The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
114. nature cannot fall short of what must be: The universe, having been created and predestined to God’s sure purpose, cannot do less than He predestined it to do.
117. Nor need I proof of this: Charles has just presented proofs of reason to support the truth of universal harmony. Dante is saying that on this point of the good of society to mankind he needs no such proofs, his own intellect being sufficient. In De Monarchia Dante discussed the nature of man as a civic being.
120. Your master: Aristotle. In the Ethics and elsewhere he expounds the various offices men in society must serve for the good of all.
120-123. The soul of Charles Martel has carried the disputation forward by deduction. Now it concludes: the various (and necessary) endowments required of social man could not follow from the single genetic source of the active (father) principle (which would reproduce itself without change) but must arise from various roots (the shifting influences of the heavenly bodies).
124-126. Xerxes: The Persian King. He is the type of the war-leader. Solon: Athenian lawgiver of the seventh century B.C., the type of the legislator. Melchizedek: As in Genesis, xiv, 18, “he was the priest of the most high God,” hence, the type of the spiritual leader. he who, flying . . . lost his own son: Daedalus, the type of the artisan and mechanic.
127-129. That ever-revolving nature: The power of the ever-turning spheres. This nature (this rank of nature) impresses its influences upon mortals as a seal is pressed into wax, thus effecting its generalized purposes (the distribution of various gifts to mankind) but without regard to where its gift lodges.
130-132. Esau . . . Jacob: Though twins they were markedly different in character. “In the seed” is crucial here: Dante seems to imply that their genetic inheritance was identical. If so, only the diverse influences of the stars could have affected their differences. Romulus: His father was so humble that men were able to say he was born of Mars (as they could not have said had his father been sufficiently well known to have been remembered).
139-141. If a man’s natural abilities (from his genetic inheritance and from the influences of the stars) sort well with the conditions into which he is born (as determined by Fortune, the agent of divine foresight), then the man prospers. But if his abilities and his fortune are not so sorted, then, like a seed planted in an unsuitable climate, his gift cannot achieve its full growth.
145-148. into holy orders: Charles’s general sense is clear enough here but he probably intends an additional reference to his younger brother Lodovico, who became Bishop of Toulouse. and make a king of one: Here, in addition to the general sense, Charles certainly intends a reference to his brother Robert, who paid little attention to his duties as King of Naples, and who composed a number of ornate sermons and other discourses.
Canto IX
THE THIRD SPHERE: VENUS
The Amorous:
Cunizza, Folquet, Rahab
CUNIZZA DA ROMANO next appears, lamenting the woes that have befallen her native Venetia and prophesying great grief to her country-men for pursuing false fame on earth. Cunizza had begun her remarks by pointing out a soul who rejoices beside her in Heaven as one who pursued good ends. When she finishes speaking that soul identifies itself as FOLQUET, once BISHOP OF MARSEILLES. Folquet narrates his life and indicates that, like Cunizza, his amorous nature first led him to carnality but later filled him with passion for the True Love of God. Folquet then answers Dante’s questions about the NATURE OF THE THIRD HEAVEN, identifies RAHAB, the Whore of Jericho, as the first soul to ascend to that sphere, and concludes with a DENUNCIATION OF BONIFACE VIII for neglecting the Holy Land and all things spiritual, and a further DENUNCIATION OF FLORENCE as a corrupt state and as the source of Papal corruption. A just vengeance, he prophesies, will not be long delayed.
Fair Clemence, when your Charles, in speaking thus
had shone his light into my mind, he told me
of the schemes and frauds that would attack his house.
But he said to me: “Say nothing. Let the years turn as they must.” And so I can say only that they who wrong you shall find cause for tears.
Now to the Sun, the all-sufficing good,
the eternal being of that sacred lamp
had turned itself again to be renewed.
O souls deceived! ill-born impieties
who turn your hearts away from the True Love
and fix your eyes on empty vanities!
—And lo! another of those splendors now
draws near me, and his wish to give me pleasure
shows in the brightening of his outward glow.
The eyes of Beatrice, which, as before
were fixed on me, saw all my wish and gave it
the assurance of their dear consent once more.
“O blessed spirit, be pleased to let me find
my joy at once,” I said. “Make clear to me
that you are a true mirror of my mind!”
Thereat the unknown spirit of that light,
who had been singing in its depths, now spoke,
like one whose whole delight is to delight.
