Ora cen porta l'un de' duri margini;
e 'l fummo del ruscel di sopra aduggia,
sì che dal foco salva l'acqua e li argini.
Quali Fiamminghi tra Guizzante e Bruggia,
temendo 'l fiotto che 'nver' lor s'avventa;
fanno lo schermo perché 'l mar si fuggia;
e quali Padoan lungo la Brenta,
per difender lor ville e lor castelli,
anzi che Carentana il caldo senta:
a tale imagine eran fatti quelli,
tutto che né sì alti né sì grossi,
qual che si fosse, lo maestro félli.
Già eravam da la selva rimossi
tanto, ch'i' non avrei visto dov' era,
perch' io in dietro rivolto mi fossi,
quando incontrammo d'anime una schiera
che venian lungo l'argine, e ciascuna
ci riguardava come suol da sera
guardare uno altro sotto nuova luna;
e sì ver' noi aguzzavan le ciglia
come 'l vecchio sartor fa ne la cruna.
Così adocchiato da cotal famiglia,
fui conosciuto da un, che mi prese
per lo lembo e gridò: “Qual maraviglia!”
E io, quando 'l suo braccio a me distese,
ficcaï li occhi per lo cotto aspetto,
sì che 'l viso abbrusciato non difese
la conoscenza süa al mio 'ntelletto;
e chinando la mano a la sua faccia,
rispuosi: “Siete voi qui, ser Brunetto?”
E quelli: “O figliuol mio, non ti dispiaccia
se Brunetto Latino un poco teco
ritorna 'n dietro e lascia andar la traccia.”
I' dissi lui: “Quanto posso, ven preco;
e se volete che con voi m'asseggia,
faròl, se piace a costui che vo seco.”
“O figliuol,” disse, “qual di questa greggia
s'arresta punto, giace poi cent' anni
sanz' arrostarsi quando 'l foco il feggia.
Però va oltre: i' ti verrò a' panni;
e poi rigiugnerò la mia masnada,
che va piangendo i suoi etterni danni.”
Io non osava scender de la strada
per andar par di lui; ma 'l capo chino
tenea com' uom che reverente vada.
El cominciò: “Qual fortuna o destino
anzi l'ultimo dì qua giù ti mena?
e chi è questi che mostra 'l cammino?”
“Là sù di sopra, in la vita serena,”
rispuos' io lui, “mi smarri' in una valle,
avanti che l'età mia fosse piena.
Pur ier mattina le volsi le spalle:
questi m'apparve, tornand'ïo in quella,
e reducemi a ca per questo calle.”
Ed elli a me: “Se tu segui tua stella,
non puoi fallire a glorïoso porto,
se ben m'accorsi ne la vita bella;
e s'io non fossi sì per tempo morto,
veggendo il cielo a te così benigno,
dato t'avrei a l'opera conforto.
Ma quello ingrato popolo maligno
che discese di Fiesole ab antico,
e tiene ancor del monte e del macigno,
ti si farà, per tuo ben far, nimico;
ed è ragion, ché tra li lazzi sorbi
si disconvien fruttare al dolce fico.
Vecchia fama nel mondo li chiama orbi;
gent' è avara, invidiosa e superba:
dai lor costumi fa che tu ti forbi.
La tua fortuna tanto onor ti serba,
che l'una parte e l'altra avranno fame
di te; ma lungi fia dal becco l'erba.
Faccian le bestie fiesolane strame
di lor medesme, e non tocchin la pianta,
s'alcuna surge ancora in lor letame,
in cui riviva la sementa santa
di que' Roman che vi rimaser quando
fu fatto il nido di malizia tanta.”
“Se fosse tutto pieno il mio dimando,”
rispuos' io lui, “voi non sareste ancora
de l'umana natura posto in bando;
ché 'n la mente m'è fitta, e or m'accora,
la cara e buona imagine paterna
di voi quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora
m'insegnavate come l'uom s'etterna:
e quant' io l'abbia in grado, mentr' io vivo
convien che ne la mia lingua si scerna.
Ciò che narrate di mio corso scrivo,
e serbolo a chiosar con altro testo
a donna che saprà, s'a lei arrivo.
Tanto vogl' io che vi sia manifesto,
pur che mia coscïenza non mi garra,
ch'a la Fortuna, come vuol, son presto.
Non è nuova a li orecchi miei tal arra:
però giri Fortuna la sua rota
come le piace, e 'l villan la sua marra.”
Lo mio maestro allora in su la gota
destra si volse in dietro e riguardommi;
poi disse: “Bene ascolta chi la nota.”
Né per tanto di men parlando vommi
con ser Brunetto, e dimando chi sono
li suoi compagni più noti e più sommi.
Ed elli a me: “Saper d'alcuno è buono;
de li altri fia laudabile tacerci,
ché 'l tempo saria corto a tanto suono.
In somma sappi che tutti fur cherci
e litterati grandi e di gran fama,
d'un peccato medesmo al mondo lerci.
Priscian sen va con quella turba grama,
e Francesco d'Accorso anche; e vedervi,
s'avessi avuto di tal tigna brama,
colui potei che dal servo de' servi
fu trasmutato d'Arno in Bacchiglione,
dove lasciò li mal protesi nervi.
Di più direi; ma 'l venire e 'l sermone
più lungo esser non può, però ch'i' veggio
là surger nuovo fummo del sabbione.
Gente vien con la quale esser non deggio.
Sieti raccomandato il mio Tesoro,
nel qual io vivo ancora, e più non cheggio.”
Poi si rivolse e parve di coloro
che corrono a Verona il drappo verde
per la campagna; e parve di costoro
quelli che vince, non colui che perde.
Now bears us onward one of the hard margins,
And so the brooklet's mist o'ershadows it,
From fire it saves the water and the dikes.
Even as the Flemings, 'twixt Cadsand and Bruges,
Fearing the flood that tow'rds them hurls itself,
Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight;
And as the Paduans along the Brenta,
To guard their villas and their villages,
Or ever Chiarentana feel the heat;
In such similitude had those been made,
Albeit not so lofty nor so thick,
Whoever he might be, the master made them.
Now were we from the forest so remote,
I could not have discovered where it was,
Even if backward I had turned myself,
When we a company of souls encountered,
Who came beside the dike, and every one
Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont
To eye each other under a new moon,
And so towards us sharpened they their brows
As an old tailor at the needle's eye.
Thus scrutinised by such a family,
By some one I was recognised, who seized
My garment's hem, and cried out, "What a marvel!"
And I, when he stretched forth his arm to me,
On his baked aspect fastened so mine eyes,
That the scorched countenance prevented not
His recognition by my intellect;
And bowing down my face unto his own,
I made reply, "Are you here, Ser Brunetto?"
And he: "May't not displease thee, O my son,
If a brief space with thee Brunetto Latini
Backward return and let the trail go on."
I said to him: "With all my power I ask it;
And if you wish me to sit down with you,
I will, if he please, for I go with him."
"O son," he said, "whoever of this herd
A moment stops, lies then a hundred years,
Nor fans himself when smiteth him the fire.
Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will come,
And afterward will I rejoin my band,
Which goes lamenting its eternal doom."
I did not dare to go down from the road
Level to walk with him; but my head bowed
I held as one who goeth reverently.
And he began: "What fortune or what fate
Before the last day leadeth thee down here?
And who is this that showeth thee the way?"
"Up there above us in the life serene,"
I answered him, "I lost me in a valley,
Or ever yet my age had been completed.
But yestermorn I turned my back upon it;
This one appeared to me, returning thither,
And homeward leadeth me along this road."
And he to me: "If thou thy star do follow,
Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port,
If well I judged in the life beautiful.
And if I had not died so prematurely,
Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee,
I would have given thee comfort in the work.
But that ungrateful and malignant people,
Which of old time from Fesole descended,
And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,
Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe;
And it is right; for among crabbed sorbs
It ill befits the sweet fig to bear fruit.
Old rumour in the world proclaims them blind;
A people avaricious, envious, proud;
Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee.
Thy fortune so much honour doth reserve thee,
One party and the other shall be hungry
For thee; but far from goat shall be the grass.
Their litter let the beasts of Fesole
Make of themselves, nor let them touch the plant,
If any still upon their dunghill rise,
In which may yet revive the consecrated
Seed of those Romans, who remained there when
The nest of such great malice it became."
"If my entreaty wholly were fulfilled,"
Replied I to him, "not yet would you be
In banishment from human nature placed;
For in my mind is fixed, and touches now
My heart the dear and good paternal image
Of you, when in the world from hour to hour
You taught me how a man becomes eternal;
And how much I am grateful, while I live
Behoves that in my language be discerned.
What you narrate of my career I write,
And keep it to be glossed with other text
By a Lady who can do it, if I reach her.
This much will I have manifest to you;
Provided that my conscience do not chide me,
For whatsoever Fortune I am ready.
Such handsel is not new unto mine ears;
Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around
As it may please her, and the churl his mattock."
My Master thereupon on his right cheek
Did backward turn himself, and looked at me;
Then said: "He listeneth well who noteth it."
Nor speaking less on that account, I go
With Ser Brunetto, and I ask who are
His most known and most eminent companions.
And he to me: "To know of some is well;
Of others it were laudable to be silent,
For short would be the time for so much speech.
Know them in sum, that all of them were clerks,
And men of letters great and of great fame,
In the world tainted with the selfsame sin.
Priscian goes yonder with that wretched crowd,
And Francis of Accorso; and thou hadst seen there
If thou hadst had a hankering for such scurf,
That one, who by the Servant of the Servants
From Arno was transferred to Bacchiglione,
Where he has left his sin-excited nerves.
More would I say, but coming and discoursing
Can be no longer; for that I behold
New smoke uprising yonder from the sand.
A people comes with whom I may not be;
Commended unto thee be my Tesoro,
In which I still live, and no more I ask."
Then he turned round, and seemed to be of those
Who at Verona run for the Green Mantle
Across the plain; and seemed to be among them
The one who wins, and not the one who loses.
Both the words margini (borders) and ruscello (stream) appear in the passage at which the forward motion of the journey was arrested in the previous canto (Inf. XIV.79-84). The action, interrupted by Virgil's discourse about Crete and the gran veglio, now continues. The poets walk along one of the two 'banks' that rise above the barren plain of sand and border the red stream as it heads for the lower regions. Thus we know that all their movement until they reach the edge of the next boundary (Inf. XVI.103) is on a downward gradient, headed toward the center of the pit. This revision in their usual procedure (a leftward, circling movement) is necessitated by the topography of the ring of violence against God, the sand where flakes of fire fall and which admits no mortal traversal.
The double simile compares the construction made by God to carry the 'water' of hell toward its final destination to the huge earthworks engineered in Flanders and in northern Italy to protect farmland and human habitations from flood. 'Carentana' probably refers (the exact reference is debated in the commentaries) to the mountains north of Padua from which the spring snows release their torrents.
Another double comparison. As the poets move away from the wood of the suicides and down across the sand along their dike, they approach a group of the damned. Its members examine them as men look at one another under a new moon and as an aging tailor concentrates upon threading his needle. The first comparison may suggest the image of homosexual 'cruising' in the darkest of moonlit nights (it is difficult for modern readers to imagine how dark the night-time streets of medieval cities were); the second conveys the intensity of such gazing. For this way of reading many of the words and images of the canto see Joseph Pequigney (“Sodomy in Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio,” Representations 36 [1991]), pp. 22-42.
