On Tue, 25 Nov 1997, Tor Torhaug wrote:
> Dear italian studies list. I have a problem in Purgatorio 5:
>
> 130 Deh, quando tu sarai tornato al mondo,
> 131 e riposato de la lunga via ,
> 132 seguito 'l terzo spirito al secondo,
> 133 ricorditi di me, che son la Pia:
> 134 Siena mi fe, disfecemi Maremma:
> 135 salsi colui che 'nnanellata pria
> 136 disposando m'avea con la sua gemma .
>
> I am desperately trying to see here, in Dante's naked text, rather than in
> the dressed up commentaries, an allusion to Pia's husband as her murderer.
> And I do not succeed.
>
> Pia is one of the group of those who died violently, and who repented only
> at the last moment, and she is the last of the three souls who speak to
> Dante in Purgatorio 5.
>
> Now, my impression is that the main focus of this canto is the value of
> intercession to the souls in the ante-purgatorio. Virgil attracts them by
> alluding to how useful Dante-wanderer may be to them:
>
> 36 faccianli onore, ed essere puo lor caro
>
> and each of the three in turn ask Dante for help in procuring
> intercessionary prayers from the living. Iacopo del Cassero begs him:
>
> 70 che tu mi sie di tuoi prieghi cortese
> 71 in Fano, si che ben per me s'adori
>
> which is both a prayer that Dante himself pray for his soul, and an
> allusion to his family or friends in Fano, that they also pray for him. He
> then goes on to explain, in gory detail, how he died.
>
> Buonconte da Montefeltro also asks for Dante's intercession:
>
> 85 Poi disse un altro: Deh, se quel disio
> 86 si compia che ti tragge a l'alto monte,
> 87 con buona pietate aiuta il mio!
>
> and then goes on to deplore how Giovanna and others who should pray for him
> fail to do so, a fact that makes him sad, and/or shameful:
>
> 89 Giovanna o altri non ha di me cura;
> 90 per ch'io vo tra costor con bassa fronte
>
> Afterwards he too narrates the circumstances of his death, his salvation,
> and the final disappearance of his corpse.
>
> The elements one sees in these two espisodes of Purgatorio 5, then, contain
> a "captatio benevolentiae" to Dante, a reference to how the near and dear
> pray, or fail to pray for them, and they tell the story of their life and
> death.
>
> I would then expect la Pia's speech to folow the same pattern: Captatio
> benevolentae to Dante:
>
> 130 Deh, quando tu sarai tornato al mondo,
> 131 e riposato de la lunga via ,
> 132 seguito 'l terzo spirito al secondo,
> 133 ricorditi di me, che son la Pia:
>
> followed by the story of her life and death - albeit an extremely short one:
>
> 134 Siena mi fe, disfecemi Maremma
>
> and what I would expect to be, and have no problems as seeing, as a
> reference to a near and dear person who would be saying intercessionary
> prayers on her behalf:
>
> 135 salsi colui che 'nnanellata pria
> 136 disposando m'avea con la sua gemma
>
> her dear husband, who knows the story of her life and death. Instead every
> commentary, or at least every commentary in the Dartmouth Dante project,
> makes the "salsi" into an accusation of murder. Can someone please explain
> this to me.
>
> Tor
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
Dear Tor,
I have been following the discussion on Pia de' Tolomei with interest. I
would like to suggest a few things and possibly echo what others have
said.
First, any good poet does not make banal, factual statements. That is the
job of a prose chronicle. Poetry as art always speaks best through a veil
through which the reader must discern the truth that the poet is trying to
convey.
Second, anytime we look for solid documentary evidence to support a
medieval text (or even a concrete source for a known reworking of a
literary text) we enter a "selva oscura". So much has been lost and so
much was very likely not even written down. A written or oral source
known to Dante may have been lost or ignored by the time commentaries were
written. Yet for passages where we know sources, we can see the genius of
Dante's mind at work. He did not copy things slavishly, but constantly
reinterpreted "known" facts. Think of the Ulysses story and what he does
with that. So he can always read more or less into a documented source
than we or any of his contemporaries may have.
Third, do not forget to read the _Comedy_ as an integral organic whole.
You are fixated on the lines in Purgatory V, while forgetting about those
at the end of Inferno V. The parallels are startling if you look to Inf.
V for more interpretative evidence. There is that same indicting use of
the pronoun "colui" by Francesca that one finds in Pia's speech, though
without the venom. Reread Inf. V and see if you find concrete evidence
that says how Francesca died. Yet that story is much better known, so we
"know"that she and Paolo were stabbed by her jealous, cuckholded husband.
Yet following your logic--that if Dante does not say something
explicitly--Paolo who is not even named in Inf. V would also be innocent
of any complicitous guilty behavior as would Francesca's husband.
Last, as Julia Bolton-Holloway has suggested, the legal impropriety of a
woman accusing her husband of any crime was too great to be imagined, let
alone within a canticle of repentence and piety. Dante chooses his
characters with such care: how could he put vindictive, accusing words in
the mouth of a repentent sinner named "Pia"? Through her delicate,
feminine, and Christian speech, Dante gives the reader all he or she needs
to know to ponder the fate of Pia as well as the nature of forgiveness and
compassion.
I hope you will rethink your original opinion on this matter.
Sincerely,
Gloria Allaire
>
> Tor Torhaug
> Research fellow
> University of Oslo
> Department of Classical and Romance Studies
> Postboks 1007 Blindern
> 0315 Oslo
> Norway
>
> Phone: +47-22 85 71 28
> Fax: +47-22 85 44 52
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
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