“O tu che se' di là dal fiume sacro,”
volgendo suo parlare a me per punta,
che pur per taglio m'era paruto acro,
ricominciò, seguendo sanza cunta,
“dì, dì se questo è vero; a tanta accusa
tua confession conviene esser congiunta.”
Era la mia virtù tanto confusa,
che la voce si mosse, e pria si spense
che da li organi suoi fosse dischiusa.
Poco sofferse; poi disse: “Che pense?
Rispondi a me; ché le memorie triste
in te non sono ancor da l'acqua offense.”
Confusione e paura insieme miste
mi pinsero un tal “sì” fuor de la bocca,
al quale intender fuor mestier le viste.
Come balestro frange, quando scocca
da troppa tesa, la sua corda e l'arco,
e con men foga l'asta il segno tocca,
sì scoppia' io sottesso grave carco,
fuori sgorgando lagrime e sospiri,
e la voce allentò per lo suo varco.
Ond' ella a me: “Per entro i mie' disiri,
che ti menavano ad amar lo bene
di là dal qual non è a che s'aspiri
quai fossi attraversati o quai catene
trovasti, per che del passare innanzi
dovessiti così spogliar la spene?
E quali agevolezze o quali avanzi
ne la fronte de li altri si mostraro,
per che dovessi lor passeggiare anzi?”
Dopo la tratta d'un sospiro amaro,
a pena ebbi la voce che rispuose,
e le labbra a fatica la formaro.
Piangendo dissi: “Le presenti cose
col falso lor piacer volser miei passi,
tosto che 'l vostro viso si nascose.”
Ed ella: “Se tacessi o se negassi
ciò che confessi, non fora men nota
la colpa tua: da tal giudice sassi!
Ma quando scoppia de la propria gota
l'accusa del peccato, in nostra corte
rivolge sé contra 'l taglio la rota.
Tuttavia, perché mo vergogna porte
del tuo errore, e perché altra volta,
udendo le serene, sie più forte,
pon giù il seme del piangere e ascolta:
sì udirai come in contraria parte
mover dovieti mia carne sepolta.
Mai non t'appresentò natura o arte
piacer, quanto le belle membra in ch'io
rinchiusa fui, e che so' 'n terra sparte;
e se 'l sommo piacer sì ti fallio
per la mia morte, qual cosa mortale
dovea poi trarre te nel suo disio?
Ben ti dovevi, per lo primo strale
de le cose fallaci, levar suso
di retro a me che non era più tale.
Non ti dovea gravar le penne in giuso,
ad aspettar più colpo, o pargoletta
o altra novità con sì breve uso.
Novo augelletto due o tre aspetta;
ma dinanzi da li occhi d'i pennuti
rete si spiega indarno o si saetta.”
Quali fanciulli, vergognando, muti
con li occhi a terra stannosi, ascoltando
e sé riconoscendo e ripentuti,
tal mi stav' io; ed ella disse: “Quando
per udir se' dolente, alza la barba,
e prenderai più doglia riguardando.”
Con men di resistenza si dibarba
robusto cerro, o vero al nostral vento
o vero a quel de la terra di Iarba,
ch'io non levai al suo comando il mento;
e quando per la barba il viso chiese,
ben conobbi il velen de l'argomento.
E come la mia faccia si distese,
posarsi quelle prime creature
da loro aspersïon l'occhio comprese;
e le mie luci, ancor poco sicure,
vider Beatrice volta in su la fiera
ch'è sola una persona in due nature.
Sotto 'l suo velo e oltre la rivera
vincer pariemi più sé stessa antica,
vincer che l'altre qui, quand' ella c'era.
Di penter sì mi punse ivi l'ortica,
che di tutte altre cose qual mi torse
più nel suo amor, più mi si fé nemica.
Tanta riconoscenza il cor mi morse,
ch'io caddi vinto; e quale allora femmi,
salsi colei che la cagion mi porse.
Poi, quando il cor virtù di fuor rendemmi,
la donna ch'io avea trovata sola
sopra me vidi, e dicea: “Tiemmi, tiemmi!”
Tratto m'avea nel fiume infin la gola,
e tirandosi me dietro sen giva
sovresso l'acqua lieve come scola.
Quando fui presso a la beata riva,
“Asperges me” sì dolcemente udissi,
che nol so rimembrar, non ch'io lo scriva.
La bella donna ne le braccia aprissi;
abbracciommi la testa e mi sommerse
ove convenne ch'io l'acqua inghiottissi.
Indi mi tolse, e bagnato m'offerse
dentro a la danza de le quattro belle;
e ciascuna del braccio mi coperse.
“Noi siam qui ninfe e nel ciel siamo stelle;
pria che Beatrice discendesse al mondo,
fummo ordinate a lei per sue ancelle.
Merrenti a li occhi suoi; ma nel giocondo
lume ch'è dentro aguzzeranno i tuoi
le tre di là, che miran più profondo.”
Così cantando cominciaro; e poi
al petto del grifon seco menarmi,
ove Beatrice stava volta a noi.
Disser: “Fa che le viste non risparmi;
posto t'avem dinanzi a li smeraldi
ond' Amor già ti trasse le sue armi.”
Mille disiri più che fiamma caldi
strinsermi li occhi a li occhi rilucenti,
che pur sopra 'l grifone stavan saldi.
Come in lo specchio il sol, non altrimenti
la doppia fiera dentro vi raggiava,
or con altri, or con altri reggimenti.
Pensa, lettor, s'io mi maravigliava,
quando vedea la cosa in sé star queta,
e ne l'idolo suo si trasmutava.
Mentre che piena di stupore e lieta
l'anima mia gustava di quel cibo
che, saziando di sé, di sé asseta,
sé dimostrando di più alto tribo
ne li atti, l'altre tre si fero avanti,
danzando al loro angelico caribo.
“Volgi, Beatrice, volgi li occhi santi,”
era la sua canzone, “al tuo fedele
che, per vederti, ha mossi passi tanti!
Per grazia fa noi grazia che disvele
a lui la bocca tua, sì che discerna
la seconda bellezza che tu cele.”
O isplendor di viva luce etterna,
chi palido si fece sotto l'ombra
sì di Parnaso, o bevve in sua cisterna,
che non paresse aver la mente ingombra,
tentando a render te qual tu paresti
là dove armonizzando il ciel t'adombra,
quando ne l'aere aperto ti solvesti?
"O thou who art beyond the sacred river,"
Turning to me the point of her discourse,
That edgewise even had seemed to me so keen,
She recommenced, continuing without pause,
"Say, say if this be true; to such a charge,
Thy own confession needs must be conjoined."
My faculties were in so great confusion,
That the voice moved, but sooner was extinct
Than by its organs it was set at large.
Awhile she waited; then she said: "What thinkest?
Answer me; for the mournful memories
In thee not yet are by the waters injured."
Confusion and dismay together mingled
Forced such a Yes! from out my mouth, that sight
Was needful to the understanding of it.
Even as a cross-bow breaks, when 'tis discharged
Too tensely drawn the bowstring and the bow,
And with less force the arrow hits the mark,
So I gave way beneath that heavy burden,
Outpouring in a torrent tears and sighs,
And the voice flagged upon its passage forth.
Whence she to me: "In those desires of mine
Which led thee to the loving of that good,
Beyond which there is nothing to aspire to,
What trenches lying traverse or what chains
Didst thou discover, that of passing onward
Thou shouldst have thus despoiled thee of the hope?
And what allurements or what vantages
Upon the forehead of the others showed,
That thou shouldst turn thy footsteps unto them?"
After the heaving of a bitter sigh,
Hardly had I the voice to make response,
And with fatigue my lips did fashion it.
Weeping I said: "The things that present were
With their false pleasure turned aside my steps,
Soon as your countenance concealed itself."
And she: "Shouldst thou be silent, or deny
What thou confessest, not less manifest
Would be thy fault, by such a Judge 'tis known.
But when from one's own cheeks comes bursting forth
The accusal of the sin, in our tribunal
Against the edge the wheel doth turn itself.
But still, that thou mayst feel a greater shame
For thy transgression, and another time
Hearing the Sirens thou mayst be more strong,
Cast down the seed of weeping and attend;
So shalt thou hear, how in an opposite way
My buried flesh should have directed thee.
Never to thee presented art or nature
Pleasure so great as the fair limbs wherein
I was enclosed, which scattered are in earth.
And if the highest pleasure thus did fail thee
By reason of my death, what mortal thing
Should then have drawn thee into its desire?
Thou oughtest verily at the first shaft
Of things fallacious to have risen up
To follow me, who was no longer such.
Thou oughtest not to have stooped thy pinions downward
To wait for further blows, or little girl,
Or other vanity of such brief use.
The callow birdlet waits for two or three,
But to the eyes of those already fledged,
In vain the net is spread or shaft is shot."
Even as children silent in their shame
Stand listening with their eyes upon the ground,
And conscious of their fault, and penitent;
So was I standing; and she said: "If thou
In hearing sufferest pain, lift up thy beard
And thou shalt feel a greater pain in seeing."
With less resistance is a robust holm
Uprooted, either by a native wind
Or else by that from regions of Iarbas,
Than I upraised at her command my chin;
And when she by the beard the face demanded,
Well I perceived the venom of her meaning.
And as my countenance was lifted up,
Mine eye perceived those creatures beautiful
Had rested from the strewing of the flowers;
And, still but little reassured, mine eyes
Saw Beatrice turned round towards the monster,
That is one person only in two natures.
Beneath her veil, beyond the margent green,
She seemed to me far more her ancient self
To excel, than others here, when she was here.
So pricked me then the thorn of penitence,
That of all other things the one which turned me
Most to its love became the most my foe.
Such self-conviction stung me at the heart
O'erpowered I fell, and what I then became
She knoweth who had furnished me the cause.
Then, when the heart restored my outward sense,
The lady I had found alone, above me
I saw, and she was saying, "Hold me, hold me."
Up to my throat she in the stream had drawn me,
And, dragging me behind her, she was moving
Upon the water lightly as a shuttle.
When I was near unto the blessed shore,
"Asperges me," I heard so sweetly sung,
Remember it I cannot, much less write it.
The beautiful lady opened wide her arms,
Embraced my head, and plunged me underneath,
Where I was forced to swallow of the water.
Then forth she drew me, and all dripping brought
Into the dance of the four beautiful,
And each one with her arm did cover me.
'We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars;
Ere Beatrice descended to the world,
We as her handmaids were appointed her.
We'll lead thee to her eyes; but for the pleasant
Light that within them is, shall sharpen thine
The three beyond, who more profoundly look.'
Thus singing they began; and afterwards
Unto the Griffin's breast they led me with them,
Where Beatrice was standing, turned towards us.
"See that thou dost not spare thine eyes," they said;
"Before the emeralds have we stationed thee,
Whence Love aforetime drew for thee his weapons."
A thousand longings, hotter than the flame,
Fastened mine eyes upon those eyes relucent,
That still upon the Griffin steadfast stayed.
As in a glass the sun, not otherwise
Within them was the twofold monster shining,
Now with the one, now with the other nature.
Think, Reader, if within myself I marvelled,
When I beheld the thing itself stand still,
And in its image it transformed itself.
While with amazement filled and jubilant,
My soul was tasting of the food, that while
It satisfies us makes us hunger for it,
Themselves revealing of the highest rank
In bearing, did the other three advance,
Singing to their angelic saraband.
"Turn, Beatrice, O turn thy holy eyes,"
Such was their song, "unto thy faithful one,
Who has to see thee ta'en so many steps.
In grace do us the grace that thou unveil
Thy face to him, so that he may discern
The second beauty which thou dost conceal."
O splendour of the living light eternal!
Who underneath the shadow of Parnassus
Has grown so pale, or drunk so at its cistern,
He would not seem to have his mind encumbered
Striving to paint thee as thou didst appear,
Where the harmonious heaven o'ershadowed thee,
When in the open air thou didst unveil?
Beatrice's words, perhaps reminiscent of Virgil's to the cowering, hiding Dante in Inferno XXI.88-90, call his (and our) attention to the fact that he has not yet crossed Lethe, i.e., he still has his sins in mind, as will be hammered home by vv. 11-12. For the similar formal arrangements of the beginnings and endings of all the cantos dedicated to the earthly paradise see Bruno Porcelli (“Progressione e simmetria di Purgatorio XXVII-XXXIII,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 35 [1987], pp. 141-55).
The metaphor of Beatrice's speech as a 'sword' picks up her earlier promise that Dante will weep for 'another sword' beside that of Virgil's departure (Purg. XXX.57). The lengthy speech that she had directed to the angels (Purg. XXX.103-145) was in fact aimed squarely at him, using the angels as her apparent primary auditors in such a way as to publicize his sins and thus shame the protagonist. In this sense, then, the point of her 'sword' had seemed aimed at them, while she wounded Dante (if painfully enough, as we have seen) with only the edge of the blade. Now he finds her sword pointing straight at his heart.
