The whole mountain, by virtue of the way in which it is seven times sliced away, resembles a huge circular stairway cut in stone. The travelers' arrival at the second of these terraces coincides with a canto beginning. This is the only time that such a coincidence occurs in this cantica. It is as though Dante wanted to acknowledge the reader's expectation that the arrival at each terrace might coincide with the beginning of a canto, thus forcing that reader to speculate upon the aesthetic reasons for the poet's not being overly 'neat.'

The verb dismalare is almost certainly a Dantean coinage; we have tried to reflect its unusual character in our translation with an English coinage: 'unsins.'

The verse 'Ombra non lì è né segno che si paia' (There are no shades nor any carvings) has drawn some more complicated discussions than our translation would call for. As does Carmelo Musumarra (“Purgatorio Canto XIII,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1967]), p. 442, we believe that the word ombra here means a 'shade,' and is to be distinguished from segno, which here means 'designs,' i.e., such as the intaglios that were found on the preceding terrace. In other words, the travelers see neither penitents nor carvings as they first examine this new space. Some others are of the opinion that both words refer to the shapes and designs on the wall of the terrace of Pride and not even the first of them to the penitents themselves. However, once the latter become manifest to Dante and Virgil, they are referred to as ombre; in fact this word is used as often in this canto as in any other of the poem (Purg. XXI also shows the word five times). It appears here and then again (at Purg. XIII.47, 68, 83, and 100); it is clear that all four of these later uses refer to 'shades.' It is a curious fact that occurrences of the word ombra are far more numerous in Purgatorio than in both other cantiche together: 47 appearances as compared to 26 in Inferno and 16 in Paradiso.

The barren 'landscape' of the terrace of Envy contrasts with the highly wrought carvings that greet the travelers on that of Pride (Purg. X.28-33), as does the livid color of this place contrast with the gleaming whiteness found below. For all its vanity, Pride is a sin that has its vitality and brightness. Here all is the livid, or gray-blue (as in a bruise) color of stone. The sin of envy, as Dante has already acknowledged (Inf. I.111; and see the note to Inf. I.109-111), was the cause of death's entering the world because of the envy Satan felt for God. This sin, much less present in the modern imagination than it was in the minds of medieval thinkers, was seen as particularly pernicious and widespread. Most of us tend to think of envy as a form of jealousy, motivated by the desire to possess a good that someone else holds. In Dante's time it represented, instead, the negative wish that this person lose his or her goods, his or her apparent advantage. It is thus not a form of avarice, but the expression of resentment against the perceived happiness of others. For a compelling modern example, see Prince Myshkin's words to the agonized and resentful Ippolit in Dostoevsky's The Idiot: 'Forgive us our happiness.' In the next canto, Guido del Duca will give it a similar expression (see Purg. XIV.82-84). For a similar and more compact expression of such thoughts see the gloss of Benvenuto da Imola (comm. to vv. 7-9).

Fernando Salsano presents the salient features of this sin in Dante; see his entry “invidia,” ED III (1971); for a discussion of the sin in English see Cassell, “Envy,” in the Dante Encyclopedia (Lans.2000.1).

Virgil again (as he did in Purg. III.52-56), seeing no one present who may give directions, assumes that the situation is worse than it actually is.

Virgil's prayer to the sun (his only prayer in the poem) has drawn conflicting interpretations over the centuries. Is it, as most early commentators believed, a prayer to the Christian God (possibly for his grace), expressed in a metaphor (and surely the sun is a frequent metaphor for God in medieval culture and in this poem)? Is it directed to disembodied 'speculative reason' as some other early commentators, followed by many moderns, believed? Or is it a prayer to the sun itself, unallegorized, for the light that will reveal the path that must be chosen? This is the position of a number of moderns, Porena (1946, comm. to vv. 16-21) perhaps the most convincing of these, citing Purgatorio I.107-108, where Cato tells the travelers that the sun's light will show them their way. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to verse 16), in a similar anti-allegorical vein, point out that the next lines (vv. 19-21) speak only of the physical properties of the sun's light, as was true in the verses spoken by Cato in the first canto of this cantica. It seems prudent to allow a literal meaning that makes sense to stand alone, without further interpretive scaffolding. Indeed, if, as Virgil says, the sun's light should serve as guide unless a better source be found, he cannot be speaking of any final authority, whether God or rational certainty, neither of which may be superseded by secondary causes. It seems best to take the passage as yet another sign of Virgil's inadequacy in matters of faith and of his rather poor ability to grasp the significance of his immediate surroundings (see the note to Purg. III.52-57). It also seems strange that Virgil turns to the right because the sun is in that direction, when he should have learned in the third canto (Purg. III.100-102) that in purgatory one always moves to the right, since the travelers have been moving in that direction ever since.

