Purgatorio: Canto 5

1
2
3

Io era già da quell' ombre partito,
e seguitava l'orme del mio duca,
quando di retro a me, drizzando 'l dito,
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una gridò: “Ve' che non par che luca
lo raggio da sinistra a quel di sotto,
e come vivo par che si conduca!”
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Li occhi rivolsi al suon di questo motto,
e vidile guardar per maraviglia
pur me, pur me, e 'l lume ch'era rotto.
10
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12

“Perché l'animo tuo tanto s'impiglia,”
disse 'l maestro, “che l'andare allenti?
che ti fa ciò che quivi si pispiglia?
13
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Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti:
sta come torre ferma, che non crolla
già mai la cima per soffiar di venti;
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ché sempre l'omo in cui pensier rampolla
sovra pensier, da sé dilunga il segno,
perché la foga l'un de l'altro insolla.”
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Che potea io ridir, se non “Io vegno”?
Dissilo, alquanto del color consperso
che fa l'uom di perdon talvolta degno.
22
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E 'ntanto per la costa di traverso
venivan genti innanzi a noi un poco,
cantando “Miserere” a verso a verso.
25
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Quando s'accorser ch'i' non dava loco
per lo mio corpo al trapassar d'i raggi,
mutar lor canto in un “oh!” lungo e roco;
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e due di loro, in forma di messaggi,
corsero incontr' a noi e dimandarne:
“Di vostra condizion fatene saggi.”
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E 'l mio maestro: “Voi potete andarne
e ritrarre a color che vi mandaro
che 'l corpo di costui è vera carne.
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Se per veder la sua ombra restaro,
com' io avviso, assai è lor risposto:
fàccianli onore, ed esser può lor caro.”
37
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Vapori accesi non vid' io sì tosto
di prima notte mai fender sereno,
né, sol calando, nuvole d'agosto,
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che color non tornasser suso in meno;
e, giunti là, con li altri a noi dier volta,
come schiera che scorre sanza freno.
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“Questa gente che preme a noi è molta,
e vegnonti a pregar,” disse 'l poeta:
“però pur va, e in andando ascolta.”
46
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“O anima che vai per esser lieta
con quelle membra con le quai nascesti,”
venian gridando, “un poco il passo queta.
49
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Guarda s'alcun di noi unqua vedesti,
sì che di lui di là novella porti:
deh, perché vai? deh, perché non t'arresti?
52
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Noi fummo tutti già per forza morti,
e peccatori infino a l'ultima ora;
quivi lume del ciel ne fece accorti,
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sì che, pentendo e perdonando, fora
di vita uscimmo a Dio pacificati,
che del disio di sé veder n'accora.”
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E io: “Perché ne' vostri visi guati,
non riconosco alcun; ma s'a voi piace
cosa ch'io possa, spiriti ben nati
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voi dite, e io farò per quella pace
che, dietro a' piedi di sì fatta guida,
di mondo in mondo cercar mi si face.”
64
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E uno incominciò: “Ciascun si fida
del beneficio tuo sanza giurarlo,
pur che 'l voler nonpossa non ricida.
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Ond' io, che solo innanzi a li altri parlo,
ti priego, se mai vedi quel paese
che siede tra Romagna e quel di Carlo,
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che tu mi sie di tuoi prieghi cortese
in Fano, sì che ben per me s'adori
pur ch'i' possa purgar le gravi offese.
73
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Quindi fu' io; ma li profondi fóri
ond' uscì 'l sangue in sul quale io sedea,
fatti mi fuoro in grembo a li Antenori,
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là dov' io più sicuro esser credea:
quel da Esti il fé far, che m'avea in ira
assai più là che dritto non volea.
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Ma s'io fosse fuggito inver' la Mira,
quando fu' sovragiunto ad Orïaco,
ancor sarei di là dove si spira.
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Corsi al palude, e le cannucce e 'l braco
m'impigliar sì ch'i' caddi; e lì vid' io
de le mie vene farsi in terra laco.”
85
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Poi disse un altro: “Deh, se quel disio
si compia che ti tragge a l'alto monte,
con buona pïetate aiuta il mio!
88
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Io fui di Montefeltro, io son Bonconte;
Giovanna o altri non ha di me cura;
per ch'io vo tra costor con bassa fronte.”
91
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E io a lui: “Qual forza o qual ventura
ti travïò sì fuor di Campaldino,
che non si seppe mai tua sepultura?”
94
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“Oh!” rispuos' elli, “a piè del Casentino
traversa un'acqua c'ha nome l'Archiano,
che sovra l'Ermo nasce in Apennino.
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Là 've 'l vocabol suo diventa vano,
arriva' io forato ne la gola,
fuggendo a piede e sanguinando il piano.
100
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Quivi perdei la vista e la parola;
nel nome di Maria fini', e quivi
caddi, e rimase la mia carne sola.
103
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Io dirò vero, e tu 'l ridì tra ' vivi:
l'angel di Dio mi prese, e quel d'inferno
gridava: 'O tu del ciel, perché mi privi?
106
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108

Tu te ne porti di costui l'etterno
per una lagrimetta che 'l mi toglie;
ma io farò de l'altro altro governo!'
109
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Ben sai come ne l'aere si raccoglie
quell' umido vapor che in acqua riede,
tosto che sale dove 'l freddo il coglie.
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Giunse quel mal voler che pur mal chiede
con lo 'ntelletto, e mosse il fummo e 'l vento
per la virtù che sua natura diede.
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Indi la valle, come 'l dì fu spento,
da Pratomagno al gran giogo coperse
di nebbia; e 'l ciel di sopra fece intento,
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sì che 'l pregno aere in acqua si converse;
la pioggia cadde, e a' fossati venne
di lei ciò che la terra non sofferse;
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e come ai rivi grandi si convenne,
ver' lo fiume real tanto veloce
si ruinò, che nulla la ritenne.
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Lo corpo mio gelato in su la foce
trovò l'Archian rubesto; e quel sospinse
ne l'Arno, e sciolse al mio petto la croce
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ch'i' fe' di me quando 'l dolor mi vinse;
voltòmmi per le ripe e per lo fondo,
poi di sua preda mi coperse e cinse.”
130
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“Deh, quando tu sarai tornato al mondo
e riposato de la lunga via,”
seguitò 'l terzo spirito al secondo,
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“ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
Siena mi fé, disfecemi Maremma:
salsi colui che 'nnanellata pria
disposando m'avea con la sua gemma.”
1
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3

I had already from those shades departed,
  And followed in the footsteps of my Guide,
  When from behind, pointing his finger at me,

4
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One shouted: "See, it seems as if shone not
  The sunshine on the left of him below,
  And like one living seems he to conduct him."

7
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Mine eyes I turned at utterance of these words,
  And saw them watching with astonishment
  But me, but me, and the light which was broken!

10
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"Why doth thy mind so occupy itself,"
  The Master said, "that thou thy pace dost slacken?
  What matters it to thee what here is whispered?

13
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Come after me, and let the people talk;
  Stand like a steadfast tower, that never wags
  Its top for all the blowing of the winds;

16
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For evermore the man in whom is springing
  Thought upon thought, removes from him the mark,
  Because the force of one the other weakens."

19
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What could I say in answer but "I come"?
  I said it somewhat with that colour tinged
  Which makes a man of pardon sometimes worthy.

22
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Meanwhile along the mountain-side across
  Came people in advance of us a little,
  Singing the Miserere verse by verse.

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When they became aware I gave no place
  For passage of the sunshine through my body,
  They changed their song into a long, hoarse "Oh!"

28
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And two of them, in form of messengers,
  Ran forth to meet us, and demanded of us,
  "Of your condition make us cognisant."

31
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And said my Master: "Ye can go your way
  And carry back again to those who sent you,
  That this one's body is of very flesh.

34
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If they stood still because they saw his shadow,
  As I suppose, enough is answered them;
  Him let them honour, it may profit them."

37
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Vapours enkindled saw I ne'er so swiftly
  At early nightfall cleave the air serene,
  Nor, at the set of sun, the clouds of August,

40
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But upward they returned in briefer time,
  And, on arriving, with the others wheeled
  Tow'rds us, like troops that run without a rein.

43
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"This folk that presses unto us is great,
  And cometh to implore thee," said the Poet;
  "So still go onward, and in going listen."

46
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"O soul that goest to beatitude
  With the same members wherewith thou wast born,"
  Shouting they came, "a little stay thy steps,

49
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Look, if thou e'er hast any of us seen,
  So that o'er yonder thou bear news of him;
  Ah, why dost thou go on? Ah, why not stay?

52
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Long since we all were slain by violence,
  And sinners even to the latest hour;
  Then did a light from heaven admonish us,

55
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So that, both penitent and pardoning, forth
  From life we issued reconciled to God,
  Who with desire to see Him stirs our hearts."

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And I: "Although I gaze into your faces,
  No one I recognize; but if may please you
  Aught I have power to do, ye well-born spirits,

61
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Speak ye, and I will do it, by that peace
  Which, following the feet of such a Guide,
  From world to world makes itself sought by me."

64
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And one began: "Each one has confidence
  In thy good offices without an oath,
  Unless the I cannot cut off the I will;

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Whence I, who speak alone before the others,
  Pray thee, if ever thou dost see the land
  That 'twixt Romagna lies and that of Charles,

70
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Thou be so courteous to me of thy prayers
  In Fano, that they pray for me devoutly,
  That I may purge away my grave offences.

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From thence was I; but the deep wounds, through which
  Issued the blood wherein I had my seat,
  Were dealt me in bosom of the Antenori,

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There where I thought to be the most secure;
  'Twas he of Este had it done, who held me
  In hatred far beyond what justice willed.

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But if towards the Mira I had fled,
  When I was overtaken at Oriaco,
  I still should be o'er yonder where men breathe.

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I ran to the lagoon, and reeds and mire
  Did so entangle me I fell, and saw there
  A lake made from my veins upon the ground."

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Then said another: "Ah, be that desire
  Fulfilled that draws thee to the lofty mountain,
  As thou with pious pity aidest mine.

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I was of Montefeltro, and am Buonconte;
  Giovanna, nor none other cares for me;
  Hence among these I go with downcast front."

91
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And I to him: "What violence or what chance
  Led thee astray so far from Campaldino,
  That never has thy sepulture been known?"

94
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"Oh," he replied, "at Casentino's foot
  A river crosses named Archiano, born
  Above the Hermitage in Apennine.

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There where the name thereof becometh void
  Did I arrive, pierced through and through the throat,
  Fleeing on foot, and bloodying the plain;

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There my sight lost I, and my utterance
  Ceased in the name of Mary, and thereat
  I fell, and tenantless my flesh remained.

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Truth will I speak, repeat it to the living;
  God's Angel took me up, and he of hell
  Shouted: 'O thou from heaven, why dost thou rob me?

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Thou bearest away the eternal part of him,
  For one poor little tear, that takes him from me;
  But with the rest I'll deal in other fashion!'

109
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Well knowest thou how in the air is gathered
  That humid vapour which to water turns,
  Soon as it rises where the cold doth grasp it.

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He joined that evil will, which aye seeks evil,
  To intellect, and moved the mist and wind
  By means of power, which his own nature gave;

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Thereafter, when the day was spent, the valley
  From Pratomagno to the great yoke covered
  With fog, and made the heaven above intent,

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So that the pregnant air to water changed;
  Down fell the rain, and to the gullies came
  Whate'er of it earth tolerated not;

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And as it mingled with the mighty torrents,
  Towards the royal river with such speed
  It headlong rushed, that nothing held it back.

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My frozen body near unto its outlet
  The robust Archian found, and into Arno
  Thrust it, and loosened from my breast the cross

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I made of me, when agony o'ercame me;
  It rolled me on the banks and on the bottom,
  Then with its booty covered and begirt me."

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"Ah, when thou hast returned unto the world,
  And rested thee from thy long journeying,"
  After the second followed the third spirit,

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"Do thou remember me who am the Pia;
  Siena made me, unmade me Maremma;
  He knoweth it, who had encircled first,
Espousing me, my finger with his gem."