Chimenz (comm. to vv. 16-18) is perhaps the only commentator to fret over these angels; he cannot understand how they at first remained hidden from Dante and how so many of them could occupy so small a chariot (an unconscious resuscitation of the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin problem or, perhaps, of the crowded condition of that stateroom in the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera). Most commentators quite naturally assume that they descended from the Empyrean. (None does so more clearly than Singleton, who is at least clear in voicing this opinion [comm. to vv. 13-18].) We, however, are not told this. Further, their eventual removal from the scene is never dealt with, at least not directly (see the note to vv. 77-78). All we can say is that they either mount up with the rest of the Church Triumphant (Purg. XXXII.89-90) or, since their coming was so mysterious, that they simply vanish. Either of two answers would, therefore, on the basis of the evidence in the poem, be consistent.
Beatrice calls for Dante's confession with specific reference to the list of charges against him that she had leveled in the last canto (Purg. XXX.124-132).
Dante's fearful inability to speak with clarity may remind us of his similar difficulty as he was about to take his ride on Geryon's back (Inf. XVII.92-93).
Che pense? (What are you thinking?): Tommaseo was apparently the first to hear the resonance of Virgil's identical question to Francesca-dazzled Dante in Inferno V.111. Now see Lino Pertile (“Purgatorio XXVI,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings II: “Purgatorio,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis (virginiana), 12, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1993]), p. 389.
It is perhaps not coincidental that Dante's first two guides, in scenes that are confessional in nature, both prod him to consider the conflicting natures of lust and charity with the same question.
Dante's attempt to discharge the dart of his speech from the crossbow that collapses under the tension of his situation produces a more audible emission of tears and sighs than of true confessions, which he can barely whisper.
Perhaps nowhere before or after does the poet make the nature of the love the protagonist should have had for Beatrice clearer than here. His desire for her should have led him to God.
Beatrice, given Dante's muteness, rehashes the charges we had heard in the last canto (Purg. XXX.124-132), now substituting a fresh set of metaphors for those we found there (see the note to Purg. XXX.118-138). There we heard that after Beatrice's death (1) he gave himself to another (or 'to others'; the Italian altrui is ambiguous and may be singular or plural); (2) he chose a wrong path, 'pursuing false images of good.' Now he is presented first as warrior and then as lover. In the first tercet he is like a soldier (or an army) cut off from his pursuit of his goal by the defensive ditches or chains deployed by an enemy; in the second he is like a courting swain who parades before the house of the woman with whom he is infatuated. In the first case, once he loses his Beatrice he no longer advances toward God; in the second, he moves toward another and improper destination. He was turned by his love for the donna gentile, who, we may remember (VN XXXV.2), was seated at her window and looked pityingly at Dante, who then 'parades' before her a pair of sonnets (VN XXXV.15-18; XXXVI.14-15). If, in the Vita nuova, he finally returns to his love for Beatrice and is rewarded with a vision of her in the Empyrean, in Convivio he is writing about the donna gentile again, now as having finally displaced Beatrice in his affections. He had looked for consolation from this lady, he says, but he had instead found gold (Conv. II.xii.5).
For this writer's view of this complex matter see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 159-69.
Here begins Dante's confession. Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), p. 62, rightly observes (as, for instance, Singleton [comm. to verse 6] does not) that the confession will be followed by his contrition and then by his giving satisfaction. These three elements in the rite of confession, in that perhaps puzzling order, occupy the first 102 verses of this canto, with first confession and then contrition, occupying vv. 31-90 (for the traditional order, see the note to Purg. IX.94-102). (It should be noted that the version of Mazzoni's lectura of this canto is that published as a separate fascicle in 1965; the version later published in the bound volume of the Lectura Dantis Scaligera [1967] is missing the first fifty or so pages of the 1965 printing.)
Finally Dante confesses, summarizing his transgressions as delight in false things set before him after Beatrice was dead. Exactly what these pleasures were is a question that greatly exercises Dante scholars. It does seem clear that they are presented in so vague and encompassing a way so as to allow two primary interpretations, that is, both carnal and intellectual divagations from the love he owed God, awakened in him by Beatrice.
Dante's first words to Beatrice set a pattern that will not be broken until Paradiso XXXI.80: Dante addresses her with the honorific voi. See the note to Purgatorio XIX.131.
Beatrice accepts his confession. That word has already been used at verse 6, underlining the precise nature of what is happening here (words for 'confession' only occur three times in Purgatorio, where we might expect them to be more common, twice in this canto). We may remember that Dante himself had twice served in the role of confessor in Inferno, first with Francesca (Inf. V.118-120 [and see the note to these verses]), then with Pope Nicholas III (Inf. XIX.49).
The reference to the Sirens draws us back to Purgatorio XIX.19-33, the dream of the Siren and (as at least a few interpreters agree) Beatrice's intervention in Dante's dream to have Virgil show him the ugliness of the object of his infatuation. See the note to Purgatorio XIX.31-33.
The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 43-47) is one of the very few commentators to think of Boethius's dismissal of the Sirens (who have so harmed him) in favor of the Muses of Lady Philosophy (Cons. I.i[pr]).
Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 46-48) was apparently the first to explain the strange phrase 'to sow tears' by referring to the Bible, Psalms 125:5 (126:5), 'those that sow in tears shall reap in joy.' Even so, Dante has made the Psalmist more difficult than he had in fact been: 'sowing tears' is not quite the same thing as 'sowing in tears' (i.e., planting seed while weeping).
Beatrice's phrasing offers a good example of the cause of the difficulty many have in interpreting her role in this poem. She tells Dante that her buried flesh should have led him elsewhere from where he elected to go (in this context, clearly other women [cosa mortale, 'mortal thing']). This is not because she was more beautiful in her fleshly being than they, but because she offered him what they did and could not, 'il sommo piacer' (the highest beauty). The verbal noun piacer is used only once in the first half of the poem (it describes Paolo's physical attractiveness at Inf. V.104). When it is found again (at Purg. XVIII.21), it then occurs thirty-four times in the second half, twenty-one of these in Paradiso. It is often used to denote the highest beauty of all, that of God. The word is used three times in this canto (vv. 35, 50, 52), its densest presence in the Comedy. The false beauty of Beatrice's rivals (verse 35) should have been countered by the highest beauty that he had found in her. The phrase 'sommo piacer' was traditionally interpreted as referring to Beatrice as the most beautiful of all mortals. I.e., Dante's failure was in chasing after women who were not as beautiful as she was. This disastrous interpretation, undermined by the very antithesis present in Beatrice's formulations, sommo piacer / cosa mortale, which polarizes divine and human beauty, was intelligently dismissed in Mazzoni's gloss (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 67-72. Mazzoni demonstrates that Dante is relying upon the Victorine tradition that discussed the beauty of God, even as it was manifest in individual human beings, the summa pulchritudo (highest beauty) in the phrase of Hugh of St. Victor (p. 68). (For a study of Dante's ideas about beauty see John Took [“L'etterno piacer”: Aesthetic Ideas in Dante (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) ].)
Beatrice's next instalment drives the point home, again separating the spiritual from the physical – if readers tend to fail to notice what she has done. The 'deceitful' things of this world are distinguished from those of the next in that Beatrice tells Dante that, once she was no longer associated with this world, his affection should have followed her upward.
We are given yet another (now the third) version of Dante's sins after Beatrice's death (see the note to vv. 25-20). Instead of flying up after dead Beatrice's spirit, the wings of his affection drooped down to earth in search of a pargoletta (young girl) – the sexual note is struck again – or 'other novelty of such brief use,' a phrasing that would again allow the understanding that Dante's divagation also involved some sort of intellectual experiment that now seems without eventual value. See Sara Sturm-Maddox (“The Rime Petrose and the Purgatorial Palinode,” Studies in Philology 84 [1987], pp. 119-33) for the word pargoletta (young girl) as a key to Dante's retraction of the sexual love he so frankly displayed in his rime petrose (stony rhymes), where he refers (Rime C.72) to a marble-hearted young girl. It is also true that Dante wrote at least two still earlier poems about a pargoletta. See Rime LXXXVII.1 and LXXXIX.2.
See Proverbs 1:17, 'Frustra autem iacitur rete ante oculos pennatorum' (In vain is the net cast forth before the eyes of full-fledged birds). (The citation was first observed by Pietro di Dante [Pietro1, comm. to vv. 61-63]). Dante, as grown up 'bird,' should have been able to avoid capture by his huntress(es). Poletto (comm. to vv. 61-63) noted another citation of this text in Dante's Epistola VI.21, also cited by Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), p. 72.
Understandably, Dante is now compared, in simile, not to a mature man, who should have known better, but to a naughty boy.
Continuing the motif introduced in the preceding simile, this verse has had the effect of convincing some readers that the usual portraits and busts of Dante are all incorrect in showing him as clean-shaven. However, all that is probably meant is that he was old enough to know better because he was old enough to shave. In the same vein, some have argued that Beatrice only indicates Dante's chin (mento, referred to in verse 73). Even so, his chin is 'bearded' if he has to shave it. For a brief and cogent review of the argument, see Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 73-74. And for a hypothetical meditation on the iconographic valence of Dante's beardedness that essentially bypasses the issue that attracts most readers (and which involves an astonishingly large bibliography) – whether Dante meant us to understand that his face was bearded or not – see R.A. Shoaf (“Dante's Beard: Sic et non [Purgatorio 31.68],” in Magister Regis: Studies in Honor of Robert E. Kaske, ed. Arthur Groos and others [New York: Fordham University Press, 1986], pp.171-77).
The formal 'classical' simile is clear in its intent: Dante, for all the reticence of his contrition, is finally won over. Its resonance, however, is subtle and not observed in the commentary tradition. R.A. Shoaf (“Dante's Beard: Sic et non [Purgatorio 31.68],” in Magister Regis: Studies in Honor of Robert E. Kaske, ed. Arthur Groos and others [New York: Fordham University Press, 1986], pp. 176-77, decodes the passage well. He points out that Aeneid IV.196-278 presents Iarbas's appeal to Jupiter to intervene on his behalf in his suit for widow Dido's hand, an appeal that results in Mercury's coming to Aeneas to spur him to his Italian voyage. The simile that gives birth to this one is found, Shoaf continues, at Aeneid IV.441-449, when Aeneas is compared to a deeply rooted oak tree buffeted by north winds when Dido makes her last-ditch appeal to him to stay with her in Carthage. In the end, he remains strong enough in his new resolve to deny her request and set sail. Here, the 'new Aeneas,' buffeted by the south wind, gives over his stubborn recalcitrance and accedes to the insistent demand of Beatrice, a new and better Dido, that he express his contrition. Where it was good for Aeneas to resist the entreaties of his woman, it is also good for Dante to yield to Beatrice's.
Since Beatrice's hundred angels are not referred to directly again, we can only conclude that, after this last act of theirs, they disappear, either into thin air or else to fly back up to the Empyrean, along with the rest of the Church Triumphant (see Purg. XXXII.89-90). While the text guarantees no solution, the second hypothesis seems the better one, if only because we have no reason to exempt them from the general exodus that occurs at that point, even if their arrival is not clearly accounted for (see the notes to Purg. XXX.16-18 and XXXII.89-90).
The phrasing 'one person in two natures' makes it difficult to accept the arguments of those who believe the griffin is not a symbol of Christ.
The word velo (veil) reminds us that the climactic moment of an unveiling still lies before us. See the note to Purgatorio XXX.66.
The climax of Dante's contrition is performed as a fainting fit. He is now ready to perform his act of satisfaction, forgetting all his divagations, canceling them from his memory.
Dante's immersion in Lethe, supervised by Matelda, marks his final satisfaction of his confessor's demands on him. As we will see (Purg. XXXIII.91-99), his forgetting that he ever transgressed against Beatrice's instruction will be used by her as proof that he had indeed done so. Here we understand that the act of forgetting is an act of atonement, and is rewarded with absolution, indicated by the Latin song he hears as he completes his crossing of Lethe.
As for Dante's drinking of the waters, it has a Virgilian source, according to Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to vv. 94-102) and, among the moderns, Mattalia (comm. to verse 102): in Lethe's waters the souls 'longa oblivia potant' (drink in long forgetfulness [Aen. VI.715]). As we shall see at Eunoe (Purg. XXXIII.138), the ingestion of the waters of these two rivers is essential to the accomplishment of (here) leaving one's sins in oblivion and (there) securing in memory all the good things accomplished in one's mortal life.
Does Statius also drink of these waters? And does Matelda have oversight for his crossing of Lethe as well as Dante's? See the note to Purgatorio XXXIII.128-135.
