Dante's Paradiso: Canto IX

Cunizza da Romano, Folco of Marseilles, and Rahab. Neglect of the Holy Land.

Beautiful Clemence, after that thy Charles
   Had me enlightened, he narrated to me
   The treacheries his seed should undergo;

But said: "Be still and let the years roll round;"
   So I can only say, that lamentation 5
   Legitimate shall follow on your wrongs.

And of that holy light the life already
   Had to the Sun which fills it turned again,
   As to that good which for each thing sufficeth.

Ah, souls deceived, and creatures impious, 10
   Who from such good do turn away your hearts,
   Directing upon vanity your foreheads!

And now, behold, another of those splendours
   Approached me, and its will to pleasure me
   It signified by brightening outwardly. 15

The eyes of Beatrice, that fastened were
   Upon me, as before, of dear assent
   To my desire assurance gave to me.

"Ah, bring swift compensation to my wish,
   Thou blessed spirit," I said, "and give me proof 20
   That what I think in thee I can reflect!"

Whereat the light, that still was new to me,
   Out of its depths, whence it before was singing,
   As one delighted to do good, continued:

"Within that region of the land depraved 25
   Of Italy, that lies between Rialto
   And fountain-heads of Brenta and of Piava,

Rises a hill, and mounts not very high,
   Wherefrom descended formerly a torch
   That made upon that region great assault. 30

Out of one root were born both I and it;
   Cunizza was I called, and here I shine
   Because the splendour of this star o'ercame me.

But gladly to myself the cause I pardon
   Of my allotment, and it does not grieve me; 35
   Which would perhaps seem strong unto your vulgar.

Of this so luculent and precious jewel,
   Which of our heaven is nearest unto me,
   Great fame remained; and ere it die away

This hundredth year shall yet quintupled be. 40
   See if man ought to make him excellent,
   So that another life the first may leave!

And thus thinks not the present multitude
   Shut in by Adige and Tagliamento,
   Nor yet for being scourged is penitent. 45

But soon 'twill be that Padua in the marsh
   Will change the water that Vicenza bathes,
   Because the folk are stubborn against duty;

And where the Sile and Cagnano join
   One lordeth it, and goes with lofty head, 50
   For catching whom e'en now the net is making.

Feltro moreover of her impious pastor
   Shall weep the crime, which shall so monstrous be
   That for the like none ever entered Malta.

Ample exceedingly would be the vat 55
   That of the Ferrarese could hold the blood,
   And weary who should weigh it ounce by ounce,

Of which this courteous priest shall make a gift
   To show himself a partisan; and such gifts
   Will to the living of the land conform. 60

Above us there are mirrors, Thrones you call them,
   From which shines out on us God Judicant,
   So that this utterance seems good to us."

Here it was silent, and it had the semblance
   Of being turned elsewhither, by the wheel 65
   On which it entered as it was before.

The other joy, already known to me,
   Became a thing transplendent in my sight,
   As a fine ruby smitten by the sun.

Through joy effulgence is acquired above, 70
   As here a smile; but down below, the shade
   Outwardly darkens, as the mind is sad.

"God seeth all things, and in Him, blest spirit,
   Thy sight is," said I, "so that never will
   Of his can possibly from thee be hidden; 75

Thy voice, then, that for ever makes the heavens
   Glad, with the singing of those holy fires
   Which of their six wings make themselves a cowl,

Wherefore does it not satisfy my longings?
   Indeed, I would not wait thy questioning 80
   If I in thee were as thou art in me."

"The greatest of the valleys where the water
   Expands itself," forthwith its words began,
   "That sea excepted which the earth engarlands,

Between discordant shores against the sun 85
   Extends so far, that it meridian makes
   Where it was wont before to make the horizon.

I was a dweller on that valley's shore
   'Twixt Ebro and Magra that with journey short
   Doth from the Tuscan part the Genoese. 90

With the same sunset and same sunrise nearly
   Sit Buggia and the city whence I was,
   That with its blood once made the harbour hot.

