdegno di Guido,” Nuova Antologia [1 nov. 1889], pp. 59-60) and Guglielmo Gorni (Il nodo della lingua: studi in Dante e altri duecenteschi [Florence, Olschki, 1981], pp. 134-39), Hollander argues for the shaping influence of a sonnet by Cino da Pistoia ('Qua' son le cose vostre ch'io vi tolgo,' written in answer to a [lost] rather nasty sonnet by Guido attacking him) on the key words in this passage, disdegno and ingegno, words found in Cino's sonnet implying exactly these qualities to Guido in unflattering ways (and now see Raffaele Pinto, “Sensi smarriti: La ermeneutica del disdegno in Cavalcanti e Dante [II],” Tenzone 2 [2001], pp. 57-59). If this hypothesis is correct, then those in the debate over the reference of the pronoun cui who believe it refers to Beatrice are strongly supported. Others believe it refers to Virgil (and still others, a much smaller number, believe it refers to God). It should be noted that our translation is interpretive; the Italian can mean either what we have said it does or else 'whom perhaps your Guido held in scorn,' in which case it would refer to Virgil. The text thus either indicates that Guido at a certain point perhaps scorned the work of Virgil or else withdrew his approval of Dante's love of Beatrice, to whom perhaps Dante is being led, as Virgil has promised him (Inf. I.122-123). For support of the 'candidacy' of Beatrice see Paolo Cherchi, “Il disdegno per Guido: una proposta,” L'Alighieri 11 (1970), pp. 73-78; “Cavalcanti e la rappresentazione,” Critica del testo 4 (2001), pp. 42-43.
For an inconclusive but interesting discussion of the force of the past definite of the verb ebbe here, see Singleton (“Inferno X: Guido's Disdain,” Modern Language Notes 77 [1962], pp. 49-65).
The father's premature lament for his living son (but he will be dead in four months) in this searing tercet obviously collects the difficult thoughts and feelings of the poet as well. There has been a great deal written about Dante's use of the past definite ('egli ebbe' [he had]) and its possible consequences. Why did Dante say that (verse 63)? Had Guido scorned someone habitually, the use of the imperfect would have been more likely. Those who believe that his scorn was for Virgil (roughly half of those who involve themselves in this quarrel) are right to be puzzled, for such a scornful view of the Latin poet would not seem to have been a sudden shift of attitude (and, in fact, there is no Virgilian element in any of Guido's poems). An attractive alternative explanation is given by Siro Chimenz in his commentary (comm. to Inf. X.61-63), repeating findings he first offered in 1945: at a certain point in his relations with Dante, and at least after Beatrice's death, when Dante continued to write of her, Guido did come to have disdain for Dante's loyalty to Beatrice. In short, Dante the protagonist is thinking of Guido's climactic 'rejection' of Beatrice as a definite past event, one perhaps precisely reflected in a sonnet Guido wrote to Dante expressing his disgust with his former friend ('I' vegno 'l giorno a te 'nfinite volte'). For the current state of the question involving Dante's difficult eventual relationship with Guido see Enrico Malato, Dante e Guido Cavalcanti: il dissidio per la “Vita nuova” e il «disdegno» di Guido (Rome: Salerno, 1997). and Mauro Cursietti, “Dante, Guido e l'«annoiosa gente»,” L'Alighieri 11 (1998), pp. 105-12.
For the echoes heard in Cavalcante's heart-broken question of both Aeneid III.310-312 and Genesis 4:9, see the note to Inf. X.60.
Opposing Petrocchi's punctuation of these verses ('Come? / dicesti “elli ebbe”?' [...]), Chiavacci Leonardi, 'Questioni di punteggiatura in due celebri attacchi danteschi (Inf., II 76-78 e X 67-69), Lettere Italiane 36 (1984): 19-24, offers arguments for restoring the reading found in the 1921 edition: 'Come / dicesti? elli ebbe?' [...].
Cavalcante's sudden disappearance rounds out his version of 'resurrection,' one that fails. In his first line he 'came up' (surse) but in his last he falls back (ricadde) into his eternal tomb.
Farinata's Stoic restraint is evident once again; he has been waiting to regain Dante's attention in order to continue their difficult conversation about Florentine politics. Unmoved and unmoving, he is the exemplification of the 'stone man' admired by Stoic philosophers. He is 'great-souled' (magnanimo), a quality of the highest kind in Aristotle's formulation in the Ethics, but one connected, even in classical times, with a fear that such a man may also be prideful. See Scott (Dante magnanimo; studi sulla “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1977]) pp. 13-45, for the double valence of the term, which becomes less even potentially positive in the works of Christian writers. Returning to the question in 1997, Scott (“Dante Jottings,” in In amicizia: Essays in Honour of Giulio Lepschy, ed. Z.G. Baranski and L. Pertile (The Italianist 17 [1997–special supplement]), pp. 117-26) argues that the adjective may refer not only to Farinata ('that other one'), but to the class of which he is a part. Scott is doubtless correct to suggest that 'that other one,' applied to Farinata, at least implies a 'this one,' referring to Cavalcante, with whom Dante has been conversing. And 'this' shade would then be equally magnanimo as that one. It is an interesting argument; the insistent reference to Farinata, however, once the spotlight is turned back on him, may eventually erode its ability to convince. There is, of course, also the possibility that, in Dante's copy, the adjective and the noun were appositive, i.e., that he wrote 'quell'altro, magnanimo, a cui'–we will never know.
Farinata, more human in his second conversation, admits his sense of frustration in his family's political misfortune; it is, he says, worse torment even than damnation. We may reflect that, in the universe of this poem, there should be no worse torment than damnation. Nonetheless, Farinata exudes a certain selfless concern for his family.
Bested by Dante's last riposte, Farinata now gets even with a prophecy: within fifty months (fifty moons; Proserpina, the moon, is traditionally referred to as queen of hell) Dante himself will know the pain of exile. There surely seems to be fellow-feeling joined to the bleak promise. By July of 1304 – roughly fifty months from March of 1300 – the last efforts of the Whites to re-enter Florence were over and done with (Dante had already given up on their efforts), and Dante had come to know that his exile was, for all intents and purposes, limitless.
Having now characterized Dante as a fellow-sufferer at the hands of their fellow citizens, Farinata wants to know why his Ghibelline family seems to have been singled out by the actions of the Priors.
Dante's answer offers the perhaps sole locus in this canto that directly relates heresy and politics – and surely the reader has wondered what the connection must be. The 'prayers' in the church that he refers to are words uttered in viturative political councils, thus creating an image of political intrigue, even if of Guelph against Ghibelline, as a form of deformed 'religious' activity. Florence seems a city in which politics have become the state religion.
The Arbia is a river near the site of the battle of Montaperti.
Farinata's last words on the subject of the Florentine past remind his auditor that he was no more guilty than the rest of the Ghibellines (and many of them have been allowed to return) and that, further, at the council of Empoli (see the note to Inf. X.22-24), he was alone in defending the city from destruction. There is no question but that Dante's view of Farinata is complex. As hard as he is on him, there is also great admiration for some of his qualities as leader, and for his having stood alone, and successfully, in defense of the city. The drama of Ghibellinism for Dante is a central one; what these people want to accomplish politically is not in itself anathema to him – far from it; that they wish to achieve their aims without God is what destroys their credentials as politicians and as human beings.
Having realized that Cavalcanti does not know that his son is alive, while Farinata seems to know the future, Dante asks for clarification.
Farinata explains that the present and the near future are not known by the sinners, only the time to come. Most believe that what he says applies to all the damned, e.g., Singleton in his commentary to this passage (Inf. X.100-105). On the other hand, for the view that this condition pertains only to the heretics see Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), pp. 29-31. But see Alberigo, his soul already in hell yet not knowing how or what its body is now doing in the world above (Inf. XXXIII.122-123).
The 'portals of the future close' at Judgment Day, after which there shall be 'no more time' (Apoc. 10:6).
Dante's excuses his 'fault': until Farinata explained things, he assumed the damned were aware of present events. Given the historical situation between the poet and Cavlacanti, it is not surprising that the author stages the drama of his understandable guilt at his role in Guido's death in this somewhat strained way.
Virgil does not seem to think his pupil's effort at apology very important: it is time to move on. Dante hurriedly asks for news of other heretics down here.
Frederick II (1194-1250), King of Sicily and Naples (1212-50), known in his own day as stupor mundi (the wonder of the world) for his extraordinary verve and accomplishments, presided over one of the most glorious courts in Europe. His political battles with the papacy marked nearly the full extent of his reign (he was the victorious leader of the Sixth Crusade [1228-29], 'won' by treaty, while he was under interdict of excommunication). As exemplary of the Guelph view of him see Salimbene: 'Erat enim epicureus, et ideo quidquid poterat invenire in divina scriptura per se et per sapientes suos quod faceret ad ostendendum quod non esset alia vita post mortem, totum inveniebat' (For he was an Epicurean, and as a result whatever he could find in holy scripture itself, or from those who knew the scripture, that would help demonstrate that there were no life after death, he totally set himself to finding – Cronica). For a recent overview of the ambience of Frederick II's court see Roberto Antonelli, “La corte 'italiana' di Federico II e la letteratura europea,” in Federico II e le nuove culture (Atti del XXXI Convegno storico internazionale, Todi, 9-12 ottobre 1994), Spoleto, Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 1995, pp. 319-45.
'Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, member of a powerful Tuscan Ghibelline family, known to his contemporaries as “the Cardinal” par excellence, was brother of Ubaldino della Pila (Purg. XXIV.29) and uncle of the Archbishop Ruggieri (Inf. XXXIII.14); he was made Bishop of Bologna in 1240, when he was under thirty, by special dispensation of Pope Gregory IX, and in 1244 he was created Cardinal by Innocent IV at the Council of Lyons; he was papal legate in Lombardy, and died in 1272. [He] was suspected of favouring the imperial party, and is credited with a saying: “If I have a soul, I have lost it a thousand times for the Ghibellines”' (the remark is cited by nearly every fourteenth-century commentator found in the DDP). The passage is cited from Paget Toynbee, Concise Dante Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 [1898]), “Cardinale, Il.”
Dante is considering the dire event, his exile, that Farinata has predicted (Inf. X.79-81).
The word used by Virgil to describe Dante's difficulty is smarrito, a word that has been associated with the protagonist's initial lost and perilous condition (Inf. I.3) and that then occurs again with specific reference to his lostness at the outset of the journey for the last time in the poem (Inf. XV.50). It is also used in such a way as to remind us of his initial situation (see Inf. II.64, Inf. V.72, and Inf. XIII.24); in the last two of these scenes the protagonist is feeling pity for sinners, emotion that the poet fairly clearly considers inappropriate.
Virgil's promise that Beatrice (it can only be she) will lay bare to him the story of his life to come is not fulfilled, even though it is referred to again at Inferno XV.88-90. This role, so clearly reserved for Beatrice, is eventually given to Cacciaguida in Paradiso XVII.46-75. The apparent contradiction has caused much consternation. An ingenious solution has been proposed by Marguerite Mills Chiarenza (“Time and Eternity in the Myths of Paradiso XVII,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini [Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983], pp. 133-50): just as in the Aeneid Helenus promises Aeneas that the Sibyl will reveal his future to him (Aen. III.458-460) only to have her instead lead him to Anchises, who performs that promised task (Aen. VI.756-886), so in the Comedy also the promised female 'prophet' is replaced by a male. In Chiarenza's view, the 'contradiction' is deliberate.
Virgil now returns to his accustomed leftward direction in his guidance of Dante. See the note to Inferno IX.132. The stench from the depths is yet another indication that this new level of hell, beginning here with heresy, marks a deterioration in the motives for sin, from appetite to hardened will. See the note to Inf. VIII.78.
