Why Dante? Dante
Ugolino (In the last circle of hell before us...)
UGOLINO
(Legend from Dante)
In the last circle of hell before us
In the darkness the surface of the lake shone
Beneath the icy, hard layers.
I would have fallen harmlessly on this ice,
Like fluff, the bulk of a stone peak,
Without crushing their eternal crystal.
And like frogs, emerging from the mud,
Among the swamps one can sometimes see, -
So in the lake of that gloomy valley
10 Countless sinners in a crowd,
Bent over, sitting naked
Under the icy, transparent crust.
Their lips turned blue from the cold,
And the tears froze on my cheeks,
And there was no blood in the pale body.
Their dull gaze drooped in such sadness,
That my thoughts become numb with fear,
When I remember how they trembled, -
And the sun’s ray has not warmed me since then.
20 But the earth’s axis is not far away:
My foot slips and the cold blows in my face...
Then I saw deep in the darkness
Two sinners; stricken with madness,
One grabbed the other and brutally
Sank his teeth into a crushed skull
And gnawed at it and flowed out in streams
From the black wound the brain is bleeding.
And I asked with trembling lips,
Whom does it devour; raising
30 Your stained face and hair
Wiping the unfortunate victim's lips,
He answered: “I am the ghost of Ugolino,
And this shadow is Ruggier; native land
I cursed the villain... He was the reason
All my torments: he imprisoned me in chains
Me and the children, driven by fate.
The prison vault pressed in like a lead coffin;
Through its crack more than once in the clear firmament
I saw how a new month was born -
40 When I had that terrible dream:
The dogs were poisoning the old wolf;
Ruggier drove them with a whip, and the unfortunate beast
With a crowd of their cubs through the gray dust
There was a trail of blood, and he fell,
And the hounds' fangs sank into him.
Hearing the children cry, I woke up:
In a dream, full of foreboding melancholy,
They begged for bread and were crowded
I feel an involuntary horror of misfortune in my chest.
50 Is there really no spark of regret in you?
Oh, if you don't cry over me,
Why are you crying over!.. In the midst of languor
The hour when they brought us food,
Long gone; no sound, no movement...
Within silent walls everything is as quiet as in a grave.
Suddenly a heavy hammer crashed outside the doors...
I understood everything: the entrance to the prison was blocked.
And intently with crazy eyes
I looked at the children; in front of me
60 They wept silent tears.
But I remained silent, bowing my head;
My Anzelmuccio to me with sweet affection
Whispered: “Oh, how do you look, what’s wrong with you?..”
But I was silent, and it was so hard for me,
That I could neither cry nor pray.
So the first day passed, and it came
Second morning; gentle lady
Flashed again, and, in a tremulous flicker
Recognizing their pale, thin faces,
70 I gnawed my hands to drown out the suffering.
But the children rushed to me, sobbing,
And I fell silent. We spent in silence
Two more days... The earth, the silent earth,
Oh why didn’t you swallow us up!..
He fell at my feet, weakening,
My poor Gaddo, groaning sadly:
“Father, oh, where are you, have mercy on me!..”
And death ended his torment.
As son after son fell in succession,
80 I saw with my own eyes,
And here I am, alone under the eternal darkness
Over dead, cold bodies -
I called the children; then exhausted
I will touch with helpless hands,
When the vision has already faded in the eyes,
I searched for their corpses, tormented by horror,
But hunger, hunger conquered torment!..”
And he fell silent, and again, tireless,
Grabbed a skull with his teeth in wild anger
90 And he gnawed at him, the inexorable executioner:
So the greedy dog gnaws and gnaws the bones.
1885
Notes:
BE. 1886. No. 2, subtitled. “To the tune of Dante” and with the following variations: in Art. 22 (“in the ice” v. “in the darkness”), in Art. 38 (“windows” vs. “his”), in Art. 43 (“dark” v. “gray”), in Art. 61 (“having petrified the soul” v. “having hung his head”), in Art. 75 (“On the fourth day” viz. “At my feet”) and in vv. 87 (“But soon” v. “But hunger”) - SS-1904 - SS-1910 - PSS-I, vol. 15 - PSS-II, vol. 22. Text BE reprint: “Literary reader: An artistic collection of poems for reading at literary evenings...” (Compiled by I. Shcheglov. M., 1887), with a subtitle. "From Dante" Autograph (IRLI), without subtitle, with date: “1885”, var. in Art. 52 (“Over whom” v. “Over what”) and the edit in Art. 43 (“dark” on “gray”). Free arrangement of fragments of the thirty-second and thirty-third songs of “Hell” Dante(see note 80). K. P. Medvedsky (pseud. K. Govorov) considered “Ugolino” “one of the best” plays in the collection S-1888 (EO. 1888. T. 8, No. 214. Stb. 2694). Review of the anonymous reviewer of the Observer and assessment of the translation by A. A. Smirnov, see note. 80. Merezhkovsky returned to this episode of the poem, translated in his youth, at the end of his life, in a monograph on Dante. Quoting Art. 30-31 in another translation (“Then, lifting his lips from the terrible food, / He wiped them on the hair of the back of his head / The gnawed one...”), he wrote: “In this one external movement,” “wiped his lips,” - the whole the internal horror of the coal tragedy so that it remains indelibly in the chest, like a memory of delirium” (Merezhkovsky D.S. Dante. [Vol. 2]: What did Dante do? Bruxelles, 1939. P. 43). Further in the same book, the author gives another rhymeless translation of the last terzas of the present fragment.