Folco that people called me unto whom
   My name was known; and now with me this heaven 95
   Imprints itself, as I did once with it;

For more the daughter of Belus never burned,
   Offending both Sichaeus and Creusa,
   Than I, so long as it became my locks,

Nor yet that Rodophean, who deluded 100
   was by Demophoon, nor yet Alcides,
   When Iole he in his heart had locked.

Yet here is no repenting, but we smile,
   Not at the fault, which comes not back to mind,
   But at the power which ordered and foresaw. 105

Here we behold the art that doth adorn
   With such affection, and the good discover
   Whereby the world above turns that below.

But that thou wholly satisfied mayst bear
   Thy wishes hence which in this sphere are born, 110
   Still farther to proceed behoveth me.

Thou fain wouldst know who is within this light
   That here beside me thus is scintillating,
   Even as a sunbeam in the limpid water.

Then know thou, that within there is at rest 115
   Rahab, and being to our order joined,
   With her in its supremest grade 'tis sealed.

Into this heaven, where ends the shadowy cone
   Cast by your world, before all other souls
   First of Christ's triumph was she taken up. 120

Full meet it was to leave her in some heaven,
   Even as a palm of the high victory
   Which he acquired with one palm and the other,

Because she favoured the first glorious deed
   Of Joshua upon the Holy Land, 125
   That little stirs the memory of the Pope.

Thy city, which an offshoot is of him
   Who first upon his Maker turned his back,
   And whose ambition is so sorely wept,

Brings forth and scatters the accursed flower 130
   Which both the sheep and lambs hath led astray
   Since it has turned the shepherd to a wolf.

For this the Evangel and the mighty Doctors
   Are derelict, and only the Decretals
   So studied that it shows upon their margins. 135

On this are Pope and Cardinals intent;
   Their meditations reach not Nazareth,
   There where his pinions Gabriel unfolded;

But Vatican and the other parts elect
   Of Rome, which have a cemetery been 140
   Unto the soldiery that followed Peter

Shall soon be free from this adultery."

NOTES

1 - 1

The Heaven of Venus is continued in this canto. The beautiful Clemence here addressed is the daughter of the Emperor Rudolph, and wife of Charles Martel. Some commentators say it is his daughter, but for what reason is not apparent, as the form of address would rather indicate the wife than the daughter; and moreover, at the date of the poem, 1300, the daughter was only six or seven years old. So great was the affection of this “beautiful Clemence” for her husband, that she is said to have fallen dead on hearing the news of his death.

3 - 3

Charles the Lame, dying in 1309, gave the kingdom of Naples and Sicily to his third son, Robert, Duke of Calabria, thus dispossessing Carlo Roberto (or Caroberto), son of Charles Martel and Clemence, and rightful heir to the throne.

22 - 22

Unknown to me by name.

25 - 25

The region here described is the Marca Trivigiana, lying between Venice (here indicated by one of its principal wards, the Rialto) and the Alps, dividing Italy from Germany.

28 - 28

The hill on which stands the Castello di Romano, the birthplace of the tyrant Ezzelino, or Azzolino, whom, for his cruelties, Dante punished in the river of boiling blood, Inf. XII. 110. Before his birth his mother is said to have dreamed of a lighted torch, as Hecuba did before the birth of Paris, Althaea before the birth of Meleager, and the mother of St. Dominic before the birth of

“The amorous paramour
Of Christian Faith, the athlete consecrate,
Kind to his own and cruel to his foes.”

32 - 32

Cunizza was the sister of Azzolino di Romano. Her story is told by Rolandino, Liber Chronicorum, in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Script., VIII. 173. He says that she was first married to Richard of St. Boniface; and soon after had an intrigue with Sordello, as already mentioned, Purg. VI. Note 74. Afterwards she wandered about the world with a soldier of Treviso, named Bonius, “taking much solace,” says the old chronicler, “and spending much money,” – multa habendo solatia, et maximas faciendo expensas. After the death of Bonius, she was married to a nobleman of Braganzo; and finally and for a third time to a gentleman of Verona.

