Purgatorio (The Divine Comedy series Book 2) Read online

  FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JANUARY 2004

  Copyright © 2003 by Jean Hollander and Robert Hollander

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2003.

  Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:

  Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321.

  [Purgatorio. English]

  Purgatorio / Dante Alighieri; a verse translation by Jean Hollander and Robert Hollander; introduction & notes by Robert Hollander.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  I. Hollander, Jean. II. Hollander, Robert. III. Title.

  PQ4315.3 .H65 2003

  851’.1—dc21 2002067100

  eISBN: 978-0-385-50831-5

  Author photographs © Pryde Brown

  Cover Image from a 14th century Venetian manuscript

  © Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY

  Cover design by Kathleen DiGrado

  Book design by Pei Loi Koay

  Map illustrated by Jeffrey L. Ward

  www.anchorbooks.com

  v3.1

  for J.V.F.

  an ideal colleague,

  a better friend

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Note on Using This eBook

  Note on the Translation

  Table of Abbreviations and List of Commentators

  Map of Dante’s Purgatorio

  Introduction

  The Purgatorio: English

  Purgatorio I

  Purgatorio II

  Purgatorio III

  Purgatorio IV

  Purgatorio V

  Purgatorio VI

  Purgatorio VII

  Purgatorio VIII

  Purgatorio IX

  Purgatorio X

  Purgatorio XI

  Purgatorio XII

  Purgatorio XIII

  Purgatorio XIV

  Purgatorio XV

  Purgatorio XVI

  Purgatorio XVII

  Purgatorio XVIII

  Purgatorio XIX

  Purgatorio XX

  Purgatorio XXI

  Purgatorio XXII

  Purgatorio XXIII

  Purgatorio XXIV

  Purgatorio XXV

  Purgatorio XXVI

  Purgatorio XXVII

  Purgatorio XXVIII

  Purgatorio XXIX

  Purgatorio XXX

  Purgatorio XXXI

  Purgatorio XXXII

  Purgatorio XXXIII

  The Purgatorio: Italian

  Purgatorio I

  Purgatorio II

  Purgatorio III

  Purgatorio IV

  Purgatorio V

  Purgatorio VI

  Purgatorio VII

  Purgatorio VIII

  Purgatorio IX

  Purgatorio X

  Purgatorio XI

  Purgatorio XII

  Purgatorio XIII

  Purgatorio XIV

  Purgatorio XV

  Purgatorio XVI

  Purgatorio XVII

  Purgatorio XVIII

  Purgatorio XIX

  Purgatorio XX

  Purgatorio XXI

  Purgatorio XXII

  Purgatorio XXIII

  Purgatorio XXIV

  Purgatorio XXV

  Purgatorio XXVI

  Purgatorio XXVII

  Purgatorio XXVIII

  Purgatorio XXIX

  Purgatorio XXX

  Purgatorio XXXI

  Purgatorio XXXII

  Purgatorio XXXIII

  Notes

  Index of Names and Places

  Index of Subjects Treated in the Notes

  About the Translators

  Acclaim for the Translators

  Other Books by Robert and Jean Hollander

  A Note on Using This eBook

  In this eBook edition of The Purgatorio, you will find two types of hyperlinks.

  The first type is embedded in the line numbers to the left of the text: these links allow you to click back and forth between the English translation and the original Italian text while still holding your place.

  The second type of link, which is indicated by an arrow (→) at the end of a line of poetry, will bring you to an explanatory a note.

  You can click on an arrow to navigate to the appropriate note; you can then use the links at the end of each note to return to your location in either the English translation or the original Italian text. You can also click on the note number to return to your location in the English translation.

  NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION

  * * *

  Since our goals in translating the second cantica of Dante’s poem are not in substance different from those that animated our translation of the first, the reader is asked to consult the similar notice that precedes our translation of Inferno (Doubleday 2000; Anchor 2002). Purgatorio presents some challenges different from those encountered in Inferno, but we have again attempted to give as accurate a sense of the poetry and meaning of the Italian text as English allows. The language and style of this part of the poem is, in many respects, different from that to which we have become accustomed in the previous cantica. The “harsh and rasping” verse (Inf. XXXII.1) used to describe in particular the bottom reaches of hell is mainly lacking here, for the most part replaced by a more harmonious tone and diction. And the themes we encounter now are by and large quite different, as, entering the realm of the saved, we might expect. We need but think of the opening images of sunlight (unseen in Inferno), of the sense of divine grace operating before our eyes, of the fraternal love that replaces the hatred found in hell, of the light of the stars, of the singing so often heard and the smiling so often seen in this place, and, in general, of the theological virtue of hope (and its color, green), missing in even the best part of hell, Limbo (where, in Virgil’s words, “without hope we live in longing” [Inf. IV.42]).