The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 97-99) identifies the phrase 'Asperges me...' (Purge me [with hyssop, that I may be purified; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow]) as deriving from 'the penitential Psalm' (50:9 [51:7]) and goes on to report that the phrase is repeated in the rite of absolution when the priest blesses the confessed sinner with holy water. We have less certain information about who it is that sings the words. Among those commentators who venture an opinion, most assume it is the angels who sing, but it could be the (still unnamed) Matelda (as Porena [comm. to verse 98] admits, even though he prefers the angels). Since the angels have served as singers before (Purg. XXX.19, XXX.21, XXX.83-84), the most reasonable hypothesis seems to be that it is they who sing now, as well.
Massimiliano Chiamenti's reading of vv. 92-96 (“Corollario oitanico al canto ventottesimo del Purgatorio,” Medioevo e rinascimento 13 [1999]), p. 211n., would seem to suggest that the contact here between Matelda and Dante is of a sexual nature, a reading that does not exactly command immediate assent.
The four nymphs represent the four cardinal virtues (Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude) in their primal form, i.e., as they were infused in Adam and Eve (and not acquired, as they have had to be ever after). 'God created the first humans, and no others, in this state. They are 'nymphs' in that, like some classical nymphs, they inhabit a woodland landscape (Lombardi [comm. to verse 106]). The stars they are in heaven are probably (there is debate about this) identical with those we saw in Purgatorio I.23 (also referred to in I.37-39 and VIII.91), irradiating the face of Cato with their light. Dante thus seems to suggest that both Cato and Beatrice are of such special virtue that it seems that original sin did not affect them – a notion that could only be advanced in the sort of suggestive logic possible in poetry, for it is simply heretical. Dante never did say (or would have said) such a thing in prose.
The exact sense in which they served as the handmaids of Beatrice before she lived on earth is less easily determined. For two similar views of the problem see Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 159-183, and Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 82-86. Both of them link the infused cardinal virtues to Beatrice's special role on earth, reflected in such passages as Inferno II.76-78, where she is addressed by Virgil as 'donna di virtù' (lady of such virtue that by it alone / the human race surpasses all that lies / within the smallest compass of the heavens).
Botticelli-like (as in his Primavera, surely shaped by this scene), the four dancing maidens make a composite sign of the cross with their upraised arms, which join over Dante's head. All redeemed sinners leave the garden of Eden on their way to glory in the moral condition that marked the creation of the first humans, before the Fall: primal innocence.
The four cardinal virtues, representing the active life, insist that, while they are able to escort Dante to the eyes of Beatrice, their sister virtues, the theological three, at the right wheel of the chariot, are more appropriate presences to prepare Dante's vision for that moment.
Beatrice has moved down from the chariot, from its left side, where she was looking at Dante across the stream (Purg. XXX.61 and 100), to, now that he has crossed it, a point in front of the chariot and of the griffin that draws it, so as to confront Dante.
The four virtues prepare Dante to do something that will become, very quickly, the standard way of learning for the protagonist in this new Beatricean realm of the poem: gaze into her mirroring eyes. As Bosco/Reggio (comm. to these verses) explain, 'In medieval lapidaries the emerald symbolized, in addition to chastity, justice. Further, in a passage of Brunetto Latini's Tresor (III.xiii.16), Dante's direct source, green eyes (of an emerald color) were considered an attribute of feminine beauty. It should be added, finally, that the emerald functioned as a mirror, and the eyes of Beatrice will be compared precisely to a mirror (vv. 119-122). This new interpretation has been put forward by V. Bertolucci Pizzorusso, in Studi mediolatini e volgari 17 (1969).'
The word reggimenti (regiments, governments, regimes [in modern Italian]) would seem to give aid and comfort to those who have argued that this passage makes it difficult to argue for the traditional interpretation of the griffin as Christ. However, beginning with Venturi (comm. to this verse), commentators have understood that here the word is synonymous with atteggiamento (in the sense of bearing, self-presentation). Daniello (comm. to vv. 118-123) had previously understood the word as indicating that the griffin behaved 'now as man, now as God.'
Dante's sixth address to his readers in Purgatorio asks that we share his wonder (see the note to Inferno VIII.94-96). The griffin himself is constant in his appearance, while his reflection in Beatrice's eyes, revealing his truer aspect, reflects, in turn, his divine and human natures. The word idolo, a hapax, derives, according to Bosco/Reggio (comm. to verse 126), from the discussion of the idols of the pagan gods found in Isidore of Seville (Etym. VIII.xi.13).
Stupore (amazement, wonder) is again Dante's condition, now for the marvelous nature of his simultaneous perception of God's two natures. See the note to Purgatorio XXX.34-36.
Once again Scartazzini is the first commentator to find the likely citation behind Dante's words and to be followed, always without acknowledgment, by any number of twentieth-century discussants of the passage: Wisdom speaks in Ecclesiasticus 24:29: 'He who eats of me will hunger again, who drinks of me will thirst again.' That the speaker in this passage is Wisdom, the second person of the Trinity in Christian eyes, pleases Singleton (comm. to these verses), who had argued earlier for the close relationship between Beatrice and Christ as Sapience (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 122-34.
The 'other three' are obviously the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, equally obviously of higher 'rank' than the older classical cardinal virtues.
The word caribo has had extensive discussion among Dantists. Most currently agree that it indicates a particular dance, even if not an identifiable one. For extensive bibliography see Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 89-91.
The three theological virtues sing their appeal to Beatrice, requesting that she unveil her mouth. The moment recalls an experience recorded in Convivio. 'Here it is necessary to know that the eyes of wisdom are her demonstrations, by which truth is seen with the greatest certainty, and her smiles are her persuasions, in which the inner light of wisdom [Sapienza] is revealed behind a kind of veil; and in each of them is felt the highest joy of blessedness, which is the greatest good of paradise. This joy cannot be found in anything here below except by looking into [her] eyes and upon her smile' (Conv. III.xv.2-3, tr. Lansing). It is important to know that these words are directed to another lady, also known as Wisdom, in the Convivio, namely the Lady Philosophy, the one who came as the replacement for the then supposedly less worthy Beatrice. That Dante clearly revisits that passage from Convivio here is a fairly common belief among current discussants of this one. Only a few (e.g., Mazzoni [“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera (Florence: Le Monnier, 1965)], pp. 90-95; Giacalone [comm. to vv. 136-138]), however, realize that Dante wants to separate the sort of affection he felt for the lady he celebrated in Convivio then from that which he feels for the lady he celebrates here and now. Further, the allegory operative then (eyes as demonstrations, mouth as persuasions, of the abstraction philosophy) is nowhere evident here, where we now find only the smile unveiled. In her eyes Dante has just now seen what he can currently understand of Christ's two natures; in her smile he perceives that he is loved with the etterno piacer (eternal beauty – Purg. XXIX.32) that is reflected from her lips.
The seconda bellezza (second beauty) of Beatrice also may remind the reader of the 'corollary' or extra gift that Matelda bestowed upon the three poets at the end of Purgatorio XXVIII.136.
The luce etterna (eternal living light) that is God has its etterno piacer (eternal beauty) reflected in Beatrice, her loveliness the mirror of the beauty of God. This direct address of Beatrice's smile (which seems – intentionally, we must believe – to be represented as an object illuminated fully by God's light) sounds so much like an invocation that it apparently fooled at least one reader into taking it as one. See Marina De Fazio (“Purgatorio XXIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings II: “Purgatorio,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis (virginiana), 12, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1993]), p. 434.
This passage is reminiscent of that in Purgatorio XXVIII.139-148, the description of the smiles of recognition on the part of Virgil and of Statius when they discover that Eden represents the true Golden Age. No pagan poet, no matter how deeply inspired by drinking of the Castalian spring on Parnassus, could have written of the meaning of his vision of the Golden Age in a way that could come near to equaling what this Christian poet (by virtue of his faith, not of his talent), having now drunk of Lethe, can tell of God's love in making His first human creature innocent and allowing His creature a chance to regain that lost innocence, which is what Dante has been allowed to accomplish here, while still in the flesh, and what he will finally accomplish after his death.
The pronoun te (the second person singular of 'you') is jarring, in that we have already learned that Beatrice is to be addressed by Dante with the honorific voi (at verse 36). It takes us a moment to realize that it is not Beatrice whom he apostrophizes here, but her smile.
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“O tu che se' di là dal fiume sacro,”
volgendo suo parlare a me per punta,
che pur per taglio m'era paruto acro,
ricominciò, seguendo sanza cunta,
“dì, dì se questo è vero; a tanta accusa
tua confession conviene esser congiunta.”
Era la mia virtù tanto confusa,
che la voce si mosse, e pria si spense
che da li organi suoi fosse dischiusa.
Poco sofferse; poi disse: “Che pense?
Rispondi a me; ché le memorie triste
in te non sono ancor da l'acqua offense.”
Confusione e paura insieme miste
mi pinsero un tal “sì” fuor de la bocca,
al quale intender fuor mestier le viste.
Come balestro frange, quando scocca
da troppa tesa, la sua corda e l'arco,
e con men foga l'asta il segno tocca,
sì scoppia' io sottesso grave carco,
fuori sgorgando lagrime e sospiri,
e la voce allentò per lo suo varco.
Ond' ella a me: “Per entro i mie' disiri,
che ti menavano ad amar lo bene
di là dal qual non è a che s'aspiri
quai fossi attraversati o quai catene
trovasti, per che del passare innanzi
dovessiti così spogliar la spene?
E quali agevolezze o quali avanzi
ne la fronte de li altri si mostraro,
per che dovessi lor passeggiare anzi?”
Dopo la tratta d'un sospiro amaro,
a pena ebbi la voce che rispuose,
e le labbra a fatica la formaro.
Piangendo dissi: “Le presenti cose
col falso lor piacer volser miei passi,
tosto che 'l vostro viso si nascose.”
Ed ella: “Se tacessi o se negassi
ciò che confessi, non fora men nota
la colpa tua: da tal giudice sassi!
Ma quando scoppia de la propria gota
l'accusa del peccato, in nostra corte
rivolge sé contra 'l taglio la rota.
Tuttavia, perché mo vergogna porte
del tuo errore, e perché altra volta,
udendo le serene, sie più forte,
pon giù il seme del piangere e ascolta:
sì udirai come in contraria parte
mover dovieti mia carne sepolta.
Mai non t'appresentò natura o arte
piacer, quanto le belle membra in ch'io
rinchiusa fui, e che so' 'n terra sparte;
e se 'l sommo piacer sì ti fallio
per la mia morte, qual cosa mortale
dovea poi trarre te nel suo disio?
Ben ti dovevi, per lo primo strale
de le cose fallaci, levar suso
di retro a me che non era più tale.
Non ti dovea gravar le penne in giuso,
ad aspettar più colpo, o pargoletta
o altra novità con sì breve uso.
Novo augelletto due o tre aspetta;
ma dinanzi da li occhi d'i pennuti
rete si spiega indarno o si saetta.”
Quali fanciulli, vergognando, muti
con li occhi a terra stannosi, ascoltando
e sé riconoscendo e ripentuti,
tal mi stav' io; ed ella disse: “Quando
per udir se' dolente, alza la barba,
e prenderai più doglia riguardando.”
Con men di resistenza si dibarba
robusto cerro, o vero al nostral vento
o vero a quel de la terra di Iarba,
ch'io non levai al suo comando il mento;
e quando per la barba il viso chiese,
ben conobbi il velen de l'argomento.
E come la mia faccia si distese,
posarsi quelle prime creature
da loro aspersïon l'occhio comprese;
e le mie luci, ancor poco sicure,
vider Beatrice volta in su la fiera
ch'è sola una persona in due nature.
Sotto 'l suo velo e oltre la rivera
vincer pariemi più sé stessa antica,
vincer che l'altre qui, quand' ella c'era.
Di penter sì mi punse ivi l'ortica,
che di tutte altre cose qual mi torse
più nel suo amor, più mi si fé nemica.
Tanta riconoscenza il cor mi morse,
ch'io caddi vinto; e quale allora femmi,
salsi colei che la cagion mi porse.
Poi, quando il cor virtù di fuor rendemmi,
la donna ch'io avea trovata sola
sopra me vidi, e dicea: “Tiemmi, tiemmi!”
Tratto m'avea nel fiume infin la gola,
e tirandosi me dietro sen giva
sovresso l'acqua lieve come scola.
Quando fui presso a la beata riva,
“Asperges me” sì dolcemente udissi,
che nol so rimembrar, non ch'io lo scriva.
La bella donna ne le braccia aprissi;
abbracciommi la testa e mi sommerse
ove convenne ch'io l'acqua inghiottissi.
