Purgatorio (99 page)

1–3.
   These words do not, as we might assume, issue from Sapia, but from a new speaker, the dominant presence in this canto. He is Guido del Duca, as we will discover at verse 81 (see note to that verse). His rather salty way of responding to the news (broadcast at
Purg
. XIII.142, when Guido overheard Dante speaking to Sapia) that Dante is here in the flesh, is a man “who can open his eyes at will and shut them,” will turn out to be typical of his bluntness, which finds its foil in the indirect and extremely polite ways of his interlocutor, Rinieri da Calboli. Guido cannot see that Dante can see him (we recall that Dante was sensitive about his favored status in this respect at
Purg
. XIII.73–74) but surmises that, as a living soul, Dante has the ocular power that is taken from all those who are purging their envy on this terrace. This does not make him a source of envy for these souls, but of wonder (see vv. 13–14).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

4–6.
   The second speaker, Rinieri da Calboli (see note to vv. 88–90), a sort of precursor of one of Marcel Proust’s famously overpolite great-aunts, addresses Dante only through his companion, Guido. The characterization of the two respondents to Dante’s presence is reminiscent, in its handling of such dramatically differing personalities, of the representation of character in the colloquy among Dante, Farinata, and Cavalcante in
Inferno
X.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

7.
   We here learn that these are speakers we have not heard before. For a moment it is as though we were as “blind” as the penitents and dependent on what we hear said by the narrator to understand who is involved in this colloquy.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

10–13.
   Sapia (
Purg.
XIII.130) had wanted to know Dante’s identity; his response was to identify himself only as a person who had (at least until now) been prideful in his life. Now Guido (the speaker is not identified, but we safely assume, both from the rotation of speakers and from the forthright quality of his question, that it is he) asks to know both his homeland and his name; Dante will modestly offer only the first piece of information. He has learned, we surmise, something about Pride in his few hours on that terrace.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

14–15.
   Guido’s amazement at Dante’s condition does two things quickly and neatly; it shows that he (and Rinieri) are not envious of his condition and it allows Dante not to have to insist pridefully on his uniqueness, something that Guido has done for him. Once we find out who these two are, we realize that these now fraternal souls were, on earth, a Ghibelline (Guido) and a Guelph (Rinieri). These details may remind us of the far less fraternal interaction between Farinata (a Ghibelline) and Cavalcante (a Guelph) in
Inferno
X.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

16–18.
   The protagonist introduces its controlling image to the canto, the river Arno. Its source is in the Apennines at Mt. Falterona and it then makes its way, as we shall hear, through the Casentino, then the cities of Arezzo, Florence, and Pisa, before it reaches the sea. Giovanna Ioli (Ioli.1989.1), p. 210, points out that the verb
saziare
(slake) introduces the theme of hunger to this description of the Arno. The river seems, in order to satisfy its own appetites, not to extend far enough, despite all the harm its approximately 150 miles (and not Dante’s 100) produces.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

19.
   The protagonist identifies himself as a Tuscan, not as a Florentine. This is perhaps less the result of modesty than the poet’s reflection on his wandering condition in his exile, much of which was to be spent in Tuscany, though not in Florence.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

20–21.
   Dante’s modesty here is gainsaid by his previous inclusion among the great poets of all time in
Inferno
IV.100–102. There are those who claim that in 1300 he had not indeed become particularly famous and that this is the reason for his modesty here. It would rather seem to be that he is keeping in mind the lessons in humility he has just learned on the last terrace. Further, he clearly expects that fame will one day find him. However, the only time his name is used in the
Commedia
it is spoken, not for praise, but in denunciation of his disloyalty by Beatrice (
Purg
. XXX.55).
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

22–24.
   The rhyme word
accarno
, a hapax, derives, as commentators point out, from the word used to describe an animal that has caught another and is biting into its flesh
(carne)
. Guido’s third speech unravels the fairly simple riddle that conceals the river’s name.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

25–27.
   Rinieri once again addresses Guido in order to pose a question for Dante to answer. We can now see that this is the central trait of his personality as explored in this canto. (He only speaks twice, a total of six lines, and yet we feel we know him. We will see his sad expression in vv. 70–72 but he will not speak again.) Guido’s peremptory, forward manner in some ways matches,
in bono
, the Tuscan (western) side of the Apennines, presented as being ferocious; Rinieri’s diffident attitude is perhaps meant to reflect his connection with the good folk (now long gone) from the eastern side of those mountains, in the Romagna.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

28–30.
   Guido’s opening verbal gesture of disdain sets the stage for his serial denunciation of the mountain hamlets and cities of the plain along the Arno. For the resonance of Job 18:17: “Memoria illius pereat de terra” (and may memory of him vanish from the earth) see Tommaseo (1837) on this tercet.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

31–42.
   Guido first indicates the length of the entire river, from the mountain range (the Apennines) “from which Pelorus was broken off” to the sea on the other side of Pisa, where the river deposits its waters to replace that moisture drawn by the sun from the sea and subsequently dropped into the mountains where the Arno has its source. The natural cycle of renewal that typifies the river is not replicated by the inhabitants along it; these go from bad to worse as the river descends. (Compare the descent of the rivers that eventually make up the Po, falling from Lake Garda to the Adriatic Sea in
Inf
. XX.61–81.)