  At the same time, things are not entirely different. The pain undergone by the penitents, it is true, is suffered to a joyous purpose, as Forese Donati makes plain: “I speak of pain but should say solace” (Purg. XXIII.72). Nonetheless, in form it is much as that suffered by the damned; all of these souls, too, have their contrapasso (Inf. XXVIII.142), the punishment that fits their crime, and it functions just as it did in hell, either by mirroring the sin it punishes (as in the choking smoke of wrath) or by being its opposite (as in upward-surging pride being crushed beneath a heavy burden). Also similar to those we found in Inferno are the narratives told by former sinners. The attitudes of these speakers and the resolutions of their lives are vastly different (we might compare Francesca [Inf. V] and Pia de’ Tolomei [Purg. V], as many in fact do); however, the way in which their stories are presented is essentially the same, brief narratives, perhaps best considered Ovidian in origin, of the defining moment in a person’s life. Perhaps no other feature of the Comedy is as reflective of the poetic essence of Dantean art as this one, as Robert Browning realized when he wrote his series of Dantesque monologues.

  While surely we must acknowledge that Inferno and Purgatorio are very different poetic places, they nonetheless maintain some arrestingly similar elements. From the vantage point of Paradiso the second canticle looks much more l
ike its predecessor than like its successor. But that is another story.

  We are grateful to two friends born in Italy and born to Dante for their willingness to sample our translations and my comments with a knowing eye. Margherita Frankel, formerly a professor of Italian at New York University, was her usual careful and exacting self as she examined our materials. The same must be said of Simone Marchesi, who has studied with me as a graduate student at Princeton and now is about to begin teaching Dante in his own courses to fortunate students. We are pleased to be able here to express our gratitude to them both.

  Gerald Howard, in addition to his more significant titles and duties at Random House, has been our editor for some years now. His support made publication of our work possible, and his continuing clearheaded and keen-eyed editorial supervision has helped keep the project on an even keel. And we are grateful as well to all at Random House and Anchor Books (including three former students of mine at Princeton) who have taken such pleasure in their association with this project.

  March 2000 (Florence)–January 2002 (Tortola)

  This printing includes over one hundred brief and minor emendations.

  7 November 2010 (Hopewell)

  TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS & LIST OF COMMENTATORS

  * * *

  1. Dante’s works:

  Conv. Convivio

  Dve De vulgari eloquentia

  Egl. Egloghe

  Epist. Epistole

  Inf. Inferno

  Mon. Monarchia

  Par. Paradiso

  Purg. Purgatorio

  Quest. Questio de aqua et terra

  Rime Rime

  Rime dub. Rime dubbie

  VN Vita nuova

  Detto Il Detto d’Amore (“attributable to Dante”)

  Fiore Il Fiore (“attributable to Dante”)

  2. Commentators on the Commedia (these texts are all either currently available or, as in the case of Bennassuti and Provenzal, should one day be available, in the database known as the Dartmouth Dante Project; dates, particularly of the early commentators, are often approximate):

  Jacopo Alighieri (1322) (Inferno only)

  Graziolo de’ Bambaglioli (1324) (Latin) (Inferno only)

  Jacopo della Lana (1324)

  Anonymus Lombardus (1325[?]) (Latin) (Purgatorio only)

  Guido da Pisa (1327) (Latin) (Inferno only)

  L’Ottimo (1333)

  L’anonimo selmiano (1337) (Inferno only)

  Pietro di Dante (1) (1340) (Latin)

  Pietro di Dante (2) (1344–55?) (Latin)

  Pietro di Dante (3) (1359–64) (Latin)

  Il codice cassinese (1350?) (Latin)

  Chiose Ambrosiane (1355?) (Latin)

  Guglielmo Maramauro (1369–73) (Italian) (Inferno only)

  Chiose Cagliaritane (1370?) (Italian)

  Chiose Ambrosiane (1355[?])

