Tant' eran li occhi miei fissi e attenti
a disbramarsi la decenne sete,
che li altri sensi m'eran tutti spenti.
Ed essi quinci e quindi avien parete
di non caler–così lo santo riso
a sé traéli con l'antica rete!–;
quando per forza mi fu vòlto il viso
ver' la sinistra mia da quelle dee,
perch' io udi' da loro un “Troppo fiso!”
e la disposizion ch'a veder èe
ne li occhi pur testé dal sol percossi,
sanza la vista alquanto esser mi fée.
Ma poi ch'al poco il viso riformossi
(e dico “al poco” per rispetto al molto
sensibile onde a forza mi rimossi),
vidi 'n sul braccio destro esser rivolto
lo glorïoso essercito, e tornarsi
col sole e con le sette fiamme al volto.
Come sotto li scudi per salvarsi
volgesi schiera, e sé gira col segno,
prima che possa tutta in sé mutarsi;
quella milizia del celeste regno
che procedeva, tutta trapassonne
pria che piegasse il carro il primo legno.
Indi a le rote si tornar le donne,
e 'l grifon mosse il benedetto carco
sì, che però nulla penna crollonne.
La bella donna che mi trasse al varco
e Stazio e io seguitavam la rota
che fé l'orbita sua con minore arco.
Sì passeggiando l'alta selva vòta,
colpa di quella ch'al serpente crese,
temprava i passi un'angelica nota.
Forse in tre voli tanto spazio prese
disfrenata saetta, quanto eramo
rimossi, quando Bëatrice scese.
Io senti' mormorare a tutti “Adamo”;
poi cerchiaro una pianta dispogliata
di foglie e d'altra fronda in ciascun ramo.
La coma sua, che tanto si dilata
più quanto più è sù, fora da l'Indi
ne' boschi lor per altezza ammirata.
“Beato se', grifon, che non discindi
col becco d'esto legno dolce al gusto,
poscia che mal si torce il ventre quindi.”
Così dintorno a l'albero robusto
gridaron li altri; e l'animal binato:
“Sì si conserva il seme d'ogne giusto.”
E vòlto al temo ch'elli avea tirato,
trasselo al piè de la vedova frasca,
e quel di lei a lei lasciò legato.
Come le nostre piante, quando casca
giù la gran luce mischiata con quella
che raggia dietro a la celeste lasca,
turgide fansi, e poi si rinovella
di suo color ciascuna, pria che 'l sole
giunga li suoi corsier sotto altra stella;
men che di rose e più che di vïole
colore aprendo, s'innovò la pianta,
che prima avea le ramora sì sole.
Io non lo 'ntesi, né qui non si canta
l'inno che quella gente allor cantaro,
né la nota soffersi tutta quanta.
S'io potessi ritrar come assonnaro
li occhi spietati udendo di Siringa,
li occhi a cui pur vegghiar costò sì caro;
come pintor che con essempro pinga,
disegnerei com' io m'addormentai;
ma qual vuol sia che l'assonnar ben finga.
Però trascorro a quando mi svegliai,
e dico ch'un splendor mi squarciò 'l velo
del sonno, e un chiamar: “Surgi: che fai?”
Quali a veder de' fioretti del melo
che del suo pome li angeli fa ghiotti
e perpetüe nozze fa nel cielo,
Pietro e Giovanni e Iacopo condotti
e vinti, ritornaro a la parola
da la qual furon maggior sonni rotti,
e videro scemata loro scuola
così di Moïsè come d'Elia,
e al maestro suo cangiata stola;
tal torna' io, e vidi quella pia
sovra me starsi che conducitrice
fu de' miei passi lungo 'l fiume pria.
E tutto in dubbio dissi: “Ov' è Beatrice?”
Ond' ella: “Vedi lei sotto la fronda
nova sedere in su la sua radice.
Vedi la compagnia che la circonda:
li altri dopo 'l grifon sen vanno suso
con più dolce canzone e più profonda.”
E se più fu lo suo parlar diffuso,
non so, però che già ne li occhi m'era
quella ch'ad altro intender m'avea chiuso.
Sola sedeasi in su la terra vera,
come guardia lasciata lì del plaustro
che legar vidi a la biforme fera.
In cerchio le facevan di sé claustro
le sette ninfe, con quei lumi in mano
che son sicuri d'Aquilone e d'Austro.
“Qui sarai tu poco tempo silvano;
e sarai meco sanza fine cive
di quella Roma onde Cristo è romano
Però, in pro del mondo che mal vive,
al carro tieni or li occhi, e quel che vedi,
ritornato di là, fa che tu scrive.”
Così Beatrice; e io, che tutto ai piedi
d'i suoi comandamenti era divoto,
la mente e li occhi ov' ella volle diedi.
Non scese mai con sì veloce moto
foco di spessa nube, quando piove
da quel confine che più va remoto,
com' io vidi calar l'uccel di Giove
per l'alber giù, rompendo de la scorza,
non che d'i fiori e de le foglie nove;
e ferì 'l carro di tutta sua forza;
ond' el piegò come nave in fortuna,
vinta da l'onda, or da poggia, or da orza.
Poscia vidi avventarsi ne la cuna
del trïunfal veiculo una volpe
che d'ogne pasto buon parea digiuna;
ma, riprendendo lei di laide colpe,
la donna mia la volse in tanta futa
quanto sofferser l'ossa sanza polpe.
Poscia per indi ond' era pria venuta,
l'aguglia vidi scender giù ne l'arca
del carro e lasciar lei di sé pennuta;
e qual esce di cuor che si rammarca,
tal voce uscì del cielo e cotal disse:
“O navicella mia, com' mal se' carca!”
Poi parve a me che la terra s'aprisse
tr'ambo le ruote, e vidi uscirne un drago
che per lo carro sù la coda fisse;
e come vespa che ritragge l'ago,
a sé traendo la coda maligna,
trasse del fondo, e gissen vago vago.
Quel che rimase, come da gramigna
vivace terra, da la piuma, offerta
forse con intenzion sana e benigna,
si ricoperse, e funne ricoperta
e l'una e l'altra rota e 'l temo, in tanto
che più tiene un sospir la bocca aperta.
Trasformato così 'l dificio santo
mise fuor teste per le parti sue,
tre sovra 'l temo e una in ciascun canto.
Le prime eran cornute come bue,
ma le quattro un sol corno avean per fronte:
simile mostro visto ancor non fue.
Sicura, quasi rocca in alto monte,
seder sovresso una puttana sciolta
m'apparve con le ciglia intorno pronte;
e come perché non li fosse tolta,
vidi di costa a lei dritto un gigante;
e basciavansi insieme alcuna volta.
Ma perché l'occhio cupido e vagante
a me rivolse, quel feroce drudo
la flagellò dal capo infin le piante;
poi, di sospetto pieno e d'ira crudo,
disciolse il mostro, e trassel per la selva,
tanto che sol di lei mi fece scudo
a la puttana e a la nova belva.
So steadfast and attentive were mine eyes
In satisfying their decennial thirst,
That all my other senses were extinct,
And upon this side and on that they had
Walls of indifference, so the holy smile
Drew them unto itself with the old net
When forcibly my sight was turned away
Towards my left hand by those goddesses,
Because I heard from them a "Too intently!"
And that condition of the sight which is
In eyes but lately smitten by the sun
Bereft me of my vision some short while;
But to the less when sight re-shaped itself,
I say the less in reference to the greater
Splendour from which perforce I had withdrawn,
I saw upon its right wing wheeled about
The glorious host returning with the sun
And with the sevenfold flames upon their faces.
As underneath its shields, to save itself,
A squadron turns, and with its banner wheels,
Before the whole thereof can change its front,
That soldiery of the celestial kingdom
Which marched in the advance had wholly passed us
Before the chariot had turned its pole.
Then to the wheels the maidens turned themselves,
And the Griffin moved his burden benedight,
But so that not a feather of him fluttered.
The lady fair who drew me through the ford
Followed with Statius and myself the wheel
Which made its orbit with the lesser arc.
So passing through the lofty forest, vacant
By fault of her who in the serpent trusted,
Angelic music made our steps keep time.
Perchance as great a space had in three flights
An arrow loosened from the string o'erpassed,
As we had moved when Beatrice descended.
I heard them murmur altogether, "Adam!"
Then circled they about a tree despoiled
Of blooms and other leafage on each bough.
Its tresses, which so much the more dilate
As higher they ascend, had been by Indians
Among their forests marvelled at for height.
"Blessed art thou, O Griffin, who dost not
Pluck with thy beak these branches sweet to taste,
Since appetite by this was turned to evil."
After this fashion round the tree robust
The others shouted; and the twofold creature:
"Thus is preserved the seed of all the just."
And turning to the pole which he had dragged,
He drew it close beneath the widowed bough,
And what was of it unto it left bound.
In the same manner as our trees (when downward
Falls the great light, with that together mingled
Which after the celestial Lasca shines)
Begin to swell, and then renew themselves,
Each one with its own colour, ere the Sun
Harness his steeds beneath another star:
Less than of rose and more than violet
A hue disclosing, was renewed the tree
That had erewhile its boughs so desolate.
I never heard, nor here below is sung,
The hymn which afterward that people sang,
Nor did I bear the melody throughout.
Had I the power to paint how fell asleep
Those eyes compassionless, of Syrinx hearing,
Those eyes to which more watching cost so dear,
Even as a painter who from model paints
I would portray how I was lulled asleep;
He may, who well can picture drowsihood.
Therefore I pass to what time I awoke,
And say a splendour rent from me the veil
Of slumber, and a calling: "Rise, what dost thou?"
As to behold the apple-tree in blossom
Which makes the Angels greedy for its fruit,
And keeps perpetual bridals in the Heaven,
Peter and John and James conducted were,
And, overcome, recovered at the word
By which still greater slumbers have been broken,
And saw their school diminished by the loss
Not only of Elias, but of Moses,
And the apparel of their Master changed;
So I revived, and saw that piteous one
Above me standing, who had been conductress
Aforetime of my steps beside the river,
And all in doubt I said, "Where's Beatrice?"
And she: "Behold her seated underneath
The leafage new, upon the root of it.
Behold the company that circles her;
The rest behind the Griffin are ascending
With more melodious song, and more profound."
And if her speech were more diffuse I know not,
Because already in my sight was she
Who from the hearing of aught else had shut me.
Alone she sat upon the very earth,
Left there as guardian of the chariot
Which I had seen the biform monster fasten.
Encircling her, a cloister made themselves
The seven Nymphs, with those lights in their hands
Which are secure from Aquilon and Auster.
"Short while shalt thou be here a forester,
And thou shalt be with me for evermore
A citizen of that Rome where Christ is Roman.
Therefore, for that world's good which liveth ill,
Fix on the car thine eyes, and what thou seest,
Having returned to earth, take heed thou write."
Thus Beatrice; and I, who at the feet
Of her commandments all devoted was,
My mind and eyes directed where she willed.
Never descended with so swift a motion
Fire from a heavy cloud, when it is raining
From out the region which is most remote,
As I beheld the bird of Jove descend
Down through the tree, rending away the bark,
As well as blossoms and the foliage new,
And he with all his might the chariot smote,
Whereat it reeled, like vessel in a tempest
Tossed by the waves, now starboard and now larboard.
Thereafter saw I leap into the body
Of the triumphal vehicle a Fox,
That seemed unfed with any wholesome food.
But for his hideous sins upbraiding him,
My Lady put him to as swift a flight
As such a fleshless skeleton could bear.
Then by the way that it before had come,
Into the chariot's chest I saw the Eagle
Descend, and leave it feathered with his plumes.
And such as issues from a heart that mourns,
A voice from Heaven there issued, and it said:
"My little bark, how badly art thou freighted!"
Methought, then, that the earth did yawn between
Both wheels, and I saw rise from it a Dragon,
Who through the chariot upward fixed his tail,
And as a wasp that draweth back its sting,
Drawing unto himself his tail malign,
Drew out the floor, and went his way rejoicing.
That which remained behind, even as with grass
A fertile region, with the feathers, offered
Perhaps with pure intention and benign,
Reclothed itself, and with them were reclothed
The pole and both the wheels so speedily,
A sigh doth longer keep the lips apart.
Transfigured thus the holy edifice
Thrust forward heads upon the parts of it,
Three on the pole and one at either corner.
The first were horned like oxen; but the four
Had but a single horn upon the forehead;
A monster such had never yet been seen!
Firm as a rock upon a mountain high,
Seated upon it, there appeared to me
A shameless whore, with eyes swift glancing round,
And, as if not to have her taken from him,
Upright beside her I beheld a giant;
And ever and anon they kissed each other.
But because she her wanton, roving eye
Turned upon me, her angry paramour
Did scourge her from her head unto her feet.
Then full of jealousy, and fierce with wrath,
He loosed the monster, and across the forest
Dragged it so far, he made of that alone
A shield unto the whore and the strange beast.
Dante would seem to be looking back in time, seeing Beatrice now, in 1300, as she was in Florence in 1290 (the year in which she died). That his eyes are so 'fixed' will be noted by the theological virtues at verse 9 – and not with approval.
This is the longest canto in the Comedy. For consideration of the various lengths of Dante's cantos, see the note to Inferno VI.28-32.
The love that Dante feels now for Beatrice is described in terms that indicate its 'Carthaginian' dimension. The 'antica rete' (old, familiar net) reminds us of the 'antica fiamma' (ancient flame – Purg. XXX.48) that flared in Dido and then in Dante, Dido's words become his own. Dante's morals may have been cleansed on the mountain, and Lethe may have made him forget his now forgiven sins, but his intellect is surely not working at its highest level. Having seen Beatrice as God loves her, he still contrives to think she is that pretty girl from Florence. The poet records her 'holy smile'; the protagonist remembers his earthly feelings.
