|
In 2000 my family was in Italy for my sister’s wedding. From the villa
where we stayed, we had a view of the distant medieval San Gimignano,
the town of many towers featured in the movie Tea With
Mussolini. Closer still was the fortress Monteriggioni, built in 1213
as an outpost of Siena, against the attacks of the Florentines. The
residents of the villas and villages all round were forced to man its
defenses in times of war. Although the towers have crumbled somewhat
through the succeeding centuries, this edifice was a fearsome one at
its heyday. When we passed it for the first time, my sister read the
relevant Canto 31 of Dante’s inferno: Short while my head turned
thitherward I held
When many lofty towers I seemed to see,
Whereat I: Master, say, what town is this?
And he to me: Because
thou peerest forth
Athwart the darkness at too great a distance,
It happens that thou errest in they fancy.
Well shalt thou
see, if thou arrivest there,
How much the sense deceives itself
by distance;
Therefore a little faster spur thee on.
Then
tenderly he took my hand,
And said: Before we farther have
advanced,
That the reality may seem to thee
Less strange,
know that these are not towers, but giants,
And they are in the
well, around the bank,
From navel downward, one and all of
them.
As, when the fog is vanishing away,
Little by little
doth the sight refigure
Whate’er the mist that crowds the air
conceals,
So, piercing through the dense and darksome air,
More and more near approaching tow’rd the verge,
My error fled,
and fear came over me;
Because as on its circular parapets
Montereggione crowns itself with towers,
E’en thus the margin
which surrounds the well
With one half of their bodies turreted
The horrible giants, whom Jove menaces
E’en now from out the
heavens when he thunders.
[ Next page ]
|
 |
[ 