- Ugolino de la Gherardesca - leader of the Guelphs, who were defeated by the Ghibellines, whose leader was the Archbishop of Pisa Ruggier ( Ruger degli Ubaldini).
Sources: Merezhkovsky D. S. Poems and poems / Introductory article, compilation, preparation of text and notes by K. A. Kumpan. (New Poet's Library) - St. Petersburg: Academic Project, 2000 - 928 p.
Illustration by Gustave Doré for Song XXI "Ada". 1900 editionIn the fifth ditch of the eighth circle of hell (21st canto), Dante and Virgil meet a group of demons. Their leader, Tailtail, says that there is no further road - the bridge is destroyed:
To go out anyway, if you wish,
Follow this shaft, where the trail is,
And with the nearest ridge you will come out freely.Twelve hundred and sixty-six years
Yesterday, five hours late, we managed
Leak since there is no road here Here and below, the translation of Mikhail Lozinsky is quoted, unless otherwise indicated..
The demon’s words are surprising in their exaggerated detail - why would Dante and the readers know about the time of the collapse of some bridge with an accuracy of an hour? Meanwhile, these stanzas contain the key to one of the main mysteries of the “Divine Comedy” - the chronology of Dante’s journey, which Dante does not speak about directly anywhere, but which can be reconstructed on the basis of hints scattered here and there .
In the first terzine of “Hell” it is said that Dante was lost in a dark forest, “halfway through his earthly life.” We can assume that we are around 1300 AD: in the Middle Ages it was believed that life lasts 70 years See King David's psalm: “The days of our years are seventy years” (89:10)., and Dante was born in 1265. We subtract 1266 years from 1300, which Tail Man speaks of, and it turns out that the bridge collapsed approximately at the end of Christ’s earthly life. Let us remember the Gospel, where it is written that at the moment of Jesus’ death there was a powerful earthquake - apparently, it destroyed the bridge. If we add to these considerations the message of the Evangelist Luke that Christ died at noon, and count back five hours, it becomes clear that the conversation about the bridge takes place at 7 am on March 26, 1300 - 1266 years and five hours to the day after the death of Christ on the cross (Dante thought it occurred on March 25, 34).
Taking into account all the other temporal indications of the Comedy (changes of day and night, the location of the stars), we can establish that Dante’s journey to the afterlife lasted a week from March 25 to March 31, 1300 An alternative view places it in Easter week 1300, April 8 to April 14; but the principle of establishing chronology does not change, it’s just that the countdown is carried out not from the “historical” date of the death of Christ, but from the church calendar - Good Friday..
This date was not chosen by chance. In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII declared the first jubilee year in the history of the church: it was promised that every hundred years every believer who made a pilgrimage to Rome and visited the cathedrals of St. Peter and the Apostle Paul would receive complete absolution. It is likely that in the spring of the anniversary year, Dante went to Rome to visit the graves of the apostles - in any case, the lines of the 18th canto sound like an eyewitness description:
So the Romans, to the influx of crowds,
In the year of the anniversary, did not lead to congestion,
They separated the bridge into two paths,And one by one the people go to the cathedral,
Turning your gaze to the castle wall,
And on the other they go towards, up the mountain.
It was there, in jubilee Rome, that a miraculous pilgrimage to the afterlife could take place. The day the pilgrimage begins, March 25, carries a number of other meanings: on March 25, the Lord created the world; On March 25, nine months before Christmas, Christ became incarnate. In addition, in Florence, the countdown of the new year began on this day.
Dante began writing the Comedy a few years after the supposed date of his afterlife journey (the first sketches date back perhaps to 1302, but full-fledged work on the poem continued from 1306-1307 until the death of the poet). Working on a poem from the “future,” Dante fills it with impressive prophecies and predictions.
2. The Mystery of Saint Lucia
Illustration by Gustave Doré for Song II of the Ada. 1900 edition Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library / University of Toronto In the second song of “Hell”, Virgil tells who sent him to help Dan-te, who was dying in the dark forest. It turns out that these were three beautiful women:
...Three blessed wives
You have found words of protection in heaven
And a wondrous path is foreshadowed for you.
The three blessed wives are the Virgin Mary, Saint Lucia and Beatrice. Maria (she, however, is not named) told Saint Lucia about the poet’s misfortune, and she called Beatrice. Beatrice is Bice Portinari, who died 10 years before the time of the Comedy, the love of young Dante, to whom he dedicated his “New Life” "New life"- Dante’s first book, written in the 90s of the 13th century, where the love story of the poet and Beatrice is told in prose and verse.. Beatrice was not afraid to descend from heaven to limbo Limbo- the first circle of Dante's hell, where the souls of unbaptized infants and virtuous people who died before the coming of Christ are located. to Virgil and beg him for help. The attention of Mary, the main intercessor for people before the Lord, to Dante is also quite understandable, but what does Saint Lucia have to do with it?
Saint Lucia in folk tradition was considered the patroness of vision and helped with eye diseases Such a “saint” is connected with the etymology of her name: Lucia is derived from the Latin lux, lucis - “light”.. Dante's special relationship with Saint Lucia is due to serious vision problems that he received in his youth due to diligent reading. Dante talks about this in the Symposium. "Feast" - philosophical treatise by Dante, written approximately 1304-1307.: “Having tired my eyesight with persistent reading, I weakened my visual abilities so much that all the luminaries seemed to me surrounded by some kind of haze.” It is possible that Beatrice was also a devotee of Saint Lucia: the house in which she lived after her marriage was adjacent to the Church of Saint Lucia. So the saint was perfect for the role of mediator between Mary, Beatrice, who ascended to heaven, and Dante.