Indi mi tolse, e bagnato m'offerse
dentro a la danza de le quattro belle;
e ciascuna del braccio mi coperse.
“Noi siam qui ninfe e nel ciel siamo stelle;
pria che Beatrice discendesse al mondo,
fummo ordinate a lei per sue ancelle.
Merrenti a li occhi suoi; ma nel giocondo
lume ch'è dentro aguzzeranno i tuoi
le tre di là, che miran più profondo.”
Così cantando cominciaro; e poi
al petto del grifon seco menarmi,
ove Beatrice stava volta a noi.
Disser: “Fa che le viste non risparmi;
posto t'avem dinanzi a li smeraldi
ond' Amor già ti trasse le sue armi.”
Mille disiri più che fiamma caldi
strinsermi li occhi a li occhi rilucenti,
che pur sopra 'l grifone stavan saldi.
Come in lo specchio il sol, non altrimenti
la doppia fiera dentro vi raggiava,
or con altri, or con altri reggimenti.
Pensa, lettor, s'io mi maravigliava,
quando vedea la cosa in sé star queta,
e ne l'idolo suo si trasmutava.
Mentre che piena di stupore e lieta
l'anima mia gustava di quel cibo
che, saziando di sé, di sé asseta,
sé dimostrando di più alto tribo
ne li atti, l'altre tre si fero avanti,
danzando al loro angelico caribo.
“Volgi, Beatrice, volgi li occhi santi,”
era la sua canzone, “al tuo fedele
che, per vederti, ha mossi passi tanti!
Per grazia fa noi grazia che disvele
a lui la bocca tua, sì che discerna
la seconda bellezza che tu cele.”
O isplendor di viva luce etterna,
chi palido si fece sotto l'ombra
sì di Parnaso, o bevve in sua cisterna,
che non paresse aver la mente ingombra,
tentando a render te qual tu paresti
là dove armonizzando il ciel t'adombra,
quando ne l'aere aperto ti solvesti?
"O thou who art beyond the sacred river,"
Turning to me the point of her discourse,
That edgewise even had seemed to me so keen,
She recommenced, continuing without pause,
"Say, say if this be true; to such a charge,
Thy own confession needs must be conjoined."
My faculties were in so great confusion,
That the voice moved, but sooner was extinct
Than by its organs it was set at large.
Awhile she waited; then she said: "What thinkest?
Answer me; for the mournful memories
In thee not yet are by the waters injured."
Confusion and dismay together mingled
Forced such a Yes! from out my mouth, that sight
Was needful to the understanding of it.
Even as a cross-bow breaks, when 'tis discharged
Too tensely drawn the bowstring and the bow,
And with less force the arrow hits the mark,
So I gave way beneath that heavy burden,
Outpouring in a torrent tears and sighs,
And the voice flagged upon its passage forth.
Whence she to me: "In those desires of mine
Which led thee to the loving of that good,
Beyond which there is nothing to aspire to,
What trenches lying traverse or what chains
Didst thou discover, that of passing onward
Thou shouldst have thus despoiled thee of the hope?
And what allurements or what vantages
Upon the forehead of the others showed,
That thou shouldst turn thy footsteps unto them?"
After the heaving of a bitter sigh,
Hardly had I the voice to make response,
And with fatigue my lips did fashion it.
Weeping I said: "The things that present were
With their false pleasure turned aside my steps,
Soon as your countenance concealed itself."
And she: "Shouldst thou be silent, or deny
What thou confessest, not less manifest
Would be thy fault, by such a Judge 'tis known.
But when from one's own cheeks comes bursting forth
The accusal of the sin, in our tribunal
Against the edge the wheel doth turn itself.
But still, that thou mayst feel a greater shame
For thy transgression, and another time
Hearing the Sirens thou mayst be more strong,
Cast down the seed of weeping and attend;
So shalt thou hear, how in an opposite way
My buried flesh should have directed thee.
Never to thee presented art or nature
Pleasure so great as the fair limbs wherein
I was enclosed, which scattered are in earth.
And if the highest pleasure thus did fail thee
By reason of my death, what mortal thing
Should then have drawn thee into its desire?
Thou oughtest verily at the first shaft
Of things fallacious to have risen up
To follow me, who was no longer such.
Thou oughtest not to have stooped thy pinions downward
To wait for further blows, or little girl,
Or other vanity of such brief use.
The callow birdlet waits for two or three,
But to the eyes of those already fledged,
In vain the net is spread or shaft is shot."
Even as children silent in their shame
Stand listening with their eyes upon the ground,
And conscious of their fault, and penitent;
So was I standing; and she said: "If thou
In hearing sufferest pain, lift up thy beard
And thou shalt feel a greater pain in seeing."
With less resistance is a robust holm
Uprooted, either by a native wind
Or else by that from regions of Iarbas,
Than I upraised at her command my chin;
And when she by the beard the face demanded,
Well I perceived the venom of her meaning.
And as my countenance was lifted up,
Mine eye perceived those creatures beautiful
Had rested from the strewing of the flowers;
And, still but little reassured, mine eyes
Saw Beatrice turned round towards the monster,
That is one person only in two natures.
Beneath her veil, beyond the margent green,
She seemed to me far more her ancient self
To excel, than others here, when she was here.
So pricked me then the thorn of penitence,
That of all other things the one which turned me
Most to its love became the most my foe.
Such self-conviction stung me at the heart
O'erpowered I fell, and what I then became
She knoweth who had furnished me the cause.
Then, when the heart restored my outward sense,
The lady I had found alone, above me
I saw, and she was saying, "Hold me, hold me."
Up to my throat she in the stream had drawn me,
And, dragging me behind her, she was moving
Upon the water lightly as a shuttle.
When I was near unto the blessed shore,
"Asperges me," I heard so sweetly sung,
Remember it I cannot, much less write it.
The beautiful lady opened wide her arms,
Embraced my head, and plunged me underneath,
Where I was forced to swallow of the water.
Then forth she drew me, and all dripping brought
Into the dance of the four beautiful,
And each one with her arm did cover me.
'We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars;
Ere Beatrice descended to the world,
We as her handmaids were appointed her.
We'll lead thee to her eyes; but for the pleasant
Light that within them is, shall sharpen thine
The three beyond, who more profoundly look.'
Thus singing they began; and afterwards
Unto the Griffin's breast they led me with them,
Where Beatrice was standing, turned towards us.
"See that thou dost not spare thine eyes," they said;
"Before the emeralds have we stationed thee,
Whence Love aforetime drew for thee his weapons."
A thousand longings, hotter than the flame,
Fastened mine eyes upon those eyes relucent,
That still upon the Griffin steadfast stayed.
As in a glass the sun, not otherwise
Within them was the twofold monster shining,
Now with the one, now with the other nature.
Think, Reader, if within myself I marvelled,
When I beheld the thing itself stand still,
And in its image it transformed itself.
While with amazement filled and jubilant,
My soul was tasting of the food, that while
It satisfies us makes us hunger for it,
Themselves revealing of the highest rank
In bearing, did the other three advance,
Singing to their angelic saraband.
"Turn, Beatrice, O turn thy holy eyes,"
Such was their song, "unto thy faithful one,
Who has to see thee ta'en so many steps.
In grace do us the grace that thou unveil
Thy face to him, so that he may discern
The second beauty which thou dost conceal."
O splendour of the living light eternal!
Who underneath the shadow of Parnassus
Has grown so pale, or drunk so at its cistern,
He would not seem to have his mind encumbered
Striving to paint thee as thou didst appear,
Where the harmonious heaven o'ershadowed thee,
When in the open air thou didst unveil?
Beatrice's words, perhaps reminiscent of Virgil's to the cowering, hiding Dante in Inferno XXI.88-90, call his (and our) attention to the fact that he has not yet crossed Lethe, i.e., he still has his sins in mind, as will be hammered home by vv. 11-12. For the similar formal arrangements of the beginnings and endings of all the cantos dedicated to the earthly paradise see Bruno Porcelli (“Progressione e simmetria di Purgatorio XXVII-XXXIII,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 35 [1987], pp. 141-55).
The metaphor of Beatrice's speech as a 'sword' picks up her earlier promise that Dante will weep for 'another sword' beside that of Virgil's departure (Purg. XXX.57). The lengthy speech that she had directed to the angels (Purg. XXX.103-145) was in fact aimed squarely at him, using the angels as her apparent primary auditors in such a way as to publicize his sins and thus shame the protagonist. In this sense, then, the point of her 'sword' had seemed aimed at them, while she wounded Dante (if painfully enough, as we have seen) with only the edge of the blade. Now he finds her sword pointing straight at his heart.
Chimenz (comm. to vv. 16-18) is perhaps the only commentator to fret over these angels; he cannot understand how they at first remained hidden from Dante and how so many of them could occupy so small a chariot (an unconscious resuscitation of the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin problem or, perhaps, of the crowded condition of that stateroom in the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera). Most commentators quite naturally assume that they descended from the Empyrean. (None does so more clearly than Singleton, who is at least clear in voicing this opinion [comm. to vv. 13-18].) We, however, are not told this. Further, their eventual removal from the scene is never dealt with, at least not directly (see the note to vv. 77-78). All we can say is that they either mount up with the rest of the Church Triumphant (Purg. XXXII.89-90) or, since their coming was so mysterious, that they simply vanish. Either of two answers would, therefore, on the basis of the evidence in the poem, be consistent.
Beatrice calls for Dante's confession with specific reference to the list of charges against him that she had leveled in the last canto (Purg. XXX.124-132).
Dante's fearful inability to speak with clarity may remind us of his similar difficulty as he was about to take his ride on Geryon's back (Inf. XVII.92-93).
Che pense? (What are you thinking?): Tommaseo was apparently the first to hear the resonance of Virgil's identical question to Francesca-dazzled Dante in Inferno V.111. Now see Lino Pertile (“Purgatorio XXVI,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings II: “Purgatorio,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis (virginiana), 12, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1993]), p. 389.
It is perhaps not coincidental that Dante's first two guides, in scenes that are confessional in nature, both prod him to consider the conflicting natures of lust and charity with the same question.
Dante's attempt to discharge the dart of his speech from the crossbow that collapses under the tension of his situation produces a more audible emission of tears and sighs than of true confessions, which he can barely whisper.
Perhaps nowhere before or after does the poet make the nature of the love the protagonist should have had for Beatrice clearer than here. His desire for her should have led him to God.
Beatrice, given Dante's muteness, rehashes the charges we had heard in the last canto (Purg. XXX.124-132), now substituting a fresh set of metaphors for those we found there (see the note to Purg. XXX.118-138). There we heard that after Beatrice's death (1) he gave himself to another (or 'to others'; the Italian altrui is ambiguous and may be singular or plural); (2) he chose a wrong path, 'pursuing false images of good.' Now he is presented first as warrior and then as lover. In the first tercet he is like a soldier (or an army) cut off from his pursuit of his goal by the defensive ditches or chains deployed by an enemy; in the second he is like a courting swain who parades before the house of the woman with whom he is infatuated. In the first case, once he loses his Beatrice he no longer advances toward God; in the second, he moves toward another and improper destination. He was turned by his love for the donna gentile, who, we may remember (VN XXXV.2), was seated at her window and looked pityingly at Dante, who then 'parades' before her a pair of sonnets (VN XXXV.15-18; XXXVI.14-15). If, in the Vita nuova, he finally returns to his love for Beatrice and is rewarded with a vision of her in the Empyrean, in Convivio he is writing about the donna gentile again, now as having finally displaced Beatrice in his affections. He had looked for consolation from this lady, he says, but he had instead found gold (Conv. II.xii.5).
For this writer's view of this complex matter see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 159-69.
Here begins Dante's confession. Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), p. 62, rightly observes (as, for instance, Singleton [comm. to verse 6] does not) that the confession will be followed by his contrition and then by his giving satisfaction. These three elements in the rite of confession, in that perhaps puzzling order, occupy the first 102 verses of this canto, with first confession and then contrition, occupying vv. 31-90 (for the traditional order, see the note to Purg. IX.94-102). (It should be noted that the version of Mazzoni's lectura of this canto is that published as a separate fascicle in 1965; the version later published in the bound volume of the Lectura Dantis Scaligera [1967] is missing the first fifty or so pages of the 1965 printing.)
Finally Dante confesses, summarizing his transgressions as delight in false things set before him after Beatrice was dead. Exactly what these pleasures were is a question that greatly exercises Dante scholars. It does seem clear that they are presented in so vague and encompassing a way so as to allow two primary interpretations, that is, both carnal and intellectual divagations from the love he owed God, awakened in him by Beatrice.
Dante's first words to Beatrice set a pattern that will not be broken until Paradiso XXXI.80: Dante addresses her with the honorific voi. See the note to Purgatorio XIX.131.
