21. A Mission Revealed - Encounter with an Ancestor

In the circle of Mars, the defining virtue is courage, as that of the sun’s sphere was wisdom. Dante explores his roots: He meets his great-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida, and has an extended discussion about early Florence and his own family. In his discussion with Dante, Cacciaguida, who sees the future as well as the past, presents his pilgrim descendant with the most sustained prediction of his exile from Florence. In this lecture, we see how Dante comes to an understanding of his own vocation as a writer and how he learns that his exile can become an opportunity for prophecy in the very writing of the Commedia. The circle of Mars is the circle for those who lived their lives as warriors, and just as his great-great-grandfather was a crusader and martyr in earlier times, so Dante the pilgrim learns that he is to be a crusader with the pen rather than with the sword and a martyr through his exile.