The choice of this character reflects the general principle of the “Comedy”: being a grand theological, philosophical and poetic canvas, it is at the same time a story about the individual life of the author, where every poetic decision is connected with his feelings, passions and details of his earthly path.
3. The secret of Muslims
Illustration by Gustave Doré for Song XXVIII of Dante Alighieri's Inferno. 1900 edition Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library / University of Toronto In the 28th canto of “Hell”, Dante meets the prophet Muhammad and the righteous caliph Ali, suffering eternal torment as “sowers of discord and schism”: in Dante’s time it was believed that Mohammed was a Catholic prelate who broke away from the true faith, so for Dante he dissenter. The unflattering portrayal of the prophet (the description of his torment is one of the most physiological in the Comedy) earned Dante the reputation of an enemy of Islam (the Comedy is even banned in Pakistan).
Like a barrel without a bottom, full of holes -
From the mouth to where the feces come out,
Inwardly, one of them was revealed to the eye.The intestines hung disgustingly between the knees,
The heart and stomach sac were visible,
Stuffed with gum, stained with feces Translation by Alexander Ilyushin..
However, Dante's attitude towards Islam is much more complex and subtle. In limbo, among the heroes and sages of Antiquity, there are famous Muslims: Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and the fighter against, Avicenna Avicenna(c. 980 - 1037) - medieval Persian doctor, philosopher and scientist. and Averroes Averroes(1126-1198) - medieval Andalusian Arabic-speaking philosopher, physician and mathematician.. These three are the only inhabitants of limbo born after the coming of Christ.
In addition, it is believed that the entire structure of the poem can reflect the story of the night journey and ascension of the Prophet (isra and miraj), during which Muhammad appeared before Allah, and also visited heaven and hell, where he saw the bliss of the righteous and the torment of sinners . In the medieval Arabic tradition, there were many descriptions of the mirage - their similarity to the Comedy was first substantiated by the Spanish Arabist Miguel Asin-Palacios in 1919. Later, versions of these texts in Romance languages became known, detailing the Prophet's journey and spreading throughout Europe from Arab Spain. These findings made the hypothesis of Dante's acquaintance with this Arabic tradition much more plausible - and today it is accepted by the majority of Dante scholars.
4. The Mystery of Epicurus
Illustration by Gustave Doré for Song X of Ada. 1900 edition Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library / University of Toronto Still in the same limbo, Dante meets many ancient philosophers:
Then, looking at the low slope,
I saw: the teacher of those who know,
Surrounded by a wise-loving family This means Aristotle..Socrates sits closest to him
And with him Plato; the whole host honors the omniscient;
Here is the one who assumes the world to be accidental,The famous philosopher Democritus;
Here are Diogenes, Thales and Anaxagoras,
Zeno, and Empedocles, and Heraclitus...
Epicurus is not on this list, and this is no coincidence: he is destined for a completely different place in the Comedy - Dante will see his grave in the sixth circle of hell, where heretics reside:
Here is a cemetery for those who once believed,
Like Epicurus and all who are with him,
That souls with flesh perish without return.
Epicurus (341-270 BC) lived before the advent of Christianity and therefore could not be considered a heretic in the full sense of the word. The usual accusations of atheism against Epicurus in the Middle Ages originate in the speeches of the Apostle Paul against Epicureanism and continue in the writings of the first Christian apologists: thus, Lactantius condemned Epicurus for denying divine providence and the immortality of the soul, for destroying religion and preaching debauchery. This anachronism is consonant with the general medieval anti-historicism: the Middle Ages molds historical characters in its own image, turning ancient heroes into knights, and philosophers into Christian thinkers and erasing the differences between eras. This is no stranger to Dante.
5. The Mystery of the Broken Vessel
At the beginning of the 19th canto, Dante retells a vague biographical episode: shortly before the time of the Comedy, he broke a vessel with baptismal water in the Florentine Baptistery of San Giovanni, saving a child drowning in it:
Everywhere, along the riverbed and along the slopes,
I saw an innumerable series
Round holes in grayish stone.They look exactly the same
Like those in my beautiful San Giovanni,
Where the sacrament of baptism is performed.I, saving a boy from suffering,
Recently, one of them was broken...
Indeed, in the time of Dante, in the Florence Baptistery, recesses were made around the baptismal spring, where large clay vessels with holy water were placed. According to philologist Marco Santagata, this episode is inserted into the text of the poem for two reasons. On the one hand, Dante wanted to give an explanation for his action, which may have caused the scandal (this is indicated by the words with which he ends his story: “And here is the seal, in protection from whispers!” - which means: let this evidence convince tells people not to listen to false rumors).
At the same time, Dante's story is reminiscent of the Old Testament parable about the prophet Jeremiah and the clay jug. Obeying the will of the Lord, the prophet buys an earthen jar and breaks it in front of the elders: just as a man breaks an earthen vessel, the Lord can crush the people of Israel if people break the covenants of the Lord and worship idols.
Breaking a jug of holy water, Dante imitates the gesture of the prophet. Jeremiah rebelled against the idolatry of the people of Israel, and Dante in the Comedy rebels against contemporary idolatry - the simony of the church Simony- purchase of church positions. In the broadest sense of the word, this is the name given to the predominance of material interests over spiritual ones in the affairs of clergy.. In Canto 19, Dante unleashes anger at the popes who exchange the spiritual for the material and lead the world to destruction:
O Simon the Magus, O ill-fated hosts,
You, that holy thing of God, are good
A pure bride, in terrible hungerCorrupted for the sake of gold and silver,
Now about you, executed in the third crack,
It's time for the trumpet to ring!
