CHAPTER NINE

"LA LINGUA CH'IO PARLAI FU TUTTA SPENTA": DANTE'S REAPPRAISAL OF THE ADAMIC LANGUAGE (PARADISO XXVI, 124-138)

Upon meeting Adam in the eighth heaven of Paradise (Paradiso XXVI, 97-142), Dante poses four unspoken questions: What was the date of creation? How long was the period of innocence? What was the nature of the original sin? And what was the character of the primal language? Adam gives brief and somewhat casual answers to the first three questions, but he elaborates on the fourth one:

La lingua ch'io parlai fii tutta spenta innanzi che a Tovra inconsummabile fosse la gente di Nembröt attenta: che nullo effetto mai razïonabile, per lo piacere uman che rinovella seguendo il cielo, sempre fu durabile. Opera naturale è ch'uom favella; ma cosi o cosl, natura lascia poi fare a voi secondo che v'abbella. Pria chT scendessi a l'infernale ambascia, I s'appellava in terra il sommo bene onde vien la letizia che mi fascia; e El si chiamó poi: e ció convene, che 1'uso d'i mortali è come fronda in ramo, che sen va e altra vene. Paradiso XXVI, 124-138

These tercets constitute a rectification of an analogous argument in the De Vulgari Eloquentia, where Dante contends that the Adamic language is of divine creation and therefore immutable.1 The 160 CHAPTER NINE objective of this chapter is to examine the rationale that led to this rectification. To the extent, as we will see later, that in the De Vul· gari Eloquentia Dante recognizes a certain correlation between the immutability of the Adamic language and that of the gramatica, this chapter will also explore whether the acknowledgment in Pa- radiso XXVI of the changeable nature of the Adamic language causes Dante to recognize a changeableness in the gramatica as well. In the De Vulgari Eloquentia, after arguing that the first speaker was Adam and not Eve and that the first word uttered by Adam was EU i.e. God, Dante goes on to note that the Adamic lan• guage was created by God simultaneously with Adam himself and that this language was from the outset a fiüly developed language.2 Dante maintains that the Adamic language was passed on un• changed to all subsequent generations and that this same language would still be spoken in his own time were it not for the Baby• lonian Confusion (I, vi, 4-5). Indeed, the construction of the Tower of Babel led to the creation of numerous distinct languages, one for each category of workers. This diversification of the Adamic language eliminated forever the linguistic uniformity and stability mankind had enjoyed up to the Babylonian Confusion (I, vii, 6-7). The only people to be spared the Babylonian Confusion were the Hebrews, who not only did not take part in the construction of the Tower of Babel, but vehemently disapproved of its undertak• ing: "Quibus autem sacratum ydioma remansit nee aderant nee exercitium commendabant, sed graviter détestantes stoliditatem operantium deridebant" (I, vii, 8). Consequently the Hebrews, alone among the peoples of the world, were allowed to retain the sacred language of Adam: "Fuit ergo hebraicum ydioma illud quod primi loquentis labia fabricarunt" (I, vi, 7).3 And this lan• guage remained the official language of the Hebrews up to their dispersion: ". . . qui [populus Israel] antiquissima locutione sunt usi usque ad suam dispersionem" (I, vii, 8). That the Hebrews should have retained the language of Adam is clear enough, for it is logical that Christ, who was to spring from their stock, should speak a language not of confusion, but of grace: "Hiis solis [Hebrei] post confiisionem remansit, ut Redemptor noster, qui ex illis oriturus erat. . . non lingua confusionis, sed gratie frueretur" α vi, 6).