There has been much recent debate about whether or not the sin punished here is in fact homosexuality. The principle negative findings are those advanced by André Pézard (Dante sous la pluie de feu [Paris: Vrin, 1950]), Richard Kay (Dante's Swift and Strong: Essays on “Inferno” XV [Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1978]) and Peter Armour (“Dante's Brunetto: The Paternal Paterine?” Italian Studies 38 [1983], pp. 1-38; “The Love of Two Florentines: Brunetto Latini and Bondie Dietaiuti,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 9 [1991], pp. 60-71.) Pézard's solution is that these sinners were guilty of blasphemy in deriding the mother tongue; Kay's, that they were guilty of denying the political supremacy of the empire; Armour's, that Brunetto was guilty of a Manichean heresy. For bibliography of other recent discussions see Deborah Contrada (“Brunetto's Sin: Ten Years of Criticism [1977-1986],” in Dante: Summa Medievalis, ed. C. Franco and L. Morgan [Stony Brook, N.Y.: Forum Italicum, 1995]), pp. 192-207. One of the principle issues facing those who oppose these interesting arguments is that in purgatory homosexuality is regarded a sin of lust and thus of incontinence. If it is punished here in Violence, it would be in a different category than it occupies there. Had Dante thought of homosexuality as the sin against nature when he composed Inferno, with its basic organization taken from Aristotle and Cicero, and as a sin of lust when he composed the second cantica? If he did so, possibly he should not have. Despite the significant contradiction that results, most students of the problem remain convinced that the sin punished in cantos XV and XVI is in fact homosexuality, and are supported by the text itself. The sin punished here is surely what is referred to by the name of the city 'Soddoma' (Sodom) at Inferno XI.50; in Purgatorio XXVI.40 the penitent homosexuals call out that word in self-identification and penitence (and report that they do so at Purg. XXVI.79). If Dante had wanted us to separate the two sins, he made it awfully difficult for us to follow his logic in so doing.
For an attempt to rationalize the discrepancy see Pequigney, pp. 31-39. He argues that Dante had changed his mind about the moral turpitude of homosexuality between the time he wrote this canto and the composition of the Terrace of Lust in Purgatory, where the sin of the penitent (and saved) homosexuals is seen as roughly equal to that of the penitent (and saved) heterosexual lovers. Gabriele Muresu (“Tra” violenza e lussuria: Dante e la 'sodomia,' L'Alighieri 14 [1999], pp. 7-17), drawing on his previous study (“Tra gli adepti di Sodoma [Inf. XV],” La Rassegna della letteratura italiana 102 [1998], pp. 375-414), counters Pequigney's arguments, first pointing to the tradition anchored in St. Thomas (ST I-II, xxxi, 7) that this sin against nature is indeed a form of violence. He argues, against Pequigney, that the reformed homosexuals on the mountain had not hardened their wills as had the homosexuals in hell, i.e., that their sins remained those of appetite, a sinful disposition or natural inclination, but not of calculated choice.
The sinner, standing below Dante, must reach up to touch the hem of his garment. His words of recognition capture the tone of an elderly teacher recognizing his former star pupil and, some would argue, of his effeminacy.
Dante recognizes his old 'teacher,' Brunetto Latini (ca. 1220-94). He probably taught Dante by the example of his works rather than in any classroom, but the entire scene is staged as a reunion between teacher and former student.
Brunetto, whose life has a number of similarities to Dante's, was a Florentine Guelph, a man of letters who was much involved in politics, and, not least in importance, who wrote narrative verse in the vernacular; he was also a notary, which accounts for his title, ser. He became a de facto exile when he learned about the battle of Montaperti (1260) and the triumph of the Ghibellines while he was on his way home, returning to Italy from Spain (where he had been on an embassy to Alfonso X, king of Castile). Deciding to take refuge in France, he stayed there for six years and, during this time, wrote his encyclopedic treatise, the Livre dou Tresor, or 'Treasure,' in French. Before his voluntary exile, Brunetto had previously written a major portion of an allegorical narrative poem, in Italian rhymed couplets, referred to within the work itself three times as Il Tesoro but which became known as the Tesoretto ('Little Treasure' – one supposes because it was both incomplete and did not seem as 'weighty' as the Tresor [also referred to as Tesoro in Bono Giamboni's shorter Italian version]). The Tesoretto, as it has continued to be called, was, at that point, even though incomplete, the longest narrative poem composed in Italian. Returning to Florence after the 'restoration' of 1266 in the wake of the battle of Benevento, Brunetto took up his political and notarial chores, and died in the city, much honored, in 1294. (For a careful presentation of the importance of Brunetto for Dante, see Francesco Mazzoni, “Latini, Brunetto” (ED.1971.3), pp. 579-88. See also Mazzoni's essential study of Dante's borrowings from Brunetto (“Brunetto in Dante,” intr. to Il Tesoretto. Il Favolello [Alpignano: A. Tallone, 1967], pp. ix-xl) and Charles Davis's article (“Brunetto Latini and Dante,” Studi medievali 8 [1967], pp. 421-50).
The poet's honorific feelings toward Brunetto are perhaps mirrored in the word his name rhymes with: intelletto. And his answering gesture, to move his face down toward his 'teacher,' probably does so as well. (The Petrocchi text here offers what is surely an implausible reading: 'la mano alla sua faccia' [which we have translated as it stands, if in disagreement].) It seems nearly certain that the text should read, as it does in many manuscripts, 'la mia alla sua faccia,' i.e., Dante bent his face toward Brunetto's in an act of homage. (Francesco da Buti [comm. to vv. 25-33] was perhaps the first commentator to opt for the reading reproposed here; however, he was of the opinion that the protagonist was motivated by a desire to get closer to the burned face of the sinner only in order to make out his features, a less honorific reason for the gesture.) The first view presented above of what motivates Dante's movement toward his teacher would seem to be supported by the later description (verse 44) that has the poet walking with his head still bent down in reverence (see the note to verse 50). But for a review and affirmation of the 'traditional' interpretation ('hand,' not 'face'), see Warren Ginsberg (“'E chinando la mano a la sua faccia': A Note on Dante, Brunetto Latini, and Their Text,” Stanford Italian Review 5 [1985]: 19-22). For further discussion see Hollander (“Inferno XV.29: 'chinando la mia alla sua faccia,'” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [August 2001]).
There is dispute over whether the word 'qui' refers to Brunetto's placement here among the homosexuals or in hell itself. It seems more likely that the second reference is intended. See Lino Pertile (“Qui in Inferno: deittici e cultura popolare,” Italian Quarterly 37 [2000]), pp. 57-61, arguing that the adverb refers to Brunetto's presence, standing before Dante in this very place in the darkness of hell. Perhaps more convincingly Muresu (“Tra violenza e lussuria: Dante e la 'sodomia,'” L'Alighieri 14 [1999]), p. 9, argues that it simply refers to hell in general.
Brunetto, disdainful of his fellows and glad to be able to share the company of his pupil, cannot sit down to talk in dignity and calm, but must keep moving, since that is the condition of his punishment.
A number of commentaries on this passage cite Aeneid VI.531-534, Deiphobus's similar questions to Aeneas. It is striking that Brunetto never discovers the identity of Dante's leader (nor did Cavalcante in Inf. X). Like Cavalcante's son Guido's, Brunetto's body of work is notably unmarked by Virgil's influence. The omission, in other words, may be entirely intentional.
Dante's reflection upon his own lostness at the outset (Inf. I.3; I.14) picks up, as a few commentators have sensed (Pietrobono perhaps the first) a similar passage in Brunetto's Tesoretto, vv. 186-90:
e io, in tal corrotto
pensando a capo chino,
perdei il gran cammino,
e tenni a la traversa
d'una selva diversa.
(And I, in such great vexation, my head bowed down, lost the main road and came upon a path that crossed a strange wood.)
The phrase a capo chino (my head bowed down) has perhaps already been used to describe Dante's reverence before Brunetto (v. 44 – see the note to Inf. XV.28-30), at once both a fitting tribute to the author of the poem which served as the closest vernacular precedent for Dante's own vernacular narrative poem and a reminder that Brunetto's 'lostness' would become permanent, while Dante's is only temporary.
Dante had criticized Brunetto's (along with other Tuscan poets') Italian poetry for its low dialectism in De vulgari Eloquentia (I.xiii.1); now he himself uses a Tuscan dialectical form (ca, for casa, 'house' or 'home') as though in apology; and he uses it to express the high and ultimate purpose of his journey, his return to the God who made him. It is a moment of stunning force. The expression was more prominently found in northern dialects, according to Parodi (Lingua e letteratura, ed. G. Folena [Venice: Neri Pozza, 1957], vol. II, p. 274), but also in Tuscany even before the time of Dante. Some commentators take the meaning to be 'back to Florence,' and some read it metaphorically, i.e., back on the right moral path. But almost all of the earliest glossators and most of the moderns as well observe that the phrase refers to the goal of the voyage, God.
Dante's 'star' is probably his natal sign, Gemini. Brunetto here and elsewhere sees Dante's special status as related to the influence of the heavens rather than to the election of Heaven.
Brunetto's desire to aid Dante in his current and future plight, given the context of the discussion that follows, would seem rather to refer to his political life than to his literary one, though it is difficult to separate the two.
Brunetto, like Farinata (Inf. X.79-81), prophesies Dante's exile. His sense of the history of Florence (perhaps reflecting his own treatment of this subject in the first book of his Tresor) puts forward the legend that Florence was populated by the Romans after they destroyed neighboring Fiesole in order to put an end to Catiline's conspiracy. Unfortunately, their descendants, the Florentine nobility, allowed the surviving Fiesolans to emigrate and mix their base population with the Roman stock. For Dante, all the city's (and his own) troubles stem from this original mistake.
Dante pays his debt to Brunetto. But what was it that Brunetto (or, more likely, his writings) taught Dante about immortality? Brunetto himself (Tresor II.cxx.1) says that fame for good works gives one a second life on earth. Surely that is not enough for the Christian Dante, who knows the true meaning of immortality. The only seconde vie that matters is in the afterlife. Is Dante saying that Brunetto taught him this? That seems impossible. But he did learn from him how his earthly fame might be established by writing a narrative poem in Italian. And his heavenly reward might be combined with that one if his poem were, unlike Brunetto's work, dedicated to a higher purpose. Perhaps one of the earliest commentators said this best: Brunetto gave Dante 'the knowledge that does not allow him to die either in his essential being in the other world, nor with respect to fame in this one' (Jacopo della Lana [comm. to vv. 82-85]). In this vein see Thomas Nevin, “Ser Brunetto's Immortality: Inferno XV,” Dante Studies 96 (1978): 29-33; Giuseppe Mazzotta, “Dante and the Virtues of Exile,” Poetics Today 5 (1984): 646-47; and Lillian Bisson, “Brunetto Latini as a Failed Mentor,” Medievalia et Humanistica 18 (1992): 1-15, for the hard-edged view of earthly fame also sponsored in this note. For the work of Brunetto that had such effect on Dante see the note to Inf. XV.119. For advocacy of the traditional Christian meaning of 'immortality' here see Muresu (“Tra gli adepti di Sodoma [Inf. XV],” La Rassegna della letteratura italiana 102 [1998], pp. 390-400. And for the view that 'ad ora ad ora,' traditionally understood to mean, as it is translated here, 'from time to time,' really means 'continually,' see Giovannella Desideri, “Per amor di cosa che non duri (Inferno XIII e XV, vv. 80-84),” Critica del testo 2 (1999), pp. 764-70.
The protagonist, responding to Brunetto's warning that his good deeds will not go unpunished (Inf. XV.61-64), adverts to Farinata's similar prophecy and Virgil's promise of Beatrice's eventual explanation of it. See the note to Inferno X.130-132.
Dante claims that he is ready for Fortune's adversity. See the similar but stronger utterance at Paradiso XVII.22-24.
For a reading of the 'peasant' that is based in the representation of Saturn as an old and tired farmer, carrying a spade or mattock, and thus keyed to the allegorical understanding of Saturn as time, see Amilcare Iannucci (“Inferno XV.95-96: Fortune's Wheel and the Villainy of Time,” Quaderni d'italianistica 3 [1982], pp. 1-11). The phrase would then mean: 'let Fortune turn her wheel as she pleases and let time continue its relentless course' (p. 6).
