Sì come quando i primi raggi vibra
là dove il suo fattor lo sangue sparse,
cadendo Ibero sotto l'alta Libra,
e l'onde in Gange da nona rïarse,
sì stava il sole; onde 'l giorno sen giva,
come l'angel di Dio lieto ci apparse.
Fuor de la fiamma stava in su la riva,
e cantava “Beati mundo corde!”
in voce assai più che la nostra viva.
Poscia “Più non si va, se pria non morde,
anime sante, il foco: intrate in esso,
e al cantar di là non siate sorde,”
ci disse come noi li fummo presso;
per ch'io divenni tal, quando lo 'ntesi,
qual è colui che ne la fossa è messo.
In su le man commesse mi protesi,
guardando il foco e imaginando forte
umani corpi già veduti accesi.
Volsersi verso me le buone scorte;
e Virgilio mi disse: “Figliuol mio,
qui può esser tormento, ma non morte.
Ricorditi, ricorditi! E se io
sovresso Gerïon ti guidai salvo,
che farò ora presso più a Dio?
Credi per certo che se dentro a l'alvo
di questa fiamma stessi ben mille anni,
non ti potrebbe far d'un capel calvo.
E se tu forse credi ch'io t'inganni,
fatti ver' lei, e fatti far credenza
con le tue mani al lembo d'i tuoi panni.
Pon giù omai, pon giù ogne temenza;
volgiti in qua e vieni: entra sicuro!”
E io pur fermo e contra coscïenza.
Quando mi vide star pur fermo e duro,
turbato un poco disse: “Or vedi, figlio:
tra Bëatrice e te è questo muro.”
Come al nome di Tisbe aperse il ciglio
Piramo in su la morte, e riguardolla,
allor che 'l gelso diventò vermiglio;
così, la mia durezza fatta solla,
mi volsi al savio duca, udendo il nome
che ne la mente sempre mi rampolla.
Ond' ei crollò la fronte e disse: “Come!
volenci star di qua?”; indi sorrise
come al fanciul si fa ch'è vinto al pome.
Poi dentro al foco innanzi mi si mise,
pregando Stazio che venisse retro,
che pria per lunga strada ci divise.
Sì com' fui dentro, in un bogliente vetro
gittato mi sarei per rinfrescarmi,
tant' era ivi lo 'ncendio sanza metro.
Lo dolce padre mio, per confortarmi,
pur di Beatrice ragionando andava,
dicendo: “Li occhi suoi già veder parmi.”
Guidavaci una voce che cantava
di là; e noi, attenti pur a lei,
venimmo fuor là ove si montava.
“Venite, benedicti Patris mei,”
sonò dentro a un lume che lì era,
tal che mi vinse e guardar nol potei.
“Lo sol sen va,” soggiunse, “e vien la sera;
non v'arrestate, ma studiate il passo,
mentre che l'occidente non si annera.”
Dritta salia la via per entro 'l sasso
verso tal parte ch'io toglieva i raggi
dinanzi a me del sol ch'era già basso.
E di pochi scaglion levammo i saggi,
che 'l sol corcar, per l'ombra che si spense,
sentimmo dietro e io e li miei saggi.
E pria che 'n tutte le sue parti immense
fosse orizzonte fatto d'uno aspetto,
e notte avesse tutte sue dispense
ciascun di noi d'un grado fece letto;
ché la natura del monte ci affranse
la possa del salir più e 'l diletto.
Quali si stanno ruminando manse
le capre, state rapide e proterve
sovra le cime avante che sien pranse,
tacite a l'ombra, mentre che 'l sol ferve,
guardate dal pastor, che 'n su la verga
poggiato s'è e lor di posa serve;
e quale il mandrïan che fori alberga,
lungo il pecuglio suo queto pernotta,
guardando perché fiera non lo sperga;
tali eravamo tutti e tre allotta,
io come capra, ed ei come pastori,
fasciati quinci e quindi d'alta grotta.
Poco parer potea lì del di fori;
ma, per quel poco, vedea io le stelle
di lor solere e più chiare e maggiori.
Sì ruminando e sì mirando in quelle,
mi prese il sonno; il sonno che sovente,
anzi che 'l fatto sia, sa le novelle.
Ne l'ora, credo, che de l'orïente
prima raggiò nel monte Citerea,
che di foco d'amor par sempre ardente,
giovane e bella in sogno mi parea
donna vedere andar per una landa
cogliendo fiori; e cantando dicea:
“Sappia qualunque il mio nome dimanda
ch'i' mi son Lia, e vo movendo intorno
le belle mani a farmi una ghirlanda.
Per piacermi a lo specchio, qui m'addorno;
ma mia suora Rachel mai non si smaga
dal suo miraglio, e siede tutto giorno.
Ell' è d'i suoi belli occhi veder vaga
com' io de l'addornarmi con le mani;
lei lo vedere, e me l'ovrare appaga.”
E già per li splendori antelucani,
che tanto a' pellegrin surgon più grati,
quanto, tornando, albergan men lontani,
le tenebre fuggian da tutti lati,
e 'l sonno mio con esse; ond' io leva'mi,
veggendo i gran maestri già levati.
“Quel dolce pome che per tanti rami
cercando va la cura de' mortali,
oggi porrà in pace le tue fami.”
Virgilio inverso me queste cotali
parole usò; e mai non furo strenne
che fosser di piacere a queste iguali.
Tanto voler sopra voler mi venne
de l'esser sù, ch'ad ogne passo poi
al volo mi sentia crescer le penne.
Come la scala tutta sotto noi
fu corsa e fummo in su 'l grado superno,
in me ficcò Virgilio li occhi suoi,
e disse: “Il temporal foco e l'etterno
veduto hai, figlio; e se' venuto in parte
dov' io per me più oltre non discerno.
Tratto t'ho qui con ingegno e con arte;
lo tuo piacere omai prendi per duce;
fuor se' de l'erte vie, fuor se' de l'arte.
Vedi lo sol che 'n fronte ti riluce;
vedi l'erbette, i fiori e li arbuscelli
che qui la terra sol da sé produce.
Mentre che vegnan lieti li occhi belli
che, lagrimando, a te venir mi fenno,
seder ti puoi e puoi andar tra elli.
Non aspettar mio dir più né mio cenno;
libero, dritto e sano è tuo arbitrio,
e fallo fora non fare a suo senno:
per ch'io te sovra te corono e mitrio.”
As when he vibrates forth his earliest rays,
In regions where his Maker shed his blood,
(The Ebro falling under lofty Libra,
And waters in the Ganges burnt with noon,)
So stood the Sun; hence was the day departing,
When the glad Angel of God appeared to us.
Outside the flame he stood upon the verge,
And chanted forth, "Beati mundo corde,"
In voice by far more living than our own.
Then: "No one farther goes, souls sanctified,
If first the fire bite not; within it enter,
And be not deaf unto the song beyond."
When we were close beside him thus he said;
Wherefore e'en such became I, when I heard him,
As he is who is put into the grave.
Upon my clasped hands I straightened me,
Scanning the fire, and vividly recalling
The human bodies I had once seen burned.
Towards me turned themselves my good Conductors,
And unto me Virgilius said: "My son,
Here may indeed be torment, but not death.
Remember thee, remember! and if I
On Geryon have safely guided thee,
What shall I do now I am nearer God?
Believe for certain, shouldst thou stand a full
Millennium in the bosom of this flame,
It could not make thee bald a single hair.
And if perchance thou think that I deceive thee,
Draw near to it, and put it to the proof
With thine own hands upon thy garment's hem.
Now lay aside, now lay aside all fear,
Turn hitherward, and onward come securely;"
And I still motionless, and 'gainst my conscience!
Seeing me stand still motionless and stubborn,
Somewhat disturbed he said: "Now look thou, Son,
'Twixt Beatrice and thee there is this wall."
As at the name of Thisbe oped his lids
The dying Pyramus, and gazed upon her,
What time the mulberry became vermilion,
Even thus, my obduracy being softened,
I turned to my wise Guide, hearing the name
That in my memory evermore is welling.
Whereat he wagged his head, and said: "How now?
Shall we stay on this side?" then smiled as one
Does at a child who's vanquished by an apple.
Then into the fire in front of me he entered,
Beseeching Statius to come after me,
Who a long way before divided us.
When I was in it, into molten glass
I would have cast me to refresh myself,
So without measure was the burning there!
And my sweet Father, to encourage me,
Discoursing still of Beatrice went on,
Saying: "Her eyes I seem to see already!"
A voice, that on the other side was singing,
Directed us, and we, attent alone
On that, came forth where the ascent began.
"Venite, benedicti Patris mei,"
Sounded within a splendour, which was there
Such it o'ercame me, and I could not look.
"The sun departs," it added, "and night cometh;
Tarry ye not, but onward urge your steps,
So long as yet the west becomes not dark."
Straight forward through the rock the path ascended
In such a way that I cut off the rays
Before me of the sun, that now was low.
And of few stairs we yet had made assay,
Ere by the vanished shadow the sun's setting
Behind us we perceived, I and my Sages.
And ere in all its parts immeasurable
The horizon of one aspect had become,
And Night her boundless dispensation held,
Each of us of a stair had made his bed;
Because the nature of the mount took from us
The power of climbing, more than the delight.
Even as in ruminating passive grow
The goats, who have been swift and venturesome
Upon the mountain-tops ere they were fed,
Hushed in the shadow, while the sun is hot,
Watched by the herdsman, who upon his staff
Is leaning, and in leaning tendeth them;
And as the shepherd, lodging out of doors,
Passes the night beside his quiet flock,
Watching that no wild beast may scatter it,
Such at that hour were we, all three of us,
I like the goat, and like the herdsmen they,
Begirt on this side and on that by rocks.
Little could there be seen of things without;
But through that little I beheld the stars
More luminous and larger than their wont.
Thus ruminating, and beholding these,
Sleep seized upon me,—sleep, that oftentimes
Before a deed is done has tidings of it.
It was the hour, I think, when from the East
First on the mountain Citherea beamed,
Who with the fire of love seems always burning;
Youthful and beautiful in dreams methought
I saw a lady walking in a meadow,
Gathering flowers; and singing she was saying:
"Know whosoever may my name demand
That I am Leah, and go moving round
My beauteous hands to make myself a garland.
To please me at the mirror, here I deck me,
But never does my sister Rachel leave
Her looking-glass, and sitteth all day long.
To see her beauteous eyes as eager is she,
As I am to adorn me with my hands;
Her, seeing, and me, doing satisfies."
And now before the antelucan splendours
That unto pilgrims the more grateful rise,
As, home-returning, less remote they lodge,
The darkness fled away on every side,
And slumber with it; whereupon I rose,
Seeing already the great Masters risen.
"That apple sweet, which through so many branches
The care of mortals goeth in pursuit of,
To-day shall put in peace thy hungerings."
Speaking to me, Virgilius of such words
As these made use; and never were there guerdons
That could in pleasantness compare with these.
Such longing upon longing came upon me
To be above, that at each step thereafter
For flight I felt in me the pinions growing.
When underneath us was the stairway all
Run o'er, and we were on the highest step,
Virgilius fastened upon me his eyes,
And said: "The temporal fire and the eternal,
Son, thou hast seen, and to a place art come
Where of myself no farther I discern.
By intellect and art I here have brought thee;
Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth;
Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou.
Behold the sun, that shines upon thy forehead;
Behold the grass, the flowerets, and the shrubs
Which of itself alone this land produces.
Until rejoicing come the beauteous eyes
Which weeping caused me to come unto thee,
Thou canst sit down, and thou canst walk among them.
Expect no more or word or sign from me;
Free and upright and sound is thy free-will,
And error were it not to do its bidding;
Thee o'er thyself I therefore crown and mitre!"
Dante's simile here, perfect in form, masks its formal vacuity: 'as is the sun in a certain position, so was it then' (e.g., 'as a commentator shakes his head in complaint, so did he shake his head'). Dante enjoys using this sort of comparison. See the note to Inferno XXX.136-141, in which reference is made to the study of this phenomenon (sometimes referred to as 'false simile' or as 'pseudo-simile') by Eric Mallin (“The False Simile in Dante's Commedia,” Dante Studies 102 [1984], pp. 15-36).
Using his usual four coordinates, each 90o apart from the next (Jerusalem, Spain, the antipodes, India – like clocks on the wall in an air terminal), Dante tells us the global condition of the time. It is 6pm now on the mountain. At the start of the cantica a similar passage described dawn (Purg. II.1-9), with the sun's position with regard to all these coordinates 180o distant from where it is now.
The river Ebro in Spain is now beneath the constellation Libra, i.e., it is midnight in Spain.
In Dante the word nona usually refers to the ninth hour of the day, i.e., 3pm. Here it is used to mean 'noon.'
The angel of Chastity, standing outside the flames along the far edge of the terrace, intones part of the sixth Beatitude (Matthew 5:8), 'Blessèd are the clean of heart [for they shall see God].'
This angel has a unique function, since he, like the warder at the gate below, supervises a border beyond which purgation is not performed; however, unlike the warder, he functions within the territory of his terrace and his task is not replicated by an angel on any other terrace. He supervises what seems to be a form of final expiation and acceptance that mirrors Christ's baptism by fire (Matthew 3:11), as promised by John the Baptist: the Lord whom he serves will baptize 'with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' Absent as far as one can tell from the commentary tradition, this citation was suggested by an undergraduate at Princeton (Joseph Taylor '70) many years ago. The angel seems to be addressing 'blessèd souls,' whether in re (Statius) or in potentia (Dante); Virgil, of course, is excluded from blessedness.
Trucchi (comm. to vv. 10-15) observes that this angel seems to be working in collaboration with a second one (the voice that sings from beyond the fire to draw the finally fully penitent souls to their new lives in grace), we find on this terrace, uniquely, two angels. See the note to Purgatorio XXVII.55-57.