Beatrice accepts his confession. That word has already been used at verse 6, underlining the precise nature of what is happening here (words for 'confession' only occur three times in Purgatorio, where we might expect them to be more common, twice in this canto). We may remember that Dante himself had twice served in the role of confessor in Inferno, first with Francesca (Inf. V.118-120 [and see the note to these verses]), then with Pope Nicholas III (Inf. XIX.49).
The reference to the Sirens draws us back to Purgatorio XIX.19-33, the dream of the Siren and (as at least a few interpreters agree) Beatrice's intervention in Dante's dream to have Virgil show him the ugliness of the object of his infatuation. See the note to Purgatorio XIX.31-33.
The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 43-47) is one of the very few commentators to think of Boethius's dismissal of the Sirens (who have so harmed him) in favor of the Muses of Lady Philosophy (Cons. I.i[pr]).
Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 46-48) was apparently the first to explain the strange phrase 'to sow tears' by referring to the Bible, Psalms 125:5 (126:5), 'those that sow in tears shall reap in joy.' Even so, Dante has made the Psalmist more difficult than he had in fact been: 'sowing tears' is not quite the same thing as 'sowing in tears' (i.e., planting seed while weeping).
Beatrice's phrasing offers a good example of the cause of the difficulty many have in interpreting her role in this poem. She tells Dante that her buried flesh should have led him elsewhere from where he elected to go (in this context, clearly other women [cosa mortale, 'mortal thing']). This is not because she was more beautiful in her fleshly being than they, but because she offered him what they did and could not, 'il sommo piacer' (the highest beauty). The verbal noun piacer is used only once in the first half of the poem (it describes Paolo's physical attractiveness at Inf. V.104). When it is found again (at Purg. XVIII.21), it then occurs thirty-four times in the second half, twenty-one of these in Paradiso. It is often used to denote the highest beauty of all, that of God. The word is used three times in this canto (vv. 35, 50, 52), its densest presence in the Comedy. The false beauty of Beatrice's rivals (verse 35) should have been countered by the highest beauty that he had found in her. The phrase 'sommo piacer' was traditionally interpreted as referring to Beatrice as the most beautiful of all mortals. I.e., Dante's failure was in chasing after women who were not as beautiful as she was. This disastrous interpretation, undermined by the very antithesis present in Beatrice's formulations, sommo piacer / cosa mortale, which polarizes divine and human beauty, was intelligently dismissed in Mazzoni's gloss (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 67-72. Mazzoni demonstrates that Dante is relying upon the Victorine tradition that discussed the beauty of God, even as it was manifest in individual human beings, the summa pulchritudo (highest beauty) in the phrase of Hugh of St. Victor (p. 68). (For a study of Dante's ideas about beauty see John Took [“L'etterno piacer”: Aesthetic Ideas in Dante (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) ].)
Beatrice's next instalment drives the point home, again separating the spiritual from the physical – if readers tend to fail to notice what she has done. The 'deceitful' things of this world are distinguished from those of the next in that Beatrice tells Dante that, once she was no longer associated with this world, his affection should have followed her upward.
We are given yet another (now the third) version of Dante's sins after Beatrice's death (see the note to vv. 25-20). Instead of flying up after dead Beatrice's spirit, the wings of his affection drooped down to earth in search of a pargoletta (young girl) – the sexual note is struck again – or 'other novelty of such brief use,' a phrasing that would again allow the understanding that Dante's divagation also involved some sort of intellectual experiment that now seems without eventual value. See Sara Sturm-Maddox (“The Rime Petrose and the Purgatorial Palinode,” Studies in Philology 84 [1987], pp. 119-33) for the word pargoletta (young girl) as a key to Dante's retraction of the sexual love he so frankly displayed in his rime petrose (stony rhymes), where he refers (Rime C.72) to a marble-hearted young girl. It is also true that Dante wrote at least two still earlier poems about a pargoletta. See Rime LXXXVII.1 and LXXXIX.2.
See Proverbs 1:17, 'Frustra autem iacitur rete ante oculos pennatorum' (In vain is the net cast forth before the eyes of full-fledged birds). (The citation was first observed by Pietro di Dante [Pietro1, comm. to vv. 61-63]). Dante, as grown up 'bird,' should have been able to avoid capture by his huntress(es). Poletto (comm. to vv. 61-63) noted another citation of this text in Dante's Epistola VI.21, also cited by Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), p. 72.
Understandably, Dante is now compared, in simile, not to a mature man, who should have known better, but to a naughty boy.
Continuing the motif introduced in the preceding simile, this verse has had the effect of convincing some readers that the usual portraits and busts of Dante are all incorrect in showing him as clean-shaven. However, all that is probably meant is that he was old enough to know better because he was old enough to shave. In the same vein, some have argued that Beatrice only indicates Dante's chin (mento, referred to in verse 73). Even so, his chin is 'bearded' if he has to shave it. For a brief and cogent review of the argument, see Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 73-74. And for a hypothetical meditation on the iconographic valence of Dante's beardedness that essentially bypasses the issue that attracts most readers (and which involves an astonishingly large bibliography) – whether Dante meant us to understand that his face was bearded or not – see R.A. Shoaf (“Dante's Beard: Sic et non [Purgatorio 31.68],” in Magister Regis: Studies in Honor of Robert E. Kaske, ed. Arthur Groos and others [New York: Fordham University Press, 1986], pp.171-77).
The formal 'classical' simile is clear in its intent: Dante, for all the reticence of his contrition, is finally won over. Its resonance, however, is subtle and not observed in the commentary tradition. R.A. Shoaf (“Dante's Beard: Sic et non [Purgatorio 31.68],” in Magister Regis: Studies in Honor of Robert E. Kaske, ed. Arthur Groos and others [New York: Fordham University Press, 1986], pp. 176-77, decodes the passage well. He points out that Aeneid IV.196-278 presents Iarbas's appeal to Jupiter to intervene on his behalf in his suit for widow Dido's hand, an appeal that results in Mercury's coming to Aeneas to spur him to his Italian voyage. The simile that gives birth to this one is found, Shoaf continues, at Aeneid IV.441-449, when Aeneas is compared to a deeply rooted oak tree buffeted by north winds when Dido makes her last-ditch appeal to him to stay with her in Carthage. In the end, he remains strong enough in his new resolve to deny her request and set sail. Here, the 'new Aeneas,' buffeted by the south wind, gives over his stubborn recalcitrance and accedes to the insistent demand of Beatrice, a new and better Dido, that he express his contrition. Where it was good for Aeneas to resist the entreaties of his woman, it is also good for Dante to yield to Beatrice's.
Since Beatrice's hundred angels are not referred to directly again, we can only conclude that, after this last act of theirs, they disappear, either into thin air or else to fly back up to the Empyrean, along with the rest of the Church Triumphant (see Purg. XXXII.89-90). While the text guarantees no solution, the second hypothesis seems the better one, if only because we have no reason to exempt them from the general exodus that occurs at that point, even if their arrival is not clearly accounted for (see the notes to Purg. XXX.16-18 and XXXII.89-90).
The phrasing 'one person in two natures' makes it difficult to accept the arguments of those who believe the griffin is not a symbol of Christ.
The word velo (veil) reminds us that the climactic moment of an unveiling still lies before us. See the note to Purgatorio XXX.66.
The climax of Dante's contrition is performed as a fainting fit. He is now ready to perform his act of satisfaction, forgetting all his divagations, canceling them from his memory.
Dante's immersion in Lethe, supervised by Matelda, marks his final satisfaction of his confessor's demands on him. As we will see (Purg. XXXIII.91-99), his forgetting that he ever transgressed against Beatrice's instruction will be used by her as proof that he had indeed done so. Here we understand that the act of forgetting is an act of atonement, and is rewarded with absolution, indicated by the Latin song he hears as he completes his crossing of Lethe.
As for Dante's drinking of the waters, it has a Virgilian source, according to Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to vv. 94-102) and, among the moderns, Mattalia (comm. to verse 102): in Lethe's waters the souls 'longa oblivia potant' (drink in long forgetfulness [Aen. VI.715]). As we shall see at Eunoe (Purg. XXXIII.138), the ingestion of the waters of these two rivers is essential to the accomplishment of (here) leaving one's sins in oblivion and (there) securing in memory all the good things accomplished in one's mortal life.
Does Statius also drink of these waters? And does Matelda have oversight for his crossing of Lethe as well as Dante's? See the note to Purgatorio XXXIII.128-135.
The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 97-99) identifies the phrase 'Asperges me...' (Purge me [with hyssop, that I may be purified; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow]) as deriving from 'the penitential Psalm' (50:9 [51:7]) and goes on to report that the phrase is repeated in the rite of absolution when the priest blesses the confessed sinner with holy water. We have less certain information about who it is that sings the words. Among those commentators who venture an opinion, most assume it is the angels who sing, but it could be the (still unnamed) Matelda (as Porena [comm. to verse 98] admits, even though he prefers the angels). Since the angels have served as singers before (Purg. XXX.19, XXX.21, XXX.83-84), the most reasonable hypothesis seems to be that it is they who sing now, as well.
Massimiliano Chiamenti's reading of vv. 92-96 (“Corollario oitanico al canto ventottesimo del Purgatorio,” Medioevo e rinascimento 13 [1999]), p. 211n., would seem to suggest that the contact here between Matelda and Dante is of a sexual nature, a reading that does not exactly command immediate assent.
The four nymphs represent the four cardinal virtues (Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude) in their primal form, i.e., as they were infused in Adam and Eve (and not acquired, as they have had to be ever after). 'God created the first humans, and no others, in this state. They are 'nymphs' in that, like some classical nymphs, they inhabit a woodland landscape (Lombardi [comm. to verse 106]). The stars they are in heaven are probably (there is debate about this) identical with those we saw in Purgatorio I.23 (also referred to in I.37-39 and VIII.91), irradiating the face of Cato with their light. Dante thus seems to suggest that both Cato and Beatrice are of such special virtue that it seems that original sin did not affect them – a notion that could only be advanced in the sort of suggestive logic possible in poetry, for it is simply heretical. Dante never did say (or would have said) such a thing in prose.
The exact sense in which they served as the handmaids of Beatrice before she lived on earth is less easily determined. For two similar views of the problem see Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 159-183, and Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 82-86. Both of them link the infused cardinal virtues to Beatrice's special role on earth, reflected in such passages as Inferno II.76-78, where she is addressed by Virgil as 'donna di virtù' (lady of such virtue that by it alone / the human race surpasses all that lies / within the smallest compass of the heavens).
Botticelli-like (as in his Primavera, surely shaped by this scene), the four dancing maidens make a composite sign of the cross with their upraised arms, which join over Dante's head. All redeemed sinners leave the garden of Eden on their way to glory in the moral condition that marked the creation of the first humans, before the Fall: primal innocence.
The four cardinal virtues, representing the active life, insist that, while they are able to escort Dante to the eyes of Beatrice, their sister virtues, the theological three, at the right wheel of the chariot, are more appropriate presences to prepare Dante's vision for that moment.
Beatrice has moved down from the chariot, from its left side, where she was looking at Dante across the stream (Purg. XXX.61 and 100), to, now that he has crossed it, a point in front of the chariot and of the griffin that draws it, so as to confront Dante.
The four virtues prepare Dante to do something that will become, very quickly, the standard way of learning for the protagonist in this new Beatricean realm of the poem: gaze into her mirroring eyes. As Bosco/Reggio (comm. to these verses) explain, 'In medieval lapidaries the emerald symbolized, in addition to chastity, justice. Further, in a passage of Brunetto Latini's Tresor (III.xiii.16), Dante's direct source, green eyes (of an emerald color) were considered an attribute of feminine beauty. It should be added, finally, that the emerald functioned as a mirror, and the eyes of Beatrice will be compared precisely to a mirror (vv. 119-122). This new interpretation has been put forward by V. Bertolucci Pizzorusso, in Studi mediolatini e volgari 17 (1969).'
The word reggimenti (regiments, governments, regimes [in modern Italian]) would seem to give aid and comfort to those who have argued that this passage makes it difficult to argue for the traditional interpretation of the griffin as Christ. However, beginning with Venturi (comm. to this verse), commentators have understood that here the word is synonymous with atteggiamento (in the sense of bearing, self-presentation). Daniello (comm. to vv. 118-123) had previously understood the word as indicating that the griffin behaved 'now as man, now as God.'
Dante's sixth address to his readers in Purgatorio asks that we share his wonder (see the note to Inferno VIII.94-96). The griffin himself is constant in his appearance, while his reflection in Beatrice's eyes, revealing his truer aspect, reflects, in turn, his divine and human natures. The word idolo, a hapax, derives, according to Bosco/Reggio (comm. to verse 126), from the discussion of the idols of the pagan gods found in Isidore of Seville (Etym. VIII.xi.13).
