by Dante
61–66. Virgil’s explanation of the position of the sun in the morning sky may be paraphrased as follows: If the sun (the mirror), which moves from one side of the equator to the other, were in the constellation Gemini (Castor and Pollux, the celestial twins) and not Aries (where it is now—see Inf. I.37–40), Dante would see the sun’s path (the red part of the zodiac) as close to the Bears (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) and thus as far north as it ever gets (at the summer solstice, 21 June). It would do this, Virgil adds, in an apparently gratuitous detail (but see the next passage), unless it were to veer from its ordained path (which of course it will not in any normal expectation).
“Zodiac, a belt of the heavens eighteen degrees in breadth, extending nine degrees on either side of the Ecliptic, within which, according to the Ptolemaic system, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn perform their annual revolutions. It is divided into twelve equal parts of thirty degrees, called signs, which are named from the constellations lying within them” (T). [return to English / Italian]
67–75. Having made this much clear, Virgil goes on to offer Dante a “thought experiment” that in fact exactly replicates what was, in Dante’s time, considered geographical actuality. For Dante, Jerusalem, upon the hill Zion, and the mount of purgatory are precisely antipodal and share a common horizon (the equator). From this “experiment” it quickly becomes clear that the path of the sun (the “highway” that Phaeton flew off when he lost control of the chariot of the sun—see note to Inf. XVII.106–108) must pass beneath (south) of Jerusalem and (in once more northcentric thinking), above (north) of the mount of purgatory. And thus we understand why Dante was surprised at the sun’s leftness and why he should not have been.
The reference to Phaeton, now making clear the reason for the inclusion of reference to the possibility of the sun’s not keeping its ordained path, is part of a “Phaeton program” in the poem (see Brow.1984.1). As Brownlee points out, Phaeton’s presumptuous and failed heavenly voyage is set against Dante’s ordained and successful voyage to the otherworld. [return to English / Italian]
76–82. The protagonist’s rephrasing of what he has learned from Virgil is, one must admit, easier to grasp quickly than the master’s presentation of it. [return to English / Italian]
83–84. The Hebrews used to see it from Jerusalem but do so no longer because of their diaspora. [return to English / Italian]
85–87. It is interesting that, in a canto in which the primary new character is the extremely lazy Belacqua, the protagonist is so strongly presented as wanting to rest—perhaps more so than in any other part of the poem (but see Inf. XXIV.43–45). [return to English / Italian]
98–99. The voice that breaks into what has by now become, for most readers, a rather labored and even fussily academic discussion will turn out to be that of Belacqua. Named only at verse 123, he was a “Florentine, contemporary of Dante, said by the old commentators to have been a musical instrument-maker; modern research has suggested his identification with one Duccio di Bonavia” (T). According to Debenedetti (Debe.1906.1), Belacqua was dead before March 1302 but still alive in 1299. In other words, like Casella, he would seem to have been, in Dante’s mind, a recent arrival.
His ironic and witty response to the conversation he has overheard immediately wins the reader’s affection. (But, for a denial that this speech of Belacqua’s is in fact ironic, see Petrocchi [Petr.1969.1], pp. 270–71.) For a moment we feel drawn out of the moralizing concerns and serious tones of the two poets. Manica (Mani.2000.1), p. 35, calls attention to the great importance of Dante’s Belacqua to Samuel Beckett’s fiction. According to him, Belacqua becomes a contemporary myth of irony rather than a depiction of the loss of will; however, he may not sense how much of the Beckettian view of Belacqua is already present in Dante. Much of Beckett’s work is a kind of rewriting of the Dantean universe from the point of view of Belacqua alone, a universe of waiting, boredom, question, and frustration, as in the early short story “Belacqua and the Lobster” and certainly including the rock-snuggled hoboes of Waiting for Godot. For at least a moment in this extraordinary exchange, Dante’s Belacqua seems to control the situation. Of course he will have to be swept aside in the name of progress toward a Christian goal. But it is astounding (and heartwarming) to see how greatly Dante empathized with this character we like to imagine as being so antipathetic to him.