Most recent commentators believe that Dante here refers to a corpse being laid in a grave, i.e., he felt as dead as a man being placed in his grave (i.e., 'I became so terrified that I looked like a dead man': Benvenuto's reading (comm. to vv. 7-15). Others, beginning with Lombardi (comm. to verse 15), argue that this fossa (pit, grave [it can mean either; in its last appearance at Purg. XVIII.121 it meant 'grave']) refers to the deeper and narrower pit that is used to bury a criminal alive and to which Dante has earlier referred (Inf. XIX.46-47). However, this form of punishment, propagginazione, involves suffocating a criminal by covering him with earth after he has been placed upside down in a pit, a posture that does not seem germane to this passage. Perhaps for this reason most (but not all) recent discussants read the line as we do.
Exactly what Dante's physical posture here is has been variously understood. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse) review a number of these discussions and make the sensible suggestion that Dante is holding his hands toward the fire, feeling its heat on them and attempting to keep the rest of his body as far as possible from the flame behind those extended hands, while he bends his head toward it, peering into it. Those who argue that Dante has joined his hands do not deal with the fact that the other three times in the Comedy when he uses a form of this past participle of commettere (to commit) it never means 'join together,' as most take it to mean here. (See Inf. VII.62 and Inf. XIX.47, as well as Purg. X.57.) In other words, he has 'committed' his hands to the fire, i.e., stretched them out toward it.
The currently most favored reading of these lines is already found in Tozer (comm. to vv. 16-18): 'Burning was a mode of punishment at Florence at this period, and Dante himself had been condemned to be burnt alive at the time of his banishment.' In short, Dante, having seen human beings burned alive in the public square, and having been promised exactly such treatment should he ever attempt to return to Florence from his exile, is understandably frozen by fear. For him, a man in the flesh, the danger of the fire seems, naturally enough, far greater than it must have to those who were there in spirit only. They, to be sure, suffer mental anguish as they purge their sin of lust in the flames; Dante understandably imagines that the fire will work quite differently upon him.
If it is Virgil who speaks, the narrator again reminds us of Statius's continuing presence, even though he has not spoken since Purgatorio XXV.108, when he finished his lecture on the aerial body. He will, in fact, not speak again, though his actions and presence will be recorded until a few lines from the end of the cantica (Purg. XXXIII.135).
Virgil is at pains to remind Dante that here in purgatory the dangers are not those encountered in hell. He will not perish in these flames, while he might have been destroyed by Geryon's envenomed tail or by falling from his back (Inf. XVII.83-84, 95-96, 121). And so, Virgil asks, if Dante could trust him then, how much more can he trust him now?
See Luke 21:18: 'Yet not a hair on your head shall perish.' Jesus is speaking of the terrible time of tribulation that awaits his followers, which they shall nonetheless survive. Scartazzini (comm. to verse 27) also cites Paul's words to his followers, terrified in a storm at sea (Acts 27:34): 'For not a hair shall fall from the head of any of you.'
Virgil, having failed to convince Dante even a little, now resorts to scientific experiment, asking him to test a hem of his clothing in this spiritual fire. As Torraca (comm. to vv. 29-30) pointed out, far credenza (perform a test), was a phrase (found in the second book of Boccaccio's Filocolo) used for the practice of having a prince's (or other important person's) food sampled by animals or by servants, expressly charged with this task, to be sure it had not been poisoned.
In a wonderfully wrought sequence, Virgil has given, rapid-fire, a series of convincing proposals and arguments, along with a concluding volley of encouragement (Purg. XXVII.20-32). The poet's description of the protagonist, in a single line, Dante's version of 'the soul indeed is willing but the flesh is weak' (Matthew 26:41), shows that he is now as reluctant as he has ever been: 'against my will, I stood stock still.'
Whatever else it accomplishes, the little scene again shows how amusing Dante can be. Glauco Cambon (“Il sorriso purgatoriale: umorismo dantesco,” Atti dell'Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 140 [1981-82], pp. 89-103) tried to remind us of that.
In Ovid's story (Metam. IV.55-166), the myth that accounts for why the fruit of the mulberry tree is red, Pyramus and Thisbe are neighbors in the Babylon of Queen Semiramis (see Inf. V.58). They are in love. Since their parents forbid them to marry, they speak to one another lovingly through a little gap in the common wall of their houses. They conspire to meet one night at the tomb of Ninus, the dead king, former husband of Semiramis. Thisbe arrives first but, as luck would have it, a lioness, fresh from the kill and covered in the blood of the cattle she had slain, seeking a fountain to slake her thirst, frightened Thisbe away. The beast, returning from her drink and finding the cloak that fleeing Thisbe had dropped on the ground, soils that garment with her bloody maw. Pyramus, arriving late for his assignation, finds the bloodied cloth and assumes the worst. Blaming himself for Thisbe's putative death, he kills himself with his sword. His spurting blood colors the white fruit of the mulberry red. Returning, Thisbe finds the body of her beloved. In anguish she calls out his name and her own, and he opens his eyes and recognizes her just before he dies. In turn, she uses the sword of Pyramus to take her own life.
The simile that Dante contrives from this material gives the name of Beatrice the same role as that of Thisbe. Virgil speaks her name just as Thisbe had spoken her own. In Dante's case it revives the will to continue toward salvation in a lover who has felt he was at the verge of death, while in the case of Pyramus there is no larger sense of redemption, only a moment of tragic recognition. Why does Dante construct this similetic moment out of such antithetic material? His love for Beatrice leads to life, Pyramus's love for Thisbe, to death. When we hear Dante's name on the lips of Beatrice (Purg. XXX.55), we are in a better position to see the complex relations between these two acts of naming here and two kinds of love.
On the relations between the mulberry and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from which Eve and then Adam ate, as well as the cross on which Christ died and hung like bloodied fruit, see Christian Moevs (“Pyramus at the Mulberry Tree: De-petrifying Dante's Tinted Mind,” in Imagining Heaven in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, ed. Jan Swango Emerson and Hugh Feiss [New York: Garland, 2000]), pp. 218-19. Francis Fergusson (Dante's Drama of the Mind [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953]), p. 167, makes a case for the importance of the reference to Christ's blood in line 2 of the opening simile of the canto to this later motif. And see Moevs (p. 229) for a potential citation here of a passage in Augustine's De ordine (I.3), when the still unconverted catechumen is angered when he hears a young poet named (appropriately enough) Licentius reciting a poem about Pyramus and Thisbe. Licentius, Augustine says, may be 'erecting between [himself] and reality a wall more impenetrable than [the one his verses] are trying to rear between the lovers.' For Pyramus and Thisbe in the tradition of Romance vernacular prior to Dante see Gianfranco Contini (Un' idea di Dante [Turin: Einaudi, 1976]), pp. 185-87; for a consideration of six medieval Latin poems presenting Ovid's ill-fated lovers for the delectation and instruction of schoolboys see Robert Glendinning (“Pyramus and Thisbe in the Medieval Classroom,” Speculum 61 [1986], pp. 51-78).
For a passage from Convivio (IV.xii.16), relevant here also as an indication of Virgil's pleasure in regaining his role as Dante's teacher and guide, see the note to Purgatorio XXIV.106-111.
We had previously known that Dante was following the two other poets (see Purg. XXVI.16-18) and now we learn that Statius has been nearest him, with Virgil in the lead. As Bosco/Reggio point out (comm. to verse 47), Virgil's tactic here is reminiscent of his staying behind Dante to protect him from Geryon's sting (Inf. XVII.83-84). Here, however, one might add, Virgil is not worried about protecting Dante, but by the possibility that he would try to flee back through the flames. And thus Statius is deployed as a rearguard, not against any enemy, but against the questionable will of the protagonist. Further, Virgil, by making Dante come closer, arranges things so that it is easier to control him.
While one wants to be cautious about such things, Virgil's naming of Beatrice here represents the ninth time that her name has appeared in the poem and the last time before she names herself (Purg. XXX.73). Since Dante likes to use the rhythm of 9 plus 1 to represent the movement from good to best (Vita nuova: nine appearances of Beatrice to Dante on earth, in one form or another, surmounted by a tenth and heavenly vision; Paradiso: nine heavenly spheres surmounted by the perfection of the Empyrean [see Hollander (“Vita Nuova: Dante's Perceptions of Beatrice,” Dante Studies 92 [1974], pp. 1-18)]), it is at least conceivable that there is such a program at work for the appearances of the names of Beatrice in this part of the poem. As Frederick Locke (“Dante's Miraculous Enneads,” Dante Studies 85 [1967], pp. 59-70) pointed out, Beatrice's name appears 63 times in the Comedy, and that number is a 'nine' (6 plus 3 = 9). It is possible that Dante was counting his uses of her name and deliberately chose to have it appear exactly nine times before she revealed herself to Dante. The pattern would have been more pleasing had Virgil spoken that name each of those nine times; however, once it is Dante himself who speaks it, in his conversation with Forese. Beatrice's name appears as follows in the first sixty-three cantos of the poem: Inf. II.70, Inf. II.103, Purg. VI.46, Purg. XV.77, Purg. XVIII.48, Purg. XVIII.73, Purg. XXIII.128 (spoken by Dante), Purg. XXVII.36, and here.
Virgil will probably not see those eyes, since he will be dismissed from the poem just as Beatrice appears (see Purg. XXX.49), even though he had been subjected to the heat of the fire when he guided Dante through it.
The scene we expect, as the protagonist completes his ritual purging on a terrace, is the removal of one (in this case the seventh and last) P from his forehead. Apparently the poet decided to avoid representing this climactic moment, allowing it either to be intrinsic, or else perhaps allowing us to believe that the fire itself cleansed the protagonist of his predisposition toward lust. But this is the moment (not before the entrance to the fire, as some believe) at which the ritual act should be performed, just before the upward movement to the next area of the mountain, as it has been on the other terraces (see an associated discussion of the angels' recitations of the Beatitudes in the note to Purg. XV.38-39).
Trucchi (comm. to vv. 10-15) counts the angels who serve God's ends in Purgatorio and comes up with ten (the 'perfect number,' as he remarks): the Christian Mercury who brings the living dead to the mountain (Purg. II.43), the angelic warder at the gate (Purg. IX.104), the seven who are associated with the virtues opposed to the vices repented at the end of the experience of each terrace, and now this one (he omits the two angelic actors in the pageant at Purg. VIII.25-39).
This final angel of purgatory (in paradise we see Gabriel circling the Virgin [Par. XXIII.103] and then the angelic hierarchy in Paradiso XXVIII) acts as a sort of positive Siren, drawing souls away from lust and setting them free.
As, among the early commentators, only he who speaks from the pages of the Codice Cassinese pointed out, the passage reflects the words that Christ will speak to the just at the Day of Judgment: 'Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, “Come, blessèd of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the [time of the] foundation of the world”' (Matthew 25:34). In the twentieth century notice began again to be paid to this absolutely relevant text. As Singleton reports (comm. to this verse), Ernest Hatch Wilkins (“Dante and the Mosaics of his Bel San Giovanni,” Speculum 2 [1927]), p. 5, pointed out that a mosaic in the Florentine Baptistery showed a gate guarded by an angel who welcomes a newly arrived soul, while a second angel leads a group of the saved and carries a banner that is inscribed 'Come, blessèd of my Father, possess what has been prepared.' Dante's second and singing angel would certainly seem to be modeled on that second angel and his words. And that there are two angels on this terrace may reflect his memory of the mosaic.
The angel's words, as many now note, are a sort of paraphrase of John 12:35: 'Walk while you have the light, that darkness may not overtake you.' Poletto (comm. to this verse) seems to have been the first commentator to notice the correlation. That it should have waited so long to be observed is comprehensible, since it is not a literal citation so much as a recasting of John's thought. This second angel, exactly like the first on this terrace, first speaks in Latin and then in the vernacular. See, again, the note to Purgatorio XV.38-39.
Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 65-66) point out that, since this stair runs from due west to due east and since at the outset of the ascent (Purg. III.16-18) Dante had his back to the east, he has now gone exactly halfway around the mountain's circumference or 180o . Naturally the actual circumference keeps decreasing as the mountain goes higher, like that of a snail's shell.
Dante's phrase levare i saggi (tried) suggests a literal sense of taking a sample of rock, as in geological studies.
Dante's playfulness is for some reason particularly evident in his similes, which often and deliberately have 'something wrong' in them, incomplete grammatical relations, mixtures of styles, and other apparent 'defects.' Here, on the other hand, we have a perfectly developed and complex 'classical' simile: 'Just as... and just as... so.' Anyone examining the passage closely is likely to perceive that there are things 'wrong' here as well. Let us consider the components of the simile:
Dante (singular) Virgil and Statius (plural)
76-81 goats (plural) shepherd (singular)
82-84 flock (plural) herdsman (singular)
85-87 goat (singular) shepherds (plural)
Several things are worth remarking. This simile is mainly unadulterated vernacular pastoral with a few Latinate words (and perhaps a phrase from Virgil at line 77 from Georgics IV.10, according to Daniello [comm. to vv. 76-81] and many of those who followed him). But why does Dante not get his singulars and plurals straight in the first two elements, only to correct them in the third? Why does he include the second element at all, since he excludes it from his summarizing and concluding third element? And why, as Torraca (comm. to vv. 76-78) wondered, is the shepherd standing up (if leaning on his stick) while Virgil and Statius are lying down? Is that why, Torraca continued to wonder, Dante included the second element, in which the herdsman is at least closer to lying down? The purpose of these questions is to focus attention on how much Dante expects of his reader. These little touches, reminding us of his artistic freedom, make us aware of that.
The phrase rapide e proterve in verse 77 (which we have translated as 'quick and reckless'), according to some commentators, beginning with Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 76-87), means 'rapaces et temerariae' (rapacious and bold). Others have objected to the first of these terms, more fitting to the description of the appetite of a wolf, as being inapplicable to goats. On the other hand, if we understood the word to mean 'voracious,' there would be no such problem. We, however, believe that Dante is referring to the way a free-roaming goat moves, rather than to the way it eats, but have no quarrel with those who follow Benvenuto.
