Purgatorio: Canto 24

1
2
3

Né il dir l' andar, né l' andar lui più lento
facea, ma ragionando andavam forte,
sì come nave pinta da buon vento;
4
5
6

e l'ombre, che parean cose rimorte,
per le fosse de li occhi ammirazione
traean di me, di mio vivere accorte.
7
8
9

E io, continüando al mio sermone,
dissi: “Ella sen va sù forse più tarda
che non farebbe, per altrui cagione.
10
11
12

Ma dimmi, se tu sai, dov' è Piccarda;
dimmi s'io veggio da notar persona
tra questa gente che sì mi riguarda.”
13
14
15

“La mia sorella, che tra bella e buona
non so qual fosse più, trïunfa lieta
ne l'alto Olimpo già di sua corona.”
16
17
18

Sì disse prima; e poi: “Qui non si vieta
di nominar ciascun, da ch'è sì munta
nostra sembianza via per la dïeta.
19
20
21

”Questi,“ e mostrò col dito, ”è Bonagiunta,
Bonagiunta da Lucca; e quella faccia
di là da lui più che l'altre trapunta
22
23
24

ebbe la Santa Chiesa in le sue braccia:
dal Torso fu, e purga per digiuno
l'anguille di Bolsena e la vernaccia.“
25
26
27

Molti altri mi nomò ad uno ad uno;
e del nomar parean tutti contenti,
sì ch'io però non vidi un atto bruno.
28
29
30

Vidi per fame a vòto usar li denti
Ubaldin da la Pila e Bonifazio
che pasturò col rocco molte genti.
31
32
33

Vidi messer Marchese, ch'ebbe spazio
già di bere a Forlì con men secchezza,
e sì fu tal, che non si sentì sazio.
34
35
36

Ma come fa chi guarda e poi s'apprezza
più d'un che d'altro, fei a quel da Lucca,
che più parea di me aver contezza.
37
38
39

El mormorava; e non so che ”Gentucca“
sentiv' io là, ov' el sentia la piaga
de la giustizia che sì li pilucca.
40
41
42

”O anima,“ diss' io, ”che par sì vaga
di parlar meco, fa sì ch'io t'intenda,
e te e me col tuo parlare appaga.“
43
44
45

”Femmina è nata, e non porta ancor benda,“
cominciò el, ”che ti farà piacere
la mia città, come ch'om la riprenda.
46
47
48

Tu te n'andrai con questo antivedere:
se nel mio mormorar prendesti errore,
dichiareranti ancor le cose vere.
49
50
51

Ma dì s'i'veggio qui colui che fore
trasse le nove rime, cominciando
“Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore.”
52
53
54

E io a lui: “I' mi son un che, quando
Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo
ch'e' ditta dentro vo significando.”
55
56
57

“O frate, issa vegg' io,” diss' elli, “il nodo
che 'l Notaro e Guittone e me ritenne
di qua dal dolce stil novo ch'i' odo!
58
59
60

Io veggio ben come le vostre penne
di retro al dittator sen vanno strette,
che de le nostre certo non avvenne;
61
62
63

e qual più a gradire oltre si mette,
non vede più da l'uno a l'altro stilo”;
e, quasi contentato, si tacette.
64
65
66

Come li augei che vernan lungo 'l Nilo,
alcuna volta in aere fanno schiera,
poi volan più a fretta e vanno in filo,
67
68
69

così tutta la gente che lì era,
volgendo 'l viso, raffrettò suo passo,
e per magrezza e per voler leggera.
70
71
72

E come l'uom che di trottare è lasso,
lascia andar li compagni, e sì passeggia
fin che si sfoghi l'affollar del casso,
73
74
75

sì lasciò trapassar la santa greggia
Forese, e dietro meco sen veniva,
dicendo: “Quando fia ch'io ti riveggia?”
76
77
78

“Non so,” rispuos' io lui, “quant' io mi viva;
ma già non fïa il tornar mio tantosto,
ch'io non sia col voler prima a la riva;
79
80
81

però che 'l loco u' fui a viver posto,
di giorno in giorno più di ben si spolpa,
e a trista ruina par disposto.”
82
83
84

“Or va,” diss' el; “che quei che più n'ha colpa,
vegg' ïo a coda d'una bestia tratto
inver' la valle ove mai non si scolpa.
85
86
87

La bestia ad ogne passo va più ratto,
crescendo sempre, fin ch'ella il percuote,
e lascia il corpo vilmente disfatto.
88
89
90

Non hanno molto a volger quelle ruote,”
e drizzò li occhi al ciel, “che ti fia chiaro
ciò che 'l mio dir più dichiarar non puote.
91
92
93

Tu ti rimani omai; ché 'l tempo è caro
in questo regno, sì ch'io perdo troppo
venendo teco sì a paro a paro.”
94
95
96

Qual esce alcuna volta di gualoppo
lo cavalier di schiera che cavalchi,
e va per farsi onor del primo intoppo,
97
98
99

tal si partì da noi con maggior valchi;
e io rimasi in via con esso i due
che fuor del mondo sì gran marescalchi.
100
101
102

E quando innanzi a noi intrato fue,
che li occhi miei si fero a lui seguaci,
come la mente a le parole sue,
103
104
105

parvermi i rami gravidi e vivaci
d'un altro pomo, e non molto lontani
per esser pur allora vòlto in laci.
106
107
108

Vidi gente sott' esso alzar le mani
e gridar non so che verso le fronde,
quasi bramosi fantolini e vani
109
110
111

che pregano, e 'l pregato non risponde,
ma, per fare esser ben la voglia acuta,
tien alto lor disio e nol nasconde.
112
113
114

Poi si partì sì come ricreduta;
e noi venimmo al grande arbore adesso,
che tanti prieghi e lagrime rifiuta.
115
116
117

“Trapassate oltre sanza farvi presso:
legno è più sù che fu morso da Eva,
e questa pianta si levò da esso.”
118
119
120

Sì tra le frasche non so chi diceva;
per che Virgilio e Stazio e io, ristretti,
oltre andavam dal lato che si leva.
121
122
123

“Ricordivi,” dicea, “d'i maladetti
nei nuvoli formati, che, satolli,
Tesëo combatter co' doppi petti;
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126

e de li Ebrei ch'al ber si mostrar molli,
per che no i volle Gedeon compagni,
quando inver' Madïan discese i colli.”
127
128
129

Sì accostati a l'un d'i due vivagni
passammo, udendo colpe de la gola
seguite già da miseri guadagni.
130
131
132

Poi, rallargati per la strada sola,
ben mille passi e più ci portar oltre,
contemplando ciascun sanza parola.
133
134
135

“Che andate pensando sì voi sol tre?”
sùbita voce disse; ond' io mi scossi
come fan bestie spaventate e poltre.
136
137
138

Drizzai la testa per veder chi fossi;
e già mai non si videro in fornace
vetri o metalli sì lucenti e rossi,
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141

com'io vidi un che dicea: “S'a voi piace
montare in sù, qui si convien dar volta;
quinci si va chi vuole andar per pace.”
142
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144

L'aspetto suo m'avea la vista tolta;
per ch'io mi volsi dietro a' miei dottori,
com' om che va secondo ch'elli ascolta.
145
146
147

E quale, annunziatrice de li albori,
l'aura di maggio movesi e olezza,
tutta impregnata da l'erba e da' fiori;
148
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150

tal mi senti' un vento dar per mezza
la fronte, e ben senti' mover la piuma,
che fé sentir d'ambrosïa l'orezza.
151
152
153
154

E senti' dir: “Beati cui alluma
tanto di grazia, che l'amor del gusto
nel petto lor troppo disir non fuma,
esurïendo sempre quanto è giusto!”
1
2
3

Nor speech the going, nor the going that
  Slackened; but talking we went bravely on,
  Even as a vessel urged by a good wind.

4
5
6

And shadows, that appeared things doubly dead,
  From out the sepulchres of their eyes betrayed
  Wonder at me, aware that I was living.

7
8
9

And I, continuing my colloquy,
  Said: "Peradventure he goes up more slowly
  Than he would do, for other people's sake.

10
11
12

But tell me, if thou knowest, where is Piccarda;
  Tell me if any one of note I see
  Among this folk that gazes at me so."

13
14
15

"My sister, who, 'twixt beautiful and good,
  I know not which was more, triumphs rejoicing
  Already in her crown on high Olympus."

16
17
18

So said he first, and then: "'Tis not forbidden
  To name each other here, so milked away
  Is our resemblance by our dieting.

19
20
21

This," pointing with his finger, "is Buonagiunta,
  Buonagiunta, of Lucca; and that face
  Beyond him there, more peaked than the others,

22
23
24

Has held the holy Church within his arms;
  From Tours was he, and purges by his fasting
  Bolsena's eels and the Vernaccia wine."

25
26
27

He named me many others one by one;
  And all contented seemed at being named,
  So that for this I saw not one dark look.

28
29
30

I saw for hunger bite the empty air
  Ubaldin dalla Pila, and Boniface,
  Who with his crook had pastured many people.

31
32
33

I saw Messer Marchese, who had leisure
  Once at Forli for drinking with less dryness,
  And he was one who ne'er felt satisfied.

34
35
36

But as he does who scans, and then doth prize
  One more than others, did I him of Lucca,
  Who seemed to take most cognizance of me.

37
38
39

He murmured, and I know not what Gentucca
  From that place heard I, where he felt the wound
  Of justice, that doth macerate them so.

40
41
42

"O soul," I said, "that seemest so desirous
  To speak with me, do so that I may hear thee,
  And with thy speech appease thyself and me."

43
44
45

"A maid is born, and wears not yet the veil,"
  Began he, "who to thee shall pleasant make
  My city, howsoever men may blame it.

46
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48

Thou shalt go on thy way with this prevision;
  If by my murmuring thou hast been deceived,
  True things hereafter will declare it to thee.

49
50
51

But say if him I here behold, who forth
  Evoked the new-invented rhymes, beginning,
  'Ladies, that have intelligence of love?'"

52
53
54

And I to him: "One am I, who, whenever
  Love doth inspire me, note, and in that measure
  Which he within me dictates, singing go."

55
56
57

"O brother, now I see," he said, "the knot
  Which me, the Notary, and Guittone held
  Short of the sweet new style that now I hear.

58
59
60

I do perceive full clearly how your pens
  Go closely following after him who dictates,
  Which with our own forsooth came not to pass;

61
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63

And he who sets himself to go beyond,
  No difference sees from one style to another;"
  And as if satisfied, he held his peace.

64
65
66

Even as the birds, that winter tow'rds the Nile,
  Sometimes into a phalanx form themselves,
  Then fly in greater haste, and go in file;

67
68
69

In such wise all the people who were there,
  Turning their faces, hurried on their steps,
  Both by their leanness and their wishes light.

70
71
72

And as a man, who weary is with trotting,
  Lets his companions onward go, and walks,
  Until he vents the panting of his chest;

73
74
75

So did Forese let the holy flock
  Pass by, and came with me behind it, saying,
  "When will it be that I again shall see thee?"

76
77
78

"How long," I answered, "I may live, I know not;
  Yet my return will not so speedy be,
  But I shall sooner in desire arrive;

79
80
81

Because the place where I was set to live
  From day to day of good is more depleted,
  And unto dismal ruin seems ordained."

82
83
84

"Now go," he said, "for him most guilty of it
  At a beast's tail behold I dragged along
  Towards the valley where is no repentance.

85
86
87

Faster at every step the beast is going,
  Increasing evermore until it smites him,
  And leaves the body vilely mutilated.

88
89
90

Not long those wheels shall turn," and he uplifted
  His eyes to heaven, "ere shall be clear to thee
  That which my speech no farther can declare.

91
92
93

Now stay behind; because the time so precious
  Is in this kingdom, that I lose too much
  By coming onward thus abreast with thee."

94
95
96

As sometimes issues forth upon a gallop
  A cavalier from out a troop that ride,
  And seeks the honour of the first encounter,

97
98
99

So he with greater strides departed from us;
  And on the road remained I with those two,
  Who were such mighty marshals of the world.

100
101
102

And when before us he had gone so far
  Mine eyes became to him such pursuivants
  As was my understanding to his words,

103
104
105

Appeared to me with laden and living boughs
  Another apple-tree, and not far distant,
  From having but just then turned thitherward.

106
107
108

People I saw beneath it lift their hands,
  And cry I know not what towards the leaves,
  Like little children eager and deluded,

109
110
111

Who pray, and he they pray to doth not answer,
  But, to make very keen their appetite,
  Holds their desire aloft, and hides it not.

112
113
114

Then they departed as if undeceived;
  And now we came unto the mighty tree
  Which prayers and tears so manifold refuses.

115
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117

"Pass farther onward without drawing near;
  The tree of which Eve ate is higher up,
  And out of that one has this tree been raised."

118
119
120

Thus said I know not who among the branches;
  Whereat Virgilius, Statius, and myself
  Went crowding forward on the side that rises.

121
122
123

"Be mindful," said he, "of the accursed ones
  Formed of the cloud-rack, who inebriate
  Combated Theseus with their double breasts;

124
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126

And of the Jews who showed them soft in drinking,
  Whence Gideon would not have them for companions
  When he tow'rds Midian the hills descended."

127
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129

Thus, closely pressed to one of the two borders,
  On passed we, hearing sins of gluttony,
  Followed forsooth by miserable gains;

130
131
132

Then set at large upon the lonely road,
  A thousand steps and more we onward went,
  In contemplation, each without a word.

133
134
135

"What go ye thinking thus, ye three alone?"
  Said suddenly a voice, whereat I started
  As terrified and timid beasts are wont.

136
137
138

I raised my head to see who this might be,
  And never in a furnace was there seen
  Metals or glass so lucent and so red

139
140
141

As one I saw who said: "If it may please you
  To mount aloft, here it behoves you turn;
  This way goes he who goeth after peace."

142
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144

His aspect had bereft me of my sight,
  So that I turned me back unto my Teachers,
  Like one who goeth as his hearing guides him.

145
146
147

And as, the harbinger of early dawn,
  The air of May doth move and breathe out fragrance,
  Impregnate all with herbage and with flowers,

148
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150

So did I feel a breeze strike in the midst
  My front, and felt the moving of the plumes
  That breathed around an odour of ambrosia;

151
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154

And heard it said: "Blessed are they whom grace
  So much illumines, that the love of taste
  Excites not in their breasts too great desire,
Hungering at all times so far as is just."

Robert Hollander (English, 2000-2007)
1 - 3

The conversation between Forese and Dante continues. We have not heard Virgil's voice since the fifteenth verse of the last canto. We will not hear it again until the next canto (XXV.17). This is his longest silence since he entered the poem in its first canto (see the note to Inf. XXX.37-41). He would seem to have been moved aside in response to Dante's interest in the encounter with Forese and concern with exploring the nature of his own most particular poetic practice, the subject at the core of this canto.

4 - 4

For the phrase 'things dead twice over' see the Epistle of Jude. The context is worth noting. Jude is declaiming against those who have infiltrated the ranks of the true believers, those 'ungodly men' (homines... impii – Jude 4) who are compared to, in succession, the unbelieving Israelites, the fallen angels, the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as those great sinners Cain, Balaam (Numbers 22-25 and 31:16), and Korah (Numbers 16). The presence of these ungodly ones is then portrayed (Jude 12) as a blemish upon the feasts of Christians gathered in charity. Interlopers, they are described as 'feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about by the winds; trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead (bis mortuae), plucked out by the roots.' Several commentators refer to this passage, but only Poletto (comm. to vv. 4-6) does so with some attention to the context, also graciously giving credit to the commentary of Antonio Cesari (Bellezze della “Divina Commedia” [Verona: P. Libanti, 1824-26]) for the earliest citation. The contrapasso here is thus more related to gluttony than at first may seem apparent, calling attention to an arid feasting that has no regard for the condition of the soul. These penitents thus purge themselves as though in memory of Jude's gluttonous 'ungodly men.'

8 - 9

Once again (see the note to Purg. XXI.103-114) we see that Statius is portrayed as putting off his Christian zeal in order to give himself to affectionate admiration of Virgil.

10 - 10

Dante asks after Forese's sister, Piccarda, whom we shall meet as the first presence of Paradiso (see the note to Par. III.46-49). The Donati family, like others in the poem, is variously dispersed in the afterworld. Later in this canto (verse 84) we will hear of Forese's brother, Corso, who is destined for hell. In ante-purgatory we met a member of another similarly dispersed family, Buonconte da Montefeltro (Purg. V.88), son of the damned Guido (Inf. XXVII.67).

13 - 15

Forese's touching words of praise for his sister, already joyous in the presence of God in the Empyrean (the Christian version of Mt. Olympus, home of the gods in classical mythology) brought the following misogynist comment from Benvenuto (comm. to these verses): 'And that is great praise, for it is a rare thing to find in the same woman harmony between comely form and chaste behavior.'

Piccarda, who was dragged from her life as a nun into matrimony against her will, eventually puts us in mind of Pia de' Tolomei (Purg. V.133-136), who also was forced into a marriage she did not welcome. And both of them may send our thoughts back to Francesca da Rimini, similarly mistreated (Inf. V.100-107). The first three women present in each of the three cantiche have this experience in common. The damned Francesca insists on the impending damnation of her husband, Gianciotto (but see the note to Inf. V.107), while Forese, on the way to salvation, speaks glowingly of his already saved sister.