Stupore (amazement, wonder) is again Dante's condition, now for the marvelous nature of his simultaneous perception of God's two natures. See the note to Purgatorio XXX.34-36.
Once again Scartazzini is the first commentator to find the likely citation behind Dante's words and to be followed, always without acknowledgment, by any number of twentieth-century discussants of the passage: Wisdom speaks in Ecclesiasticus 24:29: 'He who eats of me will hunger again, who drinks of me will thirst again.' That the speaker in this passage is Wisdom, the second person of the Trinity in Christian eyes, pleases Singleton (comm. to these verses), who had argued earlier for the close relationship between Beatrice and Christ as Sapience (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 122-34.
The 'other three' are obviously the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, equally obviously of higher 'rank' than the older classical cardinal virtues.
The word caribo has had extensive discussion among Dantists. Most currently agree that it indicates a particular dance, even if not an identifiable one. For extensive bibliography see Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 89-91.
The three theological virtues sing their appeal to Beatrice, requesting that she unveil her mouth. The moment recalls an experience recorded in Convivio. 'Here it is necessary to know that the eyes of wisdom are her demonstrations, by which truth is seen with the greatest certainty, and her smiles are her persuasions, in which the inner light of wisdom [Sapienza] is revealed behind a kind of veil; and in each of them is felt the highest joy of blessedness, which is the greatest good of paradise. This joy cannot be found in anything here below except by looking into [her] eyes and upon her smile' (Conv. III.xv.2-3, tr. Lansing). It is important to know that these words are directed to another lady, also known as Wisdom, in the Convivio, namely the Lady Philosophy, the one who came as the replacement for the then supposedly less worthy Beatrice. That Dante clearly revisits that passage from Convivio here is a fairly common belief among current discussants of this one. Only a few (e.g., Mazzoni [“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera (Florence: Le Monnier, 1965)], pp. 90-95; Giacalone [comm. to vv. 136-138]), however, realize that Dante wants to separate the sort of affection he felt for the lady he celebrated in Convivio then from that which he feels for the lady he celebrates here and now. Further, the allegory operative then (eyes as demonstrations, mouth as persuasions, of the abstraction philosophy) is nowhere evident here, where we now find only the smile unveiled. In her eyes Dante has just now seen what he can currently understand of Christ's two natures; in her smile he perceives that he is loved with the etterno piacer (eternal beauty – Purg. XXIX.32) that is reflected from her lips.
The seconda bellezza (second beauty) of Beatrice also may remind the reader of the 'corollary' or extra gift that Matelda bestowed upon the three poets at the end of Purgatorio XXVIII.136.
The luce etterna (eternal living light) that is God has its etterno piacer (eternal beauty) reflected in Beatrice, her loveliness the mirror of the beauty of God. This direct address of Beatrice's smile (which seems – intentionally, we must believe – to be represented as an object illuminated fully by God's light) sounds so much like an invocation that it apparently fooled at least one reader into taking it as one. See Marina De Fazio (“Purgatorio XXIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings II: “Purgatorio,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis (virginiana), 12, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1993]), p. 434.
This passage is reminiscent of that in Purgatorio XXVIII.139-148, the description of the smiles of recognition on the part of Virgil and of Statius when they discover that Eden represents the true Golden Age. No pagan poet, no matter how deeply inspired by drinking of the Castalian spring on Parnassus, could have written of the meaning of his vision of the Golden Age in a way that could come near to equaling what this Christian poet (by virtue of his faith, not of his talent), having now drunk of Lethe, can tell of God's love in making His first human creature innocent and allowing His creature a chance to regain that lost innocence, which is what Dante has been allowed to accomplish here, while still in the flesh, and what he will finally accomplish after his death.
The pronoun te (the second person singular of 'you') is jarring, in that we have already learned that Beatrice is to be addressed by Dante with the honorific voi (at verse 36). It takes us a moment to realize that it is not Beatrice whom he apostrophizes here, but her smile.
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“O tu che se' di là dal fiume sacro,”
volgendo suo parlare a me per punta,
che pur per taglio m'era paruto acro,
ricominciò, seguendo sanza cunta,
“dì, dì se questo è vero; a tanta accusa
tua confession conviene esser congiunta.”
Era la mia virtù tanto confusa,
che la voce si mosse, e pria si spense
che da li organi suoi fosse dischiusa.
Poco sofferse; poi disse: “Che pense?
Rispondi a me; ché le memorie triste
in te non sono ancor da l'acqua offense.”
Confusione e paura insieme miste
mi pinsero un tal “sì” fuor de la bocca,
al quale intender fuor mestier le viste.
Come balestro frange, quando scocca
da troppa tesa, la sua corda e l'arco,
e con men foga l'asta il segno tocca,
sì scoppia' io sottesso grave carco,
fuori sgorgando lagrime e sospiri,
e la voce allentò per lo suo varco.
Ond' ella a me: “Per entro i mie' disiri,
che ti menavano ad amar lo bene
di là dal qual non è a che s'aspiri
quai fossi attraversati o quai catene
trovasti, per che del passare innanzi
dovessiti così spogliar la spene?
E quali agevolezze o quali avanzi
ne la fronte de li altri si mostraro,
per che dovessi lor passeggiare anzi?”
Dopo la tratta d'un sospiro amaro,
a pena ebbi la voce che rispuose,
e le labbra a fatica la formaro.
Piangendo dissi: “Le presenti cose
col falso lor piacer volser miei passi,
tosto che 'l vostro viso si nascose.”
Ed ella: “Se tacessi o se negassi
ciò che confessi, non fora men nota
la colpa tua: da tal giudice sassi!
Ma quando scoppia de la propria gota
l'accusa del peccato, in nostra corte
rivolge sé contra 'l taglio la rota.
Tuttavia, perché mo vergogna porte
del tuo errore, e perché altra volta,
udendo le serene, sie più forte,
pon giù il seme del piangere e ascolta:
sì udirai come in contraria parte
mover dovieti mia carne sepolta.
Mai non t'appresentò natura o arte
piacer, quanto le belle membra in ch'io
rinchiusa fui, e che so' 'n terra sparte;
e se 'l sommo piacer sì ti fallio
per la mia morte, qual cosa mortale
dovea poi trarre te nel suo disio?
Ben ti dovevi, per lo primo strale
de le cose fallaci, levar suso
di retro a me che non era più tale.
Non ti dovea gravar le penne in giuso,
ad aspettar più colpo, o pargoletta
o altra novità con sì breve uso.
Novo augelletto due o tre aspetta;
ma dinanzi da li occhi d'i pennuti
rete si spiega indarno o si saetta.”
Quali fanciulli, vergognando, muti
con li occhi a terra stannosi, ascoltando
e sé riconoscendo e ripentuti,
tal mi stav' io; ed ella disse: “Quando
per udir se' dolente, alza la barba,
e prenderai più doglia riguardando.”
Con men di resistenza si dibarba
robusto cerro, o vero al nostral vento
o vero a quel de la terra di Iarba,
ch'io non levai al suo comando il mento;
e quando per la barba il viso chiese,
ben conobbi il velen de l'argomento.
E come la mia faccia si distese,
posarsi quelle prime creature
da loro aspersïon l'occhio comprese;
e le mie luci, ancor poco sicure,
vider Beatrice volta in su la fiera
ch'è sola una persona in due nature.
Sotto 'l suo velo e oltre la rivera
vincer pariemi più sé stessa antica,
vincer che l'altre qui, quand' ella c'era.
Di penter sì mi punse ivi l'ortica,
che di tutte altre cose qual mi torse
più nel suo amor, più mi si fé nemica.
Tanta riconoscenza il cor mi morse,
ch'io caddi vinto; e quale allora femmi,
salsi colei che la cagion mi porse.
Poi, quando il cor virtù di fuor rendemmi,
la donna ch'io avea trovata sola
sopra me vidi, e dicea: “Tiemmi, tiemmi!”
Tratto m'avea nel fiume infin la gola,
e tirandosi me dietro sen giva
sovresso l'acqua lieve come scola.
Quando fui presso a la beata riva,
“Asperges me” sì dolcemente udissi,
che nol so rimembrar, non ch'io lo scriva.
La bella donna ne le braccia aprissi;
abbracciommi la testa e mi sommerse
ove convenne ch'io l'acqua inghiottissi.
Indi mi tolse, e bagnato m'offerse
dentro a la danza de le quattro belle;
e ciascuna del braccio mi coperse.
“Noi siam qui ninfe e nel ciel siamo stelle;
pria che Beatrice discendesse al mondo,
fummo ordinate a lei per sue ancelle.
Merrenti a li occhi suoi; ma nel giocondo
lume ch'è dentro aguzzeranno i tuoi
le tre di là, che miran più profondo.”
Così cantando cominciaro; e poi
al petto del grifon seco menarmi,
ove Beatrice stava volta a noi.
Disser: “Fa che le viste non risparmi;
posto t'avem dinanzi a li smeraldi
ond' Amor già ti trasse le sue armi.”
Mille disiri più che fiamma caldi
strinsermi li occhi a li occhi rilucenti,
che pur sopra 'l grifone stavan saldi.
Come in lo specchio il sol, non altrimenti
la doppia fiera dentro vi raggiava,
or con altri, or con altri reggimenti.
Pensa, lettor, s'io mi maravigliava,
quando vedea la cosa in sé star queta,
e ne l'idolo suo si trasmutava.
Mentre che piena di stupore e lieta
l'anima mia gustava di quel cibo
che, saziando di sé, di sé asseta,
sé dimostrando di più alto tribo
ne li atti, l'altre tre si fero avanti,
danzando al loro angelico caribo.
“Volgi, Beatrice, volgi li occhi santi,”
era la sua canzone, “al tuo fedele
che, per vederti, ha mossi passi tanti!
Per grazia fa noi grazia che disvele
a lui la bocca tua, sì che discerna
la seconda bellezza che tu cele.”
O isplendor di viva luce etterna,
chi palido si fece sotto l'ombra
sì di Parnaso, o bevve in sua cisterna,
che non paresse aver la mente ingombra,
tentando a render te qual tu paresti
là dove armonizzando il ciel t'adombra,
quando ne l'aere aperto ti solvesti?
"O thou who art beyond the sacred river,"
Turning to me the point of her discourse,
That edgewise even had seemed to me so keen,
She recommenced, continuing without pause,
"Say, say if this be true; to such a charge,
Thy own confession needs must be conjoined."
My faculties were in so great confusion,
That the voice moved, but sooner was extinct
Than by its organs it was set at large.
Awhile she waited; then she said: "What thinkest?
Answer me; for the mournful memories
In thee not yet are by the waters injured."
Confusion and dismay together mingled
Forced such a Yes! from out my mouth, that sight
Was needful to the understanding of it.
Even as a cross-bow breaks, when 'tis discharged
Too tensely drawn the bowstring and the bow,
And with less force the arrow hits the mark,
So I gave way beneath that heavy burden,
Outpouring in a torrent tears and sighs,
And the voice flagged upon its passage forth.
Whence she to me: "In those desires of mine
Which led thee to the loving of that good,
Beyond which there is nothing to aspire to,
What trenches lying traverse or what chains
Didst thou discover, that of passing onward
Thou shouldst have thus despoiled thee of the hope?
And what allurements or what vantages
Upon the forehead of the others showed,
That thou shouldst turn thy footsteps unto them?"
After the heaving of a bitter sigh,
Hardly had I the voice to make response,
And with fatigue my lips did fashion it.
Weeping I said: "The things that present were
With their false pleasure turned aside my steps,
Soon as your countenance concealed itself."
And she: "Shouldst thou be silent, or deny
What thou confessest, not less manifest
Would be thy fault, by such a Judge 'tis known.
But when from one's own cheeks comes bursting forth
The accusal of the sin, in our tribunal
Against the edge the wheel doth turn itself.
But still, that thou mayst feel a greater shame
For thy transgression, and another time
Hearing the Sirens thou mayst be more strong,
Cast down the seed of weeping and attend;
So shalt thou hear, how in an opposite way
My buried flesh should have directed thee.
Never to thee presented art or nature
Pleasure so great as the fair limbs wherein
I was enclosed, which scattered are in earth.
And if the highest pleasure thus did fail thee
By reason of my death, what mortal thing
Should then have drawn thee into its desire?
Thou oughtest verily at the first shaft
Of things fallacious to have risen up
To follow me, who was no longer such.
Thou oughtest not to have stooped thy pinions downward
To wait for further blows, or little girl,
Or other vanity of such brief use.
The callow birdlet waits for two or three,
But to the eyes of those already fledged,
In vain the net is spread or shaft is shot."