The word rete (net) was used in the last canto (Purg. XXXI.63) to denote the instrument with which a hunter catches birds (as a girl [or girls] caught incautious Dante, according to Beatrice), and may also remind us of the net in which Vulcan caught his adulterous wife Venus in flagrante delicto with Mars, as Allen Tate (“The Symbolic Imagination: A Meditation on Dante's Three Mirrors,” in Discussions of the “Divine Comedy,” ed. Irma Brandeis [Boston: Heath, 1961]), p. 103, has suggested.
Dante, facing Beatrice, the griffin, and the front of the chariot, turns to his left to pay attention to the three theological virtues, facing him as they stand at the chariot's right wheel (see Purg. XXIX.121).
How can Dante love Beatrice too much? Only if he does not love her in God. And that, we should realize, is why he is rebuked here by the theological virtues (not the least of them being Charity), who understand that his gaze is fixed on the image of the young woman he loved and lost rather than on the saved soul who has made his journey possible. (See the note to Purg. XXX.58.) The problem is as old as Plato's Phaedrus. How do we love physical beauty in such ways as to see it as only the manifestation of a higher beauty (in Dante, of the etterno piacer [Purg. XXIX.32])? See Mazzeo's “Dante and the Phaedrus Tradition of Poetic Inspiration” (in his Structure and Thought in the “Paradiso” [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958], pp. 1-24). The virtues intercede because they sense that Dante is caught up in carnal appreciation of a spiritual entity.
The poet at first may seem to be making exactly the same sort of mistake the protagonist has just made, a second idolatrous praising of his lady who, he now seems to be saying, is of even greater worth than the entirety of the Church Triumphant (or so Singleton [comm. to these verses] implies, referring to these 'strong words, calling the whole procession 'poco' in comparison!').
The passage has caused difficulty over the years. The partial insights of several help us make sense of what Dante said. John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 10-18) points out that the word sensibile is a technical term, reflecting such discussions as those found in Aristotle (De anima II and De senso et sensato). The sensation encountered by any particular sense organ is what is meant, and the commentator's first example fits perfectly here. If one looks at the sun (a sensibile, an object of sense perception, in this case by the eyes), anything else will seem less bright by comparison (see the discussion of the sensibile comune [the objects of sensory perception] in the note to Purg. XXIX.47-51). Tozer (comm. to these verses) reminds the reader of the similar passage at Purgatorio XV.15, in which Dante's sense of sight is overwhelmed. And Steiner (comm. to vv. 13-14) distinguishes between the light of the sun and the blinding effulgence of God.
The context here is the 'isplendor di viva luce etterna' (splendor of eternal living light), that is, the smile of Beatrice glowing with the direct light of God's rays. Her mouth is illumined by the 'sun' that is God, while all else in the garden is lit by the light of the natural sun, and thus is less available to the sense of sight than Beatrice's smile, as vv. 10-12 make all but apparent: Dante has been blinded by the Light.
The Church, in metaphor a 'glorious army,' has reversed its course, is heading back toward the east, whence it came. In this poem, until we hear the penitents cry out in joy for the liberation of Statius's soul (Purg. XX.136), the words gloria and glorïoso have referred to worldly fame. But here, as there, the word has the meaning it will have in Paradiso, referring to those who live in Glory, that is, in the shining effulgence of God. (The American nineteenth-century locution 'going to glory' meant 'headed for heaven.') This army is not famous for its worldly accomplishments; it dwells with God and does not care for the world's rewards. The word 'glory' has 25 of its 39 occurrences in the poem in Paradiso; thus nearly two-thirds of them are found in one-third of the available poetic space.
The elaborate military simile, in which the vanguard of the Church Triumphant had turned and was already moving eastward while the chariot was still facing west (an effect striven for and achieved by marching bands between the halves of American football games) may have an ulterior purpose. Dante has reversed temporal order to present first the Church in triumph as it will be after time, and only then the Church in its earthly travail (see the note to Purg. XXIX.115-120). As preparation for that change, from Church Triumphant to Church Militant, he may have chosen this introductory military simile, one in which the forces with which we identify are under attack and in strategic retreat.
Benvenuto's gloss (comm. to vv. 25-27) suggests that, while the mortal aspect of Christ may be mutable, His divine being (represented by his wings) is not.
Matelda, Statius, and Dante are at the right wheel of the chariot, since that is the one that turns in the smaller arc, given the fact that the 'army' has turned to its right in its retreat. Statius's presence has not been referred to since Purgatorio XXVIII.146 and his name has not been heard since Purgatorio XXVII.47. He is named a total of eight times between cantos XXI and XXXIII of this cantica, this being the seventh; nonetheless, his presence almost always catches us by surprise.
If paradise has been regained in this Eden, it is now time to consider how it was lost in the first place; the usual suspects are Eve and Adam (in that order, since she sinned first, but he still more disastrously). Eve is referred to periphrastically by the poet (verse 32), but it is Adam's name that is murmured by all the others present in the procession.
That the procession has paused, with Beatrice descending from the chariot, indicates that we have arrived at a 'destination' of some importance.
The tree, given the context, is, literally, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. However, some of the first commentators (e.g., the Anonymus Lombardus [comm. to vv. 38-39], Jacopo della Lana [comm. to these verses]), disregarding that context, think its withered condition indicates the Tree of Life after the original sin, when humankind lost eternal life, a perfectly sensible (if almost certainly erroneous) conclusion. Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 37-39), paying attention to what is said of the tree in the next canto (Purg. XXXIII.61-63), only reasonably concludes that this tree, eaten of by Adam when he followed Eve in sin, must be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. While there have been many other interpretations (Scartazzini comm. to verse 38] claims that not a single gloss but a book would be necessary to document them all – and indeed his gloss itself is article-length), most currently agree with Benvenuto, but also with Scartazzini's view that the allegorical sense of the tree relates it to the history of the Roman empire. For the current debate over the meaning of the tree, see Armour (Dante's Griffin and the History of the World: A Study of the Earthly Paradise [“Purgatorio” XXIX-XXXIII] [Oxford: Clarendon, 1989]), pp. 180-214, and Pertile (La puttana e il gigante: Dal Cantico dei Cantici al Paradiso Terrestre di Dante [Ravenna: Longo, 1998]), pp. 163-96; see also Kaske (“'Sì si conserva il seme d'ogne giusto' [Purg. XXXII, 48],” Dante Studies 89 [1971]), p. 50.
One literary source of Dante's tree, which, as Scartazzini and Pertile point out, has any number of biblical analogues (e.g., Judges 9:8, Ezechiel 17:24, Daniel 4:20-22; Pertile, p. 166: Song of Songs 7:7-8), was first suggested by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 37-42): Georgics II.122-124, describing enormously tall trees in India. We probably should assume that this tree, like those found on two of the terraces below (see Purg. XXII.131-135; XXIV.103-105), has its boughs pointed downward so as to prevent its being climbed.
This exchange between the members of the Church Triumphant and the griffin (his only spoken words in the poem) has puzzled the commentators, like so much else in this difficult canto. His faithful celebrate the griffin's un-Adamic restraint; not only will he not despoil the tree a second time, he will bring the dead tree back to life (vv. 58-60).
The griffin's words, as was first pointed out by Scartazzini (comm. to verse 48) and now by many another commentator, derive from Matthew 3:15. Christ insists on being baptized by John the Baptist: 'For so it becomes us to fulfill all justice.' That the griffin speaks a version of the very words of Christ is still further evidence that he is meant to be understood as representing Him here.
The griffin now binds the temo (shaft), by means of which he had been drawing the chariot, to the tree. Most discussants currently believe that this instrument represents Christ's cross. The first commentators argued that, since Adam's sin had been disobedience, this scene showed the obedience to which Christ enjoined his Church, a reasonable enough understanding. While embracing it, Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 43-51) reports that some others believe that this ligature is symbolic of the Incarnation, while still others believe it is related to the cross. This last interpretation eventually became dominant, and remains so today.
It was only with Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), however, that the most likely source for this tercet, the fourteenth chapter of the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which Scartazzini claims is also the source of the lengthy paraphrase found in the gloss to the passage by Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 43-51) came to light. Any number of medieval legends were developed from this text (see Longfellow [comm. to verse 51]). In it, Adam's non-canonical son Seth visits the gates of the garden of Eden, now a wasteland, in search of some oil to ease Adam's aching head. Seth is not allowed to enter by the guardian angel, but does see a very tall tree, denuded of its leaves. The angel gives him a branch from the tree (it is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) which he brings back to Adam, who has died before Seth returns to Limbo with the branch. Planted, it soon supplied the wood that would serve for the crucifixion of Jesus.
For a brief discussion of the 'Legend of the Wood of the Cross' as being applicable to Dante's phrasing here see Edward Moore (Studies in Dante, Third Series: Miscellaneous Essays [Oxford: Clarendon, 1968 (1903)]), pp. 219-20. For these legends see Adolfo Mussafia (“Sulla legenda del legno della Croce,” Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften [Vienna] 63 [1869], pp. 165-216). It is remarkable that the Gospel of Nicodemus has not made its way into other commentaries to this tercet, since it has been a staple of commentators since Torraca (comm. to. Inf. IV.54) as a probable source for Dante's sense of the harrowing of hell, witnessed by Virgil, as it is described in Inferno IV.52-63.
The rays referred to are those of the sun when it moves from Pisces into Aries, i.e., at the first buds of springtime, and before the sun moves on and into Taurus. Our natural season of blossoming is compared, in this simile, to the miraculous and instantaneous flowering of the tree that had so long been dead, the color of its blossoms reminiscent of Christ's blood.
Dante leaves us with another of his little mysteries. What was the 'hymn' that he heard sung but could not understand, except to know that it is not sung on earth? Dante tells us as much and, as a result, the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 61-66) reasons, we cannot identify it. However, is there a hymn, known to be sung in Heaven, that we on earth have never heard?
The word inno (hymn) occurs six times in the poem in five passages (Inf. VII.125; Purg. VIII.17; XXV.127 & 129; here; Par. XIV.123). In the occurrences previous to this one the word has been used once antiphrastically, to denigrate Plutus's unintelligible shout, and then, in its next two appearances, to refer to the hymns 'Te lucis ante' and 'Summus Deus clementiae,' respectively. In other words, until now inno has either been used antiphrastically and thus in a general sense (i.e., 'an utterance not like a hymn') or with exactitude to indicate a particular Christian hymn. (For the final appearance of inno see the note to Par. XIV.118-126.) Are we supposed to be able to identify this song? There are, one must admit, times at which Dante leaves melody a mystery; even twice in this very canto (the 'angelica nota' [angelic song] of verse 33 and the 'più dolce canzone' [song more sweet] of verse 90, his references have successfully resisted identification). It would be unusual for Dante to have introduced a riddle without offering us the grounds for solving it. We are looking for a song with two characteristics: it must be unknown on earth and it almost certainly must be in celebration of Jesus's victory over death. Is there such a song? John of Serravalle (comm. to Par. XXXII.46-48) thought so: the last book of the Bible speaks of a canticum novum (new song) that is sung before the throne of God (Apoc. 14.3), a citation found, surprisingly enough, only once again in the commentary tradition (Steiner [comm. to vv. 61-63] and then possibly again, referred to glancingly but not definitively by Trucchi [comm. to vv. 61-63]). Robert Kaske (“Dante's Purgatorio XXXII and XXXIII: A Survey of Christian History,” University of Toronto Quarterly 43 [1974]), pp. 206-7, however, while unaware that he had at least two precursors, also sees a reference here to the canticum novum of Revelation. Kaske cites Apocalypse 5:9, which is also apposite, if a similar passage (at Apoc. 14:3) has a certain priority, as we shall see. In Revelation 5 Christ comes as a slain lamb (Apoc. 5:6) to judge humankind, at which the twenty-four elders and the four gospel beasts lower themselves before the king (5:8) and sing a 'new song' (canticum novum): 'You are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for you were slain and have redeemed us to God....' (5:9, italics added). The related passage (Apoc. 14:3) deepens the resonances with Purgatorio XXXII: 'And they sang as it were a new song [canticum novum] before the throne, and before the four beasts and the elders; and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, who were redeemed from earth' (italics added). It seems clear both what the song was and why it is not sung on earth. For the number of those in the procession as 144, the number of the 144,000 of the Church Triumphant, see the note to Purgatorio XXIX.145-150.
Dante's mystic sleep closes his experience of the Church Triumphant. Once he awakens, it will have returned to Heaven (vv. 89-90).
Dante is willing to live dangerously. What other medieval poet, in a serious moment of a serious poem, would turn to Ovid and to self-conscious literary humor in a moment like this? Dante has already (Purg. XXIX.94-96; and see the note to that tercet) referred to this Ovidian material (Metam. I.568-723) in these cantos dedicated to the recovery of Eden. He compares himself to Argus of the hundred eyes (Dante of the hundred cantos?), watching over Io at Juno's behest so that Jove cannot get at his bovine girlfriend, set to drowsiness and slumber (disastrously for him) by Mercury's tale of Syrinx and Pan. At what point does Argus fall asleep? just as Mercury's tale reports on the musical sound that issues from the reeds that were Syrinx, who had escaped Pan's lustful pursuit and vanished. Music and a disappearance are features of Dante's scene, as well. The parallel scene is done with witty aplomb but is dealt with by the commentators only as serious business. It is funny, as is Dante's aside to us that, if he could portray the moment of falling asleep, he would do so. His challenge to us was taken up by Boccaccio in his Decameron (I.viii.14); with Dante's passage apparently in his author's mind, Guglielmo Borsiere (a denizen of hell in Inf. XVI.70) describes a similar challenge when asked what as yet unseen thing he would advise a wealthy boor to have painted in his receiving room. Guglielmo says that he wouldn't know how to advise him, unless he were to choose 'a sneeze or something like it.'