This is Virgil's only utterance in the canto. (Walking ahead of Dante, accompanied by Brunetto, who is moving close to the bank, along the sand, Virgil is not 'in the frame' for most of the scene.) How we should read the remark is no longer as clear as it once seemed. Is it congratulatory or monitory? All the early commentators who deal with it think it is the latter, i.e., Dante has just said a true thing (vv. 91-96), but something difficult to live up to. And that seems the most likely reading. However, beginning with Daniello (comm. to this verse), some commentators think it refers to Dante's having remembered Virgil's words with a similar import (Aen. V.710): 'superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est' (all fortune is to be overcome by bearing it). Others believe it refers to Dante's having remembered Virgil's utterance at Inferno X.127-132. Both these readings make Virgil's words congratulatory. Berthier (comm. to this verse) offered a cogent proposal for a return to the reading of the early commentators. In our own day, however, the commentary tradition is various and confused.
Brunetto indicates that all his companions were men of letters, identifying Priscian (the great Latin grammarian of the early sixth century); Francesco d'Accorso (1225-93), a renowned jurist of Bologna; and Andrea de' Mozzi (died 1296). A Florentine, he was made bishop of Florence (on the Arno) in 1287 until he was transferred to Vicenza (on the Bacchiglione) by Pope Boniface VIII (here ironically referred to with the papal formula 'servant of servants') in 1295 for his riotous habits. According to Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 110-114), Andrea was fond of saying 'The grace of God is like the turds of goats, which, falling from on high, drop hither and yon dispersedly.' None of these (neither is Brunetto) is recorded by other writers as having been homosexual. The last verse, indicating Andrea's 'sin-stretched sinews' would, however, seem to indicate his sexual activity (and the meaning of this line is thus hotly contested by those who deny that homosexuality is punished in this ring).
What is the division that separates these two groups of homosexuals? We should note that Brunetto, accompanying Dante, has gone lower down the sloping sand than he generally does; his group apparently remains higher up. The only clue given us by the text is that his fellows are all men of letters, while the next one will be made up of politicians (but then Brunetto must be considered, at least to some degree, a 'politician' himself). Is that what keeps them separate? It does not seem likely. It would rather seem that the two groups are kept separate by their particular form of sexual deviance, as Boccaccio (comm. to vv. 115-118) appears to suggest. For instance, and as Professor John Gledson suggested when he was a graduate student at Princeton, the first group may all have been pederasts, men who preferred young boys for their sexual encounters; the second may have been sodomites, those who enjoyed such contact with those of their own age. It seems, however, impossible to come to any decision with certainty.
It has long been assumed that Brunetto asks Dante's affectionate remembrance of his Tresor. In the opinion of some, however, it is far better to understand that the work in question is the Tesoretto. This is not to deny the importance of the French encyclopedic treatise for Dante, who knew it well and whose memory is suffused by it. However, given his predilection for poetry, it seems likely that for him the pivotal work was the Tesoretto because it was the primary Italian model for the Comedy. It is fairly clear why nearly all the commentators think that Dante is referring to the Tresor: it is a major work, at least by comparison to the unfinished Tesoretto, and people do not especially appeciate the poetry of Brunetto (perhaps with good reason). But why would Dante not be giving credit to the work which made a difference to him as poet? That seems a sensible view of the matter. However, it was only in the eighteenth century that a commentator (Lombardi, comm. to this verse) would suggest this possibility, and only in the nineteenth that one would seize upon it (Gregorio Di Siena, comm. to this verse). An as yet unpublished book on Dante and Brunetto by Frank Ordiway extends the evidence offered by Mazzoni (“Brunetto in Dante,” intr. to Il Tesoretto. Il Favolello [Alpignano: A. Tallone, 1967], pp. ix-xl) of Dante's considerable citation of the Tesoretto into a strong argument for its relevance here. For bibliography of those who have argued for a reference to the Tesoretto see Hollander, “Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 (1992), 82n. More recently, Massimo Verdicchio (“Re-Reading Brunetto Latini and Inferno XV,” Quaderni d'italianistica 21 [2000]), pp. 67-70, also casts a vote for the Tesoretto.
The text of the Tesoretto itself offers evidence that it is the work we should think of here:
Io, Burnetto Latino,
che vostro in ogni guisa
mi son sanza divisa,
a voi mi racomando.
Poi vi presento e mando
questo ricco Tesoro,
che vale argento ed oro:...
(vv. 70-76; italics added)
(I, Brunetto Latini, who am yours in every way, without any reservation commend myself to you. Then I present and send to you this rich Treasure, which is worth silver and gold.)
Within the text of what we call the Tesoretto we find that its own title for itself is Tesoro (and this will occur twice more in the work). And we can hear, in this verse, another echo of the Italian work, the verb raccomandare. It seems awfully difficult to go on believing that the Tresor is on our poet's mind at this crucial juncture of his presentation of his literary 'father,' his final words in Dante's poem.
The identification of the work has a curious history. If it was Lombardi who introduced the notion that Brunetto might have been referring to the Tesoretto: “e forse per Tesoro intende anche l'altro libro intitolato Tesoretto,” Portirelli (comm. vv. 119-120) says straight out that the work referred to is the Tesoretto (“il mio libro intitolato Tesoretto”). Tommaseo (to vv. 118-120) was the first “modern” to authorize the currently dominant opinion: “Del Tesoretto non parla, come cosa minore. Ma questo è l'abbozzo d'un viaggio simile a quello di Dante. Il Tesoro è un'enciclopedia del suo tempo scritta dopo il Tesoretto.” Andreoli (to verse 119) follows in this vein: “Non è da confondere col Tesoretto, opera italiana del medesimo autore.” Longfellow (comm. to verse 30) has the distinction of writing the fullest and most interesting remarks about Brunetto's works and their relationship to Dante's, if he doesn't enter into this debate. Gregorio Di Siena, a neglected commentator, was apparently the first to link Brunetto's words here to his own words in the Tesoretto, as has become fairly common: “Notisi intanto che Dante fa parlare Messer Brunetto quasi con quelle stesse parole onde questi, dedicando il Tesoretto a Luigi IX re di Francia, gli dice:...” He continues by quoting the dedicatory portion of the work, presented in the preceding paragraph. Trucchi (comm. to vv. 115-120) possibly sees the reference as being to both: “il nome di Tesoro comprendeva in principio tanto il libro di prosa francese, quanto quello in versi italiani, che solo più tardi ne fu distinto col nome di Tesoretto.” But Porena (comm. to verse 119) resolidifies the emerging majority opinion: “Il mio Tesoro: certamente il Trésor, l'opera sua principale e compiuta; e non, come qualcuno crede, il Tesoretto, troppo minor cosa e incompiuto.” However, and as we have seen, there are precious few “someones” and they are perhaps not heard from again until Madison Sowell (“Brunetto's Tesoro in Dante's Inferno,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 7 [1990]: 60-71) argued for the reference to both Brunettian works, replicating the solution first urged by Lombardi.
The canto concludes with a simile that perfectly expresses Dante's ambivalent feelings about Brunetto. He looks every bit the winner – but he is in last place. In the actual race run outside Verona, the runners ran naked, according to the early commentators; the winner received a piece of green cloth, while the one who finished last was given a rooster, which he had to carry back into the city with him as a sign of his disgrace and a cause of derisive taunts on the part of his townsmen. The case can be made that Dante treats Brunetto in exactly both these ways.
Two biblical texts are of interest here: 'The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong' (Ecclesiastes 9:11); 'Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receives the prize?' (I Corinthians 9:24). For the resonance of that Pauline text in these verses, see M. Shapiro, “Brunetto's Race,” Dante Studies 95 (1977): 153; and Th. Werge, “The Race to Death and the Race for Salvation in Dante's Commedia,” Dante Studies 97 (1979): 2, 4-6.
Commentary text is copyrighted and reproduced by permission.
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Ora cen porta l'un de' duri margini;
e 'l fummo del ruscel di sopra aduggia,
sì che dal foco salva l'acqua e li argini.
Quali Fiamminghi tra Guizzante e Bruggia,
temendo 'l fiotto che 'nver' lor s'avventa;
fanno lo schermo perché 'l mar si fuggia;
e quali Padoan lungo la Brenta,
per difender lor ville e lor castelli,
anzi che Carentana il caldo senta:
a tale imagine eran fatti quelli,
tutto che né sì alti né sì grossi,
qual che si fosse, lo maestro félli.
Già eravam da la selva rimossi
tanto, ch'i' non avrei visto dov' era,
perch' io in dietro rivolto mi fossi,
quando incontrammo d'anime una schiera
che venian lungo l'argine, e ciascuna
ci riguardava come suol da sera
guardare uno altro sotto nuova luna;
e sì ver' noi aguzzavan le ciglia
come 'l vecchio sartor fa ne la cruna.
Così adocchiato da cotal famiglia,
fui conosciuto da un, che mi prese
per lo lembo e gridò: “Qual maraviglia!”
E io, quando 'l suo braccio a me distese,
ficcaï li occhi per lo cotto aspetto,
sì che 'l viso abbrusciato non difese
la conoscenza süa al mio 'ntelletto;
e chinando la mano a la sua faccia,
rispuosi: “Siete voi qui, ser Brunetto?”
E quelli: “O figliuol mio, non ti dispiaccia
se Brunetto Latino un poco teco
ritorna 'n dietro e lascia andar la traccia.”
I' dissi lui: “Quanto posso, ven preco;
e se volete che con voi m'asseggia,
faròl, se piace a costui che vo seco.”
“O figliuol,” disse, “qual di questa greggia
s'arresta punto, giace poi cent' anni
sanz' arrostarsi quando 'l foco il feggia.
Però va oltre: i' ti verrò a' panni;
e poi rigiugnerò la mia masnada,
che va piangendo i suoi etterni danni.”
Io non osava scender de la strada
per andar par di lui; ma 'l capo chino
tenea com' uom che reverente vada.
El cominciò: “Qual fortuna o destino
anzi l'ultimo dì qua giù ti mena?
e chi è questi che mostra 'l cammino?”
“Là sù di sopra, in la vita serena,”
rispuos' io lui, “mi smarri' in una valle,
avanti che l'età mia fosse piena.
Pur ier mattina le volsi le spalle:
questi m'apparve, tornand'ïo in quella,
e reducemi a ca per questo calle.”
Ed elli a me: “Se tu segui tua stella,
non puoi fallire a glorïoso porto,
se ben m'accorsi ne la vita bella;
e s'io non fossi sì per tempo morto,
veggendo il cielo a te così benigno,
dato t'avrei a l'opera conforto.
Ma quello ingrato popolo maligno
che discese di Fiesole ab antico,
e tiene ancor del monte e del macigno,
ti si farà, per tuo ben far, nimico;
ed è ragion, ché tra li lazzi sorbi
si disconvien fruttare al dolce fico.
Vecchia fama nel mondo li chiama orbi;
gent' è avara, invidiosa e superba:
dai lor costumi fa che tu ti forbi.
La tua fortuna tanto onor ti serba,
che l'una parte e l'altra avranno fame
di te; ma lungi fia dal becco l'erba.
Faccian le bestie fiesolane strame
di lor medesme, e non tocchin la pianta,
s'alcuna surge ancora in lor letame,
in cui riviva la sementa santa
di que' Roman che vi rimaser quando
fu fatto il nido di malizia tanta.”
“Se fosse tutto pieno il mio dimando,”
rispuos' io lui, “voi non sareste ancora
de l'umana natura posto in bando;
ché 'n la mente m'è fitta, e or m'accora,
la cara e buona imagine paterna
di voi quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora
m'insegnavate come l'uom s'etterna:
e quant' io l'abbia in grado, mentr' io vivo
convien che ne la mia lingua si scerna.