The stars look bigger and brighter because Dante is higher up and closer to them than he has ever been in his life. There may be a moral atmosphere at work here as well, in that he has lost the obscuring mantle of sin that is our normal lot (see Purg. XXX.3), and that also would make them seem brighter. For exactly such a twofold understanding see John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 88-90).
It is now before dawn on Wednesday morning, the last day on the mountain, from which Dante will depart at noon.
'Cytherea' is a proper noun formed from the epithet used of the 'maritime' Venus, the lustful goddess born of the spume of the sea near the island Cythera. Dante here presents her as morning star, as she was seen at the opening of the cantica. However, and as has been pointed out in recent years with increasing insistence, in 1300 Venus was the evening star at this period of the year, and the morning star only in 1301. See the discussion in Graziella Federici Vescovini (“Dante e l'astronomia del suo tempo,” Letteratura italiana antica 3 [2002]), pp. 292, 300n., who resists the temptation to 'redate' the poem to 1301, believing that Dante is merely taking advantage of poetic license. And see the note to Purgatorio I.19-21.
For the formulaic nature of Dante's preparation of his three dream narratives in Purgatorio see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), p. 149. All the dreams are preceded by 'an astronomical reference to the hour of the morning at which the dream occurs' and then by the distinct vocabulary of dream vision, as in the second of these tercets: 'in sogno mi parea / donna vedere' (in a dream I seemed to see a lady).
The dream of Leah and Rachel is the most transparent of the three dreams in Purgatorio (see Purg. IX.13-33 and Purg. XIX.1-33). Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban in Genesis, were understood by Christian interpreters to represent, respectively, the active life and the contemplative life (and thus Rachel's staring into the mirror is not to be taken as narcissistic self-admiration but contemplation in a positive sense). It is clear that Dante is making use of that tradition here. However, he is also making use of biblical typology in his treatment of Leah, who is related to Eve in her as yet unfallen condition in that she is doing what Adam and Eve were told to do, 'ut operaretur et custodiret illum' (to dress [the garden] and keep it – Genesis 2:15). Dante's verb in the last line of Leah's speech, which concludes the dream, remembers the biblical verb in his ovrare, the working in this garden that points back to the tasks of that one before the Fall (see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], p. 153). For the balanced relationships between the pair Leah and Rachel and a second pair, Matelda and Beatrice, the two central female presences in the earthly paradise, see Paola Pacchioni (“Lia e Rachele, Matelda e Beatrice,” L'Alighieri 18 [2001], pp. 47-74).
It is probably also fair to say that the text intrinsically presents Dante as a new Jacob: 'As Jacob toiled for seven years in order to gain the hand of Rachel, only to be given that of Leah (Genesis 29:10f.), so Dante has toiled up seven terraces of purgation with the promise of Beatrice, only to find Matelda' (Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], pp. 151-52). Giovanni Pascoli (La mirabile visione [Bologna: Zanichelli, 1923 (1902)]), p. 462, had much earlier suggested that Dante, 'the new Aeneas,' was also the 'new Jacob.' Pascoli was followed, without their apparent knowledge, by Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), p. 108, and by T. K. Swing (The Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl [Westminster: The Newman Press, 1962]), p. 95. The Italian tradition has for a long time insisted only on the 'allegorical' equation here, Leah as the active life, Rachel as the contemplative. A figural understanding (i.e., one developed from 'historical allegory,' as in the interpretation of the Bible itself), has mainly been absent. But see Momigliano (comm. to these verses) who almost resolves the problem in this way. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 91-108) offer a long and confessedly 'perplexed' attempt to account for the resulting supposedly double (and thus inadmissible) valence of Beatrice as both 'theology' and 'the contemplative life.' For another reading of this dream see Zygmunt Baranski (“Dante's Three Reflective Dreams,” Quaderni d'italianistica 10 [1989]), pp. 219-24.
Awakening, the protagonist (and Statius, but Virgil only problematically so) is associated with travelers who are getting nearer home. It is quite clear that 'home' now is at the very least the garden of Eden, and perhaps the true paradise that lies above. There are no thoughts of Florence here. In these lines the true pilgrimage becomes a journey from God, into the world, and back to God. It is interesting to compare the beautiful and sad opening of the eighth canto of this cantica, with its traveler whose thoughts are on friends left behind in the world. This pilgrim/traveler has apparently learned a good deal on the mountain.
For the resonance of a phrase found in the Song of Songs in this verse, 'le tenebre fuggian da tutti lati' (the shadows all around were being put to flight): 'Donec aspiret dies et inclinentur umbrae' (Until the day break and the shadows flee away) (Cant. 2:17 and 4:6), see Eleanor Cook (“Scripture as Enigma: Biblical Allusion in Dante's Earthly Paradise,” Dante Studies 117 [1999]), p. 5.
This is as close as the poet comes to telling us that the protagonist's last P has been removed. He feels as light as his 'feathers.'
Since the garden of Eden seems to be just slightly below the level to which the travelers have now climbed (see Purg. XXVIII.4), this topmost step of the stair is the highest point on earth attained by Dante, and by Virgil as well, but he has no further rising to do.
Virgil's final speech in the poem may be clarified by a summarizing paraphrase. (1) I have brought you, with intellect and skill, through flames temporal (purgatory) and eternal (hell) and have reached the limit of my powers; (2) from now on follow your own inclination as your guide, since you are free; (3) see the sun and the freely growing vegetation here; until Beatrice, whose weeping eyes sent me to you, comes glad-eyed into your presence, you may choose to sit or wander; (4) no more do I speak or gesture; your will is free, upright, and whole; do its pleasure – and thus do I crown and miter you over yourself.
Beginning with Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), commentators have cited St. Thomas to the effect that the pains of the damned are eternal while the fire of purgatory is temporary.
If Dante's will is as good as Virgil will shortly say it is, he can take pleasure as his guide because he will only want that which reason will want. Nothing sinful would any longer tempt him.
The self-sufficient nature of the vegetation of the garden will be insisted on at Purgatorio XXVIII.109-120.
It is perhaps useful to consider an attempt to see how the poem may be divided into four large units, as follows:
Dante's development locus guide
I. correction of the will Inf. I-XXXIV Virgil
II. perfection of the will Purg. I-XXIX Virgil
III. correction of the intellect Purg. XXX-Par. XXX Beatrice
IV. perfection of the intellect Par. XXX-end Bernard
See Hollander (“The Invocations of the Commedia,” Yearbook of Italian Studies 3 [1976], pp. 235-40). And for the possible contribution of St. Bernard to this schema, see the note to Paradiso XXXIII.127-132.
It is at this moment that Virgil gives over the instructional task that has been his since Inferno I, presiding over the correction and perfection of Dante's will. A less developed version of this schema is found in Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 11-12, where Virgil is seen as leading Dante to 'a condition of rectitude in the will,' while the goal to which Beatrice leads him 'is one in which intellect is primary.'
The precise meaning and reference of this concluding verse has been the subject of much discussion. The meta-literary sense that he has of the canto as a whole leads Picone (“Purgatorio XXVII: passaggio rituale e translatio poetica,” Medioevo romanzo 12 [1987]), pp. 400-1, to allegorize the crown and miter that Virgil awards Dante as (1) the triumphant laurel of the modern poet and (2) the Christian truth that he can add to Virgil's store of pagan wisdom and poetic technique. As Remo Fasani (“Canto XXVII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 432, points out, although the modern discussion has tended to treat the terms as synonyms, as long ago as in the commentaries of the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 139-142) and of Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 124-142), they were understood as separate entities. To the Ottimo they signified 'rector and shepherd'; to Francesco, laurel crown ('corono; di laurea, come poeta') and bishop's miter ('come vescovo e guidatore dell'anima tua a l'eterna salute' [as bishop and guide over your own soul, bound for eternal salvation]), two very different sorts of adornment for Dante's head. Fasani opts for the crown as sign of Dante's active life, his temporal (and decidedly imperial) political mission, and sees the miter as an image of his contemplative life, the poet's spiritual mission.
In the recent and continuing argument there are those who argue, as did Contini (Un' idea di Dante [Turin: Einaudi, 1976]), pp. 188-89, citing Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) who had come upon a description of the coronation of the emperor Otto IV in 1209 in which he was crowned and mitered in a study by one Father Ponta, collected in his Opere su Dante, published in 1845, pp. 189 and 193, that for Virgil to grant ecclesiastical authority is totally foreign to anything we have read in this poem. In an entirely similar mode, Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 64-69, cites (not Ponta or Scartazzini or Contini) Ernst Kantorowicz (The King's Two Bodies [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957]), pp. 491-92, for the use of the miter in the crowning of the temporal ruler. This series of interesting attempts to make Virgil's last words in the poem tautological does, however, leave one less than easily convinced; the word 'miter' is removed from an ecclesiastical context only with difficulty.
Virgil can make Dante neither an emperor nor a bishop (and surely not a pope). He is metaphorically crowning Dante for now having, in his will, the ability to rule himself morally, as the world, were it only better governed, would be ruled by two powers, emperor and pope. Dante is now said by Virgil to be in complete command of the powers of his will, a microcosmic image of the world made just (improbable as Dante would have thought such a happy state) under its two prime authorities.
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Sì come quando i primi raggi vibra
là dove il suo fattor lo sangue sparse,
cadendo Ibero sotto l'alta Libra,
e l'onde in Gange da nona rïarse,
sì stava il sole; onde 'l giorno sen giva,
come l'angel di Dio lieto ci apparse.
Fuor de la fiamma stava in su la riva,
e cantava “Beati mundo corde!”
in voce assai più che la nostra viva.
Poscia “Più non si va, se pria non morde,
anime sante, il foco: intrate in esso,
e al cantar di là non siate sorde,”
ci disse come noi li fummo presso;
per ch'io divenni tal, quando lo 'ntesi,
qual è colui che ne la fossa è messo.
In su le man commesse mi protesi,
guardando il foco e imaginando forte
umani corpi già veduti accesi.
Volsersi verso me le buone scorte;
e Virgilio mi disse: “Figliuol mio,
qui può esser tormento, ma non morte.
Ricorditi, ricorditi! E se io
sovresso Gerïon ti guidai salvo,
che farò ora presso più a Dio?
Credi per certo che se dentro a l'alvo
di questa fiamma stessi ben mille anni,
non ti potrebbe far d'un capel calvo.
E se tu forse credi ch'io t'inganni,
fatti ver' lei, e fatti far credenza
con le tue mani al lembo d'i tuoi panni.
Pon giù omai, pon giù ogne temenza;
volgiti in qua e vieni: entra sicuro!”
E io pur fermo e contra coscïenza.
Quando mi vide star pur fermo e duro,
turbato un poco disse: “Or vedi, figlio:
tra Bëatrice e te è questo muro.”
Come al nome di Tisbe aperse il ciglio
Piramo in su la morte, e riguardolla,
allor che 'l gelso diventò vermiglio;
così, la mia durezza fatta solla,
mi volsi al savio duca, udendo il nome
che ne la mente sempre mi rampolla.
Ond' ei crollò la fronte e disse: “Come!
volenci star di qua?”; indi sorrise
come al fanciul si fa ch'è vinto al pome.
Poi dentro al foco innanzi mi si mise,
pregando Stazio che venisse retro,
che pria per lunga strada ci divise.
Sì com' fui dentro, in un bogliente vetro
gittato mi sarei per rinfrescarmi,
tant' era ivi lo 'ncendio sanza metro.
Lo dolce padre mio, per confortarmi,
pur di Beatrice ragionando andava,
dicendo: “Li occhi suoi già veder parmi.”
Guidavaci una voce che cantava
di là; e noi, attenti pur a lei,
venimmo fuor là ove si montava.
“Venite, benedicti Patris mei,”
sonò dentro a un lume che lì era,
tal che mi vinse e guardar nol potei.
“Lo sol sen va,” soggiunse, “e vien la sera;
non v'arrestate, ma studiate il passo,
mentre che l'occidente non si annera.”
Dritta salia la via per entro 'l sasso
verso tal parte ch'io toglieva i raggi
dinanzi a me del sol ch'era già basso.
E di pochi scaglion levammo i saggi,
che 'l sol corcar, per l'ombra che si spense,
sentimmo dietro e io e li miei saggi.
E pria che 'n tutte le sue parti immense
fosse orizzonte fatto d'uno aspetto,
e notte avesse tutte sue dispense
ciascun di noi d'un grado fece letto;
ché la natura del monte ci affranse
la possa del salir più e 'l diletto.
Quali si stanno ruminando manse
le capre, state rapide e proterve
sovra le cime avante che sien pranse,
tacite a l'ombra, mentre che 'l sol ferve,
guardate dal pastor, che 'n su la verga
poggiato s'è e lor di posa serve;
e quale il mandrïan che fori alberga,
lungo il pecuglio suo queto pernotta,
guardando perché fiera non lo sperga;
tali eravamo tutti e tre allotta,
io come capra, ed ei come pastori,
fasciati quinci e quindi d'alta grotta.
Poco parer potea lì del di fori;
ma, per quel poco, vedea io le stelle
di lor solere e più chiare e maggiori.
Sì ruminando e sì mirando in quelle,
mi prese il sonno; il sonno che sovente,
anzi che 'l fatto sia, sa le novelle.
Ne l'ora, credo, che de l'orïente
prima raggiò nel monte Citerea,
che di foco d'amor par sempre ardente,
giovane e bella in sogno mi parea
donna vedere andar per una landa
cogliendo fiori; e cantando dicea:
“Sappia qualunque il mio nome dimanda
ch'i' mi son Lia, e vo movendo intorno
le belle mani a farmi una ghirlanda.
Per piacermi a lo specchio, qui m'addorno;
ma mia suora Rachel mai non si smaga
dal suo miraglio, e siede tutto giorno.
Ell' è d'i suoi belli occhi veder vaga
com' io de l'addornarmi con le mani;
lei lo vedere, e me l'ovrare appaga.”