The Ottimo alone among the commentators takes up the defence of Cunizza, and says: “This lady lived lovingly in dress, song, and sport; but consented not to any impropriety or unlawful act; and she passed her life in enjoyment, as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes,” – alluding probably to the first verse of the second chapter, “I said in my heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure; and, behold, this is also vanity.”

33 - 33

Of the influences of the planet Venus, quoting Albumasar, as before, Buti says: “Venus is cold and moist, and of phlegmatic temperament, and signifies beauty, liberality, patience, sweetness, dignity of manners, love of dress and ornaments of gold and silver, humility towards friends, pride and adjunction, delectation and delight in singing and use of ornaments, joy and gladness, dancing, song with pipe and lute, bridals, ornaments and precious ointments, cunning in the composition of songs, skill in the game of chess, indolence, drunkenness, lust adultery, gesticulations, and lasciviousness of courtesans, abundance of perjuries, of lies and all kinds of wantonness, love of children, delight in men, strength of body, weakness of mind, abundance of food and corporal delights, observance of faith and justice, traffic in odoriferous merchandise; and as was said of the Moon, all are not found in one man, but a part in one, and a part in another, according to Divine Providence; and the wise man adheres to the good, and overcomes the others.”

34 - 34

Since God has pardoned me, I am no longer troubled for my past errors, on account of which I attain no higher glory in Paradise. She had tasted of the waters of Lethe, and all the ills and errors of the past were forgotten. Purg. XXXIII. 94: –

“'And if thou art not able to remember,'
Smiling she answered, 'recollect thee now
How thou this very day hast drunk of Lethe.”

Hugo of St. Victor, in a passage quoted by Philalethes in the notes to his translation of the Divina Commedia, says: “In that city....there will be Free Will, emancipated from all evil, and filled with all good, enjoying without interruption the delight of eternal joys, oblivious of sins, oblivious of punishments; yet not so oblivious of its liberation as to be ungrateful to its liberator. So far, therefore, as regards intellectual knowledge, it will be mindful of its past evils; but wholly unmindful, as regards any feeling of what it has passed through.”

37 - 37

The spirit of Folco, or Folchetto, of Marseilles, as mentioned later in this canto; the famous Troubadour whose renown was not to perish for five centuries, but is small enough now, save in the literary histories of Millot and the Benedictines of St. Maur.

44 - 44

The Marca Trivigiana is again alluded to, lying between the Adige, that empties into the Adriatic south of Venice, and the Tagliamento to the northeast, towards Trieste. This region embraces the cities of Padua and Vicenza in the south, Treviso in the centre, and Feltro in the north.

46 - 46

The rout of the Paduans near Vicenza, in those endless quarrels that run through Italian history like the roll of a drum. Three times the Paduan Guelphs were defeated by the Ghibellines, – in 1311, in 1314, and in 1318, when Can Grande della Scala was chief of the Ghibelline league. The river stained with blood is the Bacchiglione, on which Vicenza stands.

49 - 49

In Treviso, where the Sile and Cagnano unite.

50 - 50

Riccardo da Camino, who was assassinated while playing at chess. He was a son of the “good Gherardo,” and brother of the beautiful Gaja, mentioned Purg. XVI. 40. He succeeded his father as lord of Treviso; but carried on his love adventures so openly and with so high a hand, that he was finally assassinated by an outraged husband. The story of his assassination is told in the Hist. Cartusiorum in Muratori, XII. 784.

53 - 53

A certain bishop of the town of Feltro in the Marca Trivigiana, whose name is doubtful, but who was both lord spiritual and temporal of the town, broke faith with certain gentlemen of Ferrara, guilty of political crimes, who sought refuge and protection in his diocese. They were delivered up, and executed in Ferrara. Afterward the Bishop himself came to a violent end, being beaten to death with bags of sand.