Ciò che narrate di mio corso scrivo,
e serbolo a chiosar con altro testo
a donna che saprà, s'a lei arrivo.
Tanto vogl' io che vi sia manifesto,
pur che mia coscïenza non mi garra,
ch'a la Fortuna, come vuol, son presto.
Non è nuova a li orecchi miei tal arra:
però giri Fortuna la sua rota
come le piace, e 'l villan la sua marra.”
Lo mio maestro allora in su la gota
destra si volse in dietro e riguardommi;
poi disse: “Bene ascolta chi la nota.”
Né per tanto di men parlando vommi
con ser Brunetto, e dimando chi sono
li suoi compagni più noti e più sommi.
Ed elli a me: “Saper d'alcuno è buono;
de li altri fia laudabile tacerci,
ché 'l tempo saria corto a tanto suono.
In somma sappi che tutti fur cherci
e litterati grandi e di gran fama,
d'un peccato medesmo al mondo lerci.
Priscian sen va con quella turba grama,
e Francesco d'Accorso anche; e vedervi,
s'avessi avuto di tal tigna brama,
colui potei che dal servo de' servi
fu trasmutato d'Arno in Bacchiglione,
dove lasciò li mal protesi nervi.
Di più direi; ma 'l venire e 'l sermone
più lungo esser non può, però ch'i' veggio
là surger nuovo fummo del sabbione.
Gente vien con la quale esser non deggio.
Sieti raccomandato il mio Tesoro,
nel qual io vivo ancora, e più non cheggio.”
Poi si rivolse e parve di coloro
che corrono a Verona il drappo verde
per la campagna; e parve di costoro
quelli che vince, non colui che perde.
Now bears us onward one of the hard margins,
And so the brooklet's mist o'ershadows it,
From fire it saves the water and the dikes.
Even as the Flemings, 'twixt Cadsand and Bruges,
Fearing the flood that tow'rds them hurls itself,
Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight;
And as the Paduans along the Brenta,
To guard their villas and their villages,
Or ever Chiarentana feel the heat;
In such similitude had those been made,
Albeit not so lofty nor so thick,
Whoever he might be, the master made them.
Now were we from the forest so remote,
I could not have discovered where it was,
Even if backward I had turned myself,
When we a company of souls encountered,
Who came beside the dike, and every one
Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont
To eye each other under a new moon,
And so towards us sharpened they their brows
As an old tailor at the needle's eye.
Thus scrutinised by such a family,
By some one I was recognised, who seized
My garment's hem, and cried out, "What a marvel!"
And I, when he stretched forth his arm to me,
On his baked aspect fastened so mine eyes,
That the scorched countenance prevented not
His recognition by my intellect;
And bowing down my face unto his own,
I made reply, "Are you here, Ser Brunetto?"
And he: "May't not displease thee, O my son,
If a brief space with thee Brunetto Latini
Backward return and let the trail go on."
I said to him: "With all my power I ask it;
And if you wish me to sit down with you,
I will, if he please, for I go with him."
"O son," he said, "whoever of this herd
A moment stops, lies then a hundred years,
Nor fans himself when smiteth him the fire.
Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will come,
And afterward will I rejoin my band,
Which goes lamenting its eternal doom."
I did not dare to go down from the road
Level to walk with him; but my head bowed
I held as one who goeth reverently.
And he began: "What fortune or what fate
Before the last day leadeth thee down here?
And who is this that showeth thee the way?"
"Up there above us in the life serene,"
I answered him, "I lost me in a valley,
Or ever yet my age had been completed.
But yestermorn I turned my back upon it;
This one appeared to me, returning thither,
And homeward leadeth me along this road."
And he to me: "If thou thy star do follow,
Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port,
If well I judged in the life beautiful.
And if I had not died so prematurely,
Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee,
I would have given thee comfort in the work.
But that ungrateful and malignant people,
Which of old time from Fesole descended,
And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,
Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe;
And it is right; for among crabbed sorbs
It ill befits the sweet fig to bear fruit.
Old rumour in the world proclaims them blind;
A people avaricious, envious, proud;
Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee.
Thy fortune so much honour doth reserve thee,
One party and the other shall be hungry
For thee; but far from goat shall be the grass.
Their litter let the beasts of Fesole
Make of themselves, nor let them touch the plant,
If any still upon their dunghill rise,
In which may yet revive the consecrated
Seed of those Romans, who remained there when
The nest of such great malice it became."
"If my entreaty wholly were fulfilled,"
Replied I to him, "not yet would you be
In banishment from human nature placed;
For in my mind is fixed, and touches now
My heart the dear and good paternal image
Of you, when in the world from hour to hour
You taught me how a man becomes eternal;
And how much I am grateful, while I live
Behoves that in my language be discerned.
What you narrate of my career I write,
And keep it to be glossed with other text
By a Lady who can do it, if I reach her.
This much will I have manifest to you;
Provided that my conscience do not chide me,
For whatsoever Fortune I am ready.
Such handsel is not new unto mine ears;
Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around
As it may please her, and the churl his mattock."
My Master thereupon on his right cheek
Did backward turn himself, and looked at me;
Then said: "He listeneth well who noteth it."
Nor speaking less on that account, I go
With Ser Brunetto, and I ask who are
His most known and most eminent companions.
And he to me: "To know of some is well;
Of others it were laudable to be silent,
For short would be the time for so much speech.
Know them in sum, that all of them were clerks,
And men of letters great and of great fame,
In the world tainted with the selfsame sin.
Priscian goes yonder with that wretched crowd,
And Francis of Accorso; and thou hadst seen there
If thou hadst had a hankering for such scurf,
That one, who by the Servant of the Servants
From Arno was transferred to Bacchiglione,
Where he has left his sin-excited nerves.
More would I say, but coming and discoursing
Can be no longer; for that I behold
New smoke uprising yonder from the sand.
A people comes with whom I may not be;
Commended unto thee be my Tesoro,
In which I still live, and no more I ask."
Then he turned round, and seemed to be of those
Who at Verona run for the Green Mantle
Across the plain; and seemed to be among them
The one who wins, and not the one who loses.
Both the words margini (borders) and ruscello (stream) appear in the passage at which the forward motion of the journey was arrested in the previous canto (Inf. XIV.79-84). The action, interrupted by Virgil's discourse about Crete and the gran veglio, now continues. The poets walk along one of the two 'banks' that rise above the barren plain of sand and border the red stream as it heads for the lower regions. Thus we know that all their movement until they reach the edge of the next boundary (Inf. XVI.103) is on a downward gradient, headed toward the center of the pit. This revision in their usual procedure (a leftward, circling movement) is necessitated by the topography of the ring of violence against God, the sand where flakes of fire fall and which admits no mortal traversal.
The double simile compares the construction made by God to carry the 'water' of hell toward its final destination to the huge earthworks engineered in Flanders and in northern Italy to protect farmland and human habitations from flood. 'Carentana' probably refers (the exact reference is debated in the commentaries) to the mountains north of Padua from which the spring snows release their torrents.
Another double comparison. As the poets move away from the wood of the suicides and down across the sand along their dike, they approach a group of the damned. Its members examine them as men look at one another under a new moon and as an aging tailor concentrates upon threading his needle. The first comparison may suggest the image of homosexual 'cruising' in the darkest of moonlit nights (it is difficult for modern readers to imagine how dark the night-time streets of medieval cities were); the second conveys the intensity of such gazing. For this way of reading many of the words and images of the canto see Joseph Pequigney (“Sodomy in Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio,” Representations 36 [1991]), pp. 22-42.
There has been much recent debate about whether or not the sin punished here is in fact homosexuality. The principle negative findings are those advanced by André Pézard (Dante sous la pluie de feu [Paris: Vrin, 1950]), Richard Kay (Dante's Swift and Strong: Essays on “Inferno” XV [Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1978]) and Peter Armour (“Dante's Brunetto: The Paternal Paterine?” Italian Studies 38 [1983], pp. 1-38; “The Love of Two Florentines: Brunetto Latini and Bondie Dietaiuti,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 9 [1991], pp. 60-71.) Pézard's solution is that these sinners were guilty of blasphemy in deriding the mother tongue; Kay's, that they were guilty of denying the political supremacy of the empire; Armour's, that Brunetto was guilty of a Manichean heresy. For bibliography of other recent discussions see Deborah Contrada (“Brunetto's Sin: Ten Years of Criticism [1977-1986],” in Dante: Summa Medievalis, ed. C. Franco and L. Morgan [Stony Brook, N.Y.: Forum Italicum, 1995]), pp. 192-207. One of the principle issues facing those who oppose these interesting arguments is that in purgatory homosexuality is regarded a sin of lust and thus of incontinence. If it is punished here in Violence, it would be in a different category than it occupies there. Had Dante thought of homosexuality as the sin against nature when he composed Inferno, with its basic organization taken from Aristotle and Cicero, and as a sin of lust when he composed the second cantica? If he did so, possibly he should not have. Despite the significant contradiction that results, most students of the problem remain convinced that the sin punished in cantos XV and XVI is in fact homosexuality, and are supported by the text itself. The sin punished here is surely what is referred to by the name of the city 'Soddoma' (Sodom) at Inferno XI.50; in Purgatorio XXVI.40 the penitent homosexuals call out that word in self-identification and penitence (and report that they do so at Purg. XXVI.79). If Dante had wanted us to separate the two sins, he made it awfully difficult for us to follow his logic in so doing.
For an attempt to rationalize the discrepancy see Pequigney, pp. 31-39. He argues that Dante had changed his mind about the moral turpitude of homosexuality between the time he wrote this canto and the composition of the Terrace of Lust in Purgatory, where the sin of the penitent (and saved) homosexuals is seen as roughly equal to that of the penitent (and saved) heterosexual lovers. Gabriele Muresu (“Tra” violenza e lussuria: Dante e la 'sodomia,' L'Alighieri 14 [1999], pp. 7-17), drawing on his previous study (“Tra gli adepti di Sodoma [Inf. XV],” La Rassegna della letteratura italiana 102 [1998], pp. 375-414), counters Pequigney's arguments, first pointing to the tradition anchored in St. Thomas (ST I-II, xxxi, 7) that this sin against nature is indeed a form of violence. He argues, against Pequigney, that the reformed homosexuals on the mountain had not hardened their wills as had the homosexuals in hell, i.e., that their sins remained those of appetite, a sinful disposition or natural inclination, but not of calculated choice.
The sinner, standing below Dante, must reach up to touch the hem of his garment. His words of recognition capture the tone of an elderly teacher recognizing his former star pupil and, some would argue, of his effeminacy.
Dante recognizes his old 'teacher,' Brunetto Latini (ca. 1220-94). He probably taught Dante by the example of his works rather than in any classroom, but the entire scene is staged as a reunion between teacher and former student.
Brunetto, whose life has a number of similarities to Dante's, was a Florentine Guelph, a man of letters who was much involved in politics, and, not least in importance, who wrote narrative verse in the vernacular; he was also a notary, which accounts for his title, ser. He became a de facto exile when he learned about the battle of Montaperti (1260) and the triumph of the Ghibellines while he was on his way home, returning to Italy from Spain (where he had been on an embassy to Alfonso X, king of Castile). Deciding to take refuge in France, he stayed there for six years and, during this time, wrote his encyclopedic treatise, the Livre dou Tresor, or 'Treasure,' in French. Before his voluntary exile, Brunetto had previously written a major portion of an allegorical narrative poem, in Italian rhymed couplets, referred to within the work itself three times as Il Tesoro but which became known as the Tesoretto ('Little Treasure' – one supposes because it was both incomplete and did not seem as 'weighty' as the Tresor [also referred to as Tesoro in Bono Giamboni's shorter Italian version]). The Tesoretto, as it has continued to be called, was, at that point, even though incomplete, the longest narrative poem composed in Italian. Returning to Florence after the 'restoration' of 1266 in the wake of the battle of Benevento, Brunetto took up his political and notarial chores, and died in the city, much honored, in 1294. (For a careful presentation of the importance of Brunetto for Dante, see Francesco Mazzoni, “Latini, Brunetto” (ED.1971.3), pp. 579-88. See also Mazzoni's essential study of Dante's borrowings from Brunetto (“Brunetto in Dante,” intr. to Il Tesoretto. Il Favolello [Alpignano: A. Tallone, 1967], pp. ix-xl) and Charles Davis's article (“Brunetto Latini and Dante,” Studi medievali 8 [1967], pp. 421-50).