E già per li splendori antelucani,
che tanto a' pellegrin surgon più grati,
quanto, tornando, albergan men lontani,
le tenebre fuggian da tutti lati,
e 'l sonno mio con esse; ond' io leva'mi,
veggendo i gran maestri già levati.
“Quel dolce pome che per tanti rami
cercando va la cura de' mortali,
oggi porrà in pace le tue fami.”
Virgilio inverso me queste cotali
parole usò; e mai non furo strenne
che fosser di piacere a queste iguali.
Tanto voler sopra voler mi venne
de l'esser sù, ch'ad ogne passo poi
al volo mi sentia crescer le penne.
Come la scala tutta sotto noi
fu corsa e fummo in su 'l grado superno,
in me ficcò Virgilio li occhi suoi,
e disse: “Il temporal foco e l'etterno
veduto hai, figlio; e se' venuto in parte
dov' io per me più oltre non discerno.
Tratto t'ho qui con ingegno e con arte;
lo tuo piacere omai prendi per duce;
fuor se' de l'erte vie, fuor se' de l'arte.
Vedi lo sol che 'n fronte ti riluce;
vedi l'erbette, i fiori e li arbuscelli
che qui la terra sol da sé produce.
Mentre che vegnan lieti li occhi belli
che, lagrimando, a te venir mi fenno,
seder ti puoi e puoi andar tra elli.
Non aspettar mio dir più né mio cenno;
libero, dritto e sano è tuo arbitrio,
e fallo fora non fare a suo senno:
per ch'io te sovra te corono e mitrio.”
As when he vibrates forth his earliest rays,
In regions where his Maker shed his blood,
(The Ebro falling under lofty Libra,
And waters in the Ganges burnt with noon,)
So stood the Sun; hence was the day departing,
When the glad Angel of God appeared to us.
Outside the flame he stood upon the verge,
And chanted forth, "Beati mundo corde,"
In voice by far more living than our own.
Then: "No one farther goes, souls sanctified,
If first the fire bite not; within it enter,
And be not deaf unto the song beyond."
When we were close beside him thus he said;
Wherefore e'en such became I, when I heard him,
As he is who is put into the grave.
Upon my clasped hands I straightened me,
Scanning the fire, and vividly recalling
The human bodies I had once seen burned.
Towards me turned themselves my good Conductors,
And unto me Virgilius said: "My son,
Here may indeed be torment, but not death.
Remember thee, remember! and if I
On Geryon have safely guided thee,
What shall I do now I am nearer God?
Believe for certain, shouldst thou stand a full
Millennium in the bosom of this flame,
It could not make thee bald a single hair.
And if perchance thou think that I deceive thee,
Draw near to it, and put it to the proof
With thine own hands upon thy garment's hem.
Now lay aside, now lay aside all fear,
Turn hitherward, and onward come securely;"
And I still motionless, and 'gainst my conscience!
Seeing me stand still motionless and stubborn,
Somewhat disturbed he said: "Now look thou, Son,
'Twixt Beatrice and thee there is this wall."
As at the name of Thisbe oped his lids
The dying Pyramus, and gazed upon her,
What time the mulberry became vermilion,
Even thus, my obduracy being softened,
I turned to my wise Guide, hearing the name
That in my memory evermore is welling.
Whereat he wagged his head, and said: "How now?
Shall we stay on this side?" then smiled as one
Does at a child who's vanquished by an apple.
Then into the fire in front of me he entered,
Beseeching Statius to come after me,
Who a long way before divided us.
When I was in it, into molten glass
I would have cast me to refresh myself,
So without measure was the burning there!
And my sweet Father, to encourage me,
Discoursing still of Beatrice went on,
Saying: "Her eyes I seem to see already!"
A voice, that on the other side was singing,
Directed us, and we, attent alone
On that, came forth where the ascent began.
"Venite, benedicti Patris mei,"
Sounded within a splendour, which was there
Such it o'ercame me, and I could not look.
"The sun departs," it added, "and night cometh;
Tarry ye not, but onward urge your steps,
So long as yet the west becomes not dark."
Straight forward through the rock the path ascended
In such a way that I cut off the rays
Before me of the sun, that now was low.
And of few stairs we yet had made assay,
Ere by the vanished shadow the sun's setting
Behind us we perceived, I and my Sages.
And ere in all its parts immeasurable
The horizon of one aspect had become,
And Night her boundless dispensation held,
Each of us of a stair had made his bed;
Because the nature of the mount took from us
The power of climbing, more than the delight.
Even as in ruminating passive grow
The goats, who have been swift and venturesome
Upon the mountain-tops ere they were fed,
Hushed in the shadow, while the sun is hot,
Watched by the herdsman, who upon his staff
Is leaning, and in leaning tendeth them;
And as the shepherd, lodging out of doors,
Passes the night beside his quiet flock,
Watching that no wild beast may scatter it,
Such at that hour were we, all three of us,
I like the goat, and like the herdsmen they,
Begirt on this side and on that by rocks.
Little could there be seen of things without;
But through that little I beheld the stars
More luminous and larger than their wont.
Thus ruminating, and beholding these,
Sleep seized upon me,—sleep, that oftentimes
Before a deed is done has tidings of it.
It was the hour, I think, when from the East
First on the mountain Citherea beamed,
Who with the fire of love seems always burning;
Youthful and beautiful in dreams methought
I saw a lady walking in a meadow,
Gathering flowers; and singing she was saying:
"Know whosoever may my name demand
That I am Leah, and go moving round
My beauteous hands to make myself a garland.
To please me at the mirror, here I deck me,
But never does my sister Rachel leave
Her looking-glass, and sitteth all day long.
To see her beauteous eyes as eager is she,
As I am to adorn me with my hands;
Her, seeing, and me, doing satisfies."
And now before the antelucan splendours
That unto pilgrims the more grateful rise,
As, home-returning, less remote they lodge,
The darkness fled away on every side,
And slumber with it; whereupon I rose,
Seeing already the great Masters risen.
"That apple sweet, which through so many branches
The care of mortals goeth in pursuit of,
To-day shall put in peace thy hungerings."
Speaking to me, Virgilius of such words
As these made use; and never were there guerdons
That could in pleasantness compare with these.
Such longing upon longing came upon me
To be above, that at each step thereafter
For flight I felt in me the pinions growing.
When underneath us was the stairway all
Run o'er, and we were on the highest step,
Virgilius fastened upon me his eyes,
And said: "The temporal fire and the eternal,
Son, thou hast seen, and to a place art come
Where of myself no farther I discern.
By intellect and art I here have brought thee;
Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth;
Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou.
Behold the sun, that shines upon thy forehead;
Behold the grass, the flowerets, and the shrubs
Which of itself alone this land produces.
Until rejoicing come the beauteous eyes
Which weeping caused me to come unto thee,
Thou canst sit down, and thou canst walk among them.
Expect no more or word or sign from me;
Free and upright and sound is thy free-will,
And error were it not to do its bidding;
Thee o'er thyself I therefore crown and mitre!"
Dante's simile here, perfect in form, masks its formal vacuity: 'as is the sun in a certain position, so was it then' (e.g., 'as a commentator shakes his head in complaint, so did he shake his head'). Dante enjoys using this sort of comparison. See the note to Inferno XXX.136-141, in which reference is made to the study of this phenomenon (sometimes referred to as 'false simile' or as 'pseudo-simile') by Eric Mallin (“The False Simile in Dante's Commedia,” Dante Studies 102 [1984], pp. 15-36).
Using his usual four coordinates, each 90o apart from the next (Jerusalem, Spain, the antipodes, India – like clocks on the wall in an air terminal), Dante tells us the global condition of the time. It is 6pm now on the mountain. At the start of the cantica a similar passage described dawn (Purg. II.1-9), with the sun's position with regard to all these coordinates 180o distant from where it is now.
The river Ebro in Spain is now beneath the constellation Libra, i.e., it is midnight in Spain.
In Dante the word nona usually refers to the ninth hour of the day, i.e., 3pm. Here it is used to mean 'noon.'
The angel of Chastity, standing outside the flames along the far edge of the terrace, intones part of the sixth Beatitude (Matthew 5:8), 'Blessèd are the clean of heart [for they shall see God].'
This angel has a unique function, since he, like the warder at the gate below, supervises a border beyond which purgation is not performed; however, unlike the warder, he functions within the territory of his terrace and his task is not replicated by an angel on any other terrace. He supervises what seems to be a form of final expiation and acceptance that mirrors Christ's baptism by fire (Matthew 3:11), as promised by John the Baptist: the Lord whom he serves will baptize 'with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' Absent as far as one can tell from the commentary tradition, this citation was suggested by an undergraduate at Princeton (Joseph Taylor '70) many years ago. The angel seems to be addressing 'blessèd souls,' whether in re (Statius) or in potentia (Dante); Virgil, of course, is excluded from blessedness.
Trucchi (comm. to vv. 10-15) observes that this angel seems to be working in collaboration with a second one (the voice that sings from beyond the fire to draw the finally fully penitent souls to their new lives in grace), we find on this terrace, uniquely, two angels. See the note to Purgatorio XXVII.55-57.
Most recent commentators believe that Dante here refers to a corpse being laid in a grave, i.e., he felt as dead as a man being placed in his grave (i.e., 'I became so terrified that I looked like a dead man': Benvenuto's reading (comm. to vv. 7-15). Others, beginning with Lombardi (comm. to verse 15), argue that this fossa (pit, grave [it can mean either; in its last appearance at Purg. XVIII.121 it meant 'grave']) refers to the deeper and narrower pit that is used to bury a criminal alive and to which Dante has earlier referred (Inf. XIX.46-47). However, this form of punishment, propagginazione, involves suffocating a criminal by covering him with earth after he has been placed upside down in a pit, a posture that does not seem germane to this passage. Perhaps for this reason most (but not all) recent discussants read the line as we do.
Exactly what Dante's physical posture here is has been variously understood. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse) review a number of these discussions and make the sensible suggestion that Dante is holding his hands toward the fire, feeling its heat on them and attempting to keep the rest of his body as far as possible from the flame behind those extended hands, while he bends his head toward it, peering into it. Those who argue that Dante has joined his hands do not deal with the fact that the other three times in the Comedy when he uses a form of this past participle of commettere (to commit) it never means 'join together,' as most take it to mean here. (See Inf. VII.62 and Inf. XIX.47, as well as Purg. X.57.) In other words, he has 'committed' his hands to the fire, i.e., stretched them out toward it.
The currently most favored reading of these lines is already found in Tozer (comm. to vv. 16-18): 'Burning was a mode of punishment at Florence at this period, and Dante himself had been condemned to be burnt alive at the time of his banishment.' In short, Dante, having seen human beings burned alive in the public square, and having been promised exactly such treatment should he ever attempt to return to Florence from his exile, is understandably frozen by fear. For him, a man in the flesh, the danger of the fire seems, naturally enough, far greater than it must have to those who were there in spirit only. They, to be sure, suffer mental anguish as they purge their sin of lust in the flames; Dante understandably imagines that the fire will work quite differently upon him.
If it is Virgil who speaks, the narrator again reminds us of Statius's continuing presence, even though he has not spoken since Purgatorio XXV.108, when he finished his lecture on the aerial body. He will, in fact, not speak again, though his actions and presence will be recorded until a few lines from the end of the cantica (Purg. XXXIII.135).
Virgil is at pains to remind Dante that here in purgatory the dangers are not those encountered in hell. He will not perish in these flames, while he might have been destroyed by Geryon's envenomed tail or by falling from his back (Inf. XVII.83-84, 95-96, 121). And so, Virgil asks, if Dante could trust him then, how much more can he trust him now?
See Luke 21:18: 'Yet not a hair on your head shall perish.' Jesus is speaking of the terrible time of tribulation that awaits his followers, which they shall nonetheless survive. Scartazzini (comm. to verse 27) also cites Paul's words to his followers, terrified in a storm at sea (Acts 27:34): 'For not a hair shall fall from the head of any of you.'
Virgil, having failed to convince Dante even a little, now resorts to scientific experiment, asking him to test a hem of his clothing in this spiritual fire. As Torraca (comm. to vv. 29-30) pointed out, far credenza (perform a test), was a phrase (found in the second book of Boccaccio's Filocolo) used for the practice of having a prince's (or other important person's) food sampled by animals or by servants, expressly charged with this task, to be sure it had not been poisoned.
In a wonderfully wrought sequence, Virgil has given, rapid-fire, a series of convincing proposals and arguments, along with a concluding volley of encouragement (Purg. XXVII.20-32). The poet's description of the protagonist, in a single line, Dante's version of 'the soul indeed is willing but the flesh is weak' (Matthew 26:41), shows that he is now as reluctant as he has ever been: 'against my will, I stood stock still.'
Whatever else it accomplishes, the little scene again shows how amusing Dante can be. Glauco Cambon (“Il sorriso purgatoriale: umorismo dantesco,” Atti dell'Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 140 [1981-82], pp. 89-103) tried to remind us of that.
In Ovid's story (Metam. IV.55-166), the myth that accounts for why the fruit of the mulberry tree is red, Pyramus and Thisbe are neighbors in the Babylon of Queen Semiramis (see Inf. V.58). They are in love. Since their parents forbid them to marry, they speak to one another lovingly through a little gap in the common wall of their houses. They conspire to meet one night at the tomb of Ninus, the dead king, former husband of Semiramis. Thisbe arrives first but, as luck would have it, a lioness, fresh from the kill and covered in the blood of the cattle she had slain, seeking a fountain to slake her thirst, frightened Thisbe away. The beast, returning from her drink and finding the cloak that fleeing Thisbe had dropped on the ground, soils that garment with her bloody maw. Pyramus, arriving late for his assignation, finds the bloodied cloth and assumes the worst. Blaming himself for Thisbe's putative death, he kills himself with his sword. His spurting blood colors the white fruit of the mulberry red. Returning, Thisbe finds the body of her beloved. In anguish she calls out his name and her own, and he opens his eyes and recognizes her just before he dies. In turn, she uses the sword of Pyramus to take her own life.
