We have come to the midpoint of Paradiso. See, for a reading of this central canto, Giorgio Brugnoli (“Paradiso XVII,” L'Alighieri 5 [1995]: 47-58), pointing out, among other things, that the poet has underlined numerically this mathematical fact. Brugnoli demonstrates that the central cantos of the last canticle, XI-XXIII, are arranged, at least in terms of the number of verses that they contain, in a pattern, as follows (the two bordering cantos, excluded from the pattern, are listed, in the table below, in italics, only to indicate how noticeably they break it):

X 148 = 13 –-
XI 139 = 13 ******
XII 145 = 10 *****
XIII 142 = 7 ****
XIV 139 = 13 ***
XV 148 = 13 **
XVI 154 = 10 *
XVII 142 = 7 midpoint
XVIII 136 = 10 *
XIX 148 = 13 **
XX 148 = 13 ***
XXI 142 = 7 ****
XXII 154 = 10 *****
XXIII 139 = 13 ******
XXIV 154 = 10 –-

Apparently Brugnoli did not know the work of John Logan (“The Poet's Central Numbers,” Modern Language Notes 86 [1971]: 95-98), who had already made the identical observation, also pointing out that this pattern mirrored the pattern found in the line lengths of the central thirteen cantos of Purgatorio precisely. (For treatments of the numerical center of the whole poem, see the reference at the conclusion of the note to Purg. XVII.124-125.) All this certainly suggests that the notion of marking the centers of cantiche so strikingly (if subtly) only came to the poet belatedly. And had that task not required a forbiddingly difficult series of revisions, we may speculate that he may have been tempted to redo the thirteen central cantos of Inferno (once he had decided exactly where that center was, whether between 11 and 23 or 12 and 24), even at the cost of the by now circulating first cantica. The midpoint of Inferno in fact falls between Cantos XVII and XVIII, and has its own rather distinct sense of a line being drawn across the parchment between those two distant zones, Violence and Fraud. However, while Marco Lombardo, the “central” character of Purgatorio, does speak near the center of the canticle (he only misses being the speaker in the central canto of his cantica by one canto), Brunetto is at least two cantos away from his. There have been several who have tried to make a case for the similarities among Brunetto, Marco, and Cacciaguida as “central” characters; however, as much as they do seem related by their moral and political concerns, as well as their magisterial and loving attitude toward Dante, one wants to tread softly, given the precision of Dante's numerical boundaries when he decides to turn them on, and the absence of such indication in Inferno, where the precise center is marked only where it occurs, between the seventeenth and eighteenth cantos. Such matters are neither weighty nor easily resolved. However, it does seem worth the effort to learn that sometimes an element in Dante's “masterplan” was only added later. As has often been pointed out, the original plan for the work (at least from what we can gather from the early cantos of the Commedia) seems to have been to assign one sin to each canto: neutrality (III), paganism (IV), lust (V), gluttony (VI), avarice – and prodigality (VII); and then the plan begins to fall apart with sullen anger (VII and VIII); and finally it is jettisoned with the walls of Dis and heresy (VIII-XI). We should perhaps not be surprised that the elaborate centering that occurs in the second and third canticles is simply absent from the first.

For another and more recent attempt to deal with the “centers” of the three canticles, see Riccardo Ambrosini (“Canto XVII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], pp. 253-54). His discussion begins and ends with Singleton (“The Poet's Number at the Center,” Modern Language Notes 80 [1965]: 1-10), but is without reference to the work of Logan and (still more surprisingly) of Brugnoli, and is thus not as interesting as it might have been.

Phaeton sought reassurance from his mother, Clymene, against the denial (on the part of his “half-brother in divinity,” as it were, Epaphus, a son of Io by Jove) of his origin from divine Apollo's seed (see Metam. I.747-789 [setting up the lengthy narrative of Phaeton's disastrous chariot-ride, Metam. II.1-400]). So now does Dante wish to be enlightened about the nature of the ills that will afflict him after 1300, ills that he has heard prophesied in Hell and in Purgatory (for all those prophetic passages [three of the last four are positive, not worrisome], see the note to vv. 43-99), even if he is assured of his eventual salvation. Beatrice and Cacciaguida share the role of a wiser Apollo, confirming his purpose without destroying him by allowing a runaway journey through the heavens. In Ovid's “tragic” narrative Phaeton is, we remember, allowed to destroy himself through over-enthusiastic evaluation of his own capacities as rookie sun-driver; in Dante's comically resolved tale of his journey through the heavens, we see the protagonist as a wiser (and better-aided) version of Phaeton.

See Moore (Studies in Dante, First Series: Scripture and Classical Authors in Dante [Oxford: Clarendon, 1969 {1896}], p. 175), comparing Cacciaguida's assurance that Dante will survive his troubles to the Sibyl's similar gesture toward Aeneas (Aen. VI.95-96); Moore goes on to mention both heroes' calm acceptance of their fates (cf. Aen. VI.103-105). And see Schnapp (“Dante's Ovidian Self-Correction in Paradiso 17,” in Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, eds., The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia” [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991], pp. 217-19) and Picone (“Dante argonauta: la ricezione dei miti ovidiani nella Commedia,” in M. Picone and B. Zimmermann, eds., Ovidius redivivus: von Ovid zu Dante [Stuttgart: M&P Verlag, 1994], pp. 181-82) for two particularly interesting responses to these verses. Also see Kevin Brownlee (“Phaeton's Fall and Dante's Ascent,” Dante Studies 102 [1984]: 135-44) for the “Phaeton program” in the Commedia.

It is perhaps of interest that the male participants in this simile are identified only by periphrasis (Phaeton, Apollo, Cacciaguida) or (in the case of Dante) by a pronoun (io), while the female figures (Clymene, Beatrice) are named.

These are the first words uttered by Beatrice since Paradiso XIV.18. They repeat something we have been told several times now (first at Par. I.85-87), that the souls of the saved have the capacity to read minds; thus speech addressing them, while technically unnecessary, has the benefit to a mortal speaker of making his thoughts clear to himself so that his questioners, all of whom are necessarily saved souls, will have sufficient indication of what is “on his mind.” This only seems a curious notion; upon reflection it makes perfectly good sense (i.e., if he has a confused thought in his mind, that is what his celestial interrogator will read in it). And what other writer can we imagine having such a complex thought about thinking's relationship to speech?

The metaphor of thirst as representing desire for knowledge has also been before us previously in this canticle (first at Par. II.19). It is here used by Beatrice as part of a severely mixed metaphor, since she has at verse 7 referred to the vampa (ardor, flame) of Dante's desire, now translated into water. Heavenly stylists are obviously not bound by the petty rules of mortal grammarians.

Dante's words to Cacciaguida make plain that he has understood a vital difference between mortal intelligence and that of the saints: The latter see, in the eternal present in God, even contingencies (i.e., those things that might either happen or not happen, in other words all possible occurrences, even those that in fact never did, or do, or will occur [see Par. XIII.63 and the note to Par. XIII.61-66]). The best we mortals can do, by contrast, is to grasp certain definitional truths, for example, that no triangle (containing a total of 180^o) can possess two angles each of which is greater than 90^o.

Where Phaeton wanted to know about his ancestry, Dante wants to know from his ancestor (as we will learn in vv. 22-27) the path of his future life. However, both “sons” have absolutely in common the need to be reassured.

The word piota refers to the sole of the foot (see Inf. XIX.120); here it may literally mean footprint while, in metaphor, it would rather seem to signify “root”; Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) discusses the Tuscan use of the noun to indicate the clump of earth around the root system of blades of grass, etc. And this seems the best way to take this passage: Cacciaguida is the patch of earth from which has sprung Dante's “plant.” Cf. Paradiso XV.88-89, where Cacciaguida refers to himself as the “root” (radice) that has produced Dante as its “bough” (fronda). See Giorgio Petrocchi (“Canto XVII,” in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: “Paradiso,” ed. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1988}], p. 338).