Dante has already vaguely hinted at his prophetic gift. In “New Life”, having reached the moment of Beatrice’s death, Dante refuses to talk about her: “It is not proper for me to talk about this, since I would extol myself, which is especially reprehensible” (Dante hints at a mystical vision , what happened to him at the time of Beatrice’s death). Modern Dante scholar Mirko Tavoni brings this episode closer to the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians: 14 years after the event, the apostle talks about how he was “caught up” (that is, taken up) into heaven. Paul was silent about this miracle earlier, so as not to exalt himself and not be proud of such a divine sign. Dante is also endowed with a special gift and also does not want to talk about it directly, so as not to praise himself.
6. The secret of living people in hell
Illustration by Gustave Doré for Song XVIII "Ada". 1900 edition Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library / University of Toronto In canto 18, Dante meets an acquaintance:
As I walked forward, my gaze fell
For one; and I exclaimed: “Somewhere
I was already looking at his face.”I began, trying to recognize who it was,
And the good leader, stopping with me,
There was no prohibition against catching up with him.Scourged, hiding his appearance,
He bowed his forehead; but the labor was wasted;
I said: “You, with your head bowed,When you don’t wear someone else’s appearance,
Venedico Caccianemico. How
Do you deserve a seasoning this cool?”
Venedico dei Caccianemichi - a prominent politician of the second half of the 13th century, leader of the Bolognese Guelphs In the 13th century, there was a fierce struggle between the papacy and the German emperors for dominance in the Italian Peninsula. The pope's supporters were called Guelphs and stood against the Ghibellines, supporters of the emperor. In 1289, after the Battle of Campaldino, in which Dante took part, the Ghibellines were expelled from Florence and the city became the patrimony of the Guelphs. But the political conflicts did not end there. Soon the Guelphs themselves were divided into two factions - white and black. Whites sought greater political and economic independence from the papacy, while blacks, representing the interests of the city's wealthiest families, supported papal intervention in the internal affairs of Florence. After the division, Dante joined the White Guelphs.. It was after his party came to power that Dante was forced to leave Bologna, where he spent several years of exile Dante's expulsion from his native Florence happened several years earlier. He actively participated in Florentine political life starting around 1295, and in 1300 he was even elected one of the seven members of the college of priors. But his political career cost him dearly: when the black Guelphs came to power in Florence, Dante was immediately sentenced to death. The poet, who was outside the city at that time, will never return to his homeland.. This explains Dante's personal dislike for Venedico.
In 1300, when the action of the Comedy takes place, the historical Venedico was still alive - he would die only in 1303. Dante writes this song around 1307-1308 - and either forgets about the exact time of the Bolognese’s death, or deliberately neglects chronology in order to get even with his enemy.
But if this case allows for a double interpretation, then in other places Dante deliberately goes to some lengths to place people in hell during the action of the Comedy - at the end of March 1300 - who were still alive. For example, in the 19th canto the poet settles scores with the hated Pope Boniface VIII He supported the black Guelphs, so Dante believed that the expulsion was a consequence of Boniface's political intrigues., who died only in 1303. Dante meets Pope Nicholas III, who is suffering eternal torment for the sin of simony, and turns to him. But the soul of the sinful pope takes the poet for Boniface:
“How, Boniface,” he responded, “
Are you here already, are you here already so early?
Thus, Dante indicates that Boniface’s soul is already destined for a place in hell.
Another living dead is Branca Doria, a Genoese who is paying for the betrayal of his guest. He also ended up in hell long before his historical death in 1325 (several years after the death of Alighieri himself). The souls of such traitors are cast into hell immediately after committing the crime, and a demon enters the body. Therefore, it seems alive that “Branca d’Oria is alive, healthy, he eats, and drinks, and sleeps, and wears dresses.”
7. The Secret of the Centaurs
Illustration by Gustave Doré for Song XII of the Ada. 1900 edition Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library / University of Toronto In the seventh circle of hell, Dante and Virgil first meet the guard - the half-man, half-bull Minotaur:
...And on the edge, above the descent to a new abyss,
The Cretans' shame lay spread out,Conceived in ancient times by an imaginary cow.
Like a bull struck to death by an axe,
Tears his lasso, but is unable to run
And he just jumps, stunned by pain,So the Minotaur rushed about, wild and evil...
Descending even lower, they see centaurs with their “double nature” and harpies “with wide wings and a maiden face.”
The presence in Dante’s Christian hell of mythological characters of pagan Antiquity no longer surprises the reader, because the guardians of previous circles were the carrier of the souls of the dead through the Styx Charon, the king of Crete Minos, Cerberus guarding the gates of hell, and the god of wealth Plutos. Dante again acts in a medieval way, adapting Antiquity to his needs: pagan monsters turn into hellish demons, and the mythical rivers Acheron, Styx and Phlegethon flow on the map of hell.
But the Minotaur, centaurs and harpies are united not only by their ancient origin: they are also connected by their dual nature, combining human and animal. Why is it important? Because Dante builds his hell, imitating Aristotle. Let us remember the words of Virgil at the end of the 11th canto:
Don't you remember the saying?
From Ethics, what is most destructive
Three heaven-hating attractions:
Incontinence, anger, violent bestiality?
