Purgatorio (The Divine Comedy series Book 2)

by Dante

  92. The speaker finally reveals himself as Guido Guinizzelli. “The most illustrious of the Italian poets prior to Dante, he belonged to the family of the Principi of Bologna, in which city he was born ca. 1230. In 1270 he was Podestà of Castelfranco; in 1274, when the Ghibelline Lambertazzi were expelled from Bologna, Guido with the rest of the Principi, who belonged to the same party, was forced to leave his native city; he is said to have died in exile at Verona in 1276” (T). His most famous poem is the canzone “Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore” (“Love always finds shelter in the noble heart”). It sets out the doctrine, embraced by Dante in the fourth treatise of Convivio, that true nobility is not determined by birth but by inner virtue. [return to English / Italian]

  93. Since Guido had died ca. 1276, he has made his way from Ostia in very good time indeed, passing through ante-purgatory and the first six terraces in less than a quarter century. Such speedy passage through purgation is a feature common to all the major figures whom Dante meets on the mountain, one forced on him by his predilection for the recently dead (Statius being the only ancient of note upon the slopes of the mountain allowed a speaking part, while Hugh Capet is the oldest “modern”). However, we have no idea how long any of the souls whom we see will be at their penance (if Statius is a model, a good long time, since he spent more than twelve hundred years purging himself [see note to Purg. XXI.22–24]). We simply have no idea how long Guido must stay in the fire for his lust. Time is not over for any of these sympathetic figures, and the mysteries of penance and redemption leave such concerns unresolved. For all we know, Manfred or Belacqua may finish purgation before Guido does. [return to English / Italian]

  94–96. In a striking example of abbreviatio, Dante boils down a lengthy scene in Statius’s Thebaid (V.499–730) to two lines. The story to which he refers runs roughly as follows. Hypsipyle was daughter of the king of Lemnos, whom she saved from death when the women of the island determined to kill all the males on it. She was subsequently seduced and abandoned by Jason (Inf. XVIII.88–95), by whom she had twin sons, Thoas and Euneus. When the Lemnian women discover that their king is still alive, Hypsipyle flees, and after a misadventure with pirates ends up in the service of the king of Nemea, Lycurgus. While caring for Archemorus, the king’s son, she was approached by the seven exiled warriors marching against Thebes in civil war. Since they were thirsty, she agreed to show them to water (the fountain of Langia—see Purg. XXII.112), but left the baby behind long enough for him to be killed by a snake. Lycurgus would have killed her but for the chance arrival of her twin sons. Once they have quelled the attempt on their mother’s life, they embrace her eagerly, more eagerly than Dante will move to embrace Guido, because he fears the flames. [return to English / Italian]

  97–99. Benvenuto (1380) remembers the reference to Guido’s having been “driven from the nest” at Purgatorio XI.97–99, and that he had been cast forth precisely by Dante. But who are these other poets who wrote (the verb is in the past tense) better poems than Dante? While most commentators simply avoid this problem, those who deal with it tend to favor Guido Cavalcanti and Cino da Pistoia. For the later reappearance of the adjective “sweet,” see verse 112 and note. [return to English / Italian]

  107. Guido, like Bonagiunta, refers to hearing Dante’s voice with the relative clause “ch’i’ odo” (that I hear). See Purgatorio XXIV.57. Both clauses draw attention to the importance that each of these predecessor poets places on listening to the living voice of this extraordinary visitor to their realm. [return to English / Italian]

  109–111. Beginning in these lines, words for truth and for speaking or for writing poetry wend their way through twenty-two lines: ver in vv. 109, 121, 126; dir or its derivative detto (poem) in vv. 111, 112, 119, 130. The conjunction reminds the reader of the importance of the issue of the possibility of poetic truth, given the traditional view that poets are liars. It may be helpful to know that in Dante’s day a poet in the vernacular was known as a dicitore per rima, a “speaker in rhyme.” [return to English / Italian]