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Ora sen va per un secreto calle,
tra 'l muro de la terra e li martìri,
lo mio maestro, e io dopo le spalle.
“O virtù somma, che per li empi giri
mi volvi,” cominciai, “com' a te piace,
parlami, e sodisfammi a' miei disiri.
La gente che per li sepolcri giace
potrebbesi veder? già son levati
tutt' i coperchi, e nessun guardia face.”
E quelli a me: “Tutti saran serrati
quando di Iosafàt qui torneranno
coi corpi che là sù hanno lasciati.
Suo cimitero da questa parte hanno
con Epicuro tutti suoi seguaci,
che l'anima col corpo morta fanno.
Però a la dimanda che mi faci
quinc' entro satisfatto sarà tosto,
e al disio ancor che tu mi taci.”
E io: “Buon duca, non tegno riposto
a te mio cuor se non per dicer poco,
e tu m'hai non pur mo a ciò disposto.”
“O Tosco che per la città del foco
vivo ten vai così parlando onesto,
piacciati di restare in questo loco.
La tua loquela ti fa manifesto
di quella nobil patrïa natio,
a la qual forse fui troppo molesto.”
Subitamente questo suono uscìo
d'una de l'arche; però m'accostai,
temendo, un poco più al duca mio.
Ed el mi disse: “Volgiti! Che fai?
Vedi là Farinata che s'è dritto:
da la cintola in sù tutto 'l vedrai.”
Io avea già il mio viso nel suo fitto;
ed el s'ergea col petto e con la fronte
com' avesse l'inferno a gran dispitto.
E l'animose man del duca e pronte
mi pinser tra le sepulture a lui,
dicendo: “Le parole tue sien conte.”
Com' io al piè de la sua tomba fui,
guardommi un poco, e poi, quasi sdegnoso,
mi dimandò: “Chi fuor li maggior tui?”
Io ch'era d'ubidir disideroso,
non gliel celai, ma tutto gliel' apersi;
ond' ei levò le ciglia un poco in suso;
poi disse: “Fieramente furo avversi
a me e a miei primi e a mia parte,
sì che per due fïate li dispersi.”
“S'ei fur cacciati, ei tornar d'ogne parte,”
rispuos' io lui, “l'una e l'altra fïata;
ma i vostri non appreser ben quell' arte.”
Allor surse a la vista scoperchiata
un'ombra, lungo questa, infino al mento:
credo che s'era in ginocchie levata.
Dintorno mi guardò, come talento
avesse di veder s'altri era meco;
e poi che 'l sospecciar fu tutto spento,
piangendo disse: “Se per questo cieco
carcere vai per altezza d'ingegno,
mio figlio ov' è? e perché non è teco?”
E io a lui: “Da me stesso non vegno:
colui ch'attende là per qui mi mena,
forse cui Guido vostro ebbe a disdegno.”
Le sue parole e 'l modo de la pena
m'avean di costui già letto il nome;
però fu la risposta così piena.
Di sùbito drizzato gridò: “Come?
dicesti 'elli ebbe'? non viv' elli ancora?
non fiere li occhi suoi lo dolce lume?”
Quando s'accorse d'alcuna dimora
ch'io facëa dinanzi a la risposta,
supin ricadde e più non parve fora.
Ma quell' altro magnanimo, a cui posta
restato m'era, non mutò aspetto,
né mosse collo, né piegò sua costa;
e sé continüando al primo detto,
“S'elli han quell' arte,” disse, “male appresa,
ciò mi tormenta più che questo letto.
Ma non cinquanta volte fia raccesa
la faccia de la donna che qui regge,
che tu saprai quanto quell' arte pesa.
E se tu mai nel dolce mondo regge,
dimmi: perché quel popolo è sì empio
incontr' a' miei in ciascuna sua legge?”
Ond' io a lui: “Lo strazio e 'l grande scempio
che fece l'Arbia colorata in rosso,
tal orazion fa far nel nostro tempio.”
Poi ch'ebbe sospirando il capo mosso,
“A ciò non fu' io sol,” disse, “né certo
sanza cagion con li altri sarei mosso.
Ma fu' io solo, là dove sofferto
fu per ciascun di tòrre via Fiorenza,
colui che la difesi a viso aperto.”
“Deh, se riposi mai vostra semenza,”
prega' io lui, “solvetemi quel nodo
che qui ha 'nviluppata mia sentenza.
El par che voi veggiate, se ben odo,
dinanzi quel che 'l tempo seco adduce,
e nel presente tenete altro modo.”
“Noi veggiam, come quei c'ha mala luce,
le cose,” disse, “che ne son lontano;
cotanto ancor ne splende il sommo duce.
Quando s'appressano o son, tutto è vano
nostro intelletto; e s'altri non ci apporta,
nulla sapem di vostro stato umano.
Però comprender puoi che tutta morta
fia nostra conoscenza da quel punto
che del futuro fia chiusa la porta.”
Allor, come di mia colpa compunto,
dissi: “Or direte dunque a quel caduto
che 'l suo nato è co' vivi ancor congiunto;
e s'i' fui, dianzi, a la risposta muto,
fate i saper che 'l fei perché pensava
già ne l'error che m'avete soluto.”
E già 'l maestro mio mi richiamava;
per ch'i' pregai lo spirto più avaccio
che mi dicesse chi con lu' istava.
Dissemi: “Qui con più di mille giaccio:
qua dentro è 'l secondo Federico
e 'l Cardinale; e de li altri mi taccio.”
Indi s'ascose; e io inver' l'antico
poeta volsi i passi, ripensando
a quel parlar che mi parea nemico.
Elli si mosse; e poi, così andando,
mi disse: “Perché se' tu sì smarrito?”
E io li sodisfeci al suo dimando.
“La mente tua conservi quel ch'udito
hai contra te,” mi comandò quel saggio;
“e ora attendi qui,” e drizzò 'l dito:
“quando sarai dinanzi al dolce raggio
di quella il cui bell' occhio tutto vede,
da lei saprai di tua vita il vïaggio.”
Appresso mosse a man sinistra il piede:
lasciammo il muro e gimmo inver' lo mezzo
per un sentier ch'a una valle fiede,
che 'nfin là sù facea spiacer suo lezzo.
Now onward goes, along a narrow path
Between the torments and the city wall,
My Master, and I follow at his back.
"O power supreme, that through these impious circles
Turnest me," I began, "as pleases thee,
Speak to me, and my longings satisfy;
The people who are lying in these tombs,
Might they be seen? already are uplifted
The covers all, and no one keepeth guard."
And he to me: "They all will be closed up
When from Jehoshaphat they shall return
Here with the bodies they have left above.
Their cemetery have upon this side
With Epicurus all his followers,
Who with the body mortal make the soul;
But in the question thou dost put to me,
Within here shalt thou soon be satisfied,
And likewise in the wish thou keepest silent."
And I: "Good Leader, I but keep concealed
From thee my heart, that I may speak the less,
Nor only now hast thou thereto disposed me."
"O Tuscan, thou who through the city of fire
Goest alive, thus speaking modestly,
Be pleased to stay thy footsteps in this place.
Thy mode of speaking makes thee manifest
A native of that noble fatherland,
To which perhaps I too molestful was."
Upon a sudden issued forth this sound
From out one of the tombs; wherefore I pressed,
Fearing, a little nearer to my Leader.
And unto me he said: "Turn thee; what dost thou?
Behold there Farinata who has risen;
From the waist upwards wholly shalt thou see him."
I had already fixed mine eyes on his,
And he uprose erect with breast and front
E'en as if Hell he had in great despite.
And with courageous hands and prompt my Leader
Thrust me between the sepulchres towards him,
Exclaiming, "Let thy words explicit be."
As soon as I was at the foot of his tomb
Somewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful,
Then asked of me, "Who were thine ancestors?"
I, who desirous of obeying was,
Concealed it not, but all revealed to him;
Whereat he raised his brows a little upward.
Then said he: "Fiercely adverse have they been
To me, and to my fathers, and my party;
So that two several times I scattered them."
"If they were banished, they returned on all sides,"
I answered him, "the first time and the second;
But yours have not acquired that art aright."
Then there uprose upon the sight, uncovered
Down to the chin, a shadow at his side;
I think that he had risen on his knees.
Round me he gazed, as if solicitude
He had to see if some one else were with me,
But after his suspicion was all spent,
Weeping, he said to me: "If through this blind
Prison thou goest by loftiness of genius,
Where is my son? and why is he not with thee?"
And I to him: "I come not of myself;
He who is waiting yonder leads me here,
Whom in disdain perhaps your Guido had."
His language and the mode of punishment
Already unto me had read his name;
On that account my answer was so full.
Up starting suddenly, he cried out: "How
Saidst thou,—he had? Is he not still alive?
Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?"
When he became aware of some delay,
Which I before my answer made, supine
He fell again, and forth appeared no more.
But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire
I had remained, did not his aspect change,
Neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side.
"And if," continuing his first discourse,
"They have that art," he said, "not learned aright,
That more tormenteth me, than doth this bed.
But fifty times shall not rekindled be
The countenance of the Lady who reigns here,
Ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art;
And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return,
Say why that people is so pitiless
Against my race in each one of its laws?"
Whence I to him: "The slaughter and great carnage
Which have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause
Such orisons in our temple to be made."
After his head he with a sigh had shaken,
"There I was not alone," he said, "nor surely
Without a cause had with the others moved.
But there I was alone, where every one
Consented to the laying waste of Florence,
He who defended her with open face."
"Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,"
I him entreated, "solve for me that knot,
Which has entangled my conceptions here.
It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly,
Beforehand whatsoe'er time brings with it,
And in the present have another mode."
"We see, like those who have imperfect sight,
The things," he said, "that distant are from us;
So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler.
When they draw near, or are, is wholly vain
Our intellect, and if none brings it to us,
Not anything know we of your human state.
Hence thou canst understand, that wholly dead
Will be our knowledge from the moment when
The portal of the future shall be closed."
Then I, as if compunctious for my fault,
Said: "Now, then, you will tell that fallen one,
That still his son is with the living joined.
And if just now, in answering, I was dumb,
Tell him I did it because I was thinking
Already of the error you have solved me."
And now my Master was recalling me,
Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit
That he would tell me who was with him there.
He said: "With more than a thousand here I lie;
Within here is the second Frederick,
And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not."
Thereon he hid himself; and I towards
The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting
Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me.
He moved along; and afterward thus going,
He said to me, "Why art thou so bewildered?"
And I in his inquiry satisfied him.
"Let memory preserve what thou hast heard
Against thyself," that Sage commanded me,
"And now attend here;" and he raised his finger.
"When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet
Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold,
From her thou'lt know the journey of thy life."
Unto the left hand then he turned his feet;
We left the wall, and went towards the middle,
Along a path that strikes into a valley,
Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.
The path is 'hidden' because it lies between the walls of Dis and the sepulchers. See Virgil, Aeneid VI.443, the secreti [...] calles that lead into the Lugentes Campi (Fields of Mourning [VI.441]) where Aeneas encounters the mournful spirit of Dido.
Dante is apparently alluding to the new direction, to the right, in which Virgil is now leading him.
The image of the uncovered tombs and the reference to 'guards,' as Durling and Martinez point out in their commentary (The “Divine Comedy” of Dante Alighieri, Notes by R. M. Durling and Ronald Martinez [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996]), suggest details of the scene surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. The actual position of the covering slabs of these funeral monuments is not clear. The passage in Inferno XI.6 would make it appear that they may be propped against the sides of the tombs, as Durling and Martinez suggest.