Virgil's prayer to the sun is not answered; instead, supernatural voices are heard flying overhead, bearing the identities of the positive exemplary figures of the virtue opposed to envy, charity. This 'banquet' of affection recalls the controlling metaphor of Dante's unfinished treatise, Convivio.

Mary's voice is, we are not surprised to discover, given our experience of the positive exemplars in Purgatorio X.40-45, the first whose words are represented by a flying voice. Dante never makes clear how these sounds are made or by whom, but we may be sure that their sources are not present on this terrace, as we know that Mary is in paradise (while one of the negative exemplars, Cain, in Purg. XIV.133, is probably in hell, since one of its final zones is named for him [see Inf. V.107 and XXXII.58]).

The biblical scene invoked is that of the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee when Mary tells Jesus there is no wine left for the guests ('Vinum non habent') and Jesus shortly thereafter turns water to wine (John 2:1-7). Anthony Cassell (“The Letter of Envy: Purgatorio XIII-XIV,” Stanford Italian Review 4 [1984]), pp. 18-21, brings into his discussion of this canto St. Augustine's comments on John's gospel, with their equivalence of sapience and the wine Christ produced at Cana.

Orestes is known to Dante in two basic contexts, first as the avenger of his family honor as the killer of his adulterous mother, Clytemnestra; second, as the friend of Pylades. When, after these two friends have also killed the adulterous Aegisthus and Orestes is sought for capital punishment, Pylades cries out 'Ego sum Orestes' (I am Orestes), while Orestes, not to be outdone, shouts 'Immo enimvero ego sum, inquam, Orestes' (But I truly am, I say to you, – Cicero, De finibus V.xxii.63 [and see De amicitia VII.24]). According to the commentators, this second voice is either that of Orestes, of Pylades, or somehow relates to both of these. And the history of interpretation is curious. Benvenuto da Imola was the first to mention Pylades, but still holds to the earliest commentators' opinion that Orestes is the exemplary figure. John of Serravalle, however, confesses that Benvenuto, who taught him Dante, found this passage very difficult. The Anonimo Fiorentino is the first to say, flat out, that the voice refers to Pylades. Beginning with Andreoli (comm. to verse 32) nearly every commentator thinks that the reference is to Pylades or to both men. As we have seen, however, if Dante has the specific text of Cicero in mind, the precise words that he cites are those of Pylades. Further, being willing to die for one's friend is probably the highest form of charity Dante could imagine. And since it is ungainly to have to think of the words representing more than one speaker, it seems more than reasonable to believe that Pylades is indicated by these words. See the untroubled and unambiguous judgment of Salvatore Accardo (“Il canto XIII del Purgatorio,” in Purgatorio: letture degli anni 1976-'79, ed. Silvio Zennaro, Casa di Dante in Roma [Roma: Bonacci, 1981]), p. 266, who simply states that this voice speaks for Pylades without even considering the tradition that holds it to be that of Orestes, not to mention the ungainly view that somehow both youths are represented by its words.

The third exemplar is Jesus Christ, calling on his disciples to return love for hatred (see Matthew 5:44, where the words are a bit more expansive than they are here: 'Diligite inimicos vestros, benefacite his qui oderunt vos' [love your enemies, do good to those who hate you]). The first two voices are identical with their sources, the first, Latin word for Latin word; the second, a perfect Italian translation of the Latin original. The last, however, is a looser Italian version of the Vulgate's Latin.

This is the first precise verbal formulation of the mode of purgatorial instruction by examples: first one is spurred to imitate the good, then dissuaded from following the bad, the goad and the bit that we have already encountered and will continue to come to know on each terrace. Having understood how these functions were experienced on the first terrace, Virgil now correctly surmises that, if the travelers have now heard the goad, they will hear the bit before they confront the angel with his blessing and leave this terrace.

The coloration of the garments worn by the penitents in Envy is so close to that of the rocks themselves that it has taken Virgil a long while to make them out; he only now calls them to Dante's attention – and the protagonist has had no sense of their presence at all.

Envy, which is so clearly aware of difference, is cloaked in a uniform that makes distinction of difference nearly impossible. As Dante interacts with these penitents, it is clear that he has a hard time making out the features of any one of them.