The poet's honorific feelings toward Brunetto are perhaps mirrored in the word his name rhymes with: intelletto. And his answering gesture, to move his face down toward his 'teacher,' probably does so as well. (The Petrocchi text here offers what is surely an implausible reading: 'la mano alla sua faccia' [which we have translated as it stands, if in disagreement].) It seems nearly certain that the text should read, as it does in many manuscripts, 'la mia alla sua faccia,' i.e., Dante bent his face toward Brunetto's in an act of homage. (Francesco da Buti [comm. to vv. 25-33] was perhaps the first commentator to opt for the reading reproposed here; however, he was of the opinion that the protagonist was motivated by a desire to get closer to the burned face of the sinner only in order to make out his features, a less honorific reason for the gesture.) The first view presented above of what motivates Dante's movement toward his teacher would seem to be supported by the later description (verse 44) that has the poet walking with his head still bent down in reverence (see the note to verse 50). But for a review and affirmation of the 'traditional' interpretation ('hand,' not 'face'), see Warren Ginsberg (“'E chinando la mano a la sua faccia': A Note on Dante, Brunetto Latini, and Their Text,” Stanford Italian Review 5 [1985]: 19-22). For further discussion see Hollander (“Inferno XV.29: 'chinando la mia alla sua faccia,'” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [August 2001]).
There is dispute over whether the word 'qui' refers to Brunetto's placement here among the homosexuals or in hell itself. It seems more likely that the second reference is intended. See Lino Pertile (“Qui in Inferno: deittici e cultura popolare,” Italian Quarterly 37 [2000]), pp. 57-61, arguing that the adverb refers to Brunetto's presence, standing before Dante in this very place in the darkness of hell. Perhaps more convincingly Muresu (“Tra violenza e lussuria: Dante e la 'sodomia,'” L'Alighieri 14 [1999]), p. 9, argues that it simply refers to hell in general.
Brunetto, disdainful of his fellows and glad to be able to share the company of his pupil, cannot sit down to talk in dignity and calm, but must keep moving, since that is the condition of his punishment.
A number of commentaries on this passage cite Aeneid VI.531-534, Deiphobus's similar questions to Aeneas. It is striking that Brunetto never discovers the identity of Dante's leader (nor did Cavalcante in Inf. X). Like Cavalcante's son Guido's, Brunetto's body of work is notably unmarked by Virgil's influence. The omission, in other words, may be entirely intentional.
Dante's reflection upon his own lostness at the outset (Inf. I.3; I.14) picks up, as a few commentators have sensed (Pietrobono perhaps the first) a similar passage in Brunetto's Tesoretto, vv. 186-90:
e io, in tal corrotto
pensando a capo chino,
perdei il gran cammino,
e tenni a la traversa
d'una selva diversa.
(And I, in such great vexation, my head bowed down, lost the main road and came upon a path that crossed a strange wood.)
The phrase a capo chino (my head bowed down) has perhaps already been used to describe Dante's reverence before Brunetto (v. 44 – see the note to Inf. XV.28-30), at once both a fitting tribute to the author of the poem which served as the closest vernacular precedent for Dante's own vernacular narrative poem and a reminder that Brunetto's 'lostness' would become permanent, while Dante's is only temporary.
Dante had criticized Brunetto's (along with other Tuscan poets') Italian poetry for its low dialectism in De vulgari Eloquentia (I.xiii.1); now he himself uses a Tuscan dialectical form (ca, for casa, 'house' or 'home') as though in apology; and he uses it to express the high and ultimate purpose of his journey, his return to the God who made him. It is a moment of stunning force. The expression was more prominently found in northern dialects, according to Parodi (Lingua e letteratura, ed. G. Folena [Venice: Neri Pozza, 1957], vol. II, p. 274), but also in Tuscany even before the time of Dante. Some commentators take the meaning to be 'back to Florence,' and some read it metaphorically, i.e., back on the right moral path. But almost all of the earliest glossators and most of the moderns as well observe that the phrase refers to the goal of the voyage, God.
Dante's 'star' is probably his natal sign, Gemini. Brunetto here and elsewhere sees Dante's special status as related to the influence of the heavens rather than to the election of Heaven.
Brunetto's desire to aid Dante in his current and future plight, given the context of the discussion that follows, would seem rather to refer to his political life than to his literary one, though it is difficult to separate the two.
Brunetto, like Farinata (Inf. X.79-81), prophesies Dante's exile. His sense of the history of Florence (perhaps reflecting his own treatment of this subject in the first book of his Tresor) puts forward the legend that Florence was populated by the Romans after they destroyed neighboring Fiesole in order to put an end to Catiline's conspiracy. Unfortunately, their descendants, the Florentine nobility, allowed the surviving Fiesolans to emigrate and mix their base population with the Roman stock. For Dante, all the city's (and his own) troubles stem from this original mistake.
Dante pays his debt to Brunetto. But what was it that Brunetto (or, more likely, his writings) taught Dante about immortality? Brunetto himself (Tresor II.cxx.1) says that fame for good works gives one a second life on earth. Surely that is not enough for the Christian Dante, who knows the true meaning of immortality. The only seconde vie that matters is in the afterlife. Is Dante saying that Brunetto taught him this? That seems impossible. But he did learn from him how his earthly fame might be established by writing a narrative poem in Italian. And his heavenly reward might be combined with that one if his poem were, unlike Brunetto's work, dedicated to a higher purpose. Perhaps one of the earliest commentators said this best: Brunetto gave Dante 'the knowledge that does not allow him to die either in his essential being in the other world, nor with respect to fame in this one' (Jacopo della Lana [comm. to vv. 82-85]). In this vein see Thomas Nevin, “Ser Brunetto's Immortality: Inferno XV,” Dante Studies 96 (1978): 29-33; Giuseppe Mazzotta, “Dante and the Virtues of Exile,” Poetics Today 5 (1984): 646-47; and Lillian Bisson, “Brunetto Latini as a Failed Mentor,” Medievalia et Humanistica 18 (1992): 1-15, for the hard-edged view of earthly fame also sponsored in this note. For the work of Brunetto that had such effect on Dante see the note to Inf. XV.119. For advocacy of the traditional Christian meaning of 'immortality' here see Muresu (“Tra gli adepti di Sodoma [Inf. XV],” La Rassegna della letteratura italiana 102 [1998], pp. 390-400. And for the view that 'ad ora ad ora,' traditionally understood to mean, as it is translated here, 'from time to time,' really means 'continually,' see Giovannella Desideri, “Per amor di cosa che non duri (Inferno XIII e XV, vv. 80-84),” Critica del testo 2 (1999), pp. 764-70.
The protagonist, responding to Brunetto's warning that his good deeds will not go unpunished (Inf. XV.61-64), adverts to Farinata's similar prophecy and Virgil's promise of Beatrice's eventual explanation of it. See the note to Inferno X.130-132.
Dante claims that he is ready for Fortune's adversity. See the similar but stronger utterance at Paradiso XVII.22-24.
For a reading of the 'peasant' that is based in the representation of Saturn as an old and tired farmer, carrying a spade or mattock, and thus keyed to the allegorical understanding of Saturn as time, see Amilcare Iannucci (“Inferno XV.95-96: Fortune's Wheel and the Villainy of Time,” Quaderni d'italianistica 3 [1982], pp. 1-11). The phrase would then mean: 'let Fortune turn her wheel as she pleases and let time continue its relentless course' (p. 6).
This is Virgil's only utterance in the canto. (Walking ahead of Dante, accompanied by Brunetto, who is moving close to the bank, along the sand, Virgil is not 'in the frame' for most of the scene.) How we should read the remark is no longer as clear as it once seemed. Is it congratulatory or monitory? All the early commentators who deal with it think it is the latter, i.e., Dante has just said a true thing (vv. 91-96), but something difficult to live up to. And that seems the most likely reading. However, beginning with Daniello (comm. to this verse), some commentators think it refers to Dante's having remembered Virgil's words with a similar import (Aen. V.710): 'superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est' (all fortune is to be overcome by bearing it). Others believe it refers to Dante's having remembered Virgil's utterance at Inferno X.127-132. Both these readings make Virgil's words congratulatory. Berthier (comm. to this verse) offered a cogent proposal for a return to the reading of the early commentators. In our own day, however, the commentary tradition is various and confused.
Brunetto indicates that all his companions were men of letters, identifying Priscian (the great Latin grammarian of the early sixth century); Francesco d'Accorso (1225-93), a renowned jurist of Bologna; and Andrea de' Mozzi (died 1296). A Florentine, he was made bishop of Florence (on the Arno) in 1287 until he was transferred to Vicenza (on the Bacchiglione) by Pope Boniface VIII (here ironically referred to with the papal formula 'servant of servants') in 1295 for his riotous habits. According to Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 110-114), Andrea was fond of saying 'The grace of God is like the turds of goats, which, falling from on high, drop hither and yon dispersedly.' None of these (neither is Brunetto) is recorded by other writers as having been homosexual. The last verse, indicating Andrea's 'sin-stretched sinews' would, however, seem to indicate his sexual activity (and the meaning of this line is thus hotly contested by those who deny that homosexuality is punished in this ring).
What is the division that separates these two groups of homosexuals? We should note that Brunetto, accompanying Dante, has gone lower down the sloping sand than he generally does; his group apparently remains higher up. The only clue given us by the text is that his fellows are all men of letters, while the next one will be made up of politicians (but then Brunetto must be considered, at least to some degree, a 'politician' himself). Is that what keeps them separate? It does not seem likely. It would rather seem that the two groups are kept separate by their particular form of sexual deviance, as Boccaccio (comm. to vv. 115-118) appears to suggest. For instance, and as Professor John Gledson suggested when he was a graduate student at Princeton, the first group may all have been pederasts, men who preferred young boys for their sexual encounters; the second may have been sodomites, those who enjoyed such contact with those of their own age. It seems, however, impossible to come to any decision with certainty.
It has long been assumed that Brunetto asks Dante's affectionate remembrance of his Tresor. In the opinion of some, however, it is far better to understand that the work in question is the Tesoretto. This is not to deny the importance of the French encyclopedic treatise for Dante, who knew it well and whose memory is suffused by it. However, given his predilection for poetry, it seems likely that for him the pivotal work was the Tesoretto because it was the primary Italian model for the Comedy. It is fairly clear why nearly all the commentators think that Dante is referring to the Tresor: it is a major work, at least by comparison to the unfinished Tesoretto, and people do not especially appeciate the poetry of Brunetto (perhaps with good reason). But why would Dante not be giving credit to the work which made a difference to him as poet? That seems a sensible view of the matter. However, it was only in the eighteenth century that a commentator (Lombardi, comm. to this verse) would suggest this possibility, and only in the nineteenth that one would seize upon it (Gregorio Di Siena, comm. to this verse). An as yet unpublished book on Dante and Brunetto by Frank Ordiway extends the evidence offered by Mazzoni (“Brunetto in Dante,” intr. to Il Tesoretto. Il Favolello [Alpignano: A. Tallone, 1967], pp. ix-xl) of Dante's considerable citation of the Tesoretto into a strong argument for its relevance here. For bibliography of those who have argued for a reference to the Tesoretto see Hollander, “Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 (1992), 82n. More recently, Massimo Verdicchio (“Re-Reading Brunetto Latini and Inferno XV,” Quaderni d'italianistica 21 [2000]), pp. 67-70, also casts a vote for the Tesoretto.
