At the close of the Farinata episode, Virgil, gravely raising his forefinger, instructs Dante to pay particular attention to what he is about to say: “La mente tua conservi quel ch’udito / hai contra te […]. Quando sarai dinanzi al dolce raggio / di quella il cui bell’occhio tutto vede, / da lei saprai di tua vita il viaggio” (Inf. 10.127-132). And yet despite being told that Beatrice will reveal to Dante the course of his future life, we later find that it is Cacciaguida who actually performs this task. Italian commentators apologize for the discrepancy either by labeling it simply as an inconsistency,[1] or by assuming that Dante changed his mind [2]. It remains noteworthy that it is not the pilgrim, but rather Virgil, who says that Dante should expect the revelation to come from Beatrice, [3] and his solemn warning probably influences Dante’s own words to Brunetto, which specify that Beatrice will perform that service: “Ciò che narrate di mio corso scrivo, / e serbolo a chiosar con altro testo/ a donna che saprà, s’a lei arrivo” (Inf. 15.88-90).

Several cross-references, however, show that Dante neither changed his mind nor forgot what he had previously written. Marguerite Mills Chiarenza has perceptively observed that “just as the pilgrim is told that Beatrice will meet him and give him a clear account of his future, so Aeneas is told (Aen. 3.458-460) that he will meet the Sybil who will tell him of the future of Rome. As it turns out, the Sybil leads Aeneas to his father, Anchises, who is the one who reveals those secrets to him (Aen. 6.756-886). Similarly, Beatrice leads Dante’s pilgrim to his ancestor […], and it is he who actually gives the prophecy we had expected from Beatrice.” [4] Nevertheless, I believe more can be made of the parallel with the Aeneid, a parallel that is specifically introduced in a simile that directly connects the Aeneid to the Cacciaguida episode in Paradiso: “Sì pia l’ombra d’Anchise si porse, / se fede merta nostra maggior musa, / quando in Eliso del figlio s’accorse” (Paradiso 15.25-27). Commentators from Charles H. Grandgent (1909-1913) to Robert Hollander (2007) have seen in the phrase “se fede merta nostra maggior musa” “a mental reservation with regard to the literal veracity of Aeneas’ adventure,” a “possible condescension toward Virgil,” and a “deliberate and unnecessary questioning of Virgil’s veracity,” to mention only a few examples.[5] It should first be noted, however, that in instances like the present one the real purpose of the term se is not to introduce a hypothesis or create doubt, but rather to emphasize or stress a point:[6] Such an unambiguous example of se used in this way can be found in the words “se ’l vero è vero” ‘if the Truth be true’ (Par. 10.113), in reference to the unquestionable truthfulness of the Bible (1 Kings 3:12). Secondly and a fortiori, the alleged condescension or reservation toward Virgil is in fact a strong affirmation of the truth of his poem, because «se fede merta» exactly translates Virgil’s own words «si qua fides, animum si veris implet Apollo» (Aen. 3.434), which refer to the prophet Helenus and mean “se gli puoi credere e l’animo gli riempie Apollo del vero,” according to Calzecchi Onesti’s Italian translation. It is Helenus, met by Aeneas in the little Troy of Buthrotum, who prophesies the hero’s wanderings to him, all the while turning aside Aeneas’s questions on his future in Italy. Instead, with words echoed by Dante (“da lei saprai di tua vita il viaggio”), Helenus tells Aeneas that he will receive his answers from the Sybil: «Illa tibi Italiae populos venturaque bella […] expediet cursusque dabit» (Aen. 3.458-460). As a matter of fact, Helenus is prevented by fate and Juno’s opposition from knowing or saying anything more:  «prohibent nam cetera Parcae/ scire Helenum, farique vetat Saturnia Iuno» (Aen. 3.379-380). Similarly, Virgil cannot know the mysteries of Heaven. “Nostra maggior musa,” that is Virgil as author or his Aeneid, is perfectly reliable, since the poet’s very text says that prophets like Helenus, and therefore Dante’s Virgil, lack the power to manifest the whole truth in a clear way, which is precisely what Dante poet will say later: “Né per ambage, in che la gente folle...” (Par.17.31-33). The allusion to Aeneid 3.434 is indeed deliberate and designed to help to better understand the complex relationship between Dante and Virgil. Although none of the ancient commentators refers to the Helenus passage, Benvenuto da Imola’s comments stand out for their careful analysis of the parallel Dante-Cacciaguida and Aeneas-Anchises episodes:

“sicut enim Eneas descendit ad infernum duce Sybilla, ita Dantes ascendit ad cœlum duce Beatrice; et sicut Eneas reperit patrem suum senem, ita Dantes reperit antiquum prædecessorem suum […]. Et sicut Anchises recepit lætissime Eneam diu expectatum, ita Cacciaguida jocundissime recepit Dantem diu desideratum. Et sicut Anchises prædixit Eneæ multa utiliter per quæ esset præmunitus contra occursus inimicorum, ita Cacciaguida prædixit multa salubriter Danti, per quæ esset precautus et prævisus contra impetum adversorum e adversariorum suorum” [7].