The voices we hear now emanate from the penitents on the terrace, not from unknown sources overhead. As Bosco/Reggio suggest, they cry out in only the invocations of litanies because the rest of these would not be appropriate here, since these passages regard earthly ills and temptations, no longer of potential harm to these souls.

Perhaps no passage indicates more clearly the disparity of attitude required of an onlooker in hell and purgatory. There the growth in the protagonist was measured, in part, by his ability not to respond pityingly; here compassion is an essential part of his ceremonial purgation.

Haircloth, according to Francesco da Buti's gloss to this verse, both pricks the skin where it is knotted and leaves it chilled, because it has openings as does a net.

The envious in life were not involved in supporting others; the contrary was their care. Now their communal attitude shows their penance – as does their mendicant pose, apparent in the following simile.

Those who looked upon their fellows in unseeing ways (the sin invidia was etymologized in the Middle Ages as in + videre, i.e., more usually as 'not seeing,' but sometimes also understood as 'seeing against,' another being [see Dino Bigongiari (Essays on Dante and Medieval Culture, ed. Henry Paolucci [New York: The Bagehot Council, 2000 (1964)], pp. 90-91)]), they now hope for the opposite, to be looked upon with pity. Like Satan, the avatar of Envy, the envious soul is proud as well. And the proud cannot bear pity. These penitents show compassionate affection for one another as part of their purgation of Envy. The language of the simile reminds the reader of special occasions on which the Church offered indulgences to its flock on a given feast day or similar occasion; such 'pardons' provided targets of opportunity to mendicants outside churches or other holy places. Dante's language also allows us to see the theatricality implicit in the act of begging; we are now, however, asked to believe in the wholehearted sincerity of these posthumous penitents.

The aesthetic abnegation of this terrace is eased somewhat by these two back-to-back similes. Fastening our attention on the closed eyes of the envious, Dante compares them to the sewn-up eyes of sparrowhawks, captured in their maturity and temporarily blinded in this manner so that they remain docile in the presence of their handlers. The penitents' eyes are sewn, not with the thread used on hawks and falcons, but with iron wire.

Dante, feeling sheepish about his position of privileged and unnoticed onlooker, is 'read' by Virgil as he and Dante have been reading the feelings of the equally mute penitents. Virgil gives Dante permission to address them – and indeed withdraws from colloquy himself for the rest of this and nearly all the next canto (his next words will be heard only at Purg. XIV.143).

One might observe that this and other remarks concerning the topography of this terrace are not really specific to it, but could have been made earlier (i.e., on the terrace of Pride). It is clear that Dante was pressed for poetic space on that terrace, so artistically and personally challenging for him. Here there is more of it to fill.

The protagonist's labored and heavily rhetoricized captatio (including periphrastic references to the twin rivers of purgatory, Lethe and Eunoe) is perhaps meant to contrast with Sapia's far more immediate and direct response (vv. 94-96). He wants to find an Italian for his cast of characters and promises, in return, a prayer to speed the process of purgation. How ironically we are meant to take this speech is not clear, but Bosco/Reggio (comm to vv. 73-93) are derisive about Dante's 'overblown rhetoric' here.

The response by the shade who, we will soon discover, is Sapia, is a polite but incisive correction of the question she answers. (1) Dante had set the penitent souls apart from others, even from himself; Sapia joins them all in fellowship with a single word, frate. (2) Dante had spoken of earthly territories; Sapia makes all those beloved of God citizens of His city alone. (3) Dante had spoken of Italianness as a present condition; Sapia insists that geographical/political identities on earth were only fleeting and are now irrelevant.

This physical gesture is familiar to anyone who has spoken with people who are blind, since they, guided by their ears, position their faces squarely in line with the source of the voice of their interlocutor.

The protagonist's question receives its first answer, as nearly anonymous as it can be, with the exception of the identification of the speaker's homeland, and thus responding to only one part of the protagonist's request ('make yourself known by your city or your name'). Knowing only this much, our memories return to the last shade and, indeed, the last Sienese we encountered, Provenzan Salvani, his story recounted by Oderisi in Purgatorio XI.120-138. There we heard about his triumph in humility; here we will become aware, between the lines, of the horror of his death.

The word rimendo (verse 107), meaning 'mending,' 'stitching back together,' is Petrocchi's replacement for the former reading, rimondo, 'cleansing,' 'purifying.' There are those who continue to take issue with Petrocchi's emendation, e.g., William Stephany (“Purgatorio XIII,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 9 [1991]), pp. 76-77.

Punning on her name, she now identifies herself as Sapia if not savia (sapient) and speaks of her envious nature (see the note to vv. 8-9).

