Paradiso (103 page)
Authors: Dante
31–33.
Cunizza now identifies herself both as the sister of the “firebrand” and as, in the words of Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 13–15), “recte filia Veneris” (indeed a daughter of Venus). The words she uses to do so might suggest that she dwells permanently in this planet, as Pompeo Venturi (comm. to vv. 32–33) seems to believe. (For a later instance in the canto that seems indeed to indicate that Rahab was “assumed” by Venus, see the note to vv. 119–123.)
It has been difficult for commentators to accept Dante’s salvation of Cunizza. Some show their hostile disbelief (she was, according to Benvenuto [comm. to vv. 31–36], “widely known to be a whore” [
famosa meretrix
], but he goes on to find her youthful conduct excusable [he does not mention her mature amorous adventures]).
Meretrix
was a label affixed to her on a half dozen other occasions (deriving from an unpublished early commentary), while others attempt to put forward the unbelievable claim that she only affected the manner of carnal lovers. For the amply documented list of Cunizza’s various love affairs and marriages, including a famous fling with the poet Sordello during her first marriage, see Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 32–33) and Baranski (Bara.1993.2). (Sordello names himself at
Purg.
VI.74 but is present in the poem during four cantos, until the protagonist goes to sleep at the beginning of Canto IX.) To Daniele Mattalia (comm. to verse 32) she is a modern version of Rahab (but what service she performed for Church or state he does not say); however, Mattalia (comm. to verse 32) is apparently the only commentator before the seventh centenary observations in 1965 to face the question of the relation of the present situation of Cunizza in the afterworld to her eternal one, and he sees that they are different (what Dante would consider a correct view), but he then goes on to make a further distinction unwarranted by the text: She will be in the same rank in the Empyrean as Venus is in the
heavens, that is, “in the third level of merit/happiness (
merito-felicità
).” Again, see the note to vv. 119–123.
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31.
Cunizza’s formulation, once we consider that one sibling is seen by Dante in Hell while the other addresses him from this planet, is surely meant to remind us of the remark of Charles Martel about the differing natures of members of the same family (Esau and Jacob) in the last canto (VIII.130–131).
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34–36.
Cunizza is saying that she no longer begrudges herself her sins because she neither feels the impulse that led to them nor the remorse that followed them (both in the world and in Purgatory), which were washed away by Lethe. See the similar view of Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 25–36), dealing with the notion that Dante is contradicting himself when he presents Cunizza as remembering her sins. Folco will state the proposition a little more clearly than she does in vv. 103–104: “Here we don’t repent, but smile instead, / not at our fault, which comes not back to mind” but at God’s Providence, that foresaw the sin and its redemption. The “common herd” will not understand that she is not wracked by penitential thoughts of her sins.
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37.
Cunizza indicates Folco di Marsiglia, who will follow her in speaking to Dante at verse 82.
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38–42.
Dante would seem to hold to two positions, one “orthodox” in its condemnation of vainglory (see
Purg.
XI.100–102, where fame in the world is but a “gust of wind,” variable and of short durance) and one less so, if still more or less acceptable in a Christian universe, renowned for the performance of good deeds. While the commentators are not of one opinion, it does not seem likely that Dante here is talking about the vain sort of fame, but of the second sort. See the even stronger positive evaluation of such renown in
Paradiso
XVIII.31–33, that enjoyed by the last souls whom Dante observes in the heaven of Mars, those who in the world made such a mark “that any poet’s page would be enriched” by containing their names.
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40.
Most readers take this line as we do, that is, this century marker shall occur five more times before Folco’s fame dies down. There was apparently a tradition, if it is referred to derisively by St. Augustine (
Enarr. Ps
. 6.1), that the history of humankind, from Adam until Judgment Day,
would last 7,000 years. That would, according to Dante’s time line, make human history on this earth extend roughly to the year 1800, since 6,498 years have passed since God formed Adam (see
Par.
XXVI.118–123).
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41.
Aversano (Aver.2000.2), p. 39, contrasts this use of the word
eccellente
with the
eccellenza
of
Purgatorio
XI.87, where it has the clear sense of a need to excel based on pride. Here (if not all the commentators are in accord with this view), it clearly refers to extraordinary goodness, which lives on after one has died, forming a model for others to follow. St. Francis, for example, had exactly this effect on the world, galvanizing countless people to set their lives to doing good.
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43–45.
The current inhabitants of the Marca Trivigiana, its confines traced (to the west) by the Tagliamento and (to the east) by the Adige, although they have been “scourged” by the various tyrants of the region, Ezzelino, his brother Alberigo, and others, have not, according to Cunizza, learned their lesson.
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46–48.
But they shall learn that lesson, one of obedience to Cangrande, insisting on his role as imperial vicar even after the death of Henry VII. Cunizza first foretells the disastrous defeat of the Guelph Paduan army in the fall of 1314 in Vicenza, a Ghibelline city that it had retaken the day before, only to be completely routed in a surprise attack by a small imperial force led by Cangrande. For more on this battle, and the role of Albertino Mussato in it, see the note to vv. 29–30.
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49–51.
Next Cunizza prophesies the brutal death of Rizzardo da Camino, ruler of Treviso (1306–12), murdered in his own palace while playing chess by a peasant wielding a pruning hook. He was married to a daughter of Nino Visconti (see
Purg.