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

The canto begins with the protagonist's forward and upward propulsion but quickly reverses its sense of moral direction when Dante glances back, hearing the voice of one of the negligent behind him.

4 - 6

Singleton (comm. to vv. 5-6) argues that, because when Dante approached these late-repentant souls in the previous canto the sun was before him (Purg. IV.101), his shadow now fell behind him and, for this reason (or because, as Grabher [comm. to vv. 1-9] noted, in the shade of the boulder he was out of the sun), was not observed by the onlookers until now when, moving away from them, he cast a shadow at an oblique angle. The sun was to Dante's left when he turned back toward the east (Purg. IV.52-57); now as he heads west it is to his right, casting his shadow to his left. (For the various moments in this cantica in which Dante's shadow is remarked upon, see the note to Purg. III.16-18.)

7 - 8

Dante does not stop, but he does slow his pace as he looks back, as Virgil's words will make clear (Purg. V.11).

9 - 9

How is the reader meant to take the poet's remembrance of his feelings at being recognized as a living soul? Was he guilty of the sin of pride? Some unknown early readers believed so, as we know because Benvenuto tacitly but strongly rebukes them (comm. to vv. 7-9). In his view Dante's excitement is not that of self-congratulation, but rather of joy in his having been chosen by God for this experience, exactly that feeling expressed by Paul when he said 'thanks be to God I am what I am' (I Corinthians 15:10). Benvenuto's disciple, John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 7-12), however, does indeed see the taint of vainglory in Dante's memory of the intense gaze of the penitent souls.

10 - 18

The astonished souls who whisper to one another about Dante's extraordinary status are perhaps reminiscent of earthly neighbors whose secret gossip is generally motivated by less kind concerns.

Discussing this passage, Frankel (“La similitudine della zara [Purg. VI, 1-12] ed il rapporto fra Dante e Virgilio nell'Antepurgatorio,” in Studi Americani su Dante, ed. G. C. Alessio and R. Hollander [Milan: F. Angeli, 1989], pp. 127-30, points out that Virgil's urgency in trying to get Dante to resume his forward movement is not found in Virgil himself when he encounters Sordello in Purgatorio VII and much enjoys his fellow Mantuan's interest and praise. And, while there have been other commentators who find Virgil's scolding excessive, the fact remains that the protagonist takes it most seriously (see Purg. V.19-21). Further, all that Virgil rebukes in Dante is his allowing his attention to wander, distracted by his admirers, from the prime purpose of the journey, i.e., he is acting to some degree like these negligent souls who were active Christians only near the end of their lives.

14 - 15

There has been a small industry, begun (as is so often the case) by the classicizing Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 13-15), which has tried to find a particular Virgilian text (at least four have been offered) or a passage from Seneca as 'source' for these lines. That no classical source was proposed by any of the medieval or Renaissance commentators, however, makes the claim less attractive than it might be, as does the fact that the context of the passage cited most often (Aen. X.693-696) involves a simile that compares Mezentius, about to begin his final heroic assaults on the Trojan foe which will end in his death at the hands of Aeneas, with a cliff jutting out into the sea, and not a 'tower.' Thus the context is hardly propitious and the comparison not particularly similar.

19 - 21

Dante's blush of shame clearly justifies Virgil's indignation: the protagonist has been thinking of himself too much. And with this detail, indeed, the poem resumes its forward thrust, begun at Purgatorio V.1-2, but interrupted for seventeen lines.

23 - 24

The new penitents enter singing the Psalm (50:1) that furnished the protagonist's own first word in the poem (Inf. I.65), Miserere, the first word of David's song of penance. Unlike the last group of late-repentant souls, lounging in the shade of their rock, these are moving in the same rightward direction that Virgil has urged Dante to follow.

What does a verso a verso mean? The earliest commentator to deal with the phrase, Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 22-30), suggests that it means the group was divided into two 'choruses' and sang the verses responsively. There is no indication in the text that this is so. Still, this early commentator's authority is great enough so that, with only a few divergences (e.g., Vellutello [comm. to vv. 22-24], Trucchi [comm. to vv. 22-24] , almost all repeat this formulation, including Singleton (comm. to verse 24), even though he translates the line as we do. Chimenz (comm. to vv. 22-24), however, offers good reasons not to accept this formulation: (1) the text makes no mention of any such grouping; (2) when they utter their amazed 'Oh!' the entire group has apparently been singing as one; (3) all the other prayers spoken by groups in purgatory are spoken in unison. After Chimenz there has been a certain change of opinion among some commentators – as seems only sensible.

25 - 27

It is noteworthy that these penitents behave precisely as did the negligent, showing their astonishment and curiosity at Dante's embodied presence in the sacred precinct of the saved. It is also striking that this time Virgil will offer no rebuke to Dante for his interest in them, which will slow his forward movement. If one reflects that this encounter is part of the protagonist's 'education' on the mountainside, the apparent contradiction begins to resolve itself. Dante's previous interest was in the negligent souls' reaction to him, not in what he could learn from them.

28 - 30

Unlike other characters who enter the action of the poem unnamed but are later identified, these two messengers, seeking information about Dante's condition, will remain anonymous.

31 - 36

For all the asperity of Virgil's response to the 'messengers,' it is clear that he is aware of and in favor of Dante's ability to help speed the progress toward purgation of these and other souls in ante-purgatory (verse 36).

37 - 40

The similetic comparison may find its roots in Virgil's description of shooting stars in his Georgics (I.365-367), according to Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 37-39) and, more recently, to Hermann Gmelin (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955]), ad loc.

45 - 45

Once again Virgil underlines the propriety of Dante's favorable response to requests for his intervention on behalf of the penitents as long as he continues his way up the mountain while he does so.

46 - 48

Rejoined by its two 'messengers,' the group as a whole now speaks to Dante, asking his help for those whom he may recognize.

53 - 53

As Chiavacci Leonardi (Purgatorio, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1994]), pp. 143-44, points out, the phrase 'sinners to the final hour' is probably meant to recall Matthew 20:1-16, the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, where even those who are summoned to work at the eleventh hour were paid the same as those who labored all the day: 'So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many are called, but few are chosen' (20:16).

55 - 55

It is noteworthy that salvation was possible for these sinners only after their own belated penitence and their forgiveness of those who had caused their deaths.

58 - 63

Dante's acquiescence in being willing to bring news of their salvations pointedly includes those whom he does not know, encouraging them to make a request that might, to them, have seemed too bold. The words he uses for these souls, 'spiriti ben nati' (spirits born for bliss) contrast sharply with the formulation for those who were described as 'mal nati' (Inf. V.7; Inf. XVIII.76; Inf. XXX.48).

64 - 64

The speaker, never identified by name, either in his own speech of 21 lines (Purg. V.64-84) or by the narrator, is Jacopo del Cassero, born ca. 1260. 'He was among the Guelf leaders who joined the Florentines in their expedition against Arezzo in 1288. He incurred the enmity of Azzo VIII of Este by his opposition to the designs of the latter upon Bologna, of which city Jacopo was Podestà in 1296. In revenge Azzo had him assassinated at Oriaco, between Venice and Padua, while he was on his way (in 1298) to assume the office of Podestà at Milan at the invitation of Maffeo Visconti. He appears to have gone by sea from Fano to Venice, and thence to have proceeded towards Milan by way of Padua; but while he was still among the lagoons, only about eight miles from Venice, he was waylaid and stabbed' (Toynbee, “Cassero, Jacopo del” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). Clearly Dante knew that he could count on Jacopo's renown and on his readers' fairly wide acquaintance with the details of his life and death.

69 - 69

Jacopo refers to the Marches, the area between Romagna, to the north, and the kingdom of Naples, governed by Charles of Anjou in 1300, to the south.

71 - 71

Should Dante ever find himself in Fano, in the March of Ancona, where Jacopo's relatives and friends survive, his news of Jacopo's salvation may, by causing them to pray for him, serve to shorten his time in ante-purgatory.

74 - 74

Jacopo's blood, of which we shall hear more in his final lines, the seat of the soul (see Purg. XXV.37-45), left his body through the wounds caused by the murderous Paduans who waylaid him in 1298. Padua was founded by Antenor, according to Virgil (Aen. I.242-249). Servius's comment on these verses added the detail that Antenor, before he escaped from Troy, had given the Greeks the Palladium, thus connecting him with betrayal of one's country (and suggesting to Dante a name, Antenora, for the second region of the ninth Circle of hell [Inf. XXXII.88]).

77 - 78

Azzo VIII d'Este became marquis of Este in 1293. Jacopo here would seem to be suggesting that the Paduans who killed him were in cahoots with Azzo, the ringleader of the plot. Dante's own former opinion of Azzo was negative (see De vulgari eloquentia I.xii.5; II.vi.4). Here Jacopo admits a certain culpability in having aroused Azzo's wrath, reminding us that he has had to forgive his slayer in order to have been saved. The commentator Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 70-72) gives some of the reasons for Azzo's hatred of Jacopo. When Azzo wanted to make himself ruler of Bologna, the Bolognesi called on Jacopo to be podestà of their city. In opposing Azzo he, according to the fourteenth-century commentator, was unceasing in his vilifications of his enemy, claiming, for instance, that he had slept with his stepmother and was in fact the son of a washerwoman.

For the sin of wrath, in its hardened form, as a sin of will and not of incontinence, see the notes to Inferno VII.109-114 and XII.16-21 (last paragraph). Because Azzo was alive in 1308, Dante could not place him in hell; it seems likely that he would have considered setting him down among the murderers in the company of his father, Obizzo, whom Azzo indeed, according to many commentators, strangled in 1293. See Inferno XII.111-112.

79 - 80

Jacopo, reconsidering his actions, realizes that he might have made good his escape had he proceeded west in the direction of Milano and headed for the town of La Mira, rather than stopping, off the main road, between Venice and Padua at Oriago. Benvenuto believes that he was on horseback (as seems reasonable) and thus could have made his escape along the good road to La Mira, while the swampy overgrowth made him easy prey for his attackers, stalking him on foot, when he turned back to hide himself but was seen and attacked.

83 - 84

Fallen (from his horse?) and apparently hacked to death by those who pursued him on foot, Jacopo watches his blood (and thus his soul) pass from his body.

88 - 88

Buonconte da Montefeltro (ca. 1250-1289) was the son of the great Ghibelline leader, Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. XXVII.19-132; and see the note to Inf. XXVII.4-6). 'In June 1287 Buonconte helped the Ghibellines to expel the Guelfs from Arezzo, an event which was the beginning of the war between Florence and Arezzo; in 1288 he was in command of the Aretines when they defeated the Sienese at Pieve del Toppo; and in 1289 he was appointed captain of the Aretines and led them against the Guelfs of Florence, by whom they were totally defeated (June 11) at Campaldino, among the slain being Buonconte himself, whose body, however, was never discovered on the field of battle' (Toynbee, “Buonconte” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). It is important to remember that Dante himself was present at this battle as a cavalryman (see the note to Inf. XII.75) in what was, for him and his fellow Florentine Guelphs, a great victory. Once again we sense his ability to identify with the loser (see the note to Inf. XXI.95). There is not a trace of triumphalism in his exchange with the fallen leader of his enemies.

89 - 90

Unlike Jacopo del Cassero, who hopes that his relatives and friends will pray for him (Purg. V.71), Buonconte realizes that his wife, Giovanna, and other family members have no concern for him. Unlike Jacopo and others of his band, he has been devoid of the hope that has urged the rest to petition Dante for his aid. Now he finds hope in this visitor from the world of the living. This poem, which summarizes its purpose as being to make the living pray better (Par. I.35-36), nowhere better indicates this purpose than in ante-purgatory in such scenes as these. It is undoubtedly the case that any number of people who read or heard the poem in the fourteenth century actually prayed for the souls of those whom Dante reports as needing such prayer.