For the history of the gradually more certain identification of Sapia, see Giorgio Varanini, “Sapia” (ED.1976.5), p. 26. Most now accept the work of nineteenth-century students of the problem, which demonstrated that she, born ca. 1210, was a noblewoman of Siena, an aunt of Provenzan Salvani (Purg. XI.121-142), and wife of one Ghinibaldo Saracini. After the battle of Colle Val d'Elsa in 1269 and before her death (sometime between 1275 and 1289) she gave much of her wealth to a hospital (S. Maria dei Pellegrini) that she and her husband (who had died before the great battle) had founded in 1265 in Siena.

Sapia's narrative falls into two parts, this first containing the evidence of her former sinfulness, exemplified most savagely in her admission of her joy in witnessing the death of her own people, most probably Provenzan Salvani, her nephew.

As for Provenzan (a rough Sienese equivalent of the Florentine Farinata [Inf. X]), the man who led the Sienese Ghibellines in their triumph over the Guelphs of Florence at Montaperti in 1260 and the leading Ghibelline soldier of his city, he was captured in the battle of Colle Val d'Elsa, some ten miles northwest of Siena, and decapitated. According to Giovanni Villani (Cronica VII.31), his head, at the end of a pike, was then marched around the battlefield by his triumphant French and Florentine Guelph enemies. Since Sapia was also a Ghibelline it is difficult or impossible to know why she was so pleased by his death (most assume that Provenzan is among the 'townsmen' whose death brought her so much pleasure). Since her sin was envy, it seems clear that Dante wants us to understand that she resented his and/or other townsmen's position and fame, that her involvement was personal, not political.

While some are of the opinion that Dante's inclusion of these two great Ghibelline figures in purgatory shows an attempt at impartiality, it is probably better to avoid that issue, since by this time in the composition of the poem Dante's overall political sympathies were essentially Ghibelline, or at least imperial and thus in line with Ghibelline ideals, whatever he may have thought of particular Ghibelline individuals.

Her reference to her age (verse 114) merely places that as post-thirty-five (past the mezzo del cammin di sua vita) and she may have been nearly sixty when she witnessed the battle (from her dead husband's castle near Colle?). Loosely, the phrase means 'old enough to have known better.'

Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 112-114) paraphrases her prideful address to God as follows: 'whatever God may wish for me henceforth, and even if He do to me his worst, I shall evermore live joyful and die happy.' She was like, she now considers, the blackbird in winter who, at a premature spring-like day, thinks the need for help is done. It is not.

Before her death, Sapia's change of heart brought her back to the love of God and her neighbor. As for Pier Pettinaio, whose second name is not a family name but an epithet denoting his profession, i.e., he sold combs to ladies (pettine means 'comb'), it was his prayerful intervention after her death that reduced her time in ante-purgatory. Since she has been dead between twenty-five and eleven years, and since we would assume she would have spent at least a little time on the terrace of Pride, she has surely moved quickly up the mountain, sped by Pier's prayers. A 'native of Campi in the Chianti district NE. of Siena, he was a hermit of the Franciscan Order, and dwelt in Siena, where he was renowned for his piety and miracles. Ubertino da Casale (Par. XII.124) in the prologue to his Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu mentions that he had received spiritual instruction from him. Pier died on Dec. 5, 1289, and was buried at Siena, where he was long venerated as a saint, in a handsome tomb erected at the public expense' (Toynbee, “Pettinagno, Pier” [Concise Dante Dictionary]).

Sapia now, having satisfied Dante's question in both its points, asks after his identity. Having heard him breathe, she divines that he is present in the flesh (but has no sense of Virgil's presence as his guide, thus motivating the exchange that follows at vv. 139-142).

Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 136-138) paraphrases Dante's response as follows: 'And here take note that our poet from his youth was prideful by reason of his nobility, his knowledge, and his good standing; yet surely he bore the burden for this in his life, the burden I mean of exile, poverty, and the envy of others. As for myself I dare say the same with a good conscience, that is, I have been more prideful than I have been envious; yet I too have carried my stone in this world.' Dante's admission of his culpability in Pride is a brilliant stroke, taking that stick out of his reader's hand and also, in some strange way, convincing us that this prideful poet has become, under the burden of this poem, humble – or something like that. It also serves to free him from the curse of every artist (as Oderisi knew): the emulous consideration of his or her competitors, from which he pronounces himself, if not totally free, only a little bit guilty. However, from what we know of Dante's reaction to some of his competitors, e.g., to take only two examples, Guittone d'Arezzo (see the note to Purg. XXVI.124-126) and Albertino Mussato (see the notes to Purg. IX.29-30 and Par. XXV.7-9), we can sense that, like most competitive people, he was intensely jealous of the success of his rivals. To his credit, he does not give himself a free pass with respect to invidia; nonetheless, he is probably guilty at least of gilding the lily.

