Back in Dante’s Company

Oh my, it was hard to leave that beau­ti­ful place, the gen­eros­ity of good friends, and the rest­ful­ness of a day off. But all the rain had washed the haze away, so we stepped out into a brisk and clear morn­ing, and that con­veys an energy of its own.

One of the own­ers of the B&B had men­tioned to us that this had been the last tourist week­end of the sea­son, and now “autumn really begins.” Com­ing from chill­ier cli­mates, we find it amaz­ing to be in a place where sum­mer lasts until the mid­dle of Octo­ber. But it’s cer­tainly colder now (as cold as Ger­many in August, Andrew pointed out), and though it’s still very green, the vine­yards have turned half yel­low, and the vines climb­ing all over the pale brown stones of houses are a vivid red. The sun was gen­tle but weak and we kept bun­dled up longer into the morning.

By what turned out to be a lucky mis­take, we ended up on the alter­nate cyclist’s path instead of the stan­dard walk­ing course of the Via Fran­ci­gena. It cut 5 km off what would have been quite a long day, and it was alto­gether quite pleasant—only short stretches on infre­quently trav­eled high­ways. Some of it was along farm tracks between fields all plowed up, the earth rust-red and just as dark. One plot had pink-and-gray pigs snuf­fling up the over­turned roots.

We are a bit reluc­tant to reveal our day’s des­ti­na­tion, as it’s another walled hill­top town all in stone, but this one doesn’t make it into the guide books (or at least the one we have along), and accord­ingly it’s not over­run with chintzy shops and tourist buses. (Though we did hear at least two other Amer­i­can fam­i­lies in town.) So don’t tell any­one else, OK? It’s Mon­terig­gioni. And by a very delight­ful coin­ci­dence we saw, as we ascended the steep and windy dirt road up into the car­less town, one of the city wall’s stones carved with a ref­er­ence from Dante’s Inferno: “As Monterregion’s ring-shaped citadel / Has all its cir­cling ram­part crowned with tow­ers…” (Canto XXXI, ll. 40–41; of course the quote was in the orig­i­nal Ital­ian, and this one here is from Dorothy Sayers’s trans­la­tion in the Pen­guin edi­tion). And a very apt descrip­tion it is.

In fact, since today was the first day in a long time that we didn’t have any liv­ing com­pany along, we invited Dante to fill the time instead. I was par­tic­u­larly delighted at these lines that fit so well with our draw­ing near to the close of our pilgrimage.

When by the sacred stair we now again
Were climb­ing, lighter far meseemed I trod
Than I had done upon the level plain;

Where­fore I said: “Mas­ter, what heavy load
Has slipped from me, so that I walk with ease,
And scarcely feel fatigue upon the road?”

And he: “When from thy fore­head all the P’s
Which, half-effaced and dim, remain there yet
Are rubbed clean out, as one already is,

Then shall good-will so over-rule thy feet,
That they will climb, and not be merely strong
And uncom­plain­ing, but delight in it.”

(Pur­ga­to­rio, Canto XII, ll. 115–126)

Virgil Heidbrink says:
October 19, 2010 at 12:54 am
This com­ment does not refer to Dante who already abounds in ref­er­ences. Rather, on my web site is a ref­er­ence to you, Horst, and Emily Mann con­cern­ing the influ­ence of tele­vi­sion. It’s in the sec­tion “Small Talk for All.”
I enjoy your daily posts and will miss them when you return to your accus­tomed routine.
As a Lutheran (Mo. Synod) I wish you the Lord’s con­tin­ued blessings.
Vir­gil
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