54 - 54

Malta was a prison on the shores of Lake Bolsena, where priests were incarcerated for their crimes. There Pope Boniface VIII. imprisoned the Abbot of Monte Cassino for letting the fugitive Celestine V. escape from his convent.

58 - 58

This “courteous priest” was a Guelph, and showed his zeal for his party in the persecution of the Ghibellines.

60 - 60

The treachery and cruelty of this man will be in conformity to the customs of the country.

61 - 61

Above in the Crystalline Heaven, or Primum Mobile, is the Order of Angels called Thrones. These are mirrors reflecting the justice and judgments of God.

69 - 69

The Balascio (in French rubi balais) is supposed to take its name from the place in the East where it was found.

Chaucer, Court of Love, 78: –

“No saphire of Inde, no rube riche of price,
There lacked then, nor emeraude so grene,
Balais Turkis, ne thing to my devise
That may the castel maken for to shene.”

The mystic virtues of this stone are thus enumerated by Mr. King, Antique Gems, p. 419: “The Balais Ruby represses vain and lascivious thoughts, appeases quarrels between friends, and gives health of body. Its powder taken in water cures diseases of the eyes, and pains in the liver. If you touch with this gem the four corners of a house, orchard, or vineyard, they will be safe from lightning, storms, and blight.”

70 - 70

Joy is shown in heaven by greater light, as here on earth by smiles, and as in the infernal regions the grief of souls in torment is by greater darkness.

73 - 73

In Him thy sight is; in the original tuo veder s'inluia, thy sight in-Hims-itself.

76 - 76

There is a similar passage in one of the Troubadours, who, in an Elegy, commends his departed friend to the Virgin as a good singer. “He sang so well, that the nightingales grew silent with admiration, and listened to him. Therefore God took him for his own service...... If the Virgin Mary is fond of genteel young men, I advise her to take him.”

77 - 77

The Seraphim, clothed with six wings, as seen in the vision of the Prophet Isaiah vi. 2: “Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.”

81 - 81

In the original, S' io m' intuassi come tu t' immii; if I in-theed myself as thou in-meest thyself. Dantesque words, like inluia, Note 73.

82 - 82

The Mediterranean, the greatest of seas, except the ocean, surrounding the earth.

Bryant, Thanatopsis: –

“And poured round all
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste.”

85 - 85

Extending eastward between Europe and Africa. Dante gives the length of the Mediterranean as ninety degrees. Modern geographers make it less than fifty.

89 - 89

Marseilles, about equidistant from the Ebro, in Spain, and the Magra, which divides the Genoese and Tuscan territories. Being a small river, it has but a short journey to make.

92 - 92

Buggia is a city in Africa, on nearly the same parallel of longitude as Marseilles.

93 - 93

The allusion here is to the siege of Marseilles by a portion of Caesar's army under Tribonius, and the fleet under Brutus. Purg. XVIII. 101: –

“And Caesar, that he might subdue Ilerda,
Thrust at Marseilles, and then ran into Spain.”

Lucan, who describes the siege and sea-fight in the third book of his Pharsalia, says: –

“Meanwhile, impatient of the lingering war,
The chieftain to Iberia bends afar,
And gives the leaguer to Tribonius' care.”

94 - 94

Folco, or Folchetto, of Marseilles (Folquet de Marseilles) was a noted Troubadour, who flourished at the end of the twelfth century. He was the son of a rich merchant of Marseilles, and after his father's death, giving up business for pleasure and poetry, became a frequenter of courts and favorite of lords and princes. Among his patrons are mentioned King Richard of England, King Alfonso of Aragon, Court Raymond of Toulouse, and the Sire Barral of Marseilles. The old Provenal chronicler in Raynouard, V. 150, says: “He was a good Troubadour, and very attractive in person. He paid court to the wife of his lord, Sire Barral, and besought her love, and made songs about her. But neither for prayers nor songs could he find favor with her so as to procure any mark of love, of which he was always complaining in his songs.”

