10. Jousting To Tell The Tale: INFERNO, Canto II, Lines 43 - 75
Virgil: I was minding my own business when a dazzling woman appeared.
Virgil isn’t going to put up with Dante’s modesty! In this passage from Canto II, the old Roman poet knocks some sense into things by diagnosing the pilgrim’s cowardice and bringing Beatrice into COMEDY for the first time.
Dante’s journey isn’t just willed by God or controlled by classical poetry or justified by Biblical characters. No, the journey is instigated by love, that human ideal, failing, and triumph.
Canto II of INFERNO is also about the important business that getting words right. Our characters have to use words properly before they can get underway . . . and before the poem can get underway.
The segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[02:13] My English translation of INFERNO: Canto II, 43 - 75. If you'd like to read long, find a more detailed study guide, or continue the conversation with me through a comment, scroll down this page.
[05:53] Rhetoric. What is it? Why's it so important?
[07:03] Virgil's initial salvo: a sneer at Dante the pilgrim, followed by a redefinition of his problem.
[11:51] Virgil, who has tweaked the pilgrim's rhetorical prowess, unexpectedly stumbles by saying something that's unintelligible to those who haven't read COMEDY.
[13:46] In this war of words, Beatrice steps up to (the rhetorical) bat. Her speech is "gentle and soft."
[14:41] There is an important difference between Beatrice's gentle words and Virgil's "polished" words.
[16:12] Beatrice offers her first speech (although in Virgil's mouth). She opens with flattery, then lays it on even thicker . . . so much so that she ends at a place that seems almost, well, irrational. Or at least impossible.
[26:58] Rereading the passage: INFERNO, Canto II, lines 43 - 75.
My English translation of INFERNO, Canto II, lines 43 - 75:
“If I fully understand your words,”
Replied that shade of that great one [Virgil],
“Your spirit is struck with cowardice,
“Which so often constrains a man
That he turns back from his honorable business,
Like an animal that shies away when darkness falls.
“To free yourself from this fear, I will tell you
Why I came and what I heard
When I first felt your sorrow.
“I was with those who are suspended
When a lady called me, so blessed and beautiful
That I begged her to command me.
“Her eyes beamed brighter than the morning star,
And when she started in with her gentle and soft words,
Like an angel’s voice, she told me:
“’O courteous Mantuan spirit,
Whose fame endures in the world,
And will endure while the world lasts,
“’My friend, not the friend of fortune,
Is so blocked on a barren slope
That he has turned back because of fear.
“’From what I hear of him in heaven
I am afraid he has so lost his way
That I have risen too late to help him.
“’Get going, and with your ornate words
And anything else you need for his deliverance,
Help him, so that I may be consoled.
“’I am Beatrice, who sends you out—
I am come from where I desire to return.
Love moved me and makes me speak.
“’When I am again before my lord,
I will often praise you to him.’
She fell silent, and then I [Virgil] started off by saying. . . .”
FOR MORE STUDY
Three translation problems:
Since I made so much about it, here’s line 49 in the medieval Florentine: “Da questa tema a ciò che tu ti solve. . . .” Quite literally: “From this fear of which you yourself resolve. . . .” Two interesting smaller bits here: a) that word “tema.” It’s fear, yes, but really more like “trembling.” Note Virgil’s emphasis on the physical manifestation of the pilgrim’s internal state. And b) that reflexive verb: “tu ti solve.” Who’s going to save the pilgrim? Apparently, himself. (Just a note: the reflexive verb can be used for the passive voice—”of which you are resolved”—but there’s no clue which way it’s meant in this passage. In other words, we might say you could read it both ways at once.) And saying that the pilgrim can find his own salvation is either a) Virgil’s misunderstanding of the mechanisms of redemption or b) an almost heretical statement about what a person can do on their own. The more you read COMEDY, the more you’ll realize that “b” is the more likely answer.
Line 58 is actually more complicated than I made it out to be: “O anima cortese mantoana” (“O courteous Mantuan spirit”). Except for “O,” the other three words remain troublesome. First off, “anima” (“spirit”). Beatrice doesn’t call Virgil a “shade” (which the pilgrim Dante calls him at INFERNO, Canto I, line 66). Instead, she names him a “spirit,” a term reserved mostly for the redeemed in the poem. However, “anima” has already been used by the pilgrim to describe his inner state at INFERNO, Canto I, line 25. Next, the word “cortese.” We’re back to that medieval notion of courtesy—not politeness, but deference based on class and birth. Beatrice seems to bow and scrape a little here. Is she serious? Does the damned Virgil deserve the deference of someone from heaven? (Maybe—he did write that epic.) And finally, “mantoana.” You’ll remember that I made a big deal out of Virgil claiming to be from Mantua when, in fact, he’s from the hinterlands around Mantua. Is Beatrice continuing to flatter the classical poet? Is she simply granting him his reality? Or is my argument earlier that Virgil pads his resume misplaced, since even Beatrice thinks he’s from Mantua?