And that incontinence is a lesser sin before God
And that’s not how he punishes him?
The first circles are devoted to the sins of intemperance, then there are rapists, and in the very depths there are deceivers and traitors.
Ancient hybrid monsters are located in the seventh circle, the circle of rapists, and represent an allegorical image of the sins of this part of hell: the animal element, manifested in the vices of the sinners languishing here, is physically manifested in them.
This is just one of the many cases of Dante's use of allegory: each element, be it a historical character or a mythological monster, acquires, in addition to the specific poetic, an additional allegorical meaning. This allegorism of Dante is typical of the Middle Ages, and yet his idea of man anticipates the ideas of the Neoplatonists of the Italian Renaissance Neoplatonists- Italian humanists of the 15th century who turned to the philosophical ideas of Plato, breaking with the Aristotelianism of medieval scholasticism. The central figures of Renaissance Italian Neoplatonism are Marsilio Ficino and Giovan Pico della Mirandola.: a person is halfway between animals and God and can approach the divine pole, relying on the mind given to him, or descend to the state of an animal (it is significant that the adjective bestiale- “animal” - used by Dante only in relation to human behavior and always in a very negative way).
Dante does not say how he moved from the second circle to the third, probably because he wanted to hint to the reader that his soul, even after the return of his feelings, was so greatly shocked by the sad fate of two lovers that he did not pay any attention to the path, now passed by him. It awoke in him only at the sight of a new execution. Streckfuss.
In this circle gluttons are executed (i miseri profani). “Rain, this blessed gift of heaven, fertilizing the earth, here in darkness, inaccessible to sunlight, produces nothing but disgusting dirt and stench: the gifts of heaven are vainly squandered for sensualists, sinners are immersed in mud: didn’t the same thing happen to them? in life? They are unable to rise from it; trying in vain to free themselves from it, they only turn from side to side; if they happen to rise, they immediately fall again (vv. 91–93) and, moreover, with their head forward, the receptacle of their spiritual strength: it has become so heavy that it itself brings them down to the ground.” You save and Streckfuss.
Like Charon and Minos, Virgilian Cerberus is transformed into a demon, the three-headed image of which ends in a gigantic worm or snake. Lucifer is also called the worm that wears away the world (Ada XXXIV, 107). He has a triple mouth, a thick belly, a strong beard (in reality: with a black and greasy beard, with red eyes - the real personification of gluttony. He is saturated with dirt: this expresses the value of what sensualists strive to satisfy their desires, for the sake of which they forget about the highest purpose of man - about the development of higher spiritual powers. The barking of Cerberus deafens sinners; it is the voice of their evil conscience, to which in their filth they would willingly wish to be deaf forever.
Imitation of Virgil, Aen. VI, 420.
Cui vates, horrere videns jam colla colubris,
Helle soporatam et medicatis frugibus offam
Objieit Ille fame rabida tria guttura pandeni
Gorripit objectam, atque immanla terga resolvit
Pusus bumi, totoque ingens extenditur antro.
Despite the fact that the sinners punished in this circle have a human image and seem to be real beings, they are so insignificant that they cannot be distinguished from the fetid filth in which their souls are mired. Like dirt, Dante tramples them under his feet, paying as much attention to them as to real dirt. Kannegiesser. – In general, however, we note that Dante’s shadows in hell are not yet completely freed from the earth, their essence is still connected with some materiality; in purgatory they are more spiritual; finally, in paradise, souls are no longer called shadows, but lights, for they are eternally surrounded by the light of the joy that animates them.
Chiacco is either an abbreviation of Giacopo, Jacob, or a nickname, which in Florentine dialect means pig. It is incredible that Dante, in addressing this sinner, would use the spoken word in a mocking tone, given the deep participation that he takes in his fate. Anyway, this is a play on words between Chiacco, Yakov, and ciacco, pig, sharply characterizes the representative of sin, here punished. This Giacopo or Chiacco, according to the most ancient commentators, is a true judge and a cheerful interlocutor, pleasant in society. He is mentioned by Boccaccio Decamer. IX, 8.