Dante's sleep and awakening in the garden is verbally reminiscent of Ugolino's description of his awakening from his dreadful dream (Inf. XXXIII.27), the phrase 'squarciò il velame' (the veil was rent) remembered in 'squarciò il velo' (broke my veil of sleep [these are the only two occurrences of that verb in the poem]). It also reminds us that each of the three previous days on the mountain have ended in sleep and dream. On this fourth day, which will conclude his experience of the earthly paradise at noon, instead he has this mystic sleep after he has had a final visionary experience of the griffin and his Church.
Rather than a reference to the 'Surgite, et nolite timere' of Matthew 17:7, frequently cited in the commentaries (first by Jacopo della Lana [comm. to vv. 73-84]), Mario Aversano (“Il canto XXXII del Purgatorio,” in La quinta rota: Studi sulla “Commedia” [Turin: Tirrenia, 1988]), p. 168, prefers to believe that Matelda refers to Paul's words (Ephesians 5:14), 'Surge qui dormis' (Rise, you who are sleeping). And see his remarks on Paul's overall importance for Dante, pp. 185-88. Nonetheless, the passage in Matthew seems still closer to the context here, so much so that it is all but impossible not to see it as controlling this scene: 'And Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise [Surgite] and be not afraid.” And when they had lifted up their eyes they saw no man, save Jesus only.' See the note to Purgatorio XXXII.73-84.
In the scene of the transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17:1-8) the three apostles Peter, James, and John ascend a mountain with Jesus, see him transformed in visage (it shines with light) and raiment (his clothes become white), then see him in the company of Moses and Elijah (who, representing the law and the prophets, respectively, both promised his advent), and then hear the voice of God from a cloud proclaim that Jesus is his Son, and finally find Moses and Elijah vanished. Just so, this simile insists, Dante thinks he finds himself (in the role of an apostle) in the company of Matelda alone. For a study of discussions of the Transfiguration by various fathers of the Church, see Peter Chamberas (“The Transfiguration of Christ: A Study in the Patristic Exegesis of Scripture,” St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 14 [1970], pp. 48-65).
Verse 78 also clearly refers to Christ's resurrections of Jairus's daughter and of Lazarus (Luke 8:54 and John 11:43).
Dante's phrase, 'Where is Beatrice?' will be remembered when she leaves him for the final time at Paradiso XXXI.64 and he asks St. Bernard, 'Ov' è ella?' (Where is she?), as Poletto (comm. to vv. 85-87) noted.
Beatrice's pose is one of humility, seated on the ground on a root of the newly reflorescent tree. Thus she who, rather than Matelda, really corresponds to Christ in the biblical parallel is the one who is 'transfigured,' 'changed in raiment,' as we shall see in a moment.
Those who remain behind in the garden with Beatrice are her 'handmaids,' the seven virtues, and Matelda. And of course there is the chariot. Dante and Statius are the spectators of the show that is to follow.
We learn that the Church Triumphant has now returned to the Empyrean, just as it will do after it descends for Dante's sake a second time, in the sphere of the Fixed Stars (Par. XXIII.70-72). (For the logistics of the arrival and departure of the participants in this pageant, see the notes to Purg. XXX.16-18 and XXXI.77-78.) The Griffin's departure and return to the Empyrean foreshadow the similar departure and return of Jesus described in Paradiso XXIII.86-87.
That Beatrice is described as seated 'on the bare ground' associates her with humility in general and, perhaps more pointedly, with St. Francis, who raised humility to an art form. See the note to Purgatorio XI.135; and see the portrait of Francis in Paradiso XI. For a recent review of the relations between Dante and the Spiritual Franciscans see Nicolò Mineo (“Gli spirituali francescani e l'Apocalisse di Dante,” in Pour Dante: Dante et l'Apocalypse: Lectures humanistes de Dante, ed. Bruno Pinchard and Christian Trottmann [Paris: Champion, 2001], pp. 77-98).
No longer the triumphant figure who came into the garden by descending to her chariot, Beatrice is now here to witness its devastation and, once, to protect that chariot; she is no longer in the role of conqueror.
Since the nymphs are seven and since the 'candles' leading the procession (last referred to at verse 18) are seven, and since Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 97-99) lent the hypothesis his considerable authority, some commentators have believed that those candles are the lights held by the seven virtues. Both because the seven candles seem a part of the procession of the Church Triumphant and because they are extremely large, this hypothesis has not convinced every reader. On the other hand, other suggestions are all minority opinions. Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 94-108) believed they represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, but many find his argument overly subtle and unsupported by the text. Torraca (comm. to vv. 97-99) suggested the seven sacraments ordained by Christ. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 97-99), uncomfortable with all earlier identifications, thought the reference was to the lamps of the wise virgins in the parable (Matthew 25:1-13) of the ten wise and foolish virgins; but the wise ones only number five. Pertile (La puttana e il gigante: Dal Cantico dei Cantici al Paradiso Terrestre di Dante [Ravenna: Longo, 1998]), p. 198n., points (via Alain de Lille) to the 'seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God' (Apoc. 4:5), thus giving support to Francesco da Buti's view, which does seem the most palatable. For the biblical and post-biblical understanding of the winds from north (Aquilo) and south (Auster) as being the most destructive, see Pertile, pp. 197-202.
Beatrice's words are clear in their promise. (Those who believe that she is speaking not of Dante's next stay in the garden but that left him on earth cannot rationalize the disjunction caused by the fact that when Dante returns to earth he will be without Beatrice, who speaks here only of being with him in Heaven.) Most commentators now also agree that Beatrice is not alluding to the few minutes he will now be with her in the garden, but to the short stay he will have in his second visit to the earthly paradise, after his death and ascent. She then looks past his first and upcoming visit to paradise in order to fasten his attention on his final destination, when he, too, will be, with her, a citizen of the City of God, the new Jerusalem in which Christ is 'Roman.' Denise Heilbronn (“Dante's Valley of the Princes,” Dante Studies 90 [1972], p. 57, n. 15), in another context, refers to the Augustinian notion of the 'pilgrim city' that finds a place in Dante's Epistola XI.11: 'pro tota civitate peregrinante in terris' (for the entire human city in its earthly pilgrimage). The 'city of man' that is our militancy on earth is to become the heavenly Rome presided over by Christ as emperor, at least it will be for all those who will find themselves saved.
Beatrice's charge to Dante is reminiscent of God's to John, author of the Revelation: 'What you see, write in a book, and send it to the seven churches...' (Apoc. 1:11).
The second pageant in the garden of Eden is both dramatically different from the first and exactly like it. In the first instance we were given a description of the Church Triumphant (which exists as an ideal out of time and can only be gathered once history is done) that comes in a temporal form, moving from Genesis to the Apocalypse before Dante's eyes. Now he sees real history, from just after the founding of the Church until the present, unfolding as a series of events performed in a sort of 'dumbshow' in a single place. However, both pageants are presented as allegories, reflecting history, to be sure, but experienced as though they were literally fictive (e.g., the books of the Bible, the griffin, the depredations of the Church), requiring the kind of critical procedure that we expect for what Dante himself referred to (Convivio II.i.4-5) as allegory as practiced by the poets. Most of the scenes in the Commedia are presented as 'historical' and are best analyzed (or so it seems to many) with the methods of the 'allegory of the theologians'; for some others, however, that are presented as fictive and thus call for the more usual allegorical procedures, see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 239-54. For a recent study of the way in which the allegorizing tendencies of the early commentators were continued in the Renaissance see Bruno Porcelli (“Beatrice nei commenti danteschi del Landino e del Vellutello” [1994], in his Nuovi studi su Dante e Boccaccio con analisi della “Nencia” [Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1997], pp. 57-78).
The rest of the canto will present the history of the Church and of the empire as these two entities make their related voyages through history. However, for a new interpretation of this entire scene, reversing many long-held opinions about the valences of almost every element in this difficult allegorical passage, see the final paragraph of the note to Paradiso XII.55.
The first tribulation of the new Church was to be persecuted by the emperors of Rome, beginning with Nero (54-68) while Peter was its first pope (and was crucified in the emperor's persecution of Christians ca. A.D. 68), and extending to the reign of Diocletian (284-305).
While the eagle of Jove may signify variously, there is no doubt that here and through the rest of the pageant of the persecution of the Church Militant it represents the empire.
The phrase nave in fortuna (ship tossed in a tempest) will find its way to the final world prophecy in the poem (Par. XXVII.145).
Beatrice, acting as the embodiment of the Church's spirit (the chariot representing its physical being, as it were) is able to defeat the forces of heresy, the traditional interpretation of the fox. Portirelli (comm. to these verses) identified the fox with the 'vulpes insidiosos' (insidious foxes) of the Song of Solomon (Cant. 2:15). His adjective, however, is not found in the biblical text, where the foxes are only described as 'little,' and the phrase in fact comes from St. Augustine, who identifies heresy and exactly such foxes in his Enarrationes in Ps. LXXX, as was noted by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 118-120). The temporal progression of these scenes would indicate that Dante is thinking of the early centuries of the Church's history, after the first persecutions and before the Donation of Constantine (see the note to Purg. XXXII.124-129).
All commentators agree that this invasion of the chariot by the eagle of empire represents the Donation of Constantine in the first third of the fourth century (see note to Inf. XIX.115-117). The Church was meant to operate independently of the empire (this is the essential theme of Dante's Monarchia). Here, by being given the 'feathers' that belong to empire alone, it is adulterated from its pure form. In this formulation Dante reverses his usual view, which involves seeing the empire's rights and privileges as being curtailed by the Church. In a sense the point is even stronger expressed this way: the Church is harmed by exercising its authority in the civil realm.
Since the gloss of the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 127-129), the voice from heaven is generally taken to be that of St. Peter. From the time of the earliest commentators, however, there was an understanding that Dante's voice from heaven was a sort of calque on the story that, on the day of the Donation, a voice from heaven was heard calling out: 'Hodie diffusum est venenum in ecclesia Dei' (Today the church of God is suffused by poison).
While there is some debate about the nature of this particular calamity, most commentators believe it refers to the 'schism' in the Church brought about by Mohammed just after the middle years of the seventh century (see the note to Inf. XXVIII.22-31 for Dante's understanding of the relation of Islam to Christianity).
In a sort of replay of the second calamity (the Donation of Constantine) the chariot is once again covered in imperial feathers. The standard interpretation of these verses is that they refer to the grants of lands to the Church by two French kings, Pepin and Charlemagne, in the second half of the eighth century.
The 'plumage,' which the poet suggests was 'offered perhaps with kind and innocent intent,' represents once again that which belonged to the empire by God's intent, and legally, in Dante's view, could not be surrendered to ecclesiastical authority, even though kings had chosen to do so. See Paradiso XX.55-57, where a similar expression is used to indicate that Constantine had sinned grievously, if without meaning to do so.
The language and the imagery are clearly indebted to the Apocalypse (13:1) for the beast with seven heads and ten horns. Exactly what this symbolic transformation of the Church signifies is much discussed, with little resolution. In general, all can agree, we here see the corruption wrought by the clergy upon their own institution. In other words, in Dante's view, the Church had weathered all attacks upon it from within and without until the time of Charlemagne. In the next five centuries she would do such harm to herself as to make those earlier wounds mortal. This period is marked by corruption from the papacy down to the most modestly avaricious friar; Christianity has no enemies as implacable as its own ecclesiastical institutions or its own clergy.
Strictly speaking, this seventh and final calamity is a vision, since the Church only moved to Avignon in 1309 after the election to the papacy of Clement V in 1305. We have now surveyed, in 52 verses, nearly thirteen centuries of the history of the Church. For the importance of Avignon to Dante, despite the fact that the city is never mentioned by name in the poem, see Michelangelo Picone (“Avignone come tema letterario: Dante e Petrarca,” L'Alighieri 20 [2002], pp. 5-22), pp. 5-14.
The harlot and the giant, the whore of Babylon 'with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication' (Rev. 17:2) and Philip IV of France, bring the terrible history to its conclusion. The chariot no longer has to do with Beatrice, replaced by this wanton spirit that gives herself to all and any, and is now controlled by France. Dante's reaction to the 'Avignonian captivity' is proof, if any is needed, that he is not the Protestant avant la lettre that some have tried to find in him. Indeed, the last and only potentially (if fleeting) hopeful sign we find in the gradually darkening anti-triumph of the Church Militant is that the whore gazes on Dante, thus gaining for her a beating from her gigantic paramour. What does Dante represent now? Is he the embodiment of the truly faithful Christians who hope that their Church will be cleansed? of the Italian faithful left back on this side of the Alps? or is he Dante himself? This penultimate detail of a difficult and encompassing allegorical pageant has left many readers perplexed. Its final one is clear in its pessimism. The giant responds to his lover's wayward glance by releasing the chariot from its binding to the tree and dragging it deeper into the forest, which now looks less like Eden than it resembles France. Now see the revisionist and convincing arguments of Filippo Bognini, “Gli occhi di Ooliba: Una proposta per Purg. XXXII 148-60 e XXXIII 44-45,” Rivista di Studi Danteschi 7 (2007): 73-103 (referred to in the note to Par. XII.55): The whore is Ezechiel's Jerusalem and thus Dante's Florence, while the giant reflects Goliath as Robert of Anjou, the king of Naples and the Guelph leader in Italy, prime enemy of Henry VII.
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Tant' eran li occhi miei fissi e attenti
a disbramarsi la decenne sete,
che li altri sensi m'eran tutti spenti.
