INFERNO X
INFERNO X
1–2. The path is “hidden” because it lies between the walls of Dis and the sepulchres. See Aen. VI.443, the “secreti calles” that lead into the Lugentes Campi (Fields of Mourning) where Aeneas encounters the mournful spirit of Dido. [return to English / Italian]
5. Dante is apparently alluding to the new direction, to the right, in which Virgil now is leading him. [return to English / Italian]
8–9. The image of the uncovered tombs and the reference to “guards,” as Durling and Martinez point out in their commentary (Durl.1996.1), suggest details of the scene surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. The actual position of the covering slabs of these funeral monuments is not clear. The passage in Inf. XI.6 would make it appear that they may be propped against the sides of the tombs, as Durling and Martinez suggest. [return to English / Italian]
11. Jehosaphat is the valley in Palestine in which, according to Joel (3:2), all will gather for the Last Judgment. [return to English / Italian]
14–15. “Epicurus, celebrated Greek philosopher, B.C. 342–270; he started at Athens the philosophic school called after him, which taught that the summum bonum, or highest good, is happiness—not sensual enjoyment, but peace of mind, as the result of the cultivation of the virtues. He held that virtue was to be practiced because it led to happiness, whereas the Stoics held that virtue should be cultivated for its own sake” (T). While in the Convivio (IV.vi.11–12) Dante defines Epicureanism as the pleasure principle without speaking of it as specifically heretical, here he falls in with a more stringent Christian view, perhaps echoing St. Paul who, in I Cor. 15:32, cites the standard tag for Epicureanism, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” as the unworthy countering view to the Resurrection. It is in keeping with this attitude that Dante presents “Epicureans” as those who deny the immortality of the soul. [return to English / Italian]
18. See the wish expressed by Dante in vv. 6–8, above, which Virgil realizes hides Dante’s real desire: he hopes to see, now that he is among “the blacker souls” where Ciacco had said he would find Farinata and four other Florentines (Inf. VI.85), some or one of these, and perhaps the first he there named, Farinata. [return to English / Italian]
22–24. The speaker is Farinata degh Uberti, born in Florence at the turn of the thirteenth century, and by mid-century the head of the Ghibelline faction. Having expelled the Guelphs from the city in 1248, the Ghibellines were themselves expelled in 1258, but, led by Farinata, took revenge quickly at the battle of Montaperti in 1260, at which they utterly routed the Florentine Guelphs and their allies. Subsequently the Ghibellines gathered in council at Empoli, where it was proposed that Florence should be destroyed, to general acclaim. Farinata was the unyielding force of opposition and eventually won the day, saying that he would fight alone with sword in hand to prevent this outcome. The Florentines did not show great appreciation of his acts and never made any exception for his family in their dealings with the various eventual Ghibelline exiles. Farinata died in Florence in 1264. For bibliography on his significance to Dante see Cassell (Cass.1984.1), p. 117. [return to English / Italian]
25. Ever since Guido da Pisa (1328?) commentators have, from time to time, noted the echo here of the words of the bystanders who heard Peter deny his knowledge of Christ a second time; surely, they say, you are one of his followers from Galilee, for your speech makes you plainly so (“loquela tua manifestum te facit”—Matth. 26:73). [return to English / Italian]
27. Against the more usual understanding, that Farinata’s “forse” (perhaps) reveals regret at his harshness against his fellow citizens at the battle of Montaperti, consider the judgment of Cassell (Cass.1984.1), p. 19: Farinata displays “the false modesty of gloating understatement.” [return to English / Italian]
32. Farinata, who did not believe in Christ’s resurrection, here replays it, as it were, rising from his tomb, at this instant making his punishment clearly fit his crime. See Convivio II.viii.8 for Dante’s own outcry against such failure of belief: “I say that of all the follies the most foolish, the basest, and the most pernicious is the belief that beyond this life there is no other” (tr. Lansing). [return to English / Italian]
33. As Durling (Durl.1981.2, pp. 11–14) and Cassell (Cass.1984.1, pp. 24–26) independently discovered, Farinata rises from his tomb in imitation of the “Man of Sorrows” (see Isaiah 53:3: virum dolorum), that image (the so-called imago pietatis) of Jesus rising from the tomb, naked, showing the signs of his torture, not yet having taken on majesty. [return to English / Italian]
35. That the features of Farinata upon which Dante fastens are his chest and brow underlines his prideful nature. And pride, which we have seen behind the sinful actions of such as Filippo Argenti in Canto VIII, the “root sin” that stands behind so much human failure in the eyes of Dante’s Church, is easily understood as a root of heresy, the stiff-necked refusal to believe what has been given as manifest by Christ and his Church. [return to English / Italian]
42. Farinata’s words reveal his pride in familial background. He is an Uberti and a Ghibelline; let all others tremble before him. [return to English / Italian]
45. Dante’s self-identification as minor nobility and a Guelph does not much impress Farinata, who raises his eyebrows—another sign of his pridefulness. See Inf. XXXIV.35, where Satan is described as having raised his brows against God. [return to English / Italian]
46–48. Farinata now wins the second round of his little battle with Dante: yes, he knows Dante’s people, and twice over has sent them into exile (1248 and 1260). This canto’s scenes play out against a series of dates spread over the second half of the thirteenth century in Florence: 1248, expulsion of the Guelphs; 1258, expulsion of the Ghibellines; 1260, Montaperti and the second expulsion of the Guelphs; 1264, death of Farinata; 1266, defeat of Manfred and the imperial forces at the battle of Benevento and banishment of the Uberti family; 1280, death of Cavalcante the elder; 1289, battle of Campaldino, another Guelph triumph (in which Dante took part); 1290, death of Beatrice; 1300, death of Guido Cavalcanti; 1302, exile of Dante Alighieri. [return to English / Italian]
49–51. But now the belittled Guelph bites back: our family was twice exiled and came back home twice; yours has not done quite so well (since the Uberti have remained in exile since the aftermath of the battle of Benevento in 1266).
