Who He Is
Cacciaguida is Dante's great-great-grandfather, who receives him on Mars, in the arm of the cross of lights, and occupies four cantos, from XV to XVIII, the longest individual encounter of the canticle. The poem gives the name only at the end of canto XV, after a relationship is named: Dante is the frond, he was the root. He greets his descendant in solemn Latin, as his own blood and as the grace of God superinfused, and describes two things, the Florence of his time and the Florence that will come. The Florence of his time is made of absences and of names: within the old walls, sober and modest, without necklaces, without crowns, without an empty house, with women at the spindle and the distaff who told tales of Troy, of Fiesole, and of Rome. He was baptized in the old baptistery, knighted by the emperor Conrad, and died on crusade. The one to come is the one that falls to him to tell: the exile, the bread of others that tastes of salt, the ungrateful and mad company that will turn against Dante, the first refuge in the house of the staircase, and the command to make known the whole vision. He is the voice that gives the poem its pact: the difficult speech is justified in advance. Of the one from whom Dante's surname comes (Alighiero, in the common reading), his son and the poet's great-grandfather, he says that the first ledge of the mountain has been circling for more than a hundred years, a detail that links Paradise to Purgatory.
Trajectory
In canto XV the greeting measures the encounter by that of Aeneas and Anchises:
Sì pïa l’ombra d’Anchise si porse, / se fede merta nostra maggior musa, / quando in Eliso del figlio s’accorse. / «O sanguis meus, o superinfusa / gratïa Deï, sicut tibi cui / bis unquam celi ianüa reclusa?», so pious did the shade of Anchises extend himself, if our greatest muse deserves faith, when in Elysium he recognized his son. "O my blood, O grace of God superinfused, to whom, as to you, has the gate of heaven been opened twice?"
The request for a name receives a relationship in reply:
«O fronda mia in che io compiacemmi / pur aspettando, io fui la tua radice»: / cotal principio, rispondendo, femmi, O frond of mine, in whom I took my pleasure only in waiting, I was your root: such was the beginning I made, in replying.
Old Florence is described through its absences:
Fiorenza dentro da la cerchia antica, / ond’ ella toglie ancora e terza e nona, / si stava in pace, sobria e pudica, Florence, within the ancient walls, from which it still takes tierce and nones, was at peace, sober and modest.
Bellincion Berti vid’ io andar cinto / di cuoio e d’osso, e venir da lo specchio / la donna sua sanza ’l viso dipinto, I saw Bellincion Berti go girded with leather and bone, and his wife come from the mirror without her face painted.
l’altra, traendo a la rocca la chioma, / favoleggiava con la sua famiglia / d’i Troiani, di Fiesole e di Roma, the other, drawing the thread from the distaff, told tales with her family of the Trojans, of Fiesole, and of Rome.
His life is summed up in four steps, and the last is the martyrdom that leads him to peace:
Quivi fu’ io da quella gente turpa / disviluppato dal mondo fallace, / lo cui amor molt’ anime deturpa; / e venni dal martiro a questa pace, there I was, disentangled by that base people from the deceitful world, whose love disfigures many souls; and from martyrdom I came to this peace.
In canto XVI the pilgrim addresses him with the formal "you" and asks about his ancestors, and the answer begins to see the city through its mixed blood:
Ma la cittadinanza, ch’è or mista / di Campi, di Certaldo e di Fegghine, / pura vediesi ne l’ultimo artista, but the citizenry, which is now mixed with people of Campi, Certaldo, and Figline, was seen pure even in the last artisan.
Cacciaguida immediately undoes his own argument, because all things have their death:
Le vostre cose tutte hanno lor morte, / sì come voi; ma celasi in alcuna / che dura molto, e le vite son corte. / E come ’l volger del ciel de la luna / cuopre e discuopre i liti sanza posa, / così fa di Fiorenza la Fortuna, all your things have their death, just as you do; but it hides in some that last a long time, and lives are short. And as the turning of the sky of the moon covers and uncovers the shores without pause, so Fortune does to Florence.
Then comes the catalog of the houses, and the phrase that sums it up:
Oh quali io vidi quei che son disfatti / per lor superbia! e le palle de l’oro / fiorian Fiorenza in tutt’ i suoi gran fatti, oh, what I saw of those undone by their pride! And the golden balls made Florence flourish in all its great deeds.
