Authors: Dante
130–148.
Cacciaguida’s self-narrative, the longest in
Paradiso
, nonetheless seems brief when compared to some of the epic autobiographical performances of characters in
Inferno
, e.g., Ulysses (53 lines), Ugolino (72 lines). For discussion of the nature of speeches in
Paradiso
, see the fourth section of the introduction.
For a global study of these three
canti
dedicated to Dante’s ancestor, see Figurelli (Figu.1965.1).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
130–132.
This
terzina
repeats a theme that we have encountered before (the “good old days”), but does so with such emphasis and fluidity (both lines are enjambed, so that the entire tercet has the feeling of a single line of thought, with four iterations of the adverb
così
upping the emotional effect), as to leave us in suspense, wondering about the subject and predicate that it introduces.
Dante’s radical notion of the responsibility of the citizen, based on ethics more than on politics, may have been shaped by the “radical corporationalism” of Remigio de’ Girolami; the characterization is that of Ernst Kantorowicz (Kant. 1957.1), p. 478, cited by Claire Honess (Hone.1997.2), p. 104. For an overview of the still underinvestigated question of Remigio’s possible influence on Dante, with bibliography (including three important essays in English by Charles Till Davis), see Ovidio Capitani, “Girolami, Remigio dei,”
ED
III (1971).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
133–135.
The first three words of the line offer subject, verb, and object: “Mary gave me.” The tercet is based on the moments of birth and baptism, the crusader’s mother calling out for the aid of Mary in the pain of parturition and the ceremonial pronouncing of the child’s name at his
baptism (in the Florentine Baptistery, where Dante himself would also receive his Christian identity and name); the last word of the tercet, reflecting its first word, also a name (Maria), is Cacciaguida. (He has delayed Dante’s gratification for some time now; Dante asked to know who he was at verse 87.)
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
136.
Cacciaguida now names his brothers, Moronto and Eliseo, of whom we know absolutely nothing. There has been some dispute over the years about the exact content of the line and some speculation that Dante means to associate himself with the great Florentine Ghibelline family, the Elisei, but with no convincing result to the process.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
137–138.
Cacciaguida’s wife came, he says, from the valley of the Po (over the years, Ferrara remains perhaps the favorite location among the discussants, but, since there is a lot at stake [as, for some Americans, there is with regard to George Washington’s dining and sleeping habits], the debate goes on). It was from her, he continues, that Dante got his surname, Alaghieri or Alighieri. Since one of her and Cacciaguida’s sons was named Alighiero, it seems more than likely that he was named for his mother.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
139–144.
He follows the emperor, Conrad III, on the (disastrous) Second Crusade (in 1147) against Islam, against which the popes even now in Dante’s day fail to take up arms (not even
preaching
crusade, much less fighting one). There still remains some debate over the question of which emperor Dante really means, Conrad II or III. But see Carroll (comm. to vv. 130–148): “Some doubt has been thrown on the commonly accepted view that the Emperor whom Cacciaguida followed to the Crusades was Conrad III of Suabia, but without reason. Founding on a passage in Villani (IV.9), Cassini suggests Conrad II, the Salic, who was Emperor from 1024 to 1039. According to Villani, this Emperor (whom he calls Conrad I and misdates) visited Florence frequently and knighted many of its citizens. The only crusade he undertook was against the Saracens in Calabria, so that on this view Cacciaguida never was in the Holy Land, and his birth must be pushed back at least a century before the generally received time. It is obviously impossible that he could in that case be the father of the Alighiero whom he calls his son, who died more than a hundred and sixty years later. There is no reason for giving up the ordinary view that the Emperor referred to is Conrad III, who in 1147, with Louis VII of France, undertook the disastrous Second Crusade, so enthusiastically preached by
St. Bernard of Clairvaux. (Bernard’s defence for the failure of this Crusade which roused all Europe against him is that it was due to the sins of the Crusaders themselves. They fell as the Israelites fell in the wilderness, and from the same cause. His remedy is—faith and a third Crusade [
De Consideratione
, II.1].)”