The simile that Dante contrives from this material gives the name of Beatrice the same role as that of Thisbe. Virgil speaks her name just as Thisbe had spoken her own. In Dante's case it revives the will to continue toward salvation in a lover who has felt he was at the verge of death, while in the case of Pyramus there is no larger sense of redemption, only a moment of tragic recognition. Why does Dante construct this similetic moment out of such antithetic material? His love for Beatrice leads to life, Pyramus's love for Thisbe, to death. When we hear Dante's name on the lips of Beatrice (Purg. XXX.55), we are in a better position to see the complex relations between these two acts of naming here and two kinds of love.
On the relations between the mulberry and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from which Eve and then Adam ate, as well as the cross on which Christ died and hung like bloodied fruit, see Christian Moevs (“Pyramus at the Mulberry Tree: De-petrifying Dante's Tinted Mind,” in Imagining Heaven in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, ed. Jan Swango Emerson and Hugh Feiss [New York: Garland, 2000]), pp. 218-19. Francis Fergusson (Dante's Drama of the Mind [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953]), p. 167, makes a case for the importance of the reference to Christ's blood in line 2 of the opening simile of the canto to this later motif. And see Moevs (p. 229) for a potential citation here of a passage in Augustine's De ordine (I.3), when the still unconverted catechumen is angered when he hears a young poet named (appropriately enough) Licentius reciting a poem about Pyramus and Thisbe. Licentius, Augustine says, may be 'erecting between [himself] and reality a wall more impenetrable than [the one his verses] are trying to rear between the lovers.' For Pyramus and Thisbe in the tradition of Romance vernacular prior to Dante see Gianfranco Contini (Un' idea di Dante [Turin: Einaudi, 1976]), pp. 185-87; for a consideration of six medieval Latin poems presenting Ovid's ill-fated lovers for the delectation and instruction of schoolboys see Robert Glendinning (“Pyramus and Thisbe in the Medieval Classroom,” Speculum 61 [1986], pp. 51-78).
For a passage from Convivio (IV.xii.16), relevant here also as an indication of Virgil's pleasure in regaining his role as Dante's teacher and guide, see the note to Purgatorio XXIV.106-111.
We had previously known that Dante was following the two other poets (see Purg. XXVI.16-18) and now we learn that Statius has been nearest him, with Virgil in the lead. As Bosco/Reggio point out (comm. to verse 47), Virgil's tactic here is reminiscent of his staying behind Dante to protect him from Geryon's sting (Inf. XVII.83-84). Here, however, one might add, Virgil is not worried about protecting Dante, but by the possibility that he would try to flee back through the flames. And thus Statius is deployed as a rearguard, not against any enemy, but against the questionable will of the protagonist. Further, Virgil, by making Dante come closer, arranges things so that it is easier to control him.
While one wants to be cautious about such things, Virgil's naming of Beatrice here represents the ninth time that her name has appeared in the poem and the last time before she names herself (Purg. XXX.73). Since Dante likes to use the rhythm of 9 plus 1 to represent the movement from good to best (Vita nuova: nine appearances of Beatrice to Dante on earth, in one form or another, surmounted by a tenth and heavenly vision; Paradiso: nine heavenly spheres surmounted by the perfection of the Empyrean [see Hollander (“Vita Nuova: Dante's Perceptions of Beatrice,” Dante Studies 92 [1974], pp. 1-18)]), it is at least conceivable that there is such a program at work for the appearances of the names of Beatrice in this part of the poem. As Frederick Locke (“Dante's Miraculous Enneads,” Dante Studies 85 [1967], pp. 59-70) pointed out, Beatrice's name appears 63 times in the Comedy, and that number is a 'nine' (6 plus 3 = 9). It is possible that Dante was counting his uses of her name and deliberately chose to have it appear exactly nine times before she revealed herself to Dante. The pattern would have been more pleasing had Virgil spoken that name each of those nine times; however, once it is Dante himself who speaks it, in his conversation with Forese. Beatrice's name appears as follows in the first sixty-three cantos of the poem: Inf. II.70, Inf. II.103, Purg. VI.46, Purg. XV.77, Purg. XVIII.48, Purg. XVIII.73, Purg. XXIII.128 (spoken by Dante), Purg. XXVII.36, and here.
Virgil will probably not see those eyes, since he will be dismissed from the poem just as Beatrice appears (see Purg. XXX.49), even though he had been subjected to the heat of the fire when he guided Dante through it.
The scene we expect, as the protagonist completes his ritual purging on a terrace, is the removal of one (in this case the seventh and last) P from his forehead. Apparently the poet decided to avoid representing this climactic moment, allowing it either to be intrinsic, or else perhaps allowing us to believe that the fire itself cleansed the protagonist of his predisposition toward lust. But this is the moment (not before the entrance to the fire, as some believe) at which the ritual act should be performed, just before the upward movement to the next area of the mountain, as it has been on the other terraces (see an associated discussion of the angels' recitations of the Beatitudes in the note to Purg. XV.38-39).
Trucchi (comm. to vv. 10-15) counts the angels who serve God's ends in Purgatorio and comes up with ten (the 'perfect number,' as he remarks): the Christian Mercury who brings the living dead to the mountain (Purg. II.43), the angelic warder at the gate (Purg. IX.104), the seven who are associated with the virtues opposed to the vices repented at the end of the experience of each terrace, and now this one (he omits the two angelic actors in the pageant at Purg. VIII.25-39).
This final angel of purgatory (in paradise we see Gabriel circling the Virgin [Par. XXIII.103] and then the angelic hierarchy in Paradiso XXVIII) acts as a sort of positive Siren, drawing souls away from lust and setting them free.
As, among the early commentators, only he who speaks from the pages of the Codice Cassinese pointed out, the passage reflects the words that Christ will speak to the just at the Day of Judgment: 'Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, “Come, blessèd of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the [time of the] foundation of the world”' (Matthew 25:34). In the twentieth century notice began again to be paid to this absolutely relevant text. As Singleton reports (comm. to this verse), Ernest Hatch Wilkins (“Dante and the Mosaics of his Bel San Giovanni,” Speculum 2 [1927]), p. 5, pointed out that a mosaic in the Florentine Baptistery showed a gate guarded by an angel who welcomes a newly arrived soul, while a second angel leads a group of the saved and carries a banner that is inscribed 'Come, blessèd of my Father, possess what has been prepared.' Dante's second and singing angel would certainly seem to be modeled on that second angel and his words. And that there are two angels on this terrace may reflect his memory of the mosaic.
The angel's words, as many now note, are a sort of paraphrase of John 12:35: 'Walk while you have the light, that darkness may not overtake you.' Poletto (comm. to this verse) seems to have been the first commentator to notice the correlation. That it should have waited so long to be observed is comprehensible, since it is not a literal citation so much as a recasting of John's thought. This second angel, exactly like the first on this terrace, first speaks in Latin and then in the vernacular. See, again, the note to Purgatorio XV.38-39.
Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 65-66) point out that, since this stair runs from due west to due east and since at the outset of the ascent (Purg. III.16-18) Dante had his back to the east, he has now gone exactly halfway around the mountain's circumference or 180o . Naturally the actual circumference keeps decreasing as the mountain goes higher, like that of a snail's shell.
Dante's phrase levare i saggi (tried) suggests a literal sense of taking a sample of rock, as in geological studies.
Dante's playfulness is for some reason particularly evident in his similes, which often and deliberately have 'something wrong' in them, incomplete grammatical relations, mixtures of styles, and other apparent 'defects.' Here, on the other hand, we have a perfectly developed and complex 'classical' simile: 'Just as... and just as... so.' Anyone examining the passage closely is likely to perceive that there are things 'wrong' here as well. Let us consider the components of the simile:
Dante (singular) Virgil and Statius (plural)
76-81 goats (plural) shepherd (singular)
82-84 flock (plural) herdsman (singular)
85-87 goat (singular) shepherds (plural)
Several things are worth remarking. This simile is mainly unadulterated vernacular pastoral with a few Latinate words (and perhaps a phrase from Virgil at line 77 from Georgics IV.10, according to Daniello [comm. to vv. 76-81] and many of those who followed him). But why does Dante not get his singulars and plurals straight in the first two elements, only to correct them in the third? Why does he include the second element at all, since he excludes it from his summarizing and concluding third element? And why, as Torraca (comm. to vv. 76-78) wondered, is the shepherd standing up (if leaning on his stick) while Virgil and Statius are lying down? Is that why, Torraca continued to wonder, Dante included the second element, in which the herdsman is at least closer to lying down? The purpose of these questions is to focus attention on how much Dante expects of his reader. These little touches, reminding us of his artistic freedom, make us aware of that.
The phrase rapide e proterve in verse 77 (which we have translated as 'quick and reckless'), according to some commentators, beginning with Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 76-87), means 'rapaces et temerariae' (rapacious and bold). Others have objected to the first of these terms, more fitting to the description of the appetite of a wolf, as being inapplicable to goats. On the other hand, if we understood the word to mean 'voracious,' there would be no such problem. We, however, believe that Dante is referring to the way a free-roaming goat moves, rather than to the way it eats, but have no quarrel with those who follow Benvenuto.
The stars look bigger and brighter because Dante is higher up and closer to them than he has ever been in his life. There may be a moral atmosphere at work here as well, in that he has lost the obscuring mantle of sin that is our normal lot (see Purg. XXX.3), and that also would make them seem brighter. For exactly such a twofold understanding see John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 88-90).
It is now before dawn on Wednesday morning, the last day on the mountain, from which Dante will depart at noon.
'Cytherea' is a proper noun formed from the epithet used of the 'maritime' Venus, the lustful goddess born of the spume of the sea near the island Cythera. Dante here presents her as morning star, as she was seen at the opening of the cantica. However, and as has been pointed out in recent years with increasing insistence, in 1300 Venus was the evening star at this period of the year, and the morning star only in 1301. See the discussion in Graziella Federici Vescovini (“Dante e l'astronomia del suo tempo,” Letteratura italiana antica 3 [2002]), pp. 292, 300n., who resists the temptation to 'redate' the poem to 1301, believing that Dante is merely taking advantage of poetic license. And see the note to Purgatorio I.19-21.
For the formulaic nature of Dante's preparation of his three dream narratives in Purgatorio see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), p. 149. All the dreams are preceded by 'an astronomical reference to the hour of the morning at which the dream occurs' and then by the distinct vocabulary of dream vision, as in the second of these tercets: 'in sogno mi parea / donna vedere' (in a dream I seemed to see a lady).
The dream of Leah and Rachel is the most transparent of the three dreams in Purgatorio (see Purg. IX.13-33 and Purg. XIX.1-33). Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban in Genesis, were understood by Christian interpreters to represent, respectively, the active life and the contemplative life (and thus Rachel's staring into the mirror is not to be taken as narcissistic self-admiration but contemplation in a positive sense). It is clear that Dante is making use of that tradition here. However, he is also making use of biblical typology in his treatment of Leah, who is related to Eve in her as yet unfallen condition in that she is doing what Adam and Eve were told to do, 'ut operaretur et custodiret illum' (to dress [the garden] and keep it – Genesis 2:15). Dante's verb in the last line of Leah's speech, which concludes the dream, remembers the biblical verb in his ovrare, the working in this garden that points back to the tasks of that one before the Fall (see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], p. 153). For the balanced relationships between the pair Leah and Rachel and a second pair, Matelda and Beatrice, the two central female presences in the earthly paradise, see Paola Pacchioni (“Lia e Rachele, Matelda e Beatrice,” L'Alighieri 18 [2001], pp. 47-74).
It is probably also fair to say that the text intrinsically presents Dante as a new Jacob: 'As Jacob toiled for seven years in order to gain the hand of Rachel, only to be given that of Leah (Genesis 29:10f.), so Dante has toiled up seven terraces of purgation with the promise of Beatrice, only to find Matelda' (Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], pp. 151-52). Giovanni Pascoli (La mirabile visione [Bologna: Zanichelli, 1923 (1902)]), p. 462, had much earlier suggested that Dante, 'the new Aeneas,' was also the 'new Jacob.' Pascoli was followed, without their apparent knowledge, by Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), p. 108, and by T. K. Swing (The Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl [Westminster: The Newman Press, 1962]), p. 95. The Italian tradition has for a long time insisted only on the 'allegorical' equation here, Leah as the active life, Rachel as the contemplative. A figural understanding (i.e., one developed from 'historical allegory,' as in the interpretation of the Bible itself), has mainly been absent. But see Momigliano (comm. to these verses) who almost resolves the problem in this way. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 91-108) offer a long and confessedly 'perplexed' attempt to account for the resulting supposedly double (and thus inadmissible) valence of Beatrice as both 'theology' and 'the contemplative life.' For another reading of this dream see Zygmunt Baranski (“Dante's Three Reflective Dreams,” Quaderni d'italianistica 10 [1989]), pp. 219-24.
Awakening, the protagonist (and Statius, but Virgil only problematically so) is associated with travelers who are getting nearer home. It is quite clear that 'home' now is at the very least the garden of Eden, and perhaps the true paradise that lies above. There are no thoughts of Florence here. In these lines the true pilgrimage becomes a journey from God, into the world, and back to God. It is interesting to compare the beautiful and sad opening of the eighth canto of this cantica, with its traveler whose thoughts are on friends left behind in the world. This pilgrim/traveler has apparently learned a good deal on the mountain.
For the resonance of a phrase found in the Song of Songs in this verse, 'le tenebre fuggian da tutti lati' (the shadows all around were being put to flight): 'Donec aspiret dies et inclinentur umbrae' (Until the day break and the shadows flee away) (Cant. 2:17 and 4:6), see Eleanor Cook (“Scripture as Enigma: Biblical Allusion in Dante's Earthly Paradise,” Dante Studies 117 [1999]), p. 5.