Jehosaphat is the valley in Palestine in which, according to Joel 3:2, all will be gathered for the Last Judgment (Joel 3.1-21). Cf. also Matth. 25:31-46, where Jesus is described as separating the sheep (oves) from the goats (hedos – 25.33) on that day. Unlike the Hebrew prophet, Matthew makes no explicit reference to the valley of Jehosaphat. Further, neither passage mentions the resurrection of the body; however, see John 11:24, where Martha says to Jesus that she is confident that her brother Lazarus shall rise again at the resurrection of the last day. See the article “General Resurrection” in the (on-line) Catholic Encyclopedia for five Hebrew biblical texts that seem clearly to refer to the resurrection of the flesh, outnumbered by some twenty in the New Testament, a half dozen of these in the Gospels and more than twice that number in various of Paul's Epistles.
This verse returns to a concern, first encountered in Inf. VI.94-99, that will run through the rest of the poem: the posthumous reunification of soul and body. Once Inferno is behind the protagonist, a far more happy conjunction of soul and body will confront the reader, beginning with Cato of Utica. We learn that his flesh, 'la vesta,' will be glorified on Judgment Day, when it will shine radiantly ('al gran dì sarà sì chiara'). See the note to Purg. I.75.
'Epicurus, celebrated Greek philosopher, B.C. 342-270; he started at Athens the philosophic school called after him, which taught that the summum bonum, or highest good, is happiness – not sensual enjoyment, but peace of mind, as the result of the cultivation of the virtues. He held that virtue was to be practised because it led to happiness, whereas the Stoics held that virtue should be cultivated for its own sake' (cited from Toynbee, “Epicuro,” Concise Dante Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 (1898)]). While in the Convivio (IV.vi.11-12) Dante defines Epicureanism as the pleasure principle without speaking of it as specifically heretical, here he falls in with a more stringent Christian view, perhaps echoing St. Paul who, in I Corinthians 15:32, cites the standard tag for Epicureanism, 'Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,' as the unworthy countering view to the Resurrection. It is in keeping with this attitude that Dante presents 'Epicureans' as those who deny the immortality of the soul. For a full discussion along these lines of the change in attitude toward the Epicureans from Ciceronian to a more 'orthodox' view see Joseph A. Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante's “Comedy” (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960), pp. 174-204. And for a possible source of Dante's phrasing see Mazzoni's gloss to a verse in Inferno V (62): “Il canto V dell'Inferno” (Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76; Rome: Bonacci, 1977), p. 137, suggesting that Servius's gloss to Aeneid IV.34, 'dicit autem secundum Epicureos, qui animam cum corpore dicunt perire,' may inform Dante's choice of words.
See the wish expressed by Dante in vv. 6-8, above, which Virgil realizes hides Dante's real desire: he hopes to see, now that he is among 'the blacker souls' where Ciacco had said he would find Farinata and four other Florentines (Inf. VI.85), some or one of these, and perhaps the first he there named, Farinata.
Has Virgil literally read the pilgrim's mind? Or is he rather to be perceived as having made a rapid calculation as to what Dante's thoughts are likely to have been just now? For discussion, see the notes to Inf. XVI.115-123, XXI.58-62, XXIII.25-30; Purg. XV.130-132 and 133-135.
Dante, once chidden by Virgil for his curiosity (Inf. III.76-78), has been keeping that curiosity under wraps. Nonetheless, Virgil has him figured out.
The speaker is Farinata degli Uberti: 'Manente, called Farinata, son of Jacopo degli Uberti, the “Saviour of Florence,” was born in Florence at the beginning of Century xiii; while still a boy he witnessed the introduction into the city of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions, of the latter of which his family became the leaders; in 1239 be became the head of his house, and in 1248 he took a prominent part in the expulsion of the Guelfs, who however returned in 1251, and a few years later (in 1258) expelled the Ghibellines in their turn, Farinata among them; the latter, who was now acknowledged head of his party, took refuge with the rest of the Ghibelline exiles in Siena, where he organized the measures which led to the crushing defeat of the Florentine Guelfs and their allies at Montaperti, and left the Ghibellines masters of Tuscany (Sept. 4, 1260). After their victory the Ghibellines held a council at Empoli, about twenty miles from Florence, at which it was proposed, in order to put an end once for all to the power of the Florentines, that the city of Florence should be razed to the ground. To this proposal, which was generally approved, Farinata offered the most determined opposition, declaring that he would defend his native city with his own sword as long as he had breath in his body, even though he should have to do it single-handed. In consequence of this protest the proposal was abandoned and Florence was saved from destruction. The Florentines subsequently showed little gratitude to Farinata for his patriotic intervention, for they always expressly included the Uberti with the other Ghibelline families who were excepted from the terms offered to the other exiles. After Montaperti Farinata returned to Florence, where he died in or about 1264, the year before Dante's birth' (cited from Toynbee, “Farinata,” in his Concise Dante Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 (1898)]). For bibliography on his significance to Dante see Anthony K. Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), p. 117.
His manner is both courteous and firm, that of a man used to command. Dante is obviously more than a little flustered, and needs to be reassured by Virgil (vv. 29-31).
Ever since the time of Guido da Pisa (1328?) commentators have, on occasion, noted the echo here of the words of the bystanders who heard Peter deny his knowledge of Christ a second time; surely, they say, you are one of his followers from Galilee, for your speech makes you plainly so ('loquela tua manifestum te facit' – Matthew 26:73). See Guido's comm. to Inf. X.25-27. Pier Angelo Perotti (“Farinata, Dante e Pietro,” L'Alighieri 31 [1990], pp. 3-7) seems unaware of his precursors in this observation.
Against the more usual understanding, that Farinata's 'forse' (perhaps) reveals regret at his harshness against his fellow citizens at the battle of Montaperti, consider the judgment of Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), p. 19): Farinata displays 'the false modesty of gloating understatement.' And see Christopher Kleinhenz, “The Poetics of Citation: Dante's Divina Commedia and the Bible,” in Italiana 1988: Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Italian, November 18-20, 1988, Monterey, CA., ed. Albert N. Mancini, Paolo A. Giordano, and Anthony J. Tamburri [= Rosary College Italian Studies 4 (1990)], pp. 13-14, for a possible source in Micah (6:3) of Farinata's statement: 'Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut quid molestus fui tibi?' (O my people, what have I done to thee? and wherein have I wearied thee?). But for a still earlier discussion of this source by Alessandro Ronconi, “Per Dante interprete dei poeti latini,” Studi Danteschi 41 (1964): 28, in Fosca (comm. vv. 22-27).
The interplay between pupil and teacher here is handled particularly adroitly (and with a sure comic hand), revealing once more Dante's distanced and controlled narrative technique. Farinata's dramatic rising from the tomb is quite frightening enough in itself to the eyes of the beholder; joined to his huge sepulchral voice, its resulting power becomes terrifying, overwhelming, not one, but two senses. The narrator (ashamed?) indeed tells us little of his resultant craven behavior. However, the words of Virgil that, as faithful historian of events, he must record, tell us all we need to know: Our hero is cravenly trying to flee the scene – another sign that he has entered a new 'cycle of fear, pity, and firmness' (see the note to Inf. IX.51).
Farinata, who did not believe in Christ's resurrection, here replays it, as it were, rising from his tomb, at this instant making his punishment clearly fit his crime. See Convivio II.viii.8 for Dante's own outcry against such failure of belief: 'Dico che intra tutte le bestialitadi quello è stoltissima, vilissima e dannosissima, chi crede dopo questa vita non essere altra vita' (I say that of all the follies the most foolish, the basest, and the most pernicious is the belief that beyond this life there is no other [tr. Lansing]).
Rising like the bust of a Roman emperor out of his tomb, and as Durling (“Farinata and the Body of Christ,” Stanford Italian Review 2 [1981], pp. 11-14) and Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984], pp. 24-26) have independently discovered, still more importantly, in imitation of the 'Man of Sorrows' (see Isaiah 53:3: virum dolorum), that image (the so-called imago pietatis) of Jesus rising from the tomb, naked, showing the signs of his torture, not yet having taken on majesty. With this image in our minds, Farinata's heresy seems all the less pardonable, since Christ had come and suffered for him, too.
That the features of Farinata upon which Dante fastens are his chest and brow underlines his prideful nature. And pride, which we have seen behind the sinful actions of such as Filippo Argenti in canto VIII, the 'root sin' that stands behind so much human failure in the eyes of Dante's Church, is easily understood as a root of heresy, the stiff-necked refusal to believe what has been given as manifest by Christ and his Church. For the association of raised brows with pride, see the notes to Inf. XXXIV.35; Purg. III.111 and VII.9-13, linking prideful Farinata with Satan and Manfred.
Farinata's 'heroic' stance has pleased at least Romantic readers, who are driven to enthusiastic approval of his disdain (see also Inf. X.41) for the hell that contains him.
Perhaps mindful of the way in which his pupil ran on when he spoke with Francesca, far more eager to share in her experience than to learn from it, Virgil warns Dante to control his speech.
Farinata's first words reveal his pride in familial background. He is an Uberti and a Ghibelline; let all others tremble before him.
Dante's self-identification as minor nobility and a Guelph does not much impress Farinata, who raises his eyebrows – another sign of his pridefulness. See Inferno XXXIV.35, where Satan is described as having raised his brows against God.
Farinata now wins the second round of his little battle with Dante: yes, he knows Dante's people, and twice over has sent them into exile (1248 and 1260). This canto's scenes play out against a series of dates spread over the second half of the thirteenth century in Florence: 1248, expulsion of the Guelphs; 1258, expulsion of the Ghibellines; 1260, Montaperti and the second explusion of the Guelphs; 1264, death of Farinata; 1266, defeat of Manfred and the imperial forces at the battle of Benevento and banishment of the Uberti family; 1280, death of Cavalcante the elder; 1289, battle of Campaldino, another Guelph triumph (in which Dante took part); 1290, death of Beatrice; 1300, death of Guido Cavalcanti; 1302, exile of Dante Alighieri.
But now the little Guelph bites back: our family was twice exiled and came back home twice; yours has not done quite so well (since the Uberti have remained in exile since the aftermath of the battle of Benevento in 1266). We witness again, as we did in the scene with Filippo Argenti, Dante's revisitation of the poetic form of the tenzone (see the note to Inf. VIII.31-39).
The reader may note that the adjective 'Yours' in v. 51 is capitalized. We have followed the practice of capitalizing the English translation of the honorific plural form for the singular 'you' and 'yours,' so as to alert the reader to their use in Dante's Italian. Only three Florentines in hell receive this treatment: Farinata and Cavalcante here, and Brunetto Latini in canto XV.
The interruption of the tenzone between Dante and Farinata will last for seven tercets, until Farinata, 'on hold' while this other drama is played out, will continue the conversation as though there had been no interruption to it.
The far less imposing figure who rises out of the same tomb alongside Farinata is Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti (died ca. 1280), a Guelph and the father of Dante's former 'first friend' (see VN III.14, XXIV.6, XXX.3), Guido Cavalcanti. Since Guido was alive at the imagined date of Dante's journey, he cannot be found in the afterworld. However, his reputation as a 'materialist' makes it seem at least likely that Dante was certain that this aristocratic and independent-minded poet and thinker was coming right here to join his father. It is not accidental that the entire conversation between the father and his son's former friend concerns that son. If Farinata believes in family and party, Cavalcante is the archetypal doting father. Their portraits, showing them in such different lights, are perhaps the finest example we have of such close, contrastive 'portraiture' in verse since the classical era. See the study of Erich Auerbach, “Farinata and Cavalcante,” in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, tr. W. Trask (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1957 [1946]), pp. 151-77.
