Purgatorio: Canto 16

1
2
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Buio d'inferno e di notte privata
d'ogne pianeto, sotto pover cielo,
quant' esser può di nuvol tenebrata,
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non fece al viso mio sì grosso velo
come quel fummo ch'ivi ci coperse,
né a sentir di così aspro pelo,
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che l'occhio stare aperto non sofferse;
onde la scorta mia saputa e fida
mi s'accostò e l'omero m'offerse.
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Sì come cieco va dietro a sua guida
per non smarrirsi e per non dar di cozzo
in cosa che 'l molesti, o forse ancida,
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m'andava io per l'aere amaro e sozzo,
ascoltando il mio duca che diceva
pur: “Guarda che da me tu non sia mozzo.”
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Io sentia voci, e ciascuna pareva
pregar per pace e per misericordia
l'Agnel di Dio che le peccata leva.
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Pur “Agnus Dei” eran le loro essordia;
una parola in tutte era e un modo,
sì che parea tra esse ogne concordia.
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“Quei sono spirti, maestro, ch'i' odo?”
diss' io. Ed elli a me: “Tu vero apprendi,
e d'iracundia van solvendo il nodo.”
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“Or tu chi se' che 'l nostro fummo fendi,
e di noi parli pur come se tue
partissi ancor lo tempo per calendi?”
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Così per una voce detto fue;
onde 'l maestro mio disse: “Rispondi,
e domanda se quinci si va sùe.”
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E io: “O creatura che ti mondi
per tornar bella a colui che ti fece,
maraviglia udirai, se mi secondi.”
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“Io ti seguiterò quanto mi lece,”
rispuose; “e se veder fummo non lascia
l'udir ci terrà giunti in quella vece.”
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Allora incominciai: “Con quella fascia
che la morte dissolve men vo suso,
e venni qui per l'infernale ambascia.
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E se Dio m'ha in sua grazia rinchiuso,
tanto che vuol ch'i' veggia la sua corte
per modo tutto fuor del moderno uso,
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non mi celar chi fosti anzi la morte,
ma dilmi, e dimmi s'i' vo bene al varco;
e tue parole fier le nostre scorte.”
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“Lombardo fui, e fu' chiamato Marco;
del mondo seppi, e quel valore amai
al quale ha or ciascun disteso l'arco.
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Per montar sù dirittamente vai.”
Così rispuose, e soggiunse: “I' ti prego
che per me prieghi quando sù sarai.”
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E io a lui: “Per fede mi ti lego
di far ciò che mi chiedi; ma io scoppio
dentro ad un dubbio, s'io non me ne spiego.
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Prima era scempio, e ora è fatto doppio
ne la sentenza tua, che mi fa certo
qui, e altrove, quello ov' io l'accoppio.
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Lo mondo è ben così tutto diserto
d'ogne virtute, come tu mi sone,
e di malizia gravido e coverto;
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ma priego che m'addite la cagione,
sì ch'i' la veggia e ch'i' la mostri altrui;
ché nel cielo uno, e un qua giù la pone.”
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Alto sospir, che duolo strinse in “uhi!”
mise fuor prima; e poi cominciò: “Frate,
lo mondo è cieco, e tu vien ben da lui.
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Voi che vivete ogne cagion recate
pur suso al cielo, pur come se tutto
movesse seco di necessitate.
70
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Se così fosse, in voi fora distrutto
libero arbitrio, e non fora giustizia
per ben letizia, e per male aver lutto.
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Lo cielo i vostri movimenti inizia;
non dico tutti, ma, posto ch'i' 'l dica,
lume v'è dato a bene e a malizia,
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e libero voler; che, se fatica
ne le prime battaglie col ciel dura,
poi vince tutto, se ben si notrica.
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A maggior forza e a miglior natura
liberi soggiacete; e quella cria
la mente in voi, che 'l ciel non ha in sua cura.
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Però, se 'l mondo presente disvia,
in voi è la cagione, in voi si cheggia;
e io te ne sarò or vera spia.
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Esce di mano a lui che la vagheggia
prima che sia, a guisa di fanciulla
che piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia,
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l'anima semplicetta che sa nulla,
salvo che, mossa da lieto fattore,
volontier torna a ciò che la trastulla.
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Di picciol bene in pria sente sapore;
quivi s'inganna, e dietro ad esso corre,
se guida o fren non torce suo amore.
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Onde convenne legge per fren porre;
convenne rege aver, che discernesse
de la vera cittade almen la torre.
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Le leggi son, ma chi pon mano ad esse?
Nullo, però che 'l pastor che procede,
rugumar può, ma non ha l'unghie fesse;
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per che la gente, che sua guida vede
pur a quel ben fedire ond' ella è ghiotta,
di quel si pasce, e più oltre non chiede.
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Ben puoi veder che la mala condotta
è la cagion che 'l mondo ha fatto reo,
e non natura che 'n voi sia corrotta.
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Soleva Roma, che 'l buon mondo feo,
due soli aver, che l'una e l'altra strada
facean vedere, e del mondo e di Deo.
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L'un l'altro ha spento; ed è giunta la spada
col pasturale, e l'un con l'altro insieme
per viva forza mal convien che vada;
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però che, giunti, l'un l'altro non teme:
se non mi credi, pon mente a la spiga,
ch'ogn' erba si conosce per lo seme.
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In sul paese ch'Adice e Po riga,
solea valore e cortesia trovarsi,
prima che Federigo avesse briga;
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or può sicuramente indi passarsi
per qualunque lasciasse, per vergogna,
di ragionar coi buoni o d'appressarsi.
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Ben v'èn tre vecchi ancora in cui rampogna
l'antica età la nova, e par lor tardo
che Dio a miglior vita li ripogna:
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Currado da Palazzo e 'l buon Gherardo
e Guido da Castel, che mei si noma,
francescamente, il semplice Lombardo.
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Dì oggimai che la Chiesa di Roma,
per confondere in sé due reggimenti,
cade nel fango, e sé brutta e la soma.”
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“O Marco mio,” diss' io, “bene argomenti;
e or discerno perchè dal retaggio
li figli di Levì furono essenti.
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Ma qual Gherardo è quel che tu per saggio
di' ch'è rimaso de la gente spenta,
in rimprovèro del secol selvaggio?”
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“O tuo parlar m'inganna, o el mi tenta”
rispuose a me; “ché parlandomi tosco,
par che del buon Gherardo nulla senta.
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Per altro sopranome io nol conosco,
s'io nol togliessi da sua figlia Gaia.
Dio sia con voi, ché più non vegno vosco.
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Vedi l'albor che per lo fummo raia
già biancheggiare, e me convien partirmi
(l'angelo è ivi) prima ch'io li paia.”
Così tornò, e più non volle udirmi.
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Darkness of hell, and of a night deprived
  Of every planet under a poor sky,
  As much as may be tenebrous with cloud,

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Ne'er made unto my sight so thick a veil,
  As did that smoke which there enveloped us,
  Nor to the feeling of so rough a texture;

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For not an eye it suffered to stay open;
  Whereat mine escort, faithful and sagacious,
  Drew near to me and offered me his shoulder.

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E'en as a blind man goes behind his guide,
  Lest he should wander, or should strike against
  Aught that may harm or peradventure kill him,

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So went I through the bitter and foul air,
  Listening unto my Leader, who said only,
  "Look that from me thou be not separated."

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Voices I heard, and every one appeared
  To supplicate for peace and misericord
  The Lamb of God who takes away our sins.

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Still "Agnus Dei" their exordium was;
  One word there was in all, and metre one,
  So that all harmony appeared among them.

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"Master," I said, "are spirits those I hear?"
  And he to me: "Thou apprehendest truly,
  And they the knot of anger go unloosing."

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"Now who art thou, that cleavest through our smoke
  And art discoursing of us even as though
  Thou didst by calends still divide the time?"

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After this manner by a voice was spoken;
  Whereon my Master said: "Do thou reply,
  And ask if on this side the way go upward."

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And I: "O creature that dost cleanse thyself
  To return beautiful to Him who made thee,
  Thou shalt hear marvels if thou follow me."

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"Thee will I follow far as is allowed me,"
  He answered; "and if smoke prevent our seeing,
  Hearing shall keep us joined instead thereof."

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Thereon began I: "With that swathing band
  Which death unwindeth am I going upward,
  And hither came I through the infernal anguish.

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And if God in his grace has me infolded,
  So that he wills that I behold his court
  By method wholly out of modern usage,

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Conceal not from me who ere death thou wast,
  But tell it me, and tell me if I go
  Right for the pass, and be thy words our escort."

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"Lombard was I, and I was Marco called;
  The world I knew, and loved that excellence,
  At which has each one now unbent his bow.

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For mounting upward, thou art going right."
  Thus he made answer, and subjoined: "I pray thee
  To pray for me when thou shalt be above."

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And I to him: "My faith I pledge to thee
  To do what thou dost ask me; but am bursting
  Inly with doubt, unless I rid me of it.

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First it was simple, and is now made double
  By thy opinion, which makes certain to me,
  Here and elsewhere, that which I couple with it.

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The world forsooth is utterly deserted
  By every virtue, as thou tellest me,
  And with iniquity is big and covered;

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But I beseech thee point me out the cause,
  That I may see it, and to others show it;
  For one in the heavens, and here below one puts it."

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A sigh profound, that grief forced into Ai!
  He first sent forth, and then began he: "Brother,
  The world is blind, and sooth thou comest from it!

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Ye who are living every cause refer
  Still upward to the heavens, as if all things
  They of necessity moved with themselves.

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If this were so, in you would be destroyed
  Free will, nor any justice would there be
  In having joy for good, or grief for evil.

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The heavens your movements do initiate,
  I say not all; but granting that I say it,
  Light has been given you for good and evil,

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And free volition; which, if some fatigue
  In the first battles with the heavens it suffers,
  Afterwards conquers all, if well 'tis nurtured.

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To greater force and to a better nature,
  Though free, ye subject are, and that creates
  The mind in you the heavens have not in charge.

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Hence, if the present world doth go astray,
  In you the cause is, be it sought in you;
  And I therein will now be thy true spy.

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Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it
  Before it is, like to a little girl
  Weeping and laughing in her childish sport,

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Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows,
  Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker,
  Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure.

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Of trivial good at first it tastes the savour;
  Is cheated by it, and runs after it,
  If guide or rein turn not aside its love.

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Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place,
  Behoved a king to have, who at the least
  Of the true city should discern the tower.

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The laws exist, but who sets hand to them?
  No one; because the shepherd who precedes
  Can ruminate, but cleaveth not the hoof;

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Wherefore the people that perceives its guide
  Strike only at the good for which it hankers,
  Feeds upon that, and farther seeketh not.

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Clearly canst thou perceive that evil guidance
  The cause is that has made the world depraved,
  And not that nature is corrupt in you.

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Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed was
  Two suns to have, which one road and the other,
  Of God and of the world, made manifest.

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One has the other quenched, and to the crosier
  The sword is joined, and ill beseemeth it
  That by main force one with the other go,

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Because, being joined, one feareth not the other;
  If thou believe not, think upon the grain,
  For by its seed each herb is recognized.

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In the land laved by Po and Adige,
  Valour and courtesy used to be found,
  Before that Frederick had his controversy;

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Now in security can pass that way
  Whoever will abstain, through sense of shame,
  From speaking with the good, or drawing near them.

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True, three old men are left, in whom upbraids
  The ancient age the new, and late they deem it
  That God restore them to the better life:

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Currado da Palazzo, and good Gherardo,
  And Guido da Castel, who better named is,
  In fashion of the French, the simple Lombard:

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Say thou henceforward that the Church of Rome,
  Confounding in itself two governments,
  Falls in the mire, and soils itself and burden."

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"O Marco mine," I said, "thou reasonest well;
  And now discern I why the sons of Levi
  Have been excluded from the heritage.

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But what Gherardo is it, who, as sample
  Of a lost race, thou sayest has remained
  In reprobation of the barbarous age?"

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"Either thy speech deceives me, or it tempts me,"
  He answered me; "for speaking Tuscan to me,
  It seems of good Gherardo naught thou knowest.

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By other surname do I know him not,
  Unless I take it from his daughter Gaia.
  May God be with you, for I come no farther.

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Behold the dawn, that through the smoke rays out,
  Already whitening; and I must depart—
  Yonder the Angel is—ere he appear."
Thus did he speak, and would no farther hear me.

