Authors: Dante
106–107.
The metaphorical presentation of time as a (currently unseen) adversary in a duel on horseback captures the feelings of a person surprised by history and now realizing the enormity of his self-deluding former sense of security.
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108.
That is, time saves its heaviest blows for the one who is least aware of its relentless advance. See the similar thought expressed at vv. 23–24.
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109–111.
This tercet sounds a rare (and disingenuous) note of caution on the poet’s part. If he will lose his native city within two years because of his obstinate adherence to telling the truth, should not he then consider mitigating his bitter words in complaint of the human iniquity found in other parts of Italy lest he be denied shelter and support in his exile? Since we have read the poem (which he only imagines writing at this point), we know that he did not succumb to the Siren song of “safety first.” However, and as Carroll suggests (comm. to vv. 106–120), “In those days of the vendetta it is a marvel that a sudden knife in the heart did not send Dante to make actual acquaintance with that invisible world whose secrets he feigned to know.”
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111.
For a source of this verse, Brugnoli (Brug.1995.1), pp. 56–57, cites Ovid,
Tristia
II.207: “Perdiderint cum me duo crimina, carmen et error.…” (Although two crimes, one a poem, one a mistake, shall have brought me to perdition …). This text, highly familiar and certainly most applicable to Dante, is somehow almost entirely lacking from the commentary tradition, appearing only once before, in Boccaccio’s
Vita Ovidii
(in his comm. to the literal sense of
Inf.
IV.90), and never, or so it seems, in the context of Dante’s own exile.
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112–120.
Less an example of
captatio benevolentiae
than a sort of insistence on an inexcusable but necessary rudeness, this passage, recapitulating the journey until here and now, the midpoint of the third “kingdom,” seeks our acceptance of the poet’s revealing the harsh things that he has learned in Hell, Purgatory, and the first five of the heavens. While he might have won the goodwill of some of us by gilding the lily, as it were, he would have lost his claim on the rest of us (we do indeed call Dante’s time “ancient,” do we not?). For we want truth in our poetry, not blandishment.
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118.
Beginning with Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), the Aristotelian provenance of this gesture has been amply noted (the beginning of the
Ethics
[I.4]): “For friends and truth are both dear to us, but it is a sacred duty to prefer the truth.” Dante himself has quoted or referred to this
dictum
on at least three occasions (
Conv
. IV.viii.13;
Mon
. III.i.3;
Epist
. XI.11). Cf. also the frequently cited Aristotelian tag, “Assuredly, I am Plato’s friend, but I am still more a friend to truth.”
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119.
Brunetto had taught him how to make himself immortal, “come l’uom s’etterna” (
Inf.
XV.85). It is not, we can assume, by flattering one’s hosts. Brunetto seems to have been on Dante’s mind in this context; see the note to verses 121–122.
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121–122.
Cacciaguida’s shining presence is verbally reminiscent of the identical phrasing found in
Inferno
XV.119, where Brunetto refers to his own work (for the question of exactly which work, whether
Tresor
or
Tesoretto
, see the note to
Inf.
XV.119, and Hollander [Holl.1992.2], p. 228, n. 82) as
il mio Tesoro
, the same words that we find here, used of Cacciaguida. Are we perhaps to believe that, for Dante, Cacciaguida is a better, truer “father” than Brunetto? See Quinones (Quin.1979.1), pp. 174–76, and Ordiway (Ordi.1990.1) on Brunetto’s replacement by Cacciaguida.
This is the sixth appearance (of seven) in the poem of the word
tesoro
. It first appeared in
Inferno
XV.119 (where Brunetto Latini alludes to his book of that title); then in
Inferno
XIX.90 (where Christ wants no “treasure” from Peter in compensation for the spiritual gifts He bestows upon him [as opposed to Simon Magus, who wants to acquire such gifts for a price]). In the first canto of the last canticle (
Par.
I.11), the poet refers to
the “treasure” of God’s kingdom that he has been able to store in his memory; the word is then found in
Paradiso
V.29 (where it refers to God’s greatest gift to humankind, the freedom of our will); X.108 (representing the worldly goods that Peter Lombard renounced in order to follow Christ); and finally in XXIII.133 (designating the treasure in heaven of Matthew 6:20 [and/or 19:21], as Tommaseo [comm. to vv. 133–135] was apparently the first commentator to observe). That last reference eventually colors all that precedes it. In the final reckoning, worldly treasure is measured against this sole standard. And thus the word
tesoro
, which begins its course through the poem as the title for one of Brunetto Latini’s works (by which he hopes to have achieved “immortality” in the world, a contradiction in terms), is examined and reexamined in such ways as to suggest either the desirability of renunciation of earthly “treasure” or the preferability of its heavenly counterpart, that “treasure in Heaven” that we may discover through the exercise of God’s greatest gift to us, our true treasure here on earth, the free will, in our attempt to gain a better (and eternal) reward.
The poet’s clear enthusiasm for his ancestor’s noble sacrifice at least casts into doubt the central thesis of Brenda Deen Schildgen’s article (Schi.1998.1) and book (Schi.2002.1), namely, that Dante did not promote crusading in the Holy Land, a position that may have the advantage of having a certain vogue among those who find crusading distasteful, but no other.
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124–135.
Cacciaguida admits that Dante’s truth-telling will hurt all those who either themselves have given offense or who bear the sins of their relations on their consciences, but encourages him to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
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127–129.
This tercet contains terms that have a possible relevance to Dante’s sense of his own poeticizing. First, there is
menzogna
(a reference to the
bella menzogna
[beautiful lie] that represents a kind of poetry, as in
Conv
. II.i.3). Next we come upon the term
visione
(see
Par.