Beatrice wants Virgil to use his “parola ornata.” (I mispronounced this phrase in the podcast episode. Sorry about that: I was thinking about its next usage in INFERNO where it is indeed “parole onate.”) A few things to note about this description of Virgil’s rhetorical abilities. Firstly, it’s singular, as if the totality of Virgil’s speech is polished or refined, not just its individual words. (Later, when the phrase comes up again with the damned Jason deep in hell—at INFERNO, Canto XVIII, line 91—the phrase is indeed plural (as I mispronounced it in this episode—again, my apologies). . . so is that the crux of the problem: Jason has too many polished words, lots of ornate ways to seduce women?) Secondly, if we look back on this passage we’re in, the word “parola” (singular) was used at line 43. Virgil actually says to the pilgrim, “If I understand your word. . . .” So Virgil, too, has tried to encompass the entirety of the pilgrim’s speaking (or maybe writing?) style. Finally, what does “ornata” mean? Ornate? Not exactly. Certainly not Baroque. More like “distilled” or “expert,” maybe even “posh,” although it also carries a whiff of “honorable” about it. Does Beatrice think the pilgrim needs a high rhetorical flourish to get him going at this moment? Is that what would impress him? Given that a Roman poet is about to be his guide, is there a way he’s not ready for the “gentle, soft” tones of Beatrice?
Four interpretation issues:
Virgil describes his place in the afterlife this way: “Io era tra color che son sospesi” (literally: “I was among the ones who are suspended”). Curiously, Virgil has not yet admitted to being damned. In fact, a casual reader wouldn’t know he was from the words of the poem. True, Virgil says he was born under the “false and lying gods” (INFERNO, Canto I, lines 72); and true, most medieval readers would have assumed Virgil was damned (there are even folk legends about it, as we’ll come to see). But some readers (maybe even those today) may be wondering what our poet has in store for us, especially since Virgil uses such cryptic words to define his spot: “suspended.” (What’s more, as we’ll see, no one is “suspended” where Virgil hangs out in hell.) As you can see, there’s much to unpack here. Has the poet Dante not yet figured out where Virgil will end up? Might be think he’s still going to “save” Virgil in some way? Or is Virgil himself being cagey? I said in the episode that Virgil ups the rhetorical game by using a phrase that the pilgrim Dante cannot understand at this moment. Maybe. Not sure I buy that reasoning right now, years after this episode. Perhaps Virgil himself falters in his rhetoric. After calling out the pilgrim for not being clear, is the irony that Virgil himself isn’t clear when it comes to his own fate?
You won’t fully know this truth until way up in Purgatory, but Beatrice gives the game away at line 72: “amor mi mosse, che mi fa parlare” (literally: “love me moves, that me makes speak”). Love moves me, making me talk. We will come to discover that this line is in essence what Dante believes about his own art: Love first moves him and he then follows its dictates by writing its (and maybe his?) poems. But here in Canto II as we think about its interpretive issues, consider how much of language is about “parlare” "(“speaking”). Dante the poet indeed lives in a mostly oral culture. Some people can read his poem (the illiteracy of the Middle Ages is wildly overstated), but many will surely have to hear it read. Today, we disconnect speaking and writing, even using a more formal grammar for the latter (except in texting). But what if we didn’t? And what if Dante doesn’t? How does that unity (speaking-writing) affect how the poem gets crafted. How can you accept Dante’s strict notions of rhyme and rhythm but then turn them into something that sounds like natural speech?
If you think about the larger implications of this passage, you might come to question why Beatrice herself doesn’t just go to her friend and save him. Why put Virgil to the task? This is actually a key question in the poem: What if classical literature (or at least its embodiment in a Latin poet) is what ultimately is most effective in bringing you to the Christian God? Or does the problem lie with Beatrice herself? Is she too much for our pilgrim to handle right now?
To solve the pilgrim’s hesitation, Virgil knocks him around a bit, calling him a coward. But Virgil then does something very human. He doesn’t “just” tell the truth; he tells a story. Emily Dickinson put it like this: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” In other words, don’t give it to me all at once. Ease me into it. How is storytelling a motivating strategy for humans? How does storytelling function in religion? In your culture? Even in your online, social-media world? Why is storytelling an effective mode of persuasion?
A journaling prompt:
You’ve probably learned not to trust flattery. But do you always need the unvarnished truth? Is there a good or ethical way to use flattery?