Dantean Pietas: Piety and Pity
Examining the roots of this word helps us understand the tension between Dante’s Medieval “piety” and the emerging Neo-Classical, Renaissance Humanism “pity” or less judgmental empathy for human folly.
Definitions And Etymology
In modern English "piety" refers to fidelity to natural obligations (as to one's family members etc.) or to religious devotion. Either way, the word infers doing what you are supposed to do in relationship to duty.
In modern English "pity" refers to compassion and empathy -- sorrow aroused by the misfortune or suffering of another.
Pietas is the Latin root of both “piety” and “pity”
early 13c., from O.Fr. pite, pitet (11c., Mod.Fr. pitié), from L. pietatem (nom. pietas) "piety, affection, duty," in L.L. "gentleness, kindness, pity," from pius (see pious). Replaced O.E. mildheortness, lit. "mild-heartness," itself a loan-translation of L. misericordia. English pity and piety were not fully distinguished until 17c. The verb meaning "to feel pity for" is attested from 1520s. Pitiful is c.1300 in sense of "compassionate" (implied in pitifully); mid-15c. in sense of "exciting or deserving pity;" 1580s in sense of "mean, wretched, contemptible."
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pity
In Roman
religion, personification of a respectful
and faithful attachment to gods, country, and relatives, especially parents.
Pietas had a temple at Rome, dedicated in 181 bc,
and was often represented on coins as a female figure carrying a palm branch and
a sceptre or as a matron casting incense upon
an altar, sometimes accompanied by a stork, the symbol of filial
piety.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/459962/Pietas
As “respect for authority” http://www.wsu.edu:8001/~dee/GLOSSARY/PIETAS.HTM
In modern Christian
parlance this tension between piety and pity is often expressed as “love the
sinner, hate the sin.”
Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s Aeneid -- yes, the same Virgil who leads Dante through the Inferno -- offers the classic Roman image of pietas when he flees burning Troy, carrying only his own father on his back and icons of the god. This offers a good way of conceiving of pietas as both “pity” (his love/compassion for his family) and piety (rescuing the emblems of his religion).
Aeneas carrying Anchises, Greek. c. 520 BCE.
Louvre
Dante does two things with Virgil's Classical vision of pietas:
a) First, he worships it and literally believes that Italy should return to a new Roman order. He believes that the majesty of Rome helped bring on Christ's birth and a return to a new Roman empire will bring on the second coming. This helps explain how he reconciles the glory of the Pagan Roman empire -- and Virgil's genius -- with his orthodox Christian beliefs.
c) Second, he translates it into Christian piety: respect for the authority of the Church as respect for the authority of God.
By the time we reach the late Renaissance, especially in Shakespearean tragedies, I believe we see a shift from pity as largely piety in Dante’s Medieval view – these hundreds of pages devoted to torturing sinners in Hell – to pure pity: hundreds of pages devoted to celebrating human folly thru tragedies such as Romeo And Juliet and Hamlet. Still, we can see how Romeo, Juliet's and Hamlet's folly -- or absence of "piety" -- acts as contrapasso, as they essentially damn themselves to suffering via their own errors.
So Dante’s “pietas” seems to capture the Classical Tragedy conception of fate punishing us for our sins, while later Shakespearean tragedies capture the Classical Tragedy conception of empathy – of seeing ourselves and our common humanity in the suffering of the tragic hero.
Dante vs. Dante
We of course have "two Dantes" to contend with in this poem: Dante the author of the poem and Dante the character in the poem, and we need to remember that in the opening Dante the author tells us that Dante the character has lost his way. Then consider that Dante (the author) sees God's retribution as absolutely just and "good"; God cannot sin.
This reminds us that Dante the character must descend into and arise out of Hell and Purgatory, and that readers should be somewhat skeptical of this Dante's initial "pity":
Virgil’s reaction/response to Limbo (pg 1475)
Dante's reaction/response to the Lovers “pity confused my senses” (pg 1480); swoons (1481)