16 - 18

'Here' surely refers to this terrace (see the note to Purg. XXII.49-51). Since there is no prohibition of naming names on any other terrace, commentators worry about Forese's motive in speaking this way. Most currently agree that he is using exaggerated understatement (the trope litotes) to make his point: i.e., on this terrace one must use names to identify the penitents because they are unrecognizable (as was Forese to Dante at Purg. XXIII.43-48) as a result of their emaciation.

19 - 20

Bonagiunta Orbicciani degli Overardi da Lucca (1220?-1297?), notary and writer of lyric poems, composed mainly in imitation of the Provençal poets. He was involved in polemic against the poetry of Guido Guinizzelli and was attacked by Dante in his treatise on vernacular eloquence (Dve I.xiii.1) for writing in a dialectical rather than the lofty ('curial') vernacular. Some three dozen of his poems survive and a group of these have been re-edited and re-presented by Gianfranco Contini (editor, Poeti del Duecento, 2 vols. [Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1960], vol. I, pp. 257-82). See Claudio Giunta (La poesia italiana nell'età di Dante: la linea Bonagiunta-Guinizzelli [Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998]) and Carlo Paolazzi (La maniera mutata: Il “dolce stil novo” tra Scrittura e “Ars poetica” [Milan: Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica, 1998]) for the poetic relationship between Bonagiunta and Guinizzelli and its significance for Dante.

21 - 24

Simon de Brie, who 'married' Holy Church as Pope Martin IV (1281-85), was French. He was not born in Tours, but had served as treasurer of the cathedral of St. Martin in Tours. He briefly served as chancellor of France before becoming a cardinal in 1261. And his French connection was further apparent when Charles of Anjou was instrumental in securing the papacy for him. His gluttonous affection for eels from Lake Bolsena caused him, according to Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 19-24), to have them, still alive, drowned in white wine from Liguria (the town of Vernazza) and then roasted. The commentator also reports that, as pope, coming from meetings dealing with Church business he would cry out, 'O Lord God, how many ills must we bear for Your holy Church! Let us have a drink!' and head for table to console himself.

Not only did this gluttonous pope support French political designs in Italy, he was the man who promoted Benedetto Caetani to the rank of cardinal, thus greatly facilitating his eventual elevation as Pope Boniface VIII (a promotion that Dante could not have regarded with equanimity, given his personal sufferings at the hands of this pope [see the note to Inf. XIX.52-53]). In the light of such things, why did Dante decide that Martin was among the saved? Trucchi (comm. to vv. 19-24) suggests that, as the successor to the nepotistic and venal Nicholas III (see Inf. XIX.69-72), Martin put an end, for a time, to the practice of simony in the papacy. It is for that reason, in his opinion, that Dante overlooked his other flagrant sins to save him.

26 - 27

The act of naming being particularly necessary on this terrace (see the note to vv. 16-18), it brings pleasure (Dante again employs litotes: it does not cause scowls) to those who are named and thus may hope for relieving prayer from the world, once Dante returns to it. It hardly needs to be pointed out that many of the sinners in hell were less pleased at being recognized.

29 - 29

'Ubaldino degli Ubaldini of La Pila (castle in the Mugello, or upper valley of the Sieve, tributary of the Arno, north of Florence), member of the powerful Ghibelline family of that name. Ubaldino, who was one of those who voted for the destruction of Florence (Inf. X.92), and was a member of the Consiglio Generale, after the battle of Montaperti (Sept. 4, 1260), was brother of the famous Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini (Inf. X.120), uncle of Ugolino d'Azzo (Purg. XIV.105), and father of the Archbishop Ruggieri of Pisa (Inf. XXXIII.14); he died in 1291' (Toynbee, “Pila, Ubaldin dalla” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).

29 - 30

Bonifazio has been 'identified by modern commentators with Bonifazio dei Fieschi of Genoa, Archbishop of Ravenna, 1274-1295.... The ancient pastoral staff of the Archbishops of Ravenna, which is still preserved, bears at the top an ornament shaped like a chess “rook” [rather than the conventional curved crosier], hence the term rocco used by Dante. Bonifazio... is known to have been immensely wealthy, but there is no record of his having been addicted to gluttony' (Toynbee, “Bonifazio[2]” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).

While some debate whether or not the reference to the archbishop's pastoral care is meant to be taken ironically, it seems difficult, in light of the descriptions of the other penitent gluttons, to take it any other way. The flock he is envisioned as leading would seem to be less the faithful of Ravenna than his guests to dinner.

31 - 33

'Marchese (or Marchesino) degli Orgogliosi of Forlì... was Podestà of Faenza in 1296' (Toynbee, “Marchese[4]” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). Embellishing an incident he probably first heard from his teacher, Benvenuto da Imola, John of Serravalle (comm. to these verses) recounts it this way: 'One day [Marchese] asked of his servant, “What do the people say of me? What is my reputation among them?” And the servant answered, “O my lord, they say that you are noble and wise,” etc. And so he spoke again to his servant, saying, “Now tell me the truth, what do they really say?” In reply the servant said, “Since you wish it, I will tell you the truth; people say you are a great drinker of wine.” At which [Marchese] responded, “These people speak truthfully; but they really ought to add that I am always thirsty – and that is a fact, for I thirst continually.”' Bonagiunta was also a lover of the grape, according to Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 34-39), who characterised him as 'a deft contriver of rhymes and a ready imbiber of wines.'

34 - 36

Dante's attention was drawn to Bonagiunta da Lucca because, he says, Bonagiunta seemed to know him. We may reflect that Dante the poet's interest in Bonagiunta centered in his desire to stage, clued by the utterance of this lesser poet, his own ars poetica, as we shall shortly understand. Including Dante, the interaction among those speaking or being noticed in this canto involves two poets, two religious figures, and two politicians. And then there are the two classical poets who are not even mentioned once in this very 'modern' canto (it is notable that Pope Martin, dead only fifteen years, is the senior ghost among the five gluttons is this group).

37 - 39

For Dante's use of the verb mormorare (murmur), see the note to Purgatorio X.100-102. This passage has long been problematic. Does Bonagiunta refer to his fellow Lucchesi in an unfavorable way, calling them gentucca or gentuccia (a deprecating way of referring to his people, or gente)? Or is he mentioning a kindly woman of that name who will be welcoming to Dante when, in his exile, he will come to Lucca? In this case he would be referring to the femmina referred to in vv. 43-45. Beginning with Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 28-39), who states that Gentucca was the name of a woman from Rossimpelo, most commentators believe that the reference is to someone who was benevolent to Dante in Lucca during a stay there. We have, however, no confirming evidence for this sojourn in Lucca (see Michele Messina, “Lucca” [ED.1971.3]), which, if it took place, probably did so in 1308-9, and certainly no hard facts establishing her identity. Nonetheless, this remains the best hypothesis. Still others have attempted to make a case for Gentucca as a woman with whom Dante had some sort of sexual liaison, an interpretation that seems venturesome at best. On the entire question see Giorgio Varanini, “Gentucca” (ED.1971.3). For more recent consideration of the question, see Cono Mangieri (“Gentucca dantesca e dintorni,” Italian Quarterly 125-126 [1995], pp. 5-25), arguing, in a bold hypothesis, that Gentucca was an illegitimate daughter of the poet.

40 - 42

Dante encourages Bonagiunta, for whom speech is made difficult by the pain he feels in his mouth, the orifice by which he offended in gluttony, to speak more plainly.

43 - 48

If this woman is, as some contemporary students of the question suggest, Gentucca di Ciucchino Morla, she was the wife of Buonaccorso Fondora. In that case she wore the black wimple, worn by wives, not the white, reserved for widows. Nino Visconti's widow, Giovanna, according to him, made the mistake of remarrying badly, putting off the white wimple (Purg. VIII.74). However, we cannot be sure whether Bonagiunta is referring to an as yet unmarried woman, or to a married one whose husband, soon to die, is still alive. In any case, this woman will make Lucca seem pleasant to Dante, no matter how others may blame it (as Dante himself had done in Inf. XXI.40-42).

49 - 51

Having recognized Dante earlier (vv. 35-36), Bonagiunta now presses him about the nature of his poetry. Is he the poet who drew forth from within himself the new poems that began with the canzone 'Ladies that have intelligence of love'? This is the first long poem of the three that help to give structure to the Vita nuova, announcing the beginning of its second stage, in which Dante chooses to give over the style of 'complaint,' borrowed from Cavalcanti, in order to turn to the style of praise, with its debt to Guinizzelli. Dante composed this poem around 1289. From this remark, we learn at least one important thing. Whatever the determining features of Dante's new poetry, it was different – at least according to him, using Bonagiunta as his mouthpiece – from all poetry written before it, including Dante's own. This precision evades many who discuss the problem, who continue to allow poems by Dante and other poets written before Donne ch'avete to share its status. It seems clear that Dante's absolute and precise purpose is to rewrite the history of Italian lyric, including that of his own poems, so that it fits his current program.

52 - 54

There is perhaps no more debated tercet in this poem than this one, and perhaps none that has more far-reaching implications for our general understanding of Dante's stance as a poet. Does he refer to Amore as the god of Love? or as the name of the true God in His Third Person, the Holy Spirit? Dantists are deeply (and fiercely) divided by this issue. The bibliography of work devoted to it is immense. Readers with Italian will want to refer to three papers that were composed for the Third International Dante Seminar (Florence, 2000) by members of the panel concerning the currently vexed question of Dante's attitude toward Cavalcanti and its relationship to his view of his own poetic as this is given voice here (see three contributions to the volume Dante: da Firenze all'aldilà. Atti del terzo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]: Roberto Antonelli, “Cavalcanti e Dante: al di qua del Paradiso,” pp. 289-302; Robert Durling, “'Mio figlio ov'è?' [Inferno X, 60],” pp. 303-29; and Lino Leonardi, “Cavalcanti, Dante e il nuovo stile,” pp. 331-54). For the views of this writer, which are at some variance especially from those of the first and third of these, see Hollander (“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 201-31, and “Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 263-81). In the most recent of these two studies, the case is made for our understanding that Dante indeed presents himself as writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a view that causes understandable distress, but which is fundamental, in one line of thought, to a better comprehension of his purposes. Similar views are to be found in Selene Sarteschi (“Purgatorio XXIV 49-53: Dante e il 'Dolce stil novo'. Verifica di una continuità ideologica,” in her Per la “Commedia” e non per essa soltanto [Rome: Bulzoni, 2002 (1995)]), pp. 97-137. For a curious blending of (1) an old and (2) a new view, see Carlo Paolazzi (La maniera mutata: Il “dolce stil novo” tra Scrittura e “Ars poetica” [Milan: Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica, 1998]), who attempts (1) to resuscitate an actual 'school' of stilnovisti, including the major figures Guinizzelli, Cavalcanti, Dante, and Cino da Pistoia, all of whom are related, according to Paolazzi, by (2) significant borrowings from concepts found in Horace's Ars poetica and from the language of Scripture. A major impediment to accepting such a view is the fact that Dante's text explicitly and without possible exception (unless one were to argue that Bonagiunta simply does not know whereof he speaks – a difficult position to support) says that the dolce stil novo began with 'Donne ch'avete,' ca. 1289, thus omitting at least Guinizzelli from 'membership.' In addition, Dante's treatment of Cavalcanti in the Comedy makes any such evaluation more than merely dubious, as Danilo Bonanno agrees (La perdita e il ritorno. Presenze cavalcantiane nell'ultimo Dante [Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 1999]), pp. 50-52. On the other hand, that Dante and Cino were, according to Dante, fellow 'stilnovisti' seems more than likely. For an attempt to make the school even more inclusive than a surely questionable Romantic view had done, see Gorni (“Paralipomeni a Lippo,” Studi di filologia italiana 47 [1989]), pp. 27-29; in a similar inclusive vein see Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001]), pp. 33-36. The cause of much of the problem as it is misconstrued by Dante's critics is that they try to establish what really happened in the history of Italian poetry, while Dante himself puts forward only what he decided had really happened.

55 - 63

Bonagiunta's response may be paraphrased as follows: 'Now I understand the nature of the knot that held back the Notary [Giacomo da Lentini], Guittone [d'Arezzo], and me from the sweet new style that at this very moment I am hearing! Now I clearly understand how your pens [plural] followed strictly after the words of the “dictator,” something that ours did not; and in that lies the entire difference between your [Dante's] “new style” and ours.' He falls silent, as though, it seems, satisfied with his utterance.

What exactly does Dante mean by the phrase 'sweet new style'? This is surely one of the key questions presented in the poem, and not one of the easiest. Further, who else wrote in that 'style'? And what is the significance of the fact that Bonagiunta says that he hears it now (in listening to Dante here in purgatory? in current Tuscan poems composed on earth? [but how would he hear these?])? What follows is a series of hypotheses that sketch out this writer's views of the major aspects of a difficult question.

(1) The passage, probably written ca. 1311-12, marks the first time that the beguiling phrase 'dolce stil novo' had ever been used in the vernacular that we call 'Italian.' That it was meant to refer to or to identify an actual 'school' of poets that existed before the date of its inscription in Dante's text may not be assumed (see Emilio Bigi [“Genesi di un concetto storiografico: 'dolce stil novo,'” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 132 (1955), pp. 333-71] and Guido Favati [Inchiesta sul Dolce Stil Nuovo (Florence: Le Monnier,1975)], although it frequently is.

(2) On the other hand, the author's (or Bonagiunta's) plural 'vostre' should be seen as including not only himself, but also Cino da Pistoia (the one fellow poet who Dante believed had understood the theological significance of his Beatrice), if perhaps no one else (see Hollander [“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 (1992), pp. 201-31] and Furio Brugnolo [“Cino (e Onesto) dentro e fuori la Commedia,” in Omaggio a Gianfranco Folena, ed. Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo (Padua: Editoriale Programma, 1993), pp. 369-86]). For reasons to believe that Cino himself, as evidenced in his poem of tribute, 'Su per la costa,' written after Dante's death, believed that Dante's plurality of penne included him, see Luciano Rossi (“Il nodo di Bonagiunta e le penne degli stilnovisti: ancora sul XXIV del Purgatorio,” in Fictio poetica: Studi italiani e ispanici in onore di Georges Güntert, ed. Katherina Maier-Troxler and Costantino Maeder [Florence: Cesati, 1998]), pp. 49-50.

(3) The significance of the poetic stance struck in the phrase should be understood in theological terms. Dante is not presenting himself as a usual love poet, but as one who serves as God's scribe in recording the result of God's love for him through the agency of Beatrice. Benvenuto, so insensitive (and even hostile) to Dante's claims for a theological basis for his writing, has a wonderfully angry gloss to vv. 52-54: 'inspires me': you should not understand: with the love of divine grace, as certain people falsely interpret (italics added), but indeed with lascivious love.' It is interesting that Benvenuto feels he must oppose those who are reading the poem theologically in his own day. We do not have any record of such an understanding of these lines; it is heartening to know that it existed. John of Serravalle (comm. to verse 58) follows his master in thinking Amor here is but the 'god' presiding over the world's oldest indoor sport. Dante and others had previously written in a 'sweet' style; but only he, now, in his Comedy, writes in this 'sweet new style' that creates a theologized poetry that is like almost no one else's (see Mazzotta [Dante, Poet of the Desert (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)], pp. 197-210; Zygmunt Baranski [“Canto VIII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone (Florence: Cesati, 2001)]), pp. 392-94.

(4) The word 'style' here has a broader connotation than it usually does in discourse about poetry, indicating not only a way of writing, but a subject for writing, as was apparent when his new style of praise in Vita nuova was presented as requiring new 'matter' (see Hollander, “Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 271-72; Aversano [“Sulla poetica dantesca nel canto XXIV del Purgatorio,” L'Alighieri 16 (2000)], p. 131: the poem is 'sweet artistically because it is new poetically.') The 'new style' not only sounds different, it is different (but see the differing view of Lino Leonardi [“Cavalcanti, Dante e il nuovo stile,” in Dante: da Firenze all'aldilà. Atti del terzo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone (Florence: Cesati, 2001)]), p. 334. The very phrasing of the element that sets, in Bonagiunta's understanding (vv. 58-59), this 'style' apart from all others – copying out exactly what was spoken by the 'dictator' – points not at all to style, but rather to content.