Robert Hollander (English, 2000-2007)
1 - 7

This fiftieth canto of the Divina Commedia is literally its darkest; light finally glimmers only two lines from its conclusion (in verse 143) and its action is played completely in the smoke of Wrath. Technically, the numerical midpoint of the poem occurs between Cantos XVI and XVII, the latter of which also happens to be the middle canto of Purgatorio. Thus, as the poet prepares the entire poem and the cantica to reach their centers, it seems fitting that he first indicates the Comedy's origin in hell: Buio d'inferno (Gloom of hell).

The sky is 'barren' (literally 'poor,' or 'impoverished') in that it is 'deprived of its precious jewels,' its stars (according to Benvenuto da Imola [comm. to vv. 1-6]), mainly found in the eighth sphere, but with one 'planet' found in each of the first seven), are hidden behind layers of clouds.

The envious are made to repent by being denied their sight; the wrathful are being denied objects of sight because they were blinded by their anger for their enemies.

8 - 9

It seems that here Virgil has the power of sight, while the protagonist, like the penitents soon to be present, is effectively blind in the smoke. Is this a deliberate recasting of the situation in Purgatorio XV.115-138, where Dante can behold the ecstatic visions apparently denied to Virgil? Once again, Virgil's state would be marked off as different from that of saved souls.

The smoke that expresses the sin of Wrath on this terrace is referred to five times (XV.142; XVI.5, 25, 35, 142) and marks the last time in the poem that the noun fummo is used to describe a place. It clearly seems to be related to the smoke that marked the Circle of Anger in Inferno, where it is used three times, once (Inf. IX.75) with an adjective, acerbo (harsh), that seems to join it to the smoke we enter here. For the relationship between infernal anger and the purgation of Wrath see the note to Purgatorio XVII.19-39.

10 - 15

The simile presents an image of Dante walking behind Virgil with his hand upon the shoulder of his guide, otherwise present to him only as a voice. The image prepares us for what will happen once Marco Lombardo is his interlocutor: all he (and we) will be aware of is a voice, close to an ideal situation for a poet to contrive in order to gain undeflected attention on behalf of a presentation of moral philosophy.

19 - 21

We are presumably meant to understand that all the penitents pray on each of the previous terraces (see Purg. XI.1-24; Purg. XIII.49-51) and on this one as well. The pattern of communal liturgical prayer will be broken, for good reason, only by the slothful: Purgatorio XVIII.103-105.

Fallani (comm. to verse 19) discusses the prayer, instituted as part of the Mass by Pope Sergius I in the seventh century, comprised, once it became a part of the liturgy, of a single line that is then twice repeated: 'Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis' (Lamb of God who carry off the sins of the world, have mercy on us); in the third iteration the last phrase ('miserere nobis') gives place to the words 'dona nobis pacem' (grant us peace), a particularly apt phrase for these penitents of Wrath, beseeching the serenity to which Virgil referred in Purgatorio XV.131, 'the waters of peace.'

25 - 27

The speaker can sense that the visitor is moving the smoke that he walks through and thus must be present in the flesh; for this reason, as he correctly assumes, the new arrival is still timebound. The souls on the mountain have their own temporality, but one in which all of time is but a necessary prolegomenon to eternity, when real life begins for them. Thus for them the months of the calendar are real but meaningless.

31 - 36

Dante's captatio, his attempt to gain his listener's goodwill (see the note to Inf. II.58) celebrates the as yet unknown speaker's freedom from the flesh; his (rational) soul will soon be as it was when God breathed it into him (see Purg. XXV.70-75). The protagonist goes on to offer, in good rhetorical fashion, a reward for his auditor's collaboration. His insistence that this spirit follow him is predicated upon necessity: Dante's eyes are closed because his mortal flesh cannot bear the harshness of the smoke, with the result that he cannot see his interlocutor. The spirit, unlike Virgil, evidently cannot see in the darkness and therefore is only able to follow Dante's voice.

37 - 38

The image of the flesh as swaddling clothes, the protective cloth in which infants are wrapped, places emphasis on the soul as being the precious part of us, our bodies merely the wrapping that should keep it until it is ready for its better life.

41 - 42

This is the rather coy way that Dante refers to St. Paul's ascent to Heaven (II Corinthians 12:4) as being the last before his own. For Dante, that somewhat strange word ('modern') is not a positive one. (The Grande Dizionario indicates this as the first recorded use of the word in Italian.) For Dante, in the battle between ancients and moderns, at least when it is waged on moral grounds, ancients are better. For the three subsequent uses of the word see Purgatorio XXVI.113, Paradiso XVI.33, Paradiso XXI.131.

46 - 46

Marco the Lombard: to the many previous attempts to identify Marco (see Singleton's commentary to this verse) we must now add that of Giorgio Cracco (“Tra Marco e Marco: un cronista veneziano dietro al canto XVI del Purgatorio?” in AA. VV., Viridarium floridum: Studi di storia veneta offerti dagli allievi a Paolo Sambin, a cura di M.C. Billanovich, G. Cracco, A. Rigon [Padua: Antenore, 1984], pp. 3-23.), who points out that a Venetian living in Lombardy wrote, ca. 1292, a (still unpublished) chronicle of the provinces of Venice. He names himself simply as 'Marco' and his text contains a number of concerns and phrases that coincide with Dante's. That Dante allows him as limited identification as he does may indicate that he felt Marco's fame was great enough that his Christian name alone was sufficient to identify him.

47 - 48

Marco's words make him seem a perfect courtier: worldly, but a lover of the good, and a user of soldier's language (that of bowmanship). Poletto (comm. to vv. 46-49) also points out that his qualities would seem to mirror those of Ulysses – or at least those that Ulysses lends himself, his 'fervor... to gain experience of the world and learn about man's vices, and his worth' (Inf. XXVI.97-99).

51 - 51

Strangely enough, some commentators have taken the adverbial preposition (above) to refer to the world at the antipodes (e.g., John of Serravalle [comm. to vv. 49-51]) and one (Tommaseo [comm. to vv. 49-51]), to the earthly paradise. However, it seems unmistakably clear that Marco, having learned of Dante's destination (verse 41), is the first spirit to ask him to pray for him once he is in Heaven. This request might seem to imply either that he is of a particularly holy disposition or that he believes that no one on earth whom Dante might meet loves anything that transcends the earthly (verse 48). But see Guido Guinizzelli's similar request (Purg. XXVI.127-130).

53 - 63

Dante is bursting with a doubt, now made double by Marco's words: if the world is so thoroughly evil, wherein lies the cause? Dante wants to be informed so that he may pass the knowledge on to others, some of whom believe the cause is found on earth, while others think it is situated in the heavens. Is his doubt now 'double' because he has heard from Guido del Duca (XIV.37-42) that all in the valley of the Arno flee virtue? That is Benvenuto's reasonable hypothesis (comm. to vv. 52-57), one that has many followers. Wanting to know the 'cause' of evil (and his word, malizia [malice], is the word used in Inf. XI.22 to define the sins of the hardened will [see the note to Inf. XI.22-27], those punished within the City of Dis), the protagonist triggers the heaviest use of this noun (cagione) in the poem; it occurs four times in 44 lines, at vv. 61, 67, 83, and 104, thus underlining the centrality of this concern, to understand the root of human sinfulness, essential to the understanding of the concept of free will, as the next passage (Marco's rejoinder) and the next canto, when Virgil discourses on the nature of love, will both make plain.

64 - 66

Marco's earlier view of human depravity is obviously now deepened by the knowledge that most humans are not very bright, either, if even this specially selected mortal can ask such a stupid question.

67 - 129

Marco's speech, the only object of possible attention in the darkness, twenty-one terzine of moral philosophy, may be paraphrased as follows: If the heavens moved all things, there would be no free will; even if they did, you would still have the power to resist and conquer (67-78); to a greater power and better nature than the celestial heavens you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind [the rational soul] in you, which has nothing to do with those revolving spheres (79-83); let me expand: God lovingly created the (rational) soul in each of you; at its birth, since it was made by Him, even if it is a tabula rasa, it loves; and it loves anything at all if it is not guided or restrained; therefore, a leader and laws are necessary (84-96); laws exist, but who administers them? no one, because the pope is involved in temporal affairs and thus gives the wrong example that is much imitated (97-102); thus you can see that bad guidance and not corrupt human nature accounts for the wickedness of the world; Rome, which once made the world good, used then to have two suns which lit each path, secular and sacred (103-108); now, since the regal and pastoral functions have been conjoined, ill ensues – by their fruits shall you know them (109-114); in northern Italy, which once was the home of courtesy and valor before the Church opposed Frederick II, there are now but three good men, all of them old (115-126); thus you must make it known that the Church of Rome is befouled and befouling, arrogating unto itself both governments (127-129).

67 - 78

Marco's immediate and angry response (but his anger is meant to be taken as virtuous, as the righteous indignation of the just) lays the issue bare. 'The fault is in the stars' was an earlier day's way of claiming 'the dog [or computer] ate my homework' or 'the devil made me do it.' The celestial spheres, forming our tendencies, do incline us to various sensuous and sensual activities, but we are not forced to follow our appetites, since we have our will to direct our appetites. The concept of free will does not receive its full exposition until Beatrice's discourse upon it in Paradiso V.19-84, a moment marked by heavy seriousness because this concept lies at the very core of any Christian moral assertion. In Platonic (and Aristotelian) terms, our sensitive soul, which responds to such stimuli, is (or should be) governed by our rational soul.

79 - 81

The great Christian paradox of our free submission to God's will stands before the reader here. Singleton (comm. to verse 80) suggests the relevance of Jesus' reference to himself as a yoke to be borne by his followers (Matthew 11:29) and Dante's own paradoxical formulation, 'iugum libertatis' (the yoke of liberty) in his epistle (Epistle VI.5) to the Florentines who were in opposition to the emperor (Henry VII) in the autumn of 1310. God, the greater force and better nature, creates the third (rational) soul in us which is not bound by celestial influences.

82 - 84

Concluding the grand design of his argument, Marco triumphantly puts forward his ergo: any fault that we find when we examine human activity lies in us, not in our stars. And now he will expatiate on this paradigmatic equation.

85 - 90

The image of the female child (its gender matching that of the word anima [soul]) heedless in her playfulness picks up the train of such images of youthful ebullience from the last canto, where the sun was disporting himself like a little boy (see the note to Purg. XV.1-6). The rational soul, as yet unknowing, turns to anything that delights it without measuring the worth of that delight.

91 - 93

This 'ladder' of physically attractive objects, beginning with trifling goods, was earlier described by Dante in Convivio IV.xii.14-18, as was apparently first noted by Scartazzini (comm. to verse 90), when we begin, as children, longing for an apple, a little bird, pretty garments, then a horse, a mistress, riches, then greater riches, and finally enormous wealth. So does the corrupt human soul move from childhood to its 'maturity' – unless such appetites are controlled.

94 - 96

The 'ruler' that Marco (not to mention Dante) seems to have in mind would not appear to be anything but secular. Some commentators recognize how radical an idea this is, while several of them (e.g., Benvenuto, Lombardi) simply assume that Dante must here be speaking of a religious leader. But the language is clear: the poet is speaking of an emperor who, guiding our race as its leader (the guida [guide] of verse 93) and upholding the laws (the fren [rein] of that verse), will allow us to see at least the tower of the 'true city.' The question of whether this is meant to be understood as the City of God on earth or in Heaven, or indeed of an ideal secular city, draws some dispute. Whatever the solution of that part of the riddle, the forceful and (at least potentially) disturbing fact is that Dante, in search of moral leadership for mankind (rather than for individual humans), here looks to the state rather than to the Church.

97 - 99

This tercet explains the vigorous and unusual Ghibelline turn in the preceding verses. The laws, left us by Justinian, exist but are not enforced. And this blame is laid upon the Church for keeping the emperor from power, since the pope may indeed ruminate, but does not distinguish between ecclesiastical and secular power. Tozer (comm. to verse 99) explains the reference as follows: 'The terms here used refer to the tests by which beasts were determined to be clean under the Mosaic law, i.e., that they should chew the cud and divide the hoof (Lev. 11:3). As applied to the Heads of the Church, the allegorical meaning of “chewing the cud” seems to be the acquisition of wisdom by pondering on sources of knowledge; but in respect of “dividing the hoof” the symbolism is twofold.... First, it signifies the practice of good morals,... and it is applied in this sense in vv. 100-105, where it is explained that it was the unprincipled conduct of the Roman Court which had demoralized the world. Secondly, the dividing of the hoof represents the separation of the temporal and spiritual powers, which principle the popes had ignored. This interpretation is found in vv. 127-129, where the Church of Rome is spoken of as a beast of burden, which falls in the mud in consequence of its not distinguishing between these two spheres of government, the reference obviously being to the support given to such animals in slippery ground by the divided hoof. The two allegorical applications are not wholly unconnected with one another, because it was greed of worldly gains which led to the appropriation of the temporal power by the Papacy.'

