Mimesis (37 page)

In our passage two of the damned are introduced in the elevated style. Their earthly character is preserved in full force in their places in the beyond. Farinata is as great and proud as ever, and Cavalcante loves the light of the world and his son Guido not less, but in his despair still more passionately, than he did on earth. So God had willed; and so these things stand in the figural realism of Christian tradition. Yet never before has this realism been carried so far; never before—scarcely even in antiquity—has so much art and so much expressive power been employed to produce an almost painfully immediate impression of the earthly reality of human beings. It was precisely the Christian idea of the indestructibility of the entire human individual which made this possible for Dante. And it was precisely
by producing this effect with such power and so much realism that he opened the way for that aspiration toward autonomy which possesses all earthly existence. In the very heart of the other world, he created a world of earthly beings and passions so powerful that it breaks bounds and proclaims its independence. Figure surpasses fulfillment, or more properly: the fulfillment serves to bring out the figure in still more impressive relief. We cannot but admire Farinata and weep with Cavalcante. What actually moves us is not that God has damned them, but that the one is unbroken and the other mourns so heartrendingly for his son and the sweetness of the light. Their horrible situation, their doom, serves only, as it were, as a means of heightening the effect of these completely earthly emotions. Yet it seems to me that the problem with which we are here concerned is not conceived broadly enough if, as has frequently been done, it is formulated exclusively in terms of Dante’s admiration or sympathy for a number of individuals encountered in Hell. The essence of the matter, what we have in mind, is not restricted to Hell nor, on the other hand, to Dante’s admiration or sympathy. All through the poem there are instances in which the effect of the earthly figure and its earthly destiny surpasses or is subserved by the effect produced by its eternal situation. Certainly, the noble souls among the damned, Francesca da Rimini, Farinata, Brunetto Latini, or Pier della Vigna, are also good examples in support of my view; but it seems to me that the emphasis is not where it belongs if only such instances are adduced, for a doctrine of salvation in which the eternal destiny depends upon grace and repentance can no more dispense with such figures in Hell than it can with virtuous pagans in Limbo. But as soon as we ask why Dante was the first who so strongly felt the tragic quality in such figures and expressed it with all the overwhelming power of genius, the field of speculation immediately broadens. For it is with the same power that Dante treats all earthly things of which he laid hold. Cavalcante is not great, and figures like Ciacco the glutton or the insanely irate Filippo Argenti he handles now with sympathetic contempt, now with disgust. Yet that does not prevent the portrayal of earthly passions in these instances from far surpassing, in their wholly individual fulfillment in the beyond, the portrayal of a collective punishment, nor the latter from frequently only heightening the effect of the former. This holds true even of the elect in Purgatory and Paradise. Casella singing one of Dante’s
canzoni
and those who listen to him (
Purg
., 2), Buonconte telling of his death and what became of his body (
Purg
.,
5), Statius kneeling before his master Virgil (
Purg
., 21), the young King of Hungary, Carlo Martello of Anjou, who so charmingly expresses his friendship for Dante (
Par
., 8), Dante’s ancestor Cacciaguida, proud, old-fashioned, and full of the civic history of Florence (
Par
., 15-17), even the Apostle Peter (
Par
., 27), and how many others, open before us a world of earthly-historical life, of earthly deeds, endeavors, feelings, and passions, the like of which the earthly scene itself can hardly produce in such abundance and power. Certainly they are all set fast in God’s order, certainly a great Christian poet has the right to preserve earthly humanity in the beyond, to preserve the figure in its fulfillment and to perfect the one and the other to the best of his capabilities. But Dante’s great art carries the matter so far that the effect becomes earthly, and the listener is all too occupied by the figure in the fulfillment. The beyond becomes a stage for human beings and human passions. Think of the earlier figural forms of art—of the mysteries, of religious sculpture—which never, or at best most timidly, ventured beyond the immediate data supplied by the Bible, which embarked upon the imitation of reality and the individual only for the sake of a livelier dramatization of Biblical themes—think of these and contrast them with Dante who, within the figural pattern, brings to life the whole historical world and, within that, every single human being who crosses his path! To be sure, this is only what was demanded from the first by the Judaeo-Christian interpretation of the phenomenal; that interpretation claims universal validity. But the fullness of life which Dante incorporates into that interpretation is so rich and so strong that its manifestations force their way into the listener’s soul independently of any interpretation. When we hear Cavalcante’s outburst:
non fiere li occhi suoi il dolce lome?
or read the beautiful, gentle, and enchantingly feminine line which Pia de’ Tolomei utters before she asks Dante to remember her on earth (
e riposato de la lunga via, Purg
., 5, 131), we experience an emotion which is concerned with human beings and not directly with the divine order in which they have found their fulfillment. Their eternal position in the divine order is something of which we are only conscious as a setting whose irrevocability can but serve to heighten the effect of their humanity, preserved for us in all its force. The result is a direct experience of life which overwhelms everything else, a comprehension of human realities which spreads as widely and variously as it goes profoundly to the very roots of our emotions, an illumination of man’s
impulses and passions which leads us to share in them without restraint and indeed to admire their variety and their greatness.