(5) We should probably also understand that the phrase 'dolce stil novo' refers to some of Dante's earlier poetry (only the canzone 'Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore' for certain), some of Cino's poems (at least and perhaps only the canzone upon the death of Beatrice, 'Avegna ched el m'aggia più per tempo'), and to Dante's Comedy, thus presenting the author's claims for a theological grounding of his poem's inspiration as being joined to certain of his earlier poems that he felt either had, or could be construed as having, the same character. This is the crux of a continuing disagreement with those who argue that the Comedy is a poem that goes beyond the stil novo (e.g., Pertile [“Dante's Comedy: Beyond the Stilnovo,” Lectura Dantis (virginiana) 13 (1993), pp. 47-77] or Malato [Dante (Rome: Salerno, 1999)], pp. 105-22), rather than being a continuation of it. While privileging a theological reading (if not firmly), Warren Ginsberg (Dante's Aesthetics of Being [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999)]), p. 88, like Pertile, is of the opinion that the Comedy's style 'is a new style, which differs from the stil novo.' In short, while Dante and others (Guido Cavalcanti perhaps the most capable among them) had previously written in a 'sweet' style, Dante alone developed, on the model of Guinizzelli's lyrics, poems of praise of a theologized lady, Beatrice (see the note to Purgatorio XXIV.112). For discussion of a specifically Christian reformulation of traditional images of the god of Love in the fourth stanza of the poem that Dante authorizes us to think of as the first poem of the 'sweet new style,' see Vincent Moleta (“'Voi le vedete Amor pinto nel viso' [V.N., XIX, 12]: The Roots of Dante's Metaphor,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 57-75). For a review of the entire question of Dante's relations with Guido and of the debate over their nature, see Enrico Fenzi (La canzone d'amore di Guido Cavalcanti e i suoi antichi commenti [Genoa: il Melangolo, 1999], pp. 9-70). See also Enrico Malato (Dante e Guido Cavalcanti: il dissidio per la “Vita nuova” e il «disdegno» di Guido [Rome: Salerno, 1997]); Emilio Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001], pp. 48-68); Giuliano Tanturli (“Guido Cavalcanti contro Dante,” in Le tradizioni del testo: Studi di letteratura italiana offerti a Domenico De Robertis, ed. F. Gavazzeni and G. Gorni [Milan: Ricciardi, 1993], pp. 3-13); Nicolò Pasero (“Dante in Cavalcanti: ancora sui rapporti tra Vita nova e Donna me prega,” Medioevo romanzo 22 [1998], pp. 388-414); and Selene Sarteschi, “Donna me prega-Vita Nuova: La direzione di una polemica,” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 15 [2000], pp. 9-35).

56 - 56

In a single line Bonagiunta crosses off the list of illustrious precursors two of the great poetic figures that preceded Dante, Giacomo da Lentini (died ca. 1250) and Guittone d'Arezzo (ca. 1230-94). Giacomo was the first major Italian practitioner of lyric, and is looked upon as the inventor of the sonnet and as the founder of the so-called Sicilian School, the first group of writers of lyric in Italian, taking their models from the writers of lyric in Provençal. Dante is later still harder on Guittone (see Purg. XXVI.124-126 and note), who, as Dante came to poetry in the 1280s, was perhaps the pre-eminent Tuscan poet.

61 - 62

Letterio Cassata (“Un'ipotesi per Pg 24, 61-62,” Critica del testo 4 [2001]), p. 307, paraphrases these lines as follows: 'e chi vuole accingersi a procedere più in là non è più in grado di vedere il divario dall'uno all'altro stile' (and he who would prepare himself to go more deeply into the matter is no longer in a position to distinguish the difference between the one style and the other). It is a difficult text to be sure of.

64 - 74

The two similes, piled one upon the other, return to a technique not observed in some time: a comparison based on an antique source coupled with a completely 'vernacular' and 'ordinary' one. See Inferno XXIV.1-15, where ancient and contemporary elements are combined in a single simile, and Inferno XXVI.25-39, where local Tuscan agriculture and Elijah's ascent to heaven are the contrasting elements in two neighboring similes.

The first of this pair derives, fairly obviously to today's reader, instructed by the notes in the text, from Lucan (Phars. V.711-716), a description of cranes fleeing winter's cold to winter on the Nile. Nonetheless, for all the certainty in recent commentators that this is a reminiscence of Lucan, it was only with Torraca (comm. to vv. 73-75) that it seems first to have been observed. Lucan's passage is revisited even more plainly at Paradiso XVIII.73-78.

75 - 75

Forese's remark is perhaps the high point in the fraternal affection found in purgatory, as he looks forward to Dante's death as the necessary precondition for their next meeting in the afterlife.

76 - 81

Notable is Dante's calm assurance that he will be saved. This may seem prideful, but is rather the natural result, or so he would have us believe, of his having been chosen for such an experience of the afterworld. God, he would ask us to imagine, would not have selected as His scribe one destined to die in sin.

Porena (comm. to vv. 79-81) suggests that the world-weary tone of the protagonist reflects less the Dante of the year 1300, at the peak of his political success, than the exiled poet of ca. 1310 (the date that Bosco/Reggio [comm. to vv. 77-78] suggest for the composition of this part of the poem).

82 - 90

Corso Donati, brother of Forese, was, in Dante's eyes, the Black Guelph who bore 'the greatest blame' for Florence's problems (and for his own) because of his alliance with Pope Boniface VIII, the 'beast' who will drag him to hell – as Dante will see before much time passes. In fact, through the magic of post-event prophecy (Corso was killed on 6 October 1308), Forese is able to promise the protagonist this happy vengeance.

Corso had supervised the murderous taking of the city by the Black Guelphs after Charles of Valois had led his French troops into Florence in November 1301. In a political reversal that is not totally unlike Dante's own, he was condemned to death by the priors for trying to take power into his own hands in a supposed arrangement involving the Tuscan Ghibelline leader Uguccione della Faggiuola, to whose daughter he was married.

While the 'beast' in Forese's account is clearly metaphorical, Corso apparently did die while trying to escape, either in a fall from his horse or by being lanced by one of his captors once he had fallen – or even as he was hanging from a stirrup, dragged along the ground.

94 - 99

The military simile fits the tone of the death scene of Corso that has just been narrated by his brother. Here, by way of returning to the rigors of his penance, Forese is allowed to assume the role of the cavalryman who goes out to make the first contact of battle. Virgil and Statius, described by a word perhaps never seen before in Italian, 'marshals,' are left behind, but are calmly directing the battle, as it were. As for Dante, that retired cavalryman (see the note to Inf. XXI.95), it is not clear what role he plays, but he is a subordinate to these two marshals, those great poets who led other humans into knowledge and virtue through their works.

100 - 102

Forese has moved quickly along the terrace, far ahead of Dante, Virgil, and Statius. The protagonist's eyes remain fixed on Forese's departing form, as his thoughts remain fixed on his riddling prophesy (vv. 82-87).

103 - 105

Moving along the terrace with his eyes fixed on Forese, Dante does not at first see the tree that his own movement forward has brought him to. The second tree of this terrace has caused less puzzlement than the first one (Purg. XXII.131-135); the succeeding verses (116-117) answer most questions that one might have (see the note to vv. 115-117): this tree is an offshoot of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Adolfo Jenni (“Il Canto XXIII del Purgatorio,” in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. V [Florence: Le Monnier, 1972)]), pp. 12-13, argues that the sight of the water from above causing the leaves to shine makes the penitent gluttons even hungrier. As was the case with the first tree, this one is also apparently watered from above (see Purg. XXII.137-138).

106 - 111

This simile possibly reflects a passage from Convivio (Conv. IV.xii.16) in which Dante speaks of the natural love of human souls for God, their maker, which is easily drawn off course: 'Thus we see little children setting their desire first of all on an apple, and then, growing older, desiring to possess a little bird, and then still later desiring to possess fine clothes, then a horse, and then a woman, and then modest wealth, then greater riches, and then still more' (tr. Lansing). The central elements of this image (a man catching the hungry attention of a child by holding up an apple) are deployed again in Purgatorio XXVII.45.

112 - 114

The penitents (as will be the poets) are urged to turn aside, apparently by the same voice from within the tree that will warn off the poets (and since the names of exemplary figures are recited by this voice, we probably correctly assume it speaks to all, triggered by its sense that someone is approaching, that is, not only in response to these special visitors). They are 'enlightened' (in the sense that their first opinion, that the fruit of this tree is desirable, is changed) when they realize that this tree is a branch from that beneath which humankind first fell into sin, and thus willingly move away.

115 - 117

Once again an unseen and unidentified divinely authorized voice speaks from within the foliage of a tree (see Purg. XXII.140-154). This is an offshoot of the tree of which Eve (and then Adam, who had also been warned not to [see the note to Purg. XXII.140-141]) ate the fruit. Benvenuto's gloss (to vv. 115-120) is admirable: this act of 'gluttony' is seen as the first sin, even though Adam himself will later (Par. XXVI.115-117) be clear that its cause was not really appetite for food but the desire to trespass for its own sake (as St. Augustine understood in his later redoing of the scene in his recounting of his youthful escapade involving the theft of a farmer's pears [Confessions II.iv: 'our real pleasure was in doing something forbidden' – tr. Pine-Coffin]): the first disobedience is thus the very desire to disobey (see Par. XXIX.55-57 for Satan's pride as the primal sin). Benvenuto is more alert to Dante's strategy here than many a more recent commentator, understanding that the image of eating is germane to Dante's description of Gluttony, despite the larger theological meaning of the primal act of sin.

Porena (comm. to vv. 116-117) is one of those who unaccountably believe that there must be still other trees upon this terrace. If, indeed, Dante is referring to the two most significant trees in the original garden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:8), it would seem to be unlikely that he would have wanted us to imagine there might be others scattered along the terrace. Porena denies that the first speaking tree (Purg. XXII.141) is an offshoot of the Tree of Life, but believes that it, too, is derived from the Tree of Knowledge, an opinion that may seem difficult to justify.

Bosco/Reggio raise a question in their commentary (to verse 115): Why was the first tree (Purg. XXII.139) approachable, while this one is not? Would it not seem reasonable that the fruit of the Tree of Life should be precisely what purgation is preparing penitents to receive? At the same time, it would also seem reasonable that they should prepare for their reward by ceremonially avoiding the site of humanity's original sin.

121 - 126

The voice reminds the travelers (and the penitents, we assume) first of the 'Centaurs, mythical race, half horses and half men, said to have been offspring of Ixion, King of the Lapithae, and a cloud in the shape of Hera [Juno]' (Toynbee, “Centauri” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). The Centaurs fought with the Lapiths and Theseus at the wedding feast for Pirithoüs (the friend of Theseus and their half-brother) and his bride Hippodamia. The Centaurs attempt to rape the bride and bridesmaids but are prevented by Theseus and others. The final 300 lines of the scene, which served as Dante's source, in Ovid (Metam. XII.210-535) represent a kind of tumultuous and comic redoing of the battle scenes in the Iliad (and in the Aeneid), with plenty of body parts and blood.

For the double nature of the Centaurs (beast and man at once), see Inferno XII.84.

The Hebrews selected by Gideon to make war upon the Midianites were those who lifted water to their mouths in their cupped hands, as opposed to those who cast themselves down to a stream to drink directly with their mouths (see Judges 7:2-8). The ones remembered here are not the three hundred whom he chose to fight, but the 9,700 who were sent back to their tents. These were 'slack' in that they gave in totally to their desire to drink, while the 300 displayed a more controlled demeanor, more fitting to those who would require composure even in the heat of battle.

133 - 134

This voice, we shortly come to understand, comes from the angel of Temperance.

137 - 138

Singleton (comm. to vv. 137-139) points out that the description of this angel is indebted to John's Revelation (Apoc. 1:9-20). The passage, prologue to John's vision, tells how the apostle was ordered to write it by Jesus, a scene described in terms that at times closely resemble these.

145 - 150

The last of the similes in a canto rich with them compares the waft of air from the angel's wing felt by Dante on his brow to the sweet-smelling breeze of May. Tommaseo (general note to this canto) suggested a source in Virgil's fourth Georgic (IV.415): 'Haec ait et liquidum ambrosiae diffundit odorem' (She spoke, giving off the flowing fragrance of ambrosia). Cyrene is encouraging her despondent son, Aristaeus, to learn his fate from Proteus.

151 - 154

Dante now 'finishes' the Beatitude (Matthew 5:6) begun in Purgatorio XXII.4-6, 'Beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt iustitiam, quoniam ipsi saturabuntur' (Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied). In the first context, applying to those who 'thirst' for riches, only sitiunt was heard, while here we have the echo only of the word for hunger, esuriunt.

Purgatorio: Canto 24

1
2
3

Né il dir l' andar, né l' andar lui più lento
facea, ma ragionando andavam forte,
sì come nave pinta da buon vento;
4
5
6

e l'ombre, che parean cose rimorte,
per le fosse de li occhi ammirazione
traean di me, di mio vivere accorte.
7
8
9

E io, continüando al mio sermone,
dissi: “Ella sen va sù forse più tarda
che non farebbe, per altrui cagione.
10
11
12

Ma dimmi, se tu sai, dov' è Piccarda;
dimmi s'io veggio da notar persona
tra questa gente che sì mi riguarda.”
13
14
15

“La mia sorella, che tra bella e buona
non so qual fosse più, trïunfa lieta
ne l'alto Olimpo già di sua corona.”
16
17
18

Sì disse prima; e poi: “Qui non si vieta
di nominar ciascun, da ch'è sì munta
nostra sembianza via per la dïeta.
19
20
21

”Questi,“ e mostrò col dito, ”è Bonagiunta,
Bonagiunta da Lucca; e quella faccia
di là da lui più che l'altre trapunta
22
23
24

ebbe la Santa Chiesa in le sue braccia:
dal Torso fu, e purga per digiuno
l'anguille di Bolsena e la vernaccia.“
25
26
27

Molti altri mi nomò ad uno ad uno;
e del nomar parean tutti contenti,
sì ch'io però non vidi un atto bruno.
28
29
30

Vidi per fame a vòto usar li denti
Ubaldin da la Pila e Bonifazio
che pasturò col rocco molte genti.
31
32
33

Vidi messer Marchese, ch'ebbe spazio
già di bere a Forlì con men secchezza,
e sì fu tal, che non si sentì sazio.
34
35
36

Ma come fa chi guarda e poi s'apprezza
più d'un che d'altro, fei a quel da Lucca,
che più parea di me aver contezza.
37
38
39

El mormorava; e non so che ”Gentucca“
sentiv' io là, ov' el sentia la piaga
de la giustizia che sì li pilucca.
40
41
42

”O anima,“ diss' io, ”che par sì vaga
di parlar meco, fa sì ch'io t'intenda,
e te e me col tuo parlare appaga.“
43
44
45

”Femmina è nata, e non porta ancor benda,“
cominciò el, ”che ti farà piacere
la mia città, come ch'om la riprenda.
46
47
48

Tu te n'andrai con questo antivedere:
se nel mio mormorar prendesti errore,
dichiareranti ancor le cose vere.
49
50
51

Ma dì s'i'veggio qui colui che fore
trasse le nove rime, cominciando
“Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore.”
52
53
54

E io a lui: “I' mi son un che, quando
Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo
ch'e' ditta dentro vo significando.”
55
56
57

“O frate, issa vegg' io,” diss' elli, “il nodo
che 'l Notaro e Guittone e me ritenne
di qua dal dolce stil novo ch'i' odo!
58
59
60

Io veggio ben come le vostre penne
di retro al dittator sen vanno strette,
che de le nostre certo non avvenne;
61
62
63

e qual più a gradire oltre si mette,
non vede più da l'uno a l'altro stilo”;
e, quasi contentato, si tacette.
64
65
66

Come li augei che vernan lungo 'l Nilo,
alcuna volta in aere fanno schiera,
poi volan più a fretta e vanno in filo,
67
68
69

così tutta la gente che lì era,
volgendo 'l viso, raffrettò suo passo,
e per magrezza e per voler leggera.
70
71
72

E come l'uom che di trottare è lasso,
lascia andar li compagni, e sì passeggia
fin che si sfoghi l'affollar del casso,
73
74
75

sì lasciò trapassar la santa greggia
Forese, e dietro meco sen veniva,
dicendo: “Quando fia ch'io ti riveggia?”
76
77
78

“Non so,” rispuos' io lui, “quant' io mi viva;
ma già non fïa il tornar mio tantosto,
ch'io non sia col voler prima a la riva;
79
80
81

però che 'l loco u' fui a viver posto,
di giorno in giorno più di ben si spolpa,
e a trista ruina par disposto.”
82
83
84

“Or va,” diss' el; “che quei che più n'ha colpa,
vegg' ïo a coda d'una bestia tratto
inver' la valle ove mai non si scolpa.
85
86
87

La bestia ad ogne passo va più ratto,
crescendo sempre, fin ch'ella il percuote,
e lascia il corpo vilmente disfatto.
88
89
90

Non hanno molto a volger quelle ruote,”
e drizzò li occhi al ciel, “che ti fia chiaro
ciò che 'l mio dir più dichiarar non puote.
91
92
93

Tu ti rimani omai; ché 'l tempo è caro
in questo regno, sì ch'io perdo troppo
venendo teco sì a paro a paro.”
94
95
96

Qual esce alcuna volta di gualoppo
lo cavalier di schiera che cavalchi,
e va per farsi onor del primo intoppo,
97
98
99

tal si partì da noi con maggior valchi;
e io rimasi in via con esso i due
che fuor del mondo sì gran marescalchi.
100
101
102

E quando innanzi a noi intrato fue,
che li occhi miei si fero a lui seguaci,
come la mente a le parole sue,
103
104
105

parvermi i rami gravidi e vivaci
d'un altro pomo, e non molto lontani
per esser pur allora vòlto in laci.
106
107
108

Vidi gente sott' esso alzar le mani
e gridar non so che verso le fronde,
quasi bramosi fantolini e vani
109
110
111

che pregano, e 'l pregato non risponde,
ma, per fare esser ben la voglia acuta,
tien alto lor disio e nol nasconde.
112
113
114

Poi si partì sì come ricreduta;
e noi venimmo al grande arbore adesso,
che tanti prieghi e lagrime rifiuta.
115
116
117

“Trapassate oltre sanza farvi presso:
legno è più sù che fu morso da Eva,
e questa pianta si levò da esso.”
118
119
120

Sì tra le frasche non so chi diceva;
per che Virgilio e Stazio e io, ristretti,
oltre andavam dal lato che si leva.
121
122
123

“Ricordivi,” dicea, “d'i maladetti
nei nuvoli formati, che, satolli,
Tesëo combatter co' doppi petti;
124
125
126

e de li Ebrei ch'al ber si mostrar molli,
per che no i volle Gedeon compagni,
quando inver' Madïan discese i colli.”
127
128
129

Sì accostati a l'un d'i due vivagni
passammo, udendo colpe de la gola
seguite già da miseri guadagni.
130
131
132

Poi, rallargati per la strada sola,
ben mille passi e più ci portar oltre,
contemplando ciascun sanza parola.
133
134
135

“Che andate pensando sì voi sol tre?”
sùbita voce disse; ond' io mi scossi
come fan bestie spaventate e poltre.
136
137
138

Drizzai la testa per veder chi fossi;
e già mai non si videro in fornace
vetri o metalli sì lucenti e rossi,
139
140
141

com'io vidi un che dicea: “S'a voi piace
montare in sù, qui si convien dar volta;
quinci si va chi vuole andar per pace.”
142
143
144

L'aspetto suo m'avea la vista tolta;
per ch'io mi volsi dietro a' miei dottori,
com' om che va secondo ch'elli ascolta.
145
146
147

E quale, annunziatrice de li albori,
l'aura di maggio movesi e olezza,
tutta impregnata da l'erba e da' fiori;
148
149
150

tal mi senti' un vento dar per mezza
la fronte, e ben senti' mover la piuma,
che fé sentir d'ambrosïa l'orezza.
151
152
153
154

E senti' dir: “Beati cui alluma
tanto di grazia, che l'amor del gusto
nel petto lor troppo disir non fuma,
esurïendo sempre quanto è giusto!”
1
2
3

Nor speech the going, nor the going that
  Slackened; but talking we went bravely on,
  Even as a vessel urged by a good wind.