  112. For the rarity of Dante’s use of the honorific voi, here given to Guido, see the note at Purgatorio XIX.131.

  If Guido’s poems are dolci (sweet), in what way are they different from those of Dante that are written in the “sweet new style” (Purg. XXIV.57)? This is a question that has had a variety of answers. Some make Guido the first practitioner of the “sweet new style” (which is impossible, in Dante’s view, given his precisions at Purg. XXIV.49–51 that make his own canzone “Donne ch’avete,” written at least ten years after Guido’s death, the first of the “new” poems that constitute the dolce stil novo). The better understanding is that Guido Guinizzelli, Guido Cavalcanti, others among the Tuscans, and surely Dante himself, all wrote in the “sweet style” (the most effective demonstration of this is found in Leonardi [Leon.2001.1]). But what both Guidos, the early Dante, and just about everybody else failed to do was to find the “new style” that Dante developed from his understanding of Guinizzelli’s sweet style of praise, a mode that he took one step further when he developed his own theologized poetics of Beatrice.

  In that he was the first, and had perhaps no more than one companion (Cino da Pistoia, who also wrote “theologically” of Beatrice after her death). This is what the evidence of the texts seems to suggest. In short, Dante honors Guinizzelli for being what he was, as far as the younger poet was concerned, the “father” of the dolce stil novo, but not one of its practitioners. Thus we may understand that a number of poets wrote in the “sweet style,” but hardly any of them achieved the new “sweet style” that is the hallmark of Dante’s praise of Beatrice. In all aspects of this debate, it is essential to remember that we are trying (or should, at any rate, be trying) to negotiate an answer from what Dante said happened, not from what actually happened (or what we imagine actually happened). [return to English / Italian]

  113–114. Dante’s affectionate remark bestows less than it may seem to do, for all his unquestionable admiration of Guido. In Purgatorio XI.97–108 we are told both that this Guido had been eclipsed by Guido Cavalcanti in the public’s esteem and that fame for artistic excellence does not last very long, in any case. In short, “modern custom” is not enduring. As long as such poems (i.e., those in the Italian vernacular) are written, Guido’s will be read; he will have an honored place amongst the vernacular poets. Dante, partly because of his own endeavors on Guido’s behalf, got it right. His praise, however, is not of the order of his praise of Virgil; according to Beatrice his fame will last as long as the world lasts (Inf. II.59–60), a life that even Dante probably thought would be longer than that enjoyed by the Italian vernacular (see Par. XXVI.133–138). For Dante’s relationship to Guido see discussions in Marti (Mart.1966.1), Folena (Fole.1977.1), Moleta (Mole.1980.1), and Barolini (Baro.1984.1), esp. pp. 125–36. [return to English / Italian]

  115–116. Guido now, in a moment of evidently heartfelt humility, insists on Arnaut Daniel’s superiority in the vernacular, but in the vernacular of Provence, an area in the southeast of what is now France; it only came under the official rule of the French kings in 1245.

  “Arnaut Daniel, famous Provençal poet (fl. 1180–1200); but little is known of his life beyond that he belonged to a noble family of Ribeyrac in Périgord, that he spent much of his time at the court of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and that he visited Paris, where he attended the coronation of Philip Augustus, as well as Spain, and perhaps Italy. His works, such as they have been preserved, consist of eighteen lyrical poems, one satirical, the rest amatory” (T).

  Arnaut’s poems are brilliantly difficult, written in the so-called trobar clus (a modern translation could be “hermetic verse”), typified by its harsh tones and challenging phrasing; in other words, he avoids the trobar leu (a more open style, easier and more mellifluous). On Dante’s knowledge and use of Arnaut’s poems see Perugi (Peru.1978.1). For a brief overview in English of Dante’s relations with Provençal poets and poetry see Bergin (Berg.1965.1).
And for a substantial study of Dante’s response to previous modern poets, Provençal and Italian, see Barolini (Baro.1984.1), pp. 85–187. [return to English / Italian]

  117–118. What does it mean to say that Arnaut was “a better craftsman of the mother tongue”? Not, it would appear, that he wrote poems that were better in substance than those of others, but better in style, better made. It is possible that Guinizzelli’s language reflects the claim that lay latent (but clear enough) in some poems of Cavalcanti, who liked to use the image of the file (limo), an instrument used to refine one’s handiwork, to suggest the careful nature of his own poeticizing. Dante here would seem to be, through the testimony of Guinizzelli, taking some of that distinction away from the other Guido and, in a sense, replacing him with Arnaut, a craftsman not only better than he, but better than Cavalcanti, too.