Nevertheless this Lady Alazais listened with pleasure to his songs and praises; and was finally moved to jealousy, if not to love. The Troubadour was at the same time paying his homage to the two sisters of the Sire Barral, Lady Laura and Lady Mabel, both beautiful and de gran valor, and being accused thereof, fell into disfavor and banishment, the Lady Alazais wishing to hear no more his prayers nor his songs. In his despair he took refuge at the court of William, lord of Montpellier, whose wife, daughter of the Emperor Manuel, “comforted him a little, and besought him not to be downcast and despairing, but for love of her to sing and make songs.”

And now a great change came over him. The old chronicler goes on to say: “And it came to pass that the Lady Alazais died; and the Sire Barral, her husband and his lord, died; and died the good King Richard, and the good Count Raymond of Toulouse, and King Alfonso of Aragon: whereat, in grief for his lady and for the princes who were dead, he abandoned the world, and retired to a Cistercian convent, with his wife and two sons. And he became Abbot of a rich abbey in Provence, called Torondet, and afterwards Bishop of Toulouse, and there he died.”

It was in 1200 that he became a Cistercian, and he died in 1233. It would be pleasant to know that he atoned for his youthful follies by an old age of virtues. But unfortunately for his fame, the old nightingale became a bird of prey. He was deeply implicated in the persecutions of the Albigenses, and the blood of those “slaughtered saints” makes a ghastly rubric in his breviary.

97 - 97

Dido, queen of Carthage. The Ottimo says: “He seems to mean, that Folco loved indifferently married women, virgins, and widows, gentle and simple.”

100 - 100

Phillis of Thrace, called Rodopeia from Mount Rodope near which she lived, was deserted by her Athenian lover Demophoön, of whom Chaucer, Legende of Good Women, 2442, gives this portrait: –

Men knewe him well and didden hym honour,
For at Athenis duke and lorde was he,
As Theseus his father hath ibe,
That in his tyme was of grete renown,
No man so grete in all his regioun,
And like his father of face and of stature;
And false of love, it came hym of nature;
As doeth the foxe, Renarde foxes sonne,
Of kinde, he coulde his olde father wonne
Withouten lore; as can a drake swimme,
When it is caught and caried to the brimme.“

101 - 101

Hercules was so subdued by love for Iole, that he sat among her maidens spinning with a distaff.

103 - 103

See Note 34 of this canto.

106 - 106

The ways of Providence,

”From seeming evil still educing good.“

116 - 116

Rahab, who concealed the spies of Joshua among the flax-stalks on the roof of her house. Joshua, ii. 6.

118 - 118

Milton, Par. Lost, IV. 776: –

”Now had night measured with her shadowy cone
Half-way up hill this vast sublunar vault.“

120 - 120

The first soul redeemed when Christ descended into Limbo. ”The first shall be last, and the last first.“

123 - 123

The Crucifixion. If any one is disposed to criticise the play upon words in this beautiful passage, let him remember the Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram edificabo ecclesiam meam.

124 - 124

Hebrews xi. 31: ”By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.“

125 - 125

Forgetful that it was in the hands of the Saracens.

127 - 127

The heathen Gods were looked upon by the Christians as demons. Hence Florence was the city of Satan to Dante in his dark hours, when he thought of Mars; but in his better moments, when he remembered John the Baptist, it was ”the fairest and most renowned daughter of Rome.“

130 - 130

The Lily on the golden florin of Florence.

133 - 133

To gain the golden florin the study of the Gospels and the Fathers was abandoned, and the Decretals, or books of Ecclesiastical Law, so diligently conned, that their margins were worn and soiled with thumb-marks. The first five books of the Decretals were compiled by Gregory IX., and the sixth by Boniface XIII.

138 - 138

A prophecy of the death of Boniface VIII. in 1303, and the removal of the Holy See to Avignon in 1305.