4
5
6

And shadows, that appeared things doubly dead,
  From out the sepulchres of their eyes betrayed
  Wonder at me, aware that I was living.

7
8
9

And I, continuing my colloquy,
  Said: "Peradventure he goes up more slowly
  Than he would do, for other people's sake.

10
11
12

But tell me, if thou knowest, where is Piccarda;
  Tell me if any one of note I see
  Among this folk that gazes at me so."

13
14
15

"My sister, who, 'twixt beautiful and good,
  I know not which was more, triumphs rejoicing
  Already in her crown on high Olympus."

16
17
18

So said he first, and then: "'Tis not forbidden
  To name each other here, so milked away
  Is our resemblance by our dieting.

19
20
21

This," pointing with his finger, "is Buonagiunta,
  Buonagiunta, of Lucca; and that face
  Beyond him there, more peaked than the others,

22
23
24

Has held the holy Church within his arms;
  From Tours was he, and purges by his fasting
  Bolsena's eels and the Vernaccia wine."

25
26
27

He named me many others one by one;
  And all contented seemed at being named,
  So that for this I saw not one dark look.

28
29
30

I saw for hunger bite the empty air
  Ubaldin dalla Pila, and Boniface,
  Who with his crook had pastured many people.

31
32
33

I saw Messer Marchese, who had leisure
  Once at Forli for drinking with less dryness,
  And he was one who ne'er felt satisfied.

34
35
36

But as he does who scans, and then doth prize
  One more than others, did I him of Lucca,
  Who seemed to take most cognizance of me.

37
38
39

He murmured, and I know not what Gentucca
  From that place heard I, where he felt the wound
  Of justice, that doth macerate them so.

40
41
42

"O soul," I said, "that seemest so desirous
  To speak with me, do so that I may hear thee,
  And with thy speech appease thyself and me."

43
44
45

"A maid is born, and wears not yet the veil,"
  Began he, "who to thee shall pleasant make
  My city, howsoever men may blame it.

46
47
48

Thou shalt go on thy way with this prevision;
  If by my murmuring thou hast been deceived,
  True things hereafter will declare it to thee.

49
50
51

But say if him I here behold, who forth
  Evoked the new-invented rhymes, beginning,
  'Ladies, that have intelligence of love?'"

52
53
54

And I to him: "One am I, who, whenever
  Love doth inspire me, note, and in that measure
  Which he within me dictates, singing go."

55
56
57

"O brother, now I see," he said, "the knot
  Which me, the Notary, and Guittone held
  Short of the sweet new style that now I hear.

58
59
60

I do perceive full clearly how your pens
  Go closely following after him who dictates,
  Which with our own forsooth came not to pass;

61
62
63

And he who sets himself to go beyond,
  No difference sees from one style to another;"
  And as if satisfied, he held his peace.

64
65
66

Even as the birds, that winter tow'rds the Nile,
  Sometimes into a phalanx form themselves,
  Then fly in greater haste, and go in file;

67
68
69

In such wise all the people who were there,
  Turning their faces, hurried on their steps,
  Both by their leanness and their wishes light.

70
71
72

And as a man, who weary is with trotting,
  Lets his companions onward go, and walks,
  Until he vents the panting of his chest;

73
74
75

So did Forese let the holy flock
  Pass by, and came with me behind it, saying,
  "When will it be that I again shall see thee?"

76
77
78

"How long," I answered, "I may live, I know not;
  Yet my return will not so speedy be,
  But I shall sooner in desire arrive;

79
80
81

Because the place where I was set to live
  From day to day of good is more depleted,
  And unto dismal ruin seems ordained."

82
83
84

"Now go," he said, "for him most guilty of it
  At a beast's tail behold I dragged along
  Towards the valley where is no repentance.

85
86
87

Faster at every step the beast is going,
  Increasing evermore until it smites him,
  And leaves the body vilely mutilated.

88
89
90

Not long those wheels shall turn," and he uplifted
  His eyes to heaven, "ere shall be clear to thee
  That which my speech no farther can declare.

91
92
93

Now stay behind; because the time so precious
  Is in this kingdom, that I lose too much
  By coming onward thus abreast with thee."

94
95
96

As sometimes issues forth upon a gallop
  A cavalier from out a troop that ride,
  And seeks the honour of the first encounter,

97
98
99

So he with greater strides departed from us;
  And on the road remained I with those two,
  Who were such mighty marshals of the world.

100
101
102

And when before us he had gone so far
  Mine eyes became to him such pursuivants
  As was my understanding to his words,

103
104
105

Appeared to me with laden and living boughs
  Another apple-tree, and not far distant,
  From having but just then turned thitherward.

106
107
108

People I saw beneath it lift their hands,
  And cry I know not what towards the leaves,
  Like little children eager and deluded,

109
110
111

Who pray, and he they pray to doth not answer,
  But, to make very keen their appetite,
  Holds their desire aloft, and hides it not.

112
113
114

Then they departed as if undeceived;
  And now we came unto the mighty tree
  Which prayers and tears so manifold refuses.

115
116
117

"Pass farther onward without drawing near;
  The tree of which Eve ate is higher up,
  And out of that one has this tree been raised."

118
119
120

Thus said I know not who among the branches;
  Whereat Virgilius, Statius, and myself
  Went crowding forward on the side that rises.

121
122
123

"Be mindful," said he, "of the accursed ones
  Formed of the cloud-rack, who inebriate
  Combated Theseus with their double breasts;

124
125
126

And of the Jews who showed them soft in drinking,
  Whence Gideon would not have them for companions
  When he tow'rds Midian the hills descended."

127
128
129

Thus, closely pressed to one of the two borders,
  On passed we, hearing sins of gluttony,
  Followed forsooth by miserable gains;

130
131
132

Then set at large upon the lonely road,
  A thousand steps and more we onward went,
  In contemplation, each without a word.

133
134
135

"What go ye thinking thus, ye three alone?"
  Said suddenly a voice, whereat I started
  As terrified and timid beasts are wont.

136
137
138

I raised my head to see who this might be,
  And never in a furnace was there seen
  Metals or glass so lucent and so red

139
140
141

As one I saw who said: "If it may please you
  To mount aloft, here it behoves you turn;
  This way goes he who goeth after peace."

142
143
144

His aspect had bereft me of my sight,
  So that I turned me back unto my Teachers,
  Like one who goeth as his hearing guides him.

145
146
147

And as, the harbinger of early dawn,
  The air of May doth move and breathe out fragrance,
  Impregnate all with herbage and with flowers,

148
149
150

So did I feel a breeze strike in the midst
  My front, and felt the moving of the plumes
  That breathed around an odour of ambrosia;

151
152
153
154

And heard it said: "Blessed are they whom grace
  So much illumines, that the love of taste
  Excites not in their breasts too great desire,
Hungering at all times so far as is just."

Robert Hollander (English, 2000-2007)
1 - 3

The conversation between Forese and Dante continues. We have not heard Virgil's voice since the fifteenth verse of the last canto. We will not hear it again until the next canto (XXV.17). This is his longest silence since he entered the poem in its first canto (see the note to Inf. XXX.37-41). He would seem to have been moved aside in response to Dante's interest in the encounter with Forese and concern with exploring the nature of his own most particular poetic practice, the subject at the core of this canto.

4 - 4

For the phrase 'things dead twice over' see the Epistle of Jude. The context is worth noting. Jude is declaiming against those who have infiltrated the ranks of the true believers, those 'ungodly men' (homines... impii – Jude 4) who are compared to, in succession, the unbelieving Israelites, the fallen angels, the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as those great sinners Cain, Balaam (Numbers 22-25 and 31:16), and Korah (Numbers 16). The presence of these ungodly ones is then portrayed (Jude 12) as a blemish upon the feasts of Christians gathered in charity. Interlopers, they are described as 'feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about by the winds; trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead (bis mortuae), plucked out by the roots.' Several commentators refer to this passage, but only Poletto (comm. to vv. 4-6) does so with some attention to the context, also graciously giving credit to the commentary of Antonio Cesari (Bellezze della “Divina Commedia” [Verona: P. Libanti, 1824-26]) for the earliest citation. The contrapasso here is thus more related to gluttony than at first may seem apparent, calling attention to an arid feasting that has no regard for the condition of the soul. These penitents thus purge themselves as though in memory of Jude's gluttonous 'ungodly men.'

8 - 9

Once again (see the note to Purg. XXI.103-114) we see that Statius is portrayed as putting off his Christian zeal in order to give himself to affectionate admiration of Virgil.

10 - 10

Dante asks after Forese's sister, Piccarda, whom we shall meet as the first presence of Paradiso (see the note to Par. III.46-49). The Donati family, like others in the poem, is variously dispersed in the afterworld. Later in this canto (verse 84) we will hear of Forese's brother, Corso, who is destined for hell. In ante-purgatory we met a member of another similarly dispersed family, Buonconte da Montefeltro (Purg. V.88), son of the damned Guido (Inf. XXVII.67).

13 - 15

Forese's touching words of praise for his sister, already joyous in the presence of God in the Empyrean (the Christian version of Mt. Olympus, home of the gods in classical mythology) brought the following misogynist comment from Benvenuto (comm. to these verses): 'And that is great praise, for it is a rare thing to find in the same woman harmony between comely form and chaste behavior.'

Piccarda, who was dragged from her life as a nun into matrimony against her will, eventually puts us in mind of Pia de' Tolomei (Purg. V.133-136), who also was forced into a marriage she did not welcome. And both of them may send our thoughts back to Francesca da Rimini, similarly mistreated (Inf. V.100-107). The first three women present in each of the three cantiche have this experience in common. The damned Francesca insists on the impending damnation of her husband, Gianciotto (but see the note to Inf. V.107), while Forese, on the way to salvation, speaks glowingly of his already saved sister.

16 - 18

'Here' surely refers to this terrace (see the note to Purg. XXII.49-51). Since there is no prohibition of naming names on any other terrace, commentators worry about Forese's motive in speaking this way. Most currently agree that he is using exaggerated understatement (the trope litotes) to make his point: i.e., on this terrace one must use names to identify the penitents because they are unrecognizable (as was Forese to Dante at Purg. XXIII.43-48) as a result of their emaciation.

19 - 20

Bonagiunta Orbicciani degli Overardi da Lucca (1220?-1297?), notary and writer of lyric poems, composed mainly in imitation of the Provençal poets. He was involved in polemic against the poetry of Guido Guinizzelli and was attacked by Dante in his treatise on vernacular eloquence (Dve I.xiii.1) for writing in a dialectical rather than the lofty ('curial') vernacular. Some three dozen of his poems survive and a group of these have been re-edited and re-presented by Gianfranco Contini (editor, Poeti del Duecento, 2 vols. [Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1960], vol. I, pp. 257-82). See Claudio Giunta (La poesia italiana nell'età di Dante: la linea Bonagiunta-Guinizzelli [Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998]) and Carlo Paolazzi (La maniera mutata: Il “dolce stil novo” tra Scrittura e “Ars poetica” [Milan: Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica, 1998]) for the poetic relationship between Bonagiunta and Guinizzelli and its significance for Dante.

21 - 24

Simon de Brie, who 'married' Holy Church as Pope Martin IV (1281-85), was French. He was not born in Tours, but had served as treasurer of the cathedral of St. Martin in Tours. He briefly served as chancellor of France before becoming a cardinal in 1261. And his French connection was further apparent when Charles of Anjou was instrumental in securing the papacy for him. His gluttonous affection for eels from Lake Bolsena caused him, according to Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 19-24), to have them, still alive, drowned in white wine from Liguria (the town of Vernazza) and then roasted. The commentator also reports that, as pope, coming from meetings dealing with Church business he would cry out, 'O Lord God, how many ills must we bear for Your holy Church! Let us have a drink!' and head for table to console himself.

Not only did this gluttonous pope support French political designs in Italy, he was the man who promoted Benedetto Caetani to the rank of cardinal, thus greatly facilitating his eventual elevation as Pope Boniface VIII (a promotion that Dante could not have regarded with equanimity, given his personal sufferings at the hands of this pope [see the note to Inf. XIX.52-53]). In the light of such things, why did Dante decide that Martin was among the saved? Trucchi (comm. to vv. 19-24) suggests that, as the successor to the nepotistic and venal Nicholas III (see Inf. XIX.69-72), Martin put an end, for a time, to the practice of simony in the papacy. It is for that reason, in his opinion, that Dante overlooked his other flagrant sins to save him.

26 - 27

The act of naming being particularly necessary on this terrace (see the note to vv. 16-18), it brings pleasure (Dante again employs litotes: it does not cause scowls) to those who are named and thus may hope for relieving prayer from the world, once Dante returns to it. It hardly needs to be pointed out that many of the sinners in hell were less pleased at being recognized.

29 - 29

'Ubaldino degli Ubaldini of La Pila (castle in the Mugello, or upper valley of the Sieve, tributary of the Arno, north of Florence), member of the powerful Ghibelline family of that name. Ubaldino, who was one of those who voted for the destruction of Florence (Inf. X.92), and was a member of the Consiglio Generale, after the battle of Montaperti (Sept. 4, 1260), was brother of the famous Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini (Inf. X.120), uncle of Ugolino d'Azzo (Purg. XIV.105), and father of the Archbishop Ruggieri of Pisa (Inf. XXXIII.14); he died in 1291' (Toynbee, “Pila, Ubaldin dalla” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).

29 - 30

Bonifazio has been 'identified by modern commentators with Bonifazio dei Fieschi of Genoa, Archbishop of Ravenna, 1274-1295.... The ancient pastoral staff of the Archbishops of Ravenna, which is still preserved, bears at the top an ornament shaped like a chess “rook” [rather than the conventional curved crosier], hence the term rocco used by Dante. Bonifazio... is known to have been immensely wealthy, but there is no record of his having been addicted to gluttony' (Toynbee, “Bonifazio[2]” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).

While some debate whether or not the reference to the archbishop's pastoral care is meant to be taken ironically, it seems difficult, in light of the descriptions of the other penitent gluttons, to take it any other way. The flock he is envisioned as leading would seem to be less the faithful of Ravenna than his guests to dinner.

31 - 33

'Marchese (or Marchesino) degli Orgogliosi of Forlì... was Podestà of Faenza in 1296' (Toynbee, “Marchese[4]” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). Embellishing an incident he probably first heard from his teacher, Benvenuto da Imola, John of Serravalle (comm. to these verses) recounts it this way: 'One day [Marchese] asked of his servant, “What do the people say of me? What is my reputation among them?” And the servant answered, “O my lord, they say that you are noble and wise,” etc. And so he spoke again to his servant, saying, “Now tell me the truth, what do they really say?” In reply the servant said, “Since you wish it, I will tell you the truth; people say you are a great drinker of wine.” At which [Marchese] responded, “These people speak truthfully; but they really ought to add that I am always thirsty – and that is a fact, for I thirst continually.”' Bonagiunta was also a lover of the grape, according to Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 34-39), who characterised him as 'a deft contriver of rhymes and a ready imbiber of wines.'

34 - 36

Dante's attention was drawn to Bonagiunta da Lucca because, he says, Bonagiunta seemed to know him. We may reflect that Dante the poet's interest in Bonagiunta centered in his desire to stage, clued by the utterance of this lesser poet, his own ars poetica, as we shall shortly understand. Including Dante, the interaction among those speaking or being noticed in this canto involves two poets, two religious figures, and two politicians. And then there are the two classical poets who are not even mentioned once in this very 'modern' canto (it is notable that Pope Martin, dead only fifteen years, is the senior ghost among the five gluttons is this group).