One of the finest lyric poets of his time, Guido Cavalcanti was from six to ten years older than Dante. He was married by his family to a woman named Beatrice, in fact the daughter of Farinata. In other words, these two heretical Florentines are in-laws; it is notable that, divided by party loyalty as they are, they do not speak to one another. Guido was an ardent Guelph, siding with the Whites (Dante's party also) when the Guelphs divided into two factions. He had a street brawl with the leader of the Black Guelphs, Corso Donati, who had once tried to kill him. 'In the summer of 1300, during Dante's priorate (June 15-Aug. 15), it was decided (June 24), in order to put an end to the disturbances caused by the continued hostilities between the two factions, to banish the leaders of both sides,... among those who approved this decision being Dante, in his capacity as Prior. It thus came about that Dante was instrumental in sending his own friend into exile, and, as it proved, to his death; for though the exiles were recalled very shortly after the expiry of Dante's term of office (Aug. 15), so that Guido only spent a few weeks at Sarzana, he never recovered from the effects of the malarious climate of the place, and died in Florence at the end of August in that same year; he was buried in the cemetery of Santa Reparata on Aug. 29...' (cited from Toynbee, “Cavalcanti, Guido,” Concise Dante Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 (1898)]). One might wish to consider the fact that each of these two main characters, one Ghibelline and one Guelf, in the sepulchral scene of this canto had been banished by the Priors of Florence, Farinata in 1258, Cavalcanti in 1300. And mindful of the afterlives of these two exiles is the exiled Dante Alighieri, former Prior, now himself exiled by the Priors of the city.
On his 'Epicureanism,' or failure to believe in the existence of a soul that lived beyond the life of the bodily senses, see the commentary of Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. X.64-66): Guido was a 'leggiadro e ricco cavaliere, e seguì l'oppinion d'Epicuro in non credere che l'anima dopo la morte del corpo vivesse e che il nostro sommo bene fosse ne' diletti carnali; e per questo, sì come eretico, è dannato' (a charming and wealthy gentleman; he followed Epicurus's opinion in not believing that the soul lived on after the death of the body and that our highest good was found in carnal delight; and for this he is damned as a heretic). Benvenuto (comm. ad loc.) reports that Guido used a biblical text (Ecclesiastes 3:19: 'The lot of man and beast is one, and their condition is the same') to demonstrate that the soul dies with the body (cited by Singleton [comm. to Inf. X.53]).
For review of the recent spate of articles on the problem of the adverse relationship between Guido and Dante as represented by Guido's canzone (Donna me prega) and Dante's Vita nuova see Nicolò Pasero, “Dante in Cavalcanti: ancora sui rapporti tra Vita nova e Donna me prega,” Medioevo romanzo 22 (1998), pp. 388-414. While the problem of the dating of the two works remains central, it does seem that, at some point in the 1290s, Dante and Guido had a falling out, and that these two works clearly reflect it. Barolini (“Dante and Cavalcanti [On Making Distinctions in Matters of Love]: Inferno V in Its Lyric Context,” Dante Studies 116 [1998]), pp. 60-63, points out that the evidence that we currently possess does not allow certainty in this matter, but that we can say that there clearly was a dispute between the two former friends that is mirrored in the two works. For an earlier suggestion that Dante was setting himself up as an opposer of Guido from the beginning of the poem, see Bacchelli's opinion, referred to at the end of the note to Inferno I.86-87.
We cannot understand the pathos of this little moment in the larger scene until we learn or realize that Cavalcante, seeing Dante before him and (rightly) believing him to be in hell for special and favorable reasons, surely a reward for his intellectual prowess, naturally believes that his son Guido, Dante's superior in station (as Farinata believed he was) and ability, ought to have been included by whoever arranged this visit.
Dante's phrase, 'cieco carcere' (dark prison), has long been considered an echo of the same words in Virgil's Latin, carcere caeco, at Aeneid VI.734. For a consideration of the essential differences between the Virgilian and the Dantean afterworld see M.C.J. Putnam, 'Virgil's Inferno,' in The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia,” ed. R. Jacoff and J. T. Schnapp (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 94-112.
The phrase 'per altezza d'ingegno' (by virtue of your lofty genius) is clearly meant to remind us of the similar phrase we heard in Dante's first invocation: 'O Muse, o alto ingegno' (O Muses, O lofty genius – Inf. II.7). However, how we are to interpret the resemblance is not easily resolved. Those who believe that in the first passage Dante was invoking his own poetic powers see in Cavalcanti's doting father's reaction a simple sense of rivalry: which of these two poets is more gifted? If, on the other hand, we believe that Dante, in the invocation, calls for aid from a Higher Power (see the note to Inf. II.7), then the father's question indicates that he doesn't understand, materialist that he is, the nature of true Christian poetic inspiration. His son's genius and that inspiring Dante are not commensurable.
Cavalcante's mournful question about his son's whereabouts has reminded some commentators (perhaps the first was Daniello, in 1568 [comm. to Inf. X.52-63]) of Andromache's equally mournful question about the whereabouts of her husband Hector, 'Hector ubi est?' (Aen. III.312). But see Durling (“Farinata and the Body of Christ,” Stanford Italian Review 2 [1981]), p. 25n., arguing for the resonance of Genesis 4:9: 'Ubi est Abel frater tuus?' (Where is Abel your brother?). Durling points out that both these 'fratricidal' stories culminate in an exile, Cain sent forth from the land a fugitive (Genesis 4:12-16), while Guido was literally sent into exile by the action of Dante and the five other Priors of Florence.
Dante's words may reflect the Gospel of John (8:28) when Jesus says 'a meipso facio nihil' (I do nothing of myself), but only through the Father.
One of the most debated passages in the poem. For a recent review, with bibliography, see Hollander (“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]), pp. 204-6, 222-23. Following the lead of Isidoro Del Lungo (“Il disdegno di Guido,” Nuova Antologia [1 nov. 1889], pp. 59-60) and Guglielmo Gorni (Il nodo della lingua: studi in Dante e altri duecenteschi [Florence, Olschki, 1981], pp. 134-39), Hollander argues for the shaping influence of a sonnet by Cino da Pistoia ('Qua' son le cose vostre ch'io vi tolgo,' written in answer to a [lost] rather nasty sonnet by Guido attacking him) on the key words in this passage, disdegno and ingegno, words found in Cino's sonnet implying exactly these qualities to Guido in unflattering ways (and now see Raffaele Pinto, “Sensi smarriti: La ermeneutica del disdegno in Cavalcanti e Dante [II],” Tenzone 2 [2001], pp. 57-59). If this hypothesis is correct, then those in the debate over the reference of the pronoun cui who believe it refers to Beatrice are strongly supported. Others believe it refers to Virgil (and still others, a much smaller number, believe it refers to God). It should be noted that our translation is interpretive; the Italian can mean either what we have said it does or else 'whom perhaps your Guido held in scorn,' in which case it would refer to Virgil. The text thus either indicates that Guido at a certain point perhaps scorned the work of Virgil or else withdrew his approval of Dante's love of Beatrice, to whom perhaps Dante is being led, as Virgil has promised him (Inf. I.122-123). For support of the 'candidacy' of Beatrice see Paolo Cherchi, “Il disdegno per Guido: una proposta,” L'Alighieri 11 (1970), pp. 73-78; “Cavalcanti e la rappresentazione,” Critica del testo 4 (2001), pp. 42-43.
For an inconclusive but interesting discussion of the force of the past definite of the verb ebbe here, see Singleton (“Inferno X: Guido's Disdain,” Modern Language Notes 77 [1962], pp. 49-65).
The father's premature lament for his living son (but he will be dead in four months) in this searing tercet obviously collects the difficult thoughts and feelings of the poet as well. There has been a great deal written about Dante's use of the past definite ('egli ebbe' [he had]) and its possible consequences. Why did Dante say that (verse 63)? Had Guido scorned someone habitually, the use of the imperfect would have been more likely. Those who believe that his scorn was for Virgil (roughly half of those who involve themselves in this quarrel) are right to be puzzled, for such a scornful view of the Latin poet would not seem to have been a sudden shift of attitude (and, in fact, there is no Virgilian element in any of Guido's poems). An attractive alternative explanation is given by Siro Chimenz in his commentary (comm. to Inf. X.61-63), repeating findings he first offered in 1945: at a certain point in his relations with Dante, and at least after Beatrice's death, when Dante continued to write of her, Guido did come to have disdain for Dante's loyalty to Beatrice. In short, Dante the protagonist is thinking of Guido's climactic 'rejection' of Beatrice as a definite past event, one perhaps precisely reflected in a sonnet Guido wrote to Dante expressing his disgust with his former friend ('I' vegno 'l giorno a te 'nfinite volte'). For the current state of the question involving Dante's difficult eventual relationship with Guido see Enrico Malato, Dante e Guido Cavalcanti: il dissidio per la “Vita nuova” e il «disdegno» di Guido (Rome: Salerno, 1997). and Mauro Cursietti, “Dante, Guido e l'«annoiosa gente»,” L'Alighieri 11 (1998), pp. 105-12.
For the echoes heard in Cavalcante's heart-broken question of both Aeneid III.310-312 and Genesis 4:9, see the note to Inf. X.60.
Opposing Petrocchi's punctuation of these verses ('Come? / dicesti “elli ebbe”?' [...]), Chiavacci Leonardi, 'Questioni di punteggiatura in due celebri attacchi danteschi (Inf., II 76-78 e X 67-69), Lettere Italiane 36 (1984): 19-24, offers arguments for restoring the reading found in the 1921 edition: 'Come / dicesti? elli ebbe?' [...].
Cavalcante's sudden disappearance rounds out his version of 'resurrection,' one that fails. In his first line he 'came up' (surse) but in his last he falls back (ricadde) into his eternal tomb.
Farinata's Stoic restraint is evident once again; he has been waiting to regain Dante's attention in order to continue their difficult conversation about Florentine politics. Unmoved and unmoving, he is the exemplification of the 'stone man' admired by Stoic philosophers. He is 'great-souled' (magnanimo), a quality of the highest kind in Aristotle's formulation in the Ethics, but one connected, even in classical times, with a fear that such a man may also be prideful. See Scott (Dante magnanimo; studi sulla “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1977]) pp. 13-45, for the double valence of the term, which becomes less even potentially positive in the works of Christian writers. Returning to the question in 1997, Scott (“Dante Jottings,” in In amicizia: Essays in Honour of Giulio Lepschy, ed. Z.G. Baranski and L. Pertile (The Italianist 17 [1997–special supplement]), pp. 117-26) argues that the adjective may refer not only to Farinata ('that other one'), but to the class of which he is a part. Scott is doubtless correct to suggest that 'that other one,' applied to Farinata, at least implies a 'this one,' referring to Cavalcante, with whom Dante has been conversing. And 'this' shade would then be equally magnanimo as that one. It is an interesting argument; the insistent reference to Farinata, however, once the spotlight is turned back on him, may eventually erode its ability to convince. There is, of course, also the possibility that, in Dante's copy, the adjective and the noun were appositive, i.e., that he wrote 'quell'altro, magnanimo, a cui'–we will never know.
Farinata, more human in his second conversation, admits his sense of frustration in his family's political misfortune; it is, he says, worse torment even than damnation. We may reflect that, in the universe of this poem, there should be no worse torment than damnation. Nonetheless, Farinata exudes a certain selfless concern for his family.
Bested by Dante's last riposte, Farinata now gets even with a prophecy: within fifty months (fifty moons; Proserpina, the moon, is traditionally referred to as queen of hell) Dante himself will know the pain of exile. There surely seems to be fellow-feeling joined to the bleak promise. By July of 1304 – roughly fifty months from March of 1300 – the last efforts of the Whites to re-enter Florence were over and done with (Dante had already given up on their efforts), and Dante had come to know that his exile was, for all intents and purposes, limitless.
Having now characterized Dante as a fellow-sufferer at the hands of their fellow citizens, Farinata wants to know why his Ghibelline family seems to have been singled out by the actions of the Priors.