His first word, “perhaps,” immediately reveals his character as being indecisive, at least where goals or noble purposes are concerned; what follows shows his wit, deftly puncturing the balloon of Dantean eagerness (for he is a man who longs to do some serious sitting—see verse 52, where he accomplishes that goal). As we shall see, Dante will fight back, and we will then have a scene that is reminiscent of the back-and-forth between Farinata and Dante in Inferno X. [return to English / Italian]
105–111. The word negghienza (indolence) begins a steady run of words expressing a desire not to do: lasso (weary—106), sedeva (was sitting—107), negligente (indolent—110), pigrizia (sloth—111). The words express the point of view of the protagonist, undoubtedly buoyed by his own recent enthusiasm for spiritual mountaineering, if perhaps conveniently forgetting his recent fatigue—of which Belacqua will enjoy reminding him. Dante has now returned Belacqua’s delicate barb with a rather hefty blow.
The tenzone-like tone (see note to Inf. VIII.31–39) of jesting rivalry that marks the rest of this scene may have been previously set in real life. A tale has come down to us, first found in Benvenuto’s commentary (1380), yet almost always cited by later commentators only from the Anonimo Fiorentino’s more pleasing account (1400). According to him, Dante frequently reproached Belacqua for his sloth. One day Belacqua quoted Aristotle (the seventh chapter of the Physics, a passage also found in Monarchia I.iv.2): “The soul becomes wise when one is seated and quiet.” To this Dante supposedly replied: “If sitting can make a man wise, no one is wiser than you.” [return to English / Italian]
115–117. Rather than what we might expect, a counterthrust from Dante, we receive the information that he now, with brotherly affection, recognizes this saved soul and approaches him, despite the physical distress he still feels from that energetic climb of his. [return to English / Italian]
121. The poet’s summarizing phrase puts his technique of presentation of Belacqua into relief: lazy movements and curt speech. In fact, Belacqua’s three laconic speeches spread over only five lines (98–99, 114, 119–120), and not even the full extent of these. They make him out, as Dante almost certainly knew him, a familiar figure: a person of little physical energy and of incisive, biting wit. [return to English / Italian]
122–123. Dante’s sympathy now governs the mood of the rest of the scene and puts an end to the aggressive sallies of the finally named Belacqua. [return to English / Italian]
124–126. Dante’s last question is not without its barb; is Belacqua just being himself? Has nothing in him changed even in this state of grace? [return to English / Italian]
127–135. In what seems surprising length for so laconic a speaker (first three speeches, five lines; final speech, nine lines), Belacqua now reveals his other side, not that of a keen listener waiting for his “opponent” to fall into the net of his sharp wit, but of a lazy loser who can’t quite get himself organized. It is, the more we reflect upon it, something of a miracle that God chose him to join the elect in Heaven (as the protagonist himself thought—see vv. 123–124). [return to English / Italian]
127. Belacqua’s word of greeting, “frate,” now used for the first time since we heard Ulysses—if with far different purpose (see note to Inf. XXVI.124–126)—address his men as his “brothers” (Inf. XXVI.112), establishes the bond of genuine community among the saved, and we shall hear it used to address one’s fellow twelve more times in Purgatorio and five in Paradiso.
For an observation regarding the antithetic relationship between Belacqua and Ulysses see Frankel (Fran.1989.1), pp. 125–26.