37 - 39

For Dante's use of the verb mormorare (murmur), see the note to Purgatorio X.100-102. This passage has long been problematic. Does Bonagiunta refer to his fellow Lucchesi in an unfavorable way, calling them gentucca or gentuccia (a deprecating way of referring to his people, or gente)? Or is he mentioning a kindly woman of that name who will be welcoming to Dante when, in his exile, he will come to Lucca? In this case he would be referring to the femmina referred to in vv. 43-45. Beginning with Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 28-39), who states that Gentucca was the name of a woman from Rossimpelo, most commentators believe that the reference is to someone who was benevolent to Dante in Lucca during a stay there. We have, however, no confirming evidence for this sojourn in Lucca (see Michele Messina, “Lucca” [ED.1971.3]), which, if it took place, probably did so in 1308-9, and certainly no hard facts establishing her identity. Nonetheless, this remains the best hypothesis. Still others have attempted to make a case for Gentucca as a woman with whom Dante had some sort of sexual liaison, an interpretation that seems venturesome at best. On the entire question see Giorgio Varanini, “Gentucca” (ED.1971.3). For more recent consideration of the question, see Cono Mangieri (“Gentucca dantesca e dintorni,” Italian Quarterly 125-126 [1995], pp. 5-25), arguing, in a bold hypothesis, that Gentucca was an illegitimate daughter of the poet.

40 - 42

Dante encourages Bonagiunta, for whom speech is made difficult by the pain he feels in his mouth, the orifice by which he offended in gluttony, to speak more plainly.

43 - 48

If this woman is, as some contemporary students of the question suggest, Gentucca di Ciucchino Morla, she was the wife of Buonaccorso Fondora. In that case she wore the black wimple, worn by wives, not the white, reserved for widows. Nino Visconti's widow, Giovanna, according to him, made the mistake of remarrying badly, putting off the white wimple (Purg. VIII.74). However, we cannot be sure whether Bonagiunta is referring to an as yet unmarried woman, or to a married one whose husband, soon to die, is still alive. In any case, this woman will make Lucca seem pleasant to Dante, no matter how others may blame it (as Dante himself had done in Inf. XXI.40-42).

49 - 51

Having recognized Dante earlier (vv. 35-36), Bonagiunta now presses him about the nature of his poetry. Is he the poet who drew forth from within himself the new poems that began with the canzone 'Ladies that have intelligence of love'? This is the first long poem of the three that help to give structure to the Vita nuova, announcing the beginning of its second stage, in which Dante chooses to give over the style of 'complaint,' borrowed from Cavalcanti, in order to turn to the style of praise, with its debt to Guinizzelli. Dante composed this poem around 1289. From this remark, we learn at least one important thing. Whatever the determining features of Dante's new poetry, it was different – at least according to him, using Bonagiunta as his mouthpiece – from all poetry written before it, including Dante's own. This precision evades many who discuss the problem, who continue to allow poems by Dante and other poets written before Donne ch'avete to share its status. It seems clear that Dante's absolute and precise purpose is to rewrite the history of Italian lyric, including that of his own poems, so that it fits his current program.

52 - 54

There is perhaps no more debated tercet in this poem than this one, and perhaps none that has more far-reaching implications for our general understanding of Dante's stance as a poet. Does he refer to Amore as the god of Love? or as the name of the true God in His Third Person, the Holy Spirit? Dantists are deeply (and fiercely) divided by this issue. The bibliography of work devoted to it is immense. Readers with Italian will want to refer to three papers that were composed for the Third International Dante Seminar (Florence, 2000) by members of the panel concerning the currently vexed question of Dante's attitude toward Cavalcanti and its relationship to his view of his own poetic as this is given voice here (see three contributions to the volume Dante: da Firenze all'aldilà. Atti del terzo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]: Roberto Antonelli, “Cavalcanti e Dante: al di qua del Paradiso,” pp. 289-302; Robert Durling, “'Mio figlio ov'è?' [Inferno X, 60],” pp. 303-29; and Lino Leonardi, “Cavalcanti, Dante e il nuovo stile,” pp. 331-54). For the views of this writer, which are at some variance especially from those of the first and third of these, see Hollander (“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 201-31, and “Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 263-81). In the most recent of these two studies, the case is made for our understanding that Dante indeed presents himself as writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a view that causes understandable distress, but which is fundamental, in one line of thought, to a better comprehension of his purposes. Similar views are to be found in Selene Sarteschi (“Purgatorio XXIV 49-53: Dante e il 'Dolce stil novo'. Verifica di una continuità ideologica,” in her Per la “Commedia” e non per essa soltanto [Rome: Bulzoni, 2002 (1995)]), pp. 97-137. For a curious blending of (1) an old and (2) a new view, see Carlo Paolazzi (La maniera mutata: Il “dolce stil novo” tra Scrittura e “Ars poetica” [Milan: Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica, 1998]), who attempts (1) to resuscitate an actual 'school' of stilnovisti, including the major figures Guinizzelli, Cavalcanti, Dante, and Cino da Pistoia, all of whom are related, according to Paolazzi, by (2) significant borrowings from concepts found in Horace's Ars poetica and from the language of Scripture. A major impediment to accepting such a view is the fact that Dante's text explicitly and without possible exception (unless one were to argue that Bonagiunta simply does not know whereof he speaks – a difficult position to support) says that the dolce stil novo began with 'Donne ch'avete,' ca. 1289, thus omitting at least Guinizzelli from 'membership.' In addition, Dante's treatment of Cavalcanti in the Comedy makes any such evaluation more than merely dubious, as Danilo Bonanno agrees (La perdita e il ritorno. Presenze cavalcantiane nell'ultimo Dante [Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 1999]), pp. 50-52. On the other hand, that Dante and Cino were, according to Dante, fellow 'stilnovisti' seems more than likely. For an attempt to make the school even more inclusive than a surely questionable Romantic view had done, see Gorni (“Paralipomeni a Lippo,” Studi di filologia italiana 47 [1989]), pp. 27-29; in a similar inclusive vein see Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001]), pp. 33-36. The cause of much of the problem as it is misconstrued by Dante's critics is that they try to establish what really happened in the history of Italian poetry, while Dante himself puts forward only what he decided had really happened.

55 - 63

Bonagiunta's response may be paraphrased as follows: 'Now I understand the nature of the knot that held back the Notary [Giacomo da Lentini], Guittone [d'Arezzo], and me from the sweet new style that at this very moment I am hearing! Now I clearly understand how your pens [plural] followed strictly after the words of the “dictator,” something that ours did not; and in that lies the entire difference between your [Dante's] “new style” and ours.' He falls silent, as though, it seems, satisfied with his utterance.

What exactly does Dante mean by the phrase 'sweet new style'? This is surely one of the key questions presented in the poem, and not one of the easiest. Further, who else wrote in that 'style'? And what is the significance of the fact that Bonagiunta says that he hears it now (in listening to Dante here in purgatory? in current Tuscan poems composed on earth? [but how would he hear these?])? What follows is a series of hypotheses that sketch out this writer's views of the major aspects of a difficult question.

(1) The passage, probably written ca. 1311-12, marks the first time that the beguiling phrase 'dolce stil novo' had ever been used in the vernacular that we call 'Italian.' That it was meant to refer to or to identify an actual 'school' of poets that existed before the date of its inscription in Dante's text may not be assumed (see Emilio Bigi [“Genesi di un concetto storiografico: 'dolce stil novo,'” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 132 (1955), pp. 333-71] and Guido Favati [Inchiesta sul Dolce Stil Nuovo (Florence: Le Monnier,1975)], although it frequently is.

(2) On the other hand, the author's (or Bonagiunta's) plural 'vostre' should be seen as including not only himself, but also Cino da Pistoia (the one fellow poet who Dante believed had understood the theological significance of his Beatrice), if perhaps no one else (see Hollander [“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 (1992), pp. 201-31] and Furio Brugnolo [“Cino (e Onesto) dentro e fuori la Commedia,” in Omaggio a Gianfranco Folena, ed. Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo (Padua: Editoriale Programma, 1993), pp. 369-86]). For reasons to believe that Cino himself, as evidenced in his poem of tribute, 'Su per la costa,' written after Dante's death, believed that Dante's plurality of penne included him, see Luciano Rossi (“Il nodo di Bonagiunta e le penne degli stilnovisti: ancora sul XXIV del Purgatorio,” in Fictio poetica: Studi italiani e ispanici in onore di Georges Güntert, ed. Katherina Maier-Troxler and Costantino Maeder [Florence: Cesati, 1998]), pp. 49-50.

(3) The significance of the poetic stance struck in the phrase should be understood in theological terms. Dante is not presenting himself as a usual love poet, but as one who serves as God's scribe in recording the result of God's love for him through the agency of Beatrice. Benvenuto, so insensitive (and even hostile) to Dante's claims for a theological basis for his writing, has a wonderfully angry gloss to vv. 52-54: 'inspires me': you should not understand: with the love of divine grace, as certain people falsely interpret (italics added), but indeed with lascivious love.' It is interesting that Benvenuto feels he must oppose those who are reading the poem theologically in his own day. We do not have any record of such an understanding of these lines; it is heartening to know that it existed. John of Serravalle (comm. to verse 58) follows his master in thinking Amor here is but the 'god' presiding over the world's oldest indoor sport. Dante and others had previously written in a 'sweet' style; but only he, now, in his Comedy, writes in this 'sweet new style' that creates a theologized poetry that is like almost no one else's (see Mazzotta [Dante, Poet of the Desert (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)], pp. 197-210; Zygmunt Baranski [“Canto VIII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone (Florence: Cesati, 2001)]), pp. 392-94.

(4) The word 'style' here has a broader connotation than it usually does in discourse about poetry, indicating not only a way of writing, but a subject for writing, as was apparent when his new style of praise in Vita nuova was presented as requiring new 'matter' (see Hollander, “Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 271-72; Aversano [“Sulla poetica dantesca nel canto XXIV del Purgatorio,” L'Alighieri 16 (2000)], p. 131: the poem is 'sweet artistically because it is new poetically.') The 'new style' not only sounds different, it is different (but see the differing view of Lino Leonardi [“Cavalcanti, Dante e il nuovo stile,” in Dante: da Firenze all'aldilà. Atti del terzo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone (Florence: Cesati, 2001)]), p. 334. The very phrasing of the element that sets, in Bonagiunta's understanding (vv. 58-59), this 'style' apart from all others – copying out exactly what was spoken by the 'dictator' – points not at all to style, but rather to content.

(5) We should probably also understand that the phrase 'dolce stil novo' refers to some of Dante's earlier poetry (only the canzone 'Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore' for certain), some of Cino's poems (at least and perhaps only the canzone upon the death of Beatrice, 'Avegna ched el m'aggia più per tempo'), and to Dante's Comedy, thus presenting the author's claims for a theological grounding of his poem's inspiration as being joined to certain of his earlier poems that he felt either had, or could be construed as having, the same character. This is the crux of a continuing disagreement with those who argue that the Comedy is a poem that goes beyond the stil novo (e.g., Pertile [“Dante's Comedy: Beyond the Stilnovo,” Lectura Dantis (virginiana) 13 (1993), pp. 47-77] or Malato [Dante (Rome: Salerno, 1999)], pp. 105-22), rather than being a continuation of it. While privileging a theological reading (if not firmly), Warren Ginsberg (Dante's Aesthetics of Being [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999)]), p. 88, like Pertile, is of the opinion that the Comedy's style 'is a new style, which differs from the stil novo.' In short, while Dante and others (Guido Cavalcanti perhaps the most capable among them) had previously written in a 'sweet' style, Dante alone developed, on the model of Guinizzelli's lyrics, poems of praise of a theologized lady, Beatrice (see the note to Purgatorio XXIV.112). For discussion of a specifically Christian reformulation of traditional images of the god of Love in the fourth stanza of the poem that Dante authorizes us to think of as the first poem of the 'sweet new style,' see Vincent Moleta (“'Voi le vedete Amor pinto nel viso' [V.N., XIX, 12]: The Roots of Dante's Metaphor,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 57-75). For a review of the entire question of Dante's relations with Guido and of the debate over their nature, see Enrico Fenzi (La canzone d'amore di Guido Cavalcanti e i suoi antichi commenti [Genoa: il Melangolo, 1999], pp. 9-70). See also Enrico Malato (Dante e Guido Cavalcanti: il dissidio per la “Vita nuova” e il «disdegno» di Guido [Rome: Salerno, 1997]); Emilio Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001], pp. 48-68); Giuliano Tanturli (“Guido Cavalcanti contro Dante,” in Le tradizioni del testo: Studi di letteratura italiana offerti a Domenico De Robertis, ed. F. Gavazzeni and G. Gorni [Milan: Ricciardi, 1993], pp. 3-13); Nicolò Pasero (“Dante in Cavalcanti: ancora sui rapporti tra Vita nova e Donna me prega,” Medioevo romanzo 22 [1998], pp. 388-414); and Selene Sarteschi, “Donna me prega-Vita Nuova: La direzione di una polemica,” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 15 [2000], pp. 9-35).

56 - 56

In a single line Bonagiunta crosses off the list of illustrious precursors two of the great poetic figures that preceded Dante, Giacomo da Lentini (died ca. 1250) and Guittone d'Arezzo (ca. 1230-94). Giacomo was the first major Italian practitioner of lyric, and is looked upon as the inventor of the sonnet and as the founder of the so-called Sicilian School, the first group of writers of lyric in Italian, taking their models from the writers of lyric in Provençal. Dante is later still harder on Guittone (see Purg. XXVI.124-126 and note), who, as Dante came to poetry in the 1280s, was perhaps the pre-eminent Tuscan poet.

61 - 62

Letterio Cassata (“Un'ipotesi per Pg 24, 61-62,” Critica del testo 4 [2001]), p. 307, paraphrases these lines as follows: 'e chi vuole accingersi a procedere più in là non è più in grado di vedere il divario dall'uno all'altro stile' (and he who would prepare himself to go more deeply into the matter is no longer in a position to distinguish the difference between the one style and the other). It is a difficult text to be sure of.

64 - 74

The two similes, piled one upon the other, return to a technique not observed in some time: a comparison based on an antique source coupled with a completely 'vernacular' and 'ordinary' one. See Inferno XXIV.1-15, where ancient and contemporary elements are combined in a single simile, and Inferno XXVI.25-39, where local Tuscan agriculture and Elijah's ascent to heaven are the contrasting elements in two neighboring similes.

The first of this pair derives, fairly obviously to today's reader, instructed by the notes in the text, from Lucan (Phars. V.711-716), a description of cranes fleeing winter's cold to winter on the Nile. Nonetheless, for all the certainty in recent commentators that this is a reminiscence of Lucan, it was only with Torraca (comm. to vv. 73-75) that it seems first to have been observed. Lucan's passage is revisited even more plainly at Paradiso XVIII.73-78.

75 - 75

Forese's remark is perhaps the high point in the fraternal affection found in purgatory, as he looks forward to Dante's death as the necessary precondition for their next meeting in the afterlife.

76 - 81

Notable is Dante's calm assurance that he will be saved. This may seem prideful, but is rather the natural result, or so he would have us believe, of his having been chosen for such an experience of the afterworld. God, he would ask us to imagine, would not have selected as His scribe one destined to die in sin.

Porena (comm. to vv. 79-81) suggests that the world-weary tone of the protagonist reflects less the Dante of the year 1300, at the peak of his political success, than the exiled poet of ca. 1310 (the date that Bosco/Reggio [comm. to vv. 77-78] suggest for the composition of this part of the poem).

82 - 90

Corso Donati, brother of Forese, was, in Dante's eyes, the Black Guelph who bore 'the greatest blame' for Florence's problems (and for his own) because of his alliance with Pope Boniface VIII, the 'beast' who will drag him to hell – as Dante will see before much time passes. In fact, through the magic of post-event prophecy (Corso was killed on 6 October 1308), Forese is able to promise the protagonist this happy vengeance.

Corso had supervised the murderous taking of the city by the Black Guelphs after Charles of Valois had led his French troops into Florence in November 1301. In a political reversal that is not totally unlike Dante's own, he was condemned to death by the priors for trying to take power into his own hands in a supposed arrangement involving the Tuscan Ghibelline leader Uguccione della Faggiuola, to whose daughter he was married.

While the 'beast' in Forese's account is clearly metaphorical, Corso apparently did die while trying to escape, either in a fall from his horse or by being lanced by one of his captors once he had fallen – or even as he was hanging from a stirrup, dragged along the ground.

94 - 99

The military simile fits the tone of the death scene of Corso that has just been narrated by his brother. Here, by way of returning to the rigors of his penance, Forese is allowed to assume the role of the cavalryman who goes out to make the first contact of battle. Virgil and Statius, described by a word perhaps never seen before in Italian, 'marshals,' are left behind, but are calmly directing the battle, as it were. As for Dante, that retired cavalryman (see the note to Inf. XXI.95), it is not clear what role he plays, but he is a subordinate to these two marshals, those great poets who led other humans into knowledge and virtue through their works.

100 - 102

Forese has moved quickly along the terrace, far ahead of Dante, Virgil, and Statius. The protagonist's eyes remain fixed on Forese's departing form, as his thoughts remain fixed on his riddling prophesy (vv. 82-87).