Ed essi quinci e quindi avien parete
di non caler–così lo santo riso
a sé traéli con l'antica rete!–;
quando per forza mi fu vòlto il viso
ver' la sinistra mia da quelle dee,
perch' io udi' da loro un “Troppo fiso!”
e la disposizion ch'a veder èe
ne li occhi pur testé dal sol percossi,
sanza la vista alquanto esser mi fée.
Ma poi ch'al poco il viso riformossi
(e dico “al poco” per rispetto al molto
sensibile onde a forza mi rimossi),
vidi 'n sul braccio destro esser rivolto
lo glorïoso essercito, e tornarsi
col sole e con le sette fiamme al volto.
Come sotto li scudi per salvarsi
volgesi schiera, e sé gira col segno,
prima che possa tutta in sé mutarsi;
quella milizia del celeste regno
che procedeva, tutta trapassonne
pria che piegasse il carro il primo legno.
Indi a le rote si tornar le donne,
e 'l grifon mosse il benedetto carco
sì, che però nulla penna crollonne.
La bella donna che mi trasse al varco
e Stazio e io seguitavam la rota
che fé l'orbita sua con minore arco.
Sì passeggiando l'alta selva vòta,
colpa di quella ch'al serpente crese,
temprava i passi un'angelica nota.
Forse in tre voli tanto spazio prese
disfrenata saetta, quanto eramo
rimossi, quando Bëatrice scese.
Io senti' mormorare a tutti “Adamo”;
poi cerchiaro una pianta dispogliata
di foglie e d'altra fronda in ciascun ramo.
La coma sua, che tanto si dilata
più quanto più è sù, fora da l'Indi
ne' boschi lor per altezza ammirata.
“Beato se', grifon, che non discindi
col becco d'esto legno dolce al gusto,
poscia che mal si torce il ventre quindi.”
Così dintorno a l'albero robusto
gridaron li altri; e l'animal binato:
“Sì si conserva il seme d'ogne giusto.”
E vòlto al temo ch'elli avea tirato,
trasselo al piè de la vedova frasca,
e quel di lei a lei lasciò legato.
Come le nostre piante, quando casca
giù la gran luce mischiata con quella
che raggia dietro a la celeste lasca,
turgide fansi, e poi si rinovella
di suo color ciascuna, pria che 'l sole
giunga li suoi corsier sotto altra stella;
men che di rose e più che di vïole
colore aprendo, s'innovò la pianta,
che prima avea le ramora sì sole.
Io non lo 'ntesi, né qui non si canta
l'inno che quella gente allor cantaro,
né la nota soffersi tutta quanta.
S'io potessi ritrar come assonnaro
li occhi spietati udendo di Siringa,
li occhi a cui pur vegghiar costò sì caro;
come pintor che con essempro pinga,
disegnerei com' io m'addormentai;
ma qual vuol sia che l'assonnar ben finga.
Però trascorro a quando mi svegliai,
e dico ch'un splendor mi squarciò 'l velo
del sonno, e un chiamar: “Surgi: che fai?”
Quali a veder de' fioretti del melo
che del suo pome li angeli fa ghiotti
e perpetüe nozze fa nel cielo,
Pietro e Giovanni e Iacopo condotti
e vinti, ritornaro a la parola
da la qual furon maggior sonni rotti,
e videro scemata loro scuola
così di Moïsè come d'Elia,
e al maestro suo cangiata stola;
tal torna' io, e vidi quella pia
sovra me starsi che conducitrice
fu de' miei passi lungo 'l fiume pria.
E tutto in dubbio dissi: “Ov' è Beatrice?”
Ond' ella: “Vedi lei sotto la fronda
nova sedere in su la sua radice.
Vedi la compagnia che la circonda:
li altri dopo 'l grifon sen vanno suso
con più dolce canzone e più profonda.”
E se più fu lo suo parlar diffuso,
non so, però che già ne li occhi m'era
quella ch'ad altro intender m'avea chiuso.
Sola sedeasi in su la terra vera,
come guardia lasciata lì del plaustro
che legar vidi a la biforme fera.
In cerchio le facevan di sé claustro
le sette ninfe, con quei lumi in mano
che son sicuri d'Aquilone e d'Austro.
“Qui sarai tu poco tempo silvano;
e sarai meco sanza fine cive
di quella Roma onde Cristo è romano
Però, in pro del mondo che mal vive,
al carro tieni or li occhi, e quel che vedi,
ritornato di là, fa che tu scrive.”
Così Beatrice; e io, che tutto ai piedi
d'i suoi comandamenti era divoto,
la mente e li occhi ov' ella volle diedi.
Non scese mai con sì veloce moto
foco di spessa nube, quando piove
da quel confine che più va remoto,
com' io vidi calar l'uccel di Giove
per l'alber giù, rompendo de la scorza,
non che d'i fiori e de le foglie nove;
e ferì 'l carro di tutta sua forza;
ond' el piegò come nave in fortuna,
vinta da l'onda, or da poggia, or da orza.
Poscia vidi avventarsi ne la cuna
del trïunfal veiculo una volpe
che d'ogne pasto buon parea digiuna;
ma, riprendendo lei di laide colpe,
la donna mia la volse in tanta futa
quanto sofferser l'ossa sanza polpe.
Poscia per indi ond' era pria venuta,
l'aguglia vidi scender giù ne l'arca
del carro e lasciar lei di sé pennuta;
e qual esce di cuor che si rammarca,
tal voce uscì del cielo e cotal disse:
“O navicella mia, com' mal se' carca!”
Poi parve a me che la terra s'aprisse
tr'ambo le ruote, e vidi uscirne un drago
che per lo carro sù la coda fisse;
e come vespa che ritragge l'ago,
a sé traendo la coda maligna,
trasse del fondo, e gissen vago vago.
Quel che rimase, come da gramigna
vivace terra, da la piuma, offerta
forse con intenzion sana e benigna,
si ricoperse, e funne ricoperta
e l'una e l'altra rota e 'l temo, in tanto
che più tiene un sospir la bocca aperta.
Trasformato così 'l dificio santo
mise fuor teste per le parti sue,
tre sovra 'l temo e una in ciascun canto.
Le prime eran cornute come bue,
ma le quattro un sol corno avean per fronte:
simile mostro visto ancor non fue.
Sicura, quasi rocca in alto monte,
seder sovresso una puttana sciolta
m'apparve con le ciglia intorno pronte;
e come perché non li fosse tolta,
vidi di costa a lei dritto un gigante;
e basciavansi insieme alcuna volta.
Ma perché l'occhio cupido e vagante
a me rivolse, quel feroce drudo
la flagellò dal capo infin le piante;
poi, di sospetto pieno e d'ira crudo,
disciolse il mostro, e trassel per la selva,
tanto che sol di lei mi fece scudo
a la puttana e a la nova belva.
So steadfast and attentive were mine eyes
In satisfying their decennial thirst,
That all my other senses were extinct,
And upon this side and on that they had
Walls of indifference, so the holy smile
Drew them unto itself with the old net
When forcibly my sight was turned away
Towards my left hand by those goddesses,
Because I heard from them a "Too intently!"
And that condition of the sight which is
In eyes but lately smitten by the sun
Bereft me of my vision some short while;
But to the less when sight re-shaped itself,
I say the less in reference to the greater
Splendour from which perforce I had withdrawn,
I saw upon its right wing wheeled about
The glorious host returning with the sun
And with the sevenfold flames upon their faces.
As underneath its shields, to save itself,
A squadron turns, and with its banner wheels,
Before the whole thereof can change its front,
That soldiery of the celestial kingdom
Which marched in the advance had wholly passed us
Before the chariot had turned its pole.
Then to the wheels the maidens turned themselves,
And the Griffin moved his burden benedight,
But so that not a feather of him fluttered.
The lady fair who drew me through the ford
Followed with Statius and myself the wheel
Which made its orbit with the lesser arc.
So passing through the lofty forest, vacant
By fault of her who in the serpent trusted,
Angelic music made our steps keep time.
Perchance as great a space had in three flights
An arrow loosened from the string o'erpassed,
As we had moved when Beatrice descended.
I heard them murmur altogether, "Adam!"
Then circled they about a tree despoiled
Of blooms and other leafage on each bough.
Its tresses, which so much the more dilate
As higher they ascend, had been by Indians
Among their forests marvelled at for height.
"Blessed art thou, O Griffin, who dost not
Pluck with thy beak these branches sweet to taste,
Since appetite by this was turned to evil."
After this fashion round the tree robust
The others shouted; and the twofold creature:
"Thus is preserved the seed of all the just."
And turning to the pole which he had dragged,
He drew it close beneath the widowed bough,
And what was of it unto it left bound.
In the same manner as our trees (when downward
Falls the great light, with that together mingled
Which after the celestial Lasca shines)
Begin to swell, and then renew themselves,
Each one with its own colour, ere the Sun
Harness his steeds beneath another star:
Less than of rose and more than violet
A hue disclosing, was renewed the tree
That had erewhile its boughs so desolate.
I never heard, nor here below is sung,
The hymn which afterward that people sang,
Nor did I bear the melody throughout.
Had I the power to paint how fell asleep
Those eyes compassionless, of Syrinx hearing,
Those eyes to which more watching cost so dear,
Even as a painter who from model paints
I would portray how I was lulled asleep;
He may, who well can picture drowsihood.
Therefore I pass to what time I awoke,
And say a splendour rent from me the veil
Of slumber, and a calling: "Rise, what dost thou?"
As to behold the apple-tree in blossom
Which makes the Angels greedy for its fruit,
And keeps perpetual bridals in the Heaven,
Peter and John and James conducted were,
And, overcome, recovered at the word
By which still greater slumbers have been broken,
And saw their school diminished by the loss
Not only of Elias, but of Moses,
And the apparel of their Master changed;
So I revived, and saw that piteous one
Above me standing, who had been conductress
Aforetime of my steps beside the river,
And all in doubt I said, "Where's Beatrice?"
And she: "Behold her seated underneath
The leafage new, upon the root of it.
Behold the company that circles her;
The rest behind the Griffin are ascending
With more melodious song, and more profound."
And if her speech were more diffuse I know not,
Because already in my sight was she
Who from the hearing of aught else had shut me.
Alone she sat upon the very earth,
Left there as guardian of the chariot
Which I had seen the biform monster fasten.
Encircling her, a cloister made themselves
The seven Nymphs, with those lights in their hands
Which are secure from Aquilon and Auster.
"Short while shalt thou be here a forester,
And thou shalt be with me for evermore
A citizen of that Rome where Christ is Roman.
Therefore, for that world's good which liveth ill,
Fix on the car thine eyes, and what thou seest,
Having returned to earth, take heed thou write."
Thus Beatrice; and I, who at the feet
Of her commandments all devoted was,
My mind and eyes directed where she willed.
Never descended with so swift a motion
Fire from a heavy cloud, when it is raining
From out the region which is most remote,
As I beheld the bird of Jove descend
Down through the tree, rending away the bark,
As well as blossoms and the foliage new,
And he with all his might the chariot smote,
Whereat it reeled, like vessel in a tempest
Tossed by the waves, now starboard and now larboard.
Thereafter saw I leap into the body
Of the triumphal vehicle a Fox,
That seemed unfed with any wholesome food.
But for his hideous sins upbraiding him,
My Lady put him to as swift a flight
As such a fleshless skeleton could bear.
Then by the way that it before had come,
Into the chariot's chest I saw the Eagle
Descend, and leave it feathered with his plumes.
And such as issues from a heart that mourns,
A voice from Heaven there issued, and it said:
"My little bark, how badly art thou freighted!"
Methought, then, that the earth did yawn between
Both wheels, and I saw rise from it a Dragon,
Who through the chariot upward fixed his tail,
And as a wasp that draweth back its sting,
Drawing unto himself his tail malign,
Drew out the floor, and went his way rejoicing.
That which remained behind, even as with grass
A fertile region, with the feathers, offered
Perhaps with pure intention and benign,
Reclothed itself, and with them were reclothed
The pole and both the wheels so speedily,
A sigh doth longer keep the lips apart.
Transfigured thus the holy edifice
Thrust forward heads upon the parts of it,
Three on the pole and one at either corner.
The first were horned like oxen; but the four
Had but a single horn upon the forehead;
A monster such had never yet been seen!
Firm as a rock upon a mountain high,
Seated upon it, there appeared to me
A shameless whore, with eyes swift glancing round,
And, as if not to have her taken from him,
Upright beside her I beheld a giant;
And ever and anon they kissed each other.
But because she her wanton, roving eye
Turned upon me, her angry paramour
Did scourge her from her head unto her feet.
Then full of jealousy, and fierce with wrath,
He loosed the monster, and across the forest
Dragged it so far, he made of that alone
A shield unto the whore and the strange beast.
Dante would seem to be looking back in time, seeing Beatrice now, in 1300, as she was in Florence in 1290 (the year in which she died). That his eyes are so 'fixed' will be noted by the theological virtues at verse 9 – and not with approval.
This is the longest canto in the Comedy. For consideration of the various lengths of Dante's cantos, see the note to Inferno VI.28-32.
The love that Dante feels now for Beatrice is described in terms that indicate its 'Carthaginian' dimension. The 'antica rete' (old, familiar net) reminds us of the 'antica fiamma' (ancient flame – Purg. XXX.48) that flared in Dido and then in Dante, Dido's words become his own. Dante's morals may have been cleansed on the mountain, and Lethe may have made him forget his now forgiven sins, but his intellect is surely not working at its highest level. Having seen Beatrice as God loves her, he still contrives to think she is that pretty girl from Florence. The poet records her 'holy smile'; the protagonist remembers his earthly feelings.
