Canto XXXIII Notes: Pinsky - (by Nicole Pinsky)
The moral poles of Dante's universe are occupied by children. Their suffering is the theme if the cantos of Ugolino, just as their joy is the theme of Canto XXXII of the Paradiso. The guilt of Ugolino scarcely seems relevant compared to the pain of his death and his condemnation, yet he seems to be unaware of the Christological significance of the children's suffering and his own. As they die, they echo the words first of Job--"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away"--and then of the Saviour on the Cross--"My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Ugolino's response is simply to repress his own grief for fear of increasing theirs.
The children's apparently naive offer of their flesh to their father echoes Jesus's offer to the disciples in John 6: "Whoso eateth my flesh... hath eternal life." The disciples are scandalized by the offer, as have been Christians ever since. In his commentary on the Gospel, Augustine points out that Jesus is offering his living flesh, which is to say, his word. Those who do not understand this Eucharistic offer think of his flesh as though it were meat. So here, the children offer their father their redemptive sacrifice, mush as Isaac naively offered himself to Abraham. Because Ugolino does not understand, there is no redemption.
In the Old Testament, Israel was founded when God intervened in Abraham's sacrifice and the covenant was established between fathers and sons. The covenant came to be symbolized by the circumcision. This is the opposite of the Theban story of Oedipus and his father, in which the survival of the son depends upon the death of the father. The story of Ugolino is filled with Abrahamic promise, but ends in Theban tragedy when Ugolino, like Saturn, devours his children's flesh in order to survive, however briefly. Dante refers to Pisa as a new Thebes. In human society, there is no middle ground between Communism and Capitalism.
Ugolino is a literalist who cannot see the symbolism in his dream or in his children's offer. Christ's offer in the Gospel was allegorical, offering the living Word. This is the spiritual sense of the children's words. But Ugolino reads only death in his dream and only cannibalism in their words. In fact, his dream prefigures the infernal punishment, as he gnaw the enemy who gnawed him, and his children's words have biblical resonance. Nevertheless, he takes their offer at face value and, when he is reduced to animality, finally accepts it, biting the flesh of his children in hunger as he had once bitten his hand in grief. (John Freccero)
12-72.) Ugolino della Gherardesca was a Pisan nobleman deeply involved in power struggles and political intrigue. He was exiled from Pisa in 1275, when the Ghebelline leadership of the city decided he had been conspiring with Guelphs. He had returned both to Pisa and to political power by 1284: the Guelphs helped him become reinstated, whereupon he betrayed that party and allied himself again with the Ghibellines. As chief magistrate for the city, he yielded three Ghibelline-controlled castles to the enemy, supposedly to protect Pisa--but the act was viewed by some as treacherous.
Later, in 1288, Ugolino conspired with Archbishop Ruggieri and several prominent Ghibelline families (the Gualandi, Sismondi, and Lanfranchi among them) to oust from Pisan politics Ugolino's grandson and rival, Nino Visconti (Nino fled to Florence and became a friend to Dante). The archbishop then betrayed Ugolino in turn, using the matter of the three castles as an excuse for imprisoning him with his two young sons and two grandsons in a tower and eventually starving them to death.
77.) In Italian si is the word for "yes." In another work, the De vulgare eloquentia, a treatise on language and style, Dante distinguishes languages by the way they say "yes."
78-80.) The islands of Gorgona and Capria sit in the Mediterranean not far from the mouth of the river Arno. In Dante's time, they were possessions of Pisa.
84.) Ugolino compares Pisa to the Greek city of Thebes, where so much fury and bloodshed occurs in the ancient myths.
87-89) In these lines (87-89), Dante and Virgil cross into Ptolomea (named in line 119), the third region of Cocytus, where those who betrayed their guests are punished. It appears to be named for Ptolemy of Jericho, who murders his banquet guests in the First Book of Macabees (16:15-17) in the Catholic Bible--although Ptolemy XII of Egypt, who murdered Pompey, has also been suggested as the source of the name.
113-115.) Fra Alberigo of Faenza was a Jovial Friar (see Canto XXIII, note to line 98). He had a kinsman named Manfred and Manfred's son murdered during a banquet at his home; the signal to his assassins was the phrase "Bring the fruit."
121.) In classical myths, Atropos is the last of the three Fates: she cuts the thread of a mortal's life when the time comes for the body to die and the soul to be sent forth into the afterlife.
132.) Branca d'Oria--aided by the anonymous kinsman mentioned in lines 142-43--murdered his father-in-law, Michel Zanche, who was a guest in his home, in either 1275 or 1290 (depending on which scholar is consulted). Michel Zanche is one of the barrators in the fifth pouch of Malebolge: see Canto XXII, line 84 and note.
134-35). Branca d'Oria lived until about 1325.
148-53.) Romanga's worst spirit is Fra Albergio. The Genoese Dante found with him is Branca d'Oria.
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