Even as children silent in their shame
Stand listening with their eyes upon the ground,
And conscious of their fault, and penitent;
So was I standing; and she said: "If thou
In hearing sufferest pain, lift up thy beard
And thou shalt feel a greater pain in seeing."
With less resistance is a robust holm
Uprooted, either by a native wind
Or else by that from regions of Iarbas,
Than I upraised at her command my chin;
And when she by the beard the face demanded,
Well I perceived the venom of her meaning.
And as my countenance was lifted up,
Mine eye perceived those creatures beautiful
Had rested from the strewing of the flowers;
And, still but little reassured, mine eyes
Saw Beatrice turned round towards the monster,
That is one person only in two natures.
Beneath her veil, beyond the margent green,
She seemed to me far more her ancient self
To excel, than others here, when she was here.
So pricked me then the thorn of penitence,
That of all other things the one which turned me
Most to its love became the most my foe.
Such self-conviction stung me at the heart
O'erpowered I fell, and what I then became
She knoweth who had furnished me the cause.
Then, when the heart restored my outward sense,
The lady I had found alone, above me
I saw, and she was saying, "Hold me, hold me."
Up to my throat she in the stream had drawn me,
And, dragging me behind her, she was moving
Upon the water lightly as a shuttle.
When I was near unto the blessed shore,
"Asperges me," I heard so sweetly sung,
Remember it I cannot, much less write it.
The beautiful lady opened wide her arms,
Embraced my head, and plunged me underneath,
Where I was forced to swallow of the water.
Then forth she drew me, and all dripping brought
Into the dance of the four beautiful,
And each one with her arm did cover me.
'We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars;
Ere Beatrice descended to the world,
We as her handmaids were appointed her.
We'll lead thee to her eyes; but for the pleasant
Light that within them is, shall sharpen thine
The three beyond, who more profoundly look.'
Thus singing they began; and afterwards
Unto the Griffin's breast they led me with them,
Where Beatrice was standing, turned towards us.
"See that thou dost not spare thine eyes," they said;
"Before the emeralds have we stationed thee,
Whence Love aforetime drew for thee his weapons."
A thousand longings, hotter than the flame,
Fastened mine eyes upon those eyes relucent,
That still upon the Griffin steadfast stayed.
As in a glass the sun, not otherwise
Within them was the twofold monster shining,
Now with the one, now with the other nature.
Think, Reader, if within myself I marvelled,
When I beheld the thing itself stand still,
And in its image it transformed itself.
While with amazement filled and jubilant,
My soul was tasting of the food, that while
It satisfies us makes us hunger for it,
Themselves revealing of the highest rank
In bearing, did the other three advance,
Singing to their angelic saraband.
"Turn, Beatrice, O turn thy holy eyes,"
Such was their song, "unto thy faithful one,
Who has to see thee ta'en so many steps.
In grace do us the grace that thou unveil
Thy face to him, so that he may discern
The second beauty which thou dost conceal."
O splendour of the living light eternal!
Who underneath the shadow of Parnassus
Has grown so pale, or drunk so at its cistern,
He would not seem to have his mind encumbered
Striving to paint thee as thou didst appear,
Where the harmonious heaven o'ershadowed thee,
When in the open air thou didst unveil?
Beatrice's words, perhaps reminiscent of Virgil's to the cowering, hiding Dante in Inferno XXI.88-90, call his (and our) attention to the fact that he has not yet crossed Lethe, i.e., he still has his sins in mind, as will be hammered home by vv. 11-12. For the similar formal arrangements of the beginnings and endings of all the cantos dedicated to the earthly paradise see Bruno Porcelli (“Progressione e simmetria di Purgatorio XXVII-XXXIII,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 35 [1987], pp. 141-55).
The metaphor of Beatrice's speech as a 'sword' picks up her earlier promise that Dante will weep for 'another sword' beside that of Virgil's departure (Purg. XXX.57). The lengthy speech that she had directed to the angels (Purg. XXX.103-145) was in fact aimed squarely at him, using the angels as her apparent primary auditors in such a way as to publicize his sins and thus shame the protagonist. In this sense, then, the point of her 'sword' had seemed aimed at them, while she wounded Dante (if painfully enough, as we have seen) with only the edge of the blade. Now he finds her sword pointing straight at his heart.
Chimenz (comm. to vv. 16-18) is perhaps the only commentator to fret over these angels; he cannot understand how they at first remained hidden from Dante and how so many of them could occupy so small a chariot (an unconscious resuscitation of the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin problem or, perhaps, of the crowded condition of that stateroom in the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera). Most commentators quite naturally assume that they descended from the Empyrean. (None does so more clearly than Singleton, who is at least clear in voicing this opinion [comm. to vv. 13-18].) We, however, are not told this. Further, their eventual removal from the scene is never dealt with, at least not directly (see the note to vv. 77-78). All we can say is that they either mount up with the rest of the Church Triumphant (Purg. XXXII.89-90) or, since their coming was so mysterious, that they simply vanish. Either of two answers would, therefore, on the basis of the evidence in the poem, be consistent.
Beatrice calls for Dante's confession with specific reference to the list of charges against him that she had leveled in the last canto (Purg. XXX.124-132).
Dante's fearful inability to speak with clarity may remind us of his similar difficulty as he was about to take his ride on Geryon's back (Inf. XVII.92-93).
Che pense? (What are you thinking?): Tommaseo was apparently the first to hear the resonance of Virgil's identical question to Francesca-dazzled Dante in Inferno V.111. Now see Lino Pertile (“Purgatorio XXVI,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings II: “Purgatorio,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis (virginiana), 12, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1993]), p. 389.
It is perhaps not coincidental that Dante's first two guides, in scenes that are confessional in nature, both prod him to consider the conflicting natures of lust and charity with the same question.
Dante's attempt to discharge the dart of his speech from the crossbow that collapses under the tension of his situation produces a more audible emission of tears and sighs than of true confessions, which he can barely whisper.
Perhaps nowhere before or after does the poet make the nature of the love the protagonist should have had for Beatrice clearer than here. His desire for her should have led him to God.
Beatrice, given Dante's muteness, rehashes the charges we had heard in the last canto (Purg. XXX.124-132), now substituting a fresh set of metaphors for those we found there (see the note to Purg. XXX.118-138). There we heard that after Beatrice's death (1) he gave himself to another (or 'to others'; the Italian altrui is ambiguous and may be singular or plural); (2) he chose a wrong path, 'pursuing false images of good.' Now he is presented first as warrior and then as lover. In the first tercet he is like a soldier (or an army) cut off from his pursuit of his goal by the defensive ditches or chains deployed by an enemy; in the second he is like a courting swain who parades before the house of the woman with whom he is infatuated. In the first case, once he loses his Beatrice he no longer advances toward God; in the second, he moves toward another and improper destination. He was turned by his love for the donna gentile, who, we may remember (VN XXXV.2), was seated at her window and looked pityingly at Dante, who then 'parades' before her a pair of sonnets (VN XXXV.15-18; XXXVI.14-15). If, in the Vita nuova, he finally returns to his love for Beatrice and is rewarded with a vision of her in the Empyrean, in Convivio he is writing about the donna gentile again, now as having finally displaced Beatrice in his affections. He had looked for consolation from this lady, he says, but he had instead found gold (Conv. II.xii.5).
For this writer's view of this complex matter see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 159-69.
Here begins Dante's confession. Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), p. 62, rightly observes (as, for instance, Singleton [comm. to verse 6] does not) that the confession will be followed by his contrition and then by his giving satisfaction. These three elements in the rite of confession, in that perhaps puzzling order, occupy the first 102 verses of this canto, with first confession and then contrition, occupying vv. 31-90 (for the traditional order, see the note to Purg. IX.94-102). (It should be noted that the version of Mazzoni's lectura of this canto is that published as a separate fascicle in 1965; the version later published in the bound volume of the Lectura Dantis Scaligera [1967] is missing the first fifty or so pages of the 1965 printing.)
Finally Dante confesses, summarizing his transgressions as delight in false things set before him after Beatrice was dead. Exactly what these pleasures were is a question that greatly exercises Dante scholars. It does seem clear that they are presented in so vague and encompassing a way so as to allow two primary interpretations, that is, both carnal and intellectual divagations from the love he owed God, awakened in him by Beatrice.
Dante's first words to Beatrice set a pattern that will not be broken until Paradiso XXXI.80: Dante addresses her with the honorific voi. See the note to Purgatorio XIX.131.
Beatrice accepts his confession. That word has already been used at verse 6, underlining the precise nature of what is happening here (words for 'confession' only occur three times in Purgatorio, where we might expect them to be more common, twice in this canto). We may remember that Dante himself had twice served in the role of confessor in Inferno, first with Francesca (Inf. V.118-120 [and see the note to these verses]), then with Pope Nicholas III (Inf. XIX.49).
The reference to the Sirens draws us back to Purgatorio XIX.19-33, the dream of the Siren and (as at least a few interpreters agree) Beatrice's intervention in Dante's dream to have Virgil show him the ugliness of the object of his infatuation. See the note to Purgatorio XIX.31-33.
The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 43-47) is one of the very few commentators to think of Boethius's dismissal of the Sirens (who have so harmed him) in favor of the Muses of Lady Philosophy (Cons. I.i[pr]).
Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 46-48) was apparently the first to explain the strange phrase 'to sow tears' by referring to the Bible, Psalms 125:5 (126:5), 'those that sow in tears shall reap in joy.' Even so, Dante has made the Psalmist more difficult than he had in fact been: 'sowing tears' is not quite the same thing as 'sowing in tears' (i.e., planting seed while weeping).
Beatrice's phrasing offers a good example of the cause of the difficulty many have in interpreting her role in this poem. She tells Dante that her buried flesh should have led him elsewhere from where he elected to go (in this context, clearly other women [cosa mortale, 'mortal thing']). This is not because she was more beautiful in her fleshly being than they, but because she offered him what they did and could not, 'il sommo piacer' (the highest beauty). The verbal noun piacer is used only once in the first half of the poem (it describes Paolo's physical attractiveness at Inf. V.104). When it is found again (at Purg. XVIII.21), it then occurs thirty-four times in the second half, twenty-one of these in Paradiso. It is often used to denote the highest beauty of all, that of God. The word is used three times in this canto (vv. 35, 50, 52), its densest presence in the Comedy. The false beauty of Beatrice's rivals (verse 35) should have been countered by the highest beauty that he had found in her. The phrase 'sommo piacer' was traditionally interpreted as referring to Beatrice as the most beautiful of all mortals. I.e., Dante's failure was in chasing after women who were not as beautiful as she was. This disastrous interpretation, undermined by the very antithesis present in Beatrice's formulations, sommo piacer / cosa mortale, which polarizes divine and human beauty, was intelligently dismissed in Mazzoni's gloss (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 67-72. Mazzoni demonstrates that Dante is relying upon the Victorine tradition that discussed the beauty of God, even as it was manifest in individual human beings, the summa pulchritudo (highest beauty) in the phrase of Hugh of St. Victor (p. 68). (For a study of Dante's ideas about beauty see John Took [“L'etterno piacer”: Aesthetic Ideas in Dante (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) ].)
Beatrice's next instalment drives the point home, again separating the spiritual from the physical – if readers tend to fail to notice what she has done. The 'deceitful' things of this world are distinguished from those of the next in that Beatrice tells Dante that, once she was no longer associated with this world, his affection should have followed her upward.
We are given yet another (now the third) version of Dante's sins after Beatrice's death (see the note to vv. 25-20). Instead of flying up after dead Beatrice's spirit, the wings of his affection drooped down to earth in search of a pargoletta (young girl) – the sexual note is struck again – or 'other novelty of such brief use,' a phrasing that would again allow the understanding that Dante's divagation also involved some sort of intellectual experiment that now seems without eventual value. See Sara Sturm-Maddox (“The Rime Petrose and the Purgatorial Palinode,” Studies in Philology 84 [1987], pp. 119-33) for the word pargoletta (young girl) as a key to Dante's retraction of the sexual love he so frankly displayed in his rime petrose (stony rhymes), where he refers (Rime C.72) to a marble-hearted young girl. It is also true that Dante wrote at least two still earlier poems about a pargoletta. See Rime LXXXVII.1 and LXXXIX.2.
See Proverbs 1:17, 'Frustra autem iacitur rete ante oculos pennatorum' (In vain is the net cast forth before the eyes of full-fledged birds). (The citation was first observed by Pietro di Dante [Pietro1, comm. to vv. 61-63]). Dante, as grown up 'bird,' should have been able to avoid capture by his huntress(es). Poletto (comm. to vv. 61-63) noted another citation of this text in Dante's Epistola VI.21, also cited by Mazzoni (“Saggio di un nuovo commento alla Divina Commedia: il Canto IV dell'Inferno,” Studi Danteschi 42 [1965]), p. 72.