XXXIII.62), a kind of writing distinguished by being (or by claiming to be) literally true. This lofty word has barely ceased resonating when Dante descends the stylistic ladder to perhaps the lowest level of the vernacular that we encounter in this canticle,
grattar dov’ è la rogna
(scratch where it itches). In three lines he puts forward what the poem is not (a tissue of lies, a “mere” fiction), what it is (an inspired vision), and what style its author insists that he employs (the comic, or low vernacular, style). See the notes to
Inferno
XX.I–3, XX.106–114, and XX.130;
Purgatorio
IX.34–42 and XXX.21; and
Paradiso
I.20–21.
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130–132.
While few of the commentators suggest a source for this tercet, Pietro di Dante is a rare early exception (comm. to vv. 127–132 [only in his first redaction]). He cites, after various other potential sources, the text that alone has had a “career” among Dante’s commentators to this passage, Boethius (
Cons. Phil
. III.1[pr]), a citation only recurring nearly five centuries later in Campi (comm. to this tercet). In the first half of the twentieth century it is found in Grandgent (comm. to this tercet) and in Scartazzini/Vandelli (comm. to verse 132). Porena (comm. to verse 132) also cites it, but sees a possible problem with its pertinence to Dante’s context. However, it currently enjoys a certain stability, finding its way to most recent commentaries. Boethius’s text reads: “Talia sunt quae restant, ut degustata quidem mordeant, interius autem recepta dulcescant” (You will find what I have yet to say bitter to the taste, but, once you have digested it, it will seem sweet [tr. R. Green]). However, there is no instance of a commentator referring to a biblical text (a close neighbor of one that may have been on Dante’s mind only shortly before [see the note to vv. 91–93]), one found in John’s Revelation (Apocalypse 10:9 [repeated nearly verbatim in 10:10]), where the angel is addressing the apostle: “Accipe librum, et devora illum: et faciet amaricari ventrem tuum, sed in ore tuo erit dulce tanquam mel” (Take the book and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey).
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133–142.
Cacciaguida’s concluding ten lines (and he will speak only nine more as he leaves the poem in the next canto, vv. 28–36) establish, if not the
ars poetica
of this poem, then its mode of employing
exempla
for our moral instruction. This passage has caused no little confusion, especially three elements contained in it. (1) Some commentators seem to assume that it is only concerned with those in Hell; (2) others think that the poem ennobles its subjects (rather than the obverse); and (3) still others object that not all the populace of the afterworld seen by Dante may be considered famous. The first two problems are easily dealt with, for it is obvious that the poet means to indicate the famous dead in all three canticles and also that the honor accrues to the poem (one that eschews the commonplace for the extraordinary) rather than to its subjects. As for the third, one example of this complaint will suffice. Singleton (comm. to verse 138) argues that this claim cannot be taken as literally true, since there are many
“unknown characters” found in the cast of the
Comedy
. “One has only to think,” he says, “of the riff-raff, generally, of the eighth circle of
Inferno
.” However, those crowds of “extras” do not count in Dante’s scheme of things; those who are
named
are famous (or were, in Dante’s time at least, better known than they are in ours).
There is one other problem of literal understanding that is as present today as it has always been, perhaps because it has never been treated, since readers do not see that it is problematic and simply assume that they understand what is meant. The word
cima
can mean various things (see the note to
Purg.
XI.91–93), but here it refers either to mountaintops (as we believe it does) or treetops (as it apparently does for most readers). The general sense is clear enough: Exemplary figures and clear arguments are both required to convince a reader.
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133–134.
The metaphors and similetic comparisons (the poem is a “cry,” equated with the wind; its human subjects, metaphorically mountain peaks [or, according to not a few, treetops]) now make the poem lofty, that is, “tragic” in its stylistic reach. See the note to vv. 127–129. If there the author insisted on the comic essence of his work, he now insists equally vehemently on its tragic (or stylistically lofty) dimension.
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139.
The reader notes that Dante does not here imagine people reading his poem, but hearing it being read.
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142.
The poet surely forgets what he has
not
said at vv. 92–93. If ever there existed a “proof that remains obscure,” that lacuna qualifies.
This canto, with its lavish praise of Cangrande, may be thought of as Dante’s farewell to Verona, written between 1317 and 1318 according to Petrocchi (Petr.1988.2), pp. 335, 337. For the question, still somewhat vexed, of the exact date of Dante’s arrival in Ravenna (we assume soon after he left Verona), see Eugenio Chiarini, “Ravenna,”
ED
(IV [1973]), pp. 861–64.
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1–3.
This is a more difficult tercet than it may seem. The standard view in the first commentators is that Cacciaguida was delighting in what he had said to his great-great-grandson, while the protagonist was sharing in that joy. Scartazzini (comm. to verse 1) disentangles the tortuous skein of debate over this line, pointing out that the text suggests that each of the two participants contemplates different “words.” He offers what has become the standard modern view: The word
verbo
must here be understood as a translation of the Scholastic Latin term
verbum
(e.g., as defined by Thomas Aquinas,
ST
I, q. 34, a. 1), meaning “concept of the inner mind.” Thus, we at least may conjecture, Cacciaguida was enjoying his understanding, beyond these contingent events, of a higher form of being, in the light of Eternity, while Dante was seeing,
sub specie humanitatis
, the harmonious relation of his exile to his eventual happiness. This would mark an improvement in his cognition (seeing eventual concord where he was expecting only grief), which, nonetheless, remained limited by his mortal aspirations. To mark the differences in their levels of experience, as Torraca (comm. to this tercet) observes, Dante uses very different verbs: Cacciaguida savors (
godeva
) completely his inner concept of deity, while the protagonist has but a first taste (
gustava
) of his own higher awareness.
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