100 - 102

The reason that Dante here hopes only for temporal moral leadership is now completely clear: the current papacy leads mankind only in the example of unbridled appetite. Thus the Church, which is not to interfere with the City of Man on Earth (Augustine's negative phrase turned to a Dantean positive), cannot show the way to the City of God, either, and that task is turned over, in Dante's asseverations here, to the emperor. It is perhaps impossible to believe that he would have written such lines without having Henry VII in mind as the one who must accomplish these tasks of leadership. If Dante is writing between 1310 and 1313, it is more than likely that he did.

106 - 108

The culminating image in Marco's discourse returns to the 'good old days' when the early Church and the empire each performed their functions separately.

Dante is here, within the confines of a single tercet, entering polemically into one of the great political/theological debates of his time, the relative authority of emperor and pope. Against the hierocrats, who warmly supported papal claims to supremacy, Dante argues, on the basis of a revision in the hierocrats' central and polemical metaphor (pope as 'sun,' emperor as subordinate 'moon'), that the two authorities are both supreme and have their authority independent of one another, both being established by the direct will of God. Singleton (comm. to verse 106) remembers, in this context, Dante's earlier and later precisions (Conv. IV.v.3-8; Mon. I.xvi.1-2) that when Christ was born under the rule of Augustus the world experienced a moment of perfection, what St. Paul calls plenitudinem temporis (the fullness of time – Galatians 4:4). Dante will later develop the metaphor of the 'two suns' in a key chapter of Monarchia (III.iv). (For the date of Monarchia see the brief summary of the debate in Hollander [Dante: A Life in Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001)], pp. 150-51. Most currently interested in the problem believe that the work was composed ca. 1317, i.e., after the death of Henry VII, and after Dante had composed the early cantos of his Paradiso, since in Monarchia I.xii.6 he says 'sicut in Paradiso Comoedie iam dixi' [as I have said in the Paradiso of my Comedy], referring to Paradiso V.19-24). Scott [Dante's Political Purgatory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996)], p. 155, thinks both these passages were written after Pope Clement's 'betrayal' of Henry VII, 1312-1313.)

On the entire subject of the authority of the emperor see the still essential work of Ernst Kantorowicz (The King's Two Bodies [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957]).

For a passage in St. Gregory Nazianzus's De vita sua that may have caught Dante's attention see Giovanni Farris's article (“I 'due soli' [Pg. XVI 107] ed una fonte patristica,” Critica letteraria 4 [1976], pp. 211-16): 'Non autem Natura dedit duo lumina solis / Sed Romas dedit illa duas, quae totius orbis / Lampades existunt, Romam veteremque novamque: / Hoc inter sese tantum discrimen habentes, / Quod videt hanc Phoebus splendere, sed Hesperus illam.'

109 - 114

Dante laments the fact that now the Church's pastoral crook has taken into itself the imperial sword; his image, though of inanimate things, makes the resultant object seem a horrific animate hybrid, as does the reference to Matthew 7:16 or 7:20: 'by their fruits you shall know them' (words spoken by Jesus to impugn false teachers).

115 - 120

Dante's geographical reference is to the northeastern sector of Italy, not the territories associated with the presence of the emperor Frederick, but Marco's home ground. For Dante, Frederick was the last emperor to take his role as emperor of all Europe seriously (see Conv. IV.iii.6, as Pietrobono [comm. to verse 117] suggests, where he is described as 'the last emperor of the Romans'). It may seem strange that Dante should here support the kingship of Frederick II, seen among the heretics in hell (Inf. X.119). The issue, however, is not Frederick's personal worth, but his rights and privileges as emperor. These were grounds for contention between Frederick and the Church throughout his reign (1212-1250).

121 - 126

Marco's three vecchi, all still alive in 1300, offer a Lombard counterpart to Cacciaguida's forty Florentine families from the 'good old days' in that city that are listed in Paradiso XVI: Currado da Palazzo, from Brescia; Gherardo da Camino, from Padua; and Guido da Castello, from Reggio Emilia. All three of them had Guelph affiliations. Dante praises the last two in Convivio when he is discussing true nobility (Conv. IV.xiv.12; IV.xvi.6).

127 - 129

Marco's antipapal charge to Dante will be echoed and amplified in that given him by Beatrice in Purgatorio XXXII.103-105.

131 - 132

Dante shows his agreement with Marco's analysis of the church/state problem in contemporary Christendom in ancient Hebrew terms: the family of Levi, because they were, like the sons of Aaron, in a priestly function for Israel, were denied any right to inherit land because of their priestly privileges. See Numbers 18:20-32.

133 - 140

The protagonist's ignorance of Gherardo's virtues offers Marco (and the poet) a chance to replay the theme of the moment, that things are not what they used to be. The early commentators are uncertain whether or not the mention of Gaia is meant to be to her praise or blame. Jacopo della Lana (comm. to verse 140) and Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 139-140) say she was well known as a loose woman. However, Benvenuto's self-proclaimed student, John of Serravalle, who generally supports his maestro's opinions, has only good to speak of her (and even claims that she wrote vernacular poetry – [comm. to vv.139-141]). Most modern commentators argue that, since the argument at hand is that the old times bore at least some notable virtue while the present day is leaden in that respect, it would only make sense for Gaia's name to represent a descent from virtue. The meaning of the clause 's'io nol togliessi da sua figlia Gaia' (unless / I were to take one [a nickname] from his daughter, Gaia) is, however, problematic. According to Torraca (comm. to vv. 139-149) his sobriquet would then be 'il gaio' (the merry) in recognition of his courtly actions and style of being; there is probably no better positive reading of the verse than this one. If we wish to insist on the logically more promising negative force of this line, the same descriptive phrase (now only meaning 'the father of Gaia') would have the effect of showing how the virtues of the father were not found in the daughter. While the logic of this entire sequence calls for such a reading, the feeling in the line would seem to support Torraca's currently unfavored reading. As several commentators suggest, until such time as some clearer evidence for Dante's opinion of Gaia is unearthed, it is impossible to be sure of the tone of the reference, wholehearted or ironic. The only two other uses of the word gaio in the poem are, however, totally positive: see Paradiso XV.60 and XXVI.102. Nonetheless, in verse 121 Dante has Marco refer to only three old men still alive in Lombardy who are good. Since Gaia did not die until 1311, would she not have to be considered a fourth good Lombard (and thus not to be included)? Or, as a woman, is she not allowed inclusion in the paltry list of the virtuous?

141 - 145

Having walked through the smoke, they have now reached its 'edge,' and so may soon regain the light of the sun. Thus we learn that Marco and his colleagues in repenting Wrath all must measure their pace so as not to walk either too slowly or too quickly in the smoke, which is moving clockwise along the terrace. The smoke does not come upon them, as it did Dante and Virgil; they inhabit it. Marco now retreats from the light, having walked too quickly in order to keep pace with his new companions.

Purgatorio: Canto 16

1
2
3

Buio d'inferno e di notte privata
d'ogne pianeto, sotto pover cielo,
quant' esser può di nuvol tenebrata,
4
5
6

non fece al viso mio sì grosso velo
come quel fummo ch'ivi ci coperse,
né a sentir di così aspro pelo,
7
8
9

che l'occhio stare aperto non sofferse;
onde la scorta mia saputa e fida
mi s'accostò e l'omero m'offerse.
10
11
12

Sì come cieco va dietro a sua guida
per non smarrirsi e per non dar di cozzo
in cosa che 'l molesti, o forse ancida,
13
14
15

m'andava io per l'aere amaro e sozzo,
ascoltando il mio duca che diceva
pur: “Guarda che da me tu non sia mozzo.”
16
17
18

Io sentia voci, e ciascuna pareva
pregar per pace e per misericordia
l'Agnel di Dio che le peccata leva.
19
20
21

Pur “Agnus Dei” eran le loro essordia;
una parola in tutte era e un modo,
sì che parea tra esse ogne concordia.
22
23
24

“Quei sono spirti, maestro, ch'i' odo?”
diss' io. Ed elli a me: “Tu vero apprendi,
e d'iracundia van solvendo il nodo.”
25
26
27

“Or tu chi se' che 'l nostro fummo fendi,
e di noi parli pur come se tue
partissi ancor lo tempo per calendi?”
28
29
30

Così per una voce detto fue;
onde 'l maestro mio disse: “Rispondi,
e domanda se quinci si va sùe.”
31
32
33

E io: “O creatura che ti mondi
per tornar bella a colui che ti fece,
maraviglia udirai, se mi secondi.”
34
35
36

“Io ti seguiterò quanto mi lece,”
rispuose; “e se veder fummo non lascia
l'udir ci terrà giunti in quella vece.”
37
38
39

Allora incominciai: “Con quella fascia
che la morte dissolve men vo suso,
e venni qui per l'infernale ambascia.
40
41
42

E se Dio m'ha in sua grazia rinchiuso,
tanto che vuol ch'i' veggia la sua corte
per modo tutto fuor del moderno uso,
43
44
45

non mi celar chi fosti anzi la morte,
ma dilmi, e dimmi s'i' vo bene al varco;
e tue parole fier le nostre scorte.”
46
47
48

“Lombardo fui, e fu' chiamato Marco;
del mondo seppi, e quel valore amai
al quale ha or ciascun disteso l'arco.
49
50
51

Per montar sù dirittamente vai.”
Così rispuose, e soggiunse: “I' ti prego
che per me prieghi quando sù sarai.”
52
53
54

E io a lui: “Per fede mi ti lego
di far ciò che mi chiedi; ma io scoppio
dentro ad un dubbio, s'io non me ne spiego.
55
56
57

Prima era scempio, e ora è fatto doppio
ne la sentenza tua, che mi fa certo
qui, e altrove, quello ov' io l'accoppio.
58
59
60

Lo mondo è ben così tutto diserto
d'ogne virtute, come tu mi sone,
e di malizia gravido e coverto;
61
62
63

ma priego che m'addite la cagione,
sì ch'i' la veggia e ch'i' la mostri altrui;
ché nel cielo uno, e un qua giù la pone.”
64
65
66

Alto sospir, che duolo strinse in “uhi!”
mise fuor prima; e poi cominciò: “Frate,
lo mondo è cieco, e tu vien ben da lui.
67
68
69

Voi che vivete ogne cagion recate
pur suso al cielo, pur come se tutto
movesse seco di necessitate.
70
71
72

Se così fosse, in voi fora distrutto
libero arbitrio, e non fora giustizia
per ben letizia, e per male aver lutto.
73
74
75

Lo cielo i vostri movimenti inizia;
non dico tutti, ma, posto ch'i' 'l dica,
lume v'è dato a bene e a malizia,
76
77
78

e libero voler; che, se fatica
ne le prime battaglie col ciel dura,
poi vince tutto, se ben si notrica.
79
80
81

A maggior forza e a miglior natura
liberi soggiacete; e quella cria
la mente in voi, che 'l ciel non ha in sua cura.
82
83
84

Però, se 'l mondo presente disvia,
in voi è la cagione, in voi si cheggia;
e io te ne sarò or vera spia.
85
86
87

Esce di mano a lui che la vagheggia
prima che sia, a guisa di fanciulla
che piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia,
88
89
90

l'anima semplicetta che sa nulla,
salvo che, mossa da lieto fattore,
volontier torna a ciò che la trastulla.
91
92
93

Di picciol bene in pria sente sapore;
quivi s'inganna, e dietro ad esso corre,
se guida o fren non torce suo amore.
94
95
96

Onde convenne legge per fren porre;
convenne rege aver, che discernesse
de la vera cittade almen la torre.
97
98
99

