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August 23, 2010
Danteblogging - Inferno Canto XXXIII
Inferno Canto XXXIII
I first tried to read the Divine Comedy all the way through when I was in 11th grade - I think in the John Ciardi translation, which my high school library had just bought in hardback. I can't say I did a very good job, but at least I'd already read big chunks of the Aeneid in Latin, so I was better prepared than some people. I still remember the creeps Canto XXXIII gave me - the story of the cannibalistic Count Ugolino.
Ugolino betrayed his city, Pisa, but was in turn betrayed by his bishop. They're locked together in the ice of Antenora, Ugolino chewing on the bishop's brain in a very Dawn of the Dead image. Except that Ugolino raises his gorey chops and tells Dante why he's chewing the bishop's skull - he and his offspring were nailed into a tower in Pisa (I've seen what purports to be the tower!). The boys died one by one of hunger. Dante leaves the conclusion a little ambiguous, but I assumed at 17 that Ugolino ate them - as he is now eating the bishop. Ugh! Dantesque, and in the bad way.
Ugolino perceives that Dante is a Florentine by the sound of speech, and by the failure of speech in the tower he is turned into a monster, a stone. Dante damns the Pisans with a linguistic touch, too:
Ahi Pisa, vituperio de le genti
del bel paese là dove 'l sì suona,
Ah Pisa, vile disgrace of all the folk
in the sweet land where sì is uttered (33, 79-80)
The land of Sì - not a polity, but a shared vernacular.
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Posted by CrankyProfessor at August 23, 2010 5:04 PM