Dear Tor,

I fully agree with you (and dare to disagree with Massimiliano) what
regards the weight we should or should rather not give to the early
commentary tradition. Where Dante's knowledge about, and understanding of,
historical matters as indicated in his text can be verified with the help
of sources not (or not yet) influenced by his early commentators, we find
it in more than one case to be very different from what came to be
established by the early commentary tradition. To re-establish the original
understanding of Dante's text by keeping it separate from the understanding
imposed by his early commentators is not simply "accademia, piu' o meno
utile", it is "piu' utile" than trusting these early commentators too much.
Yet in the case of Pia's death there seem to be no independent sources
which could help us to decide.  

As to your reply to my own comments, I also agree that there is nothing in
the text which really **requires** the traditional reading. But we have to
chose between different options, and I still think that the traditional
reading accounts for more textual details (and maybe also for more
contextual details) than your tentative and more agnostic interpretation does.


>Relatively speaking. I have fewer problems with "my interpretation" (which
>is, I stress again, very tentative) than with the traditional one

Maybe the reason is that you derive your interpretation from the preceding
episodes exclusively but don't expect that the sense you infer should also
be indicated by Pia's speech.

>
>>I see nothing in these verses to suggest intercessionary prayers.
>
>Well, you have to look in the immediate vicinity.  Everybody here is
>talking about intercessionary prayers, (cf. Dante-narrator's words in Purg
>6, 25-27: "Come libero fui da tutte quante / quell'ombre che pregar pur
>ch'altri prieghi, / si che s'avacci lor divenir sante", which is followed
>by a theoretical exposition of why intercessionary prayers can work); every
>individual soul we have met since we left Casella mentions intercessionary
>prayers; and all references to their living kinsfolk, Manfredi's to
>Costanza, Iacopo del Cassero's to his people in Fano, Buonconte's to
>Giovanna, mentions them in connection with the expectation of
>intercessionary prayers.  It would require a strong signal in Dante's text
>for this trend to be reversed.  And it is that signal which is invisible to
>me.

Well, I looked at the immediate vicinity and tried to explain how Pia's
speech fits into this context. It seems to me that *you* would need a
strong signal in Pia's speech to indicate that her husband is referred to
as a "near and dear person" ready to intercede for his former wife. This,
not the traditional understanding, would be a reversal, because Iacopo
implies and Buonconte explicitly states that their relatives do no longer
care for their salvation.

>
>>Also it seems to me that the construction "che 'annellata **pria** / ...
>>>m'avea..." indicates that this person is no longer a near and dear one.
>>There >is a contrast between this former ('annellata m'avea) and the
>>actual state of >relations. 'Knowing' things about Pia's violent death (or
>>both about her life >and violent death?) is opposed to 'once' having
>>married her, and I think that >this antithetical construction matches well
>>with the traditional understanding >according to which this knowledge
>>includes responsiblity for her violent death.  >Although not being
>>corroborated by the evidence of historical sources (apart >from Dante's
>>early commentators), this traditional understanding seems closer >to the
>>text than yours.
>
>I think you stress the _antithetical_ rather too much.  "Pria" means simply
>"before".  Pia says that she was married before she died, which is, after
>all, the normal course of events.

Maybe this is the crucial point which you should reconsider. The antithesis
is between the present tense of "salsi colui" and the past tense of
"'nnanellata pria / m'avea". It's not between **Pia's** actual state and
her former life, but between **her husbands** actual attitude and his
former attitude when he married her (and vowed to serve her faithfully for
the rest of his -- not of her -- life).

>[...]
>>That's why Iacopo wants the pilgrim to testify his actual state to his
>>former >compatriotes at Fano, why Buonconte wants this state to be known
>>not or not >only by his wife and 'others', but even by the 'living' in
>>general, and why >Pia, using an imperative which is both impersonal and
>>personal, addresses the >pilgrim "ricorditi di me che son la Pia".
>>Intercession is, of course, expected >from ones relatives in the first
>>line. But the geographical focus in Iacopo's >speech ("se mai vedi quel
>>paese" etc., "che tu mi sie di tuoi prieghi cortese / >in Fano" etc.), and
>>the even more intimate reminiscence in Buonconte's speech >("Giovanna o
>>altri non ha di me cura") is already enlarged by Buonconte when he >says:
>>"Io diro' vero e tu 'l ridi' tra' vivi". Pia only continues this larger
>>>perspective ("quando tu sarai tornato **al mondo** / ... / ricorditi di
>>me") >and contrasts it by what I take to be a bitter -- not a hopeful --
>>reference to >her husband. If this reference somehow connects her husband
>>with intercession, >it refers to him as someone who does not and will not
>>intercede, not to "a near >and dear person who would be saying
>>intercessionary prayers on her behalf", as >you read it.
>
>Nice line of reasoning.  Iacopo refers to Fano, Buonconte to "the living",
>which would make Pia speak to "the world".  If you want a movement of
>expansion here I suppose you would want "mondo" to mean both the living and
>the future generations, those, in other words, to whom Dante's text would
>speak.

I am not sure how much Dante (or Pia) was concerned with 'future
generations', but "il mondo" means the world of the living in the first
line, and so I don't take this phrasing to have a much larger sense than
Buonconte's "tra' vivi"

  And what is important for her to say, then, is that she was called
>Pia (or that she was pious - let us not forget that "son la pia" may mean
>"I am the pious one"), that she was made in Siena, unmade in Maremma, and
>that this fact is known by he who, before she died, married her by placing
>a ring on her finger.  If you forget for a moment the weight of
>commentators and of critical consensus, what bitterness does she express
>when she says that her husband knew of her life and death?

It is in fact difficult to read the text immanently, as if the commentary
tradition had never informed our understanding. Nevertheless I think that
Pia's statement would be strange if she just stated without any
afterthought that her former husband knows about her life and death. If it
is true that the circumstances of her violent death were a mystery to her
contemporaries, then it has some weight -- and very probably the weight of
a barely veiled accusation -- when she states that her husband knows all
about it.

>
>>If the traditional understanding is correct, Pia's reference unites what
>>was >distinct in the cases of Iacopo and Buonconte: Iacopo points out his
>>murderer, >but does not complain about his relatives, while Buonconte
>>complains about his >relatives, but does not accuse anybody of being
>>guilty of his premature death. >If it is true that both elements come
>>together in Pia's reference to her >husband, this would seem to be a
>>gradation no less or maybe even more plausible >than the kind of schematic
>>repetition which you expect.
>
>As a gradation your version is plausible, Otfried, but the problem is that
>there are no pointers in the lines that Dante gives Pia that her premature
>death was caused by her husband.  If this was an important point it would
>have been _stated_ in some way.

I think (and the commentary tradition thinks so) that it is stated, though
in an indirect way, by her phrasing "salsi colui". It's not an absolutely
compelling reading of her verses, but to me it seems an acceptable one, and
I see nothing in the text or context which clearly contradicts it. Compare
with "com'esser puo', quei sa che si' governa" (If 28,126), referring to
God as being not only a witness, but a cause of the things described. In
Dante's Commedia, there are many accusations expressed or insinuated in a
more or less oblique way, where we would like the text to be more plane.
All in all, I can follow you insofar as you are hesitant to accept the
tradtional understanding, that is, to accept it without any reservations,
but I cannot follow you in rejecting it (if this is what your doubts and
the subject line of this thread want to suggest).

Yours,

 Otfried

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