To clearly understand Chiacco’s prediction, it is necessary to know the political state of Florence at that time, especially since this historical information will later serve us as a key to explain many places in Dante’s poem. At the end of the 13th century, Florence, having expelled the Ghibelline party, could finally enjoy peace for a while; but this calm did not last long. Pistoia was at that time part of the Guelphic League in Tuscany, having the same popular government as Florence. One of the most famous families of this city, Cancellieri, was divided into two lines: the members of one named themselves after their mother, Bianchi, white, members of the other, in contrast to her, called themselves black. These parties had long been at odds with each other and often came into bloody clashes; In 1300 their enmity flared up with renewed vigor. Amadore, one of the Black party, quarreled, wounded his relative Vanni (from the White party). Amadore's father, a man of peaceful character, sent his son to the father of the wounded man to apologize for his impatience; but this latter, instead of listening to excuses, ordered Amadora to be seized, and, saying that such insults are decided with the sword, and not with words, he cut off his right hand. This crime immediately divided the whole city: some took the side of the Blacks, others of the Whites. But the discord was not limited to Pistoia alone, but immediately spread to Florence, where the hostile spirit of the Guelphs and Ghibellines was still imperfectly suppressed. In Florence, members of the old noble family of Donati (under the leadership of Messer Corso) took the side of the Blacks, and the new noble house of the Cerchi (under the leadership of Messer Viero) took the side of the Whites. Unrest and bloody fights spread throughout the city. At this time, Florence was governed by priors, elected annually by 6 people, each for two months. Wanting to stop the unrest, they, according to legend, on the advice of Dante, who was prior of Florence from June 15 to August 15 of last year, expelled the leaders of both parties from the city: the Blacks to Perugia, the Whites to Sarzana. This was in February 1301. At that time, the Blacks turned to Pope Boniface VIII with a request to send them a third-party ruler to restore order to them. Meanwhile, the Whites, as less guilty, were soon called back, under the pretext that the climate of Sarzana was harmful to them, and indeed many of them died from disease. Returning to the city, in June 1301 they managed to expel the rest of the Black party, who retired to their leaders in Perugia. Whether Dante took any part in these party intrigues is very doubtful: the only certainty is that at that time he was used for political affairs and was sent as ambassador to Boniface VIII. Meanwhile, Boniface, benevolent to the Blacks as true Guelphs, sent, probably through their own machinations, Charles of Valois, brother of the French king Philip the Fair, to Florence under the guise of a peacemaker. The city authorities received him with honor and, after taking an oath of unbreakable obedience to the laws of the republic, authorized him to reform and calm the republic. Soon, however, he brought an armed army into the city. The Blacks took advantage of this moment, burst into the city and devastated it with fire and sword for five days in a row. Karl did not take decisively any measures to stop these troubles and only cared about obtaining more money by all means in his power; at the same time, he expelled from the city, under various pretexts, all the citizens who were hostile to him, among others, our poet and many Whites. However, many of this party remained in their homes even after Charles left Florence (in 1302), and only in 1304 were they finally expelled. Philalethes and Wegele (Dante's Lebeu und Werke, 1852, 117 et d).
The action of “The Divine Comedy” begins from the moment when the lyrical hero (or Dante himself), shocked by the death of his beloved Beatrice, tries to survive his grief, setting it out in poetry in order to record it as specifically as possible and thereby preserve the unique image of his beloved. But here it turns out that her immaculate personality is already not subject to death and oblivion. She becomes a guide, the savior of the poet from inevitable death.
Beatrice, with the help of Virgil, the ancient Roman poet, accompanies the living lyrical hero - Dante - around all the horrors of Hell, making an almost sacred journey from being to non-existence, when the poet, just like the mythological Orpheus, descends into the underworld to save his Eurydice. On the gates of Hell it is written “Abandon all hope,” but Virgil advises Dante to get rid of fear and trepidation of the unknown, because only with open eyes can a person comprehend the source of evil.
Dante's Hell. Start
Sandro Botticelli "Portrait of Dante". (wikimedia.org)
Hell for Dante is not a materialized place, but a state of soul of a sinned person, constantly tormented by remorse. Dante inhabited the circles of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, guided by his likes and dislikes, his ideals and ideas. For him, for his friends, love was the highest expression of the independence and unpredictability of the freedom of the human person: this is freedom from traditions and dogmas, and freedom from the authorities of the church fathers, and freedom from various universal models of human existence.
Love with a capital “L” comes to the fore, aimed not at the realistic (in the medieval sense) absorption of individuality into a ruthless collective integrity, but towards the unique image of the truly existing Beatrice. For Dante, Beatrice is the embodiment of the entire universe in the most concrete and colorful image. And what could be more attractive to a poet than the figure of a young Florentine woman, accidentally met on a narrow street of an ancient city? This is how Dante realizes the synthesis of thought and concrete, artistic, emotional comprehension of the world. In the first song of Paradise, Dante listens to the concept of reality from the lips of Beatrice and is unable to take his eyes off her emerald eyes. This scene is the embodiment of deep ideological and psychological shifts, when artistic comprehension of reality strives to become intellectual.
Illustration for The Divine Comedy, 1827. (wikimedia.org)
The afterlife appears before the reader in the form of a solid building, the architecture of which is calculated in the smallest detail, and the coordinates of space and time are distinguished by mathematical and astronomical accuracy, complete numerological and esoteric overtones.
The number three and its derivative, nine, appear most often in the text of the comedy: a three-line stanza (terzina), which became the poetic basis of the work, which in turn is divided into three parts - cantics. Minus the first, introductory song, 33 songs are devoted to the depiction of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and each part of the text ends with the same word - stars (stelle). To the same mystical number series one can also include the three colors of clothes in which Beatrice is clothed, three symbolic beasts, three mouths of Lucifer and the same number of sinners devoured by him, the triple distribution of Hell with nine circles. This entire clearly constructed system gives rise to a surprisingly harmonious and coherent hierarchy of the world, created according to unwritten divine laws.
Speaking about Dante and his “Divine Comedy”, one cannot help but note the special status that the great poet’s homeland – Florence – had in a host of other cities of the Apennine Peninsula. Florence is not only the city where the Accademia del Chimento raised the banner of experimental knowledge of the world. This is a place where nature was looked at as closely as anywhere else, a place of passionate artistic sensationalism, where rational vision replaced religion. They looked at the world through the eyes of an artist, with elation and worship of beauty.
The initial collection of ancient manuscripts reflected a shift in the center of gravity of intellectual interests to the structure of the inner world and creativity of man himself. Space ceased to be the habitat of God, and they began to treat nature from the point of view of earthly existence, they looked for answers to questions understandable to man, and took them in earthly, applied mechanics. A new way of thinking - natural philosophy - humanized nature itself.