This is the second (and last) appearance of the word “triangle” in the poem (see Par. XIII.102 for the first).

Dante refers to the various predictions of the course of his future life that dot the first two canticles (see the note to vv. 46-99) and claims a serenity in the face of difficulty that some readers find belied by his very questions.

It comes as something of a surprise to hear Virgil's name on Dante's lips at this point, and for the first time in this canticle. It is as though the Virgilian resonances of Canto XV.25-30 had stirred the protagonist's loyalties (the last time we heard Virgil's name was in company of Dante's unique nominal presence [Purg. XXX.55]). This is the penultimate of thirty-two appearances of the Roman poet's name in the poem; the last will occur, in Adam's mouth, surprisingly enough, at Paradiso XXVI.118 (an occurrence somehow overlooked by Kenelm Foster [“Paradiso XIX,” Dante Studies 94 {1976}: 72]). Among denizens of the afterworld, only Beatrice is more often present in name (sixty-three occurrences), if that of God occurs even more often than hers (more than a hundred times).

For the word “tetragon,” see Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi (“Paradiso XVII,” in Filologia e critica dantesca: Studi offerti a Aldo Vallone [Florence: Olschki, 1989], pp. 312-13) and Raffa (Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry [Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2000], pp. 164-78), both of whom consider the two sets of meanings of the geometrical figure that may have influenced Dante's choice of the word here, defensive (it was reckoned by several authorities, including Aristotle and St. Thomas, to be the strongest shape capable of withstanding assault) and more positive (in one medieval tradition it is associated with Christ).

Chiavacci Leonardi (pp. 314-16) also adduces Boethius here, as model in the widest possible sense. In her view, he, like Dante, persecuted and unjustly condemned, wrote a work of which he, again like Dante, was both author and protagonist.

For the Cacciaguida episode as also reflecting the sixth book of Cicero's De re publica, known as the Somnium Scipionis (and in this form commented on by Macrobius), see Schnapp (The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante's “Paradise” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986], e.g., p. 62, but passim) and Raffa (ibid., pp. 147-64). And see Schnapp (“Dante's Ovidian Self-Correction in Paradiso 17,” in Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, eds., The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia” [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991], p. 216), discussing the similarities and differences between the prophecy offered by Brunetto in Inferno XV and that by Cacciaguida here.

Starting with Jacopo della Lana (comm. to this tercet), some early commentators attribute a version of this saying (“Jaculum praevisum minus laedit” [A javelin blow hurts the less if it is foreseen]) to “Solomon”; others, later along, beginning with Daniello (comm. to verse 27), say that it derives from a saying of Ovid's: “Nam praevisa minus laedere tela solent” (For the blows of weapons that one sees coming do not usually hurt as much) but without specifying where in Ovid it is to be found. (Daniello also refers to the “Solomonic” dictum first found in Jacopo della Lana.) It was Venturi (comm. to verse 27) who, while maintaining the attribution to Ovid, also kept the first citation alive, but (correctly) reassigned it to Gregory the Great and spiked the attribution to Solomon. However, the phantom attribution to Ovid lasted into the twentieth century, despite the fact (which should have raised more suspicion than it did) that it had never been assigned a specific source in any Ovidian text. Finally, Vandelli (in the Scartazzini/Vandelli comm. to verse 27), referring to an article in BSDI (25 [1918], p. 108), reassigns the popular tag to the Esopics of Waltherius anglicus (for Waltherius, see the note to Inf. XXIII.4-18). In this “school” are found also Paolo Brezzi (“Il Canto XVII,” in “Paradiso”: Letture degli anni 1979-'81, ed. S. Zennaro [Rome: Bonacci, 1989], p. 447) and Massimiliano Chiamenti (Dante Alighieri traduttore [Florence: Le Lettere, 1995], p. 188). However, Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 72, argues for the pivotal role of Gregory the Great's Homilies (to Luke 21:9-19): “Minus enim iacula feriunt quae praevidentur” (For javelins that one sees coming wound the less), rather than that of Waltherius because, both in Gregory and in Dante, the context is of the greater pain one suffers at the betrayal of one's friends than at the hands of one's known enemies (Aversano points to Dante's sense of betrayal by his fellow exiles as registered in vv. 61-66).

Set off against pagan dark and wayward speech is Christian clarity of word and purpose. Perhaps Dante refers to Sibylline prophecy that resulted in human sacrifice (see the muffled but telling reference to the killing of Iphigenia in Inferno XX.110-111). Such is opposed by a better sacrifice, that of the Lamb, who took on all our sins (see, for the eventual biblical source of the phrase in the liturgy, which pluralizes our sins [peccata], John 1:29: “Ecce agnus Dei; ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi” [Behold the lamb of God; behold the one who takes away the sins of the world]).

The word ambage has an interesting history. Dante probably found its most troubling presence in Aeneid VI.99, where ambages was used to typify the animal-like sounds of the cave-dwelling Sibyl's prognostications. On the other hand, and as Pio Rajna (“Arturi regis ambages pulcerrimae,” Studi Danteschi 1 [1902]: 91-99) has pointed out, in Virgil, Ovid, and Statius it is also used to describe the twisting path found in the Cretan labyrinth; it also in Virgil indicates an enigmatic way of speaking. In De vulgari eloquentia (I.x.2), giving the palm for prose eloquence to the French (to the Provençals and Italians is reserved that for vernacular poetry [I.x.3-4]), Dante had referred to the term. The northerners are recorded as composing biblical narratives, tales of Troy and Rome, and the beautiful ambage (fictions) of King Arthur's court. Thus the word, a hapax in the poem, arrives in this context loaded with negative associations.

The verb inviscarsi has been used twice before (Inf. XIII.57 and XXII.144). In the first instance (where the verb's root is spelled invesc-), Pier delle Vigne speaks of the guileful properties of words (see Simone Marchesi [“The Knot of Language: 'Sermocinatio' and 'Contrapasso' for the Rhetoricians in Dante's Inferno,” Romance Languages Annual 11 {1997}: 254-59]); the second passage describes winged demons caught in the pitch over which they are playing a cruel game with a sinner who temporarily outwits them. The verb describes the effects of birdlime, spread to entrap birds. It was a favorite word to Petrarch, who liked to describe Laura's beauty as imprisoning him.

The word “latino” has caused debate, with the primary warring interpretations being (1) it refers, as it has throughout Inferno, to things Italian (whether the country or, as twice in Paradiso, its language) and (2) it here means “Latin,” for the negative reason that, if it does not, then Dante has committed himself to a tautological expression, since “chiare parole” (plain words) and “preciso latin” (clear speech) signify the same thing.

For examples of arguments devoted to each of these views, see (for [1]) Claire Honess (“Expressing the Inexpressible: The Theme of Communication in the Heaven of Mars,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 14-15 [Spring-Fall 1994], pp. 51-52) and (for [2]) Nereo Vianello (“Canto XVII,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera: “Paradiso”, dir. M. Marcazzan [Florence: Le Monnier, 1968], pp. 593-94). The view put forward by Vianello does not admit that the two terms may predicate differing things of Cacciaguida's speech. However, the first term (chiare parole) may refer to his diction, the second (preciso latin) to his syntactical command of the language, his substance and his style, as it were. See, for an example (and it is only the very first example) of this poet's pleasure in “multi-predication,” Inferno I.5, “esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte”; in short, Dante's usual habit would seem to support the first view. Furthermore, in the rest of the poem “latino” only once seems surely to refer to the Latin language (Par. X.120). On most other occasions it clearly means “Italian” (Inf. XXII.65; XXVII.27; XXVII.33; XXVIII.71; XXIX.88; XXIX.91; Purg. XI.58; XIII.92; and here, where it is employed for the last [thirteenth] time in the poem). On three occasions, its meaning is not pellucidly clear (Purg. VII.16; Par. III.63; XII.144), although on each of them it would seem likely to mean “Italian.” And see Bosco/Reggio (comm. to these verses), arguing that “latino,” for Dante, Cecco Angiolieri, Cino da Pistoia, Boccaccio, and others of the time, simply meant Italian.

