1. secret path, between the wall … and the torments: Since Virgil and the pilgrim have turned to the right, the wall is now to their right, the field of sarcophagi to their left.
5. wheel me … as you please: A reference to the unusual turn (see the note to 9.132).
8–9. all the covers are lifted … standing guard: The open tombs and the mention of guards introduce two prominent iconographic features of the Resurrection of Christ (levati [lifted] can also mean “removed”; in 9.121 the covers are said to be “suspended”; the question of their position is probably resolved by 11.6–7, which imply that they are leaning against the tombs). Dante is drawing a parallel between the pilgrim’s visit to the tomb and the visit of the Marys to Christ’s tomb on Easter morning (Matt. 28.1–8; Luke 24.1–10).
11. Jehoshaphat: The locale of the Last Judgment, according to the prophet Joel (3.2 and 12).
14–15. Epicurus … make the soul die with the body: Although in Convivio 4.6 Dante included Epicurus among the noteworthy Greek philosophers, drawing on Cicero’s De finibus, here his attitude seems to be determined by Augustine’s hostile discussions, to which Epicurus’s denial of immortality is central. That those who deny immortality “make [fanno] the soul die” has a double sense: (1) they assert that it dies, and (2) their adherence to that belief (against all reason and authority, in Dante’s view; see Convivio 2.9) causes the death of their souls (i.e., their damnation).
The categories that govern their presentation here are based largely on Saint Paul’s denunciation of those who denied the Resurrection of Christ and partook unworthily of the Eucharist (1 Cor. 11 and 15.12—32), as interpreted by Augustine, Sermo de scripturis 150: “Now if Christ be preached, that he arose again from the dead, how do some among you say, that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen again. And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain. … If (according to man) I fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit me, if the dead rise not again? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die [1 Cor. 15.12–14, 32].” Augustine identifies the italicized sentence as the characteristic Epicurean attitude. In having the souls of the heretics buried in sarcophagi, Dante is drawing on Psalm 49 [Vulgate 48J.11, “their sepulchres shall be their houses forever.”
18. the desire you leave unspoken: Presumably the desire to see Florentines, perhaps specifically Farinata (cf. 6.79).
19–21. I hide my heart… not only just now: As in 3 .75–81, for example.
22–29. O Tuscan … one of the arks: Since the pilgrim cannot see him, Farinata must be behind him and to his left (as the damned are to Christ’s left; references to the Last Judgment are particularly frequent in this canto; see 9.132). His address identifies the pilgrim first as a Tuscan (Farinata’s larger allegiance), then as a Florentine.
25. Your speech makes you manifest: A close translation of Matt. 26.73, “loquela tua manifestum te facit,” spoken to Peter, whose Galilean accent revealed him as one of the followers of Jesus; in the verse that follows, Peter denies Christ for the third time. For denial of the Resurrection as denial of Christ, see 1 Cor. 11 and 15.
32. See there Farinata: Manente degli Uberti (ca. 1205–1264), called Farinata, was, from 1239 until his death, the leader of the Florentine Ghibellines (representing principally the old military aristocracy); in 1248 they had driven the Guelfs out of the city, only to be driven out themselves three years later. Farinata then led a coalition of Tuscan Ghibellines against Florence, slaughtering them in a bloody battle in 1260, on the plain of Montaperti, near Siena, crossed by the river Arbia. A subsequent council of Ghibellines in Empoli proposed to raze Florence, but Farinata’s single-handed opposition dissuaded them.
After Charles of Anjou defeated and killed King Manfred at Benevento in 1266, a major disaster for the Ghibelline cause throughout Italy, an uprising in Florence drove out the Ghibellines. Farinata’s descendants were explicitly excluded from the attempted reconciliation of 1280, as they were from later amnesties. In 1283 the Franciscan inquisitor for Florence, fra Salamone da Lucca, posthumously condemned Farinata and his wife as adherents to the heresy of the Paterines (a branch of the Cathars); their bodies were exhumed and burned, their ashes scattered on unhallowed ground.
