Purgatorio (123 page)

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.
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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.
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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”).
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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3.
   The river Ebro in Spain is now beneath the constellation Libra, i.e., it is midnight in Spain.
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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].”
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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 excluded 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.
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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.
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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.
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