103 - 105

Moving along the terrace with his eyes fixed on Forese, Dante does not at first see the tree that his own movement forward has brought him to. The second tree of this terrace has caused less puzzlement than the first one (Purg. XXII.131-135); the succeeding verses (116-117) answer most questions that one might have (see the note to vv. 115-117): this tree is an offshoot of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Adolfo Jenni (“Il Canto XXIII del Purgatorio,” in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. V [Florence: Le Monnier, 1972)]), pp. 12-13, argues that the sight of the water from above causing the leaves to shine makes the penitent gluttons even hungrier. As was the case with the first tree, this one is also apparently watered from above (see Purg. XXII.137-138).

106 - 111

This simile possibly reflects a passage from Convivio (Conv. IV.xii.16) in which Dante speaks of the natural love of human souls for God, their maker, which is easily drawn off course: 'Thus we see little children setting their desire first of all on an apple, and then, growing older, desiring to possess a little bird, and then still later desiring to possess fine clothes, then a horse, and then a woman, and then modest wealth, then greater riches, and then still more' (tr. Lansing). The central elements of this image (a man catching the hungry attention of a child by holding up an apple) are deployed again in Purgatorio XXVII.45.

112 - 114

The penitents (as will be the poets) are urged to turn aside, apparently by the same voice from within the tree that will warn off the poets (and since the names of exemplary figures are recited by this voice, we probably correctly assume it speaks to all, triggered by its sense that someone is approaching, that is, not only in response to these special visitors). They are 'enlightened' (in the sense that their first opinion, that the fruit of this tree is desirable, is changed) when they realize that this tree is a branch from that beneath which humankind first fell into sin, and thus willingly move away.

115 - 117

Once again an unseen and unidentified divinely authorized voice speaks from within the foliage of a tree (see Purg. XXII.140-154). This is an offshoot of the tree of which Eve (and then Adam, who had also been warned not to [see the note to Purg. XXII.140-141]) ate the fruit. Benvenuto's gloss (to vv. 115-120) is admirable: this act of 'gluttony' is seen as the first sin, even though Adam himself will later (Par. XXVI.115-117) be clear that its cause was not really appetite for food but the desire to trespass for its own sake (as St. Augustine understood in his later redoing of the scene in his recounting of his youthful escapade involving the theft of a farmer's pears [Confessions II.iv: 'our real pleasure was in doing something forbidden' – tr. Pine-Coffin]): the first disobedience is thus the very desire to disobey (see Par. XXIX.55-57 for Satan's pride as the primal sin). Benvenuto is more alert to Dante's strategy here than many a more recent commentator, understanding that the image of eating is germane to Dante's description of Gluttony, despite the larger theological meaning of the primal act of sin.

Porena (comm. to vv. 116-117) is one of those who unaccountably believe that there must be still other trees upon this terrace. If, indeed, Dante is referring to the two most significant trees in the original garden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:8), it would seem to be unlikely that he would have wanted us to imagine there might be others scattered along the terrace. Porena denies that the first speaking tree (Purg. XXII.141) is an offshoot of the Tree of Life, but believes that it, too, is derived from the Tree of Knowledge, an opinion that may seem difficult to justify.

Bosco/Reggio raise a question in their commentary (to verse 115): Why was the first tree (Purg. XXII.139) approachable, while this one is not? Would it not seem reasonable that the fruit of the Tree of Life should be precisely what purgation is preparing penitents to receive? At the same time, it would also seem reasonable that they should prepare for their reward by ceremonially avoiding the site of humanity's original sin.

121 - 126

The voice reminds the travelers (and the penitents, we assume) first of the 'Centaurs, mythical race, half horses and half men, said to have been offspring of Ixion, King of the Lapithae, and a cloud in the shape of Hera [Juno]' (Toynbee, “Centauri” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). The Centaurs fought with the Lapiths and Theseus at the wedding feast for Pirithoüs (the friend of Theseus and their half-brother) and his bride Hippodamia. The Centaurs attempt to rape the bride and bridesmaids but are prevented by Theseus and others. The final 300 lines of the scene, which served as Dante's source, in Ovid (Metam. XII.210-535) represent a kind of tumultuous and comic redoing of the battle scenes in the Iliad (and in the Aeneid), with plenty of body parts and blood.

For the double nature of the Centaurs (beast and man at once), see Inferno XII.84.

The Hebrews selected by Gideon to make war upon the Midianites were those who lifted water to their mouths in their cupped hands, as opposed to those who cast themselves down to a stream to drink directly with their mouths (see Judges 7:2-8). The ones remembered here are not the three hundred whom he chose to fight, but the 9,700 who were sent back to their tents. These were 'slack' in that they gave in totally to their desire to drink, while the 300 displayed a more controlled demeanor, more fitting to those who would require composure even in the heat of battle.

133 - 134

This voice, we shortly come to understand, comes from the angel of Temperance.

137 - 138

Singleton (comm. to vv. 137-139) points out that the description of this angel is indebted to John's Revelation (Apoc. 1:9-20). The passage, prologue to John's vision, tells how the apostle was ordered to write it by Jesus, a scene described in terms that at times closely resemble these.

145 - 150

The last of the similes in a canto rich with them compares the waft of air from the angel's wing felt by Dante on his brow to the sweet-smelling breeze of May. Tommaseo (general note to this canto) suggested a source in Virgil's fourth Georgic (IV.415): 'Haec ait et liquidum ambrosiae diffundit odorem' (She spoke, giving off the flowing fragrance of ambrosia). Cyrene is encouraging her despondent son, Aristaeus, to learn his fate from Proteus.

151 - 154

Dante now 'finishes' the Beatitude (Matthew 5:6) begun in Purgatorio XXII.4-6, 'Beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt iustitiam, quoniam ipsi saturabuntur' (Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied). In the first context, applying to those who 'thirst' for riches, only sitiunt was heard, while here we have the echo only of the word for hunger, esuriunt.

Purgatorio: Canto 24

1
2
3

Né il dir l' andar, né l' andar lui più lento
facea, ma ragionando andavam forte,
sì come nave pinta da buon vento;
4
5
6

e l'ombre, che parean cose rimorte,
per le fosse de li occhi ammirazione
traean di me, di mio vivere accorte.
7
8
9

E io, continüando al mio sermone,
dissi: “Ella sen va sù forse più tarda
che non farebbe, per altrui cagione.
10
11
12

Ma dimmi, se tu sai, dov' è Piccarda;
dimmi s'io veggio da notar persona
tra questa gente che sì mi riguarda.”
13
14
15

“La mia sorella, che tra bella e buona
non so qual fosse più, trïunfa lieta
ne l'alto Olimpo già di sua corona.”
16
17
18

Sì disse prima; e poi: “Qui non si vieta
di nominar ciascun, da ch'è sì munta
nostra sembianza via per la dïeta.
19
20
21

”Questi,“ e mostrò col dito, ”è Bonagiunta,
Bonagiunta da Lucca; e quella faccia
di là da lui più che l'altre trapunta
22
23
24

ebbe la Santa Chiesa in le sue braccia:
dal Torso fu, e purga per digiuno
l'anguille di Bolsena e la vernaccia.“
25
26
27

Molti altri mi nomò ad uno ad uno;
e del nomar parean tutti contenti,
sì ch'io però non vidi un atto bruno.
28
29
30

Vidi per fame a vòto usar li denti
Ubaldin da la Pila e Bonifazio
che pasturò col rocco molte genti.
31
32
33

Vidi messer Marchese, ch'ebbe spazio
già di bere a Forlì con men secchezza,
e sì fu tal, che non si sentì sazio.
34
35
36

Ma come fa chi guarda e poi s'apprezza
più d'un che d'altro, fei a quel da Lucca,
che più parea di me aver contezza.
37
38
39

El mormorava; e non so che ”Gentucca“
sentiv' io là, ov' el sentia la piaga
de la giustizia che sì li pilucca.
40
41
42

”O anima,“ diss' io, ”che par sì vaga
di parlar meco, fa sì ch'io t'intenda,
e te e me col tuo parlare appaga.“
43
44
45

”Femmina è nata, e non porta ancor benda,“
cominciò el, ”che ti farà piacere
la mia città, come ch'om la riprenda.
46
47
48

Tu te n'andrai con questo antivedere:
se nel mio mormorar prendesti errore,
dichiareranti ancor le cose vere.
49
50
51

Ma dì s'i'veggio qui colui che fore
trasse le nove rime, cominciando
“Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore.”
52
53
54

E io a lui: “I' mi son un che, quando
Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo
ch'e' ditta dentro vo significando.”
55
56
57

“O frate, issa vegg' io,” diss' elli, “il nodo
che 'l Notaro e Guittone e me ritenne
di qua dal dolce stil novo ch'i' odo!
58
59
60

Io veggio ben come le vostre penne
di retro al dittator sen vanno strette,
che de le nostre certo non avvenne;
61
62
63

e qual più a gradire oltre si mette,
non vede più da l'uno a l'altro stilo”;
e, quasi contentato, si tacette.
64
65
66

Come li augei che vernan lungo 'l Nilo,
alcuna volta in aere fanno schiera,
poi volan più a fretta e vanno in filo,
67
68
69

così tutta la gente che lì era,
volgendo 'l viso, raffrettò suo passo,
e per magrezza e per voler leggera.
70
71
72

E come l'uom che di trottare è lasso,
lascia andar li compagni, e sì passeggia
fin che si sfoghi l'affollar del casso,
73
74
75

sì lasciò trapassar la santa greggia
Forese, e dietro meco sen veniva,
dicendo: “Quando fia ch'io ti riveggia?”
76
77
78

“Non so,” rispuos' io lui, “quant' io mi viva;
ma già non fïa il tornar mio tantosto,
ch'io non sia col voler prima a la riva;
79
80
81

però che 'l loco u' fui a viver posto,
di giorno in giorno più di ben si spolpa,
e a trista ruina par disposto.”
82
83
84

“Or va,” diss' el; “che quei che più n'ha colpa,
vegg' ïo a coda d'una bestia tratto
inver' la valle ove mai non si scolpa.
85
86
87

La bestia ad ogne passo va più ratto,
crescendo sempre, fin ch'ella il percuote,
e lascia il corpo vilmente disfatto.
88
89
90

Non hanno molto a volger quelle ruote,”
e drizzò li occhi al ciel, “che ti fia chiaro
ciò che 'l mio dir più dichiarar non puote.
91
92
93

Tu ti rimani omai; ché 'l tempo è caro
in questo regno, sì ch'io perdo troppo
venendo teco sì a paro a paro.”
94
95
96

Qual esce alcuna volta di gualoppo
lo cavalier di schiera che cavalchi,
e va per farsi onor del primo intoppo,
97
98
99

tal si partì da noi con maggior valchi;
e io rimasi in via con esso i due
che fuor del mondo sì gran marescalchi.
100
101
102

E quando innanzi a noi intrato fue,
che li occhi miei si fero a lui seguaci,
come la mente a le parole sue,
103
104
105

parvermi i rami gravidi e vivaci
d'un altro pomo, e non molto lontani
per esser pur allora vòlto in laci.
106
107
108

Vidi gente sott' esso alzar le mani
e gridar non so che verso le fronde,
quasi bramosi fantolini e vani
109
110
111

che pregano, e 'l pregato non risponde,
ma, per fare esser ben la voglia acuta,
tien alto lor disio e nol nasconde.
112
113
114

Poi si partì sì come ricreduta;
e noi venimmo al grande arbore adesso,
che tanti prieghi e lagrime rifiuta.
115
116
117

“Trapassate oltre sanza farvi presso:
legno è più sù che fu morso da Eva,
e questa pianta si levò da esso.”
118
119
120

Sì tra le frasche non so chi diceva;
per che Virgilio e Stazio e io, ristretti,
oltre andavam dal lato che si leva.
121
122
123

“Ricordivi,” dicea, “d'i maladetti
nei nuvoli formati, che, satolli,
Tesëo combatter co' doppi petti;
124
125
126

e de li Ebrei ch'al ber si mostrar molli,
per che no i volle Gedeon compagni,
quando inver' Madïan discese i colli.”
127
128
129

Sì accostati a l'un d'i due vivagni
passammo, udendo colpe de la gola
seguite già da miseri guadagni.
130
131
132

Poi, rallargati per la strada sola,
ben mille passi e più ci portar oltre,
contemplando ciascun sanza parola.
133
134
135

“Che andate pensando sì voi sol tre?”
sùbita voce disse; ond' io mi scossi
come fan bestie spaventate e poltre.
136
137
138

Drizzai la testa per veder chi fossi;
e già mai non si videro in fornace
vetri o metalli sì lucenti e rossi,
139
140
141

com'io vidi un che dicea: “S'a voi piace
montare in sù, qui si convien dar volta;
quinci si va chi vuole andar per pace.”
142
143
144

L'aspetto suo m'avea la vista tolta;
per ch'io mi volsi dietro a' miei dottori,
com' om che va secondo ch'elli ascolta.
145
146
147

E quale, annunziatrice de li albori,
l'aura di maggio movesi e olezza,
tutta impregnata da l'erba e da' fiori;
148
149
150

tal mi senti' un vento dar per mezza
la fronte, e ben senti' mover la piuma,
che fé sentir d'ambrosïa l'orezza.
151
152
153
154

E senti' dir: “Beati cui alluma
tanto di grazia, che l'amor del gusto
nel petto lor troppo disir non fuma,
esurïendo sempre quanto è giusto!”
1
2
3

Nor speech the going, nor the going that
  Slackened; but talking we went bravely on,
  Even as a vessel urged by a good wind.

4
5
6

And shadows, that appeared things doubly dead,
  From out the sepulchres of their eyes betrayed
  Wonder at me, aware that I was living.

7
8
9

And I, continuing my colloquy,
  Said: "Peradventure he goes up more slowly
  Than he would do, for other people's sake.

10
11
12

But tell me, if thou knowest, where is Piccarda;
  Tell me if any one of note I see
  Among this folk that gazes at me so."

13
14
15

"My sister, who, 'twixt beautiful and good,
  I know not which was more, triumphs rejoicing
  Already in her crown on high Olympus."

16
17
18

So said he first, and then: "'Tis not forbidden
  To name each other here, so milked away
  Is our resemblance by our dieting.

19
20
21

This," pointing with his finger, "is Buonagiunta,
  Buonagiunta, of Lucca; and that face
  Beyond him there, more peaked than the others,

22
23
24

Has held the holy Church within his arms;
  From Tours was he, and purges by his fasting
  Bolsena's eels and the Vernaccia wine."

25
26
27

He named me many others one by one;
  And all contented seemed at being named,
  So that for this I saw not one dark look.

28
29
30

I saw for hunger bite the empty air
  Ubaldin dalla Pila, and Boniface,
  Who with his crook had pastured many people.

31
32
33

I saw Messer Marchese, who had leisure
  Once at Forli for drinking with less dryness,
  And he was one who ne'er felt satisfied.

34
35
36

But as he does who scans, and then doth prize
  One more than others, did I him of Lucca,
  Who seemed to take most cognizance of me.

37
38
39

He murmured, and I know not what Gentucca
  From that place heard I, where he felt the wound
  Of justice, that doth macerate them so.

40
41
42

"O soul," I said, "that seemest so desirous
  To speak with me, do so that I may hear thee,
  And with thy speech appease thyself and me."

43
44
45

"A maid is born, and wears not yet the veil,"
  Began he, "who to thee shall pleasant make
  My city, howsoever men may blame it.

46
47
48

Thou shalt go on thy way with this prevision;
  If by my murmuring thou hast been deceived,
  True things hereafter will declare it to thee.

49
50
51

But say if him I here behold, who forth
  Evoked the new-invented rhymes, beginning,
  'Ladies, that have intelligence of love?'"

52
53
54

And I to him: "One am I, who, whenever
  Love doth inspire me, note, and in that measure
  Which he within me dictates, singing go."

55
56
57

"O brother, now I see," he said, "the knot
  Which me, the Notary, and Guittone held
  Short of the sweet new style that now I hear.

58
59
60

I do perceive full clearly how your pens
  Go closely following after him who dictates,
  Which with our own forsooth came not to pass;

61
62
63

And he who sets himself to go beyond,
  No difference sees from one style to another;"
  And as if satisfied, he held his peace.

64
65
66

Even as the birds, that winter tow'rds the Nile,
  Sometimes into a phalanx form themselves,
  Then fly in greater haste, and go in file;

67
68
69

In such wise all the people who were there,
  Turning their faces, hurried on their steps,
  Both by their leanness and their wishes light.

70
71
72

And as a man, who weary is with trotting,
  Lets his companions onward go, and walks,
  Until he vents the panting of his chest;

73
74
75

So did Forese let the holy flock
  Pass by, and came with me behind it, saying,
  "When will it be that I again shall see thee?"

76
77
78

"How long," I answered, "I may live, I know not;
  Yet my return will not so speedy be,
  But I shall sooner in desire arrive;

79
80
81

Because the place where I was set to live
  From day to day of good is more depleted,
  And unto dismal ruin seems ordained."

82
83
84

"Now go," he said, "for him most guilty of it
  At a beast's tail behold I dragged along
  Towards the valley where is no repentance.

85
86
87

Faster at every step the beast is going,
  Increasing evermore until it smites him,
  And leaves the body vilely mutilated.

88
89
90

Not long those wheels shall turn," and he uplifted
  His eyes to heaven, "ere shall be clear to thee
  That which my speech no farther can declare.

91
92
93

Now stay behind; because the time so precious
  Is in this kingdom, that I lose too much
  By coming onward thus abreast with thee."