Le leggi son, ma chi pon mano ad esse?
Nullo, però che 'l pastor che procede,
rugumar può, ma non ha l'unghie fesse;
100
101
102

per che la gente, che sua guida vede
pur a quel ben fedire ond' ella è ghiotta,
di quel si pasce, e più oltre non chiede.
103
104
105

Ben puoi veder che la mala condotta
è la cagion che 'l mondo ha fatto reo,
e non natura che 'n voi sia corrotta.
106
107
108

Soleva Roma, che 'l buon mondo feo,
due soli aver, che l'una e l'altra strada
facean vedere, e del mondo e di Deo.
109
110
111

L'un l'altro ha spento; ed è giunta la spada
col pasturale, e l'un con l'altro insieme
per viva forza mal convien che vada;
112
113
114

però che, giunti, l'un l'altro non teme:
se non mi credi, pon mente a la spiga,
ch'ogn' erba si conosce per lo seme.
115
116
117

In sul paese ch'Adice e Po riga,
solea valore e cortesia trovarsi,
prima che Federigo avesse briga;
118
119
120

or può sicuramente indi passarsi
per qualunque lasciasse, per vergogna,
di ragionar coi buoni o d'appressarsi.
121
122
123

Ben v'èn tre vecchi ancora in cui rampogna
l'antica età la nova, e par lor tardo
che Dio a miglior vita li ripogna:
124
125
126

Currado da Palazzo e 'l buon Gherardo
e Guido da Castel, che mei si noma,
francescamente, il semplice Lombardo.
127
128
129

Dì oggimai che la Chiesa di Roma,
per confondere in sé due reggimenti,
cade nel fango, e sé brutta e la soma.”
130
131
132

“O Marco mio,” diss' io, “bene argomenti;
e or discerno perchè dal retaggio
li figli di Levì furono essenti.
133
134
135

Ma qual Gherardo è quel che tu per saggio
di' ch'è rimaso de la gente spenta,
in rimprovèro del secol selvaggio?”
136
137
138

“O tuo parlar m'inganna, o el mi tenta”
rispuose a me; “ché parlandomi tosco,
par che del buon Gherardo nulla senta.
139
140
141

Per altro sopranome io nol conosco,
s'io nol togliessi da sua figlia Gaia.
Dio sia con voi, ché più non vegno vosco.
142
143
144
145

Vedi l'albor che per lo fummo raia
già biancheggiare, e me convien partirmi
(l'angelo è ivi) prima ch'io li paia.”
Così tornò, e più non volle udirmi.
1
2
3

Darkness of hell, and of a night deprived
  Of every planet under a poor sky,
  As much as may be tenebrous with cloud,

4
5
6

Ne'er made unto my sight so thick a veil,
  As did that smoke which there enveloped us,
  Nor to the feeling of so rough a texture;

7
8
9

For not an eye it suffered to stay open;
  Whereat mine escort, faithful and sagacious,
  Drew near to me and offered me his shoulder.

10
11
12

E'en as a blind man goes behind his guide,
  Lest he should wander, or should strike against
  Aught that may harm or peradventure kill him,

13
14
15

So went I through the bitter and foul air,
  Listening unto my Leader, who said only,
  "Look that from me thou be not separated."

16
17
18

Voices I heard, and every one appeared
  To supplicate for peace and misericord
  The Lamb of God who takes away our sins.

19
20
21

Still "Agnus Dei" their exordium was;
  One word there was in all, and metre one,
  So that all harmony appeared among them.

22
23
24

"Master," I said, "are spirits those I hear?"
  And he to me: "Thou apprehendest truly,
  And they the knot of anger go unloosing."

25
26
27

"Now who art thou, that cleavest through our smoke
  And art discoursing of us even as though
  Thou didst by calends still divide the time?"

28
29
30

After this manner by a voice was spoken;
  Whereon my Master said: "Do thou reply,
  And ask if on this side the way go upward."

31
32
33

And I: "O creature that dost cleanse thyself
  To return beautiful to Him who made thee,
  Thou shalt hear marvels if thou follow me."

34
35
36

"Thee will I follow far as is allowed me,"
  He answered; "and if smoke prevent our seeing,
  Hearing shall keep us joined instead thereof."

37
38
39

Thereon began I: "With that swathing band
  Which death unwindeth am I going upward,
  And hither came I through the infernal anguish.

40
41
42

And if God in his grace has me infolded,
  So that he wills that I behold his court
  By method wholly out of modern usage,

43
44
45

Conceal not from me who ere death thou wast,
  But tell it me, and tell me if I go
  Right for the pass, and be thy words our escort."

46
47
48

"Lombard was I, and I was Marco called;
  The world I knew, and loved that excellence,
  At which has each one now unbent his bow.

49
50
51

For mounting upward, thou art going right."
  Thus he made answer, and subjoined: "I pray thee
  To pray for me when thou shalt be above."

52
53
54

And I to him: "My faith I pledge to thee
  To do what thou dost ask me; but am bursting
  Inly with doubt, unless I rid me of it.

55
56
57

First it was simple, and is now made double
  By thy opinion, which makes certain to me,
  Here and elsewhere, that which I couple with it.

58
59
60

The world forsooth is utterly deserted
  By every virtue, as thou tellest me,
  And with iniquity is big and covered;

61
62
63

But I beseech thee point me out the cause,
  That I may see it, and to others show it;
  For one in the heavens, and here below one puts it."

64
65
66

A sigh profound, that grief forced into Ai!
  He first sent forth, and then began he: "Brother,
  The world is blind, and sooth thou comest from it!

67
68
69

Ye who are living every cause refer
  Still upward to the heavens, as if all things
  They of necessity moved with themselves.

70
71
72

If this were so, in you would be destroyed
  Free will, nor any justice would there be
  In having joy for good, or grief for evil.

73
74
75

The heavens your movements do initiate,
  I say not all; but granting that I say it,
  Light has been given you for good and evil,

76
77
78

And free volition; which, if some fatigue
  In the first battles with the heavens it suffers,
  Afterwards conquers all, if well 'tis nurtured.

79
80
81

To greater force and to a better nature,
  Though free, ye subject are, and that creates
  The mind in you the heavens have not in charge.

82
83
84

Hence, if the present world doth go astray,
  In you the cause is, be it sought in you;
  And I therein will now be thy true spy.

85
86
87

Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it
  Before it is, like to a little girl
  Weeping and laughing in her childish sport,

88
89
90

Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows,
  Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker,
  Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure.

91
92
93

Of trivial good at first it tastes the savour;
  Is cheated by it, and runs after it,
  If guide or rein turn not aside its love.

94
95
96

Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place,
  Behoved a king to have, who at the least
  Of the true city should discern the tower.

97
98
99

The laws exist, but who sets hand to them?
  No one; because the shepherd who precedes
  Can ruminate, but cleaveth not the hoof;

100
101
102

Wherefore the people that perceives its guide
  Strike only at the good for which it hankers,
  Feeds upon that, and farther seeketh not.

103
104
105

Clearly canst thou perceive that evil guidance
  The cause is that has made the world depraved,
  And not that nature is corrupt in you.

106
107
108

Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed was
  Two suns to have, which one road and the other,
  Of God and of the world, made manifest.

109
110
111

One has the other quenched, and to the crosier
  The sword is joined, and ill beseemeth it
  That by main force one with the other go,

112
113
114

Because, being joined, one feareth not the other;
  If thou believe not, think upon the grain,
  For by its seed each herb is recognized.

115
116
117

In the land laved by Po and Adige,
  Valour and courtesy used to be found,
  Before that Frederick had his controversy;

118
119
120

Now in security can pass that way
  Whoever will abstain, through sense of shame,
  From speaking with the good, or drawing near them.

121
122
123

True, three old men are left, in whom upbraids
  The ancient age the new, and late they deem it
  That God restore them to the better life:

124
125
126

Currado da Palazzo, and good Gherardo,
  And Guido da Castel, who better named is,
  In fashion of the French, the simple Lombard:

127
128
129

Say thou henceforward that the Church of Rome,
  Confounding in itself two governments,
  Falls in the mire, and soils itself and burden."

130
131
132

"O Marco mine," I said, "thou reasonest well;
  And now discern I why the sons of Levi
  Have been excluded from the heritage.

133
134
135

But what Gherardo is it, who, as sample
  Of a lost race, thou sayest has remained
  In reprobation of the barbarous age?"

136
137
138

"Either thy speech deceives me, or it tempts me,"
  He answered me; "for speaking Tuscan to me,
  It seems of good Gherardo naught thou knowest.

139
140
141

By other surname do I know him not,
  Unless I take it from his daughter Gaia.
  May God be with you, for I come no farther.

142
143
144
145

Behold the dawn, that through the smoke rays out,
  Already whitening; and I must depart—
  Yonder the Angel is—ere he appear."
Thus did he speak, and would no farther hear me.

Robert Hollander (English, 2000-2007)
1 - 7

This fiftieth canto of the Divina Commedia is literally its darkest; light finally glimmers only two lines from its conclusion (in verse 143) and its action is played completely in the smoke of Wrath. Technically, the numerical midpoint of the poem occurs between Cantos XVI and XVII, the latter of which also happens to be the middle canto of Purgatorio. Thus, as the poet prepares the entire poem and the cantica to reach their centers, it seems fitting that he first indicates the Comedy's origin in hell: Buio d'inferno (Gloom of hell).

The sky is 'barren' (literally 'poor,' or 'impoverished') in that it is 'deprived of its precious jewels,' its stars (according to Benvenuto da Imola [comm. to vv. 1-6]), mainly found in the eighth sphere, but with one 'planet' found in each of the first seven), are hidden behind layers of clouds.

The envious are made to repent by being denied their sight; the wrathful are being denied objects of sight because they were blinded by their anger for their enemies.

8 - 9

It seems that here Virgil has the power of sight, while the protagonist, like the penitents soon to be present, is effectively blind in the smoke. Is this a deliberate recasting of the situation in Purgatorio XV.115-138, where Dante can behold the ecstatic visions apparently denied to Virgil? Once again, Virgil's state would be marked off as different from that of saved souls.

The smoke that expresses the sin of Wrath on this terrace is referred to five times (XV.142; XVI.5, 25, 35, 142) and marks the last time in the poem that the noun fummo is used to describe a place. It clearly seems to be related to the smoke that marked the Circle of Anger in Inferno, where it is used three times, once (Inf. IX.75) with an adjective, acerbo (harsh), that seems to join it to the smoke we enter here. For the relationship between infernal anger and the purgation of Wrath see the note to Purgatorio XVII.19-39.

10 - 15

The simile presents an image of Dante walking behind Virgil with his hand upon the shoulder of his guide, otherwise present to him only as a voice. The image prepares us for what will happen once Marco Lombardo is his interlocutor: all he (and we) will be aware of is a voice, close to an ideal situation for a poet to contrive in order to gain undeflected attention on behalf of a presentation of moral philosophy.

19 - 21

We are presumably meant to understand that all the penitents pray on each of the previous terraces (see Purg. XI.1-24; Purg. XIII.49-51) and on this one as well. The pattern of communal liturgical prayer will be broken, for good reason, only by the slothful: Purgatorio XVIII.103-105.

Fallani (comm. to verse 19) discusses the prayer, instituted as part of the Mass by Pope Sergius I in the seventh century, comprised, once it became a part of the liturgy, of a single line that is then twice repeated: 'Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis' (Lamb of God who carry off the sins of the world, have mercy on us); in the third iteration the last phrase ('miserere nobis') gives place to the words 'dona nobis pacem' (grant us peace), a particularly apt phrase for these penitents of Wrath, beseeching the serenity to which Virgil referred in Purgatorio XV.131, 'the waters of peace.'

25 - 27

The speaker can sense that the visitor is moving the smoke that he walks through and thus must be present in the flesh; for this reason, as he correctly assumes, the new arrival is still timebound. The souls on the mountain have their own temporality, but one in which all of time is but a necessary prolegomenon to eternity, when real life begins for them. Thus for them the months of the calendar are real but meaningless.

31 - 36

Dante's captatio, his attempt to gain his listener's goodwill (see the note to Inf. II.58) celebrates the as yet unknown speaker's freedom from the flesh; his (rational) soul will soon be as it was when God breathed it into him (see Purg. XXV.70-75). The protagonist goes on to offer, in good rhetorical fashion, a reward for his auditor's collaboration. His insistence that this spirit follow him is predicated upon necessity: Dante's eyes are closed because his mortal flesh cannot bear the harshness of the smoke, with the result that he cannot see his interlocutor. The spirit, unlike Virgil, evidently cannot see in the darkness and therefore is only able to follow Dante's voice.

