A consideration of pilgrims in the rime permits us to track an analogous transition: from Cavalcando l’altr’ier, where the lover finds “Amore in mezzo de la via / in abito leggier di peregrino [Love before me in the road / attired in simple clothes that pilgrims wear]” (3–4), we move to Deh pellegrini, where real pilgrims – not figurations of Love dressed as pilgrims – are passing through Florence. The idea of pilgrimage is developed conceptually in the prose of Vita Nuova XL (29), where it is explained that “a pilgrim is anyone who is outside his homeland” (“è peregrino chiunque è fuori de la sua patria”) (VN XL.6 [29.6]). The idea of pilgrimage comes from Deh pellegrini, the text in which Dante first seriously explores a concept that will come into its own in the Commedia, where it opens to its metaphorical possibilities: life is a pilgrimage towards the one true homeland, paradise. Thus, Sapia answers the question as to whether anyone in her group of souls is Italian by saying: “O frate mio, ciascuna è cittadina / d’una vera città; ma tu vuo’ dire / che vivesse in Italia peregrina [My brother, each of us is citizen of one true city: what you meant to say was ‘one who lived in Italy as pilgrim’]” (Purg. 13.94–6).
It is impossible to overstate the importance for Dante of the metaphor of pilgrimage and of the “cammino della vita”: “[i]l nuovo e mai non fatto cammino di questa vita [new and never travelled road of this life]” (Conv. 4.12.15).
This metaphor harkens back to Deh pellegrini, a text that (as the early redaction testifies) had been written before the Vita Nuova, and that already contains motifs typical of Dante’s mature treatment of the metaphor of pilgrimage. The pilgrims of the sonnet are pensosi – pensive, absorbed in thought – as too will be pilgrims in a simile in Purgatorio that sketches their urgency: “Sì come i peregrin pensosi fanno,/giugnendo per cammin gente non nota,/che si volgono ad essa e non restanno [Just as pensive pilgrims do, who when they’ve overtaken along the way people they do not know, turn toward them but do not stop]” (Purg. 23.16–18). The melancholy of the sonnet, so evident in the opening lines, looks forward, as the commentaries note, to the celebrated verses that open canto 8 of Purgatorio, where the “novo peregrin [new pilgrim]” is pierced by the “squilla di lontano [far-off bells]” that mark the passing of the day. The forse in the wonderful verse “forse per cosa che non v’è presente [perhaps (thinking) of something that is not present]” (2) looks back at one of the rare occurrences of the word pellegrino / peregrino in the Commedia (while the idea of pilgrimage pervades the Commedia, the word is not common): “E Virgilio rispuose: ‘Voi credete / forse che siamo esperti d’esto loco;/ma noi siam peregrin come voi siete’ [And Vergil responded: ‘You perhaps believe that we are experts of this place; but we are pilgrims as you are’]” (Purg. 2.61–3).143
The octave of Deh pellegrini slowly unfolds in a long sentence in the form of a question. The poet asks if it is because they come from far away (“venite voi da·ssì lontana gente” [3]) that the pilgrims don’t weep when they pass through the suffering city, and that they give the appearance of not feeling the general affliction:
che non piangete quando voi passate
per lo suo mezzo la città dolente,
come quelle persone che neente
par che sentisser la sua gravitate?
(Deh pellegrini, 5–8)
[that you should fail to weep as you pass through
the middle of our city wrought with grief,
like those who do not seem at all informed
about the heavy grief that weighs her down?]
In the first tercet the poet invites the pilgrims to stop a while to hear the news of Florence’s misfortune, certain that if they remain – “Se voi restate per volerlo audire [If you should wish to stop and learn the cause]” (9) – then they will find cause to weep and depart the city in tears: “che lagrimando n’uscirete poi [that you would leave … weeping tears]” (11). Only in the last tercet, in a solemn ending, does the poet announce madonna’s death. Specifically, he announces that “she,” the city, has lost her beatrice, literally the one who beatifies it (beatrice is the female version of beatore, from beare, to beatify): “ch’ell’ha perduto la sua beatrice,/e·lle parole ch’om di lei può dire / hanno virtù di far pianger altrui [for she has lost her blessed beatrice,/and words that can be used to speak of her / possess the power to make all people weep]” (12–14).
