The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

  73-75. Cacciaguida is citing examples of dead or enfeebled cities; the first two are already dead, the second two are dying. Luni: An ancient city on the Magra at the northern boundary of Tuscany, already a ruin in Dante’s time. Urbisaglia (oor-bee-SAH-lyah): In the March of Ancona; not quite dead in Dante’s time. Chiusi (KYOO-ZEE): Ancient Clusium. In Val di Chiana. Sinigaglia (see-nee-GAH-lyah): On the coast north of Ancona. Both were ravaged by malaria in Dante’s time, but both have survived their prophesied extinction.

  84. so Fortune alters Florence: Now raising her on the flood, now letting her down on the ebb. Fortune, of course, is Dame Fortune.

  88-90. Ughi (OO-ghee), etc.: Cacciaguida lists six solid old families of the first half of the eleventh century and says they were illustrious even in their decline. In 1300 these families had finished declining and were extinct, at least as influential voices in Florentine affairs.

  91. those of the Bow: The family dell’ Arca. They and the other four families here cited were numerous and powerful in Cacciaguida’s time. In Dante’s time the dell’ Arca clan was extinct; the Soldanieri, a Ghibelline clan, still existed but had been banished; and the descendants of the other three clans had lost power and social standing.

  94. the portal: Of San Piero, where the Cerchi ruled in Dante’s time. (see line 65) showing the destruction of Florence.

  97-99. Ravignani . . . Count Guido Guerra . . . Bellincione: Bellincione (bell-een-TCHOE-neh) Berti del Ravignani (rah-vee-NYAH-nee) was praised in XV, 112-114. Count Guido Guerra VI was praised in Inferno, XVI, 37-39, though he is damned among the sodomites. He was a great-grandson of Bellincione, who was the father of the Good Gualdrada. Through another daughter, his name descended to many members of the Adimari family (see Filippo Argenti, Inferno, VIII, 32, note, and note to line 119 below).

  100. della Pressa: An emergent family (in Cacciaguida’s time) who had been elected to govern some of the nearby territories of Florence. Their descendants were charged with betraying the Florentines at Montaperti (for which see Inferno, X, 86, and note to 32-51).

  101. Galigaio (gal-ee-GUY-oh): A noble family of Porta San Piero, here said to have been already of the knighthood (“gold hilt and pommel”) in Cacciaguida’s time, but reduced to the rank and file by 1300.

  103. vair: A fur, usually of a small squirrel. Represented in heraldry by rows of little bells. It appeared on the arms of the Pigli (PEE-lyee), a family of Porta San Pancrazio.

  104. A continuation of the early eleventh-century Florentine social register.

  105. those who blush now for the stave affair: The Chiaramontesi of Porta San Piero. See Purgatorio, XII, 100-105, note.

  106. Calfucci (kahl-FOO-tchee): Were collateral with the Donati. Dante’s wife, Gemma, was a Donati.

  108. the curule: A chair in which only the highest officers of Rome might sit. Here used to indicate highest rank. Sizii (see-TZEE-yee) and Arrigucci (ah-ree-GOO-tchee): Neither family was extinct by Dante’s time, but the first was nearly so, and the second much reduced.

  110. balls of gold: From the arms of the Lamberti. Mosca, one of this line, is in the Bolgia of the Sowers of Discord (Inferno, XXVIII, 106, and note).

  112. so shone the fathers of that gang we see: As the Lamberti once shone in every great deed of Florence so shone (in evil deeds) the Visdomini and the Tosinghi, hereditary patrons and defenders of the episcopal see and palace. Whenever the see fell vacant, they were in charge of episcopal affairs until a new bishop was elected. Dante here accuses them of forming themselves into a private consistory in order to fatten themselves on the resources of the see.

  115. That . . . tribe: The Adimari. Dante had special reasons for disliking them. When Dante was banished, Boccaccio Adimari took over his forfeited estates and resisted every effort to rescind the decree of banishment.

  119. Donato . . . his father-in-law: Bellincione married the good Gualdrada to Umbertino Donati of the family of the Counts Guidi. He then married another daughter to the upstart Adimari, thus relating the two families. The Donati refused to acknowledge kinship.

  121-123. Caponsacchi . . . Infangati . . . Giudi: Three Ghibelline families, once well established, but much diminished by Dante’s time. Is it only coincidence that these three names mean, at root, Head-in-a-sack, Judases (or Jews), and Covered-with-mud? Could Dante be suggesting that these Johnny-come-latelies were as outlandish as their names in comparison with the old-line Florentines?

  125. the inner wall: The first (Roman) wall of the city. Cacciaguida is saying that Dante would know the long-vanished della Pera family was an ancient one, but not that it traced back to the very founding of Florence.