  The “mother tongue” here not only refers to Arnaut’s langue d’oc, his native Provençal, but to any Latin-derived vernacular (see Sordello’s similar remark, addressed to Virgil, at Purg. VII.16–17, which also makes Provençal the child of Latin: “O glory of the Latins … through whom our language showed what it could do”). [return to English / Italian]

  119–120. “Giraut de Borneil, one of the most famous troubadours of his century, born at Essidueil, near Limoges, ca. 1175, died ca. 1220” (T). Dante refers to him a number of times in De vulgari eloquentia and once in Convivio, never slightingly—quite the opposite is true. Hence Dante’s about-face here is dramatic. In De vulgari (II.ii.9) he had made Giraud his own Provençal counterpart: Dante presented himself as the leading poetic celebrant of virtue in Italian, while Giraut was presented in exactly the same role for his language group. [return to English / Italian]

  124–126. “Guittone del Viva, more commonly known as Fra Guittone d’Arezzo, one of the earliest Italian poets, was born ca. 1240 at Santa Firmina, about two miles from Arezzo. But little is known of the details of his life, a great part of which was spent in Florence, where Dante may have known him. About the year 1266 Guittone, who was married and had a family, entered the Order of the Frati Gaudenti [Jovial Friars, see Inf. XXIII.103]. In 1293 he helped to found the monastery of Sta. Maria degli Angeli at Florence, in which city he appears to have died in the following year” (T). Dante, surely unfairly, is getting even, less perhaps with Guittone than with his admirers, who were many (and continue to exist today). It was not enough for him to have Bonagiunta (Purg. XXIV.56) include him, along with himself, among those who failed to come up to Dante’s measure. Now Dante uses the great Guinizzelli (who had indeed come to dislike Guittone’s poetry in reality) to skewer Guittone a second time, and much more harshly. As early as De vulgari eloquentia (e.g., I.xiii.1; II.vi.8), Dante had been deprecating Guittone. One may sense a certain “anxiety of influence” at work here, especially since Guittone did so many of the things that Dante himself took on as his own tasks: love lyrics, moral canzoni, and eventually religious poems.

  On Dante’s rejection of Guittone see Contini (Cont.1976.1), pp. 60–61, the contributions of Gorni, Antonelli, and Mazzoni in the volume devoted to studies of Guittone edited by Picone (Pico.1995.1), and Barolini (Baro.1997.1). [return to English / Italian]

  127–132. Guido’s request speaks now of a better kind of poetry, the Lord’s Prayer, that this other poet can offer in his name in Heaven. He concludes by suggesting an “edit” in the text, namely of that part which speaks of leading not into temptation and delivering from evil (Matthew 6:13; Luke 11:4). Similarly, in Purgatorio XI.19–24 the penitents do sing this part of the text, but only on behalf of their earthly brethren, since it no longer pertains to them. [return to English / Italian]

  133–135. Guido’s departure reminds the reader that those who speak with Dante need to come to the edge of the flame, without leaving it, in order to be visible (see vv. 13–15). His disappearance back into the flames like a fish from the surface of a pond recombines images of fire and water, as did his opening sally to Dante, in which he speaks of his thirst, while he burns in flame, to know of a living man’s reason for being here. [return to English / Italian]

  140–147. That Arnaut’s speech forms a little Provençal poem eight lines in length may reflect, according to Nathaniel Smith (Smit.1980.1), pp. 101–2, the fact that this was generally a favored stanza length for Provençal poets and indeed of six of the eleven Provençal poems cited by Dante in De vulgari eloquentia. Smith also demonstrates that Dante’s pastiche of Provençal lyric is wider than an imitation of Arnaut, and reflects numerous other poems and poets in the lingua d’oc. He also comments on the deliberate “dumbing down” of Dante’s version of Arnaut’s language (recognized by its difficult and elliptical style) in which almost every word of this invented poem has an obvious Italian (or Latin) cognate (pp. 106–7).