91 - 93

Dante's desire for knowledge of what happened to Buonconte's body reflects the concern of others present at the battle of Campaldino. How could the body of so important a personage simply disappear? Several students of this passage have suggested that the poet here has in mind Virgil's portrait of Palinurus, so deeply troubled by his unburied state, and consider the protagonist's question a recasting of Aeneas's question to Palinurus: 'Which of the gods, Palinurus, tore you from us and submerged you in the open sea?' (Aen. VI.341-342). While the linguistic fit is not a perfect one, both the circumstance and the fact that Dante seems to have the Palinurus passage in mind at Purgatorio III.130 – and surely does so at VI.28-30 – makes the reference at least plausible. Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi (“Dante e Virgilio,” Letture classensi 12 [1983]), p. 88n., noted it, as now have Carol Ann Cioffi (“Fame, Prayer, and Politics: Virgil's Palinurus in Purgatorio V and VI,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 179-200) and Ruggero Stefanini (“Buonconte and Palinurus: Dante's Re-Working of a Classical Source,” in Dante: Summa Medievalis, ed. C. Franco and L. Morgan [Stony Brook, N.Y.: Forum Italicum, 1995], pp. 100-11). And for the view that Palinurus operates as a foil to Buonconte, see Michelangelo Picone (“Canto V,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001 (1999)]), pp. 78-80.

94 - 99

The Casentino lies in the upper valley of the Arno. The torrent Archiano derives from sources above the valley near the monastery of Camaldoli, situated high in the mountains above the region. The battle of Campaldino took place on a plain below this higher valley and it is the place to which Dante imagines the wounded Buonconte to have made his way, just where the Archiano joins the Arno, several miles above the site of the battle.

100 - 102

Peter Armour (“Words and the Drama of Death in Purgatorio V,” in Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the “Divina Commedia”, ed. John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993]), pp. 108-12, makes a strong case for punctuating the text differently than Petrocchi does, and we would have followed him, placing a comma after vista and dropping the semicolon in line 100 (as indeed a number of earlier texts also do), but for our editorial decision to follow Petrocchi. This emendation makes the sense of the passage both more clear and more dramatic, breaking it into four parallel elements, each of the final three beginning with 'and,' recapitulating Buonconte's final moments: loss of sight, final utterance, physical collapse, departure of the soul from the body.

104 - 108

As commentators notice, the struggle of the good and wicked angel over the soul of Buonconte mirrors the similar scene that occurs at the death of his father, Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. XXVII.112-117), when St. Francis and a fallen Cherub struggle for the soul of Guido. Not even Francis can prevail against God's judgment – if we can accept Guido's narrative at face value.

A possible source for this scene is found in the Epistle of Jude (Jude 9) in a passage that refers to the archangel Michael's struggle with the devil for the body of Moses. The relevance of this text to Dante's was perhaps first noted by Scartazzini in the 1870s (comm. to verse 104). For discussion, see Domenico Pietropaolo (“The Figural Context of Buonconte's Salvation,” Dante Studies 102 [1984], pp. 123-34), who points out (p. 125) that, like Buonconte's, the whereabouts of Moses' actual burial place was not known (Deuteronomy 34:6).

Buonconte's tear (verse 107) reminds us of the similarly plangent Manfred (Purg. III.120).

109 - 111

A number of recent commentators here note an echo of Virgil's first Georgic (Georg. I.322-324). For the view that this passage reflects the description of the storm that drives Aeneas's ships off course in the first book of the Aeneid see A.E. Carter (“An Unrecognized Virgilian Passage in Dante,” Italica 21 [1944], pp. 149-53).

112 - 114

Is Dante suggesting that evil forces have power only over the elements (and the dead bodies of humans – see Purg. V.108)?

116 - 116

The mountain ridge Pratomagno and the alpine protuberances referred to establish the confines of the Casentino at the southwest and northeast, respectively.

117 - 117

Restoring a meaning offered in Benvenuto's commentary but perhaps never revisited and arguing against the scholarly exertions of others, Lino Pertile (“Bonconte e l'anafonesi [Purg., V 109-18],” Filologia e critica 21 [1996]), pp. 121-26, presents a strong case for the Tuscan form of the verb intingere's past participle, intinto in its regular form, but also found as intento (darkened). We have accepted Pertile's reading in our translation.

122 - 122

Dante's term for 'seaward stream' is fiume real, or 'royal river,' i.e., a river that ends in the sea.

126 - 127

The 'cross' that Buonconte had made of his arms perhaps expresses both the gesture of a man in the throes of mortal pain and the sign of his hope for redemption.

128 - 129

Buonconte's body finally came to rest on the Arno's bed, along with the detritus that the rushing torrent had borne along with it until it, too, settled to rest, mingled with the body of the man.

130 - 136

The six verses devoted to Pia's speech have made her one of Dante's most remembered and admired portraits – even though we do not really know who she was, to whom she was married (nor how many times, but perhaps twice), or who killed her, or how. For the complicated, necessarily hypothetical, and eventually unknowable status of Pia's identity and story and the possible knowledge that Dante had of them, see Armour (“Words and the Drama of Death in Purgatorio V,” in Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the “Divina Commedia”, ed. John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993]), pp. 120-22. See also Giorgio Varanini, “Pia” (ED.1973.4), pp. 462-67.

133 - 133

Pia uses the 'polite imperative,' i.e., the impersonal subjunctive, to express her desire (i.e., 'may it be remembered by you'): she hopes to be remembered by Dante once he is back on earth so that he can pray for her, as Vellutello (comm. to vv. 130-136) suggests, or recall her to the minds of others for their prayers.

134 - 134

This line, celebrated for its brevity and power, has the lapidary quality of a headstone, perhaps because it represents one: the beginning of Virgil's epitaph, 'Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere....' (Mantua gave me birth, Calabria took me off), as Gmelin (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955], ad loc.) was among the many moderns to suggest. See the notes to Purgatorio III.27 and VI.72. And see Hollander (“Dante's 'Georgic' [Inferno XXIV, 1-18],” Dante Studies 102 [1984], p. 119, n. 7).

Peter Armour (“Words and the Drama of Death in Purgatorio V,” in Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the “Divina Commedia”, ed. John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993]), p. 116, suggests that, if she was defenestrated by her husband (or one of his agents), as many early commentators claim, then the hard earth of the Maremma actually did 'undo' her, smashing her body when she hit it.

135 - 136

These final verses of the canto have drawn numerous attempts at a clear understanding. However, without knowing the precise nature of the facts to which Dante has decided to allude, we cannot be certain. Among the more interesting suggestions for a source is Hermann Gmelin's (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955], ad loc.): the verses reflect Dido's remark about her dead husband, Sichaeus, at Aeneid IV.28-29: 'ille meos, primus qui me sibi iunxit, amores / abstulit; ille habeat secum servetque sepulchro' (He, who first joined me to him, has sealed up my love; may he have it with him and keep it in his grave). The italicized phrase seems close enough to Dante's 'colui che 'nnanellata pria / disposando' to merit further thought, even if the contexts are not the same, a suffering wife and murderous husband replacing a loyal husband and a would-be loyal wife. Did Pia's husband himself give her a ring of betrothal before they married or, as Varanini suggests, did the man who eventually killed her, the representative of her husband (one Magliata di Pionpino), present the ring for him?

The three 'autobiographies' that make up the last and largest part of this canto are strikingly similar in their construction. Each character includes the following elements, in the same order, in his or her speech: (1) captatio benevolentiae; (2) thoughts of homeland and possibility of hope for prayer from there; (3) place and cause of death; (4) moment of death.

Purgatorio: Canto 5

1
2
3

Io era già da quell' ombre partito,
e seguitava l'orme del mio duca,
quando di retro a me, drizzando 'l dito,
4
5
6

una gridò: “Ve' che non par che luca
lo raggio da sinistra a quel di sotto,
e come vivo par che si conduca!”
7
8
9

Li occhi rivolsi al suon di questo motto,
e vidile guardar per maraviglia
pur me, pur me, e 'l lume ch'era rotto.
10
11
12

“Perché l'animo tuo tanto s'impiglia,”
disse 'l maestro, “che l'andare allenti?
che ti fa ciò che quivi si pispiglia?
13
14
15

Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti:
sta come torre ferma, che non crolla
già mai la cima per soffiar di venti;
16
17
18

ché sempre l'omo in cui pensier rampolla
sovra pensier, da sé dilunga il segno,
perché la foga l'un de l'altro insolla.”
19
20
21

Che potea io ridir, se non “Io vegno”?
Dissilo, alquanto del color consperso
che fa l'uom di perdon talvolta degno.
22
23
24

E 'ntanto per la costa di traverso
venivan genti innanzi a noi un poco,
cantando “Miserere” a verso a verso.
25
26
27

Quando s'accorser ch'i' non dava loco
per lo mio corpo al trapassar d'i raggi,
mutar lor canto in un “oh!” lungo e roco;
28
29
30

e due di loro, in forma di messaggi,
corsero incontr' a noi e dimandarne:
“Di vostra condizion fatene saggi.”
31
32
33

E 'l mio maestro: “Voi potete andarne
e ritrarre a color che vi mandaro
che 'l corpo di costui è vera carne.
34
35
36

Se per veder la sua ombra restaro,
com' io avviso, assai è lor risposto:
fàccianli onore, ed esser può lor caro.”
37
38
39

Vapori accesi non vid' io sì tosto
di prima notte mai fender sereno,
né, sol calando, nuvole d'agosto,
40
41
42

che color non tornasser suso in meno;
e, giunti là, con li altri a noi dier volta,
come schiera che scorre sanza freno.
43
44
45

“Questa gente che preme a noi è molta,
e vegnonti a pregar,” disse 'l poeta:
“però pur va, e in andando ascolta.”
46
47
48

“O anima che vai per esser lieta
con quelle membra con le quai nascesti,”
venian gridando, “un poco il passo queta.
49
50
51

Guarda s'alcun di noi unqua vedesti,
sì che di lui di là novella porti:
deh, perché vai? deh, perché non t'arresti?
52
53
54

Noi fummo tutti già per forza morti,
e peccatori infino a l'ultima ora;
quivi lume del ciel ne fece accorti,
55
56
57

sì che, pentendo e perdonando, fora
di vita uscimmo a Dio pacificati,
che del disio di sé veder n'accora.”
58
59
60

E io: “Perché ne' vostri visi guati,
non riconosco alcun; ma s'a voi piace
cosa ch'io possa, spiriti ben nati
61
62
63

voi dite, e io farò per quella pace
che, dietro a' piedi di sì fatta guida,
di mondo in mondo cercar mi si face.”
64
65
66

E uno incominciò: “Ciascun si fida
del beneficio tuo sanza giurarlo,
pur che 'l voler nonpossa non ricida.
67
68
69

Ond' io, che solo innanzi a li altri parlo,
ti priego, se mai vedi quel paese
che siede tra Romagna e quel di Carlo,
70
71
72

che tu mi sie di tuoi prieghi cortese
in Fano, sì che ben per me s'adori
pur ch'i' possa purgar le gravi offese.
73
74
75

Quindi fu' io; ma li profondi fóri
ond' uscì 'l sangue in sul quale io sedea,
fatti mi fuoro in grembo a li Antenori,
76
77
78

là dov' io più sicuro esser credea:
quel da Esti il fé far, che m'avea in ira
assai più là che dritto non volea.
79
80
81

Ma s'io fosse fuggito inver' la Mira,
quando fu' sovragiunto ad Orïaco,
ancor sarei di là dove si spira.
82
83
84

Corsi al palude, e le cannucce e 'l braco
m'impigliar sì ch'i' caddi; e lì vid' io
de le mie vene farsi in terra laco.”
85
86
87

Poi disse un altro: “Deh, se quel disio
si compia che ti tragge a l'alto monte,
con buona pïetate aiuta il mio!
88
89
90

Io fui di Montefeltro, io son Bonconte;
Giovanna o altri non ha di me cura;
per ch'io vo tra costor con bassa fronte.”
91
92
93

E io a lui: “Qual forza o qual ventura
ti travïò sì fuor di Campaldino,
che non si seppe mai tua sepultura?”
94
95
96