37 - 38

The image of the flesh as swaddling clothes, the protective cloth in which infants are wrapped, places emphasis on the soul as being the precious part of us, our bodies merely the wrapping that should keep it until it is ready for its better life.

41 - 42

This is the rather coy way that Dante refers to St. Paul's ascent to Heaven (II Corinthians 12:4) as being the last before his own. For Dante, that somewhat strange word ('modern') is not a positive one. (The Grande Dizionario indicates this as the first recorded use of the word in Italian.) For Dante, in the battle between ancients and moderns, at least when it is waged on moral grounds, ancients are better. For the three subsequent uses of the word see Purgatorio XXVI.113, Paradiso XVI.33, Paradiso XXI.131.

46 - 46

Marco the Lombard: to the many previous attempts to identify Marco (see Singleton's commentary to this verse) we must now add that of Giorgio Cracco (“Tra Marco e Marco: un cronista veneziano dietro al canto XVI del Purgatorio?” in AA. VV., Viridarium floridum: Studi di storia veneta offerti dagli allievi a Paolo Sambin, a cura di M.C. Billanovich, G. Cracco, A. Rigon [Padua: Antenore, 1984], pp. 3-23.), who points out that a Venetian living in Lombardy wrote, ca. 1292, a (still unpublished) chronicle of the provinces of Venice. He names himself simply as 'Marco' and his text contains a number of concerns and phrases that coincide with Dante's. That Dante allows him as limited identification as he does may indicate that he felt Marco's fame was great enough that his Christian name alone was sufficient to identify him.

47 - 48

Marco's words make him seem a perfect courtier: worldly, but a lover of the good, and a user of soldier's language (that of bowmanship). Poletto (comm. to vv. 46-49) also points out that his qualities would seem to mirror those of Ulysses – or at least those that Ulysses lends himself, his 'fervor... to gain experience of the world and learn about man's vices, and his worth' (Inf. XXVI.97-99).

51 - 51

Strangely enough, some commentators have taken the adverbial preposition (above) to refer to the world at the antipodes (e.g., John of Serravalle [comm. to vv. 49-51]) and one (Tommaseo [comm. to vv. 49-51]), to the earthly paradise. However, it seems unmistakably clear that Marco, having learned of Dante's destination (verse 41), is the first spirit to ask him to pray for him once he is in Heaven. This request might seem to imply either that he is of a particularly holy disposition or that he believes that no one on earth whom Dante might meet loves anything that transcends the earthly (verse 48). But see Guido Guinizzelli's similar request (Purg. XXVI.127-130).

53 - 63

Dante is bursting with a doubt, now made double by Marco's words: if the world is so thoroughly evil, wherein lies the cause? Dante wants to be informed so that he may pass the knowledge on to others, some of whom believe the cause is found on earth, while others think it is situated in the heavens. Is his doubt now 'double' because he has heard from Guido del Duca (XIV.37-42) that all in the valley of the Arno flee virtue? That is Benvenuto's reasonable hypothesis (comm. to vv. 52-57), one that has many followers. Wanting to know the 'cause' of evil (and his word, malizia [malice], is the word used in Inf. XI.22 to define the sins of the hardened will [see the note to Inf. XI.22-27], those punished within the City of Dis), the protagonist triggers the heaviest use of this noun (cagione) in the poem; it occurs four times in 44 lines, at vv. 61, 67, 83, and 104, thus underlining the centrality of this concern, to understand the root of human sinfulness, essential to the understanding of the concept of free will, as the next passage (Marco's rejoinder) and the next canto, when Virgil discourses on the nature of love, will both make plain.

64 - 66

Marco's earlier view of human depravity is obviously now deepened by the knowledge that most humans are not very bright, either, if even this specially selected mortal can ask such a stupid question.

67 - 129

Marco's speech, the only object of possible attention in the darkness, twenty-one terzine of moral philosophy, may be paraphrased as follows: If the heavens moved all things, there would be no free will; even if they did, you would still have the power to resist and conquer (67-78); to a greater power and better nature than the celestial heavens you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind [the rational soul] in you, which has nothing to do with those revolving spheres (79-83); let me expand: God lovingly created the (rational) soul in each of you; at its birth, since it was made by Him, even if it is a tabula rasa, it loves; and it loves anything at all if it is not guided or restrained; therefore, a leader and laws are necessary (84-96); laws exist, but who administers them? no one, because the pope is involved in temporal affairs and thus gives the wrong example that is much imitated (97-102); thus you can see that bad guidance and not corrupt human nature accounts for the wickedness of the world; Rome, which once made the world good, used then to have two suns which lit each path, secular and sacred (103-108); now, since the regal and pastoral functions have been conjoined, ill ensues – by their fruits shall you know them (109-114); in northern Italy, which once was the home of courtesy and valor before the Church opposed Frederick II, there are now but three good men, all of them old (115-126); thus you must make it known that the Church of Rome is befouled and befouling, arrogating unto itself both governments (127-129).

67 - 78

Marco's immediate and angry response (but his anger is meant to be taken as virtuous, as the righteous indignation of the just) lays the issue bare. 'The fault is in the stars' was an earlier day's way of claiming 'the dog [or computer] ate my homework' or 'the devil made me do it.' The celestial spheres, forming our tendencies, do incline us to various sensuous and sensual activities, but we are not forced to follow our appetites, since we have our will to direct our appetites. The concept of free will does not receive its full exposition until Beatrice's discourse upon it in Paradiso V.19-84, a moment marked by heavy seriousness because this concept lies at the very core of any Christian moral assertion. In Platonic (and Aristotelian) terms, our sensitive soul, which responds to such stimuli, is (or should be) governed by our rational soul.

79 - 81

The great Christian paradox of our free submission to God's will stands before the reader here. Singleton (comm. to verse 80) suggests the relevance of Jesus' reference to himself as a yoke to be borne by his followers (Matthew 11:29) and Dante's own paradoxical formulation, 'iugum libertatis' (the yoke of liberty) in his epistle (Epistle VI.5) to the Florentines who were in opposition to the emperor (Henry VII) in the autumn of 1310. God, the greater force and better nature, creates the third (rational) soul in us which is not bound by celestial influences.

82 - 84

Concluding the grand design of his argument, Marco triumphantly puts forward his ergo: any fault that we find when we examine human activity lies in us, not in our stars. And now he will expatiate on this paradigmatic equation.

85 - 90

The image of the female child (its gender matching that of the word anima [soul]) heedless in her playfulness picks up the train of such images of youthful ebullience from the last canto, where the sun was disporting himself like a little boy (see the note to Purg. XV.1-6). The rational soul, as yet unknowing, turns to anything that delights it without measuring the worth of that delight.

91 - 93

This 'ladder' of physically attractive objects, beginning with trifling goods, was earlier described by Dante in Convivio IV.xii.14-18, as was apparently first noted by Scartazzini (comm. to verse 90), when we begin, as children, longing for an apple, a little bird, pretty garments, then a horse, a mistress, riches, then greater riches, and finally enormous wealth. So does the corrupt human soul move from childhood to its 'maturity' – unless such appetites are controlled.

94 - 96

The 'ruler' that Marco (not to mention Dante) seems to have in mind would not appear to be anything but secular. Some commentators recognize how radical an idea this is, while several of them (e.g., Benvenuto, Lombardi) simply assume that Dante must here be speaking of a religious leader. But the language is clear: the poet is speaking of an emperor who, guiding our race as its leader (the guida [guide] of verse 93) and upholding the laws (the fren [rein] of that verse), will allow us to see at least the tower of the 'true city.' The question of whether this is meant to be understood as the City of God on earth or in Heaven, or indeed of an ideal secular city, draws some dispute. Whatever the solution of that part of the riddle, the forceful and (at least potentially) disturbing fact is that Dante, in search of moral leadership for mankind (rather than for individual humans), here looks to the state rather than to the Church.

97 - 99

This tercet explains the vigorous and unusual Ghibelline turn in the preceding verses. The laws, left us by Justinian, exist but are not enforced. And this blame is laid upon the Church for keeping the emperor from power, since the pope may indeed ruminate, but does not distinguish between ecclesiastical and secular power. Tozer (comm. to verse 99) explains the reference as follows: 'The terms here used refer to the tests by which beasts were determined to be clean under the Mosaic law, i.e., that they should chew the cud and divide the hoof (Lev. 11:3). As applied to the Heads of the Church, the allegorical meaning of “chewing the cud” seems to be the acquisition of wisdom by pondering on sources of knowledge; but in respect of “dividing the hoof” the symbolism is twofold.... First, it signifies the practice of good morals,... and it is applied in this sense in vv. 100-105, where it is explained that it was the unprincipled conduct of the Roman Court which had demoralized the world. Secondly, the dividing of the hoof represents the separation of the temporal and spiritual powers, which principle the popes had ignored. This interpretation is found in vv. 127-129, where the Church of Rome is spoken of as a beast of burden, which falls in the mud in consequence of its not distinguishing between these two spheres of government, the reference obviously being to the support given to such animals in slippery ground by the divided hoof. The two allegorical applications are not wholly unconnected with one another, because it was greed of worldly gains which led to the appropriation of the temporal power by the Papacy.'

100 - 102

The reason that Dante here hopes only for temporal moral leadership is now completely clear: the current papacy leads mankind only in the example of unbridled appetite. Thus the Church, which is not to interfere with the City of Man on Earth (Augustine's negative phrase turned to a Dantean positive), cannot show the way to the City of God, either, and that task is turned over, in Dante's asseverations here, to the emperor. It is perhaps impossible to believe that he would have written such lines without having Henry VII in mind as the one who must accomplish these tasks of leadership. If Dante is writing between 1310 and 1313, it is more than likely that he did.

106 - 108

The culminating image in Marco's discourse returns to the 'good old days' when the early Church and the empire each performed their functions separately.

Dante is here, within the confines of a single tercet, entering polemically into one of the great political/theological debates of his time, the relative authority of emperor and pope. Against the hierocrats, who warmly supported papal claims to supremacy, Dante argues, on the basis of a revision in the hierocrats' central and polemical metaphor (pope as 'sun,' emperor as subordinate 'moon'), that the two authorities are both supreme and have their authority independent of one another, both being established by the direct will of God. Singleton (comm. to verse 106) remembers, in this context, Dante's earlier and later precisions (Conv. IV.v.3-8; Mon. I.xvi.1-2) that when Christ was born under the rule of Augustus the world experienced a moment of perfection, what St. Paul calls plenitudinem temporis (the fullness of time – Galatians 4:4). Dante will later develop the metaphor of the 'two suns' in a key chapter of Monarchia (III.iv). (For the date of Monarchia see the brief summary of the debate in Hollander [Dante: A Life in Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001)], pp. 150-51. Most currently interested in the problem believe that the work was composed ca. 1317, i.e., after the death of Henry VII, and after Dante had composed the early cantos of his Paradiso, since in Monarchia I.xii.6 he says 'sicut in Paradiso Comoedie iam dixi' [as I have said in the Paradiso of my Comedy], referring to Paradiso V.19-24). Scott [Dante's Political Purgatory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996)], p. 155, thinks both these passages were written after Pope Clement's 'betrayal' of Henry VII, 1312-1313.)

On the entire subject of the authority of the emperor see the still essential work of Ernst Kantorowicz (The King's Two Bodies [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957]).

For a passage in St. Gregory Nazianzus's De vita sua that may have caught Dante's attention see Giovanni Farris's article (“I 'due soli' [Pg. XVI 107] ed una fonte patristica,” Critica letteraria 4 [1976], pp. 211-16): 'Non autem Natura dedit duo lumina solis / Sed Romas dedit illa duas, quae totius orbis / Lampades existunt, Romam veteremque novamque: / Hoc inter sese tantum discrimen habentes, / Quod videt hanc Phoebus splendere, sed Hesperus illam.'

109 - 114

Dante laments the fact that now the Church's pastoral crook has taken into itself the imperial sword; his image, though of inanimate things, makes the resultant object seem a horrific animate hybrid, as does the reference to Matthew 7:16 or 7:20: 'by their fruits you shall know them' (words spoken by Jesus to impugn false teachers).

