Who He Is
Forese Donati is Dante's youthful friend, whom Dante recognizes only by his voice. On the sixth turn, that of gluttony, the souls pass in silence and devotion, so thin that the skin takes the shape of the bones, and it is from one of them, who turns his eyes from the depths of his head and cries out what grace this is, that the phrase comes which undoes the disguise of the face. Forese asks Dante not to linger on the dry scab that discolors his skin, and tells what made him this way: the virtue that falls from the eternal council into water and plant, which kindles in the souls the care to drink and eat and leaves them holy in hunger and thirst. He is the husband of Nella, the widow who drew him from the foot of the mountain with her prayers, the brother of Corso, whom the commentators' tradition identifies with the man whom the prophecy shows dragged by the tail of a beast, and the brother of Piccarda, who triumphs joyfully on high Olympus. What makes him important is the combination: the friend who talks as if nothing had changed, and the judgment he gives of his own city, spoken without anger.
Trajectory
In Canto XXIII of Purgatory the thin shades pass by Dante and the two poets. Dante thinks of Erysichthon and of the people of Jerusalem when Mary sank her teeth into her son, and he sees in the hollows of the eyes the design of the M of omo. A shade looks at him, and he would not have recognized it by its face:
Mai non l’avrei riconosciuto al viso; / ma ne la voce sua mi fu palese / ciò che l’aspetto in sé avea conquiso. / Questa favilla tutta mi raccese / mia conoscenza a la cangiata labbia, / e ravvisai la faccia di Forese, I would never have recognized him by his face; but in his voice became plain to me what his appearance had conquered in itself. This spark rekindled my whole knowledge of the changed lip, and I recognized the face of Forese.
The first words are of astonishment at being seen with grace. Forese asks Dante to tell him the truth about who accompanies him, and Dante replies that his face, which wept when dead, now gives him no less pain for being so twisted. Forese explains the penalty and at once corrects himself: hunger is a will.
E non pur una volta, questo spazzo / girando, si rinfresca nostra pena: / io dico pena, e dovria dir sollazzo, / ché quella voglia a li alberi ci mena / che menò Cristo lieto a dire ‘Elì’, / quando ne liberò con la sua vena, And not only once, circling this space, is our pain refreshed: I say pain, and I should say solace, because that will leads us to the trees, the same that led Christ joyfully to say Eli, when He freed us with His vein.
Dante reminds him that not five years have passed since his death, and that if the power to sin in him ended before the hour of good sorrow, he should be below, where time is paid with time. Forese answers that it was Nella, with her undone weeping, who led him to drink the sweet wormwood of the martyrdoms:
Sì tosto m’ha condotto / a ber lo dolce assenzo d’i martìri / la Nella mia con suo pianger dirotto. / Con suoi prieghi devoti e con sospiri / tratto m’ha de la costa ove s’aspetta, / e liberato m’ha de li altri giri, So quickly has my Nella, with her broken weeping, led me to drink the sweet wormwood of the martyrdoms. With her devout prayers and her sighs she drew me from the slope where one waits, and has freed me from the other circles.
The widow is dearer to God, he says, the more solitary she is in doing good, for the Barbagia of Sardinia is more modest in its women than the Barbagia where he left her. He announces to Florence a time not far off when the pulpit will forbid the shameless to show their breasts. He asks Dante not to hide himself any longer, because all the souls look where the sun is veiled by his body, and Dante answers with an appeal to shared memory:
Se tu riduci a mente / qual fosti meco, e qual io teco fui, / ancor fia grave il memorar presente, If you bring to mind what you were with me, and what I was with you, the memory will still be grievous in the present.
Then he says who is his guide, and the phrase is the notice of the end of the company with Virgil:
Tanto dice di farmi sua compagna / che io sarò là dove fia Beatrice; / quivi convien che sanza lui rimagna. / Virgilio è questi che così mi dice, He says he will make me his companion, so that I will be there where Beatrice will be; there I must remain without him. This one who says so to me is Virgil.
In Canto XXIV of Purgatory Forese talks with Dante in the manner of a friend, hears that Statius's shade perhaps climbs more slowly because of another, and answers Dante's question about his sister:
La mia sorella, che tra bella e buona / non so qual fosse più, trïunfa lieta / ne l’alto Olimpo già di sua corona, My sister, who between beautiful and good I do not know which she was more, triumphs joyfully on high Olympus, already with her crown.
He points with his finger at the souls who are there, and Dante sees Bonagiunta. When Dante says he does not know how long he will live, Forese warns him about the city:
Or va», diss’ el; «che quei che più n’ha colpa, / vegg’ ïo a coda d’una bestia tratto / inver’ la valle ove mai non si scolpa. / La bestia ad ogne passo va più ratto, / crescendo sempre, fin ch’ella il percuote, / e lascia il corpo vilmente disfatto, Now go, he said; for the one who has the most blame I see dragged at the tail of a beast toward the valley where one is never absolved. The beast goes faster at every step, always growing, until it strikes him and leaves the body vilely undone.
He departs like the knight who gallops out of the squadron to win honor in the first encounter, and leaves Dante on the road with the two marshals.
Themes Embodied
Forese embodies the help of the living, which the poem treats as currency of Ante-Purgatory and extends to the sixth turn. It is Redemption made of prayers: his penalty was shortened by Nella, and the poem makes of this a theme of gratitude, without sentimentality. Politics lies in the prophecy about the women of Florence and in the animal that drags his brother. Love takes the form of marriage: a husband who recognizes, only afterward, what his wife was worth.
The poem leaves the past of Dante and Forese unnarrated. Tradition recalls an exchange of insulting sonnets between the two, and the text says nothing of it: it says only that the memory is grievous. The text recounts no reconciliation, and it is complete in the manner in which the two treat each other: the friend whom Dante wept for when dead now sees the twisted face, and Forese gives the news of a sister who triumphs and of a wife who weighed.
Divergent Readings
The text supports two readings of Forese's sweet wormwood. One is the simple gratitude of a husband who acknowledges the widow. The other is the belated recognition of one who, in life, did not give his wife the place she now has before God. The formula joins bitterness and thanks in the same verse, and does not choose. The same goes for the penalty: for Forese, what he has just called pain is solace, and the will that leads him to the trees is the one that led Christ to say the name of God on the cross.