“Oh!” rispuos' elli, “a piè del Casentino
traversa un'acqua c'ha nome l'Archiano,
che sovra l'Ermo nasce in Apennino.
97
98
99

Là 've 'l vocabol suo diventa vano,
arriva' io forato ne la gola,
fuggendo a piede e sanguinando il piano.
100
101
102

Quivi perdei la vista e la parola;
nel nome di Maria fini', e quivi
caddi, e rimase la mia carne sola.
103
104
105

Io dirò vero, e tu 'l ridì tra ' vivi:
l'angel di Dio mi prese, e quel d'inferno
gridava: 'O tu del ciel, perché mi privi?
106
107
108

Tu te ne porti di costui l'etterno
per una lagrimetta che 'l mi toglie;
ma io farò de l'altro altro governo!'
109
110
111

Ben sai come ne l'aere si raccoglie
quell' umido vapor che in acqua riede,
tosto che sale dove 'l freddo il coglie.
112
113
114

Giunse quel mal voler che pur mal chiede
con lo 'ntelletto, e mosse il fummo e 'l vento
per la virtù che sua natura diede.
115
116
117

Indi la valle, come 'l dì fu spento,
da Pratomagno al gran giogo coperse
di nebbia; e 'l ciel di sopra fece intento,
118
119
120

sì che 'l pregno aere in acqua si converse;
la pioggia cadde, e a' fossati venne
di lei ciò che la terra non sofferse;
121
122
123

e come ai rivi grandi si convenne,
ver' lo fiume real tanto veloce
si ruinò, che nulla la ritenne.
124
125
126

Lo corpo mio gelato in su la foce
trovò l'Archian rubesto; e quel sospinse
ne l'Arno, e sciolse al mio petto la croce
127
128
129

ch'i' fe' di me quando 'l dolor mi vinse;
voltòmmi per le ripe e per lo fondo,
poi di sua preda mi coperse e cinse.”
130
131
132

“Deh, quando tu sarai tornato al mondo
e riposato de la lunga via,”
seguitò 'l terzo spirito al secondo,
133
134
135
136

“ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
Siena mi fé, disfecemi Maremma:
salsi colui che 'nnanellata pria
disposando m'avea con la sua gemma.”
1
2
3

I had already from those shades departed,
  And followed in the footsteps of my Guide,
  When from behind, pointing his finger at me,

4
5
6

One shouted: "See, it seems as if shone not
  The sunshine on the left of him below,
  And like one living seems he to conduct him."

7
8
9

Mine eyes I turned at utterance of these words,
  And saw them watching with astonishment
  But me, but me, and the light which was broken!

10
11
12

"Why doth thy mind so occupy itself,"
  The Master said, "that thou thy pace dost slacken?
  What matters it to thee what here is whispered?

13
14
15

Come after me, and let the people talk;
  Stand like a steadfast tower, that never wags
  Its top for all the blowing of the winds;

16
17
18

For evermore the man in whom is springing
  Thought upon thought, removes from him the mark,
  Because the force of one the other weakens."

19
20
21

What could I say in answer but "I come"?
  I said it somewhat with that colour tinged
  Which makes a man of pardon sometimes worthy.

22
23
24

Meanwhile along the mountain-side across
  Came people in advance of us a little,
  Singing the Miserere verse by verse.

25
26
27

When they became aware I gave no place
  For passage of the sunshine through my body,
  They changed their song into a long, hoarse "Oh!"

28
29
30

And two of them, in form of messengers,
  Ran forth to meet us, and demanded of us,
  "Of your condition make us cognisant."

31
32
33

And said my Master: "Ye can go your way
  And carry back again to those who sent you,
  That this one's body is of very flesh.

34
35
36

If they stood still because they saw his shadow,
  As I suppose, enough is answered them;
  Him let them honour, it may profit them."

37
38
39

Vapours enkindled saw I ne'er so swiftly
  At early nightfall cleave the air serene,
  Nor, at the set of sun, the clouds of August,

40
41
42

But upward they returned in briefer time,
  And, on arriving, with the others wheeled
  Tow'rds us, like troops that run without a rein.

43
44
45

"This folk that presses unto us is great,
  And cometh to implore thee," said the Poet;
  "So still go onward, and in going listen."

46
47
48

"O soul that goest to beatitude
  With the same members wherewith thou wast born,"
  Shouting they came, "a little stay thy steps,

49
50
51

Look, if thou e'er hast any of us seen,
  So that o'er yonder thou bear news of him;
  Ah, why dost thou go on? Ah, why not stay?

52
53
54

Long since we all were slain by violence,
  And sinners even to the latest hour;
  Then did a light from heaven admonish us,

55
56
57

So that, both penitent and pardoning, forth
  From life we issued reconciled to God,
  Who with desire to see Him stirs our hearts."

58
59
60

And I: "Although I gaze into your faces,
  No one I recognize; but if may please you
  Aught I have power to do, ye well-born spirits,

61
62
63

Speak ye, and I will do it, by that peace
  Which, following the feet of such a Guide,
  From world to world makes itself sought by me."

64
65
66

And one began: "Each one has confidence
  In thy good offices without an oath,
  Unless the I cannot cut off the I will;

67
68
69

Whence I, who speak alone before the others,
  Pray thee, if ever thou dost see the land
  That 'twixt Romagna lies and that of Charles,

70
71
72

Thou be so courteous to me of thy prayers
  In Fano, that they pray for me devoutly,
  That I may purge away my grave offences.

73
74
75

From thence was I; but the deep wounds, through which
  Issued the blood wherein I had my seat,
  Were dealt me in bosom of the Antenori,

76
77
78

There where I thought to be the most secure;
  'Twas he of Este had it done, who held me
  In hatred far beyond what justice willed.

79
80
81

But if towards the Mira I had fled,
  When I was overtaken at Oriaco,
  I still should be o'er yonder where men breathe.

82
83
84

I ran to the lagoon, and reeds and mire
  Did so entangle me I fell, and saw there
  A lake made from my veins upon the ground."

85
86
87

Then said another: "Ah, be that desire
  Fulfilled that draws thee to the lofty mountain,
  As thou with pious pity aidest mine.

88
89
90

I was of Montefeltro, and am Buonconte;
  Giovanna, nor none other cares for me;
  Hence among these I go with downcast front."

91
92
93

And I to him: "What violence or what chance
  Led thee astray so far from Campaldino,
  That never has thy sepulture been known?"

94
95
96

"Oh," he replied, "at Casentino's foot
  A river crosses named Archiano, born
  Above the Hermitage in Apennine.

97
98
99

There where the name thereof becometh void
  Did I arrive, pierced through and through the throat,
  Fleeing on foot, and bloodying the plain;

100
101
102

There my sight lost I, and my utterance
  Ceased in the name of Mary, and thereat
  I fell, and tenantless my flesh remained.

103
104
105

Truth will I speak, repeat it to the living;
  God's Angel took me up, and he of hell
  Shouted: 'O thou from heaven, why dost thou rob me?

106
107
108

Thou bearest away the eternal part of him,
  For one poor little tear, that takes him from me;
  But with the rest I'll deal in other fashion!'

109
110
111

Well knowest thou how in the air is gathered
  That humid vapour which to water turns,
  Soon as it rises where the cold doth grasp it.

112
113
114

He joined that evil will, which aye seeks evil,
  To intellect, and moved the mist and wind
  By means of power, which his own nature gave;

115
116
117

Thereafter, when the day was spent, the valley
  From Pratomagno to the great yoke covered
  With fog, and made the heaven above intent,

118
119
120

So that the pregnant air to water changed;
  Down fell the rain, and to the gullies came
  Whate'er of it earth tolerated not;

121
122
123

And as it mingled with the mighty torrents,
  Towards the royal river with such speed
  It headlong rushed, that nothing held it back.

124
125
126

My frozen body near unto its outlet
  The robust Archian found, and into Arno
  Thrust it, and loosened from my breast the cross

127
128
129

I made of me, when agony o'ercame me;
  It rolled me on the banks and on the bottom,
  Then with its booty covered and begirt me."

130
131
132

"Ah, when thou hast returned unto the world,
  And rested thee from thy long journeying,"
  After the second followed the third spirit,

133
134
135
136

"Do thou remember me who am the Pia;
  Siena made me, unmade me Maremma;
  He knoweth it, who had encircled first,
Espousing me, my finger with his gem."

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

The canto begins with the protagonist's forward and upward propulsion but quickly reverses its sense of moral direction when Dante glances back, hearing the voice of one of the negligent behind him.

4 - 6

Singleton (comm. to vv. 5-6) argues that, because when Dante approached these late-repentant souls in the previous canto the sun was before him (Purg. IV.101), his shadow now fell behind him and, for this reason (or because, as Grabher [comm. to vv. 1-9] noted, in the shade of the boulder he was out of the sun), was not observed by the onlookers until now when, moving away from them, he cast a shadow at an oblique angle. The sun was to Dante's left when he turned back toward the east (Purg. IV.52-57); now as he heads west it is to his right, casting his shadow to his left. (For the various moments in this cantica in which Dante's shadow is remarked upon, see the note to Purg. III.16-18.)

7 - 8

Dante does not stop, but he does slow his pace as he looks back, as Virgil's words will make clear (Purg. V.11).

9 - 9

How is the reader meant to take the poet's remembrance of his feelings at being recognized as a living soul? Was he guilty of the sin of pride? Some unknown early readers believed so, as we know because Benvenuto tacitly but strongly rebukes them (comm. to vv. 7-9). In his view Dante's excitement is not that of self-congratulation, but rather of joy in his having been chosen by God for this experience, exactly that feeling expressed by Paul when he said 'thanks be to God I am what I am' (I Corinthians 15:10). Benvenuto's disciple, John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 7-12), however, does indeed see the taint of vainglory in Dante's memory of the intense gaze of the penitent souls.

10 - 18

The astonished souls who whisper to one another about Dante's extraordinary status are perhaps reminiscent of earthly neighbors whose secret gossip is generally motivated by less kind concerns.

Discussing this passage, Frankel (“La similitudine della zara [Purg. VI, 1-12] ed il rapporto fra Dante e Virgilio nell'Antepurgatorio,” in Studi Americani su Dante, ed. G. C. Alessio and R. Hollander [Milan: F. Angeli, 1989], pp. 127-30, points out that Virgil's urgency in trying to get Dante to resume his forward movement is not found in Virgil himself when he encounters Sordello in Purgatorio VII and much enjoys his fellow Mantuan's interest and praise. And, while there have been other commentators who find Virgil's scolding excessive, the fact remains that the protagonist takes it most seriously (see Purg. V.19-21). Further, all that Virgil rebukes in Dante is his allowing his attention to wander, distracted by his admirers, from the prime purpose of the journey, i.e., he is acting to some degree like these negligent souls who were active Christians only near the end of their lives.

14 - 15

There has been a small industry, begun (as is so often the case) by the classicizing Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 13-15), which has tried to find a particular Virgilian text (at least four have been offered) or a passage from Seneca as 'source' for these lines. That no classical source was proposed by any of the medieval or Renaissance commentators, however, makes the claim less attractive than it might be, as does the fact that the context of the passage cited most often (Aen. X.693-696) involves a simile that compares Mezentius, about to begin his final heroic assaults on the Trojan foe which will end in his death at the hands of Aeneas, with a cliff jutting out into the sea, and not a 'tower.' Thus the context is hardly propitious and the comparison not particularly similar.

19 - 21

Dante's blush of shame clearly justifies Virgil's indignation: the protagonist has been thinking of himself too much. And with this detail, indeed, the poem resumes its forward thrust, begun at Purgatorio V.1-2, but interrupted for seventeen lines.

23 - 24

The new penitents enter singing the Psalm (50:1) that furnished the protagonist's own first word in the poem (Inf. I.65), Miserere, the first word of David's song of penance. Unlike the last group of late-repentant souls, lounging in the shade of their rock, these are moving in the same rightward direction that Virgil has urged Dante to follow.