The word rete (net) was used in the last canto (Purg. XXXI.63) to denote the instrument with which a hunter catches birds (as a girl [or girls] caught incautious Dante, according to Beatrice), and may also remind us of the net in which Vulcan caught his adulterous wife Venus in flagrante delicto with Mars, as Allen Tate (“The Symbolic Imagination: A Meditation on Dante's Three Mirrors,” in Discussions of the “Divine Comedy,” ed. Irma Brandeis [Boston: Heath, 1961]), p. 103, has suggested.
Dante, facing Beatrice, the griffin, and the front of the chariot, turns to his left to pay attention to the three theological virtues, facing him as they stand at the chariot's right wheel (see Purg. XXIX.121).
How can Dante love Beatrice too much? Only if he does not love her in God. And that, we should realize, is why he is rebuked here by the theological virtues (not the least of them being Charity), who understand that his gaze is fixed on the image of the young woman he loved and lost rather than on the saved soul who has made his journey possible. (See the note to Purg. XXX.58.) The problem is as old as Plato's Phaedrus. How do we love physical beauty in such ways as to see it as only the manifestation of a higher beauty (in Dante, of the etterno piacer [Purg. XXIX.32])? See Mazzeo's “Dante and the Phaedrus Tradition of Poetic Inspiration” (in his Structure and Thought in the “Paradiso” [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958], pp. 1-24). The virtues intercede because they sense that Dante is caught up in carnal appreciation of a spiritual entity.
The poet at first may seem to be making exactly the same sort of mistake the protagonist has just made, a second idolatrous praising of his lady who, he now seems to be saying, is of even greater worth than the entirety of the Church Triumphant (or so Singleton [comm. to these verses] implies, referring to these 'strong words, calling the whole procession 'poco' in comparison!').
The passage has caused difficulty over the years. The partial insights of several help us make sense of what Dante said. John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 10-18) points out that the word sensibile is a technical term, reflecting such discussions as those found in Aristotle (De anima II and De senso et sensato). The sensation encountered by any particular sense organ is what is meant, and the commentator's first example fits perfectly here. If one looks at the sun (a sensibile, an object of sense perception, in this case by the eyes), anything else will seem less bright by comparison (see the discussion of the sensibile comune [the objects of sensory perception] in the note to Purg. XXIX.47-51). Tozer (comm. to these verses) reminds the reader of the similar passage at Purgatorio XV.15, in which Dante's sense of sight is overwhelmed. And Steiner (comm. to vv. 13-14) distinguishes between the light of the sun and the blinding effulgence of God.
The context here is the 'isplendor di viva luce etterna' (splendor of eternal living light), that is, the smile of Beatrice glowing with the direct light of God's rays. Her mouth is illumined by the 'sun' that is God, while all else in the garden is lit by the light of the natural sun, and thus is less available to the sense of sight than Beatrice's smile, as vv. 10-12 make all but apparent: Dante has been blinded by the Light.
The Church, in metaphor a 'glorious army,' has reversed its course, is heading back toward the east, whence it came. In this poem, until we hear the penitents cry out in joy for the liberation of Statius's soul (Purg. XX.136), the words gloria and glorïoso have referred to worldly fame. But here, as there, the word has the meaning it will have in Paradiso, referring to those who live in Glory, that is, in the shining effulgence of God. (The American nineteenth-century locution 'going to glory' meant 'headed for heaven.') This army is not famous for its worldly accomplishments; it dwells with God and does not care for the world's rewards. The word 'glory' has 25 of its 39 occurrences in the poem in Paradiso; thus nearly two-thirds of them are found in one-third of the available poetic space.
The elaborate military simile, in which the vanguard of the Church Triumphant had turned and was already moving eastward while the chariot was still facing west (an effect striven for and achieved by marching bands between the halves of American football games) may have an ulterior purpose. Dante has reversed temporal order to present first the Church in triumph as it will be after time, and only then the Church in its earthly travail (see the note to Purg. XXIX.115-120). As preparation for that change, from Church Triumphant to Church Militant, he may have chosen this introductory military simile, one in which the forces with which we identify are under attack and in strategic retreat.
Benvenuto's gloss (comm. to vv. 25-27) suggests that, while the mortal aspect of Christ may be mutable, His divine being (represented by his wings) is not.
Matelda, Statius, and Dante are at the right wheel of the chariot, since that is the one that turns in the smaller arc, given the fact that the 'army' has turned to its right in its retreat. Statius's presence has not been referred to since Purgatorio XXVIII.146 and his name has not been heard since Purgatorio XXVII.47. He is named a total of eight times between cantos XXI and XXXIII of this cantica, this being the seventh; nonetheless, his presence almost always catches us by surprise.
If paradise has been regained in this Eden, it is now time to consider how it was lost in the first place; the usual suspects are Eve and Adam (in that order, since she sinned first, but he still more disastrously). Eve is referred to periphrastically by the poet (verse 32), but it is Adam's name that is murmured by all the others present in the procession.
That the procession has paused, with Beatrice descending from the chariot, indicates that we have arrived at a 'destination' of some importance.
The tree, given the context, is, literally, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. However, some of the first commentators (e.g., the Anonymus Lombardus [comm. to vv. 38-39], Jacopo della Lana [comm. to these verses]), disregarding that context, think its withered condition indicates the Tree of Life after the original sin, when humankind lost eternal life, a perfectly sensible (if almost certainly erroneous) conclusion. Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 37-39), paying attention to what is said of the tree in the next canto (Purg. XXXIII.61-63), only reasonably concludes that this tree, eaten of by Adam when he followed Eve in sin, must be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. While there have been many other interpretations (Scartazzini comm. to verse 38] claims that not a single gloss but a book would be necessary to document them all – and indeed his gloss itself is article-length), most currently agree with Benvenuto, but also with Scartazzini's view that the allegorical sense of the tree relates it to the history of the Roman empire. For the current debate over the meaning of the tree, see Armour (Dante's Griffin and the History of the World: A Study of the Earthly Paradise [“Purgatorio” XXIX-XXXIII] [Oxford: Clarendon, 1989]), pp. 180-214, and Pertile (La puttana e il gigante: Dal Cantico dei Cantici al Paradiso Terrestre di Dante [Ravenna: Longo, 1998]), pp. 163-96; see also Kaske (“'Sì si conserva il seme d'ogne giusto' [Purg. XXXII, 48],” Dante Studies 89 [1971]), p. 50.
One literary source of Dante's tree, which, as Scartazzini and Pertile point out, has any number of biblical analogues (e.g., Judges 9:8, Ezechiel 17:24, Daniel 4:20-22; Pertile, p. 166: Song of Songs 7:7-8), was first suggested by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 37-42): Georgics II.122-124, describing enormously tall trees in India. We probably should assume that this tree, like those found on two of the terraces below (see Purg. XXII.131-135; XXIV.103-105), has its boughs pointed downward so as to prevent its being climbed.
This exchange between the members of the Church Triumphant and the griffin (his only spoken words in the poem) has puzzled the commentators, like so much else in this difficult canto. His faithful celebrate the griffin's un-Adamic restraint; not only will he not despoil the tree a second time, he will bring the dead tree back to life (vv. 58-60).
The griffin's words, as was first pointed out by Scartazzini (comm. to verse 48) and now by many another commentator, derive from Matthew 3:15. Christ insists on being baptized by John the Baptist: 'For so it becomes us to fulfill all justice.' That the griffin speaks a version of the very words of Christ is still further evidence that he is meant to be understood as representing Him here.
The griffin now binds the temo (shaft), by means of which he had been drawing the chariot, to the tree. Most discussants currently believe that this instrument represents Christ's cross. The first commentators argued that, since Adam's sin had been disobedience, this scene showed the obedience to which Christ enjoined his Church, a reasonable enough understanding. While embracing it, Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 43-51) reports that some others believe that this ligature is symbolic of the Incarnation, while still others believe it is related to the cross. This last interpretation eventually became dominant, and remains so today.
It was only with Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), however, that the most likely source for this tercet, the fourteenth chapter of the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which Scartazzini claims is also the source of the lengthy paraphrase found in the gloss to the passage by Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 43-51) came to light. Any number of medieval legends were developed from this text (see Longfellow [comm. to verse 51]). In it, Adam's non-canonical son Seth visits the gates of the garden of Eden, now a wasteland, in search of some oil to ease Adam's aching head. Seth is not allowed to enter by the guardian angel, but does see a very tall tree, denuded of its leaves. The angel gives him a branch from the tree (it is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) which he brings back to Adam, who has died before Seth returns to Limbo with the branch. Planted, it soon supplied the wood that would serve for the crucifixion of Jesus.
For a brief discussion of the 'Legend of the Wood of the Cross' as being applicable to Dante's phrasing here see Edward Moore (Studies in Dante, Third Series: Miscellaneous Essays [Oxford: Clarendon, 1968 (1903)]), pp. 219-20. For these legends see Adolfo Mussafia (“Sulla legenda del legno della Croce,” Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften [Vienna] 63 [1869], pp. 165-216). It is remarkable that the Gospel of Nicodemus has not made its way into other commentaries to this tercet, since it has been a staple of commentators since Torraca (comm. to. Inf. IV.54) as a probable source for Dante's sense of the harrowing of hell, witnessed by Virgil, as it is described in Inferno IV.52-63.
The rays referred to are those of the sun when it moves from Pisces into Aries, i.e., at the first buds of springtime, and before the sun moves on and into Taurus. Our natural season of blossoming is compared, in this simile, to the miraculous and instantaneous flowering of the tree that had so long been dead, the color of its blossoms reminiscent of Christ's blood.
Dante leaves us with another of his little mysteries. What was the 'hymn' that he heard sung but could not understand, except to know that it is not sung on earth? Dante tells us as much and, as a result, the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 61-66) reasons, we cannot identify it. However, is there a hymn, known to be sung in Heaven, that we on earth have never heard?
The word inno (hymn) occurs six times in the poem in five passages (Inf. VII.125; Purg. VIII.17; XXV.127 & 129; here; Par. XIV.123). In the occurrences previous to this one the word has been used once antiphrastically, to denigrate Plutus's unintelligible shout, and then, in its next two appearances, to refer to the hymns 'Te lucis ante' and 'Summus Deus clementiae,' respectively. In other words, until now inno has either been used antiphrastically and thus in a general sense (i.e., 'an utterance not like a hymn') or with exactitude to indicate a particular Christian hymn. (For the final appearance of inno see the note to Par. XIV.118-126.) Are we supposed to be able to identify this song? There are, one must admit, times at which Dante leaves melody a mystery; even twice in this very canto (the 'angelica nota' [angelic song] of verse 33 and the 'più dolce canzone' [song more sweet] of verse 90, his references have successfully resisted identification). It would be unusual for Dante to have introduced a riddle without offering us the grounds for solving it. We are looking for a song with two characteristics: it must be unknown on earth and it almost certainly must be in celebration of Jesus's victory over death. Is there such a song? John of Serravalle (comm. to Par. XXXII.46-48) thought so: the last book of the Bible speaks of a canticum novum (new song) that is sung before the throne of God (Apoc. 14.3), a citation found, surprisingly enough, only once again in the commentary tradition (Steiner [comm. to vv. 61-63] and then possibly again, referred to glancingly but not definitively by Trucchi [comm. to vv. 61-63]). Robert Kaske (“Dante's Purgatorio XXXII and XXXIII: A Survey of Christian History,” University of Toronto Quarterly 43 [1974]), pp. 206-7, however, while unaware that he had at least two precursors, also sees a reference here to the canticum novum of Revelation. Kaske cites Apocalypse 5:9, which is also apposite, if a similar passage (at Apoc. 14:3) has a certain priority, as we shall see. In Revelation 5 Christ comes as a slain lamb (Apoc. 5:6) to judge humankind, at which the twenty-four elders and the four gospel beasts lower themselves before the king (5:8) and sing a 'new song' (canticum novum): 'You are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for you were slain and have redeemed us to God....' (5:9, italics added). The related passage (Apoc. 14:3) deepens the resonances with Purgatorio XXXII: 'And they sang as it were a new song [canticum novum] before the throne, and before the four beasts and the elders; and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, who were redeemed from earth' (italics added). It seems clear both what the song was and why it is not sung on earth. For the number of those in the procession as 144, the number of the 144,000 of the Church Triumphant, see the note to Purgatorio XXIX.145-150.
Dante's mystic sleep closes his experience of the Church Triumphant. Once he awakens, it will have returned to Heaven (vv. 89-90).
Dante is willing to live dangerously. What other medieval poet, in a serious moment of a serious poem, would turn to Ovid and to self-conscious literary humor in a moment like this? Dante has already (Purg. XXIX.94-96; and see the note to that tercet) referred to this Ovidian material (Metam. I.568-723) in these cantos dedicated to the recovery of Eden. He compares himself to Argus of the hundred eyes (Dante of the hundred cantos?), watching over Io at Juno's behest so that Jove cannot get at his bovine girlfriend, set to drowsiness and slumber (disastrously for him) by Mercury's tale of Syrinx and Pan. At what point does Argus fall asleep? just as Mercury's tale reports on the musical sound that issues from the reeds that were Syrinx, who had escaped Pan's lustful pursuit and vanished. Music and a disappearance are features of Dante's scene, as well. The parallel scene is done with witty aplomb but is dealt with by the commentators only as serious business. It is funny, as is Dante's aside to us that, if he could portray the moment of falling asleep, he would do so. His challenge to us was taken up by Boccaccio in his Decameron (I.viii.14); with Dante's passage apparently in his author's mind, Guglielmo Borsiere (a denizen of hell in Inf. XVI.70) describes a similar challenge when asked what as yet unseen thing he would advise a wealthy boor to have painted in his receiving room. Guglielmo says that he wouldn't know how to advise him, unless he were to choose 'a sneeze or something like it.'