94
95
96

As sometimes issues forth upon a gallop
  A cavalier from out a troop that ride,
  And seeks the honour of the first encounter,

97
98
99

So he with greater strides departed from us;
  And on the road remained I with those two,
  Who were such mighty marshals of the world.

100
101
102

And when before us he had gone so far
  Mine eyes became to him such pursuivants
  As was my understanding to his words,

103
104
105

Appeared to me with laden and living boughs
  Another apple-tree, and not far distant,
  From having but just then turned thitherward.

106
107
108

People I saw beneath it lift their hands,
  And cry I know not what towards the leaves,
  Like little children eager and deluded,

109
110
111

Who pray, and he they pray to doth not answer,
  But, to make very keen their appetite,
  Holds their desire aloft, and hides it not.

112
113
114

Then they departed as if undeceived;
  And now we came unto the mighty tree
  Which prayers and tears so manifold refuses.

115
116
117

"Pass farther onward without drawing near;
  The tree of which Eve ate is higher up,
  And out of that one has this tree been raised."

118
119
120

Thus said I know not who among the branches;
  Whereat Virgilius, Statius, and myself
  Went crowding forward on the side that rises.

121
122
123

"Be mindful," said he, "of the accursed ones
  Formed of the cloud-rack, who inebriate
  Combated Theseus with their double breasts;

124
125
126

And of the Jews who showed them soft in drinking,
  Whence Gideon would not have them for companions
  When he tow'rds Midian the hills descended."

127
128
129

Thus, closely pressed to one of the two borders,
  On passed we, hearing sins of gluttony,
  Followed forsooth by miserable gains;

130
131
132

Then set at large upon the lonely road,
  A thousand steps and more we onward went,
  In contemplation, each without a word.

133
134
135

"What go ye thinking thus, ye three alone?"
  Said suddenly a voice, whereat I started
  As terrified and timid beasts are wont.

136
137
138

I raised my head to see who this might be,
  And never in a furnace was there seen
  Metals or glass so lucent and so red

139
140
141

As one I saw who said: "If it may please you
  To mount aloft, here it behoves you turn;
  This way goes he who goeth after peace."

142
143
144

His aspect had bereft me of my sight,
  So that I turned me back unto my Teachers,
  Like one who goeth as his hearing guides him.

145
146
147

And as, the harbinger of early dawn,
  The air of May doth move and breathe out fragrance,
  Impregnate all with herbage and with flowers,

148
149
150

So did I feel a breeze strike in the midst
  My front, and felt the moving of the plumes
  That breathed around an odour of ambrosia;

151
152
153
154

And heard it said: "Blessed are they whom grace
  So much illumines, that the love of taste
  Excites not in their breasts too great desire,
Hungering at all times so far as is just."

Robert Hollander (English, 2000-2007)
1 - 3

The conversation between Forese and Dante continues. We have not heard Virgil's voice since the fifteenth verse of the last canto. We will not hear it again until the next canto (XXV.17). This is his longest silence since he entered the poem in its first canto (see the note to Inf. XXX.37-41). He would seem to have been moved aside in response to Dante's interest in the encounter with Forese and concern with exploring the nature of his own most particular poetic practice, the subject at the core of this canto.

4 - 4

For the phrase 'things dead twice over' see the Epistle of Jude. The context is worth noting. Jude is declaiming against those who have infiltrated the ranks of the true believers, those 'ungodly men' (homines... impii – Jude 4) who are compared to, in succession, the unbelieving Israelites, the fallen angels, the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as those great sinners Cain, Balaam (Numbers 22-25 and 31:16), and Korah (Numbers 16). The presence of these ungodly ones is then portrayed (Jude 12) as a blemish upon the feasts of Christians gathered in charity. Interlopers, they are described as 'feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about by the winds; trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead (bis mortuae), plucked out by the roots.' Several commentators refer to this passage, but only Poletto (comm. to vv. 4-6) does so with some attention to the context, also graciously giving credit to the commentary of Antonio Cesari (Bellezze della “Divina Commedia” [Verona: P. Libanti, 1824-26]) for the earliest citation. The contrapasso here is thus more related to gluttony than at first may seem apparent, calling attention to an arid feasting that has no regard for the condition of the soul. These penitents thus purge themselves as though in memory of Jude's gluttonous 'ungodly men.'

8 - 9

Once again (see the note to Purg. XXI.103-114) we see that Statius is portrayed as putting off his Christian zeal in order to give himself to affectionate admiration of Virgil.

10 - 10

Dante asks after Forese's sister, Piccarda, whom we shall meet as the first presence of Paradiso (see the note to Par. III.46-49). The Donati family, like others in the poem, is variously dispersed in the afterworld. Later in this canto (verse 84) we will hear of Forese's brother, Corso, who is destined for hell. In ante-purgatory we met a member of another similarly dispersed family, Buonconte da Montefeltro (Purg. V.88), son of the damned Guido (Inf. XXVII.67).

13 - 15

Forese's touching words of praise for his sister, already joyous in the presence of God in the Empyrean (the Christian version of Mt. Olympus, home of the gods in classical mythology) brought the following misogynist comment from Benvenuto (comm. to these verses): 'And that is great praise, for it is a rare thing to find in the same woman harmony between comely form and chaste behavior.'

Piccarda, who was dragged from her life as a nun into matrimony against her will, eventually puts us in mind of Pia de' Tolomei (Purg. V.133-136), who also was forced into a marriage she did not welcome. And both of them may send our thoughts back to Francesca da Rimini, similarly mistreated (Inf. V.100-107). The first three women present in each of the three cantiche have this experience in common. The damned Francesca insists on the impending damnation of her husband, Gianciotto (but see the note to Inf. V.107), while Forese, on the way to salvation, speaks glowingly of his already saved sister.

16 - 18

'Here' surely refers to this terrace (see the note to Purg. XXII.49-51). Since there is no prohibition of naming names on any other terrace, commentators worry about Forese's motive in speaking this way. Most currently agree that he is using exaggerated understatement (the trope litotes) to make his point: i.e., on this terrace one must use names to identify the penitents because they are unrecognizable (as was Forese to Dante at Purg. XXIII.43-48) as a result of their emaciation.

19 - 20

Bonagiunta Orbicciani degli Overardi da Lucca (1220?-1297?), notary and writer of lyric poems, composed mainly in imitation of the Provençal poets. He was involved in polemic against the poetry of Guido Guinizzelli and was attacked by Dante in his treatise on vernacular eloquence (Dve I.xiii.1) for writing in a dialectical rather than the lofty ('curial') vernacular. Some three dozen of his poems survive and a group of these have been re-edited and re-presented by Gianfranco Contini (editor, Poeti del Duecento, 2 vols. [Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1960], vol. I, pp. 257-82). See Claudio Giunta (La poesia italiana nell'età di Dante: la linea Bonagiunta-Guinizzelli [Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998]) and Carlo Paolazzi (La maniera mutata: Il “dolce stil novo” tra Scrittura e “Ars poetica” [Milan: Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica, 1998]) for the poetic relationship between Bonagiunta and Guinizzelli and its significance for Dante.

21 - 24

Simon de Brie, who 'married' Holy Church as Pope Martin IV (1281-85), was French. He was not born in Tours, but had served as treasurer of the cathedral of St. Martin in Tours. He briefly served as chancellor of France before becoming a cardinal in 1261. And his French connection was further apparent when Charles of Anjou was instrumental in securing the papacy for him. His gluttonous affection for eels from Lake Bolsena caused him, according to Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 19-24), to have them, still alive, drowned in white wine from Liguria (the town of Vernazza) and then roasted. The commentator also reports that, as pope, coming from meetings dealing with Church business he would cry out, 'O Lord God, how many ills must we bear for Your holy Church! Let us have a drink!' and head for table to console himself.

Not only did this gluttonous pope support French political designs in Italy, he was the man who promoted Benedetto Caetani to the rank of cardinal, thus greatly facilitating his eventual elevation as Pope Boniface VIII (a promotion that Dante could not have regarded with equanimity, given his personal sufferings at the hands of this pope [see the note to Inf. XIX.52-53]). In the light of such things, why did Dante decide that Martin was among the saved? Trucchi (comm. to vv. 19-24) suggests that, as the successor to the nepotistic and venal Nicholas III (see Inf. XIX.69-72), Martin put an end, for a time, to the practice of simony in the papacy. It is for that reason, in his opinion, that Dante overlooked his other flagrant sins to save him.

26 - 27

The act of naming being particularly necessary on this terrace (see the note to vv. 16-18), it brings pleasure (Dante again employs litotes: it does not cause scowls) to those who are named and thus may hope for relieving prayer from the world, once Dante returns to it. It hardly needs to be pointed out that many of the sinners in hell were less pleased at being recognized.

29 - 29

'Ubaldino degli Ubaldini of La Pila (castle in the Mugello, or upper valley of the Sieve, tributary of the Arno, north of Florence), member of the powerful Ghibelline family of that name. Ubaldino, who was one of those who voted for the destruction of Florence (Inf. X.92), and was a member of the Consiglio Generale, after the battle of Montaperti (Sept. 4, 1260), was brother of the famous Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini (Inf. X.120), uncle of Ugolino d'Azzo (Purg. XIV.105), and father of the Archbishop Ruggieri of Pisa (Inf. XXXIII.14); he died in 1291' (Toynbee, “Pila, Ubaldin dalla” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).

29 - 30

Bonifazio has been 'identified by modern commentators with Bonifazio dei Fieschi of Genoa, Archbishop of Ravenna, 1274-1295.... The ancient pastoral staff of the Archbishops of Ravenna, which is still preserved, bears at the top an ornament shaped like a chess “rook” [rather than the conventional curved crosier], hence the term rocco used by Dante. Bonifazio... is known to have been immensely wealthy, but there is no record of his having been addicted to gluttony' (Toynbee, “Bonifazio[2]” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).

While some debate whether or not the reference to the archbishop's pastoral care is meant to be taken ironically, it seems difficult, in light of the descriptions of the other penitent gluttons, to take it any other way. The flock he is envisioned as leading would seem to be less the faithful of Ravenna than his guests to dinner.

31 - 33

'Marchese (or Marchesino) degli Orgogliosi of Forlì... was Podestà of Faenza in 1296' (Toynbee, “Marchese[4]” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). Embellishing an incident he probably first heard from his teacher, Benvenuto da Imola, John of Serravalle (comm. to these verses) recounts it this way: 'One day [Marchese] asked of his servant, “What do the people say of me? What is my reputation among them?” And the servant answered, “O my lord, they say that you are noble and wise,” etc. And so he spoke again to his servant, saying, “Now tell me the truth, what do they really say?” In reply the servant said, “Since you wish it, I will tell you the truth; people say you are a great drinker of wine.” At which [Marchese] responded, “These people speak truthfully; but they really ought to add that I am always thirsty – and that is a fact, for I thirst continually.”' Bonagiunta was also a lover of the grape, according to Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 34-39), who characterised him as 'a deft contriver of rhymes and a ready imbiber of wines.'

34 - 36

Dante's attention was drawn to Bonagiunta da Lucca because, he says, Bonagiunta seemed to know him. We may reflect that Dante the poet's interest in Bonagiunta centered in his desire to stage, clued by the utterance of this lesser poet, his own ars poetica, as we shall shortly understand. Including Dante, the interaction among those speaking or being noticed in this canto involves two poets, two religious figures, and two politicians. And then there are the two classical poets who are not even mentioned once in this very 'modern' canto (it is notable that Pope Martin, dead only fifteen years, is the senior ghost among the five gluttons is this group).

37 - 39

For Dante's use of the verb mormorare (murmur), see the note to Purgatorio X.100-102. This passage has long been problematic. Does Bonagiunta refer to his fellow Lucchesi in an unfavorable way, calling them gentucca or gentuccia (a deprecating way of referring to his people, or gente)? Or is he mentioning a kindly woman of that name who will be welcoming to Dante when, in his exile, he will come to Lucca? In this case he would be referring to the femmina referred to in vv. 43-45. Beginning with Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 28-39), who states that Gentucca was the name of a woman from Rossimpelo, most commentators believe that the reference is to someone who was benevolent to Dante in Lucca during a stay there. We have, however, no confirming evidence for this sojourn in Lucca (see Michele Messina, “Lucca” [ED.1971.3]), which, if it took place, probably did so in 1308-9, and certainly no hard facts establishing her identity. Nonetheless, this remains the best hypothesis. Still others have attempted to make a case for Gentucca as a woman with whom Dante had some sort of sexual liaison, an interpretation that seems venturesome at best. On the entire question see Giorgio Varanini, “Gentucca” (ED.1971.3). For more recent consideration of the question, see Cono Mangieri (“Gentucca dantesca e dintorni,” Italian Quarterly 125-126 [1995], pp. 5-25), arguing, in a bold hypothesis, that Gentucca was an illegitimate daughter of the poet.

40 - 42

Dante encourages Bonagiunta, for whom speech is made difficult by the pain he feels in his mouth, the orifice by which he offended in gluttony, to speak more plainly.

43 - 48

If this woman is, as some contemporary students of the question suggest, Gentucca di Ciucchino Morla, she was the wife of Buonaccorso Fondora. In that case she wore the black wimple, worn by wives, not the white, reserved for widows. Nino Visconti's widow, Giovanna, according to him, made the mistake of remarrying badly, putting off the white wimple (Purg. VIII.74). However, we cannot be sure whether Bonagiunta is referring to an as yet unmarried woman, or to a married one whose husband, soon to die, is still alive. In any case, this woman will make Lucca seem pleasant to Dante, no matter how others may blame it (as Dante himself had done in Inf. XXI.40-42).

49 - 51

Having recognized Dante earlier (vv. 35-36), Bonagiunta now presses him about the nature of his poetry. Is he the poet who drew forth from within himself the new poems that began with the canzone 'Ladies that have intelligence of love'? This is the first long poem of the three that help to give structure to the Vita nuova, announcing the beginning of its second stage, in which Dante chooses to give over the style of 'complaint,' borrowed from Cavalcanti, in order to turn to the style of praise, with its debt to Guinizzelli. Dante composed this poem around 1289. From this remark, we learn at least one important thing. Whatever the determining features of Dante's new poetry, it was different – at least according to him, using Bonagiunta as his mouthpiece – from all poetry written before it, including Dante's own. This precision evades many who discuss the problem, who continue to allow poems by Dante and other poets written before Donne ch'avete to share its status. It seems clear that Dante's absolute and precise purpose is to rewrite the history of Italian lyric, including that of his own poems, so that it fits his current program.

52 - 54

There is perhaps no more debated tercet in this poem than this one, and perhaps none that has more far-reaching implications for our general understanding of Dante's stance as a poet. Does he refer to Amore as the god of Love? or as the name of the true God in His Third Person, the Holy Spirit? Dantists are deeply (and fiercely) divided by this issue. The bibliography of work devoted to it is immense. Readers with Italian will want to refer to three papers that were composed for the Third International Dante Seminar (Florence, 2000) by members of the panel concerning the currently vexed question of Dante's attitude toward Cavalcanti and its relationship to his view of his own poetic as this is given voice here (see three contributions to the volume Dante: da Firenze all'aldilà. Atti del terzo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]: Roberto Antonelli, “Cavalcanti e Dante: al di qua del Paradiso,” pp. 289-302; Robert Durling, “'Mio figlio ov'è?' [Inferno X, 60],” pp. 303-29; and Lino Leonardi, “Cavalcanti, Dante e il nuovo stile,” pp. 331-54). For the views of this writer, which are at some variance especially from those of the first and third of these, see Hollander (“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 201-31, and “Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 263-81). In the most recent of these two studies, the case is made for our understanding that Dante indeed presents himself as writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a view that causes understandable distress, but which is fundamental, in one line of thought, to a better comprehension of his purposes. Similar views are to be found in Selene Sarteschi (“Purgatorio XXIV 49-53: Dante e il 'Dolce stil novo'. Verifica di una continuità ideologica,” in her Per la “Commedia” e non per essa soltanto [Rome: Bulzoni, 2002 (1995)]), pp. 97-137. For a curious blending of (1) an old and (2) a new view, see Carlo Paolazzi (La maniera mutata: Il “dolce stil novo” tra Scrittura e “Ars poetica” [Milan: Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Università Cattolica, 1998]), who attempts (1) to resuscitate an actual 'school' of stilnovisti, including the major figures Guinizzelli, Cavalcanti, Dante, and Cino da Pistoia, all of whom are related, according to Paolazzi, by (2) significant borrowings from concepts found in Horace's Ars poetica and from the language of Scripture. A major impediment to accepting such a view is the fact that Dante's text explicitly and without possible exception (unless one were to argue that Bonagiunta simply does not know whereof he speaks – a difficult position to support) says that the dolce stil novo began with 'Donne ch'avete,' ca. 1289, thus omitting at least Guinizzelli from 'membership.' In addition, Dante's treatment of Cavalcanti in the Comedy makes any such evaluation more than merely dubious, as Danilo Bonanno agrees (La perdita e il ritorno. Presenze cavalcantiane nell'ultimo Dante [Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 1999]), pp. 50-52. On the other hand, that Dante and Cino were, according to Dante, fellow 'stilnovisti' seems more than likely. For an attempt to make the school even more inclusive than a surely questionable Romantic view had done, see Gorni (“Paralipomeni a Lippo,” Studi di filologia italiana 47 [1989]), pp. 27-29; in a similar inclusive vein see Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001]), pp. 33-36. The cause of much of the problem as it is misconstrued by Dante's critics is that they try to establish what really happened in the history of Italian poetry, while Dante himself puts forward only what he decided had really happened.