115 - 120

Dante's geographical reference is to the northeastern sector of Italy, not the territories associated with the presence of the emperor Frederick, but Marco's home ground. For Dante, Frederick was the last emperor to take his role as emperor of all Europe seriously (see Conv. IV.iii.6, as Pietrobono [comm. to verse 117] suggests, where he is described as 'the last emperor of the Romans'). It may seem strange that Dante should here support the kingship of Frederick II, seen among the heretics in hell (Inf. X.119). The issue, however, is not Frederick's personal worth, but his rights and privileges as emperor. These were grounds for contention between Frederick and the Church throughout his reign (1212-1250).

121 - 126

Marco's three vecchi, all still alive in 1300, offer a Lombard counterpart to Cacciaguida's forty Florentine families from the 'good old days' in that city that are listed in Paradiso XVI: Currado da Palazzo, from Brescia; Gherardo da Camino, from Padua; and Guido da Castello, from Reggio Emilia. All three of them had Guelph affiliations. Dante praises the last two in Convivio when he is discussing true nobility (Conv. IV.xiv.12; IV.xvi.6).

127 - 129

Marco's antipapal charge to Dante will be echoed and amplified in that given him by Beatrice in Purgatorio XXXII.103-105.

131 - 132

Dante shows his agreement with Marco's analysis of the church/state problem in contemporary Christendom in ancient Hebrew terms: the family of Levi, because they were, like the sons of Aaron, in a priestly function for Israel, were denied any right to inherit land because of their priestly privileges. See Numbers 18:20-32.

133 - 140

The protagonist's ignorance of Gherardo's virtues offers Marco (and the poet) a chance to replay the theme of the moment, that things are not what they used to be. The early commentators are uncertain whether or not the mention of Gaia is meant to be to her praise or blame. Jacopo della Lana (comm. to verse 140) and Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 139-140) say she was well known as a loose woman. However, Benvenuto's self-proclaimed student, John of Serravalle, who generally supports his maestro's opinions, has only good to speak of her (and even claims that she wrote vernacular poetry – [comm. to vv.139-141]). Most modern commentators argue that, since the argument at hand is that the old times bore at least some notable virtue while the present day is leaden in that respect, it would only make sense for Gaia's name to represent a descent from virtue. The meaning of the clause 's'io nol togliessi da sua figlia Gaia' (unless / I were to take one [a nickname] from his daughter, Gaia) is, however, problematic. According to Torraca (comm. to vv. 139-149) his sobriquet would then be 'il gaio' (the merry) in recognition of his courtly actions and style of being; there is probably no better positive reading of the verse than this one. If we wish to insist on the logically more promising negative force of this line, the same descriptive phrase (now only meaning 'the father of Gaia') would have the effect of showing how the virtues of the father were not found in the daughter. While the logic of this entire sequence calls for such a reading, the feeling in the line would seem to support Torraca's currently unfavored reading. As several commentators suggest, until such time as some clearer evidence for Dante's opinion of Gaia is unearthed, it is impossible to be sure of the tone of the reference, wholehearted or ironic. The only two other uses of the word gaio in the poem are, however, totally positive: see Paradiso XV.60 and XXVI.102. Nonetheless, in verse 121 Dante has Marco refer to only three old men still alive in Lombardy who are good. Since Gaia did not die until 1311, would she not have to be considered a fourth good Lombard (and thus not to be included)? Or, as a woman, is she not allowed inclusion in the paltry list of the virtuous?

141 - 145

Having walked through the smoke, they have now reached its 'edge,' and so may soon regain the light of the sun. Thus we learn that Marco and his colleagues in repenting Wrath all must measure their pace so as not to walk either too slowly or too quickly in the smoke, which is moving clockwise along the terrace. The smoke does not come upon them, as it did Dante and Virgil; they inhabit it. Marco now retreats from the light, having walked too quickly in order to keep pace with his new companions.

Purgatorio: Canto 16

1
2
3

Buio d'inferno e di notte privata
d'ogne pianeto, sotto pover cielo,
quant' esser può di nuvol tenebrata,
4
5
6

non fece al viso mio sì grosso velo
come quel fummo ch'ivi ci coperse,
né a sentir di così aspro pelo,
7
8
9

che l'occhio stare aperto non sofferse;
onde la scorta mia saputa e fida
mi s'accostò e l'omero m'offerse.
10
11
12

Sì come cieco va dietro a sua guida
per non smarrirsi e per non dar di cozzo
in cosa che 'l molesti, o forse ancida,
13
14
15

m'andava io per l'aere amaro e sozzo,
ascoltando il mio duca che diceva
pur: “Guarda che da me tu non sia mozzo.”
16
17
18

Io sentia voci, e ciascuna pareva
pregar per pace e per misericordia
l'Agnel di Dio che le peccata leva.
19
20
21

Pur “Agnus Dei” eran le loro essordia;
una parola in tutte era e un modo,
sì che parea tra esse ogne concordia.
22
23
24

“Quei sono spirti, maestro, ch'i' odo?”
diss' io. Ed elli a me: “Tu vero apprendi,
e d'iracundia van solvendo il nodo.”
25
26
27

“Or tu chi se' che 'l nostro fummo fendi,
e di noi parli pur come se tue
partissi ancor lo tempo per calendi?”
28
29
30

Così per una voce detto fue;
onde 'l maestro mio disse: “Rispondi,
e domanda se quinci si va sùe.”
31
32
33

E io: “O creatura che ti mondi
per tornar bella a colui che ti fece,
maraviglia udirai, se mi secondi.”
34
35
36

“Io ti seguiterò quanto mi lece,”
rispuose; “e se veder fummo non lascia
l'udir ci terrà giunti in quella vece.”
37
38
39

Allora incominciai: “Con quella fascia
che la morte dissolve men vo suso,
e venni qui per l'infernale ambascia.
40
41
42

E se Dio m'ha in sua grazia rinchiuso,
tanto che vuol ch'i' veggia la sua corte
per modo tutto fuor del moderno uso,
43
44
45

non mi celar chi fosti anzi la morte,
ma dilmi, e dimmi s'i' vo bene al varco;
e tue parole fier le nostre scorte.”
46
47
48

“Lombardo fui, e fu' chiamato Marco;
del mondo seppi, e quel valore amai
al quale ha or ciascun disteso l'arco.
49
50
51

Per montar sù dirittamente vai.”
Così rispuose, e soggiunse: “I' ti prego
che per me prieghi quando sù sarai.”
52
53
54

E io a lui: “Per fede mi ti lego
di far ciò che mi chiedi; ma io scoppio
dentro ad un dubbio, s'io non me ne spiego.
55
56
57

Prima era scempio, e ora è fatto doppio
ne la sentenza tua, che mi fa certo
qui, e altrove, quello ov' io l'accoppio.
58
59
60

Lo mondo è ben così tutto diserto
d'ogne virtute, come tu mi sone,
e di malizia gravido e coverto;
61
62
63

ma priego che m'addite la cagione,
sì ch'i' la veggia e ch'i' la mostri altrui;
ché nel cielo uno, e un qua giù la pone.”
64
65
66

Alto sospir, che duolo strinse in “uhi!”
mise fuor prima; e poi cominciò: “Frate,
lo mondo è cieco, e tu vien ben da lui.
67
68
69

Voi che vivete ogne cagion recate
pur suso al cielo, pur come se tutto
movesse seco di necessitate.
70
71
72

Se così fosse, in voi fora distrutto
libero arbitrio, e non fora giustizia
per ben letizia, e per male aver lutto.
73
74
75

Lo cielo i vostri movimenti inizia;
non dico tutti, ma, posto ch'i' 'l dica,
lume v'è dato a bene e a malizia,
76
77
78

e libero voler; che, se fatica
ne le prime battaglie col ciel dura,
poi vince tutto, se ben si notrica.
79
80
81

A maggior forza e a miglior natura
liberi soggiacete; e quella cria
la mente in voi, che 'l ciel non ha in sua cura.
82
83
84

Però, se 'l mondo presente disvia,
in voi è la cagione, in voi si cheggia;
e io te ne sarò or vera spia.
85
86
87

Esce di mano a lui che la vagheggia
prima che sia, a guisa di fanciulla
che piangendo e ridendo pargoleggia,
88
89
90

l'anima semplicetta che sa nulla,
salvo che, mossa da lieto fattore,
volontier torna a ciò che la trastulla.
91
92
93

Di picciol bene in pria sente sapore;
quivi s'inganna, e dietro ad esso corre,
se guida o fren non torce suo amore.
94
95
96

Onde convenne legge per fren porre;
convenne rege aver, che discernesse
de la vera cittade almen la torre.
97
98
99

Le leggi son, ma chi pon mano ad esse?
Nullo, però che 'l pastor che procede,
rugumar può, ma non ha l'unghie fesse;
100
101
102

per che la gente, che sua guida vede
pur a quel ben fedire ond' ella è ghiotta,
di quel si pasce, e più oltre non chiede.
103
104
105

Ben puoi veder che la mala condotta
è la cagion che 'l mondo ha fatto reo,
e non natura che 'n voi sia corrotta.
106
107
108

Soleva Roma, che 'l buon mondo feo,
due soli aver, che l'una e l'altra strada
facean vedere, e del mondo e di Deo.
109
110
111

L'un l'altro ha spento; ed è giunta la spada
col pasturale, e l'un con l'altro insieme
per viva forza mal convien che vada;
112
113
114

però che, giunti, l'un l'altro non teme:
se non mi credi, pon mente a la spiga,
ch'ogn' erba si conosce per lo seme.
115
116
117

In sul paese ch'Adice e Po riga,
solea valore e cortesia trovarsi,
prima che Federigo avesse briga;
118
119
120

or può sicuramente indi passarsi
per qualunque lasciasse, per vergogna,
di ragionar coi buoni o d'appressarsi.
121
122
123

Ben v'èn tre vecchi ancora in cui rampogna
l'antica età la nova, e par lor tardo
che Dio a miglior vita li ripogna:
124
125
126

Currado da Palazzo e 'l buon Gherardo
e Guido da Castel, che mei si noma,
francescamente, il semplice Lombardo.
127
128
129

Dì oggimai che la Chiesa di Roma,
per confondere in sé due reggimenti,
cade nel fango, e sé brutta e la soma.”
130
131
132

“O Marco mio,” diss' io, “bene argomenti;
e or discerno perchè dal retaggio
li figli di Levì furono essenti.
133
134
135

Ma qual Gherardo è quel che tu per saggio
di' ch'è rimaso de la gente spenta,
in rimprovèro del secol selvaggio?”
136
137
138

“O tuo parlar m'inganna, o el mi tenta”
rispuose a me; “ché parlandomi tosco,
par che del buon Gherardo nulla senta.
139
140
141

Per altro sopranome io nol conosco,
s'io nol togliessi da sua figlia Gaia.
Dio sia con voi, ché più non vegno vosco.
142
143
144
145

Vedi l'albor che per lo fummo raia
già biancheggiare, e me convien partirmi
(l'angelo è ivi) prima ch'io li paia.”
Così tornò, e più non volle udirmi.
1
2
3

Darkness of hell, and of a night deprived
  Of every planet under a poor sky,
  As much as may be tenebrous with cloud,

4
5
6

Ne'er made unto my sight so thick a veil,
  As did that smoke which there enveloped us,
  Nor to the feeling of so rough a texture;

7
8
9

For not an eye it suffered to stay open;
  Whereat mine escort, faithful and sagacious,
  Drew near to me and offered me his shoulder.

10
11
12

E'en as a blind man goes behind his guide,
  Lest he should wander, or should strike against
  Aught that may harm or peradventure kill him,

13
14
15

So went I through the bitter and foul air,
  Listening unto my Leader, who said only,
  "Look that from me thou be not separated."

16
17
18

Voices I heard, and every one appeared
  To supplicate for peace and misericord
  The Lamb of God who takes away our sins.

19
20
21

Still "Agnus Dei" their exordium was;
  One word there was in all, and metre one,
  So that all harmony appeared among them.

22
23
24

"Master," I said, "are spirits those I hear?"
  And he to me: "Thou apprehendest truly,
  And they the knot of anger go unloosing."

25
26
27

"Now who art thou, that cleavest through our smoke
  And art discoursing of us even as though
  Thou didst by calends still divide the time?"

28
29
30

After this manner by a voice was spoken;
  Whereon my Master said: "Do thou reply,
  And ask if on this side the way go upward."