  Guglielmo Maramauro (1369–73)

  Chiose Cagliaritane (1370[?])

  Giovanni Boccaccio (1373–75) (Inferno I–XVII only)

  Benvenuto da Imola (1380) (Latin)

  Francesco da Buti (1385)

  Chiose Vernon (1390?) (Italian)

  “Falso Boccaccio” (1390[?])

  L’anonimo fiorentino (1400)

  Filippo Villani (1405) (Latin) (Inferno I only)

  Filippo Villani (1405) (Inferno I only)

  Giovanni da Serravalle (1416) (Latin)

  Guiniforto Barzizza (1440) (Inferno only)

  Cristoforo Landino (1481) (up to Inferno XXI)

  Alessandro Vellutello (1544) (up to Purgatorio X)

  Pier Francesco Giambullari (1538–48) (Italian) (Inferno only)

  Giovan Battista Gelli (1541–63) (Italian)

  Benedetto Varchi (1545) (Italian) (Paradiso I & II only)

  Trifon Gabriele (1525–41) (Italian)

  Pier Francesco Giambullari (1538–48)

  Giovan Battista Gelli (1541–63)

  Benedetto Varchi (1545) (Paradiso I & II only)

  Trifon Gabriele (1525–41)

  Bernardino Daniello (1547–68)

  Torquato Tasso (1555–68) (Italian)

  Torquato Tasso (1555–68)

  Lodovico Castelvetro (1570)

  Pompeo Venturi (1732)

  Baldassare Lombardi (1791–92)

  Luigi Portirelli (1804–5)

  Paolo Costa (1819–21)

  Gabriele Rossetti (1826–40) (Inferno & Purgatorio only)

  Niccolò Tommaseo (1837)

  Raffaello Andreoli (1856)

  Luigi Bennassuti (1864)

  Henry W. Longfellow (1867) (English) (up to Purgatorio XXXIII)

  Gregorio Di Siena (1867) (Inferno only)

  Brunone Bianchi (1868)

  G. A. Scartazzini (1874; but the 2nd ed. of 1900 is used)

  Giuseppe Campi (1888)

  Gioachino Berthier (1892)

  Giacomo Poletto (1894)

  Hermann Oelsner (1899) (English)

  H. F. Tozer (1901) (English)

  John Ruskin (1903) (English; not in fact a “commentary”)

  John S. Carroll (1904) (English)

  Francesco Torraca (1905)

  C. H. Grandgent (1909) (English)

  Enrico Mestica (1921)

  Casini/Barbi (1921)

  Carlo Steiner (1921)

  Isidoro Del Lungo (1926)

  Scartazzini/Vandelli (1929)

  Carlo Grabher (1934)

  Ernesto Trucchi (1936)

  Dino Provenzal (1938)

  Luigi Pietrobono (1946)

  Attilio Momigliano (1946)

  Manfredi Porena (1946)

  Natalino Sapegno (1955)

  Daniele Mattalia (1960)

  Siro A. Chimenz (1962)

  Giovanni Fallani (1965)

  Giorgio Padoan (1967) (Inferno I–VIII only)

  Francesco Mazzoni (1965–85) (Italian) (Inf. I-VI; Purg. XXX; Par. VI)

  Giuseppe Giacalone (1968)

  Charles S. Singleton (1973) (English)

  Bosco/Reggio (1979)

  Pasquini/Quaglio (1982)

  Robert Hollander (2000–2007) (English)

  Nicola Fosca (2003–2006) (Italian) (Inferno & Purgatorio complete)

  *Not yet available

  NB: The text of the Purgatorio is that established by Petrocchi, Dante Alighieri: La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, ed. Giorgio Petrocchi (Florence: Le Lettere, 1994 [1966–67]), vol. III. (This later edition has five minor changes to the text of this cantica, which is thus essentially the same as the earlier text.) All references to other works are keyed to the List of Works Cited found at the back of this volume (e.g., Aust.1933.1), with the exception of references to commentaries contained in the online Dartmouth Dante Project. Informational notes derived from Paget Toynbee’s Concise Dante Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante (Oxford: Clarendon, 1914) are followed by the siglum (T). References to the Enciclopedia dantesca, 6 vols. (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970–78) are indicated by the abbreviation ED. Commentaries by Robert Hollander are (at times) shorter versions of materials found in both the Princeton and the Dartmouth Dante Projects.