The origin of the division lies in a broken engagement:
Molti sarebber lieti, che son tristi, / se Dio t’avesse conceduto ad Ema / la prima volta ch’a città venisti, many would be glad who are sad now, if God had granted you to Ema the first time you came to the city.
And the final balance is political:
Con queste genti vid’io glorïoso / e giusto il popol suo, tanto che ’l giglio / non era ad asta mai posto a ritroso, / né per divisïon fatto vermiglio, with these people I saw its populace glorious and just, to such a degree that the lily was never placed upside down on the lance, nor turned red by division.
In canto XVII contingency is first explained:
«La contingenza, che fuor del quaderno / de la vostra matera non si stende, / tutta è dipinta nel cospetto etterno; / necessità però quindi non prende / se non come dal viso in che si specchia / nave che per torrente giù discende., contingency, which does not extend beyond the notebook of your matter, is all painted in the eternal sight; yet it takes no necessity from there, except as the ship that descends the current takes it from the eye in which it is reflected.
And the exile, with a myth as the point of comparison:
Qual si partio Ipolito d’Atene / per la spietata e perfida noverca, / tal di Fiorenza partir ti convene., as Hippolytus departed from Athens because of his ruthless and treacherous stepmother, so you must depart from Florence.
The sentence of exile, in Cacciaguida's mouth.Tu lascerai ogne cosa diletta / più caramente; e questo è quello strale / che l’arco de lo essilio pria saetta. / Tu proverai sì come sa di sale / lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle / lo scendere e ’l salir per l’altrui scale.You will leave behind everything you love most dearly; this is the first arrow that the bow of exile shoots. You will learn how the bread of others tastes of salt, and how hard a road it is to go down and up other people's stairs. It is the autobiographical heart of the poem: Dante wrote the Commedia already in exile, and places in the mouth of his own ancestor the exact image of the humiliation he lived through as he wrote it.
The ungrateful company will turn against Dante, but with the consolation of solitude:
che tutta ingrata, tutta matta ed empia / si farà contr’ a te; ma, poco appresso, / ella, non tu, n’avrà rossa la tempia. / Di sua bestialitate il suo processo / farà la prova; sì ch’a te fia bello / averti fatta parte per te stesso., which, wholly ungrateful, wholly mad and impious, will turn against you; but, shortly afterward, it, and not you, will have its temple reddened. Its own bestial conduct will make the proof of this, so that it will be fine for you to have made a party of yourself.
When Dante fears losing his life among those who will call this time ancient, the answer is a command:
Ma nondimen, rimossa ogne menzogna, / tutta tua visïon fa manifesta; / e lascia pur grattar dov’ è la rogna. / Ché se la voce tua sarà molesta / nel primo gusto, vital nodrimento / lascerà poi, quando sarà digesta., but nevertheless, every lie set aside, make all your vision manifest; and let them scratch where the itch is. For if your voice is irksome at first taste, it will leave vital nourishment afterward, once it has been digested.
And the reason he has shown only souls of fame:
nel monte e ne la valle dolorosa / pur l’anime che son di fama note, / che l’animo di quel ch’ode, non posa / né ferma fede per essempro ch’aia / la sua radice incognita e ascosa, / né per altro argomento che non paia»., on the mountain and in the sorrowful valley, only the souls known by fame, because the mind of the one who hears does not rest nor firmly trust in an example whose root is unknown and hidden, nor in any other argument that is not manifest.
In canto XVIII he shows, in the arms of the cross, those who had great voice on earth, and then mingles with the other lights.
Themes Embodied
Cacciaguida embodies Home, exile, and return: the city he praises is the one his descendant loses, and the praise takes the form of a list of absences. He also embodies Justice and law as politics, because each name in the catalog is a case of pride, and Faith in the form of a command to the poet: to tell everything, even if the voice is irksome at first taste.
The text sustains two readings of the purity he celebrates. In the first, it is the civic complaint of an old man against those who came from the countryside and became peddlers of office. In the second, it is a defense of a purity of blood, which modern readers call xenophobia. Cacciaguida says that the confusion of people was always the beginning of the city's evil, and soon shows that families also die, which weakens the second reading without undoing the first.
Relationships
- Dante: the descendant to whom he announces the exile and orders him to tell everything.
- Beatrice: the one who laughs a little apart when Dante boasts of his blood.
- Saint Peter: the apostle who, among the fixed stars, takes up again the accusation against the present that Cacciaguida opens on Mars.