This is as close as the poet comes to telling us that the protagonist's last P has been removed. He feels as light as his 'feathers.'
Since the garden of Eden seems to be just slightly below the level to which the travelers have now climbed (see Purg. XXVIII.4), this topmost step of the stair is the highest point on earth attained by Dante, and by Virgil as well, but he has no further rising to do.
Virgil's final speech in the poem may be clarified by a summarizing paraphrase. (1) I have brought you, with intellect and skill, through flames temporal (purgatory) and eternal (hell) and have reached the limit of my powers; (2) from now on follow your own inclination as your guide, since you are free; (3) see the sun and the freely growing vegetation here; until Beatrice, whose weeping eyes sent me to you, comes glad-eyed into your presence, you may choose to sit or wander; (4) no more do I speak or gesture; your will is free, upright, and whole; do its pleasure – and thus do I crown and miter you over yourself.
Beginning with Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), commentators have cited St. Thomas to the effect that the pains of the damned are eternal while the fire of purgatory is temporary.
If Dante's will is as good as Virgil will shortly say it is, he can take pleasure as his guide because he will only want that which reason will want. Nothing sinful would any longer tempt him.
The self-sufficient nature of the vegetation of the garden will be insisted on at Purgatorio XXVIII.109-120.
It is perhaps useful to consider an attempt to see how the poem may be divided into four large units, as follows:
Dante's development locus guide
I. correction of the will Inf. I-XXXIV Virgil
II. perfection of the will Purg. I-XXIX Virgil
III. correction of the intellect Purg. XXX-Par. XXX Beatrice
IV. perfection of the intellect Par. XXX-end Bernard
See Hollander (“The Invocations of the Commedia,” Yearbook of Italian Studies 3 [1976], pp. 235-40). And for the possible contribution of St. Bernard to this schema, see the note to Paradiso XXXIII.127-132.
It is at this moment that Virgil gives over the instructional task that has been his since Inferno I, presiding over the correction and perfection of Dante's will. A less developed version of this schema is found in Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 11-12, where Virgil is seen as leading Dante to 'a condition of rectitude in the will,' while the goal to which Beatrice leads him 'is one in which intellect is primary.'
The precise meaning and reference of this concluding verse has been the subject of much discussion. The meta-literary sense that he has of the canto as a whole leads Picone (“Purgatorio XXVII: passaggio rituale e translatio poetica,” Medioevo romanzo 12 [1987]), pp. 400-1, to allegorize the crown and miter that Virgil awards Dante as (1) the triumphant laurel of the modern poet and (2) the Christian truth that he can add to Virgil's store of pagan wisdom and poetic technique. As Remo Fasani (“Canto XXVII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 432, points out, although the modern discussion has tended to treat the terms as synonyms, as long ago as in the commentaries of the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 139-142) and of Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 124-142), they were understood as separate entities. To the Ottimo they signified 'rector and shepherd'; to Francesco, laurel crown ('corono; di laurea, come poeta') and bishop's miter ('come vescovo e guidatore dell'anima tua a l'eterna salute' [as bishop and guide over your own soul, bound for eternal salvation]), two very different sorts of adornment for Dante's head. Fasani opts for the crown as sign of Dante's active life, his temporal (and decidedly imperial) political mission, and sees the miter as an image of his contemplative life, the poet's spiritual mission.
In the recent and continuing argument there are those who argue, as did Contini (Un' idea di Dante [Turin: Einaudi, 1976]), pp. 188-89, citing Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) who had come upon a description of the coronation of the emperor Otto IV in 1209 in which he was crowned and mitered in a study by one Father Ponta, collected in his Opere su Dante, published in 1845, pp. 189 and 193, that for Virgil to grant ecclesiastical authority is totally foreign to anything we have read in this poem. In an entirely similar mode, Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 64-69, cites (not Ponta or Scartazzini or Contini) Ernst Kantorowicz (The King's Two Bodies [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957]), pp. 491-92, for the use of the miter in the crowning of the temporal ruler. This series of interesting attempts to make Virgil's last words in the poem tautological does, however, leave one less than easily convinced; the word 'miter' is removed from an ecclesiastical context only with difficulty.
Virgil can make Dante neither an emperor nor a bishop (and surely not a pope). He is metaphorically crowning Dante for now having, in his will, the ability to rule himself morally, as the world, were it only better governed, would be ruled by two powers, emperor and pope. Dante is now said by Virgil to be in complete command of the powers of his will, a microcosmic image of the world made just (improbable as Dante would have thought such a happy state) under its two prime authorities.
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Sì come quando i primi raggi vibra
là dove il suo fattor lo sangue sparse,
cadendo Ibero sotto l'alta Libra,
e l'onde in Gange da nona rïarse,
sì stava il sole; onde 'l giorno sen giva,
come l'angel di Dio lieto ci apparse.
Fuor de la fiamma stava in su la riva,
e cantava “Beati mundo corde!”
in voce assai più che la nostra viva.
Poscia “Più non si va, se pria non morde,
anime sante, il foco: intrate in esso,
e al cantar di là non siate sorde,”
ci disse come noi li fummo presso;
per ch'io divenni tal, quando lo 'ntesi,
qual è colui che ne la fossa è messo.
In su le man commesse mi protesi,
guardando il foco e imaginando forte
umani corpi già veduti accesi.
Volsersi verso me le buone scorte;
e Virgilio mi disse: “Figliuol mio,
qui può esser tormento, ma non morte.
Ricorditi, ricorditi! E se io
sovresso Gerïon ti guidai salvo,
che farò ora presso più a Dio?
Credi per certo che se dentro a l'alvo
di questa fiamma stessi ben mille anni,
non ti potrebbe far d'un capel calvo.
E se tu forse credi ch'io t'inganni,
fatti ver' lei, e fatti far credenza
con le tue mani al lembo d'i tuoi panni.
Pon giù omai, pon giù ogne temenza;
volgiti in qua e vieni: entra sicuro!”
E io pur fermo e contra coscïenza.
Quando mi vide star pur fermo e duro,
turbato un poco disse: “Or vedi, figlio:
tra Bëatrice e te è questo muro.”
Come al nome di Tisbe aperse il ciglio
Piramo in su la morte, e riguardolla,
allor che 'l gelso diventò vermiglio;
così, la mia durezza fatta solla,
mi volsi al savio duca, udendo il nome
che ne la mente sempre mi rampolla.
Ond' ei crollò la fronte e disse: “Come!
volenci star di qua?”; indi sorrise
come al fanciul si fa ch'è vinto al pome.
Poi dentro al foco innanzi mi si mise,
pregando Stazio che venisse retro,
che pria per lunga strada ci divise.
Sì com' fui dentro, in un bogliente vetro
gittato mi sarei per rinfrescarmi,
tant' era ivi lo 'ncendio sanza metro.
Lo dolce padre mio, per confortarmi,
pur di Beatrice ragionando andava,
dicendo: “Li occhi suoi già veder parmi.”
Guidavaci una voce che cantava
di là; e noi, attenti pur a lei,
venimmo fuor là ove si montava.
“Venite, benedicti Patris mei,”
sonò dentro a un lume che lì era,
tal che mi vinse e guardar nol potei.
“Lo sol sen va,” soggiunse, “e vien la sera;
non v'arrestate, ma studiate il passo,
mentre che l'occidente non si annera.”
Dritta salia la via per entro 'l sasso
verso tal parte ch'io toglieva i raggi
dinanzi a me del sol ch'era già basso.
E di pochi scaglion levammo i saggi,
che 'l sol corcar, per l'ombra che si spense,
sentimmo dietro e io e li miei saggi.
E pria che 'n tutte le sue parti immense
fosse orizzonte fatto d'uno aspetto,
e notte avesse tutte sue dispense
ciascun di noi d'un grado fece letto;
ché la natura del monte ci affranse
la possa del salir più e 'l diletto.
Quali si stanno ruminando manse
le capre, state rapide e proterve
sovra le cime avante che sien pranse,
tacite a l'ombra, mentre che 'l sol ferve,
guardate dal pastor, che 'n su la verga
poggiato s'è e lor di posa serve;
e quale il mandrïan che fori alberga,
lungo il pecuglio suo queto pernotta,
guardando perché fiera non lo sperga;
tali eravamo tutti e tre allotta,
io come capra, ed ei come pastori,
fasciati quinci e quindi d'alta grotta.
Poco parer potea lì del di fori;
ma, per quel poco, vedea io le stelle
di lor solere e più chiare e maggiori.
Sì ruminando e sì mirando in quelle,
mi prese il sonno; il sonno che sovente,
anzi che 'l fatto sia, sa le novelle.
Ne l'ora, credo, che de l'orïente
prima raggiò nel monte Citerea,
che di foco d'amor par sempre ardente,
giovane e bella in sogno mi parea
donna vedere andar per una landa
cogliendo fiori; e cantando dicea:
“Sappia qualunque il mio nome dimanda
ch'i' mi son Lia, e vo movendo intorno
le belle mani a farmi una ghirlanda.
Per piacermi a lo specchio, qui m'addorno;
ma mia suora Rachel mai non si smaga
dal suo miraglio, e siede tutto giorno.
Ell' è d'i suoi belli occhi veder vaga
com' io de l'addornarmi con le mani;
lei lo vedere, e me l'ovrare appaga.”
E già per li splendori antelucani,
che tanto a' pellegrin surgon più grati,
quanto, tornando, albergan men lontani,
le tenebre fuggian da tutti lati,
e 'l sonno mio con esse; ond' io leva'mi,
veggendo i gran maestri già levati.
“Quel dolce pome che per tanti rami
cercando va la cura de' mortali,
oggi porrà in pace le tue fami.”
Virgilio inverso me queste cotali
parole usò; e mai non furo strenne
che fosser di piacere a queste iguali.
Tanto voler sopra voler mi venne
de l'esser sù, ch'ad ogne passo poi
al volo mi sentia crescer le penne.
Come la scala tutta sotto noi
fu corsa e fummo in su 'l grado superno,
in me ficcò Virgilio li occhi suoi,
e disse: “Il temporal foco e l'etterno
veduto hai, figlio; e se' venuto in parte
dov' io per me più oltre non discerno.
Tratto t'ho qui con ingegno e con arte;
lo tuo piacere omai prendi per duce;
fuor se' de l'erte vie, fuor se' de l'arte.
Vedi lo sol che 'n fronte ti riluce;
vedi l'erbette, i fiori e li arbuscelli
che qui la terra sol da sé produce.
Mentre che vegnan lieti li occhi belli
che, lagrimando, a te venir mi fenno,
seder ti puoi e puoi andar tra elli.
Non aspettar mio dir più né mio cenno;
libero, dritto e sano è tuo arbitrio,
e fallo fora non fare a suo senno:
per ch'io te sovra te corono e mitrio.”
As when he vibrates forth his earliest rays,
In regions where his Maker shed his blood,
(The Ebro falling under lofty Libra,
And waters in the Ganges burnt with noon,)
So stood the Sun; hence was the day departing,
When the glad Angel of God appeared to us.
Outside the flame he stood upon the verge,
And chanted forth, "Beati mundo corde,"
In voice by far more living than our own.
Then: "No one farther goes, souls sanctified,
If first the fire bite not; within it enter,
And be not deaf unto the song beyond."
When we were close beside him thus he said;
Wherefore e'en such became I, when I heard him,
As he is who is put into the grave.
Upon my clasped hands I straightened me,
Scanning the fire, and vividly recalling
The human bodies I had once seen burned.
Towards me turned themselves my good Conductors,
And unto me Virgilius said: "My son,
Here may indeed be torment, but not death.
Remember thee, remember! and if I
On Geryon have safely guided thee,
What shall I do now I am nearer God?
Believe for certain, shouldst thou stand a full
Millennium in the bosom of this flame,
It could not make thee bald a single hair.
And if perchance thou think that I deceive thee,
Draw near to it, and put it to the proof
With thine own hands upon thy garment's hem.
Now lay aside, now lay aside all fear,
Turn hitherward, and onward come securely;"
And I still motionless, and 'gainst my conscience!
Seeing me stand still motionless and stubborn,
Somewhat disturbed he said: "Now look thou, Son,
'Twixt Beatrice and thee there is this wall."
As at the name of Thisbe oped his lids
The dying Pyramus, and gazed upon her,
What time the mulberry became vermilion,
Even thus, my obduracy being softened,
I turned to my wise Guide, hearing the name
That in my memory evermore is welling.
Whereat he wagged his head, and said: "How now?
Shall we stay on this side?" then smiled as one
Does at a child who's vanquished by an apple.
Then into the fire in front of me he entered,
Beseeching Statius to come after me,
Who a long way before divided us.
When I was in it, into molten glass
I would have cast me to refresh myself,
So without measure was the burning there!
And my sweet Father, to encourage me,
Discoursing still of Beatrice went on,
Saying: "Her eyes I seem to see already!"
A voice, that on the other side was singing,
Directed us, and we, attent alone
On that, came forth where the ascent began.
"Venite, benedicti Patris mei,"
Sounded within a splendour, which was there
Such it o'ercame me, and I could not look.
"The sun departs," it added, "and night cometh;
Tarry ye not, but onward urge your steps,
So long as yet the west becomes not dark."
Straight forward through the rock the path ascended
In such a way that I cut off the rays
Before me of the sun, that now was low.
And of few stairs we yet had made assay,
Ere by the vanished shadow the sun's setting
Behind us we perceived, I and my Sages.
And ere in all its parts immeasurable
The horizon of one aspect had become,
And Night her boundless dispensation held,
Each of us of a stair had made his bed;
Because the nature of the mount took from us
The power of climbing, more than the delight.
Even as in ruminating passive grow
The goats, who have been swift and venturesome
Upon the mountain-tops ere they were fed,
Hushed in the shadow, while the sun is hot,
Watched by the herdsman, who upon his staff
Is leaning, and in leaning tendeth them;
And as the shepherd, lodging out of doors,
Passes the night beside his quiet flock,
Watching that no wild beast may scatter it,
Such at that hour were we, all three of us,
I like the goat, and like the herdsmen they,
Begirt on this side and on that by rocks.