33. from the waist up: In numerous respects the figure of Farinata alludes ironically to a famous iconographic motif, the so-called Imago pietatis, showing the dead Christ from the waist up, with bowed head, and hands crossed in front of him; it has been shown to be a representation of the Real Presence of the Body of Christ in the consecrated host (cf. the note to lines 14—15); thirteenth-century efforts to combat heresy stressed the doctrine of transubstantiation as the limit case of the testimony of faith against that of the senses. Farinata also recalls the iconography of baptism, and the use of the term ark may remind the alert reader that Noah’s ark was widely interpreted as a figure of baptism as well as of the Church. For further discussion of this and other points in the notes on this canto, see Mazzotta 1979, Cassell 1984, and Durling 1981b.
34. fixed my eyes in his: The face-to-face confrontation of Farinata and the pilgrim is another allusion to the Last Judgment (note also lines 8–12, 35–36, 106–8), when all will see Christ the Judge face to face (1 Cor. 13.12); the pilgrim obviously corresponds to Christ the Judge, in spite of Farinata’s pretensions.
Figure 2. The Resurrection of the dead. (Based on the central tympanum, west front, Amiens Cathedral)
35–36. and he was rising up … in great disdain: Dante’s description of Farinata’s imposing figure, emphasizing breast and forehead, seats of the courage and foresight of a great leader (on his “magnanimity,” see the note to line 73), as well as pride and rebellion, forces us to entertain, if only momentarily, the possibility of such a soul’s actually being superior to the sufferings of Hell. But the ironies with which Farinata is encompassed are manifold. Not the least is that in the iconography of the Resurrection the dead are often represented as hearing the angelic trumpet and sitting up or standing up in their tombs (Figure 2); Farinata’s and Cavalcante’s standing up in their tomb abortively imitates this.
42. Who were your forebears: Farinata is still attached to the obsessive political and class concerns of his life. Note that he uses the familiar tu to the pilgrim.
46–48. Fiercely were they opposed to me … twice I scattered them: Dante has Farinata grant Dante’s forebears a social status sufficiently close to his own for them to be identifiable as direct opponents, but there is no mention of them in the surviving lists of exiles. The scatterings referred to are those of 1248 and 1260. “Twice” translates Dante’s per due fiate (cf. Francesca’s use of the same term in 5.130, with note).
49–51. If they were driven out … did not learn that art well: That is, the pilgrim’s forebears returned from exile twice, but not Farinata’s people. The pilgrim, too, is caught up in the old party animosity. Note his use of the term art for returning from exile, a version of the traditional use of the term for politics (cf. line 77). It is striking that the pilgrim answers both Farinata and Cavalcante with the possessive derived from the respectful voi (cf. direte, line 110), according to Florentine social usage. To only one other individual in Hell, Brunetto Latini in Canto 15, does he use the respectful forms.
52–72. Then a shade rose up … appeared no more outside: The pilgrim must infer the identity of this shade (lines 64–66); Dante had evidently never met him. It is Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti (d. ca. 1280; Dante’s friendship with his son Guido began ca. 1283), a leading Guelf and, by Dante’s assertion here (line 64), well known as a denier of the Resurrection. His son Guido (ca. 1255–1300) is Dante’s “first friend” (Vita nuova 25), and the leading Florentine poet during Dante’s youth. As part of a peacemaking effort in 1266, Guido had been betrothed to Farinata’s daughter Beatrice (calling attention to the close family connections between members of opposing parties is part of Dante’s commentary on Florentine civil dissension). After the riots of May 1300 (see the note to 6.64–72), Dante, as one of the priors of the city, voted for Guido’s relegation to Sarzana, where he became ill; in August the next group of priors voted to allow him and others to return to Florence; he died that month. (The fact that the pilgrim refers to Guido as still alive is an important indication that the fictional date of the journey is April 1300.)
55–57. It looked … entirely spent: As we soon learn, Cavalcante expects to see his son. Although the pilgrim had to infer his identity, Cavalcante knows who the pilgrim is and that he is Guido’s friend, perhaps by the foreknowledge discussed in lines 97—108.
58. through this blind prison: The underworld. Cavalcante’s phrase echoes Anchises’ description of life in the body, which infects the soul with its perturbations (Aen. 6.730–34):
Igneus est ollis vigor et caelestis origo
seminibus, quantum non noxia corpora tardant
terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra.
Hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque, neque auras
dispiciunt clausae tenebris et carcere caeco.
[A fiery vigor is theirs and a heavenly origin
of those seeds, to the extent that their noxious bodies do not slow
or their earthly limbs and death-bound members weaken.
Thence they fear and desire, grieve and rejoice, nor do they see
the heavens, shut up in shadows and a blind prison.]
Ironically, Vergil’s lines fit Cavalcante, both during his life and now. Vergil’s assertion that the body is the source of evil was vigorously criticized by the Church fathers, who devoted much attention to his portrayal of the underworld; it was central to the Gnostic tradition, including the Cathars.
59. because of your high genius: As later passages make clear (especially Par. 17.124—42), the pilgrim’s poetic genius is indeed a reason for his journey. But Cavalcante does not envisage the pilgrim’s being led by grace, supposing rather that his journey expresses philosophical proficiency or loftiness of mind; his question implicitly attributes competitiveness to the two friends.
61. I do not come on my own: The first part of the pilgrim’s reply singles out the first part of the question: he is relying on higher powers, and he points to Virgil as his guide. In his sermon on Acts 17.16–18 (referred to above), Augustine identified the Epicureans and Stoics (who question Saint Paul in Athens) as the philosophical sects of human self-sufficiency. Dante clearly has it in mind: Cavalcante corresponds to the Epicureans, whom Augustine accuses of following fleshly impulse, Farinata to the Stoics (because of his reliance on self-command and superiority to suffering, as well as his concern with political action).
63. perhaps to one your Guido had in disdain: One of the most famous cruxes in the poem, about which gallons of ink have been spilt. The Italian is intentionally obscure; the main obscurities result from (1) the pronoun cui (translated “to one to whom”), which can mean “whom” or “to whom,” and whose referent is debatable; (2) the verb ebbe [had], a past tense of the verb avere [to have], which can mean “just now had,” “definitively had,” “once had,” or “no longer has.” (All these possibilities, and others, have actually been advocated.) Freccero (1988) has suggested that Dante is echoing Augustine’s “they disdain [dedignantur] to learn from [Christ]” (Confessions 7.21.27), said of the pride of the Neoplatonists. Most critics have accepted the interpretation proposed by Pagliaro ([1953] 1967): “he who is waiting over there is leading me to one to whom your Guido disdained to come.” Most also have taken the view that Dante is here asserting that Guido shared his father’s sin. While Dante is expressing misgivings about Guido, in our view he seems with this elaborately obscure line to avoid saying anything definite about Guido’s ultimate fate (see the note to lines 67—69).
67–69. How did you say? ‘he had’ … strike his eyes: Cavalcante takes Dante’s obscure ebbe in the last of the senses listed in the note to line 63 under (2): he thinks Guido no longer disdains, but in a negative sense, because he is no longer alive (since Guido is still alive, as this mistake shows, “no longer disdains” may have a positive sense). The father’s questioning of the pilgrim in these lines is strikingly parallel to God’s questioning of Cain about Abel in Gen. 4.9–11: “Ubi est frater tuus?” [Where is your brother], “Quid feristi?” [What have you done]. The existence of an unresolved node of guilt and anxiety connected with Guido is palpable (see the notes to Purg. 11.97–99 and Par. 13.133–42).
70–72. When he perceived … fell back supine: Cavalcante’s despair at the idea of his son’s death is part of the punishment of one who saw nothing after death. He falls supine as if struck by a blow on the forehead. His concern for his son and his son’s fame, like Farinata’s concern for his descendants and his own reputation, are for Dante instances of human beings’ universal concern for what will happen after their deaths. Cavalcante is thus acting out impulses that should have taught him that the soul is immortal, and his misinterpretations of the pilgrim’s presence and of his ebbe are part of a system of negative misinterpretation of experience.
73. that other great-souled one: Dante’s term for “great-souled” is magnanimo, a key term contrasting Farinata with Cavalcante’s pusillanimity. Scott (1977) demonstrated the double-edged nature of this idea, with its background in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics; for the Middle Ages it can mean “overweening.” It thus has quite a different significance according to whether Farinata’s worldly values or the pilgrim’s Christian ones are asserted.