Dante's locution is noteworthy in that it recapitulates exactly what Virgil had said describing Brutus in Inferno XXXIV.66: 'e non fa motto.' Perhaps one should not make too much of this, since other versions of the phrase occur variously through the poem (Inf. IX.101; Inf. XIX.48; Inf. XXXIII.48; Purg. II.25; Purg. V.7; Purg. VII.78).

The protagonist fulfills the terms of the condition he had offered at verse 93: if an Italian will come forward, he will pray for that soul.

Sapia's acceptance of Dante's offer of prayer, making him her second Pier Pettinaio, is accepted with a grace that is also morally telling: she may have envied Provenzan his prowess and his fame, but not Dante, who has won the greatest victory of anyone, coming to the afterworld in the flesh. She responds to his charity for her with charity.

These four lines produce perhaps the most debated passage in this canto. Before approaching that controversy, it may be helpful to understand some of the rather recondite references in play here. In 1303 Siena purchased the seaport called Talamone, on the Mediterranean coast about fifteen miles away, in order to have better access to shipping routes; the problem was that the dredging necessary to keep the waters between Siena and the sea negotiable was an overwhelming problem. Consequently, the project had to be abandoned soon after the funds had been appropriated to support it. Similarly, another civic works project involved a search for an underground river (named Diana because the statue of the goddess had stood in the market square of the city); it too was a failure. The final frecciata, or gibe, of Sapia is to suggest that the biggest losers in the scheme to acquire a harbor on the sea will be the admirals. This word has been greatly debated: does Sapia refer to actual admirals? to investors in the scheme? to those who sold participation in the enterprise? It seems clear that Dante is making Sapia joke for him (Siena jokes being for Florentines what Harvard jokes are for Yales). This writer's view is that the playfully nasty phrase is precisely similar to one still in use today: 'the Swiss navy.' The phrase requires that we recognize that the Swiss cannot have a navy because they do not have an ocean to put a navy on – exactly the same condition in which we find the Sienese. For a similar appreciation see Porena's lengthy discussion (1946) of these verses.

Sapia, as we have seen, is a moving figure, convincingly grappling with her former sin and seemingly in control of it. It seems clear that every verse she speaks in this canto is stamped by that change in her character, including her shrewd understanding of exactly what she was like within herself, precisely what she sounded like to others. It is a remarkable exercise in self-awareness. On the other hand, some argue that these final lines show that she is still very much in the grip of her old failing. Here, for example, is Singleton's analysis (comm. to verse 154): 'Thus, by this jibe at her fellow-townsmen, it is clear that Sapia can still be malicious and still has time to serve on this terrace, purging away such feelings.' This is a fairly typical reaction. It should be observed that, if these last remarks present a soul still sinful, her sin is not envy. She may be insensitive, perhaps, but not envious. First of all, she is speaking only of a few Sienese here, the would-be big shots in whose company Dante may find her decent relatives. Second, her remarks are not intended to affect these thieves and fools, but only (perhaps) to aid her relatives in fending off their wiles – if they are intended to have any practical worldly effect at all. Both Cassell (“The Letter of Envy: Purgatorio XIII-XIV,” Stanford Italian Review 4 [1984]), p. 9n., and Stephany (“Purgatorio XIII,” Lectura Dantis [virginiana] 9 [1991]), pp. 83-86, support the view of Musumarra (“Purgatorio Canto XIII,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1967]), pp. 461-67, that Sapia's words are not to be read as evidence of her slipping back into the sin of Envy but rather as reflecting her desire to help her familiars and fellow citizens escape from the devastations that will befall them because of their misguided civic pride. In such readings, Sapia's last moment in the poem (and she has been given more of its space, forty-nine verses [106-154], than anyone encountered on the mountain except for Oderisi [Purg. XI.79-142 – much of whose speech is devoted to the discussion of others] after the extended meeting with Sordello [Purg. VI-VIII]) is not offered up as a kind of recantation. Rather, this sharp-tongued, witty, and self-understanding woman ends her words with charity for all who have chosen the true way, along with acerbic wit for those who are governed by foolishness and pride. If that sounds like a description of the poet who created her, so be it.