Notes.
1 Clemence may be the wife of Charles Martel,
although she had already died in 1295, or his daughter.
3 Charles’s son lost the kingdom of
Naples to Robert, the brother of Charles.
22 Cunizza da Romano (d. 1279?), sister of
Azzolino III, had four husbands and numerous affairs. Romano is between the Marsh of
Treviso and Venice (l. 44).
37 Folco of Marseilles is mentioned here: he
speaks next (l. 82).
46 The Paduan Guelphs, who had occupied the
city of Vicenza were defeated there in 1314 by Can Grande della Scala, the ruling
Ghibelline and Dante’s patron.
50 Rizzardo da Cammino, son of Gherardo and
lord of Treviso, was assassinated there in 1312.
52 Allessandro Novello, the bishop of Feltro
from 1298 to 1320, turned over Ghibelline refugees from Ferrara to Pino della Tosa, an
agent of Robert, king of Naples, and Pino had them beheaded.
54 Malta was a papal prison near Lake
Bolsena.
82 The speaker is Folco of Marseilles (d.
1231), a troubadour Provencal poet who later became a Cistercian monk and bishop of
Toulouse.
85 In the basin of the Mediterranean, the sun
at its zenith over Jerusalem, Folco claims, would have Gibraltar as its horizon.
89 The Ebro is a river in Spain, the Macra
another in northern Italy.
92 Bougie in Algeria is directly across from
Marseilles. Caesar’s army conquered Pompey’s at Marseilles in 49 B.C. (l. 93).
97 Dido’s passion for Aeneas wronged the
memory of her husband Sychaeus and of his wife Creusa.
100 Phyllis, from near Mount Rhodope in
Thrace, hanged herself when her bridegroom Demophoon failed to appear for their wedding.
101 Hercules loved Iole, and his jealous wife
Dejanira sent him the shirt of Nessus which consumed him in fire (see Inferno XII,
l. 67, and note).
115 Rahab, the harlot who hid the Israelite
spies in Jericho, was spared when Joshua captured the city (Joshua 2).
127 Folco claims that Lucifer founded
Florence whose coins are stamped with a lily (l. 130).
134 The Decretals are the texts of canon law
approved by the Vatican. |
|
-
Lovely Clemence, when your Charles had shed
- Light
in my mind, he told me of the plots
- That
would defraud his offspring; then he added,
-
-
"Keep silent, and allow the years to roll":
- 5 So I can say no more than that real tears
- Shall
follow on the damage done against you.
-
- And
now the life within that holy light
- Had
turned it once more to the sun that fills it,
- As to
that Good which is the wealth of all.
-
- 10
Ah, misguided souls and impious creatures
- Who
turn your hearts away from such a Good,
-
Lifting your faces up to vanity!
-
- But
look! another of those splendors came
-
Toward me and, growing brighter outwardly,
- 15
Showed me a sign of wishing to please me.
-
- The
eyes of Beatrice, firmly fixed on me
- As
they had been before, gave me assurance
- Of
her own dear assent to my desire.
-
-
"Come, blessed spirit," I said, "let me have
- 20
A speedy answer to my wish, and proof
- That
I can mirror in you what I think."
-
- At
that the light, which was still new to me,
- Out
of the depth from which welled up its song,
- Went
on as one delighted to do favors:
-
- 25
"In evil Italy there lies a region
- Which
runs between the Rialto and the springs
- Of
both the Brenta and Piave rivers.
-
-
"A hill looms there (it is not very high)
- From
which there once came down a firebrand
- 30
That waged a huge assault against the country.
-
-
"From one same root both he and I sprang up.
-
Cunizza I was called, and I blaze here
-
Because the light of this star conquered me.
-
-
"Yet happily I here forgive myself
- 35
The reason for my lot, nor does it grieve me,
-
Although this may seem strange to common people.
-
-
"This brilliant and beloved jewel who
-
Stands closest to me in this heaven of ours
- Left
lofty fame behind: before it dies
-
- 40
"Five times this century shall have passed away.
- See
how man should make himself so excellent
- That
his first life might leave life after it!
-
-
"And today’s crowd, enclosed by the Adige
- And
Tagliamento, have no thought of this,
- 45
And, though they are whipped hard, do not repent.
-
-
"But soon it shall befall that Padua
- At
the marsh, since people shun their duty,
- Will
stain the waters red that wash Vicenza.