Here, finally, is the cause of the city’s suffering, what makes it a “città dolente.” Barbi-Maggini note that “the name of the lady reacquires its essential significance: she who made the homeland blessed” (p. 147); De Robertis notes that “the meaning of the name of the gentilissima is here stated for the only time” (VN, p. 241). In this sonnet addressed to foreigners to whom Dante wishes to communicate a message that he conceives as potentially universal, not local (let alone private), Dante refers to his lady in a way that brings out her public, indeed civic, function: she is the carrier of beatitude for all, the beatrice/beatifier of all, not only of the poet.
And it is precisely because this non-public woman possesses a public dimension that “·lle parole ch’om di lei può dire / hanno virtù di far pianger altrui [words that can be used to speak of her / possess the power to make all people weep]” (13–14). It is interesting that this last consideration reconnects Deh pellegrini to the old courtly genre of the Occitan planh. In the introductory essay to Piangete, amanti I discussed the theme of lamentation in Occitan poetry, and the tie between planctus and praise, so visible in the planh of Sordello cited there. Sordello laments – and praises – his dead lord, Blacatz; Dante laments and praises his dead lady, who is a beatrice. Deh pellegrini on the one hand continues the process of freeing Dante’s poetry from its courtly matrix, and on the other reaffirms it in the final topos of combined praise and lament: a non-famous woman of whom there is no public record is nonetheless a figure of greater prominence than noble Blacatz, for her ability to bless and beatify has no boundaries – it is universal.
56 (B XXXVI; FB 56; DR 69; VN XL.9–10 [29.9–10])
First Redaction
Deh pellegrini che pensosi andate forse per cosa che non v’è presente, venite voi da·ssì lontana gente,
You pilgrims who go forth absorbed in thought, perhaps by something in a distant place, do you come from a land so far away –
4
com’alla vista voi ne dimostrate, che non piangete quando voi passate per lo suo mezzo la città dolente, come quelle persone che neente
as your appearance seems to indicate – that you should fail to weep as you pass through the middle of our city wrought with grief, like those who do not seem at all informed
8
par che sentisser la sua gravitate?
about the heavy grief that weighs her down?
Se voi restate per volerlo audire, certo lo cor d’i sospiri mi dice
If you should wish to stop and learn the cause, I’m sure from what my sighing heart relates
11
che lagrimando n’uscirete poi; ch’ell’ha perduto la sua beatrice, e·lle parole ch’om di lei può dire
that you would leave our city weeping tears; for she has lost her blessed beatrice, and words that can be used to speak of her
14
hanno virtù di far piangere altrui.
possess the power to make all people weep.
VN 1. peregrini – 2. forse di c. – 8. che ’ntendesser – 11. n’uscireste – 12. Ell’ha perduta
METRE: sonnet ABBA ABBA CDE DCE.
57 Oltra la spera che più larga gira
First Redaction
The extraordinary nature of this sonnet, placed by Dante in chapter XLI (30) of the Vita Nuova as its last poetic text, is evident from its first word: Oltra la spera is the only Dantean lyric to begin with the adverb oltra (a variant of oltre, beyond).144 In Paradiso 26 Dante has Adam confess that his sin consisted in “il trapassar del segno [going beyond the boundary]” (Par. 26.117), and Dante’s sublime “Ulyssean” adventure of going beyond – trapassare, or
andare oltre – is already clearly glimpsed in the incipit of this sonnet.145 De Robertis indicates that “Oltra” should be “joined with passa: oltrepassa” (ed. comm., p. 402). In other words, oltra is the youthful version of the verb trapassare that we will find in the mature Dante. Another point of reference is the extraordinary coinage “trasumanar [going beyond the human]” in Paradiso 1.70. This constellation – oltrepassare, trapassare, trasumanare – is at once existential / spiritual and linguistic / poetic (Dante’s coinage of the word trasumanar testifies to the overlapping of the two spheres), and it is a Dantean trademark.
This sonnet exists in a pre-Vita Nuova redaction, and, as always, I reproduce the earlier version here.