Dante's answer offers the perhaps sole locus in this canto that directly relates heresy and politics – and surely the reader has wondered what the connection must be. The 'prayers' in the church that he refers to are words uttered in viturative political councils, thus creating an image of political intrigue, even if of Guelph against Ghibelline, as a form of deformed 'religious' activity. Florence seems a city in which politics have become the state religion.
The Arbia is a river near the site of the battle of Montaperti.
Farinata's last words on the subject of the Florentine past remind his auditor that he was no more guilty than the rest of the Ghibellines (and many of them have been allowed to return) and that, further, at the council of Empoli (see the note to Inf. X.22-24), he was alone in defending the city from destruction. There is no question but that Dante's view of Farinata is complex. As hard as he is on him, there is also great admiration for some of his qualities as leader, and for his having stood alone, and successfully, in defense of the city. The drama of Ghibellinism for Dante is a central one; what these people want to accomplish politically is not in itself anathema to him – far from it; that they wish to achieve their aims without God is what destroys their credentials as politicians and as human beings.
Having realized that Cavalcanti does not know that his son is alive, while Farinata seems to know the future, Dante asks for clarification.
Farinata explains that the present and the near future are not known by the sinners, only the time to come. Most believe that what he says applies to all the damned, e.g., Singleton in his commentary to this passage (Inf. X.100-105). On the other hand, for the view that this condition pertains only to the heretics see Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), pp. 29-31. But see Alberigo, his soul already in hell yet not knowing how or what its body is now doing in the world above (Inf. XXXIII.122-123).
The 'portals of the future close' at Judgment Day, after which there shall be 'no more time' (Apoc. 10:6).
Dante's excuses his 'fault': until Farinata explained things, he assumed the damned were aware of present events. Given the historical situation between the poet and Cavlacanti, it is not surprising that the author stages the drama of his understandable guilt at his role in Guido's death in this somewhat strained way.
Virgil does not seem to think his pupil's effort at apology very important: it is time to move on. Dante hurriedly asks for news of other heretics down here.
Frederick II (1194-1250), King of Sicily and Naples (1212-50), known in his own day as stupor mundi (the wonder of the world) for his extraordinary verve and accomplishments, presided over one of the most glorious courts in Europe. His political battles with the papacy marked nearly the full extent of his reign (he was the victorious leader of the Sixth Crusade [1228-29], 'won' by treaty, while he was under interdict of excommunication). As exemplary of the Guelph view of him see Salimbene: 'Erat enim epicureus, et ideo quidquid poterat invenire in divina scriptura per se et per sapientes suos quod faceret ad ostendendum quod non esset alia vita post mortem, totum inveniebat' (For he was an Epicurean, and as a result whatever he could find in holy scripture itself, or from those who knew the scripture, that would help demonstrate that there were no life after death, he totally set himself to finding – Cronica). For a recent overview of the ambience of Frederick II's court see Roberto Antonelli, “La corte 'italiana' di Federico II e la letteratura europea,” in Federico II e le nuove culture (Atti del XXXI Convegno storico internazionale, Todi, 9-12 ottobre 1994), Spoleto, Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 1995, pp. 319-45.
'Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, member of a powerful Tuscan Ghibelline family, known to his contemporaries as “the Cardinal” par excellence, was brother of Ubaldino della Pila (Purg. XXIV.29) and uncle of the Archbishop Ruggieri (Inf. XXXIII.14); he was made Bishop of Bologna in 1240, when he was under thirty, by special dispensation of Pope Gregory IX, and in 1244 he was created Cardinal by Innocent IV at the Council of Lyons; he was papal legate in Lombardy, and died in 1272. [He] was suspected of favouring the imperial party, and is credited with a saying: “If I have a soul, I have lost it a thousand times for the Ghibellines”' (the remark is cited by nearly every fourteenth-century commentator found in the DDP). The passage is cited from Paget Toynbee, Concise Dante Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 [1898]), “Cardinale, Il.”
Dante is considering the dire event, his exile, that Farinata has predicted (Inf. X.79-81).
The word used by Virgil to describe Dante's difficulty is smarrito, a word that has been associated with the protagonist's initial lost and perilous condition (Inf. I.3) and that then occurs again with specific reference to his lostness at the outset of the journey for the last time in the poem (Inf. XV.50). It is also used in such a way as to remind us of his initial situation (see Inf. II.64, Inf. V.72, and Inf. XIII.24); in the last two of these scenes the protagonist is feeling pity for sinners, emotion that the poet fairly clearly considers inappropriate.
Virgil's promise that Beatrice (it can only be she) will lay bare to him the story of his life to come is not fulfilled, even though it is referred to again at Inferno XV.88-90. This role, so clearly reserved for Beatrice, is eventually given to Cacciaguida in Paradiso XVII.46-75. The apparent contradiction has caused much consternation. An ingenious solution has been proposed by Marguerite Mills Chiarenza (“Time and Eternity in the Myths of Paradiso XVII,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini [Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983], pp. 133-50): just as in the Aeneid Helenus promises Aeneas that the Sibyl will reveal his future to him (Aen. III.458-460) only to have her instead lead him to Anchises, who performs that promised task (Aen. VI.756-886), so in the Comedy also the promised female 'prophet' is replaced by a male. In Chiarenza's view, the 'contradiction' is deliberate.
Virgil now returns to his accustomed leftward direction in his guidance of Dante. See the note to Inferno IX.132. The stench from the depths is yet another indication that this new level of hell, beginning here with heresy, marks a deterioration in the motives for sin, from appetite to hardened will. See the note to Inf. VIII.78.
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Ora sen va per un secreto calle,
tra 'l muro de la terra e li martìri,
lo mio maestro, e io dopo le spalle.
“O virtù somma, che per li empi giri
mi volvi,” cominciai, “com' a te piace,
parlami, e sodisfammi a' miei disiri.
La gente che per li sepolcri giace
potrebbesi veder? già son levati
tutt' i coperchi, e nessun guardia face.”
E quelli a me: “Tutti saran serrati
quando di Iosafàt qui torneranno
coi corpi che là sù hanno lasciati.
Suo cimitero da questa parte hanno
con Epicuro tutti suoi seguaci,
che l'anima col corpo morta fanno.
Però a la dimanda che mi faci
quinc' entro satisfatto sarà tosto,
e al disio ancor che tu mi taci.”
E io: “Buon duca, non tegno riposto
a te mio cuor se non per dicer poco,
e tu m'hai non pur mo a ciò disposto.”
“O Tosco che per la città del foco
vivo ten vai così parlando onesto,
piacciati di restare in questo loco.
La tua loquela ti fa manifesto
di quella nobil patrïa natio,
a la qual forse fui troppo molesto.”
Subitamente questo suono uscìo
d'una de l'arche; però m'accostai,
temendo, un poco più al duca mio.
Ed el mi disse: “Volgiti! Che fai?
Vedi là Farinata che s'è dritto:
da la cintola in sù tutto 'l vedrai.”
Io avea già il mio viso nel suo fitto;
ed el s'ergea col petto e con la fronte
com' avesse l'inferno a gran dispitto.
E l'animose man del duca e pronte
mi pinser tra le sepulture a lui,
dicendo: “Le parole tue sien conte.”
Com' io al piè de la sua tomba fui,
guardommi un poco, e poi, quasi sdegnoso,
mi dimandò: “Chi fuor li maggior tui?”
Io ch'era d'ubidir disideroso,
non gliel celai, ma tutto gliel' apersi;
ond' ei levò le ciglia un poco in suso;
poi disse: “Fieramente furo avversi
a me e a miei primi e a mia parte,
sì che per due fïate li dispersi.”
“S'ei fur cacciati, ei tornar d'ogne parte,”
rispuos' io lui, “l'una e l'altra fïata;
ma i vostri non appreser ben quell' arte.”
Allor surse a la vista scoperchiata
un'ombra, lungo questa, infino al mento:
credo che s'era in ginocchie levata.
Dintorno mi guardò, come talento
avesse di veder s'altri era meco;
e poi che 'l sospecciar fu tutto spento,
piangendo disse: “Se per questo cieco
carcere vai per altezza d'ingegno,
mio figlio ov' è? e perché non è teco?”
E io a lui: “Da me stesso non vegno:
colui ch'attende là per qui mi mena,
forse cui Guido vostro ebbe a disdegno.”
Le sue parole e 'l modo de la pena
m'avean di costui già letto il nome;
però fu la risposta così piena.
Di sùbito drizzato gridò: “Come?
dicesti 'elli ebbe'? non viv' elli ancora?
non fiere li occhi suoi lo dolce lume?”
Quando s'accorse d'alcuna dimora
ch'io facëa dinanzi a la risposta,
supin ricadde e più non parve fora.
Ma quell' altro magnanimo, a cui posta
restato m'era, non mutò aspetto,
né mosse collo, né piegò sua costa;
e sé continüando al primo detto,
“S'elli han quell' arte,” disse, “male appresa,
ciò mi tormenta più che questo letto.
Ma non cinquanta volte fia raccesa
la faccia de la donna che qui regge,
che tu saprai quanto quell' arte pesa.
E se tu mai nel dolce mondo regge,
dimmi: perché quel popolo è sì empio
incontr' a' miei in ciascuna sua legge?”
Ond' io a lui: “Lo strazio e 'l grande scempio
che fece l'Arbia colorata in rosso,
tal orazion fa far nel nostro tempio.”
Poi ch'ebbe sospirando il capo mosso,
“A ciò non fu' io sol,” disse, “né certo
sanza cagion con li altri sarei mosso.
Ma fu' io solo, là dove sofferto
fu per ciascun di tòrre via Fiorenza,
colui che la difesi a viso aperto.”
“Deh, se riposi mai vostra semenza,”
prega' io lui, “solvetemi quel nodo
che qui ha 'nviluppata mia sentenza.
El par che voi veggiate, se ben odo,
dinanzi quel che 'l tempo seco adduce,
e nel presente tenete altro modo.”
“Noi veggiam, come quei c'ha mala luce,
le cose,” disse, “che ne son lontano;
cotanto ancor ne splende il sommo duce.
Quando s'appressano o son, tutto è vano
nostro intelletto; e s'altri non ci apporta,
nulla sapem di vostro stato umano.
Però comprender puoi che tutta morta
fia nostra conoscenza da quel punto
che del futuro fia chiusa la porta.”
Allor, come di mia colpa compunto,
dissi: “Or direte dunque a quel caduto
che 'l suo nato è co' vivi ancor congiunto;
e s'i' fui, dianzi, a la risposta muto,
fate i saper che 'l fei perché pensava
già ne l'error che m'avete soluto.”
E già 'l maestro mio mi richiamava;
per ch'i' pregai lo spirto più avaccio
che mi dicesse chi con lu' istava.
Dissemi: “Qui con più di mille giaccio:
qua dentro è 'l secondo Federico
e 'l Cardinale; e de li altri mi taccio.”
Indi s'ascose; e io inver' l'antico
poeta volsi i passi, ripensando
a quel parlar che mi parea nemico.
Elli si mosse; e poi, così andando,
mi disse: “Perché se' tu sì smarrito?”
E io li sodisfeci al suo dimando.
“La mente tua conservi quel ch'udito
hai contra te,” mi comandò quel saggio;
“e ora attendi qui,” e drizzò 'l dito:
“quando sarai dinanzi al dolce raggio
di quella il cui bell' occhio tutto vede,
da lei saprai di tua vita il vïaggio.”
Appresso mosse a man sinistra il piede:
lasciammo il muro e gimmo inver' lo mezzo
per un sentier ch'a una valle fiede,
che 'nfin là sù facea spiacer suo lezzo.
Now onward goes, along a narrow path
Between the torments and the city wall,
My Master, and I follow at his back.