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  INTRODUCTION

  * * *

  (1) History of Purgatory.

  It is important that a contemporary reader realize that the word “purgatory,” as it is used in Dante’s poem, while indicating a location in which suffering occurs, is used to denote the place in which every single soul is in progress toward salvation. Thus the current American slang use of the term to indicate an experience of harsh punishment—as though it were hell—is not a useful indicator of what the reader will find in the second part of Dante’s Comedy. In that world, to come to purgatory is to arrive at the threshold of heaven, and to arrive there in a state of grace.

  The idea of purgation has a far longer history as a concept than as a name for a place. Le Goff1 finds the first use of the noun Purgatorium in a sermon of Petrus Comestor writ
ten between 1170 and 1180. Several biblical texts, however, combine to make two notions central: II Maccabees 12:39–45 suggests the efficacy of prayer for the dead, while Matthew (5:25–26, as well as 12:31–32) and Paul (I Corinthians 3:10–17) present at least a general sense of expiation postmortem.2 In Paul’s words (3:13), “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” Thus the purgatorial refining fire lay ready for later Christian thinkers as a way of conceptualizing the salvation of souls after the death of the body. This process bridges the time between death and the Last Judgment, a period that essentially remains a lacuna in the Bible itself. By Dante’s time, theologians who attempted to deal with the lack of definition of the precise nature of “particular judgment,” that is God’s judgment of the individual soul upon the death of the body, realized that they needed to establish the nature of the divine decision that separated sinners from the saved immediately after death, since the Bible only posits the final judgment as described in the Book of Revelation. And once posthumous expiation and the prayers of the living became the crucial facts that clarify, for believers, both their own hopes and their responsibility with regard to their loved ones, it was almost inevitable that someone should invent a physical place in which this expiation of the souls of the dead might occur.

  Adding to the store of images for the development of a place to be known as “purgatory” are a series of visions of the otherworld, studied by such scholars as Rajna,3 Le Goff, and Morgan.4 Le Goff demonstrates the lateness of the development of purgatory as a distinct place, beginning perhaps with Petrus Comestor and St. Bernard ca. 1170–80,5 and underlines the major role of Dante in establishing the later sense of the place and of its function.6 Cherchi7 has shown that, among these writers, Gervase of Tillbury in particular presented a separate world of purgation that had a number of salient points in common with Dante’s and which may have in fact suggested themselves to the poet, either because Dante knew his work (Otia imperialia, ca. 1210) or was acquainted with its tradition through other sources.

  It is fair to say that by the thirteenth century Christian thinkers were ready to accept the idea that heaven and hell were not the only otherworldly kingdoms. Le Goff reminds us that, in a sermon in the early thirteenth century, no less a personage of the Church than Pope Innocent III referred to the realm of purgatory and that the Council of Lyons in 1274 called on Christians to believe in its existence. Such understandings surely lie behind Dante’s: “Now I shall sing the second kingdom, / there where the soul of man is cleansed, / made worthy to ascend to heaven” (Purg. I.4–6). Dante’s “second realm” thus accorded with the emerging general sense of exactly how the soul may increase its worthiness between death and the Last Judgment. (While Catholic doctrine allows that those who never actively sinned will bypass purgatory for direct access to paradise, Dante does not deal directly with this question; nonetheless, it seems likely that he shared this view.) We should recognize Dante’s originality in setting the mount of purgatory at the antipodes of Jerusalem, the unique landmass in the southern hemisphere and the site of the birth of humankind. We should also be aware of his involvement in a search common to all Christians for an understanding of the nature of the soul’s life between death and Judgment. Whether or not he may have been prompted, as D’Ovidio believed, by a passage in the Aeneid (VI.567–569), in which Rhadamanthus exacts confession of crimes from anyone who has delayed atonement until the final hours of life,8 it seems clear that Dante is essentially responding to Christian formulations of the soul’s pre-eternal afterlife. What is perhaps most surprising is that this lone poet’s imagination of what this place must look like and how it functions simply became the standard source of information about purgation for many who thought of it after. Purgatory has many creators; its definitive shape, as most ordinary Christians eventually came to think of it, is essentially Dantean.