Page 23 - GALIET EXILE: Dante IV+

Galiet & Galiet
renown for him, both, Black and White factions, “goats” and “cattle from Fiesole,” will seek to devour him. However, Latini’s vision of Dante’s successful mission seems to misread Dante’s genuine motivations. Though Dante lets Fortune do what she will (Inf. 15, 95), Latini assumes that Dante seeks the glory of honour. Dante kindly refutes Latini’s prophecy of his eventually crowned-by-glory exile (Inf. 15, 79-90). Rejecting his tutor’s remarks, he shows him how deluded his view appears. What Dante seeks dwells in the Gospels and in the pearl of spiritual reward; far worthier than all the wealth of the world.
Two passages, however, reveal Dante’s desire to earn the glory and immortality bestowed by the worldly laurel:
O good Apollo, for this last labor make me a vessel worthy
of the gift of your beloved laurel
(Par. 1, 13-15)
...with another voice then, with another fleece, shall I return a poet and, at the font
where I was baptized, take the laurel crown.
(Par. 25, 7-9)
Yet, they shall not be vessels for quarrel. Let’s remember that Dante’s Divina Commedia ends with Dante the Pilgrim-Prophet renouncing all his fond desires. Evident it is, that Dante, having let go of his subjectivity, has privileged objectivity. Dante exchanges the worth of the laurel for the “ardour of the longing of his soul” (Par 33, 46-48), and for “the Love that moves the sun and all other stars” (Par 33, 144-45). By relinquishing, he gains. By letting go, he receives. By not seeking, he finds. This shift and turn towards nothingness, becomes everything. Thus, it precisely brings back that which has been renounced: that divine gift of immortal glory, sweet apotheosis, bestowed by the beautiful laurels of poetry.
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