What does a verso a verso mean? The earliest commentator to deal with the phrase, Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 22-30), suggests that it means the group was divided into two 'choruses' and sang the verses responsively. There is no indication in the text that this is so. Still, this early commentator's authority is great enough so that, with only a few divergences (e.g., Vellutello [comm. to vv. 22-24], Trucchi [comm. to vv. 22-24] , almost all repeat this formulation, including Singleton (comm. to verse 24), even though he translates the line as we do. Chimenz (comm. to vv. 22-24), however, offers good reasons not to accept this formulation: (1) the text makes no mention of any such grouping; (2) when they utter their amazed 'Oh!' the entire group has apparently been singing as one; (3) all the other prayers spoken by groups in purgatory are spoken in unison. After Chimenz there has been a certain change of opinion among some commentators – as seems only sensible.

25 - 27

It is noteworthy that these penitents behave precisely as did the negligent, showing their astonishment and curiosity at Dante's embodied presence in the sacred precinct of the saved. It is also striking that this time Virgil will offer no rebuke to Dante for his interest in them, which will slow his forward movement. If one reflects that this encounter is part of the protagonist's 'education' on the mountainside, the apparent contradiction begins to resolve itself. Dante's previous interest was in the negligent souls' reaction to him, not in what he could learn from them.

28 - 30

Unlike other characters who enter the action of the poem unnamed but are later identified, these two messengers, seeking information about Dante's condition, will remain anonymous.

31 - 36

For all the asperity of Virgil's response to the 'messengers,' it is clear that he is aware of and in favor of Dante's ability to help speed the progress toward purgation of these and other souls in ante-purgatory (verse 36).

37 - 40

The similetic comparison may find its roots in Virgil's description of shooting stars in his Georgics (I.365-367), according to Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 37-39) and, more recently, to Hermann Gmelin (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955]), ad loc.

45 - 45

Once again Virgil underlines the propriety of Dante's favorable response to requests for his intervention on behalf of the penitents as long as he continues his way up the mountain while he does so.

46 - 48

Rejoined by its two 'messengers,' the group as a whole now speaks to Dante, asking his help for those whom he may recognize.

53 - 53

As Chiavacci Leonardi (Purgatorio, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1994]), pp. 143-44, points out, the phrase 'sinners to the final hour' is probably meant to recall Matthew 20:1-16, the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, where even those who are summoned to work at the eleventh hour were paid the same as those who labored all the day: 'So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many are called, but few are chosen' (20:16).

55 - 55

It is noteworthy that salvation was possible for these sinners only after their own belated penitence and their forgiveness of those who had caused their deaths.

58 - 63

Dante's acquiescence in being willing to bring news of their salvations pointedly includes those whom he does not know, encouraging them to make a request that might, to them, have seemed too bold. The words he uses for these souls, 'spiriti ben nati' (spirits born for bliss) contrast sharply with the formulation for those who were described as 'mal nati' (Inf. V.7; Inf. XVIII.76; Inf. XXX.48).

64 - 64

The speaker, never identified by name, either in his own speech of 21 lines (Purg. V.64-84) or by the narrator, is Jacopo del Cassero, born ca. 1260. 'He was among the Guelf leaders who joined the Florentines in their expedition against Arezzo in 1288. He incurred the enmity of Azzo VIII of Este by his opposition to the designs of the latter upon Bologna, of which city Jacopo was Podestà in 1296. In revenge Azzo had him assassinated at Oriaco, between Venice and Padua, while he was on his way (in 1298) to assume the office of Podestà at Milan at the invitation of Maffeo Visconti. He appears to have gone by sea from Fano to Venice, and thence to have proceeded towards Milan by way of Padua; but while he was still among the lagoons, only about eight miles from Venice, he was waylaid and stabbed' (Toynbee, “Cassero, Jacopo del” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). Clearly Dante knew that he could count on Jacopo's renown and on his readers' fairly wide acquaintance with the details of his life and death.

69 - 69

Jacopo refers to the Marches, the area between Romagna, to the north, and the kingdom of Naples, governed by Charles of Anjou in 1300, to the south.

71 - 71

Should Dante ever find himself in Fano, in the March of Ancona, where Jacopo's relatives and friends survive, his news of Jacopo's salvation may, by causing them to pray for him, serve to shorten his time in ante-purgatory.

74 - 74

Jacopo's blood, of which we shall hear more in his final lines, the seat of the soul (see Purg. XXV.37-45), left his body through the wounds caused by the murderous Paduans who waylaid him in 1298. Padua was founded by Antenor, according to Virgil (Aen. I.242-249). Servius's comment on these verses added the detail that Antenor, before he escaped from Troy, had given the Greeks the Palladium, thus connecting him with betrayal of one's country (and suggesting to Dante a name, Antenora, for the second region of the ninth Circle of hell [Inf. XXXII.88]).

77 - 78

Azzo VIII d'Este became marquis of Este in 1293. Jacopo here would seem to be suggesting that the Paduans who killed him were in cahoots with Azzo, the ringleader of the plot. Dante's own former opinion of Azzo was negative (see De vulgari eloquentia I.xii.5; II.vi.4). Here Jacopo admits a certain culpability in having aroused Azzo's wrath, reminding us that he has had to forgive his slayer in order to have been saved. The commentator Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 70-72) gives some of the reasons for Azzo's hatred of Jacopo. When Azzo wanted to make himself ruler of Bologna, the Bolognesi called on Jacopo to be podestà of their city. In opposing Azzo he, according to the fourteenth-century commentator, was unceasing in his vilifications of his enemy, claiming, for instance, that he had slept with his stepmother and was in fact the son of a washerwoman.

For the sin of wrath, in its hardened form, as a sin of will and not of incontinence, see the notes to Inferno VII.109-114 and XII.16-21 (last paragraph). Because Azzo was alive in 1308, Dante could not place him in hell; it seems likely that he would have considered setting him down among the murderers in the company of his father, Obizzo, whom Azzo indeed, according to many commentators, strangled in 1293. See Inferno XII.111-112.

79 - 80

Jacopo, reconsidering his actions, realizes that he might have made good his escape had he proceeded west in the direction of Milano and headed for the town of La Mira, rather than stopping, off the main road, between Venice and Padua at Oriago. Benvenuto believes that he was on horseback (as seems reasonable) and thus could have made his escape along the good road to La Mira, while the swampy overgrowth made him easy prey for his attackers, stalking him on foot, when he turned back to hide himself but was seen and attacked.

83 - 84

Fallen (from his horse?) and apparently hacked to death by those who pursued him on foot, Jacopo watches his blood (and thus his soul) pass from his body.

88 - 88

Buonconte da Montefeltro (ca. 1250-1289) was the son of the great Ghibelline leader, Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. XXVII.19-132; and see the note to Inf. XXVII.4-6). 'In June 1287 Buonconte helped the Ghibellines to expel the Guelfs from Arezzo, an event which was the beginning of the war between Florence and Arezzo; in 1288 he was in command of the Aretines when they defeated the Sienese at Pieve del Toppo; and in 1289 he was appointed captain of the Aretines and led them against the Guelfs of Florence, by whom they were totally defeated (June 11) at Campaldino, among the slain being Buonconte himself, whose body, however, was never discovered on the field of battle' (Toynbee, “Buonconte” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). It is important to remember that Dante himself was present at this battle as a cavalryman (see the note to Inf. XII.75) in what was, for him and his fellow Florentine Guelphs, a great victory. Once again we sense his ability to identify with the loser (see the note to Inf. XXI.95). There is not a trace of triumphalism in his exchange with the fallen leader of his enemies.

89 - 90

Unlike Jacopo del Cassero, who hopes that his relatives and friends will pray for him (Purg. V.71), Buonconte realizes that his wife, Giovanna, and other family members have no concern for him. Unlike Jacopo and others of his band, he has been devoid of the hope that has urged the rest to petition Dante for his aid. Now he finds hope in this visitor from the world of the living. This poem, which summarizes its purpose as being to make the living pray better (Par. I.35-36), nowhere better indicates this purpose than in ante-purgatory in such scenes as these. It is undoubtedly the case that any number of people who read or heard the poem in the fourteenth century actually prayed for the souls of those whom Dante reports as needing such prayer.

91 - 93

Dante's desire for knowledge of what happened to Buonconte's body reflects the concern of others present at the battle of Campaldino. How could the body of so important a personage simply disappear? Several students of this passage have suggested that the poet here has in mind Virgil's portrait of Palinurus, so deeply troubled by his unburied state, and consider the protagonist's question a recasting of Aeneas's question to Palinurus: 'Which of the gods, Palinurus, tore you from us and submerged you in the open sea?' (Aen. VI.341-342). While the linguistic fit is not a perfect one, both the circumstance and the fact that Dante seems to have the Palinurus passage in mind at Purgatorio III.130 – and surely does so at VI.28-30 – makes the reference at least plausible. Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi (“Dante e Virgilio,” Letture classensi 12 [1983]), p. 88n., noted it, as now have Carol Ann Cioffi (“Fame, Prayer, and Politics: Virgil's Palinurus in Purgatorio V and VI,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 179-200) and Ruggero Stefanini (“Buonconte and Palinurus: Dante's Re-Working of a Classical Source,” in Dante: Summa Medievalis, ed. C. Franco and L. Morgan [Stony Brook, N.Y.: Forum Italicum, 1995], pp. 100-11). And for the view that Palinurus operates as a foil to Buonconte, see Michelangelo Picone (“Canto V,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001 (1999)]), pp. 78-80.

94 - 99

The Casentino lies in the upper valley of the Arno. The torrent Archiano derives from sources above the valley near the monastery of Camaldoli, situated high in the mountains above the region. The battle of Campaldino took place on a plain below this higher valley and it is the place to which Dante imagines the wounded Buonconte to have made his way, just where the Archiano joins the Arno, several miles above the site of the battle.

100 - 102

Peter Armour (“Words and the Drama of Death in Purgatorio V,” in Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the “Divina Commedia”, ed. John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993]), pp. 108-12, makes a strong case for punctuating the text differently than Petrocchi does, and we would have followed him, placing a comma after vista and dropping the semicolon in line 100 (as indeed a number of earlier texts also do), but for our editorial decision to follow Petrocchi. This emendation makes the sense of the passage both more clear and more dramatic, breaking it into four parallel elements, each of the final three beginning with 'and,' recapitulating Buonconte's final moments: loss of sight, final utterance, physical collapse, departure of the soul from the body.

104 - 108

As commentators notice, the struggle of the good and wicked angel over the soul of Buonconte mirrors the similar scene that occurs at the death of his father, Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. XXVII.112-117), when St. Francis and a fallen Cherub struggle for the soul of Guido. Not even Francis can prevail against God's judgment – if we can accept Guido's narrative at face value.

A possible source for this scene is found in the Epistle of Jude (Jude 9) in a passage that refers to the archangel Michael's struggle with the devil for the body of Moses. The relevance of this text to Dante's was perhaps first noted by Scartazzini in the 1870s (comm. to verse 104). For discussion, see Domenico Pietropaolo (“The Figural Context of Buonconte's Salvation,” Dante Studies 102 [1984], pp. 123-34), who points out (p. 125) that, like Buonconte's, the whereabouts of Moses' actual burial place was not known (Deuteronomy 34:6).

Buonconte's tear (verse 107) reminds us of the similarly plangent Manfred (Purg. III.120).

109 - 111

A number of recent commentators here note an echo of Virgil's first Georgic (Georg. I.322-324). For the view that this passage reflects the description of the storm that drives Aeneas's ships off course in the first book of the Aeneid see A.E. Carter (“An Unrecognized Virgilian Passage in Dante,” Italica 21 [1944], pp. 149-53).

112 - 114

Is Dante suggesting that evil forces have power only over the elements (and the dead bodies of humans – see Purg. V.108)?

116 - 116

The mountain ridge Pratomagno and the alpine protuberances referred to establish the confines of the Casentino at the southwest and northeast, respectively.