The old (and apparently never successfully disposed of [if what one hears in one's own classroom even now is any guide]) problem that many an early Christian theologian felt he had to grapple with, how God's foreknowledge does not limit the freedom of the will, is here resolved in imagistic terms: God's knowing what you will do does not cause you to do it, just as when you watch a ship moving downstream, its motion is not propelled by your observing eyes.

Paolo Brezzi (“Il Canto XVII,” in “Paradiso”: Letture degli anni 1979-'81, ed. S. Zennaro [Rome: Bonacci, 1989], p. 448) underlines the importance of the concept of contingency in this canto, first at verse 16 (“contingenti”) and then here (“contingenza”), as opposed to those things that are eternal. (See also the “cluster” of concern with contingent things in Par. XIII.63, XIII.64, and XIII.69.) The word (used as a verb) will re-emerge for a final appearance in Paradiso XXV.1.

Cacciaguida's lengthy personal prophecy of the course of Dante's future life, the ninth and final one in the poem (stopping, strictly speaking, at verse 93, it is nonetheless exactly the same length as the preceding eight put together), eclipses all that we have learned from the four in Inferno (Ciacco, VI.64-75; Farinata, X.79-81; Brunetto, XV.55-57, 61-66, 70-75; Vanni Fucci, XXIV.143-150) and the four found in Purgatorio (Currado Malaspina, VIII.133-139; Oderisi, XI.140-141; Bonagiunta, XXIV.37-38; Forese, XXIV.82-90). See Emilio Pasquini (“Il Paradiso e una nuova idea di figuralismo,” Intersezioni 16 [1996]: 419). This is clearly meant to be taken as the most important prognostication of Dante's personal involvement in the political affairs of his world. If we consider that each of the first two canticles has four such passages and that this one, coming in the central canto of the third, is so detailed, it becomes clear that it is meant to overwhelm in importance all those that have preceded. See Hollander (“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 [1992], pp. 217-19) for the argument that Dante might have originally planned for Beatrice to include Cino da Pistoia in her remarks about Dante's life. In Picone's incorrect representation (“Canto XIV,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Paradiso, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2002], p. 212n.) that hypothesis is said to have included the suggestion that Dante originally planned for Cino to be present among the crusading saints of Mars, an extravagant proposition in itself, and one certainly not found in Hollander's article. The actual hypothesis is based in those two passages (Inf. X.130-132 and Inf. XV.88-90) that surely promise that Beatrice will be the one to reveal to Dante the course of his future life. It goes on to propose that the shift to Cacciaguida (and abandonment of a plan to have Beatrice praise Cino for being Dante's true poetic brother) was at least in part caused by Dante's reaction to the news of Cino's denunciation of the imperial position shortly after the death of Henry VII in 1313 and of his having joined the forces of the Guelph inquisitors of Florence. One can only imagine Dante's reaction to what must have seemed to him Cino's betrayal of a shared trust.

Marguerite Mills Chiarenza (“Time and Eternity in the Myths of Paradiso XVII,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini [Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983)], p. 145) juxtaposes the two Ovidian myths found in this canto, Phaeton and Hippolytus (see the note to vv. 46-48), arguing that the first is emblematic of damnation, the second of salvation.

The first commentator to be clear about the problems of this passage is Fallani (comm. to this tercet) referring to his gloss on Purg. IX.144, in which he cites Casimiri's lecture of 1924. Casimiri insisted that there were no instances of singing to organ accompaniment until the fifteenth century. Fallani is of the opinion that some of the early commentators (e.g., Jacopo della Lana, the Ottimo, Francesco da Buti, the Anonimo Fiorentino), when speaking of “il cantare degli organi,” probably were referring only to the harmony established by two or more voices singing different notes, not to the musical instrument, the organ. For earlier discussion of this material, see the note to Purg. IX.139-145. And see Denise Heilbronn-Gaines (“Paradiso XVIII,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings III: “Paradiso,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis {virginiana}, 16-17, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1995], pp. 266-76), arguing that here the singular form organo clearly marks this reference as being to vocal polyphony, while the plural organi (as in Purg. IX.144) refers to the musical instrument. And for a substantial argument that coincides with the main point of Fallani's (the text refers to voices in contrapuntal harmony, not to the notes played on an organ), see Leopoldo Chiappo (“La música y los contrastes de la vida,” Lienzo [Universidad de Lima] 14 [1994: esp. 135-147).

No matter how discordant the sounds of his great-great-grandson's coming travails may seem, Cacciaguida would seem to be insisting, they will eventually be heard as harmony, at least once Dante's task is completed.

At least since the time of Scartazzini, commentators have recognized that the word indicating a cruel step-mother (noverca: Phaedra, Florence) and that indicating a man unjustly exiled (immeritum: Hippolytus, Dante) are found in a passage in Ovid's Metamorphoses (XV.497-505). At least this seems to have been true in the text of Ovid known to Dante, which had “immeritumque” where modern texts show “meritumque.” Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this tercet) point out that the words exul immeritus found in four of Dante's thirteen epistles likely come from this passage in Ovid and that Hippolytus, as a result, should be considered a figura Dantis. And for Dante's sense of himself as sharing with Ovid the experience of exile, see the note to verses 55-57.

As Cacciaguida begins his lengthy series of predictions concerning Dante's life, we may perhaps remember that two passages in Inferno (X.130-132 and XV.88-90) surely seem to promise that Beatrice will be the one to reveal to Dante the course of his future life. Several readers have advanced hypotheses in order to account for Dante's obvious change in plan, most notably Marguerite Mills Chiarenza. For a summary of her argument, see the note to Inferno X.130-132. But see also Bortolo Martinelli (“Cacciaguida oracolo di Dio [Paradiso XV-XVII],” Italianistica 8 [1979]: 569-94), arguing that the Anchises/Aeneas relationship in Aeneid VI was in fact the governing reason for the change.

Marguerite Mills Chiarenza (“Hippolytus' Exile: Paradiso XVII, vv. 46-48,” Dante Studies 84 [1966]: 65-68 [and see also her “Time and Eternity in the Myths of Paradiso XVII,” in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini {Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983}, pp. 133-50]) was perhaps the first to examine the import to Dante of the rest of the tale of Hippolytus: his restoration from death and his ensuing life in exile from Athens under the name “Virbius.” She argues that Dante could have known this part of Hippolytus's tale from Virgil (Aen. VII.777) and from Ovid (Metam. XV.497-546 [a connection first observed by Jacopo della Lana, comm. to vv. 46-48, if without naming Virbius]). (Dante might not have required the authority of Servius [alluded to by Chiarenza] who etymologizes Hippolytus's posthumous name as “bis vir” [twice a man], but simply seen these obvious Latin roots himself.) Chiarenza's conclusion is that the Virbius tradition gives Dante much more than a political self-justification, namely, a sense of his own spiritual second life. On the other hand, it does limn in precise parallel the Florentine's escape from the political dangers of the world of “Thebes” (in Inferno an insistent stand-in for the ailing and divided city of man on earth, the city of destruction that surely reminded the poet of the internecine woes of Florence [see Inf. XIV.69; XX.32; XXV.15; XXX.2; XXX.22; XXXII.11; XXXIII.89; there are three references to the Greek city in Purgatorio, but these are rather more neutral in tone]). See also Schnapp (“Dante's Ovidian Self-Correction in Paradiso 17,” in Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, eds., The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia” [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991], pp. 220-23) for the strategic implications of Dante's use of Ovid's exiled (and eventually “redeemed”) Hippolytus. He concludes with this surmise: Dante's own choice of first-person confessional narrative may have provoked his “special emphasis” on Glaucus (in Par. I) and here, at the midpoint of this canticle, on Hippolytus. Ovid's tellings of their doings “are tales of deification narrated by the deified mortals themselves, whereas the great majority of Ovid's tales are recounted by third parties” (p. 293).