Dante's sleep and awakening in the garden is verbally reminiscent of Ugolino's description of his awakening from his dreadful dream (Inf. XXXIII.27), the phrase 'squarciò il velame' (the veil was rent) remembered in 'squarciò il velo' (broke my veil of sleep [these are the only two occurrences of that verb in the poem]). It also reminds us that each of the three previous days on the mountain have ended in sleep and dream. On this fourth day, which will conclude his experience of the earthly paradise at noon, instead he has this mystic sleep after he has had a final visionary experience of the griffin and his Church.
Rather than a reference to the 'Surgite, et nolite timere' of Matthew 17:7, frequently cited in the commentaries (first by Jacopo della Lana [comm. to vv. 73-84]), Mario Aversano (“Il canto XXXII del Purgatorio,” in La quinta rota: Studi sulla “Commedia” [Turin: Tirrenia, 1988]), p. 168, prefers to believe that Matelda refers to Paul's words (Ephesians 5:14), 'Surge qui dormis' (Rise, you who are sleeping). And see his remarks on Paul's overall importance for Dante, pp. 185-88. Nonetheless, the passage in Matthew seems still closer to the context here, so much so that it is all but impossible not to see it as controlling this scene: 'And Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise [Surgite] and be not afraid.” And when they had lifted up their eyes they saw no man, save Jesus only.' See the note to Purgatorio XXXII.73-84.
In the scene of the transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17:1-8) the three apostles Peter, James, and John ascend a mountain with Jesus, see him transformed in visage (it shines with light) and raiment (his clothes become white), then see him in the company of Moses and Elijah (who, representing the law and the prophets, respectively, both promised his advent), and then hear the voice of God from a cloud proclaim that Jesus is his Son, and finally find Moses and Elijah vanished. Just so, this simile insists, Dante thinks he finds himself (in the role of an apostle) in the company of Matelda alone. For a study of discussions of the Transfiguration by various fathers of the Church, see Peter Chamberas (“The Transfiguration of Christ: A Study in the Patristic Exegesis of Scripture,” St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 14 [1970], pp. 48-65).
Verse 78 also clearly refers to Christ's resurrections of Jairus's daughter and of Lazarus (Luke 8:54 and John 11:43).
Dante's phrase, 'Where is Beatrice?' will be remembered when she leaves him for the final time at Paradiso XXXI.64 and he asks St. Bernard, 'Ov' è ella?' (Where is she?), as Poletto (comm. to vv. 85-87) noted.
Beatrice's pose is one of humility, seated on the ground on a root of the newly reflorescent tree. Thus she who, rather than Matelda, really corresponds to Christ in the biblical parallel is the one who is 'transfigured,' 'changed in raiment,' as we shall see in a moment.
Those who remain behind in the garden with Beatrice are her 'handmaids,' the seven virtues, and Matelda. And of course there is the chariot. Dante and Statius are the spectators of the show that is to follow.
We learn that the Church Triumphant has now returned to the Empyrean, just as it will do after it descends for Dante's sake a second time, in the sphere of the Fixed Stars (Par. XXIII.70-72). (For the logistics of the arrival and departure of the participants in this pageant, see the notes to Purg. XXX.16-18 and XXXI.77-78.) The Griffin's departure and return to the Empyrean foreshadow the similar departure and return of Jesus described in Paradiso XXIII.86-87.
That Beatrice is described as seated 'on the bare ground' associates her with humility in general and, perhaps more pointedly, with St. Francis, who raised humility to an art form. See the note to Purgatorio XI.135; and see the portrait of Francis in Paradiso XI. For a recent review of the relations between Dante and the Spiritual Franciscans see Nicolò Mineo (“Gli spirituali francescani e l'Apocalisse di Dante,” in Pour Dante: Dante et l'Apocalypse: Lectures humanistes de Dante, ed. Bruno Pinchard and Christian Trottmann [Paris: Champion, 2001], pp. 77-98).
No longer the triumphant figure who came into the garden by descending to her chariot, Beatrice is now here to witness its devastation and, once, to protect that chariot; she is no longer in the role of conqueror.
Since the nymphs are seven and since the 'candles' leading the procession (last referred to at verse 18) are seven, and since Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 97-99) lent the hypothesis his considerable authority, some commentators have believed that those candles are the lights held by the seven virtues. Both because the seven candles seem a part of the procession of the Church Triumphant and because they are extremely large, this hypothesis has not convinced every reader. On the other hand, other suggestions are all minority opinions. Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 94-108) believed they represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, but many find his argument overly subtle and unsupported by the text. Torraca (comm. to vv. 97-99) suggested the seven sacraments ordained by Christ. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 97-99), uncomfortable with all earlier identifications, thought the reference was to the lamps of the wise virgins in the parable (Matthew 25:1-13) of the ten wise and foolish virgins; but the wise ones only number five. Pertile (La puttana e il gigante: Dal Cantico dei Cantici al Paradiso Terrestre di Dante [Ravenna: Longo, 1998]), p. 198n., points (via Alain de Lille) to the 'seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God' (Apoc. 4:5), thus giving support to Francesco da Buti's view, which does seem the most palatable. For the biblical and post-biblical understanding of the winds from north (Aquilo) and south (Auster) as being the most destructive, see Pertile, pp. 197-202.
Beatrice's words are clear in their promise. (Those who believe that she is speaking not of Dante's next stay in the garden but that left him on earth cannot rationalize the disjunction caused by the fact that when Dante returns to earth he will be without Beatrice, who speaks here only of being with him in Heaven.) Most commentators now also agree that Beatrice is not alluding to the few minutes he will now be with her in the garden, but to the short stay he will have in his second visit to the earthly paradise, after his death and ascent. She then looks past his first and upcoming visit to paradise in order to fasten his attention on his final destination, when he, too, will be, with her, a citizen of the City of God, the new Jerusalem in which Christ is 'Roman.' Denise Heilbronn (“Dante's Valley of the Princes,” Dante Studies 90 [1972], p. 57, n. 15), in another context, refers to the Augustinian notion of the 'pilgrim city' that finds a place in Dante's Epistola XI.11: 'pro tota civitate peregrinante in terris' (for the entire human city in its earthly pilgrimage). The 'city of man' that is our militancy on earth is to become the heavenly Rome presided over by Christ as emperor, at least it will be for all those who will find themselves saved.
Beatrice's charge to Dante is reminiscent of God's to John, author of the Revelation: 'What you see, write in a book, and send it to the seven churches...' (Apoc. 1:11).
The second pageant in the garden of Eden is both dramatically different from the first and exactly like it. In the first instance we were given a description of the Church Triumphant (which exists as an ideal out of time and can only be gathered once history is done) that comes in a temporal form, moving from Genesis to the Apocalypse before Dante's eyes. Now he sees real history, from just after the founding of the Church until the present, unfolding as a series of events performed in a sort of 'dumbshow' in a single place. However, both pageants are presented as allegories, reflecting history, to be sure, but experienced as though they were literally fictive (e.g., the books of the Bible, the griffin, the depredations of the Church), requiring the kind of critical procedure that we expect for what Dante himself referred to (Convivio II.i.4-5) as allegory as practiced by the poets. Most of the scenes in the Commedia are presented as 'historical' and are best analyzed (or so it seems to many) with the methods of the 'allegory of the theologians'; for some others, however, that are presented as fictive and thus call for the more usual allegorical procedures, see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 239-54. For a recent study of the way in which the allegorizing tendencies of the early commentators were continued in the Renaissance see Bruno Porcelli (“Beatrice nei commenti danteschi del Landino e del Vellutello” [1994], in his Nuovi studi su Dante e Boccaccio con analisi della “Nencia” [Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1997], pp. 57-78).
The rest of the canto will present the history of the Church and of the empire as these two entities make their related voyages through history. However, for a new interpretation of this entire scene, reversing many long-held opinions about the valences of almost every element in this difficult allegorical passage, see the final paragraph of the note to Paradiso XII.55.
The first tribulation of the new Church was to be persecuted by the emperors of Rome, beginning with Nero (54-68) while Peter was its first pope (and was crucified in the emperor's persecution of Christians ca. A.D. 68), and extending to the reign of Diocletian (284-305).
While the eagle of Jove may signify variously, there is no doubt that here and through the rest of the pageant of the persecution of the Church Militant it represents the empire.
The phrase nave in fortuna (ship tossed in a tempest) will find its way to the final world prophecy in the poem (Par. XXVII.145).
Beatrice, acting as the embodiment of the Church's spirit (the chariot representing its physical being, as it were) is able to defeat the forces of heresy, the traditional interpretation of the fox. Portirelli (comm. to these verses) identified the fox with the 'vulpes insidiosos' (insidious foxes) of the Song of Solomon (Cant. 2:15). His adjective, however, is not found in the biblical text, where the foxes are only described as 'little,' and the phrase in fact comes from St. Augustine, who identifies heresy and exactly such foxes in his Enarrationes in Ps. LXXX, as was noted by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 118-120). The temporal progression of these scenes would indicate that Dante is thinking of the early centuries of the Church's history, after the first persecutions and before the Donation of Constantine (see the note to Purg. XXXII.124-129).
All commentators agree that this invasion of the chariot by the eagle of empire represents the Donation of Constantine in the first third of the fourth century (see note to Inf. XIX.115-117). The Church was meant to operate independently of the empire (this is the essential theme of Dante's Monarchia). Here, by being given the 'feathers' that belong to empire alone, it is adulterated from its pure form. In this formulation Dante reverses his usual view, which involves seeing the empire's rights and privileges as being curtailed by the Church. In a sense the point is even stronger expressed this way: the Church is harmed by exercising its authority in the civil realm.
Since the gloss of the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 127-129), the voice from heaven is generally taken to be that of St. Peter. From the time of the earliest commentators, however, there was an understanding that Dante's voice from heaven was a sort of calque on the story that, on the day of the Donation, a voice from heaven was heard calling out: 'Hodie diffusum est venenum in ecclesia Dei' (Today the church of God is suffused by poison).
While there is some debate about the nature of this particular calamity, most commentators believe it refers to the 'schism' in the Church brought about by Mohammed just after the middle years of the seventh century (see the note to Inf. XXVIII.22-31 for Dante's understanding of the relation of Islam to Christianity).
In a sort of replay of the second calamity (the Donation of Constantine) the chariot is once again covered in imperial feathers. The standard interpretation of these verses is that they refer to the grants of lands to the Church by two French kings, Pepin and Charlemagne, in the second half of the eighth century.
The 'plumage,' which the poet suggests was 'offered perhaps with kind and innocent intent,' represents once again that which belonged to the empire by God's intent, and legally, in Dante's view, could not be surrendered to ecclesiastical authority, even though kings had chosen to do so. See Paradiso XX.55-57, where a similar expression is used to indicate that Constantine had sinned grievously, if without meaning to do so.
The language and the imagery are clearly indebted to the Apocalypse (13:1) for the beast with seven heads and ten horns. Exactly what this symbolic transformation of the Church signifies is much discussed, with little resolution. In general, all can agree, we here see the corruption wrought by the clergy upon their own institution. In other words, in Dante's view, the Church had weathered all attacks upon it from within and without until the time of Charlemagne. In the next five centuries she would do such harm to herself as to make those earlier wounds mortal. This period is marked by corruption from the papacy down to the most modestly avaricious friar; Christianity has no enemies as implacable as its own ecclesiastical institutions or its own clergy.
Strictly speaking, this seventh and final calamity is a vision, since the Church only moved to Avignon in 1309 after the election to the papacy of Clement V in 1305. We have now surveyed, in 52 verses, nearly thirteen centuries of the history of the Church. For the importance of Avignon to Dante, despite the fact that the city is never mentioned by name in the poem, see Michelangelo Picone (“Avignone come tema letterario: Dante e Petrarca,” L'Alighieri 20 [2002], pp. 5-22), pp. 5-14.
The harlot and the giant, the whore of Babylon 'with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication' (Rev. 17:2) and Philip IV of France, bring the terrible history to its conclusion. The chariot no longer has to do with Beatrice, replaced by this wanton spirit that gives herself to all and any, and is now controlled by France. Dante's reaction to the 'Avignonian captivity' is proof, if any is needed, that he is not the Protestant avant la lettre that some have tried to find in him. Indeed, the last and only potentially (if fleeting) hopeful sign we find in the gradually darkening anti-triumph of the Church Militant is that the whore gazes on Dante, thus gaining for her a beating from her gigantic paramour. What does Dante represent now? Is he the embodiment of the truly faithful Christians who hope that their Church will be cleansed? of the Italian faithful left back on this side of the Alps? or is he Dante himself? This penultimate detail of a difficult and encompassing allegorical pageant has left many readers perplexed. Its final one is clear in its pessimism. The giant responds to his lover's wayward glance by releasing the chariot from its binding to the tree and dragging it deeper into the forest, which now looks less like Eden than it resembles France. Now see the revisionist and convincing arguments of Filippo Bognini, “Gli occhi di Ooliba: Una proposta per Purg. XXXII 148-60 e XXXIII 44-45,” Rivista di Studi Danteschi 7 (2007): 73-103 (referred to in the note to Par. XII.55): The whore is Ezechiel's Jerusalem and thus Dante's Florence, while the giant reflects Goliath as Robert of Anjou, the king of Naples and the Guelph leader in Italy, prime enemy of Henry VII.
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Tant' eran li occhi miei fissi e attenti
a disbramarsi la decenne sete,
che li altri sensi m'eran tutti spenti.