Little could there be seen of things without;
But through that little I beheld the stars
More luminous and larger than their wont.
Thus ruminating, and beholding these,
Sleep seized upon me,—sleep, that oftentimes
Before a deed is done has tidings of it.
It was the hour, I think, when from the East
First on the mountain Citherea beamed,
Who with the fire of love seems always burning;
Youthful and beautiful in dreams methought
I saw a lady walking in a meadow,
Gathering flowers; and singing she was saying:
"Know whosoever may my name demand
That I am Leah, and go moving round
My beauteous hands to make myself a garland.
To please me at the mirror, here I deck me,
But never does my sister Rachel leave
Her looking-glass, and sitteth all day long.
To see her beauteous eyes as eager is she,
As I am to adorn me with my hands;
Her, seeing, and me, doing satisfies."
And now before the antelucan splendours
That unto pilgrims the more grateful rise,
As, home-returning, less remote they lodge,
The darkness fled away on every side,
And slumber with it; whereupon I rose,
Seeing already the great Masters risen.
"That apple sweet, which through so many branches
The care of mortals goeth in pursuit of,
To-day shall put in peace thy hungerings."
Speaking to me, Virgilius of such words
As these made use; and never were there guerdons
That could in pleasantness compare with these.
Such longing upon longing came upon me
To be above, that at each step thereafter
For flight I felt in me the pinions growing.
When underneath us was the stairway all
Run o'er, and we were on the highest step,
Virgilius fastened upon me his eyes,
And said: "The temporal fire and the eternal,
Son, thou hast seen, and to a place art come
Where of myself no farther I discern.
By intellect and art I here have brought thee;
Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth;
Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou.
Behold the sun, that shines upon thy forehead;
Behold the grass, the flowerets, and the shrubs
Which of itself alone this land produces.
Until rejoicing come the beauteous eyes
Which weeping caused me to come unto thee,
Thou canst sit down, and thou canst walk among them.
Expect no more or word or sign from me;
Free and upright and sound is thy free-will,
And error were it not to do its bidding;
Thee o'er thyself I therefore crown and mitre!"
Dante's simile here, perfect in form, masks its formal vacuity: 'as is the sun in a certain position, so was it then' (e.g., 'as a commentator shakes his head in complaint, so did he shake his head'). Dante enjoys using this sort of comparison. See the note to Inferno XXX.136-141, in which reference is made to the study of this phenomenon (sometimes referred to as 'false simile' or as 'pseudo-simile') by Eric Mallin (“The False Simile in Dante's Commedia,” Dante Studies 102 [1984], pp. 15-36).
Using his usual four coordinates, each 90o apart from the next (Jerusalem, Spain, the antipodes, India – like clocks on the wall in an air terminal), Dante tells us the global condition of the time. It is 6pm now on the mountain. At the start of the cantica a similar passage described dawn (Purg. II.1-9), with the sun's position with regard to all these coordinates 180o distant from where it is now.
The river Ebro in Spain is now beneath the constellation Libra, i.e., it is midnight in Spain.
In Dante the word nona usually refers to the ninth hour of the day, i.e., 3pm. Here it is used to mean 'noon.'
The angel of Chastity, standing outside the flames along the far edge of the terrace, intones part of the sixth Beatitude (Matthew 5:8), 'Blessèd are the clean of heart [for they shall see God].'
This angel has a unique function, since he, like the warder at the gate below, supervises a border beyond which purgation is not performed; however, unlike the warder, he functions within the territory of his terrace and his task is not replicated by an angel on any other terrace. He supervises what seems to be a form of final expiation and acceptance that mirrors Christ's baptism by fire (Matthew 3:11), as promised by John the Baptist: the Lord whom he serves will baptize 'with the Holy Ghost and with fire.' Absent as far as one can tell from the commentary tradition, this citation was suggested by an undergraduate at Princeton (Joseph Taylor '70) many years ago. The angel seems to be addressing 'blessèd souls,' whether in re (Statius) or in potentia (Dante); Virgil, of course, is excluded from blessedness.
Trucchi (comm. to vv. 10-15) observes that this angel seems to be working in collaboration with a second one (the voice that sings from beyond the fire to draw the finally fully penitent souls to their new lives in grace), we find on this terrace, uniquely, two angels. See the note to Purgatorio XXVII.55-57.
Most recent commentators believe that Dante here refers to a corpse being laid in a grave, i.e., he felt as dead as a man being placed in his grave (i.e., 'I became so terrified that I looked like a dead man': Benvenuto's reading (comm. to vv. 7-15). Others, beginning with Lombardi (comm. to verse 15), argue that this fossa (pit, grave [it can mean either; in its last appearance at Purg. XVIII.121 it meant 'grave']) refers to the deeper and narrower pit that is used to bury a criminal alive and to which Dante has earlier referred (Inf. XIX.46-47). However, this form of punishment, propagginazione, involves suffocating a criminal by covering him with earth after he has been placed upside down in a pit, a posture that does not seem germane to this passage. Perhaps for this reason most (but not all) recent discussants read the line as we do.
Exactly what Dante's physical posture here is has been variously understood. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to this verse) review a number of these discussions and make the sensible suggestion that Dante is holding his hands toward the fire, feeling its heat on them and attempting to keep the rest of his body as far as possible from the flame behind those extended hands, while he bends his head toward it, peering into it. Those who argue that Dante has joined his hands do not deal with the fact that the other three times in the Comedy when he uses a form of this past participle of commettere (to commit) it never means 'join together,' as most take it to mean here. (See Inf. VII.62 and Inf. XIX.47, as well as Purg. X.57.) In other words, he has 'committed' his hands to the fire, i.e., stretched them out toward it.
The currently most favored reading of these lines is already found in Tozer (comm. to vv. 16-18): 'Burning was a mode of punishment at Florence at this period, and Dante himself had been condemned to be burnt alive at the time of his banishment.' In short, Dante, having seen human beings burned alive in the public square, and having been promised exactly such treatment should he ever attempt to return to Florence from his exile, is understandably frozen by fear. For him, a man in the flesh, the danger of the fire seems, naturally enough, far greater than it must have to those who were there in spirit only. They, to be sure, suffer mental anguish as they purge their sin of lust in the flames; Dante understandably imagines that the fire will work quite differently upon him.
If it is Virgil who speaks, the narrator again reminds us of Statius's continuing presence, even though he has not spoken since Purgatorio XXV.108, when he finished his lecture on the aerial body. He will, in fact, not speak again, though his actions and presence will be recorded until a few lines from the end of the cantica (Purg. XXXIII.135).
Virgil is at pains to remind Dante that here in purgatory the dangers are not those encountered in hell. He will not perish in these flames, while he might have been destroyed by Geryon's envenomed tail or by falling from his back (Inf. XVII.83-84, 95-96, 121). And so, Virgil asks, if Dante could trust him then, how much more can he trust him now?
See Luke 21:18: 'Yet not a hair on your head shall perish.' Jesus is speaking of the terrible time of tribulation that awaits his followers, which they shall nonetheless survive. Scartazzini (comm. to verse 27) also cites Paul's words to his followers, terrified in a storm at sea (Acts 27:34): 'For not a hair shall fall from the head of any of you.'
Virgil, having failed to convince Dante even a little, now resorts to scientific experiment, asking him to test a hem of his clothing in this spiritual fire. As Torraca (comm. to vv. 29-30) pointed out, far credenza (perform a test), was a phrase (found in the second book of Boccaccio's Filocolo) used for the practice of having a prince's (or other important person's) food sampled by animals or by servants, expressly charged with this task, to be sure it had not been poisoned.
In a wonderfully wrought sequence, Virgil has given, rapid-fire, a series of convincing proposals and arguments, along with a concluding volley of encouragement (Purg. XXVII.20-32). The poet's description of the protagonist, in a single line, Dante's version of 'the soul indeed is willing but the flesh is weak' (Matthew 26:41), shows that he is now as reluctant as he has ever been: 'against my will, I stood stock still.'
Whatever else it accomplishes, the little scene again shows how amusing Dante can be. Glauco Cambon (“Il sorriso purgatoriale: umorismo dantesco,” Atti dell'Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 140 [1981-82], pp. 89-103) tried to remind us of that.
In Ovid's story (Metam. IV.55-166), the myth that accounts for why the fruit of the mulberry tree is red, Pyramus and Thisbe are neighbors in the Babylon of Queen Semiramis (see Inf. V.58). They are in love. Since their parents forbid them to marry, they speak to one another lovingly through a little gap in the common wall of their houses. They conspire to meet one night at the tomb of Ninus, the dead king, former husband of Semiramis. Thisbe arrives first but, as luck would have it, a lioness, fresh from the kill and covered in the blood of the cattle she had slain, seeking a fountain to slake her thirst, frightened Thisbe away. The beast, returning from her drink and finding the cloak that fleeing Thisbe had dropped on the ground, soils that garment with her bloody maw. Pyramus, arriving late for his assignation, finds the bloodied cloth and assumes the worst. Blaming himself for Thisbe's putative death, he kills himself with his sword. His spurting blood colors the white fruit of the mulberry red. Returning, Thisbe finds the body of her beloved. In anguish she calls out his name and her own, and he opens his eyes and recognizes her just before he dies. In turn, she uses the sword of Pyramus to take her own life.
The simile that Dante contrives from this material gives the name of Beatrice the same role as that of Thisbe. Virgil speaks her name just as Thisbe had spoken her own. In Dante's case it revives the will to continue toward salvation in a lover who has felt he was at the verge of death, while in the case of Pyramus there is no larger sense of redemption, only a moment of tragic recognition. Why does Dante construct this similetic moment out of such antithetic material? His love for Beatrice leads to life, Pyramus's love for Thisbe, to death. When we hear Dante's name on the lips of Beatrice (Purg. XXX.55), we are in a better position to see the complex relations between these two acts of naming here and two kinds of love.
On the relations between the mulberry and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from which Eve and then Adam ate, as well as the cross on which Christ died and hung like bloodied fruit, see Christian Moevs (“Pyramus at the Mulberry Tree: De-petrifying Dante's Tinted Mind,” in Imagining Heaven in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, ed. Jan Swango Emerson and Hugh Feiss [New York: Garland, 2000]), pp. 218-19. Francis Fergusson (Dante's Drama of the Mind [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953]), p. 167, makes a case for the importance of the reference to Christ's blood in line 2 of the opening simile of the canto to this later motif. And see Moevs (p. 229) for a potential citation here of a passage in Augustine's De ordine (I.3), when the still unconverted catechumen is angered when he hears a young poet named (appropriately enough) Licentius reciting a poem about Pyramus and Thisbe. Licentius, Augustine says, may be 'erecting between [himself] and reality a wall more impenetrable than [the one his verses] are trying to rear between the lovers.' For Pyramus and Thisbe in the tradition of Romance vernacular prior to Dante see Gianfranco Contini (Un' idea di Dante [Turin: Einaudi, 1976]), pp. 185-87; for a consideration of six medieval Latin poems presenting Ovid's ill-fated lovers for the delectation and instruction of schoolboys see Robert Glendinning (“Pyramus and Thisbe in the Medieval Classroom,” Speculum 61 [1986], pp. 51-78).
For a passage from Convivio (IV.xii.16), relevant here also as an indication of Virgil's pleasure in regaining his role as Dante's teacher and guide, see the note to Purgatorio XXIV.106-111.
We had previously known that Dante was following the two other poets (see Purg. XXVI.16-18) and now we learn that Statius has been nearest him, with Virgil in the lead. As Bosco/Reggio point out (comm. to verse 47), Virgil's tactic here is reminiscent of his staying behind Dante to protect him from Geryon's sting (Inf. XVII.83-84). Here, however, one might add, Virgil is not worried about protecting Dante, but by the possibility that he would try to flee back through the flames. And thus Statius is deployed as a rearguard, not against any enemy, but against the questionable will of the protagonist. Further, Virgil, by making Dante come closer, arranges things so that it is easier to control him.
While one wants to be cautious about such things, Virgil's naming of Beatrice here represents the ninth time that her name has appeared in the poem and the last time before she names herself (Purg. XXX.73). Since Dante likes to use the rhythm of 9 plus 1 to represent the movement from good to best (Vita nuova: nine appearances of Beatrice to Dante on earth, in one form or another, surmounted by a tenth and heavenly vision; Paradiso: nine heavenly spheres surmounted by the perfection of the Empyrean [see Hollander (“Vita Nuova: Dante's Perceptions of Beatrice,” Dante Studies 92 [1974], pp. 1-18)]), it is at least conceivable that there is such a program at work for the appearances of the names of Beatrice in this part of the poem. As Frederick Locke (“Dante's Miraculous Enneads,” Dante Studies 85 [1967], pp. 59-70) pointed out, Beatrice's name appears 63 times in the Comedy, and that number is a 'nine' (6 plus 3 = 9). It is possible that Dante was counting his uses of her name and deliberately chose to have it appear exactly nine times before she revealed herself to Dante. The pattern would have been more pleasing had Virgil spoken that name each of those nine times; however, once it is Dante himself who speaks it, in his conversation with Forese. Beatrice's name appears as follows in the first sixty-three cantos of the poem: Inf. II.70, Inf. II.103, Purg. VI.46, Purg. XV.77, Purg. XVIII.48, Purg. XVIII.73, Purg. XXIII.128 (spoken by Dante), Purg. XXVII.36, and here.
Virgil will probably not see those eyes, since he will be dismissed from the poem just as Beatrice appears (see Purg. XXX.49), even though he had been subjected to the heat of the fire when he guided Dante through it.