Dante's Hell. Topography
The topography of Dante's Hell and the structure of Purgatory and Paradise follow from the recognition of loyalty and courage as the highest virtues: at the center of Hell, in the teeth of Satan, there are traitors, and the distribution of places in Purgatory and Paradise directly corresponds to the moral ideals of the Florentine exile.
By the way, everything we know about Dante’s life is known to us from his own memoirs, set out in The Divine Comedy. He was born in 1265 in Florence and remained loyal to his hometown all his life. Dante wrote about his teacher Brunetto Latini and his talented friend Guido Cavalcanti. The life of the great poet and philosopher took place in the circumstances of a very long conflict between the emperor and the Pope. Latini, Dante's mentor, was a man with encyclopedic knowledge and based his views on the sayings of Cicero, Seneca, Aristotle and, of course, the Bible, the main book of the Middle Ages. It was Latini who most influenced the development of the personality of Buddhism. a great Renaissance humanist.
Dante's path was replete with obstacles when the poet was faced with a difficult choice: for example, he was forced to contribute to the expulsion of his friend Guido from Florence. Reflecting on the theme of the vicissitudes of his fate, Dante in the poem “New Life” devotes many fragments to his friend Cavalcanti. Here Dante created the unforgettable image of his first youthful love - Beatrice. Biographers identify Dante's lover with Beatrice Portinari, who died at the age of 25 in Florence in 1290. Dante and Beatrice became the same textbook embodiment of true lovers as Petrarch and Laura, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet.
In 1295, Dante entered the guild, membership in which opened the way for him into politics. Just at this time, the struggle between the emperor and the Pope intensified, so that Florence was divided into two opposing factions - the “black” Guelphs, led by Corso Donati, and the “white” Guelphs, to whose camp Dante himself belonged. The Whites were victorious and drove their opponents out of the city. In 1300, Dante was elected to the city council - it was here that the poet’s brilliant oratory abilities were fully revealed.
Dante increasingly began to oppose himself to the Pope, participating in various anti-clerical coalitions. By that time, the “blacks” had stepped up their activities, burst into the city and dealt with their political opponents. Dante was summoned several times to testify before the city council, but each time he ignored these demands, so on March 10, 1302, Dante and 14 other members of the “white” party were sentenced to death in absentia. To save himself, the poet was forced to leave his hometown. Disillusioned with the possibility of changing the political state of affairs, he began to write his life's work - The Divine Comedy.
Sandro Botticelli "Hell, Canto XVIII". (wikimedia.org)
In the 14th century, in The Divine Comedy, the truth revealed to the poet who visited Hell, Purgatory and Paradise is no longer canonical, it appears to him as a result of his own, individual efforts, his emotional and intellectual impulse, he hears the truth from the lips of Beatrice . For Dante, an idea is the “thought of God”: “Everything that will die and everything that will not die is / Only a reflection of the Thought to which the Almighty / With His Love gives existence.”
Dante's path of love is the path of perception of divine light, a force that simultaneously elevates and destroys a person. In The Divine Comedy, Dante placed special emphasis on the color symbolism of the Universe he depicted. If Hell is characterized by dark tones, then the path from Hell to Heaven is a transition from dark and gloomy to light and shining, while in Purgatory there is a change in lighting. For the three steps at the gates of Purgatory, symbolic colors are allocated: white - the innocence of the baby, crimson - the sinfulness of the earthly being, red - redemption, the blood of which whitens so that, closing this color series, white appears again as a harmonious combination of the previous symbols.
In November 1308, Henry VII became king of Germany, and in July 1309, the new Pope Clement V declared him king of Italy and invited him to Rome, where the magnificent coronation of the new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire took place. Dante, who was an ally of Henry, returned to politics, where he was able to use his literary experience productively, writing many pamphlets and speaking publicly. In 1316, Dante finally moved to Ravenna, where he was invited to spend the rest of his days by the city's lord, philanthropist and patron of the arts, Guido da Polenta.
In the summer of 1321, Dante, as ambassador of Ravenna, went to Venice with a mission to make peace with the Doge's Republic. Having completed an important assignment, on the way home Dante falls ill with malaria (like his late friend Guido) and suddenly dies on the night of September 13-14, 1321.
Man-beamer - that's what Victor Hugo called him. He was a wanderer and an outcast, a warrior, a poet and a philosopher. And despite everything, he brought light in the darkness. Fate itself placed Dante Alighieri at the origins of the great Renaissance.The newborn was given the name Durante, which means “patient, enduring.” It turned out to be prophetic, although it was very soon forgotten for the sake of the affectionate diminutive Dante, which remained with him for the rest of his life.
I was born and raised
In the great city, by the beautiful waters of the Arno, -
then he will write about himself.
Today in Florence we can easily find the ancient quarter where the Alighieri family lived. There, a stone's throw from his home, near the Church of Santa Margherita on a Florentine street with the same name, as legend says, nine-year-old Dante first met Beatrice Portinari.
Barely the ninth revolution of the sun
Fulfilled in the sky above me,
As I already loved.
Dante saw Beatrice only twice in his life. But, probably, already on the day of that first meeting he could have said, as he said 40 years later in The Divine Comedy, having met her in Paradise:
And after so many, so many years of separation...
Me before Her my eyes
They saw - already by secret force,
What came from her, I found out,
What power still has
My love for her is as old as the world.
I was shocked and now, as in childhood,
When I saw her for the first time...
I recognized my ancient love.