Ed essi quinci e quindi avien parete
di non caler–così lo santo riso
a sé traéli con l'antica rete!–;
quando per forza mi fu vòlto il viso
ver' la sinistra mia da quelle dee,
perch' io udi' da loro un “Troppo fiso!”
e la disposizion ch'a veder èe
ne li occhi pur testé dal sol percossi,
sanza la vista alquanto esser mi fée.
Ma poi ch'al poco il viso riformossi
(e dico “al poco” per rispetto al molto
sensibile onde a forza mi rimossi),
vidi 'n sul braccio destro esser rivolto
lo glorïoso essercito, e tornarsi
col sole e con le sette fiamme al volto.
Come sotto li scudi per salvarsi
volgesi schiera, e sé gira col segno,
prima che possa tutta in sé mutarsi;
quella milizia del celeste regno
che procedeva, tutta trapassonne
pria che piegasse il carro il primo legno.
Indi a le rote si tornar le donne,
e 'l grifon mosse il benedetto carco
sì, che però nulla penna crollonne.
La bella donna che mi trasse al varco
e Stazio e io seguitavam la rota
che fé l'orbita sua con minore arco.
Sì passeggiando l'alta selva vòta,
colpa di quella ch'al serpente crese,
temprava i passi un'angelica nota.
Forse in tre voli tanto spazio prese
disfrenata saetta, quanto eramo
rimossi, quando Bëatrice scese.
Io senti' mormorare a tutti “Adamo”;
poi cerchiaro una pianta dispogliata
di foglie e d'altra fronda in ciascun ramo.
La coma sua, che tanto si dilata
più quanto più è sù, fora da l'Indi
ne' boschi lor per altezza ammirata.
“Beato se', grifon, che non discindi
col becco d'esto legno dolce al gusto,
poscia che mal si torce il ventre quindi.”
Così dintorno a l'albero robusto
gridaron li altri; e l'animal binato:
“Sì si conserva il seme d'ogne giusto.”
E vòlto al temo ch'elli avea tirato,
trasselo al piè de la vedova frasca,
e quel di lei a lei lasciò legato.
Come le nostre piante, quando casca
giù la gran luce mischiata con quella
che raggia dietro a la celeste lasca,
turgide fansi, e poi si rinovella
di suo color ciascuna, pria che 'l sole
giunga li suoi corsier sotto altra stella;
men che di rose e più che di vïole
colore aprendo, s'innovò la pianta,
che prima avea le ramora sì sole.
Io non lo 'ntesi, né qui non si canta
l'inno che quella gente allor cantaro,
né la nota soffersi tutta quanta.
S'io potessi ritrar come assonnaro
li occhi spietati udendo di Siringa,
li occhi a cui pur vegghiar costò sì caro;
come pintor che con essempro pinga,
disegnerei com' io m'addormentai;
ma qual vuol sia che l'assonnar ben finga.
Però trascorro a quando mi svegliai,
e dico ch'un splendor mi squarciò 'l velo
del sonno, e un chiamar: “Surgi: che fai?”
Quali a veder de' fioretti del melo
che del suo pome li angeli fa ghiotti
e perpetüe nozze fa nel cielo,
Pietro e Giovanni e Iacopo condotti
e vinti, ritornaro a la parola
da la qual furon maggior sonni rotti,
e videro scemata loro scuola
così di Moïsè come d'Elia,
e al maestro suo cangiata stola;
tal torna' io, e vidi quella pia
sovra me starsi che conducitrice
fu de' miei passi lungo 'l fiume pria.
E tutto in dubbio dissi: “Ov' è Beatrice?”
Ond' ella: “Vedi lei sotto la fronda
nova sedere in su la sua radice.
Vedi la compagnia che la circonda:
li altri dopo 'l grifon sen vanno suso
con più dolce canzone e più profonda.”
E se più fu lo suo parlar diffuso,
non so, però che già ne li occhi m'era
quella ch'ad altro intender m'avea chiuso.
Sola sedeasi in su la terra vera,
come guardia lasciata lì del plaustro
che legar vidi a la biforme fera.
In cerchio le facevan di sé claustro
le sette ninfe, con quei lumi in mano
che son sicuri d'Aquilone e d'Austro.
“Qui sarai tu poco tempo silvano;
e sarai meco sanza fine cive
di quella Roma onde Cristo è romano
Però, in pro del mondo che mal vive,
al carro tieni or li occhi, e quel che vedi,
ritornato di là, fa che tu scrive.”
Così Beatrice; e io, che tutto ai piedi
d'i suoi comandamenti era divoto,
la mente e li occhi ov' ella volle diedi.
Non scese mai con sì veloce moto
foco di spessa nube, quando piove
da quel confine che più va remoto,
com' io vidi calar l'uccel di Giove
per l'alber giù, rompendo de la scorza,
non che d'i fiori e de le foglie nove;
e ferì 'l carro di tutta sua forza;
ond' el piegò come nave in fortuna,
vinta da l'onda, or da poggia, or da orza.
Poscia vidi avventarsi ne la cuna
del trïunfal veiculo una volpe
che d'ogne pasto buon parea digiuna;
ma, riprendendo lei di laide colpe,
la donna mia la volse in tanta futa
quanto sofferser l'ossa sanza polpe.
Poscia per indi ond' era pria venuta,
l'aguglia vidi scender giù ne l'arca
del carro e lasciar lei di sé pennuta;
e qual esce di cuor che si rammarca,
tal voce uscì del cielo e cotal disse:
“O navicella mia, com' mal se' carca!”
Poi parve a me che la terra s'aprisse
tr'ambo le ruote, e vidi uscirne un drago
che per lo carro sù la coda fisse;
e come vespa che ritragge l'ago,
a sé traendo la coda maligna,
trasse del fondo, e gissen vago vago.
Quel che rimase, come da gramigna
vivace terra, da la piuma, offerta
forse con intenzion sana e benigna,
si ricoperse, e funne ricoperta
e l'una e l'altra rota e 'l temo, in tanto
che più tiene un sospir la bocca aperta.
Trasformato così 'l dificio santo
mise fuor teste per le parti sue,
tre sovra 'l temo e una in ciascun canto.
Le prime eran cornute come bue,
ma le quattro un sol corno avean per fronte:
simile mostro visto ancor non fue.
Sicura, quasi rocca in alto monte,
seder sovresso una puttana sciolta
m'apparve con le ciglia intorno pronte;
e come perché non li fosse tolta,
vidi di costa a lei dritto un gigante;
e basciavansi insieme alcuna volta.
Ma perché l'occhio cupido e vagante
a me rivolse, quel feroce drudo
la flagellò dal capo infin le piante;
poi, di sospetto pieno e d'ira crudo,
disciolse il mostro, e trassel per la selva,
tanto che sol di lei mi fece scudo
a la puttana e a la nova belva.
So steadfast and attentive were mine eyes
In satisfying their decennial thirst,
That all my other senses were extinct,
And upon this side and on that they had
Walls of indifference, so the holy smile
Drew them unto itself with the old net
When forcibly my sight was turned away
Towards my left hand by those goddesses,
Because I heard from them a "Too intently!"
And that condition of the sight which is
In eyes but lately smitten by the sun
Bereft me of my vision some short while;
But to the less when sight re-shaped itself,
I say the less in reference to the greater
Splendour from which perforce I had withdrawn,
I saw upon its right wing wheeled about
The glorious host returning with the sun
And with the sevenfold flames upon their faces.
As underneath its shields, to save itself,
A squadron turns, and with its banner wheels,
Before the whole thereof can change its front,
That soldiery of the celestial kingdom
Which marched in the advance had wholly passed us
Before the chariot had turned its pole.
Then to the wheels the maidens turned themselves,
And the Griffin moved his burden benedight,
But so that not a feather of him fluttered.
The lady fair who drew me through the ford
Followed with Statius and myself the wheel
Which made its orbit with the lesser arc.
So passing through the lofty forest, vacant
By fault of her who in the serpent trusted,
Angelic music made our steps keep time.
Perchance as great a space had in three flights
An arrow loosened from the string o'erpassed,
As we had moved when Beatrice descended.
I heard them murmur altogether, "Adam!"
Then circled they about a tree despoiled
Of blooms and other leafage on each bough.
Its tresses, which so much the more dilate
As higher they ascend, had been by Indians
Among their forests marvelled at for height.
"Blessed art thou, O Griffin, who dost not
Pluck with thy beak these branches sweet to taste,
Since appetite by this was turned to evil."
After this fashion round the tree robust
The others shouted; and the twofold creature:
"Thus is preserved the seed of all the just."
And turning to the pole which he had dragged,
He drew it close beneath the widowed bough,
And what was of it unto it left bound.
In the same manner as our trees (when downward
Falls the great light, with that together mingled
Which after the celestial Lasca shines)
Begin to swell, and then renew themselves,
Each one with its own colour, ere the Sun
Harness his steeds beneath another star:
Less than of rose and more than violet
A hue disclosing, was renewed the tree
That had erewhile its boughs so desolate.
I never heard, nor here below is sung,
The hymn which afterward that people sang,
Nor did I bear the melody throughout.
Had I the power to paint how fell asleep
Those eyes compassionless, of Syrinx hearing,
Those eyes to which more watching cost so dear,
Even as a painter who from model paints
I would portray how I was lulled asleep;
He may, who well can picture drowsihood.
Therefore I pass to what time I awoke,
And say a splendour rent from me the veil
Of slumber, and a calling: "Rise, what dost thou?"
As to behold the apple-tree in blossom
Which makes the Angels greedy for its fruit,
And keeps perpetual bridals in the Heaven,
Peter and John and James conducted were,
And, overcome, recovered at the word
By which still greater slumbers have been broken,
And saw their school diminished by the loss
Not only of Elias, but of Moses,
And the apparel of their Master changed;
So I revived, and saw that piteous one
Above me standing, who had been conductress
Aforetime of my steps beside the river,
And all in doubt I said, "Where's Beatrice?"
And she: "Behold her seated underneath
The leafage new, upon the root of it.
Behold the company that circles her;
The rest behind the Griffin are ascending
With more melodious song, and more profound."
And if her speech were more diffuse I know not,
Because already in my sight was she
Who from the hearing of aught else had shut me.
Alone she sat upon the very earth,
Left there as guardian of the chariot
Which I had seen the biform monster fasten.
Encircling her, a cloister made themselves
The seven Nymphs, with those lights in their hands
Which are secure from Aquilon and Auster.
"Short while shalt thou be here a forester,
And thou shalt be with me for evermore
A citizen of that Rome where Christ is Roman.
Therefore, for that world's good which liveth ill,
Fix on the car thine eyes, and what thou seest,
Having returned to earth, take heed thou write."
Thus Beatrice; and I, who at the feet
Of her commandments all devoted was,
My mind and eyes directed where she willed.
Never descended with so swift a motion
Fire from a heavy cloud, when it is raining
From out the region which is most remote,
As I beheld the bird of Jove descend
Down through the tree, rending away the bark,
As well as blossoms and the foliage new,
And he with all his might the chariot smote,
Whereat it reeled, like vessel in a tempest
Tossed by the waves, now starboard and now larboard.
Thereafter saw I leap into the body
Of the triumphal vehicle a Fox,
That seemed unfed with any wholesome food.
But for his hideous sins upbraiding him,
My Lady put him to as swift a flight
As such a fleshless skeleton could bear.
Then by the way that it before had come,
Into the chariot's chest I saw the Eagle
Descend, and leave it feathered with his plumes.
And such as issues from a heart that mourns,
A voice from Heaven there issued, and it said:
"My little bark, how badly art thou freighted!"
Methought, then, that the earth did yawn between
Both wheels, and I saw rise from it a Dragon,
Who through the chariot upward fixed his tail,
And as a wasp that draweth back its sting,
Drawing unto himself his tail malign,
Drew out the floor, and went his way rejoicing.
That which remained behind, even as with grass
A fertile region, with the feathers, offered
Perhaps with pure intention and benign,
Reclothed itself, and with them were reclothed
The pole and both the wheels so speedily,
A sigh doth longer keep the lips apart.
Transfigured thus the holy edifice
Thrust forward heads upon the parts of it,
Three on the pole and one at either corner.
The first were horned like oxen; but the four
Had but a single horn upon the forehead;
A monster such had never yet been seen!
Firm as a rock upon a mountain high,
Seated upon it, there appeared to me
A shameless whore, with eyes swift glancing round,
And, as if not to have her taken from him,
Upright beside her I beheld a giant;
And ever and anon they kissed each other.
But because she her wanton, roving eye
Turned upon me, her angry paramour
Did scourge her from her head unto her feet.
Then full of jealousy, and fierce with wrath,
He loosed the monster, and across the forest
Dragged it so far, he made of that alone
A shield unto the whore and the strange beast.
Dante would seem to be looking back in time, seeing Beatrice now, in 1300, as she was in Florence in 1290 (the year in which she died). That his eyes are so 'fixed' will be noted by the theological virtues at verse 9 – and not with approval.
This is the longest canto in the Comedy. For consideration of the various lengths of Dante's cantos, see the note to Inferno VI.28-32.
The love that Dante feels now for Beatrice is described in terms that indicate its 'Carthaginian' dimension. The 'antica rete' (old, familiar net) reminds us of the 'antica fiamma' (ancient flame – Purg. XXX.48) that flared in Dido and then in Dante, Dido's words become his own. Dante's morals may have been cleansed on the mountain, and Lethe may have made him forget his now forgiven sins, but his intellect is surely not working at its highest level. Having seen Beatrice as God loves her, he still contrives to think she is that pretty girl from Florence. The poet records her 'holy smile'; the protagonist remembers his earthly feelings.