Understandably, Dante is now compared, in simile, not to a mature man, who should have known better, but to a naughty boy.
Continuing the motif introduced in the preceding simile, this verse has had the effect of convincing some readers that the usual portraits and busts of Dante are all incorrect in showing him as clean-shaven. However, all that is probably meant is that he was old enough to know better because he was old enough to shave. In the same vein, some have argued that Beatrice only indicates Dante's chin (mento, referred to in verse 73). Even so, his chin is 'bearded' if he has to shave it. For a brief and cogent review of the argument, see Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 73-74. And for a hypothetical meditation on the iconographic valence of Dante's beardedness that essentially bypasses the issue that attracts most readers (and which involves an astonishingly large bibliography) – whether Dante meant us to understand that his face was bearded or not – see R.A. Shoaf (“Dante's Beard: Sic et non [Purgatorio 31.68],” in Magister Regis: Studies in Honor of Robert E. Kaske, ed. Arthur Groos and others [New York: Fordham University Press, 1986], pp.171-77).
The formal 'classical' simile is clear in its intent: Dante, for all the reticence of his contrition, is finally won over. Its resonance, however, is subtle and not observed in the commentary tradition. R.A. Shoaf (“Dante's Beard: Sic et non [Purgatorio 31.68],” in Magister Regis: Studies in Honor of Robert E. Kaske, ed. Arthur Groos and others [New York: Fordham University Press, 1986], pp. 176-77, decodes the passage well. He points out that Aeneid IV.196-278 presents Iarbas's appeal to Jupiter to intervene on his behalf in his suit for widow Dido's hand, an appeal that results in Mercury's coming to Aeneas to spur him to his Italian voyage. The simile that gives birth to this one is found, Shoaf continues, at Aeneid IV.441-449, when Aeneas is compared to a deeply rooted oak tree buffeted by north winds when Dido makes her last-ditch appeal to him to stay with her in Carthage. In the end, he remains strong enough in his new resolve to deny her request and set sail. Here, the 'new Aeneas,' buffeted by the south wind, gives over his stubborn recalcitrance and accedes to the insistent demand of Beatrice, a new and better Dido, that he express his contrition. Where it was good for Aeneas to resist the entreaties of his woman, it is also good for Dante to yield to Beatrice's.
Since Beatrice's hundred angels are not referred to directly again, we can only conclude that, after this last act of theirs, they disappear, either into thin air or else to fly back up to the Empyrean, along with the rest of the Church Triumphant (see Purg. XXXII.89-90). While the text guarantees no solution, the second hypothesis seems the better one, if only because we have no reason to exempt them from the general exodus that occurs at that point, even if their arrival is not clearly accounted for (see the notes to Purg. XXX.16-18 and XXXII.89-90).
The phrasing 'one person in two natures' makes it difficult to accept the arguments of those who believe the griffin is not a symbol of Christ.
The word velo (veil) reminds us that the climactic moment of an unveiling still lies before us. See the note to Purgatorio XXX.66.
The climax of Dante's contrition is performed as a fainting fit. He is now ready to perform his act of satisfaction, forgetting all his divagations, canceling them from his memory.
Dante's immersion in Lethe, supervised by Matelda, marks his final satisfaction of his confessor's demands on him. As we will see (Purg. XXXIII.91-99), his forgetting that he ever transgressed against Beatrice's instruction will be used by her as proof that he had indeed done so. Here we understand that the act of forgetting is an act of atonement, and is rewarded with absolution, indicated by the Latin song he hears as he completes his crossing of Lethe.
As for Dante's drinking of the waters, it has a Virgilian source, according to Pietro di Dante (Pietro1, comm. to vv. 94-102) and, among the moderns, Mattalia (comm. to verse 102): in Lethe's waters the souls 'longa oblivia potant' (drink in long forgetfulness [Aen. VI.715]). As we shall see at Eunoe (Purg. XXXIII.138), the ingestion of the waters of these two rivers is essential to the accomplishment of (here) leaving one's sins in oblivion and (there) securing in memory all the good things accomplished in one's mortal life.
Does Statius also drink of these waters? And does Matelda have oversight for his crossing of Lethe as well as Dante's? See the note to Purgatorio XXXIII.128-135.
The Ottimo (comm. to vv. 97-99) identifies the phrase 'Asperges me...' (Purge me [with hyssop, that I may be purified; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow]) as deriving from 'the penitential Psalm' (50:9 [51:7]) and goes on to report that the phrase is repeated in the rite of absolution when the priest blesses the confessed sinner with holy water. We have less certain information about who it is that sings the words. Among those commentators who venture an opinion, most assume it is the angels who sing, but it could be the (still unnamed) Matelda (as Porena [comm. to verse 98] admits, even though he prefers the angels). Since the angels have served as singers before (Purg. XXX.19, XXX.21, XXX.83-84), the most reasonable hypothesis seems to be that it is they who sing now, as well.
Massimiliano Chiamenti's reading of vv. 92-96 (“Corollario oitanico al canto ventottesimo del Purgatorio,” Medioevo e rinascimento 13 [1999]), p. 211n., would seem to suggest that the contact here between Matelda and Dante is of a sexual nature, a reading that does not exactly command immediate assent.
The four nymphs represent the four cardinal virtues (Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude) in their primal form, i.e., as they were infused in Adam and Eve (and not acquired, as they have had to be ever after). 'God created the first humans, and no others, in this state. They are 'nymphs' in that, like some classical nymphs, they inhabit a woodland landscape (Lombardi [comm. to verse 106]). The stars they are in heaven are probably (there is debate about this) identical with those we saw in Purgatorio I.23 (also referred to in I.37-39 and VIII.91), irradiating the face of Cato with their light. Dante thus seems to suggest that both Cato and Beatrice are of such special virtue that it seems that original sin did not affect them – a notion that could only be advanced in the sort of suggestive logic possible in poetry, for it is simply heretical. Dante never did say (or would have said) such a thing in prose.
The exact sense in which they served as the handmaids of Beatrice before she lived on earth is less easily determined. For two similar views of the problem see Singleton (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 159-183, and Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 82-86. Both of them link the infused cardinal virtues to Beatrice's special role on earth, reflected in such passages as Inferno II.76-78, where she is addressed by Virgil as 'donna di virtù' (lady of such virtue that by it alone / the human race surpasses all that lies / within the smallest compass of the heavens).
Botticelli-like (as in his Primavera, surely shaped by this scene), the four dancing maidens make a composite sign of the cross with their upraised arms, which join over Dante's head. All redeemed sinners leave the garden of Eden on their way to glory in the moral condition that marked the creation of the first humans, before the Fall: primal innocence.
The four cardinal virtues, representing the active life, insist that, while they are able to escort Dante to the eyes of Beatrice, their sister virtues, the theological three, at the right wheel of the chariot, are more appropriate presences to prepare Dante's vision for that moment.
Beatrice has moved down from the chariot, from its left side, where she was looking at Dante across the stream (Purg. XXX.61 and 100), to, now that he has crossed it, a point in front of the chariot and of the griffin that draws it, so as to confront Dante.
The four virtues prepare Dante to do something that will become, very quickly, the standard way of learning for the protagonist in this new Beatricean realm of the poem: gaze into her mirroring eyes. As Bosco/Reggio (comm. to these verses) explain, 'In medieval lapidaries the emerald symbolized, in addition to chastity, justice. Further, in a passage of Brunetto Latini's Tresor (III.xiii.16), Dante's direct source, green eyes (of an emerald color) were considered an attribute of feminine beauty. It should be added, finally, that the emerald functioned as a mirror, and the eyes of Beatrice will be compared precisely to a mirror (vv. 119-122). This new interpretation has been put forward by V. Bertolucci Pizzorusso, in Studi mediolatini e volgari 17 (1969).'
The word reggimenti (regiments, governments, regimes [in modern Italian]) would seem to give aid and comfort to those who have argued that this passage makes it difficult to argue for the traditional interpretation of the griffin as Christ. However, beginning with Venturi (comm. to this verse), commentators have understood that here the word is synonymous with atteggiamento (in the sense of bearing, self-presentation). Daniello (comm. to vv. 118-123) had previously understood the word as indicating that the griffin behaved 'now as man, now as God.'
Dante's sixth address to his readers in Purgatorio asks that we share his wonder (see the note to Inferno VIII.94-96). The griffin himself is constant in his appearance, while his reflection in Beatrice's eyes, revealing his truer aspect, reflects, in turn, his divine and human natures. The word idolo, a hapax, derives, according to Bosco/Reggio (comm. to verse 126), from the discussion of the idols of the pagan gods found in Isidore of Seville (Etym. VIII.xi.13).
Stupore (amazement, wonder) is again Dante's condition, now for the marvelous nature of his simultaneous perception of God's two natures. See the note to Purgatorio XXX.34-36.
Once again Scartazzini is the first commentator to find the likely citation behind Dante's words and to be followed, always without acknowledgment, by any number of twentieth-century discussants of the passage: Wisdom speaks in Ecclesiasticus 24:29: 'He who eats of me will hunger again, who drinks of me will thirst again.' That the speaker in this passage is Wisdom, the second person of the Trinity in Christian eyes, pleases Singleton (comm. to these verses), who had argued earlier for the close relationship between Beatrice and Christ as Sapience (Journey to Beatrice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967 (1958)]), pp. 122-34.
The 'other three' are obviously the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, equally obviously of higher 'rank' than the older classical cardinal virtues.
The word caribo has had extensive discussion among Dantists. Most currently agree that it indicates a particular dance, even if not an identifiable one. For extensive bibliography see Mazzoni (“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera [Florence: Le Monnier, 1965]), pp. 89-91.
The three theological virtues sing their appeal to Beatrice, requesting that she unveil her mouth. The moment recalls an experience recorded in Convivio. 'Here it is necessary to know that the eyes of wisdom are her demonstrations, by which truth is seen with the greatest certainty, and her smiles are her persuasions, in which the inner light of wisdom [Sapienza] is revealed behind a kind of veil; and in each of them is felt the highest joy of blessedness, which is the greatest good of paradise. This joy cannot be found in anything here below except by looking into [her] eyes and upon her smile' (Conv. III.xv.2-3, tr. Lansing). It is important to know that these words are directed to another lady, also known as Wisdom, in the Convivio, namely the Lady Philosophy, the one who came as the replacement for the then supposedly less worthy Beatrice. That Dante clearly revisits that passage from Convivio here is a fairly common belief among current discussants of this one. Only a few (e.g., Mazzoni [“Purgatorio Canto XXXI,” in Lectura Dantis Scaligera (Florence: Le Monnier, 1965)], pp. 90-95; Giacalone [comm. to vv. 136-138]), however, realize that Dante wants to separate the sort of affection he felt for the lady he celebrated in Convivio then from that which he feels for the lady he celebrates here and now. Further, the allegory operative then (eyes as demonstrations, mouth as persuasions, of the abstraction philosophy) is nowhere evident here, where we now find only the smile unveiled. In her eyes Dante has just now seen what he can currently understand of Christ's two natures; in her smile he perceives that he is loved with the etterno piacer (eternal beauty – Purg. XXIX.32) that is reflected from her lips.
The seconda bellezza (second beauty) of Beatrice also may remind the reader of the 'corollary' or extra gift that Matelda bestowed upon the three poets at the end of Purgatorio XXVIII.136.
The luce etterna (eternal living light) that is God has its etterno piacer (eternal beauty) reflected in Beatrice, her loveliness the mirror of the beauty of God. This direct address of Beatrice's smile (which seems – intentionally, we must believe – to be represented as an object illuminated fully by God's light) sounds so much like an invocation that it apparently fooled at least one reader into taking it as one. See Marina De Fazio (“Purgatorio XXIX,” in Dante's “Divine Comedy,” Introductory Readings II: “Purgatorio,” ed. Tibor Wlassics [Lectura Dantis (virginiana), 12, supplement, Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1993]), p. 434.
This passage is reminiscent of that in Purgatorio XXVIII.139-148, the description of the smiles of recognition on the part of Virgil and of Statius when they discover that Eden represents the true Golden Age. No pagan poet, no matter how deeply inspired by drinking of the Castalian spring on Parnassus, could have written of the meaning of his vision of the Golden Age in a way that could come near to equaling what this Christian poet (by virtue of his faith, not of his talent), having now drunk of Lethe, can tell of God's love in making His first human creature innocent and allowing His creature a chance to regain that lost innocence, which is what Dante has been allowed to accomplish here, while still in the flesh, and what he will finally accomplish after his death.
The pronoun te (the second person singular of 'you') is jarring, in that we have already learned that Beatrice is to be addressed by Dante with the honorific voi (at verse 36). It takes us a moment to realize that it is not Beatrice whom he apostrophizes here, but her smile.
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