  127-132. Hugh of Brandenburg, known in Italy as Ugo il Grande, marchese di Toscano, was the Imperial Vicar of Tuscany. Thus he was the voice of Imperial authority and order (see note to Purgatorio, VI, 100) and Tuscany’s chief Ghibelline. His arms bore seven staves, which are variously reproduced in the arms of “all those” families he raised to knighthood and fortune (among them the Giandotti, Pulci, della Bella, and Neri). He died on St. Thomas’ Day, 1006, and it is still part of the festival of St. Thomas to offer solemn prayers to Ugo in the Abbey he built in Florence. though one who binds those arms: Giano (DJAH-no) della Bella. He was exiled in 1295 and was no longer making common cause with the hoi polloi. But Dante, though he had to become a Guelph once there were no more Ghibellines in Florence, still has his only political hope in the party of the Emperor and will not miss a chance to condemn the great Ghibelline families that identified themselves with the cause of vulgar independence.

  133. Gualterotti and Importuni: Guelph families of Borgo Santo Apostolo, great in Cacciaguida’s time, but common workingmen in Dante’s.

  135. new neighbors from Montebuon’: The Buondelmonti. Cacciaguida goes on to describe the grief and disorder they brought to Florence. Their houses were next to those of the Gualterotti and Importuni.

  136-138. The line: Of the Amidei. A great family related to the Lamberti and allied to many noble families of Florence. Despite the fact that it was of much higher rank, it betrothed one of its daughters to Buondelmonte dei Buondelmonti, who broke off the nuptials in order to marry a daughter of the Donati. The Amidei, in “righteous anger” at this affront by a man of lower rank, held a council of war. It was at this council that Mosca dei Lamberti (Inferno, XXVIII, 106, and note) declared, “A thing done has an end.” As a result Buondelmonti was murdered at the foot of the statue of Mars in 1215. As a result of that murder Florence, previously united, became divided into Guelf and Ghibelline factions, and was plunged into civil war, thereby ending its “happier life.”

  143. the Ema: A river bounding the lands from which the Buondelmonti were dispossessed before they came to Florence.

  145-147. the broken stone: The mutilated statue of Mars. It is fitting, says Cacciaguida in bitter irony, that Florence should mark its return to the rule of Mars by offering up the blood of a victim at the foot of the mutilated statue of its first pagan patron.

  153-154. Cacciaguida means that the Florentines had never been defeated in war. It was a custom to mock the vanquished by flying their captured flags upside down on the mast. The lily was, of course, the emblem of France.

  155. The ancient standard of Florence bore a white lily on a red field. In 1251 the Guelphs changed their standard to a red lily on a white field, the Ghibellines preserving the original. Thus there were two Florentine standards and division had dyed the lily red. The “red dye,” of course, is also the blood spilled in war.

  Canto XVII

  THE FIFTH SPHERE: MARS

  The Warriors of God: Cacciaguida

  BEATRICE AND CACCIAGUIDA already know what question is burning in Dante’s mind, but Beatrice nevertheless urges him to speak it, that by practicing Heavenly discourse he be better able to speak to men when he returns to Earth. So urged, Dante asks Cacciaguida to make clear the recurring DARK PROPHECIES OF DANTE’S FUTURE.

  Cacciaguida details DANTE’S COMING BANISHMENT FR
OM FLORENCE, identifies the patrons Dante will find, and assures Dante of his future fame. He warns Dante not to become bitter in adversity, assuring him that the Divine Comedy, once it becomes known, will outlive the proudest of the Florentines and bring shame to their evil memories for ages to come.

  Like him who went to Clymene to learn if what he had heard was true, and who makes fathers unwilling to yield to their sons at every turn—

  such was I, and such was I taken to be by Beatrice and by the holy lamp that, earlier, had changed its place for me.

  Therefore my lady: “Speak. And let the fire of your consuming wish come forth,” she said, “well marked by the inner stamp of your desire;

  not that we learn more by what you say, but that you better learn to speak your thirst, that men may sooner quench it on your way.”

  “Dear root of my existence, you who soar so high that, as men grasp how a triangle may contain one obtuse angle and no more,

  you grasp contingent things before they find essential being, for you can see that focus where all time is time-present in God’s mind.

  While I was yet with Virgil, there below, climbing the mountain where the soul is healed, and sinking through the dead world of its woe,

  dark words of some dark future circumstance were said to me; whereby my soul is set four-square against the hammering of chance:

  and, therefore, my desire will be content with knowing what misfortune is approaching; for the arrow we see coming is half spent.”

  —Such were the words of my reply, addressed to the light that had spoken earlier; and with them as Beatrice wished, my own wish was confessed.

  Not in dark oracles like those that glued the foolish like limed birds, before the Lamb that takes our sins away suffered the rood;

  but in clear words and the punctilious style of ordered thought, that father-love replied, concealed in and revealed by his own smile:

  “Contingency, whose action is confined to the few pages of the world of matter, is fully drawn in the Eternal Mind;

  but it no more derives necessity from being so drawn, than a ship dropping down river derives its motion from a watcher’s eye.

  As a sweet organ-harmony strikes the ear, so, from the Primal Mind, my eyes receive a vision of your future drawing near.