The scene we expect, as the protagonist completes his ritual purging on a terrace, is the removal of one (in this case the seventh and last) P from his forehead. Apparently the poet decided to avoid representing this climactic moment, allowing it either to be intrinsic, or else perhaps allowing us to believe that the fire itself cleansed the protagonist of his predisposition toward lust. But this is the moment (not before the entrance to the fire, as some believe) at which the ritual act should be performed, just before the upward movement to the next area of the mountain, as it has been on the other terraces (see an associated discussion of the angels' recitations of the Beatitudes in the note to Purg. XV.38-39).
Trucchi (comm. to vv. 10-15) counts the angels who serve God's ends in Purgatorio and comes up with ten (the 'perfect number,' as he remarks): the Christian Mercury who brings the living dead to the mountain (Purg. II.43), the angelic warder at the gate (Purg. IX.104), the seven who are associated with the virtues opposed to the vices repented at the end of the experience of each terrace, and now this one (he omits the two angelic actors in the pageant at Purg. VIII.25-39).
This final angel of purgatory (in paradise we see Gabriel circling the Virgin [Par. XXIII.103] and then the angelic hierarchy in Paradiso XXVIII) acts as a sort of positive Siren, drawing souls away from lust and setting them free.
As, among the early commentators, only he who speaks from the pages of the Codice Cassinese pointed out, the passage reflects the words that Christ will speak to the just at the Day of Judgment: 'Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, “Come, blessèd of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the [time of the] foundation of the world”' (Matthew 25:34). In the twentieth century notice began again to be paid to this absolutely relevant text. As Singleton reports (comm. to this verse), Ernest Hatch Wilkins (“Dante and the Mosaics of his Bel San Giovanni,” Speculum 2 [1927]), p. 5, pointed out that a mosaic in the Florentine Baptistery showed a gate guarded by an angel who welcomes a newly arrived soul, while a second angel leads a group of the saved and carries a banner that is inscribed 'Come, blessèd of my Father, possess what has been prepared.' Dante's second and singing angel would certainly seem to be modeled on that second angel and his words. And that there are two angels on this terrace may reflect his memory of the mosaic.
The angel's words, as many now note, are a sort of paraphrase of John 12:35: 'Walk while you have the light, that darkness may not overtake you.' Poletto (comm. to this verse) seems to have been the first commentator to notice the correlation. That it should have waited so long to be observed is comprehensible, since it is not a literal citation so much as a recasting of John's thought. This second angel, exactly like the first on this terrace, first speaks in Latin and then in the vernacular. See, again, the note to Purgatorio XV.38-39.
Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 65-66) point out that, since this stair runs from due west to due east and since at the outset of the ascent (Purg. III.16-18) Dante had his back to the east, he has now gone exactly halfway around the mountain's circumference or 180o . Naturally the actual circumference keeps decreasing as the mountain goes higher, like that of a snail's shell.
Dante's phrase levare i saggi (tried) suggests a literal sense of taking a sample of rock, as in geological studies.
Dante's playfulness is for some reason particularly evident in his similes, which often and deliberately have 'something wrong' in them, incomplete grammatical relations, mixtures of styles, and other apparent 'defects.' Here, on the other hand, we have a perfectly developed and complex 'classical' simile: 'Just as... and just as... so.' Anyone examining the passage closely is likely to perceive that there are things 'wrong' here as well. Let us consider the components of the simile:
Dante (singular) Virgil and Statius (plural)
76-81 goats (plural) shepherd (singular)
82-84 flock (plural) herdsman (singular)
85-87 goat (singular) shepherds (plural)
Several things are worth remarking. This simile is mainly unadulterated vernacular pastoral with a few Latinate words (and perhaps a phrase from Virgil at line 77 from Georgics IV.10, according to Daniello [comm. to vv. 76-81] and many of those who followed him). But why does Dante not get his singulars and plurals straight in the first two elements, only to correct them in the third? Why does he include the second element at all, since he excludes it from his summarizing and concluding third element? And why, as Torraca (comm. to vv. 76-78) wondered, is the shepherd standing up (if leaning on his stick) while Virgil and Statius are lying down? Is that why, Torraca continued to wonder, Dante included the second element, in which the herdsman is at least closer to lying down? The purpose of these questions is to focus attention on how much Dante expects of his reader. These little touches, reminding us of his artistic freedom, make us aware of that.
The phrase rapide e proterve in verse 77 (which we have translated as 'quick and reckless'), according to some commentators, beginning with Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 76-87), means 'rapaces et temerariae' (rapacious and bold). Others have objected to the first of these terms, more fitting to the description of the appetite of a wolf, as being inapplicable to goats. On the other hand, if we understood the word to mean 'voracious,' there would be no such problem. We, however, believe that Dante is referring to the way a free-roaming goat moves, rather than to the way it eats, but have no quarrel with those who follow Benvenuto.
The stars look bigger and brighter because Dante is higher up and closer to them than he has ever been in his life. There may be a moral atmosphere at work here as well, in that he has lost the obscuring mantle of sin that is our normal lot (see Purg. XXX.3), and that also would make them seem brighter. For exactly such a twofold understanding see John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 88-90).
It is now before dawn on Wednesday morning, the last day on the mountain, from which Dante will depart at noon.
'Cytherea' is a proper noun formed from the epithet used of the 'maritime' Venus, the lustful goddess born of the spume of the sea near the island Cythera. Dante here presents her as morning star, as she was seen at the opening of the cantica. However, and as has been pointed out in recent years with increasing insistence, in 1300 Venus was the evening star at this period of the year, and the morning star only in 1301. See the discussion in Graziella Federici Vescovini (“Dante e l'astronomia del suo tempo,” Letteratura italiana antica 3 [2002]), pp. 292, 300n., who resists the temptation to 'redate' the poem to 1301, believing that Dante is merely taking advantage of poetic license. And see the note to Purgatorio I.19-21.
For the formulaic nature of Dante's preparation of his three dream narratives in Purgatorio see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), p. 149. All the dreams are preceded by 'an astronomical reference to the hour of the morning at which the dream occurs' and then by the distinct vocabulary of dream vision, as in the second of these tercets: 'in sogno mi parea / donna vedere' (in a dream I seemed to see a lady).
The dream of Leah and Rachel is the most transparent of the three dreams in Purgatorio (see Purg. IX.13-33 and Purg. XIX.1-33). Leah and Rachel, the daughters of Laban in Genesis, were understood by Christian interpreters to represent, respectively, the active life and the contemplative life (and thus Rachel's staring into the mirror is not to be taken as narcissistic self-admiration but contemplation in a positive sense). It is clear that Dante is making use of that tradition here. However, he is also making use of biblical typology in his treatment of Leah, who is related to Eve in her as yet unfallen condition in that she is doing what Adam and Eve were told to do, 'ut operaretur et custodiret illum' (to dress [the garden] and keep it – Genesis 2:15). Dante's verb in the last line of Leah's speech, which concludes the dream, remembers the biblical verb in his ovrare, the working in this garden that points back to the tasks of that one before the Fall (see Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], p. 153). For the balanced relationships between the pair Leah and Rachel and a second pair, Matelda and Beatrice, the two central female presences in the earthly paradise, see Paola Pacchioni (“Lia e Rachele, Matelda e Beatrice,” L'Alighieri 18 [2001], pp. 47-74).
It is probably also fair to say that the text intrinsically presents Dante as a new Jacob: 'As Jacob toiled for seven years in order to gain the hand of Rachel, only to be given that of Leah (Genesis 29:10f.), so Dante has toiled up seven terraces of purgation with the promise of Beatrice, only to find Matelda' (Hollander, Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969], pp. 151-52). Giovanni Pascoli (La mirabile visione [Bologna: Zanichelli, 1923 (1902)]), p. 462, had much earlier suggested that Dante, 'the new Aeneas,' was also the 'new Jacob.' Pascoli was followed, without their apparent knowledge, by Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), p. 108, and by T. K. Swing (The Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl [Westminster: The Newman Press, 1962]), p. 95. The Italian tradition has for a long time insisted only on the 'allegorical' equation here, Leah as the active life, Rachel as the contemplative. A figural understanding (i.e., one developed from 'historical allegory,' as in the interpretation of the Bible itself), has mainly been absent. But see Momigliano (comm. to these verses) who almost resolves the problem in this way. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 91-108) offer a long and confessedly 'perplexed' attempt to account for the resulting supposedly double (and thus inadmissible) valence of Beatrice as both 'theology' and 'the contemplative life.' For another reading of this dream see Zygmunt Baranski (“Dante's Three Reflective Dreams,” Quaderni d'italianistica 10 [1989]), pp. 219-24.
Awakening, the protagonist (and Statius, but Virgil only problematically so) is associated with travelers who are getting nearer home. It is quite clear that 'home' now is at the very least the garden of Eden, and perhaps the true paradise that lies above. There are no thoughts of Florence here. In these lines the true pilgrimage becomes a journey from God, into the world, and back to God. It is interesting to compare the beautiful and sad opening of the eighth canto of this cantica, with its traveler whose thoughts are on friends left behind in the world. This pilgrim/traveler has apparently learned a good deal on the mountain.
For the resonance of a phrase found in the Song of Songs in this verse, 'le tenebre fuggian da tutti lati' (the shadows all around were being put to flight): 'Donec aspiret dies et inclinentur umbrae' (Until the day break and the shadows flee away) (Cant. 2:17 and 4:6), see Eleanor Cook (“Scripture as Enigma: Biblical Allusion in Dante's Earthly Paradise,” Dante Studies 117 [1999]), p. 5.
This is as close as the poet comes to telling us that the protagonist's last P has been removed. He feels as light as his 'feathers.'
Since the garden of Eden seems to be just slightly below the level to which the travelers have now climbed (see Purg. XXVIII.4), this topmost step of the stair is the highest point on earth attained by Dante, and by Virgil as well, but he has no further rising to do.
Virgil's final speech in the poem may be clarified by a summarizing paraphrase. (1) I have brought you, with intellect and skill, through flames temporal (purgatory) and eternal (hell) and have reached the limit of my powers; (2) from now on follow your own inclination as your guide, since you are free; (3) see the sun and the freely growing vegetation here; until Beatrice, whose weeping eyes sent me to you, comes glad-eyed into your presence, you may choose to sit or wander; (4) no more do I speak or gesture; your will is free, upright, and whole; do its pleasure – and thus do I crown and miter you over yourself.
Beginning with Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), commentators have cited St. Thomas to the effect that the pains of the damned are eternal while the fire of purgatory is temporary.
If Dante's will is as good as Virgil will shortly say it is, he can take pleasure as his guide because he will only want that which reason will want. Nothing sinful would any longer tempt him.
The self-sufficient nature of the vegetation of the garden will be insisted on at Purgatorio XXVIII.109-120.
It is perhaps useful to consider an attempt to see how the poem may be divided into four large units, as follows:
Dante's development locus guide
I. correction of the will Inf. I-XXXIV Virgil
II. perfection of the will Purg. I-XXIX Virgil
III. correction of the intellect Purg. XXX-Par. XXX Beatrice
IV. perfection of the intellect Par. XXX-end Bernard
See Hollander (“The Invocations of the Commedia,” Yearbook of Italian Studies 3 [1976], pp. 235-40). And for the possible contribution of St. Bernard to this schema, see the note to Paradiso XXXIII.127-132.
It is at this moment that Virgil gives over the instructional task that has been his since Inferno I, presiding over the correction and perfection of Dante's will. A less developed version of this schema is found in Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 11-12, where Virgil is seen as leading Dante to 'a condition of rectitude in the will,' while the goal to which Beatrice leads him 'is one in which intellect is primary.'
The precise meaning and reference of this concluding verse has been the subject of much discussion. The meta-literary sense that he has of the canto as a whole leads Picone (“Purgatorio XXVII: passaggio rituale e translatio poetica,” Medioevo romanzo 12 [1987]), pp. 400-1, to allegorize the crown and miter that Virgil awards Dante as (1) the triumphant laurel of the modern poet and (2) the Christian truth that he can add to Virgil's store of pagan wisdom and poetic technique. As Remo Fasani (“Canto XXVII,” in Lectura Dantis Turicensis: Purgatorio, ed. Georges Güntert and Michelangelo Picone [Florence: Cesati, 2001]), p. 432, points out, although the modern discussion has tended to treat the terms as synonyms, as long ago as in the commentaries of the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 139-142) and of Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 124-142), they were understood as separate entities. To the Ottimo they signified 'rector and shepherd'; to Francesco, laurel crown ('corono; di laurea, come poeta') and bishop's miter ('come vescovo e guidatore dell'anima tua a l'eterna salute' [as bishop and guide over your own soul, bound for eternal salvation]), two very different sorts of adornment for Dante's head. Fasani opts for the crown as sign of Dante's active life, his temporal (and decidedly imperial) political mission, and sees the miter as an image of his contemplative life, the poet's spiritual mission.
In the recent and continuing argument there are those who argue, as did Contini (Un' idea di Dante [Turin: Einaudi, 1976]), pp. 188-89, citing Scartazzini (comm. to this verse) who had come upon a description of the coronation of the emperor Otto IV in 1209 in which he was crowned and mitered in a study by one Father Ponta, collected in his Opere su Dante, published in 1845, pp. 189 and 193, that for Virgil to grant ecclesiastical authority is totally foreign to anything we have read in this poem. In an entirely similar mode, Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 64-69, cites (not Ponta or Scartazzini or Contini) Ernst Kantorowicz (The King's Two Bodies [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957]), pp. 491-92, for the use of the miter in the crowning of the temporal ruler. This series of interesting attempts to make Virgil's last words in the poem tautological does, however, leave one less than easily convinced; the word 'miter' is removed from an ecclesiastical context only with difficulty.
Virgil can make Dante neither an emperor nor a bishop (and surely not a pope). He is metaphorically crowning Dante for now having, in his will, the ability to rule himself morally, as the world, were it only better governed, would be ruled by two powers, emperor and pope. Dante is now said by Virgil to be in complete command of the powers of his will, a microcosmic image of the world made just (improbable as Dante would have thought such a happy state) under its two prime authorities.
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