If the reader has been missing Virgil, this canto brings his name back into play (see the note to verse 19). And if the reader has missed the presence of one of Dante's favorite whipping boys, Pope Boniface VIII, here he is, officiating over a corrupt Roman clergy that makes its profit out of selling Christ. We might almost be back in Inferno XIX rather than at the midpoint of Paradiso.

How to translate tutto dì? We have decided, finding little help in the commentaries, that the phrase is more likely to refer to an imagined single long day in the “marketplace” of the Vatican rather than to an endless succession of days. Both solutions are found in the commentaries, the second more often. However, it seems to us that the sense of “all day long” is both more caustic and less obvious.

The poet looks back at his banishment, an “injured party” indeed, from Florence; then he turns to God's swift retributive justice, evident at least in the death of Boniface in 1303. Some dates that are pertinent here: Boniface was plotting against the Florentine White Guelphs as early as April 1300 (or so Dante probably believed); Dante was nearly certainly in Rome ca. October 1301; on 27 January 1302 the Whites were banished from Florence. Possibly the most painful period in Dante's life is rehearsed in these lines. For an overview of Dante's political identity, see Jacques Goudet (“La 'parte per se stesso' e l'impegno politico di Dante,” Nuove letture dantesche, vol. VII [Florence: Le Monnier, 1974], pp. 289-316).

Perhaps encouraged by the use of the same noun at verse 69, where it obviously does refer to a political party, some take the noun parte in verse 52 to refer to the White Guelphs. On the other hand, since Cacciaguida's entire prophecy is directed toward Dante's personal future, we probably should understand that Dante himself is the “offended party” whose innocence will be proclaimed in the vengeance he will enjoy once God intervenes to set things right. However, the first to take the passage in this way appear to have been the sixteenth-century commentators Alessandro Vellutello and Bernardino Daniello (comms. to this tercet); nearly all the earlier ones take the victims to be the exiled White Guelphs (including Dante, of course). Since we will shortly hear, in only thinly veiled ways, of the enmity Dante felt from his fellow Whites in exile (vv. 61-66), it would be extremely odd for him to think of them as sharing his status as victim here. It really seems necessary to believe that this parte, like that in verse 69, is a party of one.

Vellutello (comm. to vv. 52-54), perhaps following the lead of Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 46-57) in citing these particulars, is of the opinion that signs of Dante's “revenge” were evident in the various Florentine disasters of the spring of 1304; these are recounted more fully elsewhere (in his comm. to Inf. XXVI.7-9): the collapse of the Ponte alla Carraia because of the vast crowds of those who had assembled on the bridge to watch a spectacle enacted on the river below in which Hell was displayed (a “spectacle” that Dante himself would within several years begin to produce in writing, possibly with this one in mind); the civil war between the White and the Black Guelphs; and the terrible fire that destroyed 1700 houses in the city (see Villani, Cron. VIII.70-71). Over the years there have been other candidates as well. The facts that these events were so cataclysmic (two major disasters and a civil war), involved such dramatic loss of life and destruction of property, seemed indeed like God's punishment upon the city, and occurred so soon after Dante was exiled (a mere two years), all combine to give continuing support to Vellutello's hypothesis. Of course, there were other notable events that the poet might have considered the result of God's hand smiting the enemies of Dante Alighieri, “a Florentine by birth but not in his behaviors” (Dantes Alagherii florentinus natione non moribus, as he describes himself in the salutation of the Epistle to Cangrande), for instance the death of Boniface VIII in 1303 (the choice of some commentators) or of Corso Donati in 1308 (the choice of others). Other commentators have put forward, in various permutations, both these alternatives to the events of 1304: Benvenuto da Imola: the death of Corso Donati, referred to in Purg. XXIV.83-84 (Benvenuto, comm. to vv. 52-54); Benvenuto is followed in this (as in so many particulars) by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 49-54); Campi (comm. to vv. 52-54) dislikes the Buti/Vellutello hypothesis, because Dante would not, in his view, have taken pleasure in the loss of so many innocent lives, and combines Corso Donati and Boniface VIII in a single retributive bundle (one that will continue to be found in commentaries of the twentieth century); Torraca (comm. to vv. 52-54), in an otherwise well thought out note, opts for Boniface VIII; Porena (comm. to vv. 52-54) makes a good case for the death of Boniface, the three events of 1304, and the death of Corso as all being condign punishments of those who betrayed the city to the French. However, everything in this lengthy passage is centered both on Dante and on his feckless fellow Florentines. For this reason Vellutello's interpretation seems more worthy of attention than others. For the elements of Dante's life reflected in this passage, see Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 52-69), citing Convivio I.iii.3 and Boethius (Cons. Phil. I.4[pr]).

The protagonist has asked his ancestor to provision him against the “slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune” (verse 27); Cacciaguida now responds by referring to the sharpest wound of all: his exile. For Dante's sense of himself as the Italian Ovid, see Janet L. Smarr (“Poets of Love and Exile,” in Dante and Ovid: Essays in Intertextuality, ed. Madison U. Sowell [Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991], pp. 139-51). From her observation that Ovid casts himself in the role of wandering Ulysses in both the Tristia and the Ars amatoria, she argues that Dante takes Ovid as a negative version of himself. For another treatment of Ovid as Dante's counterpart in exile, see Picone (“Dante, Ovidio e la poesia dell'esilio,” Rassegna europea di letteratura italiana 14 [1999]: 7-23). And see the note to vv. 46-48.

One of the most celebrated tercets in the poem, bringing home to the reader the poet's daily sense of abandonment in his exilic condition, a necessary guest even under the best of circumstances (and with the most benign of hosts). The poet's understatement catches perfectly the rhythm of the exile's daily round, going downstairs with perhaps some sense that this day may bring tidings betokening a possible return to Florence, and then mounting back up at night with the deadened senses of one who knows that life will probably merely continue as it is.

Strangely enough, the meaning of this verse is much debated. From the beginning, all have agreed that it refers to the bitter taste of bread (or anything else) eaten in bitter conditions. The “unofficial commentary tradition,” that is, ordinary readers, however, senses a reference to the way bread is prepared in Florence (to this day): It is baked without salt. Pietrobono (comm. to vv. 58-60) is the first commentator even to refer to that fact and simply denies its relevance (thus revealing that some discussants had raised this issue), insisting on the larger and obvious meaning. (He cites the often-cited passage in Convivio [I.iii.4] in which Dante laments his exilic experience.) Fallani (comm. to vv. 58-60) explains that the salty taste is supplied by the exile's tears.

Longfellow (comm. to this verse) cites several pertinent passages, including Ecclesiasticus 29:24 [29:31-32 in the Vulgate] and 40:28-29 [29-30]: “It is a miserable thing to go from house to house; for where thou art a stranger, thou darest not open thy mouth. Thou shalt entertain and feast, and have no thanks: moreover, thou shalt hear bitter words....” “My son, lead not a beggar's life, for better it is to die than to beg. The life of him that dependeth on another man's table is not to be counted for a life.” He also cites Shakespeare's Richard II (III.1):

 Myself
Have stooped my neck under your injuries,
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment.