VIII.53) in 1308. Thus Dante would have probably looked with special disfavor on his notorious philandering, which may have been the motivating cause for his murder. As Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this tercet) point out, Dante nods here in the present tenses of the verbs in vv. 50–51: Rizzardo was not ruling the city in 1300, nor was the plot to kill him being hatched in that year.
The presence of Rizzardo here is perhaps intended to remind the reader of the high praise lavished upon his father, captain-general of Treviso (1283–1306), “il buon Gherardo” of
Purgatorio
XVI.124. See also
Convivio
IV.xiv.12, with its praise of Gherardo and mention of the rivers Sile and Cagnano. Thus we have here another of the examples, so dear to
Dante, of the unpredictability of nobility’s being passed on through the seed of a noble father. “Good wombs have borne bad sons” is King Lear’s version of this reflection.
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52–60.
Finally, Cunizza turns her prophetic attention to Feltro (Feltre; see
Inf.
I.105). Alessandro Novello, a Trevisan, was bishop of Feltre (1298–1320). In 1314 he gave three Ferrarese brothers, Ghibellines, refuge in the city, but then turned them over to the Guelphs of Ferrara, who cut their heads off.
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54.
The word
malta
has caused difficulty. Before Petrocchi, most texts capitalized it. (There were at least six prisons in Italy that bore the name Malta.) But it is also possible that Dante meant what Petrocchi thought he did (a generalized sense of “prison”). If, however, he was referring to a particular place, most recent discussants prefer the choice of the prison for ecclesiastics situated in Lake Bolsena.
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61–63.
Cunizza concludes her speech by reminding Dante of the actual location of the angelic order of Thrones, “above,” that is, just below the Cherubim (and thus third from the highest rank, occupied by the Seraphim). For the implicit rebuke to Dante, both here and there, see the note to
Paradiso
VIII.34–39. Edward Peters (Pete.1991.1) points out that Thomas Aquinas associates the order of the Thrones with theologically correct human governance.
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63.
Cunizza is aware that to mortals her three prophecies (vv. 43–60), all of them detailing the just punishment of her “countrymen” from the Marca Trivigiana, may seem cruel, while to the saved they are a cause for further celebration of God’s justice.
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64–66.
As soon as she breaks off her words to Dante (and she has been speaking quite a while, vv. 25–63), she joins her companions in dance and, like them, contemplates God.
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69.
Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 67–69) report that the
balasso
is a ruby found in Asia, in Balascam (today Badakhshan, a region including northeastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan [see Eric Ormsby, “A mind emparadised,”
The New Criterion
26 {Nov. 2007}: 73f.]), according to the thirty-fifth chapter of Marco Polo’s
II milione
.
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70–72.
The meaning is fairly clear: Here in Paradise (
là sù
) a living soul, grown more joyful, becomes more refulgent; on earth (
qui
), a person, made happier, smiles; in Hell (
giù
), a damned soul, caused to feel greater sadness, darkens in its outer aspect. We never actually see such change in
Inferno
. This is another example (cf.
Inf.
XVI.106–108;
Inf.
XX.127–129) of Dante adding details to his descriptions of earlier scenes.
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73–81.
The protagonist’s nine verses indulge in rhetorical flights and playful reproof. For “fancy” rhetoric, consider Dante’s three coinages (vv. 73 and 81), which spectacularly turn pronouns into verbs (“to in-him,” “to in-you,” “to in-me”) at either end of his address to Folco. And then there is his mock impatience with his interlocutor for holding his tongue when Folco can surely see, in God, Dante’s eagerness to know his story. Is this the most “literary” pose we have as yet watched and heard the protagonist assume? Whatever its degree of novelty, it is a delight to observe.
When we look back from
Paradiso
XIV.96, we realize that these were the last words spoken by the protagonist until then. This is by far the longest stretch in the poem in which he remains silent, from here near the end of his stay in Venus, right through his time in the Sun, until just after his arrival in Mars.
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77–78.
It is probably no accident that Dante speaks here of the Seraphim, the highest order of angels and associated with the highest form of affection, spiritual love. Folco was, after all, a poet of carnal love, but one who transformed himself into a better kind of lover when he took orders and then when he became God’s flail for heresy. Starting with Jacopo della Lana (comm. to vv. 73–79) and the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 73–78), the early commentators found biblical sources of the six wings of the Seraphim either in the Apocalypse or in Ezechiel. However, beginning with Lombardi (comm. to vv. 77–78), the consensus had moved to Isaiah 6:2, the only passage specifically naming them in the Bible: “And above [the Lord’s throne] stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he did fly.”
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82–93.
The poet, through the words of Folco, locates the Mediterranean, the second largest sea on the earth’s surface after Oceanus (verse 84), which surrounds all the land on our globe, on the map of Europe. Moving from west to east, Folco makes the Mediterranean extend 90 degrees in latitude, more than twice its length in modern cartography. Folco places his birthplace, the as-yet-unnamed Marseilles, between the Ebro’s mouth
in Spain and that of the Magra, in Italy, which separates Liguria from Tuscany. Nearly sharing the time of both sunrise and sunset, Folco continues, his native city and Bougie (on the North African coast) thus nearly share the same meridian of longitude. This rebus leads a patient reader to his city’s name. Carroll (comm. to vv. 82–92), at least in part to excuse the twelve-verse periphrasis for “I was born in Marseilles,” insists that Folco is looking down, from the epicycle of Venus, with an astronaut’s view of the Mediterranean, and describing what he sees.
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