But all this will happen later. In the meantime... Florence, XIII century. The spring wind of history brings new breath to the banks of the Arno. The poetry of the singers of knightly love - the troubadours of Provence - penetrates the city of flowers. The most refined and educated Tuscan poets, such as Guido Cavalcanti, inspired by the troubadours, became Dante's teachers. Then the young man studies at the University of Bologna, where he receives the basics of classical knowledge - ancient history, mythology, philosophy. He dedicates the following lines of gratitude to one of his teachers:
Imprinted in my soul to this day
Your dear, kind, fatherly face.
That's what you first taught me,
How a person becomes immortal.
Life in Florence during Dante's time took place in a series of endless wars. In his early youth, he fought in the front ranks at the Battle of Campaldino and participated in the siege of Caprona. His further path is closely connected with the politics and public affairs of Florence. The pinnacle of Dante’s political destiny was his tenure from June 15 to August 15, 1300, “prior of order and speech.” In fact, he headed the executive branch of the city. But not for long. Alighieri would soon find himself embroiled in a conflict between the black and white Guelphs - two parties vying for power in Florence - and would be driven out of his beloved city in disgrace. In 1302, the period of wanderings of the great Florentine began. In a foreign land, he will say: “The world is a fatherland for me, like the sea is for fish, but although I loved Florence so much that I endure an unjust expulsion, there is still no place in the world for me more kind than Florence.”
Later, having come to their senses, the Florentine magistrates, blinded by the poet’s glory, invited him to return to his hometown, however, on the condition that he repent and apologize for his mistakes, to which the exile angrily replied: “This is not how Dante will return to his homeland. Your forgiveness is not worth this humiliation. My shelter and my protection are my honor. Can’t I see the sky and the stars everywhere?”
It was a harsh, dark time. A time of epidemics, empty treasuries and the constant threat of famine.
There is no hope, and everything is in darkness,
And lies reign, and truth hides its eye.
When, Lord, will that come?
Are your faithful waiting? weakens
Faith is in delays...
His own response to the times was The Divine Comedy, 14 thousand verses...
Having completed half my earthly life,
I found myself in a dark forest,
Having lost the right path in the darkness of the valley, -
This is how Dante's story begins. They say that the poet called his work simply “Comedy.” “Comedy” - because it begins “terribly and sadly”, with “Hell”, and its end is beautiful and joyful - this is “Paradise”. The epithet “Divine” appeared later. Traces of the great poet in Florence are elusive, but still... The house where Dante lived remains. At the old church of San Stefano al Ponte, Boccaccio once read excerpts from the Divine Comedy. In the Duomo, on a 15th-century fresco, there is a famous portrait: Dante in a scarlet cloak with his creation in his hands. The stern look of the marble pyita at the Cathedral of Santa Croce Alighieri, surrounded by lions and with a mighty eagle at his feet, is striking. This is probably how the poet looked at the pictures of “hell”, suggested to him by the cruel world in which he lived...
Love speaks to my soul -
He sang so sweetly that he continues to this day
That sweet song sounds within me...
In how many souls did Dante's songs evoke a response! And in Russian souls too. The entire Silver Age was inspired by his terzas.
You must be as proud as a banner;
You must be as sharp as a sword;
Like Dantu, underground flame
Your cheeks should burn...
This is Bryusov. He has a lot of beautiful poems that mention Alighieri.
The great Florentine was quoted, read, learned by heart, translated. Poems and entire literary studies were dedicated to him, Gumilev, Akhmatova, Lozinsky, Mandelstam, Merezhkovsky wrote articles about him...
From Akhmatova’s memoirs about her meeting with Mandelstam in Leningrad in 1933: “Osip had just learned Italian and was raving about Dante, reciting pages by heart. We started talking about "Purgatory". I read a part of the XXX song (the appearance of Beatrice).
In a wreath of olives, under a white veil,
A woman appeared, dressed
In a green cloak and a fire flame dress...
All my blood
An unspeakable thrill permeates:
I recognize traces of the fire of the past...
Osip began to cry. I was scared - “What is it?” - No, nothing, just these words and in your voice.’”... And this is Anna Akhmatova’s “Muse”:
When I wait for her to come at night,
Life seems to hang by a thread.
What honors, what youth, what freedom
In front of a lovely guest with a pipe in her hand.
And then she came in. Throwing back the covers,
She looked at me carefully.
I tell her: “Did you dictate to Dante?
Pages of Hell? Answers: “I.”
Dmitry Merezhkovsky believed that Dante’s main goal was not even to say something to people, but to do something with people, to change their souls and the fate of the world. From the biographical novel "Dante":
"I can't say how I got there,
I was so full of a vague dream at that moment,
When I had already left the right path, -
Dante remembers how he got lost in the dark, wild forest leading to hell. It sometimes seems that the whole world is now full of the same vague dream... If he is destined to wake up, then perhaps in one of the first voices that awakens him, he will recognize Dante's voice. The entire “Comedy2” is nothing more than a warning cry to those lost in the Dark and Wild Forest, which leads to Hell. In Dante’s voice one can hear the voice of human conscience, unsilent for centuries...
Eternal Love can save us,
While the sprout of hope is green..."
Dante's fate was tragic. He died in exile, never seeing his beloved Florence again. Eight years after the poet’s death, Cardinal Bertrando del Poggetto will burn his works and even want to burn his ashes - for the “heresy” that the church saw in the Divine Comedy.
Dante's great message is still waiting to be understood.
“But don’t think that I’m the only Phoenix bird in the whole world. For what I shout about at the top of my voice, others either whisper, or mutter, or think, or dream.”
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