Doe
s it seem that Belacqua does not realize that Dante is still in the flesh, merely assuming that he and Virgil are headed up the mountain to purge themselves? It is possible to ask this question because, in this exchange, there is no reference to Dante’s condition or to the identity or role of Virgil, subjects that have and will come up in other colloquies on the mountain. [return to English / Italian]
130–131. Where Manfred and his flock were eager to move on to their punishment and probably have far longer to wait, Belacqua exhibits a slothful hesitance even to consider shortening his time here. As the first of the late-repentant, he here establishes the rule that applies to all whom we meet in the remainder of ante-purgatory, that is, all between Cantos IV and VIII: there is a prescribed time of waiting for these former sinners, an equal amount to that which they spent unrepentant for their sins. [return to English / Italian]
132. Even his way of describing his last prayer, which in his view saved his soul, invokes a sense of laziness: it is composed, not of words, but of sighs, a lazy man’s prayer if ever there was one. [return to English / Italian]
133–135. Acknowledging that other “law” of ante-purgatory, of which we have heard from Manfred in the last canto (vv. 138–141), Belacqua refers to the possibility that the sentences of the late-repentant, like those of the excommunicate, may be shortened by the prayers of the living. His way of phrasing the possibility makes us tend to agree with him that he will do the full term of his sentence, since it seems to him unlikely that any of his friends would seem to be possessed of “a heart that lives in grace.” His speech trails off in dubiety; we reflect that his last negative words do not contain an appeal to Dante for help with the prayers of the living. It is no wonder that Beckett admired him so. He is the sole “Beckettian” character occupying a place in the purposeful and harmonious world of purgation and salvation. [return to English / Italian]
136–139. Virgil has had enough of this, perhaps revealing, in his stern tone, his own sense of the injustice of the salvation of the apparently undeserving Belacqua. His urgent summons to recommence the journey upward, abruptly terminating Dante’s conversation with Belacqua before its formal conclusion (as Carroll [1904] observed), ends the canto with a note of timeliness that the episode has disrupted. Belacqua, saved, has all the time in the world; Virgil, damned, does not. Life, or grace, does not always seem fair.
It is now noon in purgatory and 6 PM in Morocco, across from Spain at Gibraltar. Since Purgatorio II.1–9, when it was dawn, the action on the mountain has consumed six hours (we learned that it was just after 9 AM at Purg. IV.15–16), just over two and a half of them spent in the difficult ascent and the meeting with Belacqua. [return to English / Italian]
PURGATORIO V
1–3. The canto begins with the protagonist’s forward and upward propulsion but quickly reverses its sense of moral direction when Dante glances back, hearing the voice of one of the negligent behind him. [return to English / Italian]
4–6. Singleton (1973) argues that, because when Dante approached these late-repentant souls in the previous canto the sun was before him (IV.101), his shadow now fell behind him and, for this reason (or because, as Grabher [1934] noted, in the shade of the boulder he was out of the sun), was not observed by the onlookers until now when, moving away from them, he cast a shadow at an oblique angle. The sun was to Dante’s left when he turned back toward the east (IV.52–57); now as he heads west it is to his right, casting his shadow to his left. (For the various moments in this cantica in which Dante’s shadow is remarked upon, see note to Purg. III.16–18.) [return to English / Italian]
7–8. Dante does not stop, but he does slow his pace as he looks back, as Virgil’s words will make clear (verse 11). [return to English / Italian]
9. How is the reader meant to take the poet’s remembrance of his feelings at being recognized as a living soul? Was he guilty of the sin of pride? Some unknown early readers believed so, as we know because Benvenuto tacitly but strongly rebukes them. In his view Dante’s excitement is not that of self-congratulation, but rather of joy in his having been chosen by God for this experience, exactly that feeling expressed by Paul when he said “thanks be to God I am what I am” (I Corinthians 15:10). Benvenuto’s disciple, John of Serravalle (1416), however, does indeed see the taint of vainglory in Dante’s memory of the intense gaze of the penitent souls. [return to English / Italian]