117 - 117

Restoring a meaning offered in Benvenuto's commentary but perhaps never revisited and arguing against the scholarly exertions of others, Lino Pertile (“Bonconte e l'anafonesi [Purg., V 109-18],” Filologia e critica 21 [1996]), pp. 121-26, presents a strong case for the Tuscan form of the verb intingere's past participle, intinto in its regular form, but also found as intento (darkened). We have accepted Pertile's reading in our translation.

122 - 122

Dante's term for 'seaward stream' is fiume real, or 'royal river,' i.e., a river that ends in the sea.

126 - 127

The 'cross' that Buonconte had made of his arms perhaps expresses both the gesture of a man in the throes of mortal pain and the sign of his hope for redemption.

128 - 129

Buonconte's body finally came to rest on the Arno's bed, along with the detritus that the rushing torrent had borne along with it until it, too, settled to rest, mingled with the body of the man.

130 - 136

The six verses devoted to Pia's speech have made her one of Dante's most remembered and admired portraits – even though we do not really know who she was, to whom she was married (nor how many times, but perhaps twice), or who killed her, or how. For the complicated, necessarily hypothetical, and eventually unknowable status of Pia's identity and story and the possible knowledge that Dante had of them, see Armour (“Words and the Drama of Death in Purgatorio V,” in Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the “Divina Commedia”, ed. John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993]), pp. 120-22. See also Giorgio Varanini, “Pia” (ED.1973.4), pp. 462-67.

133 - 133

Pia uses the 'polite imperative,' i.e., the impersonal subjunctive, to express her desire (i.e., 'may it be remembered by you'): she hopes to be remembered by Dante once he is back on earth so that he can pray for her, as Vellutello (comm. to vv. 130-136) suggests, or recall her to the minds of others for their prayers.

134 - 134

This line, celebrated for its brevity and power, has the lapidary quality of a headstone, perhaps because it represents one: the beginning of Virgil's epitaph, 'Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere....' (Mantua gave me birth, Calabria took me off), as Gmelin (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955], ad loc.) was among the many moderns to suggest. See the notes to Purgatorio III.27 and VI.72. And see Hollander (“Dante's 'Georgic' [Inferno XXIV, 1-18],” Dante Studies 102 [1984], p. 119, n. 7).

Peter Armour (“Words and the Drama of Death in Purgatorio V,” in Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the “Divina Commedia”, ed. John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993]), p. 116, suggests that, if she was defenestrated by her husband (or one of his agents), as many early commentators claim, then the hard earth of the Maremma actually did 'undo' her, smashing her body when she hit it.

135 - 136

These final verses of the canto have drawn numerous attempts at a clear understanding. However, without knowing the precise nature of the facts to which Dante has decided to allude, we cannot be certain. Among the more interesting suggestions for a source is Hermann Gmelin's (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955], ad loc.): the verses reflect Dido's remark about her dead husband, Sichaeus, at Aeneid IV.28-29: 'ille meos, primus qui me sibi iunxit, amores / abstulit; ille habeat secum servetque sepulchro' (He, who first joined me to him, has sealed up my love; may he have it with him and keep it in his grave). The italicized phrase seems close enough to Dante's 'colui che 'nnanellata pria / disposando' to merit further thought, even if the contexts are not the same, a suffering wife and murderous husband replacing a loyal husband and a would-be loyal wife. Did Pia's husband himself give her a ring of betrothal before they married or, as Varanini suggests, did the man who eventually killed her, the representative of her husband (one Magliata di Pionpino), present the ring for him?

The three 'autobiographies' that make up the last and largest part of this canto are strikingly similar in their construction. Each character includes the following elements, in the same order, in his or her speech: (1) captatio benevolentiae; (2) thoughts of homeland and possibility of hope for prayer from there; (3) place and cause of death; (4) moment of death.

Purgatorio: Canto 5

1
2
3

Io era già da quell' ombre partito,
e seguitava l'orme del mio duca,
quando di retro a me, drizzando 'l dito,
4
5
6

una gridò: “Ve' che non par che luca
lo raggio da sinistra a quel di sotto,
e come vivo par che si conduca!”
7
8
9

Li occhi rivolsi al suon di questo motto,
e vidile guardar per maraviglia
pur me, pur me, e 'l lume ch'era rotto.
10
11
12

“Perché l'animo tuo tanto s'impiglia,”
disse 'l maestro, “che l'andare allenti?
che ti fa ciò che quivi si pispiglia?
13
14
15

Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti:
sta come torre ferma, che non crolla
già mai la cima per soffiar di venti;
16
17
18

ché sempre l'omo in cui pensier rampolla
sovra pensier, da sé dilunga il segno,
perché la foga l'un de l'altro insolla.”
19
20
21

Che potea io ridir, se non “Io vegno”?
Dissilo, alquanto del color consperso
che fa l'uom di perdon talvolta degno.
22
23
24

E 'ntanto per la costa di traverso
venivan genti innanzi a noi un poco,
cantando “Miserere” a verso a verso.
25
26
27

Quando s'accorser ch'i' non dava loco
per lo mio corpo al trapassar d'i raggi,
mutar lor canto in un “oh!” lungo e roco;
28
29
30

e due di loro, in forma di messaggi,
corsero incontr' a noi e dimandarne:
“Di vostra condizion fatene saggi.”
31
32
33

E 'l mio maestro: “Voi potete andarne
e ritrarre a color che vi mandaro
che 'l corpo di costui è vera carne.
34
35
36

Se per veder la sua ombra restaro,
com' io avviso, assai è lor risposto:
fàccianli onore, ed esser può lor caro.”
37
38
39

Vapori accesi non vid' io sì tosto
di prima notte mai fender sereno,
né, sol calando, nuvole d'agosto,
40
41
42

che color non tornasser suso in meno;
e, giunti là, con li altri a noi dier volta,
come schiera che scorre sanza freno.
43
44
45

“Questa gente che preme a noi è molta,
e vegnonti a pregar,” disse 'l poeta:
“però pur va, e in andando ascolta.”
46
47
48

“O anima che vai per esser lieta
con quelle membra con le quai nascesti,”
venian gridando, “un poco il passo queta.
49
50
51

Guarda s'alcun di noi unqua vedesti,
sì che di lui di là novella porti:
deh, perché vai? deh, perché non t'arresti?
52
53
54

Noi fummo tutti già per forza morti,
e peccatori infino a l'ultima ora;
quivi lume del ciel ne fece accorti,
55
56
57

sì che, pentendo e perdonando, fora
di vita uscimmo a Dio pacificati,
che del disio di sé veder n'accora.”
58
59
60

E io: “Perché ne' vostri visi guati,
non riconosco alcun; ma s'a voi piace
cosa ch'io possa, spiriti ben nati
61
62
63

voi dite, e io farò per quella pace
che, dietro a' piedi di sì fatta guida,
di mondo in mondo cercar mi si face.”
64
65
66

E uno incominciò: “Ciascun si fida
del beneficio tuo sanza giurarlo,
pur che 'l voler nonpossa non ricida.
67
68
69

Ond' io, che solo innanzi a li altri parlo,
ti priego, se mai vedi quel paese
che siede tra Romagna e quel di Carlo,
70
71
72

che tu mi sie di tuoi prieghi cortese
in Fano, sì che ben per me s'adori
pur ch'i' possa purgar le gravi offese.
73
74
75

Quindi fu' io; ma li profondi fóri
ond' uscì 'l sangue in sul quale io sedea,
fatti mi fuoro in grembo a li Antenori,
76
77
78

là dov' io più sicuro esser credea:
quel da Esti il fé far, che m'avea in ira
assai più là che dritto non volea.
79
80
81

Ma s'io fosse fuggito inver' la Mira,
quando fu' sovragiunto ad Orïaco,
ancor sarei di là dove si spira.
82
83
84

Corsi al palude, e le cannucce e 'l braco
m'impigliar sì ch'i' caddi; e lì vid' io
de le mie vene farsi in terra laco.”
85
86
87

Poi disse un altro: “Deh, se quel disio
si compia che ti tragge a l'alto monte,
con buona pïetate aiuta il mio!
88
89
90

Io fui di Montefeltro, io son Bonconte;
Giovanna o altri non ha di me cura;
per ch'io vo tra costor con bassa fronte.”
91
92
93

E io a lui: “Qual forza o qual ventura
ti travïò sì fuor di Campaldino,
che non si seppe mai tua sepultura?”
94
95
96

“Oh!” rispuos' elli, “a piè del Casentino
traversa un'acqua c'ha nome l'Archiano,
che sovra l'Ermo nasce in Apennino.
97
98
99

Là 've 'l vocabol suo diventa vano,
arriva' io forato ne la gola,
fuggendo a piede e sanguinando il piano.
100
101
102

Quivi perdei la vista e la parola;
nel nome di Maria fini', e quivi
caddi, e rimase la mia carne sola.
103
104
105

Io dirò vero, e tu 'l ridì tra ' vivi:
l'angel di Dio mi prese, e quel d'inferno
gridava: 'O tu del ciel, perché mi privi?
106
107
108

Tu te ne porti di costui l'etterno
per una lagrimetta che 'l mi toglie;
ma io farò de l'altro altro governo!'
109
110
111

Ben sai come ne l'aere si raccoglie
quell' umido vapor che in acqua riede,
tosto che sale dove 'l freddo il coglie.
112
113
114

Giunse quel mal voler che pur mal chiede
con lo 'ntelletto, e mosse il fummo e 'l vento
per la virtù che sua natura diede.
115
116
117

Indi la valle, come 'l dì fu spento,
da Pratomagno al gran giogo coperse
di nebbia; e 'l ciel di sopra fece intento,
118
119
120

sì che 'l pregno aere in acqua si converse;
la pioggia cadde, e a' fossati venne
di lei ciò che la terra non sofferse;
121
122
123

e come ai rivi grandi si convenne,
ver' lo fiume real tanto veloce
si ruinò, che nulla la ritenne.
124
125
126

Lo corpo mio gelato in su la foce
trovò l'Archian rubesto; e quel sospinse
ne l'Arno, e sciolse al mio petto la croce
127
128
129

ch'i' fe' di me quando 'l dolor mi vinse;
voltòmmi per le ripe e per lo fondo,
poi di sua preda mi coperse e cinse.”
130
131
132

“Deh, quando tu sarai tornato al mondo
e riposato de la lunga via,”
seguitò 'l terzo spirito al secondo,
133
134
135
136

“ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
Siena mi fé, disfecemi Maremma:
salsi colui che 'nnanellata pria
disposando m'avea con la sua gemma.”
1
2
3

I had already from those shades departed,
  And followed in the footsteps of my Guide,
  When from behind, pointing his finger at me,

4
5
6

One shouted: "See, it seems as if shone not
  The sunshine on the left of him below,
  And like one living seems he to conduct him."

7
8
9

Mine eyes I turned at utterance of these words,
  And saw them watching with astonishment
  But me, but me, and the light which was broken!

10
11
12

"Why doth thy mind so occupy itself,"
  The Master said, "that thou thy pace dost slacken?
  What matters it to thee what here is whispered?

13
14
15

Come after me, and let the people talk;
  Stand like a steadfast tower, that never wags
  Its top for all the blowing of the winds;

16
17
18

For evermore the man in whom is springing
  Thought upon thought, removes from him the mark,
  Because the force of one the other weakens."

19
20
21

What could I say in answer but "I come"?
  I said it somewhat with that colour tinged
  Which makes a man of pardon sometimes worthy.

22
23
24

Meanwhile along the mountain-side across
  Came people in advance of us a little,
  Singing the Miserere verse by verse.

25
26
27

When they became aware I gave no place
  For passage of the sunshine through my body,
  They changed their song into a long, hoarse "Oh!"

28
29
30

And two of them, in form of messengers,
  Ran forth to meet us, and demanded of us,
  "Of your condition make us cognisant."

31
32
33

And said my Master: "Ye can go your way
  And carry back again to those who sent you,
  That this one's body is of very flesh.

34
35
36

If they stood still because they saw his shadow,
  As I suppose, enough is answered them;
  Him let them honour, it may profit them."