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
145–148.
He died in the Holy Land and came from martyrdom to this peace (cf. the words for Boethius’s similar journey,
Par.
X.128–129). While some twentieth-century commentators seem to be open to the idea, no one before Chimenz (comm. to vv. 145–148) states clearly that the text surely accommodates the view of medieval clergy that those who died on crusade in the Holy Land went straight to Heaven, bypassing Purgatory.
Botterill’s entry “Martyrdom” (Lans.2000.1, p. 596) offers reflections on Dante’s daring in making Cacciaguida one among the otherwise canonical martyrs of the Church.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
1–9.
Dante, in the course of celebrating his noble birthright, uses the occasion to condemn any such self-aggrandizing sentiments. The appeal of noble bloodlines is so great, the poet explains, that he took pride in his ancestry even now in the heavens, where he assuredly should have known better. For a meditation on the problematical nature of Dante’s ideas about nobility, see Borsellino (Bors.1995.1), pp. 39–41.
Boethius (
Cons
. III.6[pr]) proclaims the emptiness of a noble name in a passage also probably echoed by Dante in
Convivio
(IV.xx.5). See also
Monarchia
(II.iii.4), words that sound much like Francesco da Buti’s gloss to these verses, citing Boethius in distinguishing nobility of soul from “corporeal” nobility (i.e., that established by bloodline).
Where at the close of Canto XIV Dante claims that he was not wrong in not praising Beatrice there, here he states that it was wrong indeed to feel himself glorified in his ancestry.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
7–9.
This apostrophe of nobility of blood employs a metaphor, in which the mantle (or cloak) of nobility of blood grows shorter each generation that fails to ornament its reputation by earning further genuine honors (as did Cacciaguida, dying a martyr’s death on crusade).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
10–12.
Dante, finally knowing who it is whom he addresses, used the honorific
voi
to hail his ancestor, the “You” that was first given to Julius Caesar, according to Lucan (
Phars
. V.383–386), but is now little used by the contemporary Romans, descended into a state approaching barbarism in Dante’s eyes (see
Dve
I.xi.2). (Perhaps the first to observe the Lucanian source was Pietro di Dante [comm. to this tercet].) Lucan, prompted by his hatred of Julius (and of Nero, for whom Julius occasionally stands in), has invented this particular in his True History of Authoritarian Language, a fabrication that eventually came to light. According to him, since Julius, assuming his role as dictator, also assumed the many roles of those Romans who had previously held positions of responsibility in republican Rome, he needed to be addressed in a way that represented the plurality of his roles. Gabriele (comm. to verse 10) was perhaps the first to express some doubt about Lucan’s observation; Lombardi spiked it through the heart (comm. to vv. 10–15). The “honorific You” actually came into use, explains Scartazzini (comm. to verse 10), only in the third century.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
13–15.
This tercet returns to a scene that had been focal to the pivotal moment in the adulterous passion between Francesca and Paolo in
Inferno
V, the kiss exchanged by Lancelot and Guinevere in the twelfth-century Old French prose romance
Lancelot du lac
. “During [Gallehault’s] residence at King Arthur’s court a warm friendship sprang up between him and Lancelot, who confided to him his love for Queen Guenever. The latter, who secretly loved Lancelot, was easily persuaded by Gallehault to meet the knight privately. In the course of the interview Gallehault urged the queen to give Lancelot a kiss, which was the beginning of their guilty love.… [Dante here] alludes to the cough given by the Lady of Malehault, one of the queen’s companions, on perceiving the familiarity between them (she herself being in love with Lancelot, who was aware of the fact, and was in great anxiety lest it should injure him with the queen)”
(T)
. Umberto Carpi (Carp.2004.1), vol. I, pp. 24–25 and 256, refines the general appreciation of the reference, pointing out (and crediting Pietro Beltrami for the observation leading to his insight) that Guinevere’s handmaid did not cough when the queen and Lancelot kissed, but before that, when she revealed to her admirer that she was aware of his name and of his lofty lineage. Her words cause the lady-in-waiting to cough as a way of informing Lancelot that
she
finally knows his identity and nobility of blood. Thus Beatrice, hearing Dante’s response to his own genealogical distinction, the
voi
with which he addresses his ancestor, smiles in knowing response to that. That she does so as a warning against such pride seems clear, even if some commentators insist on a friendlier, less critical attitude at this height in the heavens.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
16–18.