“In that part of the sinful land men know
as the Italy which lies between Rialto
and the springs from which the Brenta and Piave flow,
there stands a hill of no imposing height;
down from it years ago there came a firebrand
who laid waste all that region like a blight.
One root gave birth to both of us. My name
was Cunizza, of Romano, and I shine here
because this star conquered me with its flame.
Yet gladly I embrace the fate that so
arranged my lot, and I rejoice in it,
although it may seem hard to the crowd below.
This bright and precious jewel of our sky,
whose ray shines here beside me, left great fame
behind him on the earth; nor will it die
before this centenary is five times told.
Now ask yourself if man should seek that good
that lives in name after the flesh is cold.
The rabble that today spills through the land
bound by the Tagliamento and the Adige
think little of that, nor, though war’s bloody hand
rips them, do they repent. But Paduan blood,
having shunned its duty, shall soon stain the water
that bathes Vicenza and drains into mud.
And there rules one who yet holds high his head,
there where the Sile and the Cagnano join,
for whom the net already has been spread.
And Feltro shall yet weep the treachery
of its foul priest; no man yet entered Malta
for a crime as infamous as his shall be.
Great would that ewer be that could hold at once
the blood Ferrara will spill, and tired the man
who set himself to weigh it ounce by ounce;
—all this the generous priest will freely give
to prove his party loyalty; but then
such gifts conform to how those people live.
On high are mirrors (you say ‘Thrones’) and these
reflect God’s judgment to us; so enlightened,
we have thought it well to speak these prophecies.”
Here she fell still and, turning, made it clear
she was drawn to other things, joining once more
the wheel of souls that dance through that third sphere.
That other Bliss, he I had heard her say
was precious to her, now showed himself to me
like a fine ruby struck by the sun’s ray.
Up there, joy makes those souls add light to light,
as here it makes us laugh, while down below
souls darken as they grieve through Hell’s long night.
“God sees all, and your insight, blessed being,
makes itself one with His,” I said, “and thus
&n
Why does your voice, then, which forever sings
Heaven’s delight as one with those Blest Flames
who wrap themselves about with their six wings,
not grant my wish? Had I the intuition
with which to read your wish as you read mine,
I should not be still waiting for your question!”
“The greatest basin to which earth’s waters flow
—aside from the sea that girdles all the land—”
his voice began when I had spoken so,
“extends so far against the course of the sun,
between opposing shores, that at its zenith
the sun must cross what first was its horizon.
I first saw light on that basin’s shore between
the Ebro and that river whose short course
parts Tuscan from Genoese—the Magra, I mean.
Sunrise and sunset are about the same
for Bougiah and my city, whose blood flowed
to warm its harbor’s waters when Caesar came.
My name—to such as knew it on the earth
was Folquet; here eternally my ray
marks all this sphere, as its ray marked my birth.
Dido did not burn hotter with love’s rage,
when she offended both Sichaeus and Creusa,
than I, before my locks grew thin with age.
Nor she of Rhodopè who felt the smart
of Demophoön’s deception, nor Hercules
when he had sealed Iole in his heart.
But none repents here; joy is all our being:
not at the sin—that never comes to mind—
but in the All-Ordering and All-Foreseeing.
Here all our thoughts are fixed upon the Love
that beautifies creation, and here we learn
how world below is moved by world above.
But that you may take with you from this sphere
full knowledge of all it makes you wish to know,
I must speak on a little further here.
You wish to know who is within this blaze
you see in all its splendor here beside me,
like purest water lit by the sun’s rays.
Know, then, that in it Rahab finds her good;
and that, one with our choir, she seals upon it
the highest order of beatitude.
Of all Christ’s harvest, her soul was the one
first summoned by this Heaven, on which the shadow
the earth casts rests the point of its long cone.
It was fitting in every way that she should thus
adorn one of these heavens as a palm
of the high victory two palms won for us,
for she it was who helped win the first glory
of Joshua’s victory in the Holy Land
(which seems to have slipped from the Pope’s memory).
Your Florence—which was planted by the One
who first turned on his Maker, and whose envy
has given men such cause for lamentation—
brings forth and spreads the accursed flower of gold
that changes the shepherd into a ravening wolf
by whom the sheep are scattered from the fold.