37
38
39

Vapours enkindled saw I ne'er so swiftly
  At early nightfall cleave the air serene,
  Nor, at the set of sun, the clouds of August,

40
41
42

But upward they returned in briefer time,
  And, on arriving, with the others wheeled
  Tow'rds us, like troops that run without a rein.

43
44
45

"This folk that presses unto us is great,
  And cometh to implore thee," said the Poet;
  "So still go onward, and in going listen."

46
47
48

"O soul that goest to beatitude
  With the same members wherewith thou wast born,"
  Shouting they came, "a little stay thy steps,

49
50
51

Look, if thou e'er hast any of us seen,
  So that o'er yonder thou bear news of him;
  Ah, why dost thou go on? Ah, why not stay?

52
53
54

Long since we all were slain by violence,
  And sinners even to the latest hour;
  Then did a light from heaven admonish us,

55
56
57

So that, both penitent and pardoning, forth
  From life we issued reconciled to God,
  Who with desire to see Him stirs our hearts."

58
59
60

And I: "Although I gaze into your faces,
  No one I recognize; but if may please you
  Aught I have power to do, ye well-born spirits,

61
62
63

Speak ye, and I will do it, by that peace
  Which, following the feet of such a Guide,
  From world to world makes itself sought by me."

64
65
66

And one began: "Each one has confidence
  In thy good offices without an oath,
  Unless the I cannot cut off the I will;

67
68
69

Whence I, who speak alone before the others,
  Pray thee, if ever thou dost see the land
  That 'twixt Romagna lies and that of Charles,

70
71
72

Thou be so courteous to me of thy prayers
  In Fano, that they pray for me devoutly,
  That I may purge away my grave offences.

73
74
75

From thence was I; but the deep wounds, through which
  Issued the blood wherein I had my seat,
  Were dealt me in bosom of the Antenori,

76
77
78

There where I thought to be the most secure;
  'Twas he of Este had it done, who held me
  In hatred far beyond what justice willed.

79
80
81

But if towards the Mira I had fled,
  When I was overtaken at Oriaco,
  I still should be o'er yonder where men breathe.

82
83
84

I ran to the lagoon, and reeds and mire
  Did so entangle me I fell, and saw there
  A lake made from my veins upon the ground."

85
86
87

Then said another: "Ah, be that desire
  Fulfilled that draws thee to the lofty mountain,
  As thou with pious pity aidest mine.

88
89
90

I was of Montefeltro, and am Buonconte;
  Giovanna, nor none other cares for me;
  Hence among these I go with downcast front."

91
92
93

And I to him: "What violence or what chance
  Led thee astray so far from Campaldino,
  That never has thy sepulture been known?"

94
95
96

"Oh," he replied, "at Casentino's foot
  A river crosses named Archiano, born
  Above the Hermitage in Apennine.

97
98
99

There where the name thereof becometh void
  Did I arrive, pierced through and through the throat,
  Fleeing on foot, and bloodying the plain;

100
101
102

There my sight lost I, and my utterance
  Ceased in the name of Mary, and thereat
  I fell, and tenantless my flesh remained.

103
104
105

Truth will I speak, repeat it to the living;
  God's Angel took me up, and he of hell
  Shouted: 'O thou from heaven, why dost thou rob me?

106
107
108

Thou bearest away the eternal part of him,
  For one poor little tear, that takes him from me;
  But with the rest I'll deal in other fashion!'

109
110
111

Well knowest thou how in the air is gathered
  That humid vapour which to water turns,
  Soon as it rises where the cold doth grasp it.

112
113
114

He joined that evil will, which aye seeks evil,
  To intellect, and moved the mist and wind
  By means of power, which his own nature gave;

115
116
117

Thereafter, when the day was spent, the valley
  From Pratomagno to the great yoke covered
  With fog, and made the heaven above intent,

118
119
120

So that the pregnant air to water changed;
  Down fell the rain, and to the gullies came
  Whate'er of it earth tolerated not;

121
122
123

And as it mingled with the mighty torrents,
  Towards the royal river with such speed
  It headlong rushed, that nothing held it back.

124
125
126

My frozen body near unto its outlet
  The robust Archian found, and into Arno
  Thrust it, and loosened from my breast the cross

127
128
129

I made of me, when agony o'ercame me;
  It rolled me on the banks and on the bottom,
  Then with its booty covered and begirt me."

130
131
132

"Ah, when thou hast returned unto the world,
  And rested thee from thy long journeying,"
  After the second followed the third spirit,

133
134
135
136

"Do thou remember me who am the Pia;
  Siena made me, unmade me Maremma;
  He knoweth it, who had encircled first,
Espousing me, my finger with his gem."

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

The canto begins with the protagonist's forward and upward propulsion but quickly reverses its sense of moral direction when Dante glances back, hearing the voice of one of the negligent behind him.

4 - 6

Singleton (comm. to vv. 5-6) argues that, because when Dante approached these late-repentant souls in the previous canto the sun was before him (Purg. IV.101), his shadow now fell behind him and, for this reason (or because, as Grabher [comm. to vv. 1-9] noted, in the shade of the boulder he was out of the sun), was not observed by the onlookers until now when, moving away from them, he cast a shadow at an oblique angle. The sun was to Dante's left when he turned back toward the east (Purg. IV.52-57); now as he heads west it is to his right, casting his shadow to his left. (For the various moments in this cantica in which Dante's shadow is remarked upon, see the note to Purg. III.16-18.)

7 - 8

Dante does not stop, but he does slow his pace as he looks back, as Virgil's words will make clear (Purg. V.11).

9 - 9

How is the reader meant to take the poet's remembrance of his feelings at being recognized as a living soul? Was he guilty of the sin of pride? Some unknown early readers believed so, as we know because Benvenuto tacitly but strongly rebukes them (comm. to vv. 7-9). In his view Dante's excitement is not that of self-congratulation, but rather of joy in his having been chosen by God for this experience, exactly that feeling expressed by Paul when he said 'thanks be to God I am what I am' (I Corinthians 15:10). Benvenuto's disciple, John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 7-12), however, does indeed see the taint of vainglory in Dante's memory of the intense gaze of the penitent souls.

10 - 18

The astonished souls who whisper to one another about Dante's extraordinary status are perhaps reminiscent of earthly neighbors whose secret gossip is generally motivated by less kind concerns.

Discussing this passage, Frankel (“La similitudine della zara [Purg. VI, 1-12] ed il rapporto fra Dante e Virgilio nell'Antepurgatorio,” in Studi Americani su Dante, ed. G. C. Alessio and R. Hollander [Milan: F. Angeli, 1989], pp. 127-30, points out that Virgil's urgency in trying to get Dante to resume his forward movement is not found in Virgil himself when he encounters Sordello in Purgatorio VII and much enjoys his fellow Mantuan's interest and praise. And, while there have been other commentators who find Virgil's scolding excessive, the fact remains that the protagonist takes it most seriously (see Purg. V.19-21). Further, all that Virgil rebukes in Dante is his allowing his attention to wander, distracted by his admirers, from the prime purpose of the journey, i.e., he is acting to some degree like these negligent souls who were active Christians only near the end of their lives.

14 - 15

There has been a small industry, begun (as is so often the case) by the classicizing Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 13-15), which has tried to find a particular Virgilian text (at least four have been offered) or a passage from Seneca as 'source' for these lines. That no classical source was proposed by any of the medieval or Renaissance commentators, however, makes the claim less attractive than it might be, as does the fact that the context of the passage cited most often (Aen. X.693-696) involves a simile that compares Mezentius, about to begin his final heroic assaults on the Trojan foe which will end in his death at the hands of Aeneas, with a cliff jutting out into the sea, and not a 'tower.' Thus the context is hardly propitious and the comparison not particularly similar.

19 - 21

Dante's blush of shame clearly justifies Virgil's indignation: the protagonist has been thinking of himself too much. And with this detail, indeed, the poem resumes its forward thrust, begun at Purgatorio V.1-2, but interrupted for seventeen lines.

23 - 24

The new penitents enter singing the Psalm (50:1) that furnished the protagonist's own first word in the poem (Inf. I.65), Miserere, the first word of David's song of penance. Unlike the last group of late-repentant souls, lounging in the shade of their rock, these are moving in the same rightward direction that Virgil has urged Dante to follow.

What does a verso a verso mean? The earliest commentator to deal with the phrase, Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 22-30), suggests that it means the group was divided into two 'choruses' and sang the verses responsively. There is no indication in the text that this is so. Still, this early commentator's authority is great enough so that, with only a few divergences (e.g., Vellutello [comm. to vv. 22-24], Trucchi [comm. to vv. 22-24] , almost all repeat this formulation, including Singleton (comm. to verse 24), even though he translates the line as we do. Chimenz (comm. to vv. 22-24), however, offers good reasons not to accept this formulation: (1) the text makes no mention of any such grouping; (2) when they utter their amazed 'Oh!' the entire group has apparently been singing as one; (3) all the other prayers spoken by groups in purgatory are spoken in unison. After Chimenz there has been a certain change of opinion among some commentators – as seems only sensible.

25 - 27

It is noteworthy that these penitents behave precisely as did the negligent, showing their astonishment and curiosity at Dante's embodied presence in the sacred precinct of the saved. It is also striking that this time Virgil will offer no rebuke to Dante for his interest in them, which will slow his forward movement. If one reflects that this encounter is part of the protagonist's 'education' on the mountainside, the apparent contradiction begins to resolve itself. Dante's previous interest was in the negligent souls' reaction to him, not in what he could learn from them.

28 - 30

Unlike other characters who enter the action of the poem unnamed but are later identified, these two messengers, seeking information about Dante's condition, will remain anonymous.

31 - 36

For all the asperity of Virgil's response to the 'messengers,' it is clear that he is aware of and in favor of Dante's ability to help speed the progress toward purgation of these and other souls in ante-purgatory (verse 36).

37 - 40

The similetic comparison may find its roots in Virgil's description of shooting stars in his Georgics (I.365-367), according to Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 37-39) and, more recently, to Hermann Gmelin (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955]), ad loc.

45 - 45

Once again Virgil underlines the propriety of Dante's favorable response to requests for his intervention on behalf of the penitents as long as he continues his way up the mountain while he does so.

46 - 48

Rejoined by its two 'messengers,' the group as a whole now speaks to Dante, asking his help for those whom he may recognize.

53 - 53

As Chiavacci Leonardi (Purgatorio, con il commento di A. M. C. L. [Milan: Mondadori, 1994]), pp. 143-44, points out, the phrase 'sinners to the final hour' is probably meant to recall Matthew 20:1-16, the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, where even those who are summoned to work at the eleventh hour were paid the same as those who labored all the day: 'So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many are called, but few are chosen' (20:16).

55 - 55

It is noteworthy that salvation was possible for these sinners only after their own belated penitence and their forgiveness of those who had caused their deaths.

58 - 63

Dante's acquiescence in being willing to bring news of their salvations pointedly includes those whom he does not know, encouraging them to make a request that might, to them, have seemed too bold. The words he uses for these souls, 'spiriti ben nati' (spirits born for bliss) contrast sharply with the formulation for those who were described as 'mal nati' (Inf. V.7; Inf. XVIII.76; Inf. XXX.48).

64 - 64

The speaker, never identified by name, either in his own speech of 21 lines (Purg. V.64-84) or by the narrator, is Jacopo del Cassero, born ca. 1260. 'He was among the Guelf leaders who joined the Florentines in their expedition against Arezzo in 1288. He incurred the enmity of Azzo VIII of Este by his opposition to the designs of the latter upon Bologna, of which city Jacopo was Podestà in 1296. In revenge Azzo had him assassinated at Oriaco, between Venice and Padua, while he was on his way (in 1298) to assume the office of Podestà at Milan at the invitation of Maffeo Visconti. He appears to have gone by sea from Fano to Venice, and thence to have proceeded towards Milan by way of Padua; but while he was still among the lagoons, only about eight miles from Venice, he was waylaid and stabbed' (Toynbee, “Cassero, Jacopo del” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). Clearly Dante knew that he could count on Jacopo's renown and on his readers' fairly wide acquaintance with the details of his life and death.