The word rete (net) was used in the last canto (Purg. XXXI.63) to denote the instrument with which a hunter catches birds (as a girl [or girls] caught incautious Dante, according to Beatrice), and may also remind us of the net in which Vulcan caught his adulterous wife Venus in flagrante delicto with Mars, as Allen Tate (“The Symbolic Imagination: A Meditation on Dante's Three Mirrors,” in Discussions of the “Divine Comedy,” ed. Irma Brandeis [Boston: Heath, 1961]), p. 103, has suggested.
Dante, facing Beatrice, the griffin, and the front of the chariot, turns to his left to pay attention to the three theological virtues, facing him as they stand at the chariot's right wheel (see Purg. XXIX.121).
How can Dante love Beatrice too much? Only if he does not love her in God. And that, we should realize, is why he is rebuked here by the theological virtues (not the least of them being Charity), who understand that his gaze is fixed on the image of the young woman he loved and lost rather than on the saved soul who has made his journey possible. (See the note to Purg. XXX.58.) The problem is as old as Plato's Phaedrus. How do we love physical beauty in such ways as to see it as only the manifestation of a higher beauty (in Dante, of the etterno piacer [Purg. XXIX.32])? See Mazzeo's “Dante and the Phaedrus Tradition of Poetic Inspiration” (in his Structure and Thought in the “Paradiso” [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958], pp. 1-24). The virtues intercede because they sense that Dante is caught up in carnal appreciation of a spiritual entity.
The poet at first may seem to be making exactly the same sort of mistake the protagonist has just made, a second idolatrous praising of his lady who, he now seems to be saying, is of even greater worth than the entirety of the Church Triumphant (or so Singleton [comm. to these verses] implies, referring to these 'strong words, calling the whole procession 'poco' in comparison!').
The passage has caused difficulty over the years. The partial insights of several help us make sense of what Dante said. John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 10-18) points out that the word sensibile is a technical term, reflecting such discussions as those found in Aristotle (De anima II and De senso et sensato). The sensation encountered by any particular sense organ is what is meant, and the commentator's first example fits perfectly here. If one looks at the sun (a sensibile, an object of sense perception, in this case by the eyes), anything else will seem less bright by comparison (see the discussion of the sensibile comune [the objects of sensory perception] in the note to Purg. XXIX.47-51). Tozer (comm. to these verses) reminds the reader of the similar passage at Purgatorio XV.15, in which Dante's sense of sight is overwhelmed. And Steiner (comm. to vv. 13-14) distinguishes between the light of the sun and the blinding effulgence of God.
The context here is the 'isplendor di viva luce etterna' (splendor of eternal living light), that is, the smile of Beatrice glowing with the direct light of God's rays. Her mouth is illumined by the 'sun' that is God, while all else in the garden is lit by the light of the natural sun, and thus is less available to the sense of sight than Beatrice's smile, as vv. 10-12 make all but apparent: Dante has been blinded by the Light.
The Church, in metaphor a 'glorious army,' has reversed its course, is heading back toward the east, whence it came. In this poem, until we hear the penitents cry out in joy for the liberation of Statius's soul (Purg. XX.136), the words gloria and glorïoso have referred to worldly fame. But here, as there, the word has the meaning it will have in Paradiso, referring to those who live in Glory, that is, in the shining effulgence of God. (The American nineteenth-century locution 'going to glory' meant 'headed for heaven.') This army is not famous for its worldly accomplishments; it dwells with God and does not care for the world's rewards. The word 'glory' has 25 of its 39 occurrences in the poem in Paradiso; thus nearly two-thirds of them are found in one-third of the available poetic space.
The elaborate military simile, in which the vanguard of the Church Triumphant had turned and was already moving eastward while the chariot was still facing west (an effect striven for and achieved by marching bands between the halves of American football games) may have an ulterior purpose. Dante has reversed temporal order to present first the Church in triumph as it will be after time, and only then the Church in its earthly travail (see the note to Purg. XXIX.115-120). As preparation for that change, from Church Triumphant to Church Militant, he may have chosen this introductory military simile, one in which the forces with which we identify are under attack and in strategic retreat.
Benvenuto's gloss (comm. to vv. 25-27) suggests that, while the mortal aspect of Christ may be mutable, His divine being (represented by his wings) is not.
Matelda, Statius, and Dante are at the right wheel of the chariot, since that is the one that turns in the smaller arc, given the fact that the 'army' has turned to its right in its retreat. Statius's presence has not been referred to since Purgatorio XXVIII.146 and his name has not been heard since Purgatorio XXVII.47. He is named a total of eight times between cantos XXI and XXXIII of this cantica, this being the seventh; nonetheless, his presence almost always catches us by surprise.
If paradise has been regained in this Eden, it is now time to consider how it was lost in the first place; the usual suspects are Eve and Adam (in that order, since she sinned first, but he still more disastrously). Eve is referred to periphrastically by the poet (verse 32), but it is Adam's name that is murmured by all the others present in the procession.
That the procession has paused, with Beatrice descending from the chariot, indicates that we have arrived at a 'destination' of some importance.
The tree, given the context, is, literally, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. However, some of the first commentators (e.g., the Anonymus Lombardus [comm. to vv. 38-39], Jacopo della Lana [comm. to these verses]), disregarding that context, think its withered condition indicates the Tree of Life after the original sin, when humankind lost eternal life, a perfectly sensible (if almost certainly erroneous) conclusion. Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 37-39), paying attention to what is said of the tree in the next canto (Purg. XXXIII.61-63), only reasonably concludes that this tree, eaten of by Adam when he followed Eve in sin, must be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. While there have been many other interpretations (Scartazzini comm. to verse 38] claims that not a single gloss but a book would be necessary to document them all – and indeed his gloss itself is article-length), most currently agree with Benvenuto, but also with Scartazzini's view that the allegorical sense of the tree relates it to the history of the Roman empire. For the current debate over the meaning of the tree, see Armour (Dante's Griffin and the History of the World: A Study of the Earthly Paradise [“Purgatorio” XXIX-XXXIII] [Oxford: Clarendon, 1989]), pp. 180-214, and Pertile (La puttana e il gigante: Dal Cantico dei Cantici al Paradiso Terrestre di Dante [Ravenna: Longo, 1998]), pp. 163-96; see also Kaske (“'Sì si conserva il seme d'ogne giusto' [Purg. XXXII, 48],” Dante Studies 89 [1971]), p. 50.
One literary source of Dante's tree, which, as Scartazzini and Pertile point out, has any number of biblical analogues (e.g., Judges 9:8, Ezechiel 17:24, Daniel 4:20-22; Pertile, p. 166: Song of Songs 7:7-8), was first suggested by John of Serravalle (comm. to vv. 37-42): Georgics II.122-124, describing enormously tall trees in India. We probably should assume that this tree, like those found on two of the terraces below (see Purg. XXII.131-135; XXIV.103-105), has its boughs pointed downward so as to prevent its being climbed.
This exchange between the members of the Church Triumphant and the griffin (his only spoken words in the poem) has puzzled the commentators, like so much else in this difficult canto. His faithful celebrate the griffin's un-Adamic restraint; not only will he not despoil the tree a second time, he will bring the dead tree back to life (vv. 58-60).
The griffin's words, as was first pointed out by Scartazzini (comm. to verse 48) and now by many another commentator, derive from Matthew 3:15. Christ insists on being baptized by John the Baptist: 'For so it becomes us to fulfill all justice.' That the griffin speaks a version of the very words of Christ is still further evidence that he is meant to be understood as representing Him here.
The griffin now binds the temo (shaft), by means of which he had been drawing the chariot, to the tree. Most discussants currently believe that this instrument represents Christ's cross. The first commentators argued that, since Adam's sin had been disobedience, this scene showed the obedience to which Christ enjoined his Church, a reasonable enough understanding. While embracing it, Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 43-51) reports that some others believe that this ligature is symbolic of the Incarnation, while still others believe it is related to the cross. This last interpretation eventually became dominant, and remains so today.
It was only with Scartazzini (comm. to this verse), however, that the most likely source for this tercet, the fourteenth chapter of the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which Scartazzini claims is also the source of the lengthy paraphrase found in the gloss to the passage by Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 43-51) came to light. Any number of medieval legends were developed from this text (see Longfellow [comm. to verse 51]). In it, Adam's non-canonical son Seth visits the gates of the garden of Eden, now a wasteland, in search of some oil to ease Adam's aching head. Seth is not allowed to enter by the guardian angel, but does see a very tall tree, denuded of its leaves. The angel gives him a branch from the tree (it is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) which he brings back to Adam, who has died before Seth returns to Limbo with the branch. Planted, it soon supplied the wood that would serve for the crucifixion of Jesus.
For a brief discussion of the 'Legend of the Wood of the Cross' as being applicable to Dante's phrasing here see Edward Moore (Studies in Dante, Third Series: Miscellaneous Essays [Oxford: Clarendon, 1968 (1903)]), pp. 219-20. For these legends see Adolfo Mussafia (“Sulla legenda del legno della Croce,” Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften [Vienna] 63 [1869], pp. 165-216). It is remarkable that the Gospel of Nicodemus has not made its way into other commentaries to this tercet, since it has been a staple of commentators since Torraca (comm. to. Inf. IV.54) as a probable source for Dante's sense of the harrowing of hell, witnessed by Virgil, as it is described in Inferno IV.52-63.
The rays referred to are those of the sun when it moves from Pisces into Aries, i.e., at the first buds of springtime, and before the sun moves on and into Taurus. Our natural season of blossoming is compared, in this simile, to the miraculous and instantaneous flowering of the tree that had so long been dead, the color of its blossoms reminiscent of Christ's blood.
Dante leaves us with another of his little mysteries. What was the 'hymn' that he heard sung but could not understand, except to know that it is not sung on earth? Dante tells us as much and, as a result, the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 61-66) reasons, we cannot identify it. However, is there a hymn, known to be sung in Heaven, that we on earth have never heard?
The word inno (hymn) occurs six times in the poem in five passages (Inf. VII.125; Purg. VIII.17; XXV.127 & 129; here; Par. XIV.123). In the occurrences previous to this one the word has been used once antiphrastically, to denigrate Plutus's unintelligible shout, and then, in its next two appearances, to refer to the hymns 'Te lucis ante' and 'Summus Deus clementiae,' respectively. In other words, until now inno has either been used antiphrastically and thus in a general sense (i.e., 'an utterance not like a hymn') or with exactitude to indicate a particular Christian hymn. (For the final appearance of inno see the note to Par. XIV.118-126.) Are we supposed to be able to identify this song? There are, one must admit, times at which Dante leaves melody a mystery; even twice in this very canto (the 'angelica nota' [angelic song] of verse 33 and the 'più dolce canzone' [song more sweet] of verse 90, his references have successfully resisted identification). It would be unusual for Dante to have introduced a riddle without offering us the grounds for solving it. We are looking for a song with two characteristics: it must be unknown on earth and it almost certainly must be in celebration of Jesus's victory over death. Is there such a song? John of Serravalle (comm. to Par. XXXII.46-48) thought so: the last book of the Bible speaks of a canticum novum (new song) that is sung before the throne of God (Apoc. 14.3), a citation found, surprisingly enough, only once again in the commentary tradition (Steiner [comm. to vv. 61-63] and then possibly again, referred to glancingly but not definitively by Trucchi [comm. to vv. 61-63]). Robert Kaske (“Dante's Purgatorio XXXII and XXXIII: A Survey of Christian History,” University of Toronto Quarterly 43 [1974]), pp. 206-7, however, while unaware that he had at least two precursors, also sees a reference here to the canticum novum of Revelation. Kaske cites Apocalypse 5:9, which is also apposite, if a similar passage (at Apoc. 14:3) has a certain priority, as we shall see. In Revelation 5 Christ comes as a slain lamb (Apoc. 5:6) to judge humankind, at which the twenty-four elders and the four gospel beasts lower themselves before the king (5:8) and sing a 'new song' (canticum novum): 'You are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for you were slain and have redeemed us to God....' (5:9, italics added). The related passage (Apoc. 14:3) deepens the resonances with Purgatorio XXXII: 'And they sang as it were a new song [canticum novum] before the throne, and before the four beasts and the elders; and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, who were redeemed from earth' (italics added). It seems clear both what the song was and why it is not sung on earth. For the number of those in the procession as 144, the number of the 144,000 of the Church Triumphant, see the note to Purgatorio XXIX.145-150.
Dante's mystic sleep closes his experience of the Church Triumphant. Once he awakens, it will have returned to Heaven (vv. 89-90).
Dante is willing to live dangerously. What other medieval poet, in a serious moment of a serious poem, would turn to Ovid and to self-conscious literary humor in a moment like this? Dante has already (Purg. XXIX.94-96; and see the note to that tercet) referred to this Ovidian material (Metam. I.568-723) in these cantos dedicated to the recovery of Eden. He compares himself to Argus of the hundred eyes (Dante of the hundred cantos?), watching over Io at Juno's behest so that Jove cannot get at his bovine girlfriend, set to drowsiness and slumber (disastrously for him) by Mercury's tale of Syrinx and Pan. At what point does Argus fall asleep? just as Mercury's tale reports on the musical sound that issues from the reeds that were Syrinx, who had escaped Pan's lustful pursuit and vanished. Music and a disappearance are features of Dante's scene, as well. The parallel scene is done with witty aplomb but is dealt with by the commentators only as serious business. It is funny, as is Dante's aside to us that, if he could portray the moment of falling asleep, he would do so. His challenge to us was taken up by Boccaccio in his Decameron (I.viii.14); with Dante's passage apparently in his author's mind, Guglielmo Borsiere (a denizen of hell in Inf. XVI.70) describes a similar challenge when asked what as yet unseen thing he would advise a wealthy boor to have painted in his receiving room. Guglielmo says that he wouldn't know how to advise him, unless he were to choose 'a sneeze or something like it