31
32
33

And I: "O creature that dost cleanse thyself
  To return beautiful to Him who made thee,
  Thou shalt hear marvels if thou follow me."

34
35
36

"Thee will I follow far as is allowed me,"
  He answered; "and if smoke prevent our seeing,
  Hearing shall keep us joined instead thereof."

37
38
39

Thereon began I: "With that swathing band
  Which death unwindeth am I going upward,
  And hither came I through the infernal anguish.

40
41
42

And if God in his grace has me infolded,
  So that he wills that I behold his court
  By method wholly out of modern usage,

43
44
45

Conceal not from me who ere death thou wast,
  But tell it me, and tell me if I go
  Right for the pass, and be thy words our escort."

46
47
48

"Lombard was I, and I was Marco called;
  The world I knew, and loved that excellence,
  At which has each one now unbent his bow.

49
50
51

For mounting upward, thou art going right."
  Thus he made answer, and subjoined: "I pray thee
  To pray for me when thou shalt be above."

52
53
54

And I to him: "My faith I pledge to thee
  To do what thou dost ask me; but am bursting
  Inly with doubt, unless I rid me of it.

55
56
57

First it was simple, and is now made double
  By thy opinion, which makes certain to me,
  Here and elsewhere, that which I couple with it.

58
59
60

The world forsooth is utterly deserted
  By every virtue, as thou tellest me,
  And with iniquity is big and covered;

61
62
63

But I beseech thee point me out the cause,
  That I may see it, and to others show it;
  For one in the heavens, and here below one puts it."

64
65
66

A sigh profound, that grief forced into Ai!
  He first sent forth, and then began he: "Brother,
  The world is blind, and sooth thou comest from it!

67
68
69

Ye who are living every cause refer
  Still upward to the heavens, as if all things
  They of necessity moved with themselves.

70
71
72

If this were so, in you would be destroyed
  Free will, nor any justice would there be
  In having joy for good, or grief for evil.

73
74
75

The heavens your movements do initiate,
  I say not all; but granting that I say it,
  Light has been given you for good and evil,

76
77
78

And free volition; which, if some fatigue
  In the first battles with the heavens it suffers,
  Afterwards conquers all, if well 'tis nurtured.

79
80
81

To greater force and to a better nature,
  Though free, ye subject are, and that creates
  The mind in you the heavens have not in charge.

82
83
84

Hence, if the present world doth go astray,
  In you the cause is, be it sought in you;
  And I therein will now be thy true spy.

85
86
87

Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it
  Before it is, like to a little girl
  Weeping and laughing in her childish sport,

88
89
90

Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows,
  Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker,
  Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure.

91
92
93

Of trivial good at first it tastes the savour;
  Is cheated by it, and runs after it,
  If guide or rein turn not aside its love.

94
95
96

Hence it behoved laws for a rein to place,
  Behoved a king to have, who at the least
  Of the true city should discern the tower.

97
98
99

The laws exist, but who sets hand to them?
  No one; because the shepherd who precedes
  Can ruminate, but cleaveth not the hoof;

100
101
102

Wherefore the people that perceives its guide
  Strike only at the good for which it hankers,
  Feeds upon that, and farther seeketh not.

103
104
105

Clearly canst thou perceive that evil guidance
  The cause is that has made the world depraved,
  And not that nature is corrupt in you.

106
107
108

Rome, that reformed the world, accustomed was
  Two suns to have, which one road and the other,
  Of God and of the world, made manifest.

109
110
111

One has the other quenched, and to the crosier
  The sword is joined, and ill beseemeth it
  That by main force one with the other go,

112
113
114

Because, being joined, one feareth not the other;
  If thou believe not, think upon the grain,
  For by its seed each herb is recognized.

115
116
117

In the land laved by Po and Adige,
  Valour and courtesy used to be found,
  Before that Frederick had his controversy;

118
119
120

Now in security can pass that way
  Whoever will abstain, through sense of shame,
  From speaking with the good, or drawing near them.

121
122
123

True, three old men are left, in whom upbraids
  The ancient age the new, and late they deem it
  That God restore them to the better life:

124
125
126

Currado da Palazzo, and good Gherardo,
  And Guido da Castel, who better named is,
  In fashion of the French, the simple Lombard:

127
128
129

Say thou henceforward that the Church of Rome,
  Confounding in itself two governments,
  Falls in the mire, and soils itself and burden."

130
131
132

"O Marco mine," I said, "thou reasonest well;
  And now discern I why the sons of Levi
  Have been excluded from the heritage.

133
134
135

But what Gherardo is it, who, as sample
  Of a lost race, thou sayest has remained
  In reprobation of the barbarous age?"

136
137
138

"Either thy speech deceives me, or it tempts me,"
  He answered me; "for speaking Tuscan to me,
  It seems of good Gherardo naught thou knowest.

139
140
141

By other surname do I know him not,
  Unless I take it from his daughter Gaia.
  May God be with you, for I come no farther.

142
143
144
145

Behold the dawn, that through the smoke rays out,
  Already whitening; and I must depart—
  Yonder the Angel is—ere he appear."
Thus did he speak, and would no farther hear me.

Robert Hollander (English, 2000-2007)
1 - 7

This fiftieth canto of the Divina Commedia is literally its darkest; light finally glimmers only two lines from its conclusion (in verse 143) and its action is played completely in the smoke of Wrath. Technically, the numerical midpoint of the poem occurs between Cantos XVI and XVII, the latter of which also happens to be the middle canto of Purgatorio. Thus, as the poet prepares the entire poem and the cantica to reach their centers, it seems fitting that he first indicates the Comedy's origin in hell: Buio d'inferno (Gloom of hell).

The sky is 'barren' (literally 'poor,' or 'impoverished') in that it is 'deprived of its precious jewels,' its stars (according to Benvenuto da Imola [comm. to vv. 1-6]), mainly found in the eighth sphere, but with one 'planet' found in each of the first seven), are hidden behind layers of clouds.

The envious are made to repent by being denied their sight; the wrathful are being denied objects of sight because they were blinded by their anger for their enemies.

8 - 9

It seems that here Virgil has the power of sight, while the protagonist, like the penitents soon to be present, is effectively blind in the smoke. Is this a deliberate recasting of the situation in Purgatorio XV.115-138, where Dante can behold the ecstatic visions apparently denied to Virgil? Once again, Virgil's state would be marked off as different from that of saved souls.

The smoke that expresses the sin of Wrath on this terrace is referred to five times (XV.142; XVI.5, 25, 35, 142) and marks the last time in the poem that the noun fummo is used to describe a place. It clearly seems to be related to the smoke that marked the Circle of Anger in Inferno, where it is used three times, once (Inf. IX.75) with an adjective, acerbo (harsh), that seems to join it to the smoke we enter here. For the relationship between infernal anger and the purgation of Wrath see the note to Purgatorio XVII.19-39.

10 - 15

The simile presents an image of Dante walking behind Virgil with his hand upon the shoulder of his guide, otherwise present to him only as a voice. The image prepares us for what will happen once Marco Lombardo is his interlocutor: all he (and we) will be aware of is a voice, close to an ideal situation for a poet to contrive in order to gain undeflected attention on behalf of a presentation of moral philosophy.

19 - 21

We are presumably meant to understand that all the penitents pray on each of the previous terraces (see Purg. XI.1-24; Purg. XIII.49-51) and on this one as well. The pattern of communal liturgical prayer will be broken, for good reason, only by the slothful: Purgatorio XVIII.103-105.

Fallani (comm. to verse 19) discusses the prayer, instituted as part of the Mass by Pope Sergius I in the seventh century, comprised, once it became a part of the liturgy, of a single line that is then twice repeated: 'Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis' (Lamb of God who carry off the sins of the world, have mercy on us); in the third iteration the last phrase ('miserere nobis') gives place to the words 'dona nobis pacem' (grant us peace), a particularly apt phrase for these penitents of Wrath, beseeching the serenity to which Virgil referred in Purgatorio XV.131, 'the waters of peace.'

25 - 27

The speaker can sense that the visitor is moving the smoke that he walks through and thus must be present in the flesh; for this reason, as he correctly assumes, the new arrival is still timebound. The souls on the mountain have their own temporality, but one in which all of time is but a necessary prolegomenon to eternity, when real life begins for them. Thus for them the months of the calendar are real but meaningless.

31 - 36

Dante's captatio, his attempt to gain his listener's goodwill (see the note to Inf. II.58) celebrates the as yet unknown speaker's freedom from the flesh; his (rational) soul will soon be as it was when God breathed it into him (see Purg. XXV.70-75). The protagonist goes on to offer, in good rhetorical fashion, a reward for his auditor's collaboration. His insistence that this spirit follow him is predicated upon necessity: Dante's eyes are closed because his mortal flesh cannot bear the harshness of the smoke, with the result that he cannot see his interlocutor. The spirit, unlike Virgil, evidently cannot see in the darkness and therefore is only able to follow Dante's voice.

37 - 38

The image of the flesh as swaddling clothes, the protective cloth in which infants are wrapped, places emphasis on the soul as being the precious part of us, our bodies merely the wrapping that should keep it until it is ready for its better life.

41 - 42

This is the rather coy way that Dante refers to St. Paul's ascent to Heaven (II Corinthians 12:4) as being the last before his own. For Dante, that somewhat strange word ('modern') is not a positive one. (The Grande Dizionario indicates this as the first recorded use of the word in Italian.) For Dante, in the battle between ancients and moderns, at least when it is waged on moral grounds, ancients are better. For the three subsequent uses of the word see Purgatorio XXVI.113, Paradiso XVI.33, Paradiso XXI.131.

46 - 46

Marco the Lombard: to the many previous attempts to identify Marco (see Singleton's commentary to this verse) we must now add that of Giorgio Cracco (“Tra Marco e Marco: un cronista veneziano dietro al canto XVI del Purgatorio?” in AA. VV., Viridarium floridum: Studi di storia veneta offerti dagli allievi a Paolo Sambin, a cura di M.C. Billanovich, G. Cracco, A. Rigon [Padua: Antenore, 1984], pp. 3-23.), who points out that a Venetian living in Lombardy wrote, ca. 1292, a (still unpublished) chronicle of the provinces of Venice. He names himself simply as 'Marco' and his text contains a number of concerns and phrases that coincide with Dante's. That Dante allows him as limited identification as he does may indicate that he felt Marco's fame was great enough that his Christian name alone was sufficient to identify him.

47 - 48

Marco's words make him seem a perfect courtier: worldly, but a lover of the good, and a user of soldier's language (that of bowmanship). Poletto (comm. to vv. 46-49) also points out that his qualities would seem to mirror those of Ulysses – or at least those that Ulysses lends himself, his 'fervor... to gain experience of the world and learn about man's vices, and his worth' (Inf. XXVI.97-99).

51 - 51

Strangely enough, some commentators have taken the adverbial preposition (above) to refer to the world at the antipodes (e.g., John of Serravalle [comm. to vv. 49-51]) and one (Tommaseo [comm. to vv. 49-51]), to the earthly paradise. However, it seems unmistakably clear that Marco, having learned of Dante's destination (verse 41), is the first spirit to ask him to pray for him once he is in Heaven. This request might seem to imply either that he is of a particularly holy disposition or that he believes that no one on earth whom Dante might meet loves anything that transcends the earthly (verse 48). But see Guido Guinizzelli's similar request (Purg. XXVI.127-130).

53 - 63

Dante is bursting with a doubt, now made double by Marco's words: if the world is so thoroughly evil, wherein lies the cause? Dante wants to be informed so that he may pass the knowledge on to others, some of whom believe the cause is found on earth, while others think it is situated in the heavens. Is his doubt now 'double' because he has heard from Guido del Duca (XIV.37-42) that all in the valley of the Arno flee virtue? That is Benvenuto's reasonable hypothesis (comm. to vv. 52-57), one that has many followers. Wanting to know the 'cause' of evil (and his word, malizia [malice], is the word used in Inf. XI.22 to define the sins of the hardened will [see the note to Inf. XI.22-27], those punished within the City of Dis), the protagonist triggers the heaviest use of this noun (cagione) in the poem; it occurs four times in 44 lines, at vv. 61, 67, 83, and 104, thus underlining the centrality of this concern, to understand the root of human sinfulness, essential to the understanding of the concept of free will, as the next passage (Marco's rejoinder) and the next canto, when Virgil discourses on the nature of love, will both make plain.