The text of the Tesoretto itself offers evidence that it is the work we should think of here:
Io, Burnetto Latino,
che vostro in ogni guisa
mi son sanza divisa,
a voi mi racomando.
Poi vi presento e mando
questo ricco Tesoro,
che vale argento ed oro:...
(vv. 70-76; italics added)
(I, Brunetto Latini, who am yours in every way, without any reservation commend myself to you. Then I present and send to you this rich Treasure, which is worth silver and gold.)
Within the text of what we call the Tesoretto we find that its own title for itself is Tesoro (and this will occur twice more in the work). And we can hear, in this verse, another echo of the Italian work, the verb raccomandare. It seems awfully difficult to go on believing that the Tresor is on our poet's mind at this crucial juncture of his presentation of his literary 'father,' his final words in Dante's poem.
The identification of the work has a curious history. If it was Lombardi who introduced the notion that Brunetto might have been referring to the Tesoretto: “e forse per Tesoro intende anche l'altro libro intitolato Tesoretto,” Portirelli (comm. vv. 119-120) says straight out that the work referred to is the Tesoretto (“il mio libro intitolato Tesoretto”). Tommaseo (to vv. 118-120) was the first “modern” to authorize the currently dominant opinion: “Del Tesoretto non parla, come cosa minore. Ma questo è l'abbozzo d'un viaggio simile a quello di Dante. Il Tesoro è un'enciclopedia del suo tempo scritta dopo il Tesoretto.” Andreoli (to verse 119) follows in this vein: “Non è da confondere col Tesoretto, opera italiana del medesimo autore.” Longfellow (comm. to verse 30) has the distinction of writing the fullest and most interesting remarks about Brunetto's works and their relationship to Dante's, if he doesn't enter into this debate. Gregorio Di Siena, a neglected commentator, was apparently the first to link Brunetto's words here to his own words in the Tesoretto, as has become fairly common: “Notisi intanto che Dante fa parlare Messer Brunetto quasi con quelle stesse parole onde questi, dedicando il Tesoretto a Luigi IX re di Francia, gli dice:...” He continues by quoting the dedicatory portion of the work, presented in the preceding paragraph. Trucchi (comm. to vv. 115-120) possibly sees the reference as being to both: “il nome di Tesoro comprendeva in principio tanto il libro di prosa francese, quanto quello in versi italiani, che solo più tardi ne fu distinto col nome di Tesoretto.” But Porena (comm. to verse 119) resolidifies the emerging majority opinion: “Il mio Tesoro: certamente il Trésor, l'opera sua principale e compiuta; e non, come qualcuno crede, il Tesoretto, troppo minor cosa e incompiuto.” However, and as we have seen, there are precious few “someones” and they are perhaps not heard from again until Madison Sowell (“Brunetto's Tesoro in Dante's Inferno,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 7 [1990]: 60-71) argued for the reference to both Brunettian works, replicating the solution first urged by Lombardi.
The canto concludes with a simile that perfectly expresses Dante's ambivalent feelings about Brunetto. He looks every bit the winner – but he is in last place. In the actual race run outside Verona, the runners ran naked, according to the early commentators; the winner received a piece of green cloth, while the one who finished last was given a rooster, which he had to carry back into the city with him as a sign of his disgrace and a cause of derisive taunts on the part of his townsmen. The case can be made that Dante treats Brunetto in exactly both these ways.
Two biblical texts are of interest here: 'The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong' (Ecclesiastes 9:11); 'Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receives the prize?' (I Corinthians 9:24). For the resonance of that Pauline text in these verses, see M. Shapiro, “Brunetto's Race,” Dante Studies 95 (1977): 153; and Th. Werge, “The Race to Death and the Race for Salvation in Dante's Commedia,” Dante Studies 97 (1979): 2, 4-6.
Commentary text is copyrighted and reproduced by permission.
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Ora cen porta l'un de' duri margini;
e 'l fummo del ruscel di sopra aduggia,
sì che dal foco salva l'acqua e li argini.
Quali Fiamminghi tra Guizzante e Bruggia,
temendo 'l fiotto che 'nver' lor s'avventa;
fanno lo schermo perché 'l mar si fuggia;
e quali Padoan lungo la Brenta,
per difender lor ville e lor castelli,
anzi che Carentana il caldo senta:
a tale imagine eran fatti quelli,
tutto che né sì alti né sì grossi,
qual che si fosse, lo maestro félli.
Già eravam da la selva rimossi
tanto, ch'i' non avrei visto dov' era,
perch' io in dietro rivolto mi fossi,
quando incontrammo d'anime una schiera
che venian lungo l'argine, e ciascuna
ci riguardava come suol da sera
guardare uno altro sotto nuova luna;
e sì ver' noi aguzzavan le ciglia
come 'l vecchio sartor fa ne la cruna.
Così adocchiato da cotal famiglia,
fui conosciuto da un, che mi prese
per lo lembo e gridò: “Qual maraviglia!”
E io, quando 'l suo braccio a me distese,
ficcaï li occhi per lo cotto aspetto,
sì che 'l viso abbrusciato non difese
la conoscenza süa al mio 'ntelletto;
e chinando la mano a la sua faccia,
rispuosi: “Siete voi qui, ser Brunetto?”
E quelli: “O figliuol mio, non ti dispiaccia
se Brunetto Latino un poco teco
ritorna 'n dietro e lascia andar la traccia.”
I' dissi lui: “Quanto posso, ven preco;
e se volete che con voi m'asseggia,
faròl, se piace a costui che vo seco.”
“O figliuol,” disse, “qual di questa greggia
s'arresta punto, giace poi cent' anni
sanz' arrostarsi quando 'l foco il feggia.
Però va oltre: i' ti verrò a' panni;
e poi rigiugnerò la mia masnada,
che va piangendo i suoi etterni danni.”
Io non osava scender de la strada
per andar par di lui; ma 'l capo chino
tenea com' uom che reverente vada.
El cominciò: “Qual fortuna o destino
anzi l'ultimo dì qua giù ti mena?
e chi è questi che mostra 'l cammino?”
“Là sù di sopra, in la vita serena,”
rispuos' io lui, “mi smarri' in una valle,
avanti che l'età mia fosse piena.
Pur ier mattina le volsi le spalle:
questi m'apparve, tornand'ïo in quella,
e reducemi a ca per questo calle.”
Ed elli a me: “Se tu segui tua stella,
non puoi fallire a glorïoso porto,
se ben m'accorsi ne la vita bella;
e s'io non fossi sì per tempo morto,
veggendo il cielo a te così benigno,
dato t'avrei a l'opera conforto.
Ma quello ingrato popolo maligno
che discese di Fiesole ab antico,
e tiene ancor del monte e del macigno,
ti si farà, per tuo ben far, nimico;
ed è ragion, ché tra li lazzi sorbi
si disconvien fruttare al dolce fico.
Vecchia fama nel mondo li chiama orbi;
gent' è avara, invidiosa e superba:
dai lor costumi fa che tu ti forbi.
La tua fortuna tanto onor ti serba,
che l'una parte e l'altra avranno fame
di te; ma lungi fia dal becco l'erba.
Faccian le bestie fiesolane strame
di lor medesme, e non tocchin la pianta,
s'alcuna surge ancora in lor letame,
in cui riviva la sementa santa
di que' Roman che vi rimaser quando
fu fatto il nido di malizia tanta.”
“Se fosse tutto pieno il mio dimando,”
rispuos' io lui, “voi non sareste ancora
de l'umana natura posto in bando;
ché 'n la mente m'è fitta, e or m'accora,
la cara e buona imagine paterna
di voi quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora
m'insegnavate come l'uom s'etterna:
e quant' io l'abbia in grado, mentr' io vivo
convien che ne la mia lingua si scerna.
Ciò che narrate di mio corso scrivo,
e serbolo a chiosar con altro testo
a donna che saprà, s'a lei arrivo.
Tanto vogl' io che vi sia manifesto,
pur che mia coscïenza non mi garra,
ch'a la Fortuna, come vuol, son presto.
Non è nuova a li orecchi miei tal arra:
però giri Fortuna la sua rota
come le piace, e 'l villan la sua marra.”
Lo mio maestro allora in su la gota
destra si volse in dietro e riguardommi;
poi disse: “Bene ascolta chi la nota.”
Né per tanto di men parlando vommi
con ser Brunetto, e dimando chi sono
li suoi compagni più noti e più sommi.
Ed elli a me: “Saper d'alcuno è buono;
de li altri fia laudabile tacerci,
ché 'l tempo saria corto a tanto suono.
In somma sappi che tutti fur cherci
e litterati grandi e di gran fama,
d'un peccato medesmo al mondo lerci.
Priscian sen va con quella turba grama,
e Francesco d'Accorso anche; e vedervi,
s'avessi avuto di tal tigna brama,
colui potei che dal servo de' servi
fu trasmutato d'Arno in Bacchiglione,
dove lasciò li mal protesi nervi.
Di più direi; ma 'l venire e 'l sermone
più lungo esser non può, però ch'i' veggio
là surger nuovo fummo del sabbione.
Gente vien con la quale esser non deggio.
Sieti raccomandato il mio Tesoro,
nel qual io vivo ancora, e più non cheggio.”
Poi si rivolse e parve di coloro
che corrono a Verona il drappo verde
per la campagna; e parve di costoro
quelli che vince, non colui che perde.
Now bears us onward one of the hard margins,
And so the brooklet's mist o'ershadows it,
From fire it saves the water and the dikes.
Even as the Flemings, 'twixt Cadsand and Bruges,
Fearing the flood that tow'rds them hurls itself,
Their bulwarks build to put the sea to flight;
And as the Paduans along the Brenta,
To guard their villas and their villages,
Or ever Chiarentana feel the heat;
In such similitude had those been made,
Albeit not so lofty nor so thick,
Whoever he might be, the master made them.
Now were we from the forest so remote,
I could not have discovered where it was,
Even if backward I had turned myself,
When we a company of souls encountered,
Who came beside the dike, and every one
Gazed at us, as at evening we are wont
To eye each other under a new moon,
And so towards us sharpened they their brows
As an old tailor at the needle's eye.
Thus scrutinised by such a family,
By some one I was recognised, who seized
My garment's hem, and cried out, "What a marvel!"
And I, when he stretched forth his arm to me,
On his baked aspect fastened so mine eyes,
That the scorched countenance prevented not
His recognition by my intellect;
And bowing down my face unto his own,
I made reply, "Are you here, Ser Brunetto?"
And he: "May't not displease thee, O my son,
If a brief space with thee Brunetto Latini
Backward return and let the trail go on."
I said to him: "With all my power I ask it;
And if you wish me to sit down with you,
I will, if he please, for I go with him."
"O son," he said, "whoever of this herd
A moment stops, lies then a hundred years,
Nor fans himself when smiteth him the fire.
Therefore go on; I at thy skirts will come,
And afterward will I rejoin my band,
Which goes lamenting its eternal doom."
I did not dare to go down from the road
Level to walk with him; but my head bowed
I held as one who goeth reverently.
And he began: "What fortune or what fate
Before the last day leadeth thee down here?
And who is this that showeth thee the way?"
"Up there above us in the life serene,"
I answered him, "I lost me in a valley,
Or ever yet my age had been completed.
But yestermorn I turned my back upon it;
This one appeared to me, returning thither,
And homeward leadeth me along this road."
And he to me: "If thou thy star do follow,
Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port,
If well I judged in the life beautiful.
And if I had not died so prematurely,
Seeing Heaven thus benignant unto thee,
I would have given thee comfort in the work.
But that ungrateful and malignant people,
Which of old time from Fesole descended,
And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,
Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe;
And it is right; for among crabbed sorbs
It ill befits the sweet fig to bear fruit.