In Oltra la spera Dante writes of spiritual matters very matter-of-factly, describing in the most straightforward language possible a voyage of his spirit. Better yet, the sonnet describes a pilgrimage of the spirit, as indicated by the metaphor “pellegrino spirito” in the eighth line of Oltra la spera: “lo pellegrino spirito la mira [the pilgrim spirit can then gaze on her].” For the metaphor of pilgrimage, see the sonnet Deh pellegrini, with which Oltra la spera establishes clear ties.146
In Oltra la spera the “sospiro ch’esce del mio core [the sigh that issues from my heart]” (2) goes in search of his lady, who is now dead and in paradise. Here Dante “goes beyond” the solution that he had designed in Li occhi dolenti, that of calling madonna and of thus finding consolation: “Poscia piangendo, sol nel mio lamento / chiamo Beatrice, e dico: ‘Or se’ tu morta?’;/e mentre ch’io la chiamo, me conforta [Then weeping, all alone in my lament,/I call to Beatrice: ‘Are you now dead?’/And while I call on her she comforts me]” (Li occhi dolenti, 54–6). Instead of calling her, now Dante’s sigh goes to find her, like an emissary of the poet himself. The octave of Oltra la spera describes the voyage of the sigh and its arrival at the desired destination.147 The sestet is dedicated to second-order problems connected with the completed voyage: the problem of understanding the vision, of recalling and communicating it.
Summarized in this way, Oltra la spera might be seen as a sketch for Paradiso, a text that aims both to recount an otherworld journey and to meditate on the problems of communication that arise from such a journey. However, in Paradiso Dante poses the great mystical problem of the presence or not of the body (“sive in corpore nescio sive extra corpus nescio, Deus scit,” in the words of St Paul in 2 Cor. 12:2–4), and makes clear – remarkably – that he goes in the body.148 This problem is not confronted in the early sonnet.
The prose of the Vita Nuova describes the genesis of Oltra la spera thus: “mandaro due donne gentili a me pregando che io mandasse loro di queste mie parole rimate; onde io, pensando la loro nobilitade, propuosi di mandare loro e di fare una cosa nuova [two gracious women sent me a request that I send them some of my rhymes; taking their nobility into account, I decided to send some poems to them and to compose something new]” (VN XLI.1 [30.1]).149 Oltra la spera is here defined as “una cosa nuova [something new],” and the novelty of this sonnet, commissioned by the ladies who seal the sonnet (“sì che lo ’ntendo ben, donne mie care [and this, dear ladies, I can understand]” [Oltra la spera, 14]), comes through in the gloss, which explains that the poet’s thought goes to heaven where it sees the lady:
Ne la prima dico ove va lo mio pensero, nominandolo per lo nome d’alcuno suo effetto. Ne la seconda dico perché va là suso, cioè chi lo fa così andare. Ne la terza dico quello che vide, cioè una donna onorata là suso; e chiamolo allora “spirito peregrino,” acciò che spiritualmente va là suso, e sì come peregrino lo quale è fuori de la sua patria, vi stae. (VN XLI.3–5 [30.3–5])
[In the first part I say where my thought goes, giving it the name of one of its effects. In the second I say why it goes above, that is, who makes it rise. In the third I tell what it sees, namely, a woman who is honoured above; and I call it “pilgrim-spirit” since it goes above in spirit, and since there it is like a pilgrim who is away from his homeland.]
The gloss continues by calling on Aristotle, in particular the Metaphysics (“e ciò dice lo Filosofo nel secondo de la Metafisica [as the Philosopher says in the second book of his Metaphysics]” [VN XLI.6 [30.6]). The two citations of Aristotle in the Vita Nuova constitute the first declarations of a love for classical philosophy that will last throughout Dante’s career, as witnessed too by the precocious translation of Aristotle in verse in the canzone Le dolci rime.150 The challenge launched by this gloss resides in its remarkable combination of radical simplicity of language about mystical experience on the one hand151 with explicit intellectualism and erudition on the other. Language as simple and unveiled as “perché va là suso [why it goes above]” is easily ridiculed – and we should not forget that it was ridiculed. Dante was derided by his contemporaries for language of this sort, good-humouredly in the case of Cecco Angiolieri with regard to Oltra la spera (as we shall see below), or less kindly in the case of Cecco d’Ascoli, who considered heretical Dante’s spiritualizing view regarding women: “Maria va cercando per Ravenna / chi crede che in donna sia intellecto [He who believes that there is intellect in women is looking for Mary in Ravenna]” (Acerba 4.9.4401–2).152 At the same time, a citation of the “secondo de la Metafisica [second book of the Metaphysics]” is a show of intellectual strength and a guarantee of intellectual rigour.
