The Theme in the Work
Politics in Purgatory is not a digression from the canticle; it is the public face of the same misdirected desire that the mountain cures in souls. The poem treats it on three scales: Italy, the dynasties and the Church, and joins them in one question, who answers for the lost world. The first scale is that of Italy. Sordello and Virgil, Mantuans who embrace each other by the name of their land, launch against Dante the most famous invective of the canticle, which calls Italy a slave, a ship without a helmsman, not a lady of provinces. Italy is an unbroken mount, the Empire is the saddle and the laws of Justinian are the bridle, and the bridle is worth nothing without someone to ride:
Che val perché ti racconciasse il freno / Iustinïano, se la sella è vòta? / Sanz’ esso fora la vergogna meno, what good is it that Justinian mended your bridle, if the saddle is empty? Without it the shame would be less.
The invective turns to Florence, which changes laws, coinage, offices and customs so many times that it resembles the sick woman who, finding no rest on the feathers, turns in bed to ward off the pain.
E se ben ti ricordi e vedi lume, / vedrai te somigliante a quella inferma / che non può trovar posa in su le piume, / ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma, and if you remember well and see the light, you will see yourself resembling that sick woman who cannot find rest on the feathers, but by turning wards off her pain.
The second scale is that of the dynasties. In the valley of the princes, Sordello points to Emperor Rudolf, who could heal Italy's wounds and did not, and closes the list with the rule that undoes the idea of inherited virtue:
Colui che più siede alto e fa sembianti / d’aver negletto ciò che far dovea, / e che non move bocca a li altrui canti, / Rodolfo imperador fu, che potea / sanar le piaghe c’hanno Italia morta, / sì che tardi per altri si ricrea, he who sits highest and makes a show of having neglected what he should have done, and who does not move his lips to the songs of others, was Emperor Rudolf, who could have healed the wounds that have killed Italy, so that she is late to be revived by others.
Rade volte risurge per li rami / l’umana probitate; e questo vole / quei che la dà, perché da lui si chiami, rarely does human probity rise again through the branches; and this is what he who gives it wills, so that it may be asked of him.
In Canto XX it is Hugh Capet, founder of the reigning house of France, who presents himself as the root of the evil plant that shadows the whole Christian earth, and who sees at Anagni the outrage to the pope as a new passion of Christ:
Io fui radice de la mala pianta / che la terra cristiana tutta aduggia, / sì che buon frutto rado se ne schianta, I was the root of the evil plant that shadows all the Christian land, so that good fruit is rarely plucked from it.
Perché men paia il mal futuro e ’l fatto, / veggio in Alagna intrar lo fiordaliso, / e nel vicario suo Cristo esser catto. / Veggiolo un’altra volta esser deriso; / veggio rinovellar l’aceto e ’l fiele, / e tra vivi ladroni esser anciso, so that the future evil and the deed may seem less, I see the fleur-de-lis enter Anagni, and Christ taken in his vicar. I see him mocked another time; I see vinegar and gall renewed, and him killed between living thieves.
The third scale is that of the Church. Marco Lombardo places the cause of the lost world in government and in the mixing of the two powers of Rome:
Soleva Roma, che ’l buon mondo feo, / due soli aver, che l’una e l’altra strada / facean vedere, e del mondo e di Deo. / L’un l’altro ha spento; ed è giunta la spada / col pasturale, e l’un con l’altro insieme / per viva forza mal convien che vada;, Rome, which made the good world, used to have two suns, which made one road and the other visible, that of the world and that of God. One has put out the other; and the sword has been joined to the crozier, and the one with the other, together, by living force, must badly go.
And he concludes, with Dante's approval, that the Church of Rome, by confusing two governments in itself, falls into the mud and befouls itself and its burden:
Dì oggimai che la Chiesa di Roma, / per confondere in sé due reggimenti, / cade nel fango, e sé brutta e la soma». / «O Marco mio», diss’ io, «bene argomenti; / e or discerno perché dal retaggio / li figli di Levì furono essenti., say now that the Church of Rome, by confusing two governments in itself, falls into the mud and befouls itself and its burden. "O my Marco," I said, "you argue well; and now I discern why the sons of Levi were exempt from the inheritance."
The final scene of the theme is the vision of the chariot in Eden, covered with feathers and transformed into a monster with a harlot and a giant, and Beatrice's obscure prophecy, which asks for a messenger of God.
Sicura, quasi rocca in alto monte, / seder sovresso una puttana sciolta / m’apparve con le ciglia intorno pronte, secure, like a fortress on a high mountain, a loose harlot appeared to me sitting upon it, with her eyes ready all around.
Who Embodies It
Sordello is the homeland that embraces itself and the princes who judge themselves. Marco Lombardo is the doctrine of the two suns. Forese Donati is the Florence of the future, in the beast that drags his brother. Beatrice is the prophetess of the messenger.
Where It Appears
- Canto III: Manfred tells that the Church's curse took the tomb from his bones, and that the shepherd of Cosenza, sent by Clement, did not read well the face of God.
- Canto VI: Dante, after the embrace of Sordello and Virgil, accuses Italy, Emperor Albert, the Church and Florence in the same invective.
- Canto VII: Sordello points to the princes of the valley, from Rudolf to Guiglielmo, for what they did or failed to do, and closes with the rule that probity rarely rises again through the branches.
- Canto VIII: Conrad Malaspina prophesies that Dante's courteous opinion about his house will be fixed in the head with larger nails, within seven years, if the judgment is not stayed.
- Canto XIV: Guido del Duca walks the valley of the Arno and Romagna naming houses and places where whoever was good died or left, and those who remain beget worse children.
- Canto XVI: Marco Lombardo says that Rome had two suns, that of the world and that of God, and that the sword joined the crozier and the two go badly.
- Canto XX: Hugh Capet denounces the rapacity of his descendants, from the Charles who came to Italy to the outrage to the pope at Anagni, and sees Christ taken in his vicar.
- Canto XXIV: Forese warns Dante that the one most at fault for the ruin of the city is carried at the tail of a beast toward the valley where one never makes amends.
- Canto XXXII: Dante sees the chariot of the procession struck by an eagle, taken by a fox, feathered and transformed into a monster with a harlot and a giant.
- Canto XXXIII: Beatrice prophesies a messenger of God who will kill the thief and the giant, in a number that she herself calls obscure.
Where the Readings Diverge
A critical reading sees in the poem a work of personal expression and places lyricism at the vital center of the work, so that Dante's politics appears as passion and not as program.
The text sustains two readings of the two suns. On the first, it is nostalgia for an Empire that once functioned. On the second, it is an ideal of separate powers that the verb in the past presents as already lived. The same doubt runs through the prophecy of DXV: it asks for a messenger, but the obscurity that Beatrice cultivates leaves the reader not knowing whether the world will be corrected by a man or by a time.