Pelorus, the promontory at the northeast end of Sicily, was believed to have been cut off by the sea (the Strait of Messina) from the southwest end of the Apennine range. Virgil testifies to this phenomenon at
Aeneid
III.410–419.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

37–42.
   The word for “snake,”
biscia
, deployed a third and final time (see also
Purg
. VIII.98 for its use to indicate the serpent in the garden) in the poem, recalls
Inferno
IX.77: the angelic messenger compared to a snake from which frogs flee.

The cause for the immoderate behavior of the valley’s inhabitants, expressed as uncertain (“whether some curse / is on the place or evil habits goad them on”), is eventually explicitly identified as the result of the misapplied freedom of the will (i.e., the second cause alluded to here) by Marco Lombardo (
Purg
. XVI.67–83), as was pointed out, uniquely among the early commentators, by Benvenuto da Imola. All of the Arno-dwellers seem to have been turned to brutes by the sorceress Circe, most particularly those described in the next tercet.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

43–45.
   This porcine part of the Casentino is associated with the Conti Guidi (see note to
Inf
. XXX.58–61) and in particular with the branch of the family that ruled in Porciano, a fortified town near Mt. Falterona along the shallow stream that will grow to become the Arno. Non-Tuscan readers may be surprised at commentators’ certainty about the identities of all the unnamed towns or cities referred to in this part of the diatribe, but Dante counts on a reader familiar with the major points of habitation along the river.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

46–48.
   Next downstream is Arezzo, from which city the river turns sharply away in order to head northwest toward Florence as though it wanted to avoid the nasty “whelps” of Arezzo. Like the Texas rancher who is all hat and no cattle, these little dogs are all snarl or bark and no bite—or so the Ottimo (1333) thought.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

49–51.
   Florence seems to be associated, unsurprisingly, with avarice. (For the wolf as representing avarice see note to
Inf.
VII.8.)
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

52–54.
   If Florence is associated with avarice, Pisa is presented as being full of fraud. Foxes are referred to in two other passages in the poem (
Inf
. XXVII.75: Guido da Montefeltro refers to his former “vulpine” strategies;
Purg
. XXXII.119: a fox, generally understood as heresy, invades the cart of the chariot of the Church).

Pietro di Dante (1340) and Daniello (1568) both think of a passage in Boethius as Dante’s source for the animals in Guido’s outburst. See
De consolatione philosophiae
IV.iii (pr).57–60: “You will say that the man who is driven by avarice to seize what belongs to others is like a wolf; the restless, angry man who spends his life in quarrels you will compare to a dog. The treacherous conspirator who steals by fraud may be likened to a fox;…the man who is sunk in foul lust is trapped in the pleasures of a filthy sow” (trans. Richard Green). (The accompanying poem in Boethius begins with Circe, who turned the companions of Ulysses into animals by means of her poisoned potions.)
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

55–57.
   This passage offers the occasion for a dispute among the commentators: does
altri
refer to Rinieri or to Dante? (According to most early commentators, the former; to most later ones, the latter.) The major problem with the older hypothesis is that one has a hard time seeing what good it can do Rinieri to hear this news (and Guido’s locution points to a potential benefit to his auditor), since he cannot intervene in worldly events, while Guido’s unseen mortal interlocutor still has a life to live back on the earth—indeed in Tuscany—and may profit from this prophetic warning.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

58–66.
   Guido’s prophecy concerns the grandson of Rinieri, Fulcieri da Calboli, “member of the illustrious Guelf family of that name at Forlì; he was Podestà of Florence in 1302/3, after the return of the Neri [the Black Guelphs] through the influence of Charles of Valois, and proved himself a bitter foe of the Bianchi”
(T)
. His enmity was shown not only to White Guelphs but to Ghibellines, as he had leaders of both these parties arrested and tortured and killed.

Fulcieri bargained with his employers (the Black Guelphs) over the fates of his prisoners, thus currying the favor of the Black leaders while shoring up his position as
podestà
; he eventually handed many of the captives over to be put to death by their enemies, selling them like cattle.

The metaphoric reference to Florence as a
trista selva
(wretched wood) in verse 64 may draw our attention back to the second verse of the poem, in which the protagonist discovers himself in a
selva oscura
(dark wood). The language of this tercet also identifies the better days of Florence as Edenic and suggests that the good old days are now gone for a very long time.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

77–80.
   Guido reminds Dante that he has not furnished his own name, but relents upon considering Dante’s special relationship to the Divine plan that is manifest in his mere presence on the mountain in the flesh.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]

81.
   “Guido del Duca, gentleman of Bertinoro, near Forlì, in Romagna, son of Giovanni del Duca of the Onesti family of Ravenna. The earliest mention of Guido occurs in a document dated May 4, 1199, in which he is described as holding the office of judge to the Podestà of Rimini. In 1202, and again in 1204, he is mentioned as playing an important part in the affairs of Romagna, both times in connexion with Pier Traversaro (
Purg
. XIV.98), whose adherent he appears to have been. In 1218, Pier Traversaro, with the help of his Ghibelline friends, and especially of the Mainardi of Bertinoro, made himself master of Ravenna, and expelled the Guelfs from the city. The latter, in revenge, seized Bertinoro, destroyed the houses belonging to the Mainardi, and drove out all Piero’s adherents; among them was Guido del Duca, who at this time apparently, together with his family, betook himself to Ravenna, his father’s native place, and resided there under the protection of Pier Traversaro. Some ten years later (in 1229) Guido’s name appears as witness to a deed at Ravenna; he was alive in 1249….”
(T)
.
[return to
English
/
Italian
]