The Theme in the Work
Paradise is the canticle of exile told from within. In the other two, Dante had already heard of his future from the mouths of Farinata and Brunetto, but it is in the heaven of Mars, with his great-great-grandfather, that exile becomes a complete report. Before it, the poem speaks of the lost city through the voice of one who saw it whole. Cacciaguida describes ancient Florence through its absences, and the first word of his praise is peace.
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 rings terce and none, was in peace, sober and chaste.
The city's origin is told by the women at the spindle, and the present, undone by pride and by the mixing of peoples, is the catalogue of houses in canto XVI, which ends with the lily that was never set upside down on the lance, nor turned red by division.
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 families I saw its people glorious and just, to such a degree that the lily was never set upside down on the lance, nor made red by division.
Only then comes the exile, and it comes with a myth as its point of comparison, that of Hippolytus, expelled from Athens by his stepmother:
Qual si partio Ipolito d’Atene / per la spietata e perfida noverca, / tal di Fiorenza partir ti convene., just as Hippolytus left Athens because of his pitiless and treacherous stepmother, so you must leave Florence.
What exile costs is the taste of others' bread and the steps of others' stairways:
The sentence of exile, in the mouth of Cacciaguida.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 shall leave everything you hold most dear; and this is the first arrow that the bow of exile shoots. You shall learn how the bread of others tastes of salt, and how hard a road it is to go down and up by the stairs of others. It is the autobiographical heart of the poem: Dante writes the Comedy already in exile, and puts into the mouth of his own ancestor the exact image of the humiliation he lived through as he wrote it.
Dante fears losing his life among those who will call this time ancient, and Cacciaguida's consolation has two parts: the punishment of his companions will come from themselves, and it will be fine for you to have formed a party of your own.
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., that, wholly ungrateful, wholly mad and impious, will turn against you; but, shortly after, it, and not you, will have its temples red. Its own bestial conduct will make the proof of it, so that it will be fine for you to have made a party of yourself.
From high in Gemini, in canto XXII, the little plot that makes men so fierce appears whole, from the hills to the mouths of the rivers, and Dante smiles at its vile appearance:
L’aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci, / volgendom’ io con li etterni Gemelli, / tutta m’apparve da’ colli a le foci, the little plot that makes us so fierce, as I turned with the eternal Twins, appeared to me entire, from the hills to the mouths.
Canto XXIII changes the sense of the word, because the treasure of heaven was won weeping in the exile of Babylon, where the gold was left behind. And in XXV exile receives its horizon: Dante returns a poet to the baptismal font, with another voice and another wool, if the poem overcomes the cruelty that shuts him out of the fair fold.
vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra / del bello ovile ov’ io dormi’ agnello, / nimico ai lupi che li danno guerra; / con altra voce omai, con altro vello / ritornerò poeta, e in sul fonte / del mio battesmo prenderò ’l cappello, may the cruelty that shuts me out of the fair fold where I slept as a lamb, an enemy to the wolves that wage war on it, be overcome; with another voice now, with another wool, I shall return a poet, and at the font of my baptism I shall take the cap.
The horizon, therefore, is not a pardon from the city, it is a crowning of the poem, and the one who decides whether it will come is Florence itself. Adam (in current reading), the first exile, closes the arc by explaining that his exile came from crossing the sign, and not from tasting the fruit.
Or, figluol mio, non il gustar del legno / fu per sé la cagion di tanto essilio, / ma solamente il trapassar del segno, now, my son, it was not the tasting of the wood that was in itself the cause of so long an exile, but only the crossing of the sign.
Who Embodies It
Dante is the exile who hears the sentence and accepts the charge. Cacciaguida is the ancestor who speaks it and recalls the city. Adam is the first exile. Folquet of Marseille is the voice that accuses Dante's native city, the plant of those who first turned their backs on the Creator.
Where It Appears
- Canto IX: Folquet calls Florence the plant of the one who turned his back on the Creator, and accuses the cursed flower that led sheep and lambs astray.
- Canto XV: Cacciaguida describes Florence within the ancient walls, sober and chaste, and his life as baptized, knight and crusader.
- Canto XVI: Cacciaguida recalls the houses undone by pride and the betrothal of Buondelmonte that divided the city.
- Canto XVII: Cacciaguida announces to Dante his departure from Florence, the bread that tastes of salt, and orders him to manifest the whole vision.
- Canto XXII: Dante sees the Earth from above as a small plot and smiles at its vile appearance.
- Canto XXIII: The poet recalls that the treasure of heaven was won weeping in the exile of Babylon, where the gold was left.
- Canto XXV: Dante declares the hope of returning a poet to the baptismal font, with another voice, if the poem overcomes the cruelty.
- Canto XXVI: Adam says the cause of so long an exile was crossing the sign, and not tasting the wood.
- Canto XXXI: Dante compares his astonishment to that of the barbarians before Rome, he who comes from Florence to a just and sound people.
Where the Readings Diverge
Carpeaux closes his portrait of Dante with the image of the exile's tomb, in Ravenna:
Mas Dante continua até hoje na solidão do seu túmulo de exilado, em Ravenna., But Dante still remains to this day in the solitude of his exile's tomb, in Ravenna.
The text supports two readings of the purity of blood that Cacciaguida celebrates. In the first, it is the civic complaint of an old man against those who came from the countryside and traded the city for money. In the second, it is a defense of a purity that Cacciaguida himself undermines when he says that cities and lineages also die. The same holds for the return: the hope of coming back a poet is a return with another fleece, and the poem does not say whether the city opens the door.