Paradiso (The Divine Comedy series Book 3)

by Dante

  133–135. While both families, the Gualterotti and the Importuni, were Guelph in the views of the local chroniclers (Villani, Compagni, Malispini), according to other documents, as reported by Bosco/Reggio (comm. to verse 133), the Gualterotti were in fact Ghibellines. Bosco/Reggio suggest the contradiction may be explained by the diverse political sympathies found in diverse branches of the family. [return to English / Italian]

  136–150. This is Cacciaguida’s rueful contemplation of the wrack and ruin caused by a single event. Here is Carroll (comm. to Par. XIV. 79–87) on this pivotal moment in the history of Florence: “The reference is to the well-known story of the murder of Buondelmonte de’ Buondelmonti in 1216. This young nobleman was betrothed to a lady of the Amidei family, but forsook her for a daughter of the house of the Donati. The kinsmen of the insulted lady waylaid and slew him at the foot of the statue of Mars, ‘that mutilated stone,’ as he rode into the city on Easter Day [Villani, Chron. V.38; Dino Compagni, 1.2]. Well for the city, says Cacciaguida, if the first time he came to it he had been drowned in the little stream of the Ema which flows through the Valdigreve, a little south of Florence, where his castle lay. The murder was generally regarded as the beginning of the feuds of Guelphs and Ghibellines of which Dante himself was a victim; although, as Villani admits, ‘long before there were factions among the noble citizens, and the said parties existed by reason of the strifes and questions between the Church and the Empire’ [Chronicle V.38].” [return to English / Italian]

  136–138. The Amidei are portrayed as justly angered by the snub to their name revealed in Buondelmonte’s behavior; it is from their rage that originated the current sorrow of the city. [return to English / Italian]

  139. The allies of the Amidei were the Gherardini and Uccellini families. [return to English / Italian]

  145–147. It is difficult to imagine a more “operatic” or fitting symbol of the end of the era of peace in Florence than Buondelmonte’s body, lying where it fell, at the feet of the statue of Mars, on Easter Sunday 1216. Mars as the pagan god of war is in this canto deployed against the Christian militancy that typifies the crusading spirit. See Borsellino (Bors.1995.1), p. 46, on the ambiguity of the sign of Mars in this canto, representing, in different contexts, both Heaven-approved crusading and damnable internecine broils. [return to English / Italian]

  148. For the question of the actual number of noble families in Florence in the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, see Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 59–154). Villani (Cron. V.39) accounts for seventy noble families in 1215. (He also reports on the numbers for 1015 [Cron. IV.10–13].) The discrepancies between Dante’s figures and Villani’s lead Scartazzini to think that Dante is not to be relied on for particulars of this kind. However, in this verse Dante has Cacciaguida say that there were more than these forty famous families that he has mentioned flowering at that time. [return to English / Italian]

  152. This verse will be remembered at Paradiso XXXI.39. See the note to that passage. [return to English / Italian]

  153–154. Cacciaguida takes pride in the fact that Florence, in his day, never lost a battle. The image of the flag reversed upon its staff is apparently a reference to the following practice: Members of the victorious army would drag the losers’ battle-flags upside down over the field of combat.

  In 1251 the Guelphs changed the design of the Florentine flag from a white lily on a red field to a red lily on a white field, while the ousted Ghibellines retained the traditional arrangement (according to Villani, Cronica, VI.43). As Stephany (Step.1973.1) points out, the original flag mirrors Cacciaguida’s situation in the fifth heaven, red Mars quartered by a white Greek cross. [return to English / Italian]

  154. Fachard (Fach.2002.1), p. 231, points out that the first and last lines of this canto, so involved with the concepts of the nobility of bloodlines and the (at times consequent) spilling of human blood, both end with words for blood or bleeding. [return to English / Italian]

  PARADISO XVII

  * * *

  1–12. We have come to the midpoint of Paradiso. See, for a reading of this central canto, Brugnoli (Brug.1995.1), 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):

  Apparently Brugnoli did not know the work of John Logan (Loga.1971.1), pp. 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.)

  For another and more recent attempt to deal with the “centers” of the three canticles, see Ambrosini (Ambr.2002.1), pp. 253–54. His discussion begins and ends with Singleton (Sing.1965.2), but is without reference to the work of Logan and (still more surprisingly) of Brugnoli. [return to English / Italian]

  1–6. 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 overenthusiastic 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 (Moor.1896.1), 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 (Schn.1991.2), pp. 217–19, and Picone (Pico.1994.1), pp. 181–82, for two particularly interesting responses to these verses. Also see Brownlee (Brow.1984.1) for the “Phaeton program” in the Commedia. [return to English / Italian]

  7–12. 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. [return to English / Italian]

  13–18. 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 degrees) can possess two angles each of which is greater than 90 degrees.

  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. [return to English / Italian]

  13. 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 Petrocchi (Petr.1988.2), p. 338. [return to English / Italian]

  15. This is the second (and last) appearance of the word “triangle” in the poem (see Par. XIII.102 for the first). [return to English / Italian]

  19–27. 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. [return to English / Italian]

  19. 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 32 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 Foster [Fost.1976.1], p. 72). Among denizens of the afterworld, only Beatrice is more often present in name (63 occurrences), if that of God occurs even more often than hers (more than 100 times). [return to English / Italian]

  24. For the word “tetragon,” see Chiavacci Leonardi (Chia.1989.2), pp. 312–13, and Raffa (Raff.2000.1), 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 (Schn.1986.1, e.g., p. 62, but passim) and Raffa (Raff.2000.1), pp. 147–64. And see Schnapp (Schn.1991.2), p. 216, discussing the similarities and differences between the prophecy offered by Brunetto in Inferno XV and that by Cacciaguida here. [return to English / Italian]

  27. 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 Brezzi (Brez.1989.1), p. 447, and Chiamenti (Chia.1995.1), p. 188. However, Aversano (Aver.2000.2) 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). [return to English / Italian]

  31–36. 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]). [return to English / Italian]

  31. 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 (Rajn.1902.1) 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. [return to English / Italian]

  32. 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 Marchesi [Marc.1997.1]); 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. [return to English / Italian]

  34–35. 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]) Honess (Hone.1994.1), pp. 51–52, and (for [2]) Vianello (Vian. 1968.1), 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 th
e very first example) of this poet’s pleasure in “multi-predication,” Inferno 1.5, “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). [return to English / Italian]

  37–42. 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 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. [return to English / Italian]