"O power supreme, that through these impious circles
Turnest me," I began, "as pleases thee,
Speak to me, and my longings satisfy;
The people who are lying in these tombs,
Might they be seen? already are uplifted
The covers all, and no one keepeth guard."
And he to me: "They all will be closed up
When from Jehoshaphat they shall return
Here with the bodies they have left above.
Their cemetery have upon this side
With Epicurus all his followers,
Who with the body mortal make the soul;
But in the question thou dost put to me,
Within here shalt thou soon be satisfied,
And likewise in the wish thou keepest silent."
And I: "Good Leader, I but keep concealed
From thee my heart, that I may speak the less,
Nor only now hast thou thereto disposed me."
"O Tuscan, thou who through the city of fire
Goest alive, thus speaking modestly,
Be pleased to stay thy footsteps in this place.
Thy mode of speaking makes thee manifest
A native of that noble fatherland,
To which perhaps I too molestful was."
Upon a sudden issued forth this sound
From out one of the tombs; wherefore I pressed,
Fearing, a little nearer to my Leader.
And unto me he said: "Turn thee; what dost thou?
Behold there Farinata who has risen;
From the waist upwards wholly shalt thou see him."
I had already fixed mine eyes on his,
And he uprose erect with breast and front
E'en as if Hell he had in great despite.
And with courageous hands and prompt my Leader
Thrust me between the sepulchres towards him,
Exclaiming, "Let thy words explicit be."
As soon as I was at the foot of his tomb
Somewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful,
Then asked of me, "Who were thine ancestors?"
I, who desirous of obeying was,
Concealed it not, but all revealed to him;
Whereat he raised his brows a little upward.
Then said he: "Fiercely adverse have they been
To me, and to my fathers, and my party;
So that two several times I scattered them."
"If they were banished, they returned on all sides,"
I answered him, "the first time and the second;
But yours have not acquired that art aright."
Then there uprose upon the sight, uncovered
Down to the chin, a shadow at his side;
I think that he had risen on his knees.
Round me he gazed, as if solicitude
He had to see if some one else were with me,
But after his suspicion was all spent,
Weeping, he said to me: "If through this blind
Prison thou goest by loftiness of genius,
Where is my son? and why is he not with thee?"
And I to him: "I come not of myself;
He who is waiting yonder leads me here,
Whom in disdain perhaps your Guido had."
His language and the mode of punishment
Already unto me had read his name;
On that account my answer was so full.
Up starting suddenly, he cried out: "How
Saidst thou,—he had? Is he not still alive?
Does not the sweet light strike upon his eyes?"
When he became aware of some delay,
Which I before my answer made, supine
He fell again, and forth appeared no more.
But the other, magnanimous, at whose desire
I had remained, did not his aspect change,
Neither his neck he moved, nor bent his side.
"And if," continuing his first discourse,
"They have that art," he said, "not learned aright,
That more tormenteth me, than doth this bed.
But fifty times shall not rekindled be
The countenance of the Lady who reigns here,
Ere thou shalt know how heavy is that art;
And as thou wouldst to the sweet world return,
Say why that people is so pitiless
Against my race in each one of its laws?"
Whence I to him: "The slaughter and great carnage
Which have with crimson stained the Arbia, cause
Such orisons in our temple to be made."
After his head he with a sigh had shaken,
"There I was not alone," he said, "nor surely
Without a cause had with the others moved.
But there I was alone, where every one
Consented to the laying waste of Florence,
He who defended her with open face."
"Ah! so hereafter may your seed repose,"
I him entreated, "solve for me that knot,
Which has entangled my conceptions here.
It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly,
Beforehand whatsoe'er time brings with it,
And in the present have another mode."
"We see, like those who have imperfect sight,
The things," he said, "that distant are from us;
So much still shines on us the Sovereign Ruler.
When they draw near, or are, is wholly vain
Our intellect, and if none brings it to us,
Not anything know we of your human state.
Hence thou canst understand, that wholly dead
Will be our knowledge from the moment when
The portal of the future shall be closed."
Then I, as if compunctious for my fault,
Said: "Now, then, you will tell that fallen one,
That still his son is with the living joined.
And if just now, in answering, I was dumb,
Tell him I did it because I was thinking
Already of the error you have solved me."
And now my Master was recalling me,
Wherefore more eagerly I prayed the spirit
That he would tell me who was with him there.
He said: "With more than a thousand here I lie;
Within here is the second Frederick,
And the Cardinal, and of the rest I speak not."
Thereon he hid himself; and I towards
The ancient poet turned my steps, reflecting
Upon that saying, which seemed hostile to me.
He moved along; and afterward thus going,
He said to me, "Why art thou so bewildered?"
And I in his inquiry satisfied him.
"Let memory preserve what thou hast heard
Against thyself," that Sage commanded me,
"And now attend here;" and he raised his finger.
"When thou shalt be before the radiance sweet
Of her whose beauteous eyes all things behold,
From her thou'lt know the journey of thy life."
Unto the left hand then he turned his feet;
We left the wall, and went towards the middle,
Along a path that strikes into a valley,
Which even up there unpleasant made its stench.
The path is 'hidden' because it lies between the walls of Dis and the sepulchers. See Virgil, Aeneid VI.443, the secreti [...] calles that lead into the Lugentes Campi (Fields of Mourning [VI.441]) where Aeneas encounters the mournful spirit of Dido.
Dante is apparently alluding to the new direction, to the right, in which Virgil is now leading him.
The image of the uncovered tombs and the reference to 'guards,' as Durling and Martinez point out in their commentary (The “Divine Comedy” of Dante Alighieri, Notes by R. M. Durling and Ronald Martinez [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996]), suggest details of the scene surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. The actual position of the covering slabs of these funeral monuments is not clear. The passage in Inferno XI.6 would make it appear that they may be propped against the sides of the tombs, as Durling and Martinez suggest.
Jehosaphat is the valley in Palestine in which, according to Joel 3:2, all will be gathered for the Last Judgment (Joel 3.1-21). Cf. also Matth. 25:31-46, where Jesus is described as separating the sheep (oves) from the goats (hedos – 25.33) on that day. Unlike the Hebrew prophet, Matthew makes no explicit reference to the valley of Jehosaphat. Further, neither passage mentions the resurrection of the body; however, see John 11:24, where Martha says to Jesus that she is confident that her brother Lazarus shall rise again at the resurrection of the last day. See the article “General Resurrection” in the (on-line) Catholic Encyclopedia for five Hebrew biblical texts that seem clearly to refer to the resurrection of the flesh, outnumbered by some twenty in the New Testament, a half dozen of these in the Gospels and more than twice that number in various of Paul's Epistles.
This verse returns to a concern, first encountered in Inf. VI.94-99, that will run through the rest of the poem: the posthumous reunification of soul and body. Once Inferno is behind the protagonist, a far more happy conjunction of soul and body will confront the reader, beginning with Cato of Utica. We learn that his flesh, 'la vesta,' will be glorified on Judgment Day, when it will shine radiantly ('al gran dì sarà sì chiara'). See the note to Purg. I.75.
'Epicurus, celebrated Greek philosopher, B.C. 342-270; he started at Athens the philosophic school called after him, which taught that the summum bonum, or highest good, is happiness – not sensual enjoyment, but peace of mind, as the result of the cultivation of the virtues. He held that virtue was to be practised because it led to happiness, whereas the Stoics held that virtue should be cultivated for its own sake' (cited from Toynbee, “Epicuro,” Concise Dante Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 (1898)]). While in the Convivio (IV.vi.11-12) Dante defines Epicureanism as the pleasure principle without speaking of it as specifically heretical, here he falls in with a more stringent Christian view, perhaps echoing St. Paul who, in I Corinthians 15:32, cites the standard tag for Epicureanism, 'Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,' as the unworthy countering view to the Resurrection. It is in keeping with this attitude that Dante presents 'Epicureans' as those who deny the immortality of the soul. For a full discussion along these lines of the change in attitude toward the Epicureans from Ciceronian to a more 'orthodox' view see Joseph A. Mazzeo, Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante's “Comedy” (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960), pp. 174-204. And for a possible source of Dante's phrasing see Mazzoni's gloss to a verse in Inferno V (62): “Il canto V dell'Inferno” (Lectura Dantis Romana: Letture degli anni 1973-76; Rome: Bonacci, 1977), p. 137, suggesting that Servius's gloss to Aeneid IV.34, 'dicit autem secundum Epicureos, qui animam cum corpore dicunt perire,' may inform Dante's choice of words.
See the wish expressed by Dante in vv. 6-8, above, which Virgil realizes hides Dante's real desire: he hopes to see, now that he is among 'the blacker souls' where Ciacco had said he would find Farinata and four other Florentines (Inf. VI.85), some or one of these, and perhaps the first he there named, Farinata.
Has Virgil literally read the pilgrim's mind? Or is he rather to be perceived as having made a rapid calculation as to what Dante's thoughts are likely to have been just now? For discussion, see the notes to Inf. XVI.115-123, XXI.58-62, XXIII.25-30; Purg. XV.130-132 and 133-135.
Dante, once chidden by Virgil for his curiosity (Inf. III.76-78), has been keeping that curiosity under wraps. Nonetheless, Virgil has him figured out.
The speaker is Farinata degli Uberti: 'Manente, called Farinata, son of Jacopo degli Uberti, the “Saviour of Florence,” was born in Florence at the beginning of Century xiii; while still a boy he witnessed the introduction into the city of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions, of the latter of which his family became the leaders; in 1239 be became the head of his house, and in 1248 he took a prominent part in the expulsion of the Guelfs, who however returned in 1251, and a few years later (in 1258) expelled the Ghibellines in their turn, Farinata among them; the latter, who was now acknowledged head of his party, took refuge with the rest of the Ghibelline exiles in Siena, where he organized the measures which led to the crushing defeat of the Florentine Guelfs and their allies at Montaperti, and left the Ghibellines masters of Tuscany (Sept. 4, 1260). After their victory the Ghibellines held a council at Empoli, about twenty miles from Florence, at which it was proposed, in order to put an end once for all to the power of the Florentines, that the city of Florence should be razed to the ground. To this proposal, which was generally approved, Farinata offered the most determined opposition, declaring that he would defend his native city with his own sword as long as he had breath in his body, even though he should have to do it single-handed. In consequence of this protest the proposal was abandoned and Florence was saved from destruction. The Florentines subsequently showed little gratitude to Farinata for his patriotic intervention, for they always expressly included the Uberti with the other Ghibelline families who were excepted from the terms offered to the other exiles. After Montaperti Farinata returned to Florence, where he died in or about 1264, the year before Dante's birth' (cited from Toynbee, “Farinata,” in his Concise Dante Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 (1898)]). For bibliography on his significance to Dante see Anthony K. Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), p. 117.
His manner is both courteous and firm, that of a man used to command. Dante is obviously more than a little flustered, and needs to be reassured by Virgil (vv. 29-31).
Ever since the time of Guido da Pisa (1328?) commentators have, on occasion, noted the echo here of the words of the bystanders who heard Peter deny his knowledge of Christ a second time; surely, they say, you are one of his followers from Galilee, for your speech makes you plainly so ('loquela tua manifestum te facit' – Matthew 26:73). See Guido's comm. to Inf. X.25-27. Pier Angelo Perotti (“Farinata, Dante e Pietro,” L'Alighieri 31 [1990], pp. 3-7) seems unaware of his precursors in this observation.