64 - 66

Marco's earlier view of human depravity is obviously now deepened by the knowledge that most humans are not very bright, either, if even this specially selected mortal can ask such a stupid question.

67 - 129

Marco's speech, the only object of possible attention in the darkness, twenty-one terzine of moral philosophy, may be paraphrased as follows: If the heavens moved all things, there would be no free will; even if they did, you would still have the power to resist and conquer (67-78); to a greater power and better nature than the celestial heavens you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind [the rational soul] in you, which has nothing to do with those revolving spheres (79-83); let me expand: God lovingly created the (rational) soul in each of you; at its birth, since it was made by Him, even if it is a tabula rasa, it loves; and it loves anything at all if it is not guided or restrained; therefore, a leader and laws are necessary (84-96); laws exist, but who administers them? no one, because the pope is involved in temporal affairs and thus gives the wrong example that is much imitated (97-102); thus you can see that bad guidance and not corrupt human nature accounts for the wickedness of the world; Rome, which once made the world good, used then to have two suns which lit each path, secular and sacred (103-108); now, since the regal and pastoral functions have been conjoined, ill ensues – by their fruits shall you know them (109-114); in northern Italy, which once was the home of courtesy and valor before the Church opposed Frederick II, there are now but three good men, all of them old (115-126); thus you must make it known that the Church of Rome is befouled and befouling, arrogating unto itself both governments (127-129).

67 - 78

Marco's immediate and angry response (but his anger is meant to be taken as virtuous, as the righteous indignation of the just) lays the issue bare. 'The fault is in the stars' was an earlier day's way of claiming 'the dog [or computer] ate my homework' or 'the devil made me do it.' The celestial spheres, forming our tendencies, do incline us to various sensuous and sensual activities, but we are not forced to follow our appetites, since we have our will to direct our appetites. The concept of free will does not receive its full exposition until Beatrice's discourse upon it in Paradiso V.19-84, a moment marked by heavy seriousness because this concept lies at the very core of any Christian moral assertion. In Platonic (and Aristotelian) terms, our sensitive soul, which responds to such stimuli, is (or should be) governed by our rational soul.

79 - 81

The great Christian paradox of our free submission to God's will stands before the reader here. Singleton (comm. to verse 80) suggests the relevance of Jesus' reference to himself as a yoke to be borne by his followers (Matthew 11:29) and Dante's own paradoxical formulation, 'iugum libertatis' (the yoke of liberty) in his epistle (Epistle VI.5) to the Florentines who were in opposition to the emperor (Henry VII) in the autumn of 1310. God, the greater force and better nature, creates the third (rational) soul in us which is not bound by celestial influences.

82 - 84

Concluding the grand design of his argument, Marco triumphantly puts forward his ergo: any fault that we find when we examine human activity lies in us, not in our stars. And now he will expatiate on this paradigmatic equation.

85 - 90

The image of the female child (its gender matching that of the word anima [soul]) heedless in her playfulness picks up the train of such images of youthful ebullience from the last canto, where the sun was disporting himself like a little boy (see the note to Purg. XV.1-6). The rational soul, as yet unknowing, turns to anything that delights it without measuring the worth of that delight.

91 - 93

This 'ladder' of physically attractive objects, beginning with trifling goods, was earlier described by Dante in Convivio IV.xii.14-18, as was apparently first noted by Scartazzini (comm. to verse 90), when we begin, as children, longing for an apple, a little bird, pretty garments, then a horse, a mistress, riches, then greater riches, and finally enormous wealth. So does the corrupt human soul move from childhood to its 'maturity' – unless such appetites are controlled.

94 - 96

The 'ruler' that Marco (not to mention Dante) seems to have in mind would not appear to be anything but secular. Some commentators recognize how radical an idea this is, while several of them (e.g., Benvenuto, Lombardi) simply assume that Dante must here be speaking of a religious leader. But the language is clear: the poet is speaking of an emperor who, guiding our race as its leader (the guida [guide] of verse 93) and upholding the laws (the fren [rein] of that verse), will allow us to see at least the tower of the 'true city.' The question of whether this is meant to be understood as the City of God on earth or in Heaven, or indeed of an ideal secular city, draws some dispute. Whatever the solution of that part of the riddle, the forceful and (at least potentially) disturbing fact is that Dante, in search of moral leadership for mankind (rather than for individual humans), here looks to the state rather than to the Church.

97 - 99

This tercet explains the vigorous and unusual Ghibelline turn in the preceding verses. The laws, left us by Justinian, exist but are not enforced. And this blame is laid upon the Church for keeping the emperor from power, since the pope may indeed ruminate, but does not distinguish between ecclesiastical and secular power. Tozer (comm. to verse 99) explains the reference as follows: 'The terms here used refer to the tests by which beasts were determined to be clean under the Mosaic law, i.e., that they should chew the cud and divide the hoof (Lev. 11:3). As applied to the Heads of the Church, the allegorical meaning of “chewing the cud” seems to be the acquisition of wisdom by pondering on sources of knowledge; but in respect of “dividing the hoof” the symbolism is twofold.... First, it signifies the practice of good morals,... and it is applied in this sense in vv. 100-105, where it is explained that it was the unprincipled conduct of the Roman Court which had demoralized the world. Secondly, the dividing of the hoof represents the separation of the temporal and spiritual powers, which principle the popes had ignored. This interpretation is found in vv. 127-129, where the Church of Rome is spoken of as a beast of burden, which falls in the mud in consequence of its not distinguishing between these two spheres of government, the reference obviously being to the support given to such animals in slippery ground by the divided hoof. The two allegorical applications are not wholly unconnected with one another, because it was greed of worldly gains which led to the appropriation of the temporal power by the Papacy.'

100 - 102

The reason that Dante here hopes only for temporal moral leadership is now completely clear: the current papacy leads mankind only in the example of unbridled appetite. Thus the Church, which is not to interfere with the City of Man on Earth (Augustine's negative phrase turned to a Dantean positive), cannot show the way to the City of God, either, and that task is turned over, in Dante's asseverations here, to the emperor. It is perhaps impossible to believe that he would have written such lines without having Henry VII in mind as the one who must accomplish these tasks of leadership. If Dante is writing between 1310 and 1313, it is more than likely that he did.

106 - 108

The culminating image in Marco's discourse returns to the 'good old days' when the early Church and the empire each performed their functions separately.

Dante is here, within the confines of a single tercet, entering polemically into one of the great political/theological debates of his time, the relative authority of emperor and pope. Against the hierocrats, who warmly supported papal claims to supremacy, Dante argues, on the basis of a revision in the hierocrats' central and polemical metaphor (pope as 'sun,' emperor as subordinate 'moon'), that the two authorities are both supreme and have their authority independent of one another, both being established by the direct will of God. Singleton (comm. to verse 106) remembers, in this context, Dante's earlier and later precisions (Conv. IV.v.3-8; Mon. I.xvi.1-2) that when Christ was born under the rule of Augustus the world experienced a moment of perfection, what St. Paul calls plenitudinem temporis (the fullness of time – Galatians 4:4). Dante will later develop the metaphor of the 'two suns' in a key chapter of Monarchia (III.iv). (For the date of Monarchia see the brief summary of the debate in Hollander [Dante: A Life in Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001)], pp. 150-51. Most currently interested in the problem believe that the work was composed ca. 1317, i.e., after the death of Henry VII, and after Dante had composed the early cantos of his Paradiso, since in Monarchia I.xii.6 he says 'sicut in Paradiso Comoedie iam dixi' [as I have said in the Paradiso of my Comedy], referring to Paradiso V.19-24). Scott [Dante's Political Purgatory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996)], p. 155, thinks both these passages were written after Pope Clement's 'betrayal' of Henry VII, 1312-1313.)

On the entire subject of the authority of the emperor see the still essential work of Ernst Kantorowicz (The King's Two Bodies [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957]).

For a passage in St. Gregory Nazianzus's De vita sua that may have caught Dante's attention see Giovanni Farris's article (“I 'due soli' [Pg. XVI 107] ed una fonte patristica,” Critica letteraria 4 [1976], pp. 211-16): 'Non autem Natura dedit duo lumina solis / Sed Romas dedit illa duas, quae totius orbis / Lampades existunt, Romam veteremque novamque: / Hoc inter sese tantum discrimen habentes, / Quod videt hanc Phoebus splendere, sed Hesperus illam.'

109 - 114

Dante laments the fact that now the Church's pastoral crook has taken into itself the imperial sword; his image, though of inanimate things, makes the resultant object seem a horrific animate hybrid, as does the reference to Matthew 7:16 or 7:20: 'by their fruits you shall know them' (words spoken by Jesus to impugn false teachers).

115 - 120

Dante's geographical reference is to the northeastern sector of Italy, not the territories associated with the presence of the emperor Frederick, but Marco's home ground. For Dante, Frederick was the last emperor to take his role as emperor of all Europe seriously (see Conv. IV.iii.6, as Pietrobono [comm. to verse 117] suggests, where he is described as 'the last emperor of the Romans'). It may seem strange that Dante should here support the kingship of Frederick II, seen among the heretics in hell (Inf. X.119). The issue, however, is not Frederick's personal worth, but his rights and privileges as emperor. These were grounds for contention between Frederick and the Church throughout his reign (1212-1250).

121 - 126

Marco's three vecchi, all still alive in 1300, offer a Lombard counterpart to Cacciaguida's forty Florentine families from the 'good old days' in that city that are listed in Paradiso XVI: Currado da Palazzo, from Brescia; Gherardo da Camino, from Padua; and Guido da Castello, from Reggio Emilia. All three of them had Guelph affiliations. Dante praises the last two in Convivio when he is discussing true nobility (Conv. IV.xiv.12; IV.xvi.6).

127 - 129

Marco's antipapal charge to Dante will be echoed and amplified in that given him by Beatrice in Purgatorio XXXII.103-105.

131 - 132

Dante shows his agreement with Marco's analysis of the church/state problem in contemporary Christendom in ancient Hebrew terms: the family of Levi, because they were, like the sons of Aaron, in a priestly function for Israel, were denied any right to inherit land because of their priestly privileges. See Numbers 18:20-32.

133 - 140

The protagonist's ignorance of Gherardo's virtues offers Marco (and the poet) a chance to replay the theme of the moment, that things are not what they used to be. The early commentators are uncertain whether or not the mention of Gaia is meant to be to her praise or blame. Jacopo della Lana (comm. to verse 140) and Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 139-140) say she was well known as a loose woman. However, Benvenuto's self-proclaimed student, John of Serravalle, who generally supports his maestro's opinions, has only good to speak of her (and even claims that she wrote vernacular poetry – [comm. to vv.139-141]). Most modern commentators argue that, since the argument at hand is that the old times bore at least some notable virtue while the present day is leaden in that respect, it would only make sense for Gaia's name to represent a descent from virtue. The meaning of the clause 's'io nol togliessi da sua figlia Gaia' (unless / I were to take one [a nickname] from his daughter, Gaia) is, however, problematic. According to Torraca (comm. to vv. 139-149) his sobriquet would then be 'il gaio' (the merry) in recognition of his courtly actions and style of being; there is probably no better positive reading of the verse than this one. If we wish to insist on the logically more promising negative force of this line, the same descriptive phrase (now only meaning 'the father of Gaia') would have the effect of showing how the virtues of the father were not found in the daughter. While the logic of this entire sequence calls for such a reading, the feeling in the line would seem to support Torraca's currently unfavored reading. As several commentators suggest, until such time as some clearer evidence for Dante's opinion of Gaia is unearthed, it is impossible to be sure of the tone of the reference, wholehearted or ironic. The only two other uses of the word gaio in the poem are, however, totally positive: see Paradiso XV.60 and XXVI.102. Nonetheless, in verse 121 Dante has Marco refer to only three old men still alive in Lombardy who are good. Since Gaia did not die until 1311, would she not have to be considered a fourth good Lombard (and thus not to be included)? Or, as a woman, is she not allowed inclusion in the paltry list of the virtuous?

141 - 145

Having walked through the smoke, they have now reached its 'edge,' and so may soon regain the light of the sun. Thus we learn that Marco and his colleagues in repenting Wrath all must measure their pace so as not to walk either too slowly or too quickly in the smoke, which is moving clockwise along the terrace. The smoke does not come upon them, as it did Dante and Virgil; they inhabit it. Marco now retreats from the light, having walked too quickly in order to keep pace with his new companions.