Old rumour in the world proclaims them blind;
A people avaricious, envious, proud;
Take heed that of their customs thou do cleanse thee.
Thy fortune so much honour doth reserve thee,
One party and the other shall be hungry
For thee; but far from goat shall be the grass.
Their litter let the beasts of Fesole
Make of themselves, nor let them touch the plant,
If any still upon their dunghill rise,
In which may yet revive the consecrated
Seed of those Romans, who remained there when
The nest of such great malice it became."
"If my entreaty wholly were fulfilled,"
Replied I to him, "not yet would you be
In banishment from human nature placed;
For in my mind is fixed, and touches now
My heart the dear and good paternal image
Of you, when in the world from hour to hour
You taught me how a man becomes eternal;
And how much I am grateful, while I live
Behoves that in my language be discerned.
What you narrate of my career I write,
And keep it to be glossed with other text
By a Lady who can do it, if I reach her.
This much will I have manifest to you;
Provided that my conscience do not chide me,
For whatsoever Fortune I am ready.
Such handsel is not new unto mine ears;
Therefore let Fortune turn her wheel around
As it may please her, and the churl his mattock."
My Master thereupon on his right cheek
Did backward turn himself, and looked at me;
Then said: "He listeneth well who noteth it."
Nor speaking less on that account, I go
With Ser Brunetto, and I ask who are
His most known and most eminent companions.
And he to me: "To know of some is well;
Of others it were laudable to be silent,
For short would be the time for so much speech.
Know them in sum, that all of them were clerks,
And men of letters great and of great fame,
In the world tainted with the selfsame sin.
Priscian goes yonder with that wretched crowd,
And Francis of Accorso; and thou hadst seen there
If thou hadst had a hankering for such scurf,
That one, who by the Servant of the Servants
From Arno was transferred to Bacchiglione,
Where he has left his sin-excited nerves.
More would I say, but coming and discoursing
Can be no longer; for that I behold
New smoke uprising yonder from the sand.
A people comes with whom I may not be;
Commended unto thee be my Tesoro,
In which I still live, and no more I ask."
Then he turned round, and seemed to be of those
Who at Verona run for the Green Mantle
Across the plain; and seemed to be among them
The one who wins, and not the one who loses.
Both the words margini (borders) and ruscello (stream) appear in the passage at which the forward motion of the journey was arrested in the previous canto (Inf. XIV.79-84). The action, interrupted by Virgil's discourse about Crete and the gran veglio, now continues. The poets walk along one of the two 'banks' that rise above the barren plain of sand and border the red stream as it heads for the lower regions. Thus we know that all their movement until they reach the edge of the next boundary (Inf. XVI.103) is on a downward gradient, headed toward the center of the pit. This revision in their usual procedure (a leftward, circling movement) is necessitated by the topography of the ring of violence against God, the sand where flakes of fire fall and which admits no mortal traversal.
The double simile compares the construction made by God to carry the 'water' of hell toward its final destination to the huge earthworks engineered in Flanders and in northern Italy to protect farmland and human habitations from flood. 'Carentana' probably refers (the exact reference is debated in the commentaries) to the mountains north of Padua from which the spring snows release their torrents.
Another double comparison. As the poets move away from the wood of the suicides and down across the sand along their dike, they approach a group of the damned. Its members examine them as men look at one another under a new moon and as an aging tailor concentrates upon threading his needle. The first comparison may suggest the image of homosexual 'cruising' in the darkest of moonlit nights (it is difficult for modern readers to imagine how dark the night-time streets of medieval cities were); the second conveys the intensity of such gazing. For this way of reading many of the words and images of the canto see Joseph Pequigney (“Sodomy in Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio,” Representations 36 [1991]), pp. 22-42.
There has been much recent debate about whether or not the sin punished here is in fact homosexuality. The principle negative findings are those advanced by André Pézard (Dante sous la pluie de feu [Paris: Vrin, 1950]), Richard Kay (Dante's Swift and Strong: Essays on “Inferno” XV [Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1978]) and Peter Armour (“Dante's Brunetto: The Paternal Paterine?” Italian Studies 38 [1983], pp. 1-38; “The Love of Two Florentines: Brunetto Latini and Bondie Dietaiuti,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 9 [1991], pp. 60-71.) Pézard's solution is that these sinners were guilty of blasphemy in deriding the mother tongue; Kay's, that they were guilty of denying the political supremacy of the empire; Armour's, that Brunetto was guilty of a Manichean heresy. For bibliography of other recent discussions see Deborah Contrada (“Brunetto's Sin: Ten Years of Criticism [1977-1986],” in Dante: Summa Medievalis, ed. C. Franco and L. Morgan [Stony Brook, N.Y.: Forum Italicum, 1995]), pp. 192-207. One of the principle issues facing those who oppose these interesting arguments is that in purgatory homosexuality is regarded a sin of lust and thus of incontinence. If it is punished here in Violence, it would be in a different category than it occupies there. Had Dante thought of homosexuality as the sin against nature when he composed Inferno, with its basic organization taken from Aristotle and Cicero, and as a sin of lust when he composed the second cantica? If he did so, possibly he should not have. Despite the significant contradiction that results, most students of the problem remain convinced that the sin punished in cantos XV and XVI is in fact homosexuality, and are supported by the text itself. The sin punished here is surely what is referred to by the name of the city 'Soddoma' (Sodom) at Inferno XI.50; in Purgatorio XXVI.40 the penitent homosexuals call out that word in self-identification and penitence (and report that they do so at Purg. XXVI.79). If Dante had wanted us to separate the two sins, he made it awfully difficult for us to follow his logic in so doing.
For an attempt to rationalize the discrepancy see Pequigney, pp. 31-39. He argues that Dante had changed his mind about the moral turpitude of homosexuality between the time he wrote this canto and the composition of the Terrace of Lust in Purgatory, where the sin of the penitent (and saved) homosexuals is seen as roughly equal to that of the penitent (and saved) heterosexual lovers. Gabriele Muresu (“Tra” violenza e lussuria: Dante e la 'sodomia,' L'Alighieri 14 [1999], pp. 7-17), drawing on his previous study (“Tra gli adepti di Sodoma [Inf. XV],” La Rassegna della letteratura italiana 102 [1998], pp. 375-414), counters Pequigney's arguments, first pointing to the tradition anchored in St. Thomas (ST I-II, xxxi, 7) that this sin against nature is indeed a form of violence. He argues, against Pequigney, that the reformed homosexuals on the mountain had not hardened their wills as had the homosexuals in hell, i.e., that their sins remained those of appetite, a sinful disposition or natural inclination, but not of calculated choice.
The sinner, standing below Dante, must reach up to touch the hem of his garment. His words of recognition capture the tone of an elderly teacher recognizing his former star pupil and, some would argue, of his effeminacy.
Dante recognizes his old 'teacher,' Brunetto Latini (ca. 1220-94). He probably taught Dante by the example of his works rather than in any classroom, but the entire scene is staged as a reunion between teacher and former student.
Brunetto, whose life has a number of similarities to Dante's, was a Florentine Guelph, a man of letters who was much involved in politics, and, not least in importance, who wrote narrative verse in the vernacular; he was also a notary, which accounts for his title, ser. He became a de facto exile when he learned about the battle of Montaperti (1260) and the triumph of the Ghibellines while he was on his way home, returning to Italy from Spain (where he had been on an embassy to Alfonso X, king of Castile). Deciding to take refuge in France, he stayed there for six years and, during this time, wrote his encyclopedic treatise, the Livre dou Tresor, or 'Treasure,' in French. Before his voluntary exile, Brunetto had previously written a major portion of an allegorical narrative poem, in Italian rhymed couplets, referred to within the work itself three times as Il Tesoro but which became known as the Tesoretto ('Little Treasure' – one supposes because it was both incomplete and did not seem as 'weighty' as the Tresor [also referred to as Tesoro in Bono Giamboni's shorter Italian version]). The Tesoretto, as it has continued to be called, was, at that point, even though incomplete, the longest narrative poem composed in Italian. Returning to Florence after the 'restoration' of 1266 in the wake of the battle of Benevento, Brunetto took up his political and notarial chores, and died in the city, much honored, in 1294. (For a careful presentation of the importance of Brunetto for Dante, see Francesco Mazzoni, “Latini, Brunetto” (ED.1971.3), pp. 579-88. See also Mazzoni's essential study of Dante's borrowings from Brunetto (“Brunetto in Dante,” intr. to Il Tesoretto. Il Favolello [Alpignano: A. Tallone, 1967], pp. ix-xl) and Charles Davis's article (“Brunetto Latini and Dante,” Studi medievali 8 [1967], pp. 421-50).
The poet's honorific feelings toward Brunetto are perhaps mirrored in the word his name rhymes with: intelletto. And his answering gesture, to move his face down toward his 'teacher,' probably does so as well. (The Petrocchi text here offers what is surely an implausible reading: 'la mano alla sua faccia' [which we have translated as it stands, if in disagreement].) It seems nearly certain that the text should read, as it does in many manuscripts, 'la mia alla sua faccia,' i.e., Dante bent his face toward Brunetto's in an act of homage. (Francesco da Buti [comm. to vv. 25-33] was perhaps the first commentator to opt for the reading reproposed here; however, he was of the opinion that the protagonist was motivated by a desire to get closer to the burned face of the sinner only in order to make out his features, a less honorific reason for the gesture.) The first view presented above of what motivates Dante's movement toward his teacher would seem to be supported by the later description (verse 44) that has the poet walking with his head still bent down in reverence (see the note to verse 50). But for a review and affirmation of the 'traditional' interpretation ('hand,' not 'face'), see Warren Ginsberg (“'E chinando la mano a la sua faccia': A Note on Dante, Brunetto Latini, and Their Text,” Stanford Italian Review 5 [1985]: 19-22). For further discussion see Hollander (“Inferno XV.29: 'chinando la mia alla sua faccia,'” Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America [August 2001]).
There is dispute over whether the word 'qui' refers to Brunetto's placement here among the homosexuals or in hell itself. It seems more likely that the second reference is intended. See Lino Pertile (“Qui in Inferno: deittici e cultura popolare,” Italian Quarterly 37 [2000]), pp. 57-61, arguing that the adverb refers to Brunetto's presence, standing before Dante in this very place in the darkness of hell. Perhaps more convincingly Muresu (“Tra violenza e lussuria: Dante e la 'sodomia,'” L'Alighieri 14 [1999]), p. 9, argues that it simply refers to hell in general.
Brunetto, disdainful of his fellows and glad to be able to share the company of his pupil, cannot sit down to talk in dignity and calm, but must keep moving, since that is the condition of his punishment.
A number of commentaries on this passage cite Aeneid VI.531-534, Deiphobus's similar questions to Aeneas. It is striking that Brunetto never discovers the identity of Dante's leader (nor did Cavalcante in Inf. X). Like Cavalcante's son Guido's, Brunetto's body of work is notably unmarked by Virgil's influence. The omission, in other words, may be entirely intentional.
Dante's reflection upon his own lostness at the outset (Inf. I.3; I.14) picks up, as a few commentators have sensed (Pietrobono perhaps the first) a similar passage in Brunetto's Tesoretto, vv. 186-90:
e io, in tal corrotto
pensando a capo chino,
perdei il gran cammino,
e tenni a la traversa
d'una selva diversa.
(And I, in such great vexation, my head bowed down, lost the main road and came upon a path that crossed a strange wood.)
The phrase a capo chino (my head bowed down) has perhaps already been used to describe Dante's reverence before Brunetto (v. 44 – see the note to Inf. XV.28-30), at once both a fitting tribute to the author of the poem which served as the closest vernacular precedent for Dante's own vernacular narrative poem and a reminder that Brunetto's 'lostness' would become permanent, while Dante's is only temporary.