  Arnaut, like Guido, is now more interested in salvation than in dazzling the world with verse. These are penitential moments, not ones that encourage thoughts of emulous poetic striving. Giacalone (1968) says it this way: “The poet of the trobar clus, who was ever at the ready to make his poems ‘concealing,’ now at the end conceals himself, but in the penitential fire.” There seems no question but that Dante was staggered by Arnaut’s virtuosity; and surely we were staggered, in turn, by Dante’s perhaps most virtuosic versification, heavily indebted to Arnaut, found in the last cantos of Inferno. But now there is no dwelling on the excellence of poetic technique, but rather on prayer and hopes for the joys of Heaven. Guido’s last words (vv. 92–93), which seem to imply that, unlike Dante, he came to God not in his poetry but even in spite of it, and Arnaut’s Provençal stanza, which also speaks to life rather than to art, are matched by Dante’s own “sweet new style” here, singing of salvation, the subject it took this poet some time to find again after his first attempt in the concluding chapter of his Vita nuova. In this sense Guido’s words about prayer as poem and Arnaut’s poem, which is a request for prayer, posthumously join these two poets to Dante’s new style, a poetry in tune with God. [return to English / Italian]

  PURGATORIO XXVII

  1–5. Dante’s simile here, perfect in form, masks its formal vacuity: “as is the sun in a certain position, so was it then” (e.g., “as a commentator scratches his head in complaint, so did he complain”). Dante enjoys using this sort of comparison. See the note to Inferno XXX.136–141, in which reference is made to the study of this phenomenon (sometimes referred to as “false simile” or as “pseudo-simile”) by Eric Mallin (Mall.1984.1).

  Using his usual four coordinates, each 90 degrees apart from the next (Jerusalem, Spain, India, the antipodes), Dante, like clocks on the wall in an air terminal, tells us the global condition of the time. It is 6 PM now on the mountain. At the start of the cantica a similar passage described dawn (Purg. II.1–9), with the sun’s position, with regard to all these coordinates, 180 degrees distant from where it is now. [return to English / Italian]

  3. The river Ebro in Spain is now beneath the constellation Libra, i.e., it is midnight in Spain. [return to English / Italian]

  6–8. The Angel of Chastity, standing outside the flames along the far edge of the terrace, intones part of the sixth Beatitude (Matthew 5:8), “Blessèd are the clean of heart [for they shall see God].” [return to English / Italian]

  10–12. This angel has a unique function, since he, like the warder at the gate below, supervises a border beyond which purgation is not performed; however, unlike the warder, he functions within the territory of his terrace and his task is not replicated by an angel on any other terrace. He supervises what seems to be a form of final expiation and acceptance that mirrors Christ’s baptism by fire (Matthew 3:11), as promised by John the Baptist: the Lord whom he serves will baptize “with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Absent as far as one can tell from the commentary tradition, this citation was suggested by an undergraduate at Princeton (Joseph Taylor ’70) many years ago. The angel seems to be addressing “blessèd souls” whether in re (Statius) or in potentia (Dante); Virgil, of course, is exclu
ded from blessedness.

  Trucchi (1936) observes that this angel seems to be working in collaboration with a second one (the voice that sings from beyond the fire to draw the finally fully penitent souls to their new lives in grace), so that we find on this terrace, uniquely, two angels. See note to vv. 55–57. [return to English / Italian]

  13–15. Most recent commentators believe that Dante here refers to a corpse being laid in a grave (e.g., “I became so terrified that I looked like a dead man”: Benvenuto’s reading). Others, beginning with Lombardi (1791), argue that this fossa (pit, grave [it can mean either; in its last appearance at Purg. XVIII.121 it meant “grave”]) refers to the deeper and narrower pit that is used to bury a criminal alive and to which Dante has earlier referred (Inf. XIX.46–47). However, this form of punishment, propagginazione, involves suffocating a criminal by covering him with earth after he has been placed upside down in a pit, a posture that does not seem germane to this passage. Perhaps for this reason most (but not all) recent discussants read the line as we do. [return to English / Italian]

  16. Exactly what Dante’s physical posture here is has been variously understood. Bosco/Reggio (1979) review a number of these discussions and make the sensible suggestion that Dante is holding his hands toward the fire, feeling its heat on them and attempting to keep the rest of his body as far as possible from the flame behind those extended hands, while he bends his head toward it, peering into it. Those who argue that Dante has joined his hands do not deal with the fact that the other three times in the Comedy when he uses a form of this past participle of commettere (to commit) it never means “join together,” as most take it to mean here. See Inferno VII.62 and XIX.47, as well as Purgatorio X.57. In other words, he has “committed” his hands to the fire, i.e., stretched them out toward it. [return to English / Italian]