In the sonnet Aristotle is not cited by name, as is done in the prose, but one can feel his presence in the precision of “la spera che più larga gira [the sphere that makes the widest sweep]” (1), about which De Robertis writes, “This is the first ‘physical’ definition of Paradise in poetry” (VN, p. 245). Dante here refers to the celestial sphere with the widest rotation, the last physical heaven before leaving time and space: this is the ninth heaven or Primum Mobile, thus named because it is the motor – in the Aristotelian sense – of the universe. If one goes, like “the sigh that issues from my heart” (2), beyond the Prime Mover, “beyond the sphere that makes the widest sweep,” it means that one penetrates into the Empyrean, into the mind of God, “in sua etternità di tempo fore [in his eternity outside of time]” (Par. 29.16).
And what is the force that “sù lo tira” (4), that “pulls it [the sigh] up”? It is a new, never-before-experienced, intellective power: an “intelligenza nova [a new intelligence]” (3). This “intelligenza” is infused by Love – thus literally constituting the “intelletto d’amore” of which the ladies partake in Donne ch’avete – through the experience of internalizing another’s death (alluded to by the weeping of line 4): “intelligenza nova che l’Amore / piangendo mette in lui poi sù lo tira [a new intelligence that Love, in tears,/instils in it, then sends it up above]” (3–4).153 Through suffering (“piangendo”), Love instils a new intelligence in the lover. The lesson of death has been learned; from this experience comes the “intelligenza nova” and its great power.
The second quatrain of Oltra la spera deals with the arrival of the sigh in paradise and the vision of “una donna che riceve onore [a lady held in high esteem]” (6). The voyage of the “pellegrino spirito [pilgrim spirit]” (8) is fulfilled in contemplation of the splendour that emanates from her: she “shines so brightly with reflected light / the pilgrim spirit can then gaze on her [luce sì che per lo suo splendore / lo pellegrino spirito la mira]” (7–8). We note the connection established here with the sonnet Tanto gentile: the action of gazing upon madonna in Oltra la spera (“la mira”) recalls the lady who shows herself “sì piacente a chi la mira” (9) in Tanto gentile. From the lady’s aspect in Tanto gentile moves “un spirito soave pien d’amore / che va dicendo a l’anima: ‘Sospira!’ [a spirit that is sweet and full of love / which goes before the soul and whispers: ‘Sigh’]” (13–14). In Oltra la spera we witness the completion of the voyage proposed in the conclusion of Tanto gentile. The imperative “Sigh” with which Tanto gentile ends is an invitation to desire (to “sigh for”) madonna, and in Oltra la spera this desire is consummated “when it [the sigh] has reached the plac
e of its desire”: “quando [il sospiro] è giunto là dove disira” (5). The sigh “has reached” the place to which its desire tended, the destination for which it sighed. The sospiro has arrived at the end of its journey of desire: “così l’animo preso entra in disire,/ch’è moto spiritale, e mai non posa / fin che la cosa amata il fa gioire [so does the soul, when seized, enter into desire, a motion of the spirit, never resting till the beloved thing has given it joy]” (Purg. 18.31–3).154
The sestet of Oltra la spera returns to another theme of Tanto gentile, that of the “dolcezza al core / che ’ntender no·lla può chi no·lla prova [a sweetness (in the) heart / which none can know who has not felt it first]” (Tanto gentile, 10–11). Announced in lines 9–10 of Oltra la spera – “Vedela tal, che quando il mi ridice / io no·llo ’ntendo [It sees her such that when it tells me this / I cannot understand the subtle words]” – the theme of understanding and of retelling dominates the final phase of the sonnet. The sigh obtains such a vision of Beatrice (“Vedela tal” [9]) that when it tries to retell (“quando il mi ridice” [9]) what it saw “to my sad heart, which makes it speak” (“al cor dolente che lo fa parlare”) (11), it meets with incomprehension. Notwithstanding the obligation to communicate (“lo fa parlare [which makes it speak]”) and the lexicon dominated by the verb parlare, which occurs in three successive verses, at the end of the first tercet communication is frustrated by failure to comprehend what the sigh is saying: “io no·llo ’ntendo, sì parla sottile [I cannot understand the subtle words]” (10).