Commentary Par XVII 94-96

Concluding, Cacciaguida characterizes his utterances over the last seventeen tercets (vv. 43-93) as chiose (glosses); this long prophetic passage is unique in the poem, both for its length and for its personal import for the protagonist. It is divided into three sections, lines 43-69 (the pains of exile [Dante]); 70-75 (the first stay in Verona [Bartolommeo]); 76-93 (the second stay in Verona [Cangrande]).

What exactly do these 'glosses' predict of Dante's difficult life as an exile? See C.Par.XVII.52-54 for the range of possibilities according to the commentators. And to what specific prognostications do they respond, only Cacciaguida's here or to some of the earlier ones we heard in the first two cantiche, and if so, to which ones? We can say with some security that only the first section of his ancestor's prophecy, that concerning Dante's harsh political fate, is involved. It is worth remarking that the time frame that Cacciaguida seems to have in mind is short (a pochi giri), and that thus we should probably think that the events of 1304, just four revolutions of the heavens away from the date on which he speaks (1 April 1300), are likely what he has in mind.

The word chiose, of which this is the last appearance, has been under our eyes three times before, the first two associated, as is this last one, with prognostications of Dante's personal future: those of Brunetto Latini ([Inf XV 89]) and of Oderisi da Gubbio ([Purg XI 141]). The third, however, is found in Hugh Capet's remarks to Dante ([Purg XX 99]), addressing his curiosity about something that Hugh had said about the Virgin Mary.

While all commentators take the demonstrative pronoun 'queste' to refer to all that Cacciaguida has to say about all the (pertinent) prophecies that Dante has heard in the first two canticles about his future difficulties, when one first reads verse 94, one would be forgiven for understanding a reference to the 'cose / incredibili' of [Par XVII 92-93]. And if one follows that understanding where it quite naturally leads, the suppressed prophetic words about Cangrande (rather than all the predictions combined) are the 'glosses' that explain everything, an explanation both potentially true and absurd, Dante's little post-modern joke at his own expense).