Dante became “a party of one” (verse 69) when he was disgusted with the efforts of his fellow exiles to make their way back into Florence, ca. 1304. His correctness (we imagine a large meeting in which Dante was able to accomplish what the American comedian Mort Sahl, some five minutes into one of his scabrous and rollicking routines, used to ponder: “Is there anyone here I haven't offended yet?”) about the folly of their preparations was, as far as he was concerned, reflected in their crushing defeat (an army of more than 10,000 men was routed, leaving 400 dead behind) by the Black Guelphs at the fortress Lastra a Signa, three kilometers from the walls of Florence, on 20 July 1304, during which battle Dante was in Arezzo. By a twist of circumstance, that put him there on the very day Francesco Petrarca was born in that city.

Lombardi (comm. to these verses) ridicules the idea (as put forward by Landino) that this passage ends by indicting Corso Donati, or even Vieri de' Cerchi. It clearly refers to his former allies of the exile, predominantly White Guelphs.

While some of the earlier commentators (e.g., Portirelli to vv. 61-69) see the red of bloody wounds to the head, the majority of them think only of the red of a guilty blush. Dante's point would seem to be that theirs would be no ordinary blushes (infusing only the cheeks with color), but would cover their entire countenances, even up to the hairline. In modern times, Scartazzini (comm. to verse 66) began the tradition of seeing both meanings in the line. That line of attack has, however, had little success, and twentieth-century commentators are fairly evenly divided in choosing one or the other. However, the phrase does seem a strange way to indicate those lying dead on the field of battle, since we assume that most of them were not killed by blows to the head (nor imagined as having blood from their other wounds or from the wounds of others staining their heads), while all of his former allies must (in Dante's view) now feel ashamed (i.e., are blushing) for having turned against him, reviling his opposition to their bankrupt and eventually anti-Florentine schemes. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 64-66) object that blushes cover one's cheeks, not the forehead. But that, perhaps, is exactly Dante's point: This is no ordinary blush, but burns on all the exposed parts of the face, “blushing to the roots of their hair,” as the English expression has it.

That the most labored description of a blush found in the entire poem resides in the following canto (vv. 64-69) may seem to offer evidence in favor of the view that this passage also represents the identical facial phenomenon; that, however, is not necessarily a convincing argument.

The word valle (valley) is nearly universally treated as part of a moral landscape (referring to this period before the battle of La Lastra, the lowpoint of Dante's exile). Is it not possible, however, that Dante remembers the physical landscape in which that meeting took place, somewhere beneath Arezzo?

The only other appearance of the noun bestialitade is in Inferno XI.83, where its meaning is much debated. See the note to Inferno XI.76-90 and Fosca's commentary to that passage (vv. 79-84) for the minority opinion, followed here, that bestialitade refers to the lowest form of fraud, treachery, as surely Dante sees his supposed allies among the White Guelphs (and those fellow-traveling exiled Ghibellines who had joined forces with them), who deserted Dante's advocacy of the proper initiative against the Black Guelph rulers of the city. (Of course we know nothing of the matter(s) in dispute, just that there was a dispute and that it was pivotal and had a dramatic result, the defeat at La Lastra.) We remember that Antenora was the zone of Cocytus in which we found those who had betrayed country or party (Inferno XXXII.70-XXXIII.90), possibly the very sin Dante attributed to his fellow exiles, effectively dooming the cause and leaving him to form a “party of one.”

The context of this entire passage, vv. 52-75, is unabashedly Dante-centered, so much so that even the most zealous lover of this poet may feel the stinging warmth of embarrassment stealing up and over his face, blushing to the roots of his hair.

Some commentators explain that, while Verona was not in fact the first place that Dante was received as he began his twenty years of exile (he did not arrive there for between one year and two [in 1303 or 1304] after he left Rome in 1302), it was nonetheless his first “real” shelter.

The succession of the Scaligeri, the ruling family of Verona in Dante's time, was as follows: Mastino della Scala had become the ruler in 1262; he was succeeded by his brother Alberto in 1277. Alberto died in 1301 and was succeeded, in turn, by each of his three sons: Bartolommeo (who died in March 1304), Alboino (who died late in 1311, having just been named by Henry VII his imperial vicar, a title passed along at his death to his younger brother, who had joined him in joint rulership in 1308), and Cangrande (the youngest, born in 1291 and who died in 1329, eight years after Dante's death). (Alberto also sired their illegitimate half brother Giuseppe, abbot of San Zeno [see Purg. XVIII.124].) According to what, after Petrocchi's work, has become a widespread understanding, Dante left Verona soon after the accession of Alboino in 1304 and returned in 1312 or 1313, that is, once Cangrande had assumed sole power. It has become an assumption in Dante studies that for some reason Dante and Alboino just did not get along, thus explaining the poet's eight years or more of absence from a city for which he obviously felt deep affection.

For a sketch of the historical situation after Cangrande's accession to unshared power, after Alboino died in 1311, see Raoul Manselli (“Cangrande e il mondo ghibellino nell'Italia settentrionale alla venuta di Arrigo VII,” in Dante e la cultura veneta, ed. V. Branca and G. Padoan [Florence: Olschki, 1966], pp. 39-49). Manselli takes Dante's praise of Cangrande as genuine, since he was the only one active on the scene whom Dante considered capable, both in his personal qualities and by virtue of his political position, of carrying out the lofty imperial mission unsuccessfully initiated by Henry VII. One way of putting this is that Dante, having abandoned his early hopes for Cangrande's political leadership, apparent in Inferno I in the prophecy of the Veltro (which eventually yielded to those for Henry, expressed in the prophecy of the 515/DXV in Purgatorio XXXIII), now, in the wake of Henry's death in 1313, has no option except to return to those early hopes in Cangrande once more. Given the political situation, the stubborn Imperial Vicar, who refused to yield that title even though the Emperor was dead, seemed to Dante to be the political entity most capable of uniting the imperial forces in Italy. Those who will agree with this estimate are probably few, but it does seem defensible in light of the historical context.

There is a large literature devoted to what was at one time a vexed question: Which Scaliger governed Verona when Dante first arrived? Now just about all agree that it was Bartolommeo. For a summary of the dispute, in English, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 70-75). For a fuller treatment, summarizing the entire debate and concluding, with nearly all the early commentators, that Bartolommeo was indeed Dante's first meaningful supporter in his exile, see Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 70-93).

See Tozer (comm. to vv. 71-72): “The arms of the Scaligers were a golden ladder in a red field, surmounted by a black eagle, which was the imperial ensign.” Unfortunately for Dante's sake, this insignia was not chosen by the Scaligeri (at the earliest, by Bartolommeo) before 1301. By making it present now, in 1300, the poet hurries history along faster than it wants to go.

That is to say, Bartolommeo and Dante will grant one another's requests even before the other can make them, while in most cases the granting follows much later than the asking (i.e., it may not be forthcoming at all). Carroll (comm. to vv. 70-75) points out that Boccaccio reports that Dante's relationship with Guido Novello in Ravenna was as Dante himself here says that it was with Bartolommeo.

Commentators agree that this passage refers to Cangrande della Scala, one of the great figures of his time in northern Italy. He was indeed a “son of Mars,” a fearless and fabled warrior, and a man of, in Dante's eyes, impeccable political convictions, an extreme supporter of Emperor Henry while he lived, and a man who refused to relinquish his title as imperial vicar even when the pope insisted that he do so (since there was no longer an emperor to be vicar to). For a portrait of the man and his court, see Carroll (comm. to vv. 76-93).