And by virtue of this immediate and admiring sympathy with man, the principle, rooted in the divine order, of the indestructibility of the whole historical and individual man turns
against
that order, makes it subservient to its own purposes, and obscures it. The image of man eclipses the image of God. Dante’s work made man’s Christian-figural being a reality, and destroyed it in the very process of realizing it. The tremendous pattern was broken by the overwhelming power of the images it had to contain. The coarse disorderliness which resulted during the later Middle Ages from the farcical realism of the mystery plays is fraught with far less danger to the figural-Christian view of things than the elevated style of such a poet, in whose work men learn to see and know themselves. In this fulfillment, the figure becomes independent: even in Hell there are great souls, and certain souls in Purgatory can for a moment forget the path of purification for the sweetness of a poem, the work of human frailty. And because of the special conditions of man’s self-fulfillment in the beyond, his human reality asserts itself even more strongly, concretely, and specifically than it does, for example, in antique literature. For this self-fulfillment, which comprises the individual’s entire past—objectively as well as in memory—involves ontogenetic history, the history of an individual’s personal growth; the resultant of that growth, it is true, lies before us as a finished product; but in many cases we are given a detailed portrayal of its several phases; it is never entirely withheld from us. More accurately than antique literature was ever able to present it, we are given to see, in the realm of timeless being, the history of man’s inner life and unfolding.

9

FRATE ALBERTO

I
N A FAMOUS NOVELLA
of the
Decameron
(4, 2), Boccaccio tells of a man from Imola whose vice and dishonesty had made him a social outcast in his native town, so that he preferred to leave it. He went to Venice, there became a Franciscan monk and even a priest, called himself Frate Alberto, and managed to attract so much attention by striking penances and pious acts and sermons that he was generally regarded as a godly and trustworthy man. Then one day he tells one of his penitents—a particularly stupid and conceited creature, the wife of a merchant away on a journey—that the angel Gabriel has fallen in love with her beauty and would like to visit her at night. He visits her himself as Gabriel and has his fun with her. This goes on for a while, but in the end it turns out badly. This is what happens:

Pure avenne un giorno che, essendo madonna Lisetta con una sua comare, et insieme di bellezze quistionando, per porre la sua innanzi ad ogni altra, si come colei che poco sale aveva in zucca, disse: Se voi sapeste a cui la mia bellezza piace, in verità voi tacereste dell’altre. La comare vaga d’udire, si come colei che ben la conoscea, disse: Madonna, voi potreste dir vero, ma tuttavia non sappiendo chi questo si sia, altri non si rivolgerebbe così di leggiero. Allora la donna, che piccola levatura avea, disse: Comare, egli non si vuol dire, ma l’intendimento mio è l’agnolo Gabriello, il quale più che sè m’ama, si come la più bella donna, per quello che egli mi dica, che sia nel mondo o in maremma. La comare allora ebbe voglia di ridere, ma pur si tenne per farla più avanti parlare, e disse: In fè di Dio, madonna, se l’agnolo Gabriello è vostro intendimento, e dicevi questo, egli dee ben esser così; ma io non credeva che gli agnoli facesson queste cose. Disse la donna: Comare, voi siete errata; per le piaghe di Dio egli il fa meglio che mio marido; e dicemi che egli si fa anche colassù; ma perciocchè io gli paio più bella che niuna che ne sia in cielo, s’è egli innamorato di me, e viensene a star meco ben spesso: mo vedi vu? La comare partita da madonna Lisetta, le parve mille anni che ella fosse in parte ove ella potesse queste cose ridire; e
ragunatasi ad una festa con una gran brigata di donne, loro ordinatamente raccontò la novella. Queste donne il dissero a’ mariti et ad altre donne; e quelle a quell’ altre, e così in meno di due dì ne fu tutta ripiena Vinegia. Ma tra gli altri, a’ quali questa cosa venne agli orecchi, furono i cognati di lei, li quali, senza alcuna cosa dirle, si posero in cuore di trovare questo agnolo, e di sapere se egli sapesse volare; e più notti stettero in posta. Avvenne che di questo fatto alcuna novelluzza ne venne a frate Alberto agli orecchi, il quale, per riprender la donna, una notte andatovi, appena spogliato s’era, che i cognati di lei, che veduto l’avean venire, furono all’uscio della sua camera per aprirlo. Il che frate Alberto sentendo, e avvisato ciò che era, levatosi, non avendo altro rifugio, aperse una finestra, la qual sopra il maggior canal rispondea, e quindi si gittò nell’aqua. Il fondo v’era grande, et egli sapeva ben notare, si che male alcun non si fece: e notato dall’altra parte del canale, in una casa, che aperta v’era, prestamente se n’entrò, pregando un buono uomo, che dentro v’era, che per l’amor di Dio gli scampasse la vita, sue favole dicendo, perchè quivi a quella ora et ignudo fosse. Il buono uomo mosso a pietà, convenendogli andare a far sue bisogne, nel suo letto il mise, e dissegli che quivi infino alla sua tornata si stesse; e dentro serratolo, andò a fare i fatti suoi. I cognati della donna entrati nella camera trovarono che l’agnolo Gabriello, quivi avendo lasciate l’ali, se n’era volato: di che quasi scornati, grandissima villania dissero alla donna, e lei ultimamente sconsolata lasciarono stare, et a casa lor tornarsi con gli arnesi dell’agnolo.

(However, it chanced one day that Madam Lisetta, being in dispute with a gossip of hers upon the question of female charms, to set her own above all others, said, like a woman who had little wit in her noddle, “An you but knew whom my beauty pleaseth, in truth you would hold your peace of other women.” The other, longing to hear, said, as one who knew her well, “Madam, maybe you say sooth; but knowing not who this may be, one cannot turn about so lightly.” Thereupon quoth Lisetta, who was eath enough to draw, “Gossip, it must go no farther; but he I mean is the angel Gabriel, who loveth me more than himself, as the fairest lady (for that which he telleth me) who is in the world or the Maremma.” The other had a mind to laugh, but contained herself, so she might make Lisetta speak further, and said, “Faith,
madam, an the angel Gabriel be your lover and tell you this, needs must it be so; but methought not the angels did these things.” “Gossip,” answered the lady, “you are mistaken; zounds, he doth what you wot of better than my husband and telleth me they do it also up yonder; but, for that I seem to him fairer than any she in heaven, he hath fallen in love with me and cometh full oft to lie with me; seestow now?” The gossip, to whom it seemed a thousand years till she would be whereas she might repeat these things, took her leave of Madam Lisetta and foregathering at an entertainment with a great company of ladies, orderly recounted to them the whole story. They told it again to their husbands and other ladies, and these to yet others, and so in less than two days Venice was all full of it. Among others to whose ears the thing came were Lisetta’s brothers-in-law, who, without saying aught to her, bethought themselves to find the angel in question and see if he knew how to fly, and to this end they lay several nights in wait for him. As chance would have it, some inkling of the matter came to the ears of Fra Alberto, who accordingly repaired one night to the lady’s house, to reprove her, but hardly had he put off his clothes ere her brothers-in-law, who had seen him come, were at the door of her chamber to open it. Fra Alberto, hearing this and guessing what was to do, started up and having no other resource, opened a window, which gave upon the Grand Canal, and cast himself thence into the water. The canal was deep there and he could swim well, so that he did himself no hurt, but made his way to the opposite bank and hastily entering a house that stood open there, besought a poor man, whom he found within, to save his life for the love of God, telling him a tale of his own fashion, to explain how he came there at that hour and naked. The good man was moved to pity and it behoving him to go do his occasions, he put him in his own bed and bade him abide there against his return; then, locking him in, he went about his affairs. Meanwhile, the lady’s brothers-in-law entered her chamber and found that the angel Gabriel had flown, leaving his wings there; whereupon, seeing themselves baffled, they gave her all manner hard words and ultimately made off to their own house with the angel’s trappings, leaving her disconsolate.)
The Decameron
. Giovanni Boccaccio. Translation by John Payne. The Macy Library edition.