And so the Gospels and Great Doctors lie
neglected, and the Decretals alone
are studied, as their margins testify.
So Pope and Cardinal heed no other things.
Their thoughts do not go out to Nazareth
where the blessed Gabriel opened wide his wings.
But the Vatican, and the other chosen parts
of Holy Rome that have been, from the first,
the cemetery of those faithful hearts
that followed Peter and were his soldiery,
shall soon be free of this adultery.”
NOTES
1-6. THE PROPHECY OF CHARLES MARTEL. On the death of Charles Martel (1295) the throne of Naples passed to his son Caroberto, but in 1309 Robert the Wise (younger brother of Charles and, therefore, Caroberto’s uncle) usurped the throne. Thus the direct line of Charles Martel lost the crown of Naples. Robert and his followers, however, will yet have cause to weep in the disastrous consequences of their deceptions and of the suffering inflicted upon Robert’s subjects by his Spanish lieutenants. Dante does not specify what will cause their tears, but the subsequent history of the Kingdom of Naples left generous provision for any amount of mourning.
There is no wholly satisfactory identification of the Clemence Dante here addresses. Charles’ wife was named Clemence, but she died in 1295, and Dante’s words seem clearly addressed to a living person. Charles’ mother was also called Clemence, and she lived until 1323, but she was customarily known as Maria of Hungary, the daughter of Rudolph I of Hapsburg. And Charles had a daughter named Clemence, but if Dante intended the daughter, it seems odd to refer to the father as “her Charles.”
8. the eternal being: Charles.
13. another of those splendors: Cunizza da Romano (circa 1198-circa 1279), younger daughter of Ezzolino II, Count of Onora, and the cruelest of the Ghibelline tyrants. He is in Hell with the Violent against their Neighbors (Inferno, XII, 110).
Cunizza was known as an outgoing woman, her tendencies attested by the fact that she had various lovers as well as three husbands. Sordello was one among her lovers (Purgatorio, VI, 58 ff.). Among other bad choices, she willed her estate to Alessandro and Napoleone, Counts of Mangone, two of the worst sinners in Hell (Inferno, XXXII, 41-60). There seems to be no way of knowing why Dante put her in Paradise. He must have credited her with a true contrition in her later years, and certainly he might have been moved to show that even a great sinner could find heaven’s grace through repentance, but at best she would have been scheduled for more than twenty-one years in Purgatory. Her case may have been helped by the fact that in 1265 she manumitted a number of slaves who had been in bondage to her father and brothers.
15. outward glow: Dante regularly conceives the spirits of heaven as having an inner and an outer glow, of which only the outer is visible to him.
16. as before: As when Dante, with his eyes, asked of Beatrice’s eyes their permission to talk to Charles Martel (VIII, 40-42).
19-21. Dante knows by now that the heavenly spirits know his thoughts without need for him to speak them, and that knowledge fills him with the expectation of joy. He asks Cunizza to give him that joy without delay, by demonstrating that she can address his unspoken thoughts.
22. the unknown spirit: Cunizza has not yet identified herself to Dante. 26-27. Rialto: The principal island of Venice, here taken for all of Venice. the Brenta and Piave: These rivers have their sources in the mountains north and northwest of Florence. The area so defined is la Marca Trivigiana whose principal city is Treviso.
29. a firebrand: Ezzolino (or Azzolino), Cunizza’s brother.
33. The flame of Venus is, of course, love. 34-36. the fate that so arranged my lot: Cunizza’s amorous nature was the force of fate that shaped her lot. The crowd below (mortal men) may think it painful for her to recall her natural amorousness and the loose life to which it led her. Yet that same fire of passion, properly directed to the love of God, was also the source of her blessedness.
37 ff. This bright and precious jewel: Folquet of Marseilles, a troubadour poet who became a Cistercian monk, and who was Bishop of Toulouse from 1205 to 1231. He was a leader (as he informs Dante in lines 123-142) in the atrocious crusade against the Albigensians. The fame he left on earth was written darkly enough in Albigensian blood, but Cunizza (and, through her, Dante) seems here to honor him as one who inveighed against the false passions of the people of Marca Trivigiana, exhorting them to seek the pure and lasting fame of an honored memory.
40. this centenary: The year 1300 was a Jubilee year (see Inferno, XVIII, 28-33, note). Dante is probably saying that five more such centenaries will pass before Folquet’s fame dies.
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