The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  but all seemed pleased at being thus made known.

  Ubaldino della Pila hungered there,

  and Boniface, shepherd to all those bellies—

  they were so starved they used their teeth on air.

  I saw my Lord Marchese. Before he died

  he drank with somewhat less thirst at Forlì,

  yet no man ever saw him satisfied.

  As one who notes one face especially

  among a crowd, I noted him of Lucca

  who seemed most to desire a word with me.

  He muttered something, and I seemed to hear

  the word “Gentucca” issue from the wound

  where most he felt High Justice pluck him bare.

  “Spirit,” I said, “since you seem so intent

  on talking to me, do so audibly,

  and speaking so, make both of us content.”

  “Though men may mock my city,” he replied,

  “she who will teach you how to treasure it

  is born there, though she is not yet a bride.

  This presage you shall take with you from here,

  and if you misconstrued what I first muttered

  the facts themselves, in time, will make it clear.

  But is this really the creator of

  those new canzoni, one of which begins

  ‘Ladies who have the intellect of Love’?”

  And I: “When Love inspires me with delight,

  or pain, or longing, I take careful note,

  and as he dictates in my soul, I write.”

  And he: “Ah, brother, now I see the thong

  that held Guittone, and the Judge, and me

  short of that sweet new style of purest song.

  I see well how your pens attained such powers

  by following exactly Love’s dictation,

  which certainly could not be said of ours.

  And if one scan the two styles side by side,

  that is the only difference he will find.”

  With that he fell still, as if satisfied.

  Just as the cranes that winter by the Nile

  form close-bunched flights at times, then, gathering speed,

  streak off across the air in single file;

  so all the people there faced straight ahead,

  and being lightened by both will and wasting,

  quickened their paces, and away they sped.

  And as a runner who must take a rest

  lets his companions pull ahead, and walks

  till he has eased the panting in his chest;

  just so Forese let that blessed train

  outdistance him, and held his pace to mine,

  and said to me: “When shall we meet again?”

  “I do not know how long my life will be,”

  I said, “but I cannot return so soon

  but what my wish will reach the shore before me;

  for from that city where I came to life

  goodness is disappearing day by day;

  a place foredoomed to ruin by bloody strife.”

  “Take heart,” he said, “for I see him whose crime

  exceeds all others’ dragged at a beast’s tail

  to where sin lasts beyond the end of time.

  At every stride the beast goes faster, faster,

  until its flashing hooves lash out, and leave

  the foul ruin of what was once its master.

  Those Spheres (and he looked toward the Heavens here)

  will not turn far before what I have said,

  and may not add to now, shall be made clear.

  Now I must leave you far behind: your pace

  has cost me a considerable delay;

  and time is precious to us in this place.”

  At times during a horse charge, one brave knight

  will spur ahead, burning to claim the honor

  of having struck the first blow in the fight;

  just so his lengthened stride left us behind,

  and I trailed on, accompanied by those two

  who were such mighty marshals of mankind.

  And when, in such haste, he had pulled ahead

  so far that I could only make him out

  as I could understand what he had said;

  we turned a corner and there came in sight,

  not far ahead, a second tree, its boughs

  laden with fruit, its foliage bursting bright.

  Sometimes when greedy children beg and screech

  for what they may not have, the one they cry to

  holds it in plain sight but beyond their reach

  to whet their appetites: so, round that tree,

  with arms raised to the boughs, a pack of souls

  begged and was given nothing. Finally

  they gave up and moved on unsatisfied,

  and we drew close in our turn to that plant

  at which such tears and pleadings were denied.

  “Pass on. Do not draw near. The tree whose fruit

  Eve took and ate grows further up the slope,

  and this plant sprouted from that evil root.”

  —Thus, from the boughs, an unknown voice called down.

  And thus warned, Virgil, Statius, and myself

  drew close, and hugged the cliff, and hurried on.

  “Recall,” the voice went on, “those cursed beasts

  born of a cloud. When they had swilled the wine,

  Theseus had to slash their double breasts.

  Recall those Jews who once showed Gideon

  how to abandon all to thirst, whereat

  he would not lead them down the hills to Midian.”

  So we strode on along the inner way

  while the voice cried the sins of Gluttony

  which earn, as we had seen, such fearful pay.

  Then the road cleared, and with more room for walking

  we spread out, and had gone a thousand paces

  in meditation, with no thought of talking;

  when suddenly a voice cried, startling me

  as if I were a panic-stricken colt:

  “What are you thinking of alone, you three?”

  I looked up to see who had spoken so:

  no man has ever seen in any furnace,

  metal or glass raised to so red a glow.

  “If your wish is to ascend,” I heard one say,

  “this is the place where you must turn aside.

  All you who search for Peace—this is the way.”

  His glory blinded me. I groped and found

  my Teacher’s back and followed in his steps

  as blind men do who guide themselves by sound.

