Page 18 - GALIET EXILE: Dante IV+

Galiet & Galiet
37). There, de la Vigna’s haunted and knotted spirit, dwelling as a hawthorn tree, reminds Dante, through his memory’s labyrinth, of that first ‘wild’, ‘savage’ and ‘brute’ forest he first encountered in Inferno.
Subtle insinuations in Inferno suggest that Dante might have contemplated suicide possibly as a result of hurt pride. The many knotted trees and bushes in the Forest of Suicides are abysmal representations and visualizations of Dante’s desperation and agonistic mind immediately after exile. Political exile hurls Dante into confusion, loss, humiliation and shame. In Inferno 1, Dante moans the harshness found in the dark woods of exile and how death was ‘hardly worse’ (Inf. 1,7). Similarly, in Inferno 2, upon St. Lucia impelling Beatrice to seek Virgil’s assistance, she reprimands Beatrice for failing to see “the death that beats him” (Inf. 2, 107).
De la Vigna’s exile feels, in part, as ‘splintered’ and ‘bled’ as Dante’s: a dehumanization of being. Dante’s self-reflective writing in depicting de la Vigna’s exile resonates with his existential black hole and void felt at gravity’s relentless pull. Once all light is swallowed by darkness’ centre, justice is blinded and one’s humanness stumbles and falls. It becomes ‘dismal,’ ‘knotty’ and a ‘poison pricked thorn’ (Inf. 13, 1-9).
3⁄4 Thorns that shall not belong in Paradiso’s thousand-petal Rose 3⁄4
Injuring de la Vigna, he accuses Dante of being ‘far from pity’ and ‘from mercy’ as he splinters the bough from the Hawthorn tree. Yet, Virgil defends Dante’s innocence:
You injured soul!” my teacher (sane as ever) now replied. “If he had only earlier believed what my own writings could
have shown, he would not have
stretched his hand so far towards you.
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