55 - 63

Bonagiunta's response may be paraphrased as follows: 'Now I understand the nature of the knot that held back the Notary [Giacomo da Lentini], Guittone [d'Arezzo], and me from the sweet new style that at this very moment I am hearing! Now I clearly understand how your pens [plural] followed strictly after the words of the “dictator,” something that ours did not; and in that lies the entire difference between your [Dante's] “new style” and ours.' He falls silent, as though, it seems, satisfied with his utterance.

What exactly does Dante mean by the phrase 'sweet new style'? This is surely one of the key questions presented in the poem, and not one of the easiest. Further, who else wrote in that 'style'? And what is the significance of the fact that Bonagiunta says that he hears it now (in listening to Dante here in purgatory? in current Tuscan poems composed on earth? [but how would he hear these?])? What follows is a series of hypotheses that sketch out this writer's views of the major aspects of a difficult question.

(1) The passage, probably written ca. 1311-12, marks the first time that the beguiling phrase 'dolce stil novo' had ever been used in the vernacular that we call 'Italian.' That it was meant to refer to or to identify an actual 'school' of poets that existed before the date of its inscription in Dante's text may not be assumed (see Emilio Bigi [“Genesi di un concetto storiografico: 'dolce stil novo,'” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 132 (1955), pp. 333-71] and Guido Favati [Inchiesta sul Dolce Stil Nuovo (Florence: Le Monnier,1975)], although it frequently is.

(2) On the other hand, the author's (or Bonagiunta's) plural 'vostre' should be seen as including not only himself, but also Cino da Pistoia (the one fellow poet who Dante believed had understood the theological significance of his Beatrice), if perhaps no one else (see Hollander [“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 (1992), pp. 201-31] and Furio Brugnolo [“Cino (e Onesto) dentro e fuori la Commedia,” in Omaggio a Gianfranco Folena, ed. Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo (Padua: Editoriale Programma, 1993), pp. 369-86]). For reasons to believe that Cino himself, as evidenced in his poem of tribute, 'Su per la costa,' written after Dante's death, believed that Dante's plurality of penne included him, see Luciano Rossi (“Il nodo di Bonagiunta e le penne degli stilnovisti: ancora sul XXIV del Purgatorio,” in Fictio poetica: Studi italiani e ispanici in onore di Georges Güntert, ed. Katherina Maier-Troxler and Costantino Maeder [Florence: Cesati, 1998]), pp. 49-50.

(3) The significance of the poetic stance struck in the phrase should be understood in theological terms. Dante is not presenting himself as a usual love poet, but as one who serves as God's scribe in recording the result of God's love for him through the agency of Beatrice. Benvenuto, so insensitive (and even hostile) to Dante's claims for a theological basis for his writing, has a wonderfully angry gloss to vv. 52-54: 'inspires me': you should not understand: with the love of divine grace, as certain people falsely interpret (italics added), but indeed with lascivious love.' It is interesting that Benvenuto feels he must oppose those who are reading the poem theologically in his own day. We do not have any record of such an understanding of these lines; it is heartening to know that it existed. John of Serravalle (comm. to verse 58) follows his master in thinking Amor here is but the 'god' presiding over the world's oldest indoor sport. Dante and others had previously written in a 'sweet' style; but only he, now, in his Comedy, writes in this 'sweet new style' that creates a theologized poetry that is like almost no one else's (see Mazzotta [Dante, Poet of the Desert (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)], pp. 197-210; Zygmunt Baranski [“Canto VIII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone (Florence: Cesati, 2001)]), pp. 392-94.

(4) The word 'style' here has a broader connotation than it usually does in discourse about poetry, indicating not only a way of writing, but a subject for writing, as was apparent when his new style of praise in Vita nuova was presented as requiring new 'matter' (see Hollander, “Dante's 'dolce stil novo' and the Comedy,” in Dante: mito e poesia. Atti del secondo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. M. Picone and T. Crivelli [Florence: Cesati, 1999], pp. 271-72; Aversano [“Sulla poetica dantesca nel canto XXIV del Purgatorio,” L'Alighieri 16 (2000)], p. 131: the poem is 'sweet artistically because it is new poetically.') The 'new style' not only sounds different, it is different (but see the differing view of Lino Leonardi [“Cavalcanti, Dante e il nuovo stile,” in Dante: da Firenze all'aldilà. Atti del terzo Seminario dantesco internazionale, ed. Michelangelo Picone (Florence: Cesati, 2001)]), p. 334. The very phrasing of the element that sets, in Bonagiunta's understanding (vv. 58-59), this 'style' apart from all others – copying out exactly what was spoken by the 'dictator' – points not at all to style, but rather to content.

(5) We should probably also understand that the phrase 'dolce stil novo' refers to some of Dante's earlier poetry (only the canzone 'Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore' for certain), some of Cino's poems (at least and perhaps only the canzone upon the death of Beatrice, 'Avegna ched el m'aggia più per tempo'), and to Dante's Comedy, thus presenting the author's claims for a theological grounding of his poem's inspiration as being joined to certain of his earlier poems that he felt either had, or could be construed as having, the same character. This is the crux of a continuing disagreement with those who argue that the Comedy is a poem that goes beyond the stil novo (e.g., Pertile [“Dante's Comedy: Beyond the Stilnovo,” Lectura Dantis (virginiana) 13 (1993), pp. 47-77] or Malato [Dante (Rome: Salerno, 1999)], pp. 105-22), rather than being a continuation of it. While privileging a theological reading (if not firmly), Warren Ginsberg (Dante's Aesthetics of Being [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999)]), p. 88, like Pertile, is of the opinion that the Comedy's style 'is a new style, which differs from the stil novo.' In short, while Dante and others (Guido Cavalcanti perhaps the most capable among them) had previously written in a 'sweet' style, Dante alone developed, on the model of Guinizzelli's lyrics, poems of praise of a theologized lady, Beatrice (see the note to Purgatorio XXIV.112). For discussion of a specifically Christian reformulation of traditional images of the god of Love in the fourth stanza of the poem that Dante authorizes us to think of as the first poem of the 'sweet new style,' see Vincent Moleta (“'Voi le vedete Amor pinto nel viso' [V.N., XIX, 12]: The Roots of Dante's Metaphor,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 57-75). For a review of the entire question of Dante's relations with Guido and of the debate over their nature, see Enrico Fenzi (La canzone d'amore di Guido Cavalcanti e i suoi antichi commenti [Genoa: il Melangolo, 1999], pp. 9-70). See also Enrico Malato (Dante e Guido Cavalcanti: il dissidio per la “Vita nuova” e il «disdegno» di Guido [Rome: Salerno, 1997]); Emilio Pasquini (Dante e le figure del vero: La fabbrica della “Commedia” [Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2001], pp. 48-68); Giuliano Tanturli (“Guido Cavalcanti contro Dante,” in Le tradizioni del testo: Studi di letteratura italiana offerti a Domenico De Robertis, ed. F. Gavazzeni and G. Gorni [Milan: Ricciardi, 1993], pp. 3-13); Nicolò Pasero (“Dante in Cavalcanti: ancora sui rapporti tra Vita nova e Donna me prega,” Medioevo romanzo 22 [1998], pp. 388-414); and Selene Sarteschi, “Donna me prega-Vita Nuova: La direzione di una polemica,” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 15 [2000], pp. 9-35).

56 - 56

In a single line Bonagiunta crosses off the list of illustrious precursors two of the great poetic figures that preceded Dante, Giacomo da Lentini (died ca. 1250) and Guittone d'Arezzo (ca. 1230-94). Giacomo was the first major Italian practitioner of lyric, and is looked upon as the inventor of the sonnet and as the founder of the so-called Sicilian School, the first group of writers of lyric in Italian, taking their models from the writers of lyric in Provençal. Dante is later still harder on Guittone (see Purg. XXVI.124-126 and note), who, as Dante came to poetry in the 1280s, was perhaps the pre-eminent Tuscan poet.

61 - 62

Letterio Cassata (“Un'ipotesi per Pg 24, 61-62,” Critica del testo 4 [2001]), p. 307, paraphrases these lines as follows: 'e chi vuole accingersi a procedere più in là non è più in grado di vedere il divario dall'uno all'altro stile' (and he who would prepare himself to go more deeply into the matter is no longer in a position to distinguish the difference between the one style and the other). It is a difficult text to be sure of.

64 - 74

The two similes, piled one upon the other, return to a technique not observed in some time: a comparison based on an antique source coupled with a completely 'vernacular' and 'ordinary' one. See Inferno XXIV.1-15, where ancient and contemporary elements are combined in a single simile, and Inferno XXVI.25-39, where local Tuscan agriculture and Elijah's ascent to heaven are the contrasting elements in two neighboring similes.

The first of this pair derives, fairly obviously to today's reader, instructed by the notes in the text, from Lucan (Phars. V.711-716), a description of cranes fleeing winter's cold to winter on the Nile. Nonetheless, for all the certainty in recent commentators that this is a reminiscence of Lucan, it was only with Torraca (comm. to vv. 73-75) that it seems first to have been observed. Lucan's passage is revisited even more plainly at Paradiso XVIII.73-78.

75 - 75

Forese's remark is perhaps the high point in the fraternal affection found in purgatory, as he looks forward to Dante's death as the necessary precondition for their next meeting in the afterlife.

76 - 81

Notable is Dante's calm assurance that he will be saved. This may seem prideful, but is rather the natural result, or so he would have us believe, of his having been chosen for such an experience of the afterworld. God, he would ask us to imagine, would not have selected as His scribe one destined to die in sin.

Porena (comm. to vv. 79-81) suggests that the world-weary tone of the protagonist reflects less the Dante of the year 1300, at the peak of his political success, than the exiled poet of ca. 1310 (the date that Bosco/Reggio [comm. to vv. 77-78] suggest for the composition of this part of the poem).

82 - 90

Corso Donati, brother of Forese, was, in Dante's eyes, the Black Guelph who bore 'the greatest blame' for Florence's problems (and for his own) because of his alliance with Pope Boniface VIII, the 'beast' who will drag him to hell – as Dante will see before much time passes. In fact, through the magic of post-event prophecy (Corso was killed on 6 October 1308), Forese is able to promise the protagonist this happy vengeance.

Corso had supervised the murderous taking of the city by the Black Guelphs after Charles of Valois had led his French troops into Florence in November 1301. In a political reversal that is not totally unlike Dante's own, he was condemned to death by the priors for trying to take power into his own hands in a supposed arrangement involving the Tuscan Ghibelline leader Uguccione della Faggiuola, to whose daughter he was married.

While the 'beast' in Forese's account is clearly metaphorical, Corso apparently did die while trying to escape, either in a fall from his horse or by being lanced by one of his captors once he had fallen – or even as he was hanging from a stirrup, dragged along the ground.

94 - 99

The military simile fits the tone of the death scene of Corso that has just been narrated by his brother. Here, by way of returning to the rigors of his penance, Forese is allowed to assume the role of the cavalryman who goes out to make the first contact of battle. Virgil and Statius, described by a word perhaps never seen before in Italian, 'marshals,' are left behind, but are calmly directing the battle, as it were. As for Dante, that retired cavalryman (see the note to Inf. XXI.95), it is not clear what role he plays, but he is a subordinate to these two marshals, those great poets who led other humans into knowledge and virtue through their works.

100 - 102

Forese has moved quickly along the terrace, far ahead of Dante, Virgil, and Statius. The protagonist's eyes remain fixed on Forese's departing form, as his thoughts remain fixed on his riddling prophesy (vv. 82-87).

103 - 105

Moving along the terrace with his eyes fixed on Forese, Dante does not at first see the tree that his own movement forward has brought him to. The second tree of this terrace has caused less puzzlement than the first one (Purg. XXII.131-135); the succeeding verses (116-117) answer most questions that one might have (see the note to vv. 115-117): this tree is an offshoot of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Adolfo Jenni (“Il Canto XXIII del Purgatorio,” in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. V [Florence: Le Monnier, 1972)]), pp. 12-13, argues that the sight of the water from above causing the leaves to shine makes the penitent gluttons even hungrier. As was the case with the first tree, this one is also apparently watered from above (see Purg. XXII.137-138).

106 - 111

This simile possibly reflects a passage from Convivio (Conv. IV.xii.16) in which Dante speaks of the natural love of human souls for God, their maker, which is easily drawn off course: 'Thus we see little children setting their desire first of all on an apple, and then, growing older, desiring to possess a little bird, and then still later desiring to possess fine clothes, then a horse, and then a woman, and then modest wealth, then greater riches, and then still more' (tr. Lansing). The central elements of this image (a man catching the hungry attention of a child by holding up an apple) are deployed again in Purgatorio XXVII.45.

112 - 114

The penitents (as will be the poets) are urged to turn aside, apparently by the same voice from within the tree that will warn off the poets (and since the names of exemplary figures are recited by this voice, we probably correctly assume it speaks to all, triggered by its sense that someone is approaching, that is, not only in response to these special visitors). They are 'enlightened' (in the sense that their first opinion, that the fruit of this tree is desirable, is changed) when they realize that this tree is a branch from that beneath which humankind first fell into sin, and thus willingly move away.

115 - 117

Once again an unseen and unidentified divinely authorized voice speaks from within the foliage of a tree (see Purg. XXII.140-154). This is an offshoot of the tree of which Eve (and then Adam, who had also been warned not to [see the note to Purg. XXII.140-141]) ate the fruit. Benvenuto's gloss (to vv. 115-120) is admirable: this act of 'gluttony' is seen as the first sin, even though Adam himself will later (Par. XXVI.115-117) be clear that its cause was not really appetite for food but the desire to trespass for its own sake (as St. Augustine understood in his later redoing of the scene in his recounting of his youthful escapade involving the theft of a farmer's pears [Confessions II.iv: 'our real pleasure was in doing something forbidden' – tr. Pine-Coffin]): the first disobedience is thus the very desire to disobey (see Par. XXIX.55-57 for Satan's pride as the primal sin). Benvenuto is more alert to Dante's strategy here than many a more recent commentator, understanding that the image of eating is germane to Dante's description of Gluttony, despite the larger theological meaning of the primal act of sin.

Porena (comm. to vv. 116-117) is one of those who unaccountably believe that there must be still other trees upon this terrace. If, indeed, Dante is referring to the two most significant trees in the original garden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:8), it would seem to be unlikely that he would have wanted us to imagine there might be others scattered along the terrace. Porena denies that the first speaking tree (Purg. XXII.141) is an offshoot of the Tree of Life, but believes that it, too, is derived from the Tree of Knowledge, an opinion that may seem difficult to justify.

Bosco/Reggio raise a question in their commentary (to verse 115): Why was the first tree (Purg. XXII.139) approachable, while this one is not? Would it not seem reasonable that the fruit of the Tree of Life should be precisely what purgation is preparing penitents to receive? At the same time, it would also seem reasonable that they should prepare for their reward by ceremonially avoiding the site of humanity's original sin.

121 - 126

The voice reminds the travelers (and the penitents, we assume) first of the 'Centaurs, mythical race, half horses and half men, said to have been offspring of Ixion, King of the Lapithae, and a cloud in the shape of Hera [Juno]' (Toynbee, “Centauri” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). The Centaurs fought with the Lapiths and Theseus at the wedding feast for Pirithoüs (the friend of Theseus and their half-brother) and his bride Hippodamia. The Centaurs attempt to rape the bride and bridesmaids but are prevented by Theseus and others. The final 300 lines of the scene, which served as Dante's source, in Ovid (Metam. XII.210-535) represent a kind of tumultuous and comic redoing of the battle scenes in the Iliad (and in the Aeneid), with plenty of body parts and blood.

For the double nature of the Centaurs (beast and man at once), see Inferno XII.84.

The Hebrews selected by Gideon to make war upon the Midianites were those who lifted water to their mouths in their cupped hands, as opposed to those who cast themselves down to a stream to drink directly with their mouths (see Judges 7:2-8). The ones remembered here are not the three hundred whom he chose to fight, but the 9,700 who were sent back to their tents. These were 'slack' in that they gave in totally to their desire to drink, while the 300 displayed a more controlled demeanor, more fitting to those who would require composure even in the heat of battle.

133 - 134

This voice, we shortly come to understand, comes from the angel of Temperance.

137 - 138

Singleton (comm. to vv. 137-139) points out that the description of this angel is indebted to John's Revelation (Apoc. 1:9-20). The passage, prologue to John's vision, tells how the apostle was ordered to write it by Jesus, a scene described in terms that at times closely resemble these.

145 - 150

The last of the similes in a canto rich with them compares the waft of air from the angel's wing felt by Dante on his brow to the sweet-smelling breeze of May. Tommaseo (general note to this canto) suggested a source in Virgil's fourth Georgic (IV.415): 'Haec ait et liquidum ambrosiae diffundit odorem' (She spoke, giving off the flowing fragrance of ambrosia). Cyrene is encouraging her despondent son, Aristaeus, to learn his fate from Proteus.

151 - 154

Dante now 'finishes' the Beatitude (Matthew 5:6) begun in Purgatorio XXII.4-6, 'Beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt iustitiam, quoniam ipsi saturabuntur' (Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied). In the first context, applying to those who 'thirst' for riches, only sitiunt was heard, while here we have the echo only of the word for hunger, esuriunt.