This passage becomes even more relevant when we consider that Benvenuto is the first commentator to attempt to resolve the contradiction between what is announced at the end of Farinata episode and what actually takes place in Paradiso:

“La mente. Hic autor ponit præceptum et consilium Virgilii dicens : quel saggio, idest sagax et circumspectus Virgilius, mi comandò: la mente tua conservi quel c’hai udito contro di te, quasi dicat breviter: tene menti, quia ad tempus habebis alibi consilium contra omnem adversitatem tuæ fortunæ; et ecce ubi, et quando et a quo; quia, quando tu serai dinanci al dolce raggio, scilicet in cœlo coram lumine Beatricis; ideo dicit: di quella il cui bell’occhio tutto vede, idest sacræ scientiæ, cuius speculatio cognoscit humana et divina, da lei saprai el viaggio di tua vita, idest cursum tuæ fortunæ, et expulsionem et omnia. Et adverte hic quod autor videtur hic dicere falsum, et contradicere sibi ipsi, quia non audiet ista a Beatrice, sed potius a Cacciaguida antiquo prædecessore suo, ut patet Paradisi capitulo XVII. Dicendum breviter, quod autor audiet ista a prædicto mediante Beatrice, quæ ducet eum per Paradisum.”[8]

This gloss, a little sharp in pointing out the contradiction («autor videtur hic dicere falsum, et contradicere sibi ipsi»), is more gently reprised in Dante’s meeting with Brunetto:

“Ideo dicit: a chiosar, idest ad declarandum, con donna, scilicet Beatrice, che saprà, supple glosare, s’a lei arrivo; quasi dicat: si Deus facit mihi tantam gratiam, quod evadam de isto tristi inferno pleno tot vel tantis periculis, et per purgatorium perveniam ad paradisum duce Beatrice, tunc declarabor de cursu totius fortunæ meæ. Hoc autem faciet autor XVII capitulo Paradisi, ubi introducit unum spiritum antiquum martistam de genere suo, qui sibi clare manifestat omnem cursum fortunæ mediante Beatrice, quem multi prædixerant sibi obscure in Inferno et Purgatorio.” [9]

Benvenuto’s interpretation points out the real difference between Virgil’s and Dante’s narratives: «sicut Eneas descendit ad infernum duce Sybilla, ita Dantes ascendit ad cœlum duce Beatrice» and «sicut Anchises prædixit Eneæ […] ita Cacciaguida prædixit Danti»; still, the Sybil is only a guide («duce») and when Anchises appears, she remains mute and motionless. Beatrice, contrary to the common underestimation of her role in Paradiso’s cantos 15-16-17, [10] plays a crucial role as intermediary between Dante and Cacciaguida («mediante Beatrice»), and it is only thanks to her intervention that Dante pilgrim is able to learn from his ancestor about events pertaining to his future exile.[11]

[2] D. A., La Divina Commedia, eds. U. Bosco e G. Reggio (Florence: Le Monnier, 1988), Inferno: 62; Paradiso: 242. D. A., Commedia, ed. A. M. Chiavacci Leonardi (Bologna: Zanichelli, 2001), La prima Cantica: 189.

[3]As remarked by Adoyo Owuor in a Seminar on Dante’s Paradiso at the University of Pisa (Italian Linguistics 3, 2007-2008).

[4] M. Mills Chiarenza, Time and Eternity in the Myths of ‘Paradiso’ XVII, in Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio. Studies in the Italian Trecento in Honor of Charles S. Singleton, ed. by A. S. Bernardo and A. L. Pellegrini (Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, Binghamton: New York, 1983): 134-35.

[5] A survey of these opinions is found in D. A., Paradiso, a verse translation by R. & J. Hollander (New York: Doubleday, 2007): 368, n. 26 (see also www.princeton.edu/dante s. v. Dante’s Virgil)

[6]Cf. U. Vignuzzi, in Enciclopedia Dantesca (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970-1978): 5.114, s. v. se: “[qui l’] ipoteticità, puramente fittizia, è introdotta come puro e semplice artificio retorico di sottolineatura [...] e il valore della congiunzione si può, in un certo modo, ravvicinare a qualcosa come ‘se è vero, come è vero, che...’; see also F. Brambilla Ageno, Periodo ipotetico, in Enciclopedia Dantesca, Appendice: 411-412: “modulo che ritorna più volte [e] serve a introdurre un’ipotesi apparente [...]. Se qualche volta l’ipotetica è poco più di una formula: […] Par. 15.56-57 così come raia / da l’un, se si conosce, il cinque e ’l sei; altrove equivale a una vera e propria incidentale o a una citazione in parentesi: […]  se fede merta nostra maggior musa ‘come narra Virgilio’”; Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, eds. L. Renzi, G. Salvi, A. Cardinaletti (Bologna: il Mulino, 1991), 2.767-771, “costrutto ‘biaffermativo’ [che] presenta [...] come contenuti proposizionali della protasi e / o dell’apodosi fatti comunemente noti come veri, che fanno parte delle conoscenze comuni condivise, e sono quindi ‘presupposti pragmaticamente’”.

[7]Cf. Benevenuti de Rambaldis de Imola, Comentum super Dantis Aldigherij Comœdiam, ed. G. F. Lacaita (Florence: Barbèra, 1887), 5.133.

[8] Ibidem, 1.358.

[9] Ibidem, 1.518.

[10] E. g., Bosco-Reggio, Paradiso: 239.

[11]F. Franceschini, “Mediante Beatrice”: semiotica e linguistica dei canti XV, XVI, XVII del Paradiso,” Lectura Dantis Ghisleriana, Collegio Ghislieri Pavia, 22 April 2008, publication forthcoming.