10–18. Discussing this passage, Frankel (Fran.1989.1), pp. 127–30, points out that Virgil’s urgency in trying to get Dante to resume his forward movement is not found in Virgil himself when he encounters Sordello in Purgatorio VII and much enjoys his fellow Mantuan’s interest and praise. And while, beginning perhaps with Tommaseo (1837), there have been other commentators who find Virgil’s scolding excessive, the fact remains that the protagonist takes it most seriously (see vv. 19–21). Further, all that Virgil rebukes in Dante is his allowing his attention to wander, distracted by his admirers, from the prime purpose of the journey, i.e., he is acting to some degree like these negligent souls who were active Christians only near the end of their lives. [return to English / Italian]
19–21. Dante’s blush of shame clearly justifies Virgil’s indignation: the protagonist has been thinking of himself too much. And with this detail, indeed, the poem resumes its forward thrust, begun at vv. 1–2, but interrupted for seventeen lines. [return to English / Italian]
23–24. The new penitents enter singing the Psalm (50:1) that furnished the protagonist’s own first word in the poem (Inf. I.65), Miserere, the first word of David’s song of penance. Unlike the last group of late-repentant souls, lounging in the shade of their rock, these are moving in the same rightward direction that Virgil has urged Dante to follow. [return to English / Italian]
25–27. It is noteworthy that these penitents behave precisely as did the negligent, showing their astonishment and curiosity at Dante’s embodied presence in the sacred precinct of the saved. It is also striking that this time Virgil will offer no rebuke to Dante for his interest in them, which will slow his forward movement. If one reflects that this encounter is part of the protagonist’s “education” on the mountainside, the apparent contradiction begins to resolve itself. Dante’s previous interest was in the negligent souls’ reaction to him, not in what he could learn from them. [return to English / Italian]
28–30. Unlike other characters who enter the action of the poem unnamed but are later identified, these two messengers, seeking information about Dante’s condition, will remain anonymous. [return to English / Italian]
31–36. For all the asperity of Virgil’s response to the “messengers,” it is clear that he is aware of and in favor of Dante’s ability to help speed the progress toward purgation of these and other souls in ante-purgatory (verse 36). [return to English / Italian]
37–40. The similetic comparison may find its roots in Virgil’s description of shooting stars in his Georgics (I.365–367), according to Tommaseo (1837) and, more recently, to Hermann Gmelin (Gmel.1955.1). [return to English / Italian]
45. Once again Virgil underlines the propriety of Dante’s favorable response to requests for his intervention on behalf of the penitents as long as he continues his way up the mountain while he does so. [return to English / Italian]
53. As Chiavacci Leonardi (Chia.1994.1), pp. 143–44, points out, the phrase “sinners to the final hour” is probably meant to recall Matthew 20:1–16, the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, where even those who are summoned to work at the eleventh hour were paid the same as those who labored all the day: “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many are called, but few are chosen” (20:16). [return to English / Italian]
55. It is noteworthy that salvation was possible for these sinners only after their own belated penitence and their forgiveness of those who had caused their deaths. [return to English / Italian]
58–63. Dante’s acquiescence in being willing to bring news of their salvations pointedly includes those whom he does not
know, encouraging them to make a request that might, to them, have seemed too bold. The words he uses for these souls, “spiriti ben nati” (spirits born for bliss) contrast sharply with the formulation for those who were described as “mal nati” in Inferno (V.7; XVIII.76; XXX.48). [return to English / Italian]
64. The speaker, never identified by name, either in his own speech of twenty-one lines (vv. 64–84) or by the narrator, is Jacopo del Cassero, born ca. 1260. “He was among the Guelf leaders who joined the Florentines in their expedition against Arezzo in 1288. He incurred the enmity of Azzo VIII of Este by his opposition to the designs of the latter upon Bologna, of which city Jacopo was Podestà in 1296. In revenge Azzo had him assassinated at Oriaco, between Venice and Padua, while he was on his way (in 1298) to assume the office of Podestà at Milan at the invitation of Maffeo Visconti. He appears to have gone by sea from Fano to Venice, and thence to have proceeded towards Milan by way of Padua; but while he was still among the lagoons, only about eight miles from Venice, he was waylaid and stabbed” (T). Clearly Dante knew that he could count on Jacopo’s renown and on his readers’ fairly wide acquaintance with the details of his life and death. [return to English / Italian]