Against the more usual understanding, that Farinata's 'forse' (perhaps) reveals regret at his harshness against his fellow citizens at the battle of Montaperti, consider the judgment of Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), p. 19): Farinata displays 'the false modesty of gloating understatement.' And see Christopher Kleinhenz, “The Poetics of Citation: Dante's Divina Commedia and the Bible,” in Italiana 1988: Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Italian, November 18-20, 1988, Monterey, CA., ed. Albert N. Mancini, Paolo A. Giordano, and Anthony J. Tamburri [= Rosary College Italian Studies 4 (1990)], pp. 13-14, for a possible source in Micah (6:3) of Farinata's statement: 'Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut quid molestus fui tibi?' (O my people, what have I done to thee? and wherein have I wearied thee?). But for a still earlier discussion of this source by Alessandro Ronconi, “Per Dante interprete dei poeti latini,” Studi Danteschi 41 (1964): 28, in Fosca (comm. vv. 22-27).
The interplay between pupil and teacher here is handled particularly adroitly (and with a sure comic hand), revealing once more Dante's distanced and controlled narrative technique. Farinata's dramatic rising from the tomb is quite frightening enough in itself to the eyes of the beholder; joined to his huge sepulchral voice, its resulting power becomes terrifying, overwhelming, not one, but two senses. The narrator (ashamed?) indeed tells us little of his resultant craven behavior. However, the words of Virgil that, as faithful historian of events, he must record, tell us all we need to know: Our hero is cravenly trying to flee the scene – another sign that he has entered a new 'cycle of fear, pity, and firmness' (see the note to Inf. IX.51).
Farinata, who did not believe in Christ's resurrection, here replays it, as it were, rising from his tomb, at this instant making his punishment clearly fit his crime. See Convivio II.viii.8 for Dante's own outcry against such failure of belief: 'Dico che intra tutte le bestialitadi quello è stoltissima, vilissima e dannosissima, chi crede dopo questa vita non essere altra vita' (I say that of all the follies the most foolish, the basest, and the most pernicious is the belief that beyond this life there is no other [tr. Lansing]).
Rising like the bust of a Roman emperor out of his tomb, and as Durling (“Farinata and the Body of Christ,” Stanford Italian Review 2 [1981], pp. 11-14) and Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984], pp. 24-26) have independently discovered, still more importantly, in imitation of the 'Man of Sorrows' (see Isaiah 53:3: virum dolorum), that image (the so-called imago pietatis) of Jesus rising from the tomb, naked, showing the signs of his torture, not yet having taken on majesty. With this image in our minds, Farinata's heresy seems all the less pardonable, since Christ had come and suffered for him, too.
That the features of Farinata upon which Dante fastens are his chest and brow underlines his prideful nature. And pride, which we have seen behind the sinful actions of such as Filippo Argenti in canto VIII, the 'root sin' that stands behind so much human failure in the eyes of Dante's Church, is easily understood as a root of heresy, the stiff-necked refusal to believe what has been given as manifest by Christ and his Church. For the association of raised brows with pride, see the notes to Inf. XXXIV.35; Purg. III.111 and VII.9-13, linking prideful Farinata with Satan and Manfred.
Farinata's 'heroic' stance has pleased at least Romantic readers, who are driven to enthusiastic approval of his disdain (see also Inf. X.41) for the hell that contains him.
Perhaps mindful of the way in which his pupil ran on when he spoke with Francesca, far more eager to share in her experience than to learn from it, Virgil warns Dante to control his speech.
Farinata's first words reveal his pride in familial background. He is an Uberti and a Ghibelline; let all others tremble before him.
Dante's self-identification as minor nobility and a Guelph does not much impress Farinata, who raises his eyebrows – another sign of his pridefulness. See Inferno XXXIV.35, where Satan is described as having raised his brows against God.
Farinata now wins the second round of his little battle with Dante: yes, he knows Dante's people, and twice over has sent them into exile (1248 and 1260). This canto's scenes play out against a series of dates spread over the second half of the thirteenth century in Florence: 1248, expulsion of the Guelphs; 1258, expulsion of the Ghibellines; 1260, Montaperti and the second explusion of the Guelphs; 1264, death of Farinata; 1266, defeat of Manfred and the imperial forces at the battle of Benevento and banishment of the Uberti family; 1280, death of Cavalcante the elder; 1289, battle of Campaldino, another Guelph triumph (in which Dante took part); 1290, death of Beatrice; 1300, death of Guido Cavalcanti; 1302, exile of Dante Alighieri.
But now the little Guelph bites back: our family was twice exiled and came back home twice; yours has not done quite so well (since the Uberti have remained in exile since the aftermath of the battle of Benevento in 1266). We witness again, as we did in the scene with Filippo Argenti, Dante's revisitation of the poetic form of the tenzone (see the note to Inf. VIII.31-39).
The reader may note that the adjective 'Yours' in v. 51 is capitalized. We have followed the practice of capitalizing the English translation of the honorific plural form for the singular 'you' and 'yours,' so as to alert the reader to their use in Dante's Italian. Only three Florentines in hell receive this treatment: Farinata and Cavalcante here, and Brunetto Latini in canto XV.
The interruption of the tenzone between Dante and Farinata will last for seven tercets, until Farinata, 'on hold' while this other drama is played out, will continue the conversation as though there had been no interruption to it.
The far less imposing figure who rises out of the same tomb alongside Farinata is Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti (died ca. 1280), a Guelph and the father of Dante's former 'first friend' (see VN III.14, XXIV.6, XXX.3), Guido Cavalcanti. Since Guido was alive at the imagined date of Dante's journey, he cannot be found in the afterworld. However, his reputation as a 'materialist' makes it seem at least likely that Dante was certain that this aristocratic and independent-minded poet and thinker was coming right here to join his father. It is not accidental that the entire conversation between the father and his son's former friend concerns that son. If Farinata believes in family and party, Cavalcante is the archetypal doting father. Their portraits, showing them in such different lights, are perhaps the finest example we have of such close, contrastive 'portraiture' in verse since the classical era. See the study of Erich Auerbach, “Farinata and Cavalcante,” in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, tr. W. Trask (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1957 [1946]), pp. 151-77.
One of the finest lyric poets of his time, Guido Cavalcanti was from six to ten years older than Dante. He was married by his family to a woman named Beatrice, in fact the daughter of Farinata. In other words, these two heretical Florentines are in-laws; it is notable that, divided by party loyalty as they are, they do not speak to one another. Guido was an ardent Guelph, siding with the Whites (Dante's party also) when the Guelphs divided into two factions. He had a street brawl with the leader of the Black Guelphs, Corso Donati, who had once tried to kill him. 'In the summer of 1300, during Dante's priorate (June 15-Aug. 15), it was decided (June 24), in order to put an end to the disturbances caused by the continued hostilities between the two factions, to banish the leaders of both sides,... among those who approved this decision being Dante, in his capacity as Prior. It thus came about that Dante was instrumental in sending his own friend into exile, and, as it proved, to his death; for though the exiles were recalled very shortly after the expiry of Dante's term of office (Aug. 15), so that Guido only spent a few weeks at Sarzana, he never recovered from the effects of the malarious climate of the place, and died in Florence at the end of August in that same year; he was buried in the cemetery of Santa Reparata on Aug. 29...' (cited from Toynbee, “Cavalcanti, Guido,” Concise Dante Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 (1898)]). One might wish to consider the fact that each of these two main characters, one Ghibelline and one Guelf, in the sepulchral scene of this canto had been banished by the Priors of Florence, Farinata in 1258, Cavalcanti in 1300. And mindful of the afterlives of these two exiles is the exiled Dante Alighieri, former Prior, now himself exiled by the Priors of the city.
On his 'Epicureanism,' or failure to believe in the existence of a soul that lived beyond the life of the bodily senses, see the commentary of Boccaccio (comm. to Inf. X.64-66): Guido was a 'leggiadro e ricco cavaliere, e seguì l'oppinion d'Epicuro in non credere che l'anima dopo la morte del corpo vivesse e che il nostro sommo bene fosse ne' diletti carnali; e per questo, sì come eretico, è dannato' (a charming and wealthy gentleman; he followed Epicurus's opinion in not believing that the soul lived on after the death of the body and that our highest good was found in carnal delight; and for this he is damned as a heretic). Benvenuto (comm. ad loc.) reports that Guido used a biblical text (Ecclesiastes 3:19: 'The lot of man and beast is one, and their condition is the same') to demonstrate that the soul dies with the body (cited by Singleton [comm. to Inf. X.53]).
For review of the recent spate of articles on the problem of the adverse relationship between Guido and Dante as represented by Guido's canzone (Donna me prega) and Dante's Vita nuova see Nicolò Pasero, “Dante in Cavalcanti: ancora sui rapporti tra Vita nova e Donna me prega,” Medioevo romanzo 22 (1998), pp. 388-414. While the problem of the dating of the two works remains central, it does seem that, at some point in the 1290s, Dante and Guido had a falling out, and that these two works clearly reflect it. Barolini (“Dante and Cavalcanti [On Making Distinctions in Matters of Love]: Inferno V in Its Lyric Context,” Dante Studies 116 [1998]), pp. 60-63, points out that the evidence that we currently possess does not allow certainty in this matter, but that we can say that there clearly was a dispute between the two former friends that is mirrored in the two works. For an earlier suggestion that Dante was setting himself up as an opposer of Guido from the beginning of the poem, see Bacchelli's opinion, referred to at the end of the note to Inferno I.86-87.
We cannot understand the pathos of this little moment in the larger scene until we learn or realize that Cavalcante, seeing Dante before him and (rightly) believing him to be in hell for special and favorable reasons, surely a reward for his intellectual prowess, naturally believes that his son Guido, Dante's superior in station (as Farinata believed he was) and ability, ought to have been included by whoever arranged this visit.
Dante's phrase, 'cieco carcere' (dark prison), has long been considered an echo of the same words in Virgil's Latin, carcere caeco, at Aeneid VI.734. For a consideration of the essential differences between the Virgilian and the Dantean afterworld see M.C.J. Putnam, 'Virgil's Inferno,' in The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia,” ed. R. Jacoff and J. T. Schnapp (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 94-112.
The phrase 'per altezza d'ingegno' (by virtue of your lofty genius) is clearly meant to remind us of the similar phrase we heard in Dante's first invocation: 'O Muse, o alto ingegno' (O Muses, O lofty genius – Inf. II.7). However, how we are to interpret the resemblance is not easily resolved. Those who believe that in the first passage Dante was invoking his own poetic powers see in Cavalcanti's doting father's reaction a simple sense of rivalry: which of these two poets is more gifted? If, on the other hand, we believe that Dante, in the invocation, calls for aid from a Higher Power (see the note to Inf. II.7), then the father's question indicates that he doesn't understand, materialist that he is, the nature of true Christian poetic inspiration. His son's genius and that inspiring Dante are not commensurable.
Cavalcante's mournful question about his son's whereabouts has reminded some commentators (perhaps the first was Daniello, in 1568 [comm. to Inf. X.52-63]) of Andromache's equally mournful question about the whereabouts of her husband Hector, 'Hector ubi est?' (Aen. III.312). But see Durling (“Farinata and the Body of Christ,” Stanford Italian Review 2 [1981]), p. 25n., arguing for the resonance of Genesis 4:9: 'Ubi est Abel frater tuus?' (Where is Abel your brother?). Durling points out that both these 'fratricidal' stories culminate in an exile, Cain sent forth from the land a fugitive (Genesis 4:12-16), while Guido was literally sent into exile by the action of Dante and the five other Priors of Florence.
Dante's words may reflect the Gospel of John (8:28) when Jesus says 'a meipso facio nihil' (I do nothing of myself), but only through the Father.