69 - 69

Jacopo refers to the Marches, the area between Romagna, to the north, and the kingdom of Naples, governed by Charles of Anjou in 1300, to the south.

71 - 71

Should Dante ever find himself in Fano, in the March of Ancona, where Jacopo's relatives and friends survive, his news of Jacopo's salvation may, by causing them to pray for him, serve to shorten his time in ante-purgatory.

74 - 74

Jacopo's blood, of which we shall hear more in his final lines, the seat of the soul (see Purg. XXV.37-45), left his body through the wounds caused by the murderous Paduans who waylaid him in 1298. Padua was founded by Antenor, according to Virgil (Aen. I.242-249). Servius's comment on these verses added the detail that Antenor, before he escaped from Troy, had given the Greeks the Palladium, thus connecting him with betrayal of one's country (and suggesting to Dante a name, Antenora, for the second region of the ninth Circle of hell [Inf. XXXII.88]).

77 - 78

Azzo VIII d'Este became marquis of Este in 1293. Jacopo here would seem to be suggesting that the Paduans who killed him were in cahoots with Azzo, the ringleader of the plot. Dante's own former opinion of Azzo was negative (see De vulgari eloquentia I.xii.5; II.vi.4). Here Jacopo admits a certain culpability in having aroused Azzo's wrath, reminding us that he has had to forgive his slayer in order to have been saved. The commentator Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 70-72) gives some of the reasons for Azzo's hatred of Jacopo. When Azzo wanted to make himself ruler of Bologna, the Bolognesi called on Jacopo to be podestà of their city. In opposing Azzo he, according to the fourteenth-century commentator, was unceasing in his vilifications of his enemy, claiming, for instance, that he had slept with his stepmother and was in fact the son of a washerwoman.

For the sin of wrath, in its hardened form, as a sin of will and not of incontinence, see the notes to Inferno VII.109-114 and XII.16-21 (last paragraph). Because Azzo was alive in 1308, Dante could not place him in hell; it seems likely that he would have considered setting him down among the murderers in the company of his father, Obizzo, whom Azzo indeed, according to many commentators, strangled in 1293. See Inferno XII.111-112.

79 - 80

Jacopo, reconsidering his actions, realizes that he might have made good his escape had he proceeded west in the direction of Milano and headed for the town of La Mira, rather than stopping, off the main road, between Venice and Padua at Oriago. Benvenuto believes that he was on horseback (as seems reasonable) and thus could have made his escape along the good road to La Mira, while the swampy overgrowth made him easy prey for his attackers, stalking him on foot, when he turned back to hide himself but was seen and attacked.

83 - 84

Fallen (from his horse?) and apparently hacked to death by those who pursued him on foot, Jacopo watches his blood (and thus his soul) pass from his body.

88 - 88

Buonconte da Montefeltro (ca. 1250-1289) was the son of the great Ghibelline leader, Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. XXVII.19-132; and see the note to Inf. XXVII.4-6). 'In June 1287 Buonconte helped the Ghibellines to expel the Guelfs from Arezzo, an event which was the beginning of the war between Florence and Arezzo; in 1288 he was in command of the Aretines when they defeated the Sienese at Pieve del Toppo; and in 1289 he was appointed captain of the Aretines and led them against the Guelfs of Florence, by whom they were totally defeated (June 11) at Campaldino, among the slain being Buonconte himself, whose body, however, was never discovered on the field of battle' (Toynbee, “Buonconte” [Concise Dante Dictionary]). It is important to remember that Dante himself was present at this battle as a cavalryman (see the note to Inf. XII.75) in what was, for him and his fellow Florentine Guelphs, a great victory. Once again we sense his ability to identify with the loser (see the note to Inf. XXI.95). There is not a trace of triumphalism in his exchange with the fallen leader of his enemies.

89 - 90

Unlike Jacopo del Cassero, who hopes that his relatives and friends will pray for him (Purg. V.71), Buonconte realizes that his wife, Giovanna, and other family members have no concern for him. Unlike Jacopo and others of his band, he has been devoid of the hope that has urged the rest to petition Dante for his aid. Now he finds hope in this visitor from the world of the living. This poem, which summarizes its purpose as being to make the living pray better (Par. I.35-36), nowhere better indicates this purpose than in ante-purgatory in such scenes as these. It is undoubtedly the case that any number of people who read or heard the poem in the fourteenth century actually prayed for the souls of those whom Dante reports as needing such prayer.

91 - 93

Dante's desire for knowledge of what happened to Buonconte's body reflects the concern of others present at the battle of Campaldino. How could the body of so important a personage simply disappear? Several students of this passage have suggested that the poet here has in mind Virgil's portrait of Palinurus, so deeply troubled by his unburied state, and consider the protagonist's question a recasting of Aeneas's question to Palinurus: 'Which of the gods, Palinurus, tore you from us and submerged you in the open sea?' (Aen. VI.341-342). While the linguistic fit is not a perfect one, both the circumstance and the fact that Dante seems to have the Palinurus passage in mind at Purgatorio III.130 – and surely does so at VI.28-30 – makes the reference at least plausible. Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi (“Dante e Virgilio,” Letture classensi 12 [1983]), p. 88n., noted it, as now have Carol Ann Cioffi (“Fame, Prayer, and Politics: Virgil's Palinurus in Purgatorio V and VI,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 179-200) and Ruggero Stefanini (“Buonconte and Palinurus: Dante's Re-Working of a Classical Source,” in Dante: Summa Medievalis, ed. C. Franco and L. Morgan [Stony Brook, N.Y.: Forum Italicum, 1995], pp. 100-11). And for the view that Palinurus operates as a foil to Buonconte, see Michelangelo Picone (“Canto V,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001 (1999)]), pp. 78-80.

94 - 99

The Casentino lies in the upper valley of the Arno. The torrent Archiano derives from sources above the valley near the monastery of Camaldoli, situated high in the mountains above the region. The battle of Campaldino took place on a plain below this higher valley and it is the place to which Dante imagines the wounded Buonconte to have made his way, just where the Archiano joins the Arno, several miles above the site of the battle.

100 - 102

Peter Armour (“Words and the Drama of Death in Purgatorio V,” in Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the “Divina Commedia”, ed. John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993]), pp. 108-12, makes a strong case for punctuating the text differently than Petrocchi does, and we would have followed him, placing a comma after vista and dropping the semicolon in line 100 (as indeed a number of earlier texts also do), but for our editorial decision to follow Petrocchi. This emendation makes the sense of the passage both more clear and more dramatic, breaking it into four parallel elements, each of the final three beginning with 'and,' recapitulating Buonconte's final moments: loss of sight, final utterance, physical collapse, departure of the soul from the body.

104 - 108

As commentators notice, the struggle of the good and wicked angel over the soul of Buonconte mirrors the similar scene that occurs at the death of his father, Guido da Montefeltro (Inf. XXVII.112-117), when St. Francis and a fallen Cherub struggle for the soul of Guido. Not even Francis can prevail against God's judgment – if we can accept Guido's narrative at face value.

A possible source for this scene is found in the Epistle of Jude (Jude 9) in a passage that refers to the archangel Michael's struggle with the devil for the body of Moses. The relevance of this text to Dante's was perhaps first noted by Scartazzini in the 1870s (comm. to verse 104). For discussion, see Domenico Pietropaolo (“The Figural Context of Buonconte's Salvation,” Dante Studies 102 [1984], pp. 123-34), who points out (p. 125) that, like Buonconte's, the whereabouts of Moses' actual burial place was not known (Deuteronomy 34:6).

Buonconte's tear (verse 107) reminds us of the similarly plangent Manfred (Purg. III.120).

109 - 111

A number of recent commentators here note an echo of Virgil's first Georgic (Georg. I.322-324). For the view that this passage reflects the description of the storm that drives Aeneas's ships off course in the first book of the Aeneid see A.E. Carter (“An Unrecognized Virgilian Passage in Dante,” Italica 21 [1944], pp. 149-53).

112 - 114

Is Dante suggesting that evil forces have power only over the elements (and the dead bodies of humans – see Purg. V.108)?

116 - 116

The mountain ridge Pratomagno and the alpine protuberances referred to establish the confines of the Casentino at the southwest and northeast, respectively.

117 - 117

Restoring a meaning offered in Benvenuto's commentary but perhaps never revisited and arguing against the scholarly exertions of others, Lino Pertile (“Bonconte e l'anafonesi [Purg., V 109-18],” Filologia e critica 21 [1996]), pp. 121-26, presents a strong case for the Tuscan form of the verb intingere's past participle, intinto in its regular form, but also found as intento (darkened). We have accepted Pertile's reading in our translation.

122 - 122

Dante's term for 'seaward stream' is fiume real, or 'royal river,' i.e., a river that ends in the sea.

126 - 127

The 'cross' that Buonconte had made of his arms perhaps expresses both the gesture of a man in the throes of mortal pain and the sign of his hope for redemption.

128 - 129

Buonconte's body finally came to rest on the Arno's bed, along with the detritus that the rushing torrent had borne along with it until it, too, settled to rest, mingled with the body of the man.

130 - 136

The six verses devoted to Pia's speech have made her one of Dante's most remembered and admired portraits – even though we do not really know who she was, to whom she was married (nor how many times, but perhaps twice), or who killed her, or how. For the complicated, necessarily hypothetical, and eventually unknowable status of Pia's identity and story and the possible knowledge that Dante had of them, see Armour (“Words and the Drama of Death in Purgatorio V,” in Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the “Divina Commedia”, ed. John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993]), pp. 120-22. See also Giorgio Varanini, “Pia” (ED.1973.4), pp. 462-67.

133 - 133

Pia uses the 'polite imperative,' i.e., the impersonal subjunctive, to express her desire (i.e., 'may it be remembered by you'): she hopes to be remembered by Dante once he is back on earth so that he can pray for her, as Vellutello (comm. to vv. 130-136) suggests, or recall her to the minds of others for their prayers.

134 - 134

This line, celebrated for its brevity and power, has the lapidary quality of a headstone, perhaps because it represents one: the beginning of Virgil's epitaph, 'Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere....' (Mantua gave me birth, Calabria took me off), as Gmelin (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955], ad loc.) was among the many moderns to suggest. See the notes to Purgatorio III.27 and VI.72. And see Hollander (“Dante's 'Georgic' [Inferno XXIV, 1-18],” Dante Studies 102 [1984], p. 119, n. 7).

Peter Armour (“Words and the Drama of Death in Purgatorio V,” in Word and Drama in Dante: Essays on the “Divina Commedia”, ed. John C. Barnes and Jennifer Petrie [Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1993]), p. 116, suggests that, if she was defenestrated by her husband (or one of his agents), as many early commentators claim, then the hard earth of the Maremma actually did 'undo' her, smashing her body when she hit it.

135 - 136

These final verses of the canto have drawn numerous attempts at a clear understanding. However, without knowing the precise nature of the facts to which Dante has decided to allude, we cannot be certain. Among the more interesting suggestions for a source is Hermann Gmelin's (Kommentar: der Läuterungsberg [Stuttgart: Klett, 1955], ad loc.): the verses reflect Dido's remark about her dead husband, Sichaeus, at Aeneid IV.28-29: 'ille meos, primus qui me sibi iunxit, amores / abstulit; ille habeat secum servetque sepulchro' (He, who first joined me to him, has sealed up my love; may he have it with him and keep it in his grave). The italicized phrase seems close enough to Dante's 'colui che 'nnanellata pria / disposando' to merit further thought, even if the contexts are not the same, a suffering wife and murderous husband replacing a loyal husband and a would-be loyal wife. Did Pia's husband himself give her a ring of betrothal before they married or, as Varanini suggests, did the man who eventually killed her, the representative of her husband (one Magliata di Pionpino), present the ring for him?

The three 'autobiographies' that make up the last and largest part of this canto are strikingly similar in their construction. Each character includes the following elements, in the same order, in his or her speech: (1) captatio benevolentiae; (2) thoughts of homeland and possibility of hope for prayer from there; (3) place and cause of death; (4) moment of death.