The poet again contorts the order of events for his narrative purposes; the words that the protagonist speaks
precede
, naturally, Beatrice’s reaction to them (vv. 13–15). Indeed, we may realize that the preceding
terzina
(vv. 10–12) also reflects what he has said just now.
These three parallel uses of the honorific
voi
for Cacciaguida, emotive anaphora (see Francesca’s
Amor … Amor … Amor
in
Inf.
V.100–106), offer an outpouring of ancestral affection, but more than tinged with vainglory, the sin we saw corrected on the terrace of Pride in Purgatory.
This program (of honorific address uttered by the protagonist) began in
Inferno
X, with Farinata and Cavalcante. It had one more appearance in the first
cantica
, with Brunetto Latini. In
Purgatorio
, Currado Malaspina, Pope Adrian V, Guinizzelli, and Beatrice all received the respectful
voi
in salutation. In this concluding canticle, Beatrice receives it three times (
Par.
IV.122–134), and Cacciaguida also three times, all in this tercet, in a final
“explosion” that lays it to rest. (See the notes to
Inf.
X.49–51 and to
Purg.
XIX.131; also to
Par.
XXXI.79–90.)
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
16.
The protagonist addresses seven beings as “father” in the poem: first of all Virgil, a total of seven times (between
Purg.
IV.44 and XXIII.13); then God (in the guise of Apollo) in
Paradiso
I.28; Cacciaguida (here and in
Par.
XVII.106); St. Benedict (
Par.
XXII.58); St. Peter (
Par.
XXIV.62 and XXIV.124); Adam (
Par.
XXVI.92); and finally St. Bernard (
Par.
XXXII.100). Dante the poet refers to five others as being his “fathers”: Brunetto Latini (
Inf.
XV.83); Cato (
Purg.
I.33); Guido Guinizzelli (
Purg.
XXVI.97); St. Francis (
Par.
XI.85); and the Sun (
Par.
XXII.116).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
17.
For
baldezza
(here translated “bold assurance”), see Vallone (Vall.1967.1).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
19.
These “rivers” are, resolved from metaphor, the sources of the protagonist’s pleasure in the knowledge of his lineage and in his election to join Cacciaguida among the saved souls here and, eventually, in the Empyrean.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
22–27.
The protagonist wants to know (1) the root of his roots, as it were; (2) about the times in Florence when Cacciaguida was a youth; (3) the number of inhabitants in the city in those days; and (4) the best people in the city then. His first question is reminiscent of Farinata’s to him (
Inf.
X.42), “Chi fuor li maggior tui?” (Who were your ancestors?).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]
28–32.
This simile, at least from the time of Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 28–33), has been recognized as Ovidian in provenance, reflecting the similar comparison (
Metam.
VII.79–81) describing Medea’s renewed infatuation with Jason. It seems odd that, for a description of Cacciaguida’s rekindled affection for his great-great-grandson, Dante should resort to Ovid’s description of Medea’s reignited passion for the handsome youth who will, as she almost fully realizes, betray her. (Dante had previously visited a part of this long passage dedicated to Medea and Jason [VII.1–403] in
Par.
II.16–18. For the “rewriting” of Ovid involved in that tercet, see the note to
Par.
II.17–18.)
[return to
English
/
Italian
]