One of the most debated passages in the poem. For a recent review, with bibliography, see Hollander (“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]), pp. 204-6, 222-23. Following the lead of Isidoro Del Lungo (“Il disdegno di Guido,” Nuova Antologia [1 nov. 1889], pp. 59-60) and Guglielmo Gorni (Il nodo della lingua: studi in Dante e altri duecenteschi [Florence, Olschki, 1981], pp. 134-39), Hollander argues for the shaping influence of a sonnet by Cino da Pistoia ('Qua' son le cose vostre ch'io vi tolgo,' written in answer to a [lost] rather nasty sonnet by Guido attacking him) on the key words in this passage, disdegno and ingegno, words found in Cino's sonnet implying exactly these qualities to Guido in unflattering ways (and now see Raffaele Pinto, “Sensi smarriti: La ermeneutica del disdegno in Cavalcanti e Dante [II],” Tenzone 2 [2001], pp. 57-59). If this hypothesis is correct, then those in the debate over the reference of the pronoun cui who believe it refers to Beatrice are strongly supported. Others believe it refers to Virgil (and still others, a much smaller number, believe it refers to God). It should be noted that our translation is interpretive; the Italian can mean either what we have said it does or else 'whom perhaps your Guido held in scorn,' in which case it would refer to Virgil. The text thus either indicates that Guido at a certain point perhaps scorned the work of Virgil or else withdrew his approval of Dante's love of Beatrice, to whom perhaps Dante is being led, as Virgil has promised him (Inf. I.122-123). For support of the 'candidacy' of Beatrice see Paolo Cherchi, “Il disdegno per Guido: una proposta,” L'Alighieri 11 (1970), pp. 73-78; “Cavalcanti e la rappresentazione,” Critica del testo 4 (2001), pp. 42-43.
For an inconclusive but interesting discussion of the force of the past definite of the verb ebbe here, see Singleton (“Inferno X: Guido's Disdain,” Modern Language Notes 77 [1962], pp. 49-65).
The father's premature lament for his living son (but he will be dead in four months) in this searing tercet obviously collects the difficult thoughts and feelings of the poet as well. There has been a great deal written about Dante's use of the past definite ('egli ebbe' [he had]) and its possible consequences. Why did Dante say that (verse 63)? Had Guido scorned someone habitually, the use of the imperfect would have been more likely. Those who believe that his scorn was for Virgil (roughly half of those who involve themselves in this quarrel) are right to be puzzled, for such a scornful view of the Latin poet would not seem to have been a sudden shift of attitude (and, in fact, there is no Virgilian element in any of Guido's poems). An attractive alternative explanation is given by Siro Chimenz in his commentary (comm. to Inf. X.61-63), repeating findings he first offered in 1945: at a certain point in his relations with Dante, and at least after Beatrice's death, when Dante continued to write of her, Guido did come to have disdain for Dante's loyalty to Beatrice. In short, Dante the protagonist is thinking of Guido's climactic 'rejection' of Beatrice as a definite past event, one perhaps precisely reflected in a sonnet Guido wrote to Dante expressing his disgust with his former friend ('I' vegno 'l giorno a te 'nfinite volte'). For the current state of the question involving Dante's difficult eventual relationship with Guido see Enrico Malato, Dante e Guido Cavalcanti: il dissidio per la “Vita nuova” e il «disdegno» di Guido (Rome: Salerno, 1997). and Mauro Cursietti, “Dante, Guido e l'«annoiosa gente»,” L'Alighieri 11 (1998), pp. 105-12.
For the echoes heard in Cavalcante's heart-broken question of both Aeneid III.310-312 and Genesis 4:9, see the note to Inf. X.60.
Opposing Petrocchi's punctuation of these verses ('Come? / dicesti “elli ebbe”?' [...]), Chiavacci Leonardi, 'Questioni di punteggiatura in due celebri attacchi danteschi (Inf., II 76-78 e X 67-69), Lettere Italiane 36 (1984): 19-24, offers arguments for restoring the reading found in the 1921 edition: 'Come / dicesti? elli ebbe?' [...].
Cavalcante's sudden disappearance rounds out his version of 'resurrection,' one that fails. In his first line he 'came up' (surse) but in his last he falls back (ricadde) into his eternal tomb.
Farinata's Stoic restraint is evident once again; he has been waiting to regain Dante's attention in order to continue their difficult conversation about Florentine politics. Unmoved and unmoving, he is the exemplification of the 'stone man' admired by Stoic philosophers. He is 'great-souled' (magnanimo), a quality of the highest kind in Aristotle's formulation in the Ethics, but one connected, even in classical times, with a fear that such a man may also be prideful. See Scott (Dante magnanimo; studi sulla “Commedia” [Florence: Olschki, 1977]) pp. 13-45, for the double valence of the term, which becomes less even potentially positive in the works of Christian writers. Returning to the question in 1997, Scott (“Dante Jottings,” in In amicizia: Essays in Honour of Giulio Lepschy, ed. Z.G. Baranski and L. Pertile (The Italianist 17 [1997–special supplement]), pp. 117-26) argues that the adjective may refer not only to Farinata ('that other one'), but to the class of which he is a part. Scott is doubtless correct to suggest that 'that other one,' applied to Farinata, at least implies a 'this one,' referring to Cavalcante, with whom Dante has been conversing. And 'this' shade would then be equally magnanimo as that one. It is an interesting argument; the insistent reference to Farinata, however, once the spotlight is turned back on him, may eventually erode its ability to convince. There is, of course, also the possibility that, in Dante's copy, the adjective and the noun were appositive, i.e., that he wrote 'quell'altro, magnanimo, a cui'–we will never know.
Farinata, more human in his second conversation, admits his sense of frustration in his family's political misfortune; it is, he says, worse torment even than damnation. We may reflect that, in the universe of this poem, there should be no worse torment than damnation. Nonetheless, Farinata exudes a certain selfless concern for his family.
Bested by Dante's last riposte, Farinata now gets even with a prophecy: within fifty months (fifty moons; Proserpina, the moon, is traditionally referred to as queen of hell) Dante himself will know the pain of exile. There surely seems to be fellow-feeling joined to the bleak promise. By July of 1304 – roughly fifty months from March of 1300 – the last efforts of the Whites to re-enter Florence were over and done with (Dante had already given up on their efforts), and Dante had come to know that his exile was, for all intents and purposes, limitless.
Having now characterized Dante as a fellow-sufferer at the hands of their fellow citizens, Farinata wants to know why his Ghibelline family seems to have been singled out by the actions of the Priors.
Dante's answer offers the perhaps sole locus in this canto that directly relates heresy and politics – and surely the reader has wondered what the connection must be. The 'prayers' in the church that he refers to are words uttered in viturative political councils, thus creating an image of political intrigue, even if of Guelph against Ghibelline, as a form of deformed 'religious' activity. Florence seems a city in which politics have become the state religion.
The Arbia is a river near the site of the battle of Montaperti.
Farinata's last words on the subject of the Florentine past remind his auditor that he was no more guilty than the rest of the Ghibellines (and many of them have been allowed to return) and that, further, at the council of Empoli (see the note to Inf. X.22-24), he was alone in defending the city from destruction. There is no question but that Dante's view of Farinata is complex. As hard as he is on him, there is also great admiration for some of his qualities as leader, and for his having stood alone, and successfully, in defense of the city. The drama of Ghibellinism for Dante is a central one; what these people want to accomplish politically is not in itself anathema to him – far from it; that they wish to achieve their aims without God is what destroys their credentials as politicians and as human beings.
Having realized that Cavalcanti does not know that his son is alive, while Farinata seems to know the future, Dante asks for clarification.
Farinata explains that the present and the near future are not known by the sinners, only the time to come. Most believe that what he says applies to all the damned, e.g., Singleton in his commentary to this passage (Inf. X.100-105). On the other hand, for the view that this condition pertains only to the heretics see Cassell (Dante's Fearful Art of Justice [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984]), pp. 29-31. But see Alberigo, his soul already in hell yet not knowing how or what its body is now doing in the world above (Inf. XXXIII.122-123).
The 'portals of the future close' at Judgment Day, after which there shall be 'no more time' (Apoc. 10:6).
Dante's excuses his 'fault': until Farinata explained things, he assumed the damned were aware of present events. Given the historical situation between the poet and Cavlacanti, it is not surprising that the author stages the drama of his understandable guilt at his role in Guido's death in this somewhat strained way.
Virgil does not seem to think his pupil's effort at apology very important: it is time to move on. Dante hurriedly asks for news of other heretics down here.
Frederick II (1194-1250), King of Sicily and Naples (1212-50), known in his own day as stupor mundi (the wonder of the world) for his extraordinary verve and accomplishments, presided over one of the most glorious courts in Europe. His political battles with the papacy marked nearly the full extent of his reign (he was the victorious leader of the Sixth Crusade [1228-29], 'won' by treaty, while he was under interdict of excommunication). As exemplary of the Guelph view of him see Salimbene: 'Erat enim epicureus, et ideo quidquid poterat invenire in divina scriptura per se et per sapientes suos quod faceret ad ostendendum quod non esset alia vita post mortem, totum inveniebat' (For he was an Epicurean, and as a result whatever he could find in holy scripture itself, or from those who knew the scripture, that would help demonstrate that there were no life after death, he totally set himself to finding – Cronica). For a recent overview of the ambience of Frederick II's court see Roberto Antonelli, “La corte 'italiana' di Federico II e la letteratura europea,” in Federico II e le nuove culture (Atti del XXXI Convegno storico internazionale, Todi, 9-12 ottobre 1994), Spoleto, Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 1995, pp. 319-45.
'Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, member of a powerful Tuscan Ghibelline family, known to his contemporaries as “the Cardinal” par excellence, was brother of Ubaldino della Pila (Purg. XXIV.29) and uncle of the Archbishop Ruggieri (Inf. XXXIII.14); he was made Bishop of Bologna in 1240, when he was under thirty, by special dispensation of Pope Gregory IX, and in 1244 he was created Cardinal by Innocent IV at the Council of Lyons; he was papal legate in Lombardy, and died in 1272. [He] was suspected of favouring the imperial party, and is credited with a saying: “If I have a soul, I have lost it a thousand times for the Ghibellines”' (the remark is cited by nearly every fourteenth-century commentator found in the DDP). The passage is cited from Paget Toynbee, Concise Dante Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1914 [1898]), “Cardinale, Il.”
Dante is considering the dire event, his exile, that Farinata has predicted (Inf. X.79-81).
The word used by Virgil to describe Dante's difficulty is smarrito, a word that has been associated with the protagonist's initial lost and perilous condition (Inf. I.3) and that then occurs again with specific reference to his lostness at the outset of the journey for the last time in the poem (Inf. XV.50). It is also used in such a way as to remind us of his initial situation (see Inf. II.64, Inf. V.72, and Inf. XIII.24); in the last two of these scenes the protagonist is feeling pity for sinners, emotion that the poet fairly clearly considers inappropriate.
Virgil's promise that Beatrice (it can only be she) will lay bare to him the story of his life to come is not fulfilled, even though it is referred to again at Inferno XV.88-90. This role, so clearly reserved for Beatrice, is eventually given to Cacciaguida in Paradiso XVII.46-75. The apparent contradiction has caused much consternation. An ingenious solution has been proposed by Marguerite Mills Chiarenza (“Time and Eternity in the Myths of Paradiso XVII,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini [Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983], pp. 133-50): just as in the Aeneid Helenus promises Aeneas that the Sibyl will reveal his future to him (Aen. III.458-460) only to have her instead lead him to Anchises, who performs that promised task (Aen. VI.756-886), so in the Comedy also the promised female 'prophet' is replaced by a male. In Chiarenza's view, the 'contradiction' is deliberate.
Virgil now returns to his accustomed leftward direction in his guidance of Dante. See the note to Inferno IX.132. The stench from the depths is yet another indication that this new level of hell, beginning here with heresy, marks a deterioration in the motives for sin, from appetite to hardened will. See the note to Inf. VIII.78.
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