Dante had criticized Brunetto's (along with other Tuscan poets') Italian poetry for its low dialectism in De vulgari Eloquentia (I.xiii.1); now he himself uses a Tuscan dialectical form (ca, for casa, 'house' or 'home') as though in apology; and he uses it to express the high and ultimate purpose of his journey, his return to the God who made him. It is a moment of stunning force. The expression was more prominently found in northern dialects, according to Parodi (Lingua e letteratura, ed. G. Folena [Venice: Neri Pozza, 1957], vol. II, p. 274), but also in Tuscany even before the time of Dante. Some commentators take the meaning to be 'back to Florence,' and some read it metaphorically, i.e., back on the right moral path. But almost all of the earliest glossators and most of the moderns as well observe that the phrase refers to the goal of the voyage, God.
Dante's 'star' is probably his natal sign, Gemini. Brunetto here and elsewhere sees Dante's special status as related to the influence of the heavens rather than to the election of Heaven.
Brunetto's desire to aid Dante in his current and future plight, given the context of the discussion that follows, would seem rather to refer to his political life than to his literary one, though it is difficult to separate the two.
Brunetto, like Farinata (Inf. X.79-81), prophesies Dante's exile. His sense of the history of Florence (perhaps reflecting his own treatment of this subject in the first book of his Tresor) puts forward the legend that Florence was populated by the Romans after they destroyed neighboring Fiesole in order to put an end to Catiline's conspiracy. Unfortunately, their descendants, the Florentine nobility, allowed the surviving Fiesolans to emigrate and mix their base population with the Roman stock. For Dante, all the city's (and his own) troubles stem from this original mistake.
Dante pays his debt to Brunetto. But what was it that Brunetto (or, more likely, his writings) taught Dante about immortality? Brunetto himself (Tresor II.cxx.1) says that fame for good works gives one a second life on earth. Surely that is not enough for the Christian Dante, who knows the true meaning of immortality. The only seconde vie that matters is in the afterlife. Is Dante saying that Brunetto taught him this? That seems impossible. But he did learn from him how his earthly fame might be established by writing a narrative poem in Italian. And his heavenly reward might be combined with that one if his poem were, unlike Brunetto's work, dedicated to a higher purpose. Perhaps one of the earliest commentators said this best: Brunetto gave Dante 'the knowledge that does not allow him to die either in his essential being in the other world, nor with respect to fame in this one' (Jacopo della Lana [comm. to vv. 82-85]). In this vein see Thomas Nevin, “Ser Brunetto's Immortality: Inferno XV,” Dante Studies 96 (1978): 29-33; Giuseppe Mazzotta, “Dante and the Virtues of Exile,” Poetics Today 5 (1984): 646-47; and Lillian Bisson, “Brunetto Latini as a Failed Mentor,” Medievalia et Humanistica 18 (1992): 1-15, for the hard-edged view of earthly fame also sponsored in this note. For the work of Brunetto that had such effect on Dante see the note to Inf. XV.119. For advocacy of the traditional Christian meaning of 'immortality' here see Muresu (“Tra gli adepti di Sodoma [Inf. XV],” La Rassegna della letteratura italiana 102 [1998], pp. 390-400. And for the view that 'ad ora ad ora,' traditionally understood to mean, as it is translated here, 'from time to time,' really means 'continually,' see Giovannella Desideri, “Per amor di cosa che non duri (Inferno XIII e XV, vv. 80-84),” Critica del testo 2 (1999), pp. 764-70.
The protagonist, responding to Brunetto's warning that his good deeds will not go unpunished (Inf. XV.61-64), adverts to Farinata's similar prophecy and Virgil's promise of Beatrice's eventual explanation of it. See the note to Inferno X.130-132.
Dante claims that he is ready for Fortune's adversity. See the similar but stronger utterance at Paradiso XVII.22-24.
For a reading of the 'peasant' that is based in the representation of Saturn as an old and tired farmer, carrying a spade or mattock, and thus keyed to the allegorical understanding of Saturn as time, see Amilcare Iannucci (“Inferno XV.95-96: Fortune's Wheel and the Villainy of Time,” Quaderni d'italianistica 3 [1982], pp. 1-11). The phrase would then mean: 'let Fortune turn her wheel as she pleases and let time continue its relentless course' (p. 6).
This is Virgil's only utterance in the canto. (Walking ahead of Dante, accompanied by Brunetto, who is moving close to the bank, along the sand, Virgil is not 'in the frame' for most of the scene.) How we should read the remark is no longer as clear as it once seemed. Is it congratulatory or monitory? All the early commentators who deal with it think it is the latter, i.e., Dante has just said a true thing (vv. 91-96), but something difficult to live up to. And that seems the most likely reading. However, beginning with Daniello (comm. to this verse), some commentators think it refers to Dante's having remembered Virgil's words with a similar import (Aen. V.710): 'superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est' (all fortune is to be overcome by bearing it). Others believe it refers to Dante's having remembered Virgil's utterance at Inferno X.127-132. Both these readings make Virgil's words congratulatory. Berthier (comm. to this verse) offered a cogent proposal for a return to the reading of the early commentators. In our own day, however, the commentary tradition is various and confused.
Brunetto indicates that all his companions were men of letters, identifying Priscian (the great Latin grammarian of the early sixth century); Francesco d'Accorso (1225-93), a renowned jurist of Bologna; and Andrea de' Mozzi (died 1296). A Florentine, he was made bishop of Florence (on the Arno) in 1287 until he was transferred to Vicenza (on the Bacchiglione) by Pope Boniface VIII (here ironically referred to with the papal formula 'servant of servants') in 1295 for his riotous habits. According to Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 110-114), Andrea was fond of saying 'The grace of God is like the turds of goats, which, falling from on high, drop hither and yon dispersedly.' None of these (neither is Brunetto) is recorded by other writers as having been homosexual. The last verse, indicating Andrea's 'sin-stretched sinews' would, however, seem to indicate his sexual activity (and the meaning of this line is thus hotly contested by those who deny that homosexuality is punished in this ring).
What is the division that separates these two groups of homosexuals? We should note that Brunetto, accompanying Dante, has gone lower down the sloping sand than he generally does; his group apparently remains higher up. The only clue given us by the text is that his fellows are all men of letters, while the next one will be made up of politicians (but then Brunetto must be considered, at least to some degree, a 'politician' himself). Is that what keeps them separate? It does not seem likely. It would rather seem that the two groups are kept separate by their particular form of sexual deviance, as Boccaccio (comm. to vv. 115-118) appears to suggest. For instance, and as Professor John Gledson suggested when he was a graduate student at Princeton, the first group may all have been pederasts, men who preferred young boys for their sexual encounters; the second may have been sodomites, those who enjoyed such contact with those of their own age. It seems, however, impossible to come to any decision with certainty.
It has long been assumed that Brunetto asks Dante's affectionate remembrance of his Tresor. In the opinion of some, however, it is far better to understand that the work in question is the Tesoretto. This is not to deny the importance of the French encyclopedic treatise for Dante, who knew it well and whose memory is suffused by it. However, given his predilection for poetry, it seems likely that for him the pivotal work was the Tesoretto because it was the primary Italian model for the Comedy. It is fairly clear why nearly all the commentators think that Dante is referring to the Tresor: it is a major work, at least by comparison to the unfinished Tesoretto, and people do not especially appeciate the poetry of Brunetto (perhaps with good reason). But why would Dante not be giving credit to the work which made a difference to him as poet? That seems a sensible view of the matter. However, it was only in the eighteenth century that a commentator (Lombardi, comm. to this verse) would suggest this possibility, and only in the nineteenth that one would seize upon it (Gregorio Di Siena, comm. to this verse). An as yet unpublished book on Dante and Brunetto by Frank Ordiway extends the evidence offered by Mazzoni (“Brunetto in Dante,” intr. to Il Tesoretto. Il Favolello [Alpignano: A. Tallone, 1967], pp. ix-xl) of Dante's considerable citation of the Tesoretto into a strong argument for its relevance here. For bibliography of those who have argued for a reference to the Tesoretto see Hollander, “Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 (1992), 82n. More recently, Massimo Verdicchio (“Re-Reading Brunetto Latini and Inferno XV,” Quaderni d'italianistica 21 [2000]), pp. 67-70, also casts a vote for the Tesoretto.
The text of the Tesoretto itself offers evidence that it is the work we should think of here:
Io, Burnetto Latino,
che vostro in ogni guisa
mi son sanza divisa,
a voi mi racomando.
Poi vi presento e mando
questo ricco Tesoro,
che vale argento ed oro:...
(vv. 70-76; italics added)
(I, Brunetto Latini, who am yours in every way, without any reservation commend myself to you. Then I present and send to you this rich Treasure, which is worth silver and gold.)
Within the text of what we call the Tesoretto we find that its own title for itself is Tesoro (and this will occur twice more in the work). And we can hear, in this verse, another echo of the Italian work, the verb raccomandare. It seems awfully difficult to go on believing that the Tresor is on our poet's mind at this crucial juncture of his presentation of his literary 'father,' his final words in Dante's poem.
The identification of the work has a curious history. If it was Lombardi who introduced the notion that Brunetto might have been referring to the Tesoretto: “e forse per Tesoro intende anche l'altro libro intitolato Tesoretto,” Portirelli (comm. vv. 119-120) says straight out that the work referred to is the Tesoretto (“il mio libro intitolato Tesoretto”). Tommaseo (to vv. 118-120) was the first “modern” to authorize the currently dominant opinion: “Del Tesoretto non parla, come cosa minore. Ma questo è l'abbozzo d'un viaggio simile a quello di Dante. Il Tesoro è un'enciclopedia del suo tempo scritta dopo il Tesoretto.” Andreoli (to verse 119) follows in this vein: “Non è da confondere col Tesoretto, opera italiana del medesimo autore.” Longfellow (comm. to verse 30) has the distinction of writing the fullest and most interesting remarks about Brunetto's works and their relationship to Dante's, if he doesn't enter into this debate. Gregorio Di Siena, a neglected commentator, was apparently the first to link Brunetto's words here to his own words in the Tesoretto, as has become fairly common: “Notisi intanto che Dante fa parlare Messer Brunetto quasi con quelle stesse parole onde questi, dedicando il Tesoretto a Luigi IX re di Francia, gli dice:...” He continues by quoting the dedicatory portion of the work, presented in the preceding paragraph. Trucchi (comm. to vv. 115-120) possibly sees the reference as being to both: “il nome di Tesoro comprendeva in principio tanto il libro di prosa francese, quanto quello in versi italiani, che solo più tardi ne fu distinto col nome di Tesoretto.” But Porena (comm. to verse 119) resolidifies the emerging majority opinion: “Il mio Tesoro: certamente il Trésor, l'opera sua principale e compiuta; e non, come qualcuno crede, il Tesoretto, troppo minor cosa e incompiuto.” However, and as we have seen, there are precious few “someones” and they are perhaps not heard from again until Madison Sowell (“Brunetto's Tesoro in Dante's Inferno,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 7 [1990]: 60-71) argued for the reference to both Brunettian works, replicating the solution first urged by Lombardi.
The canto concludes with a simile that perfectly expresses Dante's ambivalent feelings about Brunetto. He looks every bit the winner – but he is in last place. In the actual race run outside Verona, the runners ran naked, according to the early commentators; the winner received a piece of green cloth, while the one who finished last was given a rooster, which he had to carry back into the city with him as a sign of his disgrace and a cause of derisive taunts on the part of his townsmen. The case can be made that Dante treats Brunetto in exactly both these ways.
Two biblical texts are of interest here: 'The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong' (Ecclesiastes 9:11); 'Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receives the prize?' (I Corinthians 9:24). For the resonance of that Pauline text in these verses, see M. Shapiro, “Brunetto's Race,” Dante Studies 95 (1977): 153; and Th. Werge, “The Race to Death and the Race for Salvation in Dante's Commedia,” Dante Studies 97 (1979): 2, 4-6.
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