-
-
"And where the Sile and Cagnano join
- 50
One plays the lord and holds his head up high
- While
all the time the net is laid to catch him.
-
-
"Feltro shall yet moan for the treachery
- Of
its besotted shepherd — a crime so shameful
- That
for the like none went to Malta prison.
-
- 55
"Huge would be the bucket that could hold
- The
blood of the Ferrarans: whoever had
- To
weigh it ounce by ounce would be worn out!
-
-
"This vat the generous priest shall offer up
- To
prove himself a supporter of his party:
- 60
Such gifts befit the country’s way of living!
-
-
"Up there are mirrors — you could call them Thrones —
- From
which in judgment God beams down on us
- So
that we think it good to say these things."
-
- Here
she grew still and had, I thought, the likeness
- 65
Of turning now to other things by wheeling
- Where
she took up the place she’d left behind.
-
- The
other bliss, whom I already knew
- To be
beloved, became before my sight
- A
sparkling ruby struck by rays of sunlight.
-
- 70
Through their rejoicing, souls gain brilliance there
- On
high, as here a smile gains light, but below
-
Shades darken outwardly as minds grow sad.
-
-
"God sees all, and your sight sinks into his,"
- I
said, "blissful spirit, and for this reason
- 75
No wish may hide itself away from you.
-
-
"Why does your voice, then, making heaven glad
-
Forever with the song of these blest flames
- Which
make themselves, with their six wings, a cowl,
-
-
"Not fulfill the longing which I feel?
- 80
I surely would not wait for you to ask
- Were
I in your mind as you are in mine."
-
-
"The largest valley in which water spreads
- Out
from the sea that girdles all the world,"
- He
then began to speak these words to me —
-
- 85
"Stretches its opposing shores so far
-
Counter to the sun’s course that its zenith
- Lies
where at first the sun formed its horizon.
-
-
"I had my dwelling on that valley’s shore,
-
Between Ebro and Macra whose short course
- 90
Divides the Tuscans from the Genoese.
-
-
"With almost the same sunset and same sunrise
- Stand
Bougie and the city I am from,
- Which
once made its port warm with its own blood.
-
-
"Folco I was called then by the people
- 95
Who knew my name, and this heaven having once
-
Signed me at my birth now bears my signal.
-
-
"For Belus’s daughter Dido did not burn,
- In
wronging both Sychaeus and Creusa,
- More
than I burned, before my locks were clipped;
-
- 100
"Nor the girl from Rhodope when beguiled
- By
Demophoon, nor Hercules himself
- When
he enshrined Iole in his heart.
-
-
"But here we don’t repent; instead, we smile,
- Not
for the fault, which never comes to mind,
- 105
But for the Power that ordered and foresaw.
-
-
"Here we look wondering at the art that love
- Makes
beautiful, and find the good through which
- The
world below turns to the world above.
-
-
"And that you may take with you all your longings,
- 110
Which have been born within this sphere, fulfilled,
- I am
obliged to go on with my discourse.
-
-
"You want to know who is within this light
- Which
glitters in this manner next to me,
- Just
like a sunbeam on the crystal water.
-
- 115
"Now you should know that Rahab rests inside
- And
that, as soon as she joined with our order,
- She
sealed it in the loftiest degree.
-
-
"She was swept upward through this heaven, where
- The
shadow-cone of your earth casts its point,
- 120
Before any other soul, by Christ in triumph.
-
-
"It was most fitting to leave her in a heaven
- To be
a palm of the high victory
- Won
by his one and by his other palm,
-
-
"Because she lent her help to Joshua
- 125
With his first glory in the Holy Land —
- That
little touches the Pope’s memory.
-
-
"Your city, which was planted by the One
- Who
first turned his back upon his Maker and
- Whose
envy has provoked so many tears,
-
- 130
"Produces and spreads far the cursed flower
- Which
caused the sheep and lambs to go astray
-
Because it changed the shepherd to a wolf.
-
-
"This is why the Gospel and Great Doctors
- Are
tossed aside, and only the Decretals
- 135
Are studied, as their scribbled margins show.
-
-
"On them the pope and cardinals pore intently
- And
never turn their thoughts to Nazareth
- Where
Gabriel unfolded wide his wings.
-
-
"The Vatican, however, and the other
- 140
Choice parts of Rome which are the burial ground
- Of
the brave soldiery that followed Peter
-
-
"Will soon be freed from this adultery."
|
return
to Paradiso VIII