It has seemed reasonable to some to point out that Cangrande was too young in 1300 to be the subject of so dramatic a prophecy (not to mention the one in Inf. I, if that, also, applies to him), since he was only nine years old in 1300 and only around fourteen or fifteen when Dante began writing the poem. However, those who have made this argument have neglected to take three things into account: First, stories about Cangrande as a child prodigy were abundant (e.g., in one such the boy is depicted as being shown a chest, opened to reveal the coins and jewels it contains; he reaches out and covers that pelf back over with its cloth: See Cacciaguida's words in vv. 83-84 and Benvenuto's gloss to them [comm. to vv. 82-84]; and see the similar sentiment expressed of the veltro, Inf. I.103); second, Cangrande had been named commander in chief of the Veronese armies before he was in his teens; third, and in general, expectations of the princes of royal houses and other such luminaries were simply out of all proportion to our own expectations of the young. See the note to Inferno I.100-105. Further, if this later passage was written when Cangrande was well into his twenties, as it undoubtedly was, it is not surprising that it looks to him to take over the role of the veltro and of the “five hundred ten and five.” But see the note to Paradiso XXVII.142-148.

What does Dante imagine Cangrande will accomplish politically? Somehow, he apparently must think, Cangrande will finish the task that Henry started but failed to complete, the re-establishment of conditions leading to the refounding of Aeneas's Rome. That is the only surmise possible that might justify the amazingly positive things said throughout this eventually unexpressed (or better, suppressed [see vv. 92-93]) prophecy. It is not, perhaps, “officially” one of the three “world prophecies” that appear, one in each cantica (Inf. I, Purg. XXXIII, Par. XXVII), but it reflects the first two of them and informs the third.

Scartazzini (comm. to verse 92) makes the following observation about the series of major prophecies: In Inferno I and Purgatorio XXXIII (he might have added Paradiso XXVII) Dante leaves us in doubt about the identity of the one who will come to set things right, while here he tells us who he is, but not what he shall do.

Dante takes the sticks out of the hands of those who would beat him about the head for prognosticating such things about a mere child. See the note to verses 76-90. Giorgio Brugnoli (“Paradiso XVII,” L'Alighieri 5 [1995]: 48n.) is of the opinion that Cangrande's age in 1300 (he was in fact, and as this passage represents things, nine years old) is only a “symbolic” number, possessing no chronological value whatsoever. To be sure, “nine” is a particularly potent number for Dante, but Brugnoli ignores such voices from the commentary tradition as Benvenuto's that tell us at least one key detail about Cangrande's contemporary reputation as Wunderkind. And thus, when Dante first came to Verona, it is nearly a certainty that he heard such tales about the boy, already general-in-chief of the city's military forces.

Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 75, in a long note to this verse, points out various things: (1) the stars/heavens are a part of every passage in which Dante speaks of the prognosticated political “savior” who will “save” Italy from the corruption of avarice: Purgatorio XXXIII.41 (prophecy of the DXV); Paradiso XX.13 (when will the slayer of the wolf appear?) and XXVII.144 (prophecy of the fortuna [storm at sea] that will reverse the course of the “fleet”); (2) the prophecy of the veltro (Inf. I.101-105) recalls the words of Luke 1:13-17 prophesying the birth, temperance, and conversionary power of John the Baptist; (3) further evidence is provided by the prophetic words of both St. Peter (Par. XXVII.61-63) and Beatrice (Par. XXVII.142-148), the first predicting the imminent appearance of an “heir” to Scipio (who will put Italy back in order after the depredations of the papacy), the second foretelling the advent of a new emperor. Making a similar argument on different grounds, Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], pp. 90-91, 180-91) focuses on the prophecy in the Aeneid (I.286-296) of the peace-bringer Augustus and goes on to argue for the likely presence of Cangrande in the veltro.

The “Gascon” (Pope Clement V) first led Henry on and then tried to undermine his imperial efforts. The date most commentators affix to the pope's open hostility to Henry is 1312, when the emperor hoped to be crowned (a second time in Italy) in St. Peter's, but was put off and finally relegated by decision of Clement to St. John Lateran, outside the walls of the city and in ruins. The “sparks” of virtue with which Cangrande is credited here may have been his demonstrations of support for the emperor; similarly, his “toil” is perhaps his effort, unrewarded, on Henry's behalf (for this view, see Carroll [comm. to vv. 76-93]). More likely, the first signs of virtue apparent in his not caring for worldly possessions was, apparently, a part of his “legend” (see the note to vv. 76-90); as for the affanni (toils) he does not complain about, most who remark on them take them as referring to his military exercises. And for a Veronese poet's epitaph for Cangrande, focusing on the martial aspect of his life, see Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 91-93), citing the words of one Raynaldus.

Poletto (comm. to vv. 85-87) makes the point that only Beatrice (Par. XXXI.88) and the Virgin (Par. XXXIII.20) are allowed to share this word with Cangrande. See also the first word of the dedication to him of Epistle XIII, “Magnifico.”

Nereo Vianello (“Canto XVII,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera: “Paradiso”, dir. M. Marcazzan [Florence: Le Monnier, 1968], p. 582) suggests that Dante's shame about his actual father, a person of little consequence and not particularly honest ways, lies behind his portrait of Cacciaguida as his “true” father.

Steiner was the first among the commentators to see the possible connection with a part of Mary's hymn of praise for her Lord, Luke 1:52-53: “He has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he has sent empty away.” In light of this scriptural connection, Porena (comm. to these verses) thinks of Cangrande as a sort of Lombard Robin Hood.

It is difficult to see how this blank “prophecy” of the things that will be accomplished by Cangrande, imperial vicar that he was and insisted on being even after Henry's death, is anything but “imperial” in nature. (Henry, betrayed by Pope Clement V in 1312, is referred to a few lines ago [verse 82]). See Giuseppe Di Scipio (“Dante and Politics,” in The “Divine Comedy” and the Encyclopedia of Arts and Sciences: Acta of the International Dante Symposium, 13-16 November 1983, Hunter College, New York, ed. G. Di Scipio and A. Scaglione [Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1988], pp. 267-84) for a convincing attack on Alessandro Passerin D'Entrèves (Dante as a Political Thinker [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955]) for denying Dante's significant involvement with imperial ideas (in favor of religious orthodoxy), a position that simply fails to account for such clearly political (and imperial) passages as these.

It seems likely that Dante's optimism about Cangrande's future deeds is more the result of desperation than hope. Here was a man who had decided, upon precious little evidence, when he was writing the fourth book of Convivio, that the Roman Empire would be active once more. Within a decade an emperor comes down to Italy and behaves like the new Charlemagne, as far as Dante is concerned. One can only imagine (but the edgy tone of his second epistle to the emperor tells us a great deal about his growing disillusionment) the bitterness he felt once Henry had died in 1313. And now, some four or five years later, here he is, shouting at the top of his lungs, “The emperor is dead, long live the emperor!” He had, with little in the way of hard evidence, simply decided that Rome must rise again. And events made him correct. If Italy had not been ready for Henry (see Par. XXX.137-138), it would have to be ready for what Cangrande would do to clear the path for the next emperor. It may not be excessive to suggest that Dante felt as “keyed in” to the political events of his day, even before they occurred, as Fyodor Dostoyevski felt himself endowed with prescience about those of his time. Carolyn Calvert Phipps (in a seminar in 1980) pointed out that there is a possible dependence here on the prophetic book referred to in the Apocalypse (10:4): “Signa quae locuta sunt septem tonitrua: et noli ea scribere” (Seal up those things which the seven thunders said and write them not). This is the instruction given John by the angel who brings him God's prophetic book for him to ingest. What makes Professor Phipps's observation particularly worthy of study is that there may be another possible visitation of the tenth chapter of the Apocalypse in this canto; see the note to vv. 130-132. It may also be true that the continuation of this passage (Apoc. 10:9-10) may have offered Dante a model for Beatrice's eating his heart in the dream recorded in Vita nuova III.6.