79–81. not fifty times … how much that art weighs: This is the second prophecy by a Florentine, this time foretelling Dante’s exile as a result of the troubles predicted by the first (6.64—72). “The lady who reigns here” is Hecate (in classical mythology the wife of Dis, also called Proserpina), commonly identified with the moon. Fifty months would take us to the summer of 1304, just before the Whites were defeated in their effort to reenter Florence by force of arms (July). Dante had apparently repudiated them some months before. Farinata’s prophecy is couched in the terms of the pilgrim’s earlier speech (line 51).
83. why is that people so cruel against mine in all its laws: Legislation against Farinata’s descendants continued to be passed in Florence (see the note to lines 32—33).
85–87. The slaughter … to be made in our temple: The slaughter of Guelfs at Montaperti. “Our temple” has been identified with a number of Florentine churches, where meetings of qualified voters were held. Orations (orazioni) thus has two meanings: “speeches” and “prayers.”
88–93. After he had moved his head … who defended her openly: Farinata shakes or perhaps bows his head—his only movement in the entire scene, perhaps acknowledging the depth of his suffering; it particularly focuses the parallel with the Imago pietatis. Dante seems to be expressing a considerable complexity of attitude toward the historical Farinata—both dramatizing the pride, rigidity, self-absorption, and intellectual/moral confusion involved in turning against his homeland (and in his heresy), and suggesting that the Florentine vengefulness, decades after the man’s death, was excessive. The dialogue that began with party animosity has moved toward some degree of mutual sympathy.
97–108. It seems that you see … will be closed: What Farinata describes, where events “distant” in the future are clear but those in the present or near future are not seen, is a kind of inversion of the pattern of memory: events distant in the past are obscure, those in the present or near past are clear. The “bad light” refers to twilight (perhaps moonlight: cf. Aen. 6.270: “quale per incertam lunam, sub luce maligna” [because of an uncertain moon, under bad light]), when distant things are outlined against the horizon. The “highest Leader” is God, or more precisely the Logos, second person of the Trinity and principle of intellect, here compared to the sun (on the analogy, see the note on 1.17—18), and referred to with the first of Cicero’s famous epithets for the sun, dux (Somnium Scipionis 4.2). Farinata’s explanation may shed some light on the failure of Virgil’s foreknowledge at the beginning of Canto 9.
107. that point when the door of the future will be closed: The end of time. Dante, like Aquinas, believed that after the Last Judgment the turning heavens would be immobilized. The moment of the ending of time is the furthest reference to the future made in the Inferno; it is striking that it should be made by Farinata.
110–14. Now will you tell … you have untied for me: Note the contrast between Cavalcante’s frantic jumping to negative conclusions and the pilgrim’s careful inquiry into the cause of the misunderstanding; compare Eph. 4.14: “Be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.”
119. the second Frederick and the Cardinal: Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (d. 1250), Holy Roman Emperor, called Stupor mundi [Wonder of the World], who, although he passed severe laws against heresy, in the later part of his reign was bitterly opposed by the popes and accused by the Guelfs of being an Epicurean and a mortalist; their animus against him was caused in part by the fact that he maintained friendly diplomatic relations with Muslim rulers (he regained Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land by peaceful negotiation), welcomed Muslim scientists and scholars to his court, and founded a city for his Muslim subjects where they were permitted to practice their faith openly. He was the author of a noted treatise on falconry. “The Cardinal” is the pro Ghibelline Ottaviano degli Ubaldini (d. 1273), whom early commentators report as having said, “If I have a soul, I have lost it a hundred times for the Ghibellines.”
129. he raised his finger: The timeless gesture of admonition, for Dante a very emphatic one.
131. before her sweet ray: When face to face, not with Farinata (line 34), but with Beatrice, whose eyes (emphasized in Virgil’s narrative, 2.55 and 116), seeing all, contrast with the blindness of the Epicureans and will be a central focus of attention when she appears in Purgatorio 29—33 and throughout the Paradiso. But the pilgrim will in fact learn the details of his exile from his ancestor Cacciaguida (Par. 17.37–93).