  Soft on my brow I felt a zephyr pass,

  soft as those airs of May that herald dawn

  with breathing fragrances of flowers and grass;

  and unmistakably I felt the brush

  of the soft wing releasing to my senses

  ambrosial fragrances in a soft rush.

  And soft I heard the Angel voice recite:

  “Blessed are they whom Grace so lights within

  that love of food in them does not excite

  excessive appetite, but who take pleasure

  in keeping every hunger within measure.”

  NOTES

  6. as I had been bred: In the flesh of the first life.

  8. His ascent, I think, is somewhat slower: Dante is speaking of Statius, continuing his answer to Forese’s question from the last Canto. Statius is now free to ascend to the top of the Mount, and thence to Heaven, but is slowing his ascent in order to be with Virgil that much longer. Were Statius to climb with the speed of the almost-weightless (for, barring last rites, his soul is now purified and free) he would have to leave Virgil, who is still slowed by his need to keep pace with Dante, who is still slowed by his flesh.

  Clearly, however, Dante is making an exception to the rule of his own great concept, for Statius is delaying his ascent to God (making God wait) in favor of Virgil. Such a ch
oice would certainly emerge as sinful were Dante to apply his own rule impartially, and in Canto XXX Dante himself receives a substantial tongue-lashing from Beatrice when he mourns the disappearance of Virgil.

  10. Piccarda: Sister of Forese. She took vows as a nun but was later forced by her other brother, Corso, into a political marriage in violation of her vows. Dante will meet her in the lowest sphere of Paradise.

  14. High Olympus: Heaven. Another of Dante’s easy adaptations of pagan themes and concepts to Christian belief.

  16. Thus he began. Then: As at many other points in the Divine Comedy, Dante has asked two questions. “Thus he began” signifies that the preceding speech was in answer to the first question (line 10). “Then” begins the answer to the second (lines 11-12).

  17. is certainly permitted: Their emaciation being such that they could never be recognized by their appearances.

  19. (and he pointed to him): Dante seems to have discovered this device at the end of the last Canto, and to have become so taken by it that he uses it three times in thirty-one lines.

  20. Bonagiunta of Lucca: See below, note to line 35.

  20-21. That [one] behind him . . . : Simon de Brie, of Tours, Pope from 1281-1285 as Martin IV. Italians, with their normal proprietary arrogance toward Vatican matters, frowned at the thought of a French Pope, but generally granted him to be a good one, though gluttonous. Since in Dante the punishment is always meant to fit the crime, the fact that his face is more sunken-in than any other, would indicate that he was, in life, the most gluttonous of all. Or it may indicate that his exalted position as Pope made his gluttony that much more sinful.

  24. Bolsena’s eels and the Vernaccia wine: The eels of Lake Bolsena, near Viterbo, are still especially prized. Vernaccia is a rich, sweet white wine of the mountains near Genoa. Eels were prepared by dropping them alive into a vat of wine. The eels, thus pickled alive, died and were roasted. Martin IV gorged incessantly on such eels and died of an attack brought on by overindulgence.

  28. Ubaldino della Pila: A knight of the Ubaldini. Brother of the Cardinal of the Ubaldini who is roasting in Hell with Farinata, among the Epicureans (Inferno, X). Another brother was Ugolino d’Azzo, who is mentioned with great honor in XIV. Ubaldino was the father of Archbishop Ruggieri who is serving as lunch for Ugolino in the cooler of Hell (Inferno, XXXII-XXXIII). He was a great feaster and entertainer, once playing host for several months—in necessarily lavish style—to the Pope and his whole court.

  29. Boniface: Archbishop of Ravenna, 1274-1294. He was rather more drawn to political than to spiritual affairs. Dante’s charge against him involves a word play I could not render without taking considerable liberties. Literally: “Who pastured so many people with his crozier [i.e., shepherd’s staff].” But there is the spiritual pasturage the archbishop should provide for his flock of souls, and there is the material pasturage that filled the bellies of all the retainers Boniface kept about him as political boss of his district and its patronage. Thus the essential sarcasm of Dante’s charge is that Boniface was shepherd to the bellies rather than to the souls of his archdiocese. There is no evidence outside of Dante that Boniface was a glutton.

  31. my Lord Marchese: Messer Marchese of Forlì, podestà of Faenza in 1296. He once asked what the people thought of him. When told they spoke of nothing but his incessant drinking, he replied that they should remember he was always thirsty.

  35. him of Lucca: Bonagiunta (Bon-ah-DJOON-tah) degli Overardi. Poet and orator of some repute in Lucca, but one whose language Dante condemns in De Vulgari Eloquentia , I, xiii. He was a famous glutton and tippler. Died 1297.

  38. Gentucca: Is probably best taken as the name of a lady Dante met when he went to live with a friend at Lucca, probably about 1314-1316.

  38-39. the wound where most he felt High Justice pluck him bare: Another of Dante’s mixed metaphors. “Pluck him bare” can only be understood as “waste him away.” “The wound” where he would most feel his wasting is his mouth, now reduced to a wound in his ruined face, but originally the part of him through which he sinned.