For an unusual response to this unexpressed prophecy, see Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 91-93), who thinks Dante is holding back positive predictions just in case Cangrande lost his appreciation for this poem, as well as for its maker, and failed to give him the reward he expected.

Concluding, Cacciaguida characterizes his utterances over the last seventeen tercets (vv. 43-93) as chiose (glosses); this long prophetic passage is unique in the poem, both for its length and for its personal import for the protagonist. It is divided into three sections, lines 43-69 (the pains of exile [Dante]); 70-75 (the first stay in Verona [Bartolommeo]); 76-93 (the second stay in Verona [Cangrande]).

What exactly do these “glosses” predict of Dante's difficult life as an exile? See the note to verses 52-54 for the range of possibilities according to the commentators. And to what specific prognostications do they respond, only Cacciaguida's here or to some of the earlier ones we heard in the first two cantiche, and if so, to which ones? We can say with some security that only the first section of his ancestor's prophecy, that concerning Dante's harsh political fate, is involved. It is worth remarking that the time frame that Cacciaguida seems to have in mind is short (a pochi giri), and that thus we should probably think that the events of 1304, just four revolutions of the heavens away from the date on which he speaks (1 April 1300), are likely what he has in mind.

The word chiose, of which this is the last appearance, has been under our eyes three times before, the first two associated, as is this last one, with prognostications of Dante's personal future: those of Brunetto Latini (Inf. XV.89) and of Oderisi da Gubbio (Purg. XI.141). The third, however, is found in Hugh Capet's remarks to Dante (Purg. XX.99), addressing his curiosity about something that Hugh had said about the Virgin Mary.

While all commentators take the demonstrative pronoun “queste” to refer to all that Cacciaguida has to say about all the (pertinent) prophecies that Dante has heard in the first two canticles about his future difficulties, when one first reads verse 94, one would be forgiven for understanding a reference to the “cose / incredibili” of vv. 92-93. And if one follows that understanding where it quite naturally leads, the suppressed prophetic words about Cangrande (rather than all the predictions combined) are the “glosses” that explain everything, an explanation both potentially true and absurd, Dante's little post-modern joke at his own expense).

Cacciaguida's repeated promise of Dante's vindication in the punishment of his enemies sounds very much as it did when it first was uttered in vv. 53-54. As for the notion contained in the neologism s'infutura (present tense of Dante's coinage, infuturarsi [lit. “to infuture oneself”]), ever since the early days of the commentary tradition at least some have argued that it would have been bad taste and out of keeping with Christian doctrine (not to mention the poet's own stated views) for Dante to have boasted at having survived his enemies in the flesh. Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to this tercet) does not even consider this possibility, referring only to Dante's honorable name as what will survive him, and survive longer than the dishonor of his enemies. Nonetheless, such a vaunt has been a long-standing trait in those who have survived the threatening behaviors of such powerful enemies as Boniface VIII (dead in 1303) or Corso Donati (dead in 1308). (Boniface is mentioned in this context by several commentators, although it is a bit of a stretch to believe that Dante thought of him as a “neighbor.”) Porena points out (comm. to this tercet) that the “orthodox” interpretation, ridding Dante of a perhaps petty desire to outlive his enemies, makes little sense, since his immortal longings (see vv. 119-120) are considerably grander than the afterlives he foresees for his Florentine enemies, clearly meant to be in oblivion while Dante lives on. If that was his wish, he has been rewarded.

The metaphor, drawn from weaving, has it that Cacciaguida has finished answering Dante's question (the “warp”) with his response (the “woof”), thus completing the pattern. See the earlier use of a similar metaphor, describing Piccarda's words (Par. III.95-96).

A “pseudo-simile” (see the note to Inf. XXX.136-141) in which the protagonist is compared to someone – very much like himself – asking a question of a person whom he trusts and loves - exactly such a one as Cacciaguida.

The metaphorical presentation of time as a (currently unseen) adversary in a duel on horseback captures the feelings of a person surprised by history and now realizing the enormity of his self-deluding former sense of security.

That is, time saves its heaviest blows for the one who is least aware of its relentless advance. See the similar thought expressed at vv. 23-24.

This tercet sounds a rare (and disingenuous) note of caution on the poet's part. If he will lose his native city within two years because of his obstinate adherence to telling the truth, should not he then consider mitigating his bitter words in complaint of the human iniquity found in other parts of Italy lest he be denied shelter and support in his exile? Since we have read the poem (which he only imagines writing at this point), we know that he did not succumb to the Siren song of “safety first.” However, and as Carroll suggests (comm. to vv. 106-120), “In those days of the vendetta it is a marvel that a sudden knife in the heart did not send Dante to make actual acquaintance with that invisible world whose secrets he feigned to know.”

For a source of this verse, Giorgio Brugnoli (“Paradiso XVII,” L'Alighieri 5 [1995]: 56-57) cites Ovid, Tristia II.207: “Perdiderint cum me duo crimina, carmen et error...” (Although two crimes, one a poem, one a mistake, shall have brought me to perdition...). This text, highly familiar and certainly most applicable to Dante, is somehow almost entirely lacking from the commentary tradition, appearing only once before, in Boccaccio's Vita Ovidii (in his comm. to the literal sense of Inf. IV.90), and never, or so it seems, in the context of Dante's own exile.

Less an example of captatio benevolentiae than a sort of insistence on an inexcusable but necessary rudeness, this passage, recapitulating the journey until here and now, the midpoint of the third “kingdom,” seeks our acceptance of the poet's revealing the harsh things that he has learned in Hell, Purgatory, and the first five of the heavens. While he might have won the goodwill of some of us by gilding the lily, as it were, he would have lost his claim on the rest of us (we do indeed call Dante's time “ancient,” do we not?). For we want truth in our poetry, not blandishment.

Beginning with Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), the Aristotelian provenance of this gesture has been amply noted (the beginning of the Ethics [I.4]): “For friends and truth are both dear to us, but it is a sacred duty to prefer the truth.” Dante himself has quoted or referred to this dictum on at least three occasions (Conv. IV.viii.13; Mon. III.i.3; Epist. XI.11). Cf. also the frequently cited Aristotelian tag, “Assuredly, I am Plato's friend, but I am still more a friend to truth.”

Brunetto had taught him how to make himself immortal, “come l'uom s'etterna” (Inf. XV.85). It is not, we can assume, by flattering one's hosts. Brunetto seems to have been on Dante's mind in this context; see the note to verses 121-122.

Cacciaguida's shining presence is verbally reminiscent of the identical phrasing found in Inferno XV.119, where Brunetto refers to his own work (for the question of exactly which work, whether Tresor or Tesoretto, see the note to Inf. XV.119, and Hollander [“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 {1992}: 228, n. 82]) as il mio Tesoro, the same words that we find here, used of Cacciaguida. Are we perhaps to believe that, for Dante, Cacciaguida is a better, truer “father” than Brunetto? See Ricardo J. Quinones (Dante Alighieri [Boston: Twayne, 1979], pp. 174-76) and Frank Ordiway (Dante, Chaucer, and the Poetics of the Past [unpublished doctoral dissertation, Princeton University, 1990]) on Brunetto's replacement by Cacciaguida.