  As Hippolytus left Athens, forced to roam by his two-faced and merciless stepmother, just so shall you leave Florence, friends, and home.

  So is it willed, so does it already unfold, so will it soon be done by him who plots it there where Christ is daily bought and sold.

  The public cry, as usual, will blame you of the offended party, but the vengeance truth will demand will yet show what is true.

  All that you held most dear you will put by and leave behind you; and this is the arrow the longbow of your exile first lets fly.

  You will come to learn how bitter as salt and stone is the bread of others, how hard the way that goes up and down stairs that never are your own.

  And what will press down on your shoulders most will be the foul and foolish company you will fall into on that barren coast.

  Ingrate and godless, mad in heart and head will they become against you, but soon thereafter it will be they, not you, whose cheeks turn red.

  Their bestiality will be made known by what they do; while your fame shines the brighter for having become a party of your own.

  Your first inn and first refuge you shall owe to the great Lombard whose escutcheon bears the sacred bird above, the ladder below.

  In such regard and honor shall he hold you, that in the act of granting and requesting, what others do late, shall be first between you two.

  With him you will see another, born of this star and so stamped by the iron of its virtues that he shall be renowned for deeds of war.

  The world has not yet noticed him: these spheres in their eternal course above his youth have turned about him now only nine years.

  Before the Gascon sets his low intrigue to snare high Henry, men will start to speak of his disregard of money and fatigue.

  The knowledge of his magnanimities will spread so far that men will hear of it out of the mouths of his very enemies.

  Look you to him and his great works. The fate of many shall be altered by his deeds, the rich and poor exchanging their estate.

  And write this in your mind but remain silent concerning it . . .”—and he said things about him to astonish even those who shall be present.

  Then added: “Son, these are the annotations to what was told you. These are the snares that hide behind a few turns of the constellations.

  But do not hate your neighbors: your future stretches far beyond the reach of what they do and far beyond the punishment of wretches.”

  —When, by his silence, that blessed soul made clear that he had finished passing his dark shuttle across the threads I had combed for him there,

  I then, as one who has not understood longs for the guidance of a soul that sees, and straightway wills, and wholly loves the good:

  “Father, I do indeed see time’s attacks hard spurred against me to strike such a blow as shall fall most on him who is most lax.

  And it is well I arm myself with foresight. Thus, if the dearest place is taken from me, I shall not lose all place by what I write.

  Down through that world of endless bitter sighs, and on the mountain from whose flowering crown I was uplifted by my lady’s eyes,

  and then through Heaven from ray to living ray, I have learned much that would, were it retold, offend the taste of many alive today.

  Yet if, half friend to truth, I mute my rhymes, I am afraid I shall not live for those who will think of these days as ‘the ancient times.’ ”

  The light in which my heaven-found treasure shone smiled brighter in its rapture, coruscating like a gold mirror in a ray of sun;

  then answered me: “A conscience overcast by its own shame, or another’s, may indeed be moved to think your words a bitter blast.

  Nevertheless, abjure all lies, but match your verses to the vision in fullest truth; and if their hides are scabby, let them scratch!

  For if your voice is bitter when first tested upon the palate, it shall yet become a living nutriment when it is digested.

  This cry you raise shall strike as does the wind hardest at highest peaks—and this shall argue no little for your honor, as you will find.

  Therefore you have been shown—here in these spheres, there on the mount, and in the valley of woe—those souls whose names most ring in mortal ears;

  for the feelings of a listener do not mark examples of things unknown, nor place their trust in instances whose roots hide in the dark;

  nor will men be persuaded to give ear to arguments whose force is not made clear.”

  NOTES

  1-3. him who went to Clymene: Phaëthon, son of Clymene and Apollo. Epaphus had told him Apollo was not his father and the boy had run to his mother to be reassured. Phaëthon makes all fathers chary of yielding too readily to their sons by his example in persuading Apollo to let him drive the chariot of the Sun. Apollo consented but Phaëthon was not strong enough to control the horses. They bolted and the Sun was about to burn Earth and sky when Zeus stopped the chariot with a thunderbolt, killing Phaëthon. Thus the reluctance Phaëton teaches fathers is for the good of the sons.

  6. changed its place: In descending to the foot of the cross.

  7-12. The mixed metaphor with which Beatrice opens is once again based on the impress of a signet in wax. Here the fire is the wax and inner desire the signet. She and Cacciaguida (and all the heavenly souls) already know Dante’s mind and their knowledge of it cannot be increased by his speaking, but by encouraging him to discourse on a heavenly level, Beatrice is preparing him the better to speak his soul’s need when he returns to earth, in order that men may be moved to the good he urges.

  13-18. Sense of this passage: “You grasp the future as easily as men grasp a problem in geometry, for your sight is fixed upon God’s mind, in which all
time is one and present.” root: Dante uses “piota,” which may mean “root, soil around a root, sod, turf, or sole of the foot.”