  43. Though men may mock my city: Dante is certainly not more scornful of Lucca than of the other cities of Tuscany. Throughout the Comedy he enjoys taking pot shots at all of them.

  44. she: Gentucca. In 1300 she had been born and was living in Lucca but as a girl not yet married.

  49-51. Literally: “But tell me if I truly behold him who brought forth the new rhymes beginning . . .” The line quoted is the first line of a canzone of the Vita Nuova

  (XIX).

  Bonagiunta already knows who Dante is. His phrasing is not, therefore, for identification. He has just prophesied a Platonic love into which Dante will enter with Gentucca. His thoughts turn naturally to the past Platonic love that Dante celebrated in his Vita Nuova. As a poet himself, Bonagiunta would be interested in discussing the “sweet new style” with its foremost practitioner.

  49-62. BONAGIUNTA AND THE SWEET NEW STYLE. Bonagiunta, Guittone d’Arezzo (who first perfected the form of the Italian sonnet), and Jacopo da Lentino (known as “Il Notaro,” i.e., The Judge)—a Sicilian poet to whom Dante gives some qualified praise in De Vulgari Eloquentia (I, xii)—were all practitioners of a kind of conventionalized verse modeled after the most decadent phase of Provençal poetry. They flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century. Dante was a prime mover in the later “sweet new style” of more natural expression. In lines 55-57 Bonagiunta regrets that his school failed to discover the principle of the sweet new style, for only the adherence to that principle of natural expression, he adds (lines 61-62), distinguishes the one style from the other. His implication is that, had his school observed that principle, he and his fellows would have written as well as the new poets, being their equals in all else. And with this final wishful assertion, Bonagiunta seems satisfied, and says no more.

  It is possible to interpret Bonagiunta’s remarks as a lament over his failure to discover the new style and thereby to write better, but the first interpretation seems firmer.

  64-66. Compare Dante’s description of the Carnal, Inferno, V, 46-47.

  68. being lightened by both will and wasting: Sin is equated to heaviness and purity to lightness throughout the Comedy. These souls are made lighter both by their own will to endure the purifying penance and by the wasting that resulted from it. Dante seems to imply that an emaciated incorporeal essence weighs less than a normal one. If so, the explanation must lie in one of the mysteries of faith.

  76-81. DANTE’S ANSWER TO FORESE. Forese, moved by love, has expressed his longing to see Dante again, but obviously he cannot until Dante is dead. To a soul in Purgatory, to be sure, death is not a tragedy but an arrival. Yet Forese phrases his question delicately, aware that he is speaking to a living man. Dante, on the other hand, understands Forese’s intent, and answers without circumlocution: however soon his return to the second life, his wish will be there before him.

  78. the shore: Of Purgatory. Dante will have some time to spend on the Cornice of Pride (and perhaps of Wrath), but he may yet overtake Forese in the final ascent.

  79. that city: Florence.

  82. him: Corso Donati. Forese’s brother and head of the Black Guelphs. It was Corso who persuaded Boniface VIII to send Charles of Valois to Florence in 1300. Thus the crimes of Charles are indirectly his. In 1309 Corso tried a coalition that would make him the supreme authority in Florence, but the Blacks, whom he had done so much so bloodily to put into power, discovered his plot and condemned him to death. He fled but was pursued and killed. Dante follows an account (line 83) that has him dragged to death by his horse.

  84. where sin lasts beyond the end of time: Hell.

  88. Those Spheres: Of Heaven, as indicated by the parenthetical stage direction.

  90. and may not add to now: Forese has already overstayed and must rejoin his band.

  92. a considerable delay: In matching his pace to Dante’s when he should be speeding toward his expiation with the other spi
rits.

  100-105. These two tercets present fairly typical problems of Dantean interpretation. In 100-102 Dante says he can follow Forese with his eyes only as he could follow in his mind (i.e., understand) what Forese had said. Hence if Forese was still remotely in sight, it would follow that Dante had some glimmer of the meaning of his prophecy. If, on the other hand, Dante meant he could not grasp the prophecy at all, Forese must have disappeared.

  At that very instant, however (103-105), the Poets round a bend in the cliff. If they are that close to a turning (and the circles at this altitude would turn on a shortened radius), Forese must have long since disappeared around the bend. It must follow, therefore, that Dante means he had no idea whatever of the meaning of Forese’s prophecy—as, in fact, he could not have known in 1300 how Corso would die in 1309.

  104. a second tree: Various attempts have been made to relate this tree to the first, as they must, indeed, be related since from one the Whip of Gluttony is spoken, and from the other, the Rein. This one, we are told by the voice, is sprung from the same root as the Tree of Knowledge from which Eve ate. Among other things, therefore, it is the Tree of Death. By simple opposites the other may be argued to be the Tree of Life. Or the two may be seen as the Tree of Mortal Woe (death included) and the Tree of Eternal Life, the former containing the voice of the ruin brought on by sin, the latter the voice of the eternal joy that arises from obedience.