This is the sixth appearance (of seven) in the poem of the word tesoro. It first appeared in Inferno XV.119 (where Brunetto Latini alludes to his book of that title); then in Inferno XIX.90 (where Christ wants no “treasure” from Peter in compensation for the spiritual gifts He bestows upon him [as opposed to Simon Magus, who wants to acquire such gifts for a price]). In the first canto of the last canticle (Par. I.11), the poet refers to the “treasure” of God's kingdom that he has been able to store in his memory; the word is then found in Paradiso V.29 (where it refers to God's greatest gift to humankind, the freedom of our will), X.108 (representing the worldly goods that Peter Lombard renounced in order to follow Christ); and finally in XXIII.133 (designating the treasure in heaven of Matthew 6:20 [and/or 19:21], as Tommaseo [comm. to vv. 133-135] was apparently the first commentator to observe). That last reference eventually colors all that precedes it. In the final reckoning, worldly treasure is measured against this sole standard. And thus the word tesoro, which begins its course through the poem as the title for one of Brunetto Latini's works (by which he hopes to have achieved “immortality” in the world, a contradiction in terms), is examined and re-examined in such ways as to suggest either the desirability of renunciation of earthly “treasure” or the preferability of its heavenly counterpart, that “treasure in Heaven” that we may discover through the exercise of God's greatest gift to us, our true treasure here on earth, the free will, in our attempt to gain a better (and eternal) reward.

The poet's clear enthusiasm for his ancestor's noble sacrifice at least casts into doubt the central thesis of Brenda Deen Schildgen's article (“Dante and the Crusades,” Dante Studies 116 [1998]: 95-125) and book (Dante and the Orient [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002]), namely, that Dante did not promote crusading in the Holy Land, a position that may have the advantage of having a certain vogue among those who find crusading distasteful, but no other.

It seems strange, but notice of the obvious self-citation evident in this second deployment of the phrase “il mio tesoro” seems to be of fairly recent vintage. See Madison Sowell (“Brunetto's Tesoro in Dante's Inferno,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 7 [1990]: 66-67) and John Freccero (“The Eternal Image of the Father,” in Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp, eds., The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante's “Commedia” [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991], p. 64). See also Hollander (“Dante and Cino da Pistoia,” Dante Studies 110 [1992]: 217 and note 87).

Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 77, cites Ovid (Metam. I.768-769) for Dante's verb corusca, but then goes on to suggest that a more likely source is found in Ezechiel 1:14, the gloria Domini before He invests Ezechiel with prophetic powers.

Cacciaguida admits that Dante's truth-telling will hurt all those who either themselves have given offense or who bear the sins of their relations on their consciences, but encourages him to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

This tercet contains terms that have a possible relevance to Dante's sense of his own poeticizing. First, there is menzogna (a reference to the bella menzogna [beautiful lie] that represents a kind of poetry, as in Conv. II.i.3). Next we come upon the term visione (see Par. XXXIII.62), a kind of writing distinguished by being (or by claiming to be) literally true. This lofty word has barely ceased resonating when Dante descends the stylistic ladder to perhaps the lowest level of the vernacular that we encounter in this canticle, grattar dov' è la rogna (scratch where it itches). In three lines he puts forward what the poem is not (a tissue of lies, a “mere” fiction), what it is (an inspired vision), and what style its author insists that he employs (the comic, or low vernacular, style). See the notes to Inferno XX.1-3, XX.106-114, and XX.130; Purgatorio IX.34-42 and XXX.21; Paradiso I.20-21.

The phrase “rimossa ogne menzogna” may reflect St. Paul's “Propter quod deponentes mendacium, loquimini veritatem” (Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth – Ephesians 4:25). See Aversano (Dante daccapo [glosses to the Paradiso], copia d'eccezione, sent by the author on 11 September 2001), p. 78.

While few of the commentators suggest a source for this tercet, Pietro di Dante is a rare early exception (comm. to vv. 127-132 [only in his first redaction]). He cites, after various other potential sources, the text that alone has had a “career” among Dante's commentators to this passage, Boethius (Cons. Phil. III.1[pr]), a citation only recurring nearly five centuries later in Campi (comm. to this tercet). In the first half of the twentieth century it is found in Grandgent (comm. to this tercet) and in Scartazzini/Vandelli (comm. to verse 132). Porena (comm. to verse 132) also cites it, but sees a possible problem with its pertinence to Dante's context. However, it currently enjoys a certain stability, finding its way to most recent commentaries. Boethius's text reads: “Talia sunt quae restant, ut degustata quidem mordeant, interius autem recepta dulcescant” (You will find what I have yet to say bitter to the taste, but, once you have digested it, it will seem sweet [tr. R. Green]). However, there is no instance of a commentator referring to a biblical text (a close neighbor of one that may have been on Dante's mind only shortly before [see the note to vv. 91-93]), one found in John's Revelation (Apoc. 10:9 [repeated nearly verbatim in 10:10]), where the angel is addressing the Apostle: “Accipe librum, et devora illum: et faciet amaricari ventrem tuum, sed in ore tuo erit dulce tanquam mel” (Take the book and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey).

It is a cause of some curiosity to find in Jacopo della Lana's gloss to these lines (comm. to vv. 130-132) an apparent trace of Epistle XIII.27: “Forma sive modus tractandi est poeticus, fictivus, descriptivus, digressivus, transumptivus, et cum hoc diffinitivus, divisivus, probativus, improbativus, et exemplorum positivus” (italics added). See Jacopo's explanation that those who chew on Dante's words will find his speech “poetico e fittivo e di esempli fingitivo” (poetic and fictive and putting forth examples). For discussion of Jacopo's apparent dependence on the Epistle, see Hollander (Dante's Epistle to Cangrande [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993], pp. 98-99).

Cacciaguida's concluding ten lines (and he will speak only nine more as he leaves the poem in the next canto, vv. 28-36) establish, if not the ars poetica of this poem, then its mode of employing exempla for our moral instruction. This passage has caused no little confusion, especially three elements contained in it. (1) Some commentators seem to assume that it is only concerned with those in Hell; (2) others think that the poem ennobles its subjects (rather than the obverse); and (3) still others object that not all the populace of the afterworld seen by Dante may be considered famous. The first two problems are easily dealt with, for it is obvious that the poet means to indicate the famous dead in all three canticles and also that the honor accrues to the poem (one that eschews the commonplace for the extraordinary) rather than to its subjects. As for the third, one example of this complaint will suffice. Singleton (comm. to verse 138) argues that this claim cannot be taken as literally true, since there are many “unknown characters” found in the cast of the Comedy. “One has only to think,” he says, “of the riff-raff, generally, of the eighth circle of Inferno.” However, those crowds of “extras” do not count in Dante's scheme of things; those who are named are famous (or were, in Dante's time at least, better known than they are in ours).

There is one other problem of literal understanding that is as present today as it has always been, perhaps because it has never been treated, since readers do not see that it is problematic and simply assume that they understand what is meant. The word cima can mean various things (see the note to Purg. XI.91-93), but here it refers either to mountaintops (as we believe it does) or treetops (as it apparently does for most readers). The general sense is clear enough: Exemplary figures and clear arguments are both required to convince a reader.

The metaphors and similetic comparisons (the poem is a “cry,” equated with the wind; its human subjects, metaphorically mountain peaks [or, according to not a few, treetops]) now make the poem lofty, that is, “tragic” in its stylistic reach. See the note to vv. 127-129. If there the author insisted on the comic essence of his work, he now insists equally vehemently on its tragic (or stylistically lofty) dimension.

The reader notes that Dante does not here imagine people reading his poem, but hearing it being read.

The poet surely forgets what he has not said at vv. 92-93. If ever there existed a “proof that remains obscure,” that lacuna qualifies.

This canto, with its lavish praise of Cangrande, may be thought of as Dante's farewell to Verona, written between 1317 and 1318 according to Giorgio Petrocchi (“Canto XVII,” in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: “Paradiso,” ed. P. Giannantonio [Naples: Loffredo, 2000 {1988}], pp. 335, 337). For the question, still somewhat vexed, of the exact date of Dante's arrival in Ravenna (we assume soon after he left Verona), see Eugenio Chiarini, “Ravenna,” ED (IV [1973]), pp. 861-64.