The reader may note that the adjective “Yours” in v. 51 is capitalized. We have followed the practice of capitalizing the English translation of the respectful plural form of words for the singular “you,” so as to alert the reader to their use in Dante’s Italian. Three Florentines are the only ones to receive this treatment in hell: Farinata and Cavalcante here, and Brunetto Latini in Canto XV, the last of these the father of a poet and a poet, respectively. [return to English / Italian]
52–54. The interruption of the discourse between Dante and Farinata will last for seven tercets, until Farinata, “on hold” while this other drama is played out, will continue the conversation as though there had been no interruption to it.
The far less imposing figure who rises out of the same tomb alongside Farinata, Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti (died ca. 1280), was a wealthy Florentine Guelph and the father of Dante’s former “first friend” (see VN III.14, XXIV.6, XXX.3), Guido Cavalcanti. Since Guido was alive at the imagined date of Dante’s journey, he cannot be found in the afterworld. However, his reputation as a “materialist” makes it seem at least likely that Dante was certain that this aristocratic and independent-minded poet and thinker was coming right here to join his father. It is not accidental that the entire conversation between the father and his son’s former friend concerns that son. If Farinata believes in family and party, Cavalcante is the archetypal doting father. Their portraits, showing them in such different lights, are perhaps the finest example we have of such close, contrastive “portraiture” in verse since the classical era. See the study of Erich Auerbach (Auer.1957.1).
One of the finest lyric poets of his time, Guido Cavalcanti was from six to ten years older than Dante. He was married by his family to a woman named Beatrice, in fact the daughter of Farinata. In other words, these two heretical Florentines, Guido’s father, Cavalcante, and Farinata, are in-laws; it is notable that, divided by party loyalty as they are, they do not speak to one another. Guido was an ardent Guelph, siding with the Whites (Dante’s party also) when the Guelphs divided into two factions. He had a street brawl with the leader of the Black Guelphs, Corso Donati, who had once tried to kill him. “In the summer of 1300, during Dante’s priorate (June 15–Aug. 15), it was decided (June 24), in order to put an end to the disturbances caused by the continued hostilities between the two factions, to banish the leaders of both sides,…among those who approved this decision being Dante, in his capacity as Prior. It thus came about that Dante was instrumental in sending his own friend into exile, and, as it proved, to his death; for though the exiles were recalled very shortly after the expiry of Dante’s term of office (Aug. 15), so that Guido only spent a few weeks at Sarzana, he never recovered from the effects of the malarious climate of the place, and died in Florence at the end of August in that same year; he was buried in the cemetery of Santa Reparata on Aug. 29 …” (T). One might wish to consider the fact that Farinata the Ghibelline and Guido the Guelph had been banished by the priors of Florence, Farinata in 1258, Cavalcanti in 1300. And mindful of the afterlives of these two exiles is the exiled Dante Alighieri, former prior, now himself exiled by the priors of the city. [return to English / Italian]
58. Dante’s phrase, “cieco carcere” (dark prison), has long been considered an echo of the same words in Virgil’s Latin, carcere caeco, at Aen. VI.734. [return to English / Italian]
59. The phrase “per altezza d’ingegno” (by virtue of your lofty genius) is clearly meant to remind us of the similar phrase we heard in Dante’s first invocation: “O Muse, o alto ingegno” (O Muses, O lofty genius—Inf. II.7). However, how we are to interpret the resemblance is not easily resolved. Those who believe that in the first passage Dante was invoking his own poetic powers see in Cavalcanti’s doting father’s reaction a simple sense of rivalry: which of these two poets is more gifted? If, on the other hand, we believe that Dante, in the invocation, calls for aid from a Higher Power (see note to Inf. II.7–9), then the father’s question indicates that he doesn’t understand, materialist that he is, the nature of true Christian poetic inspiration. His son’s genius and that inspiring Dante are not commensurable. [return to English / Italian]
60. Cavalcanti’s mournful question about his son’s whereabouts has put some commentators (perhaps the first was Daniello, in 1568) in mind of Andromache’s equally mournful question about the whereabouts of her husband Hector, “Hector ubi est?” (Where is Hector?—Aen. IV.312). But see Durling (Durl.1981.2), p. 25n., arguing for the resonance of Genesis 4:9: “Ubi est Abel frater tuus?” (Where is Abel your brother?) Durling points out that both these “fratricidal” stories culminate in an exile, Cain sent forth from the land a fugitive (Gen. 4:12–16), while Guido was literally sent into exile by the action of Dante and the five other priors of Florence. [return to English / Italian]
61. Dante’s words may reflect the Gospel of John (8:28) when Jesus says “a meipso facio nihil” (I do nothing of myself), but only through the Father. [return to English / Italian]
62–63. One of the most debated passages in the poem. For a recent review, with bibliography, see Hollander (Holl.1992.2), pp. 204–6, 222–23. It should be noted that our translation is interpretive; the Italian can mean either what we have said it does or else “whom perhaps your Guido held in scorn.” The text thus either indicates that Guido at a certain point perhaps scorned the work of Virgil or else withdrew his approval of Dante’s love of Beatrice, to whom perhaps Dante is being led, as Virgil has promised him (Inf. I.122–123). [return to English / Italian]
67–69. The father’s premature lament for his living son (but he will be dead in four months) in this searing tercet obviously collects the difficult thoughts and feelings of the poet as well. There has been a great deal written about the use of the past definite (“elli ebbe” [he had]) and its possible consequences. Why did Dante say that (v. 63)? Had Guido scorned someone habitually, the use of the imperfect would have been more likely. Those who believe that his scorn was for Virgil (roughly half of those who involve themselves in this quarrel) are right to be puzzled, for such a scornful view of the Latin poet would not seem to have been a sudden shift of attitude (and, in fact, there is no Virgilian element in any of Guido’s poems). An attractive alternative explanation is given by Siro Chimenz in his commentary: at a certain point in his relations with Dante, and at least after Beatrice’s death, when Dante continued to write of her, Guido did come to have disdain for Dante’s loyalty to Beatrice. In short, Dante the protagonist is thinking of Guido’s climactic “rejection” of Beatrice as a definite past event, one perhaps precisely reflected in a sonnet Guido wrote to Dante expressing his disgust with his former friend. [return to English / Italian]
70–72. Cavalcante’s sudden disappearance rounds out his version of “resurrection,” one that fails. In his first line he came up (surse) but in his last he falls back (ricadde) into his eternal tomb. [return to English / Italian]
73–75. Farinata’s stoic restraint is evident once again; he has been waiting for Dante’s attention to return to him in order to continue their difficult conversation about Florentine politics. Unmoved and unmoving, he is the exemplification of the “stone man” admired by Stoic philosophers. He is “great-souled” (magnanimo), a quality of the highest kind in Aristotle’s formulation in the Ethics, but connected, even in classical times, with a fear that such a man may also be prideful. See Scott (Scot.1977.1), pp. 13–45, for the double valence of the term, which becomes still less even potentially positive in the works of Christian writers. [return to English / Italian]
76–78. Farinata, more human in his second conversation, admits his sense of frustration in his family’s political misfortune; it is, he says, worse torment even than damnation. We may reflect that, in the universe of this poem, there is no worse torment than damnation. Nonetheless, Farinata exudes a certain selfless concern for his family. [return to English / Italian]
79–81. Bested by Dante’s last riposte, Farinata now gets even with a prophecy: within fifty months (fifty moons; Proserpina, the moon, is traditionally referred to as queen of hell) Dante himself will know the pain of exile. There surely seems to be fellow-feeling joined to the bleak promise. By July 1304—roughly fifty months from March 1300—the last efforts of the Whites to reenter the city were over and done with (Dante had already given up on their efforts), and Dante knew his exile was, for all intents and purposes, limitless. [return to English / Italian]
82–84. Having characterized Dante as a fellow-sufferer at the hands of their fellow citizens, Farinata wants to know why his Ghibelline family seems singled out by the actions of the priors. [return to English / Italian]
85–87. Dante’s answer offers the perhaps sole locus in this canto that directly relates heresy and politics—and surely the reader has wondered what the connection must be. The “prayers” in the church that he refers to are words uttered in vituperative political councils, thus creating an image of political intrigue, even if of Guelph against Ghibelline, as a form of deformed “religious” activity. Florence seems a city in which politics has become the state religion.
The Arbia is a river near the site of the battle of Montaperti. [return to English / Italian]
89–93. Farinata’s last words on the subject of the Florentine past remind his auditor that he was no more guilty than the rest of the Ghibellines (and many of them have been allowed to return) and that, further, at the council of Empoli (see note to vv. 22–24), he was alone in defending the city from destruction. There is no question but that Dante’s view of Farinata is complex. As hard as he is on him, there is also great admiration for some of his qualities as leader, and for his having stood alone, and successfully, in defense of the city. The drama of Ghibellinism for Dante is a central one; what these people want to accomplish politically is not in itself anathema to him—far from it; that they wish to achieve their aims without God is what destroys their credentials as politicians and as human beings. [return to English / Italian]
94–99. Having realized that Cavalcanti does not know that his son is alive, while Farinata seems to know the future, Dante asks for clarification. [return to English / Italian]
100–108. Farinata explains that the present and the near future are not known by the sinners, only the time to come. Most believe that what he says applies to all the damned, e.g., Singleton in his commentary to this passage. On the other hand, for the view that this condition pertains only to the heretics see Cassell (Cass.1984.1), pp. 29–31. But see Alberigo, his soul already in hell yet not knowing how or what its body is doing in the world above (Inf. XXXIII.122–123). And see note to Inf. XIX.54.
The “portals of the future close” at Judgment Day, after which there shall be “no more time” (Rev. 10:6). [return to English / Italian]
109–114. Dante excuses his “fault”: until Farinata explained things, he assumed the damned were aware of present events. Given the historical situation between the poet and Cavalcanti, it is not surprising that the author stages the drama of his understandable guilt at his role in Guido’s death in this somewhat strained way. [return to English / Italian]
119. Frederick II (1194–1250), king of Sicily and Naples (1197–50), known in his own day as stupor mundi (the wonder of the world) for his extraordinary verve and accomplishments, presided over one of the most glorious courts in Europe. His political battles with the papacy marked nearly the full extent of his reign (he was the victorious leader of the Sixth Crusade [1228–29], “won” by treaty, while he was under interdict of excommunication). [return to English / Italian]
120. “Cardinal Ottaviano degh Ubaldini, member of a powerful Tuscan Ghibelline family, known to his contemporaries as ‘the Cardinal’ par excellence, was brother of Ubaldino della Pila (Purg. xxiv.29) and uncle of the Archbishop Ruggieri (Inf. xxxiii.14); he was made Bishop of Bologna in 1240, when he was under thirty, by special dispensation of Pope Gregory IX, and in 1244 he was created Cardinal by Innocent IV at the Council of Lyons; he was papal legate in Lombardy, and died in 1272. [He] was suspected of favouring the imperial party, and is credited with a saying: ‘If I have a soul, I have lost it a thousand times for the Ghibellines’ ” (T). [return to English / Italian]
123. Dante is considering the dire event, his exile, that Farinata has predicted, vv. 79–81. [return to English / Italian]
125. The word used by Virgil to describe Dante’s difficulty is smarrito, a word that has been associated with the protagonist’s initial lost and perilous condition (Inf. I.3) and then occurs again (Inf. XV.50) with specific reference to his lostness at the outset of the journey for the last time in the poem. It is also used in such a way as to remind us of his initial situation in Inf. II.64, V.72, and XIII.24; in the last two of these scenes the protagonist is feeling pity for sinners, emotion that the poet fairly clearly considers inappropriate. [return to English / Italian]
130–132. Virgil’s promise that Beatrice (it can only be she) will lay bare to him the story of his life to come is not fulfilled, even though it is referred to again at Inf. XV.88–90. That role, so clearly reserved for Beatrice, is eventually given to Cacciaguida in Par. XVII.46–75. The apparent contradiction has caused much consternation. An ingenious solution has been proposed by Marguerite Mills Chiarenza (Chia.1985.1): just as in the Aeneid Helenus promises Aeneas that the Sibyl will reveal his future to him (Aen. III.458–460) only to have her instead lead him to Anchises, who performs that promised task (VI.756–886), so in the Comedy also the promised female “prophet” is replaced by a male. In Chiarenza’s view, the “contradiction” is deliberate. [return to English / Italian]
133–136. Virgil now returns to his accustomed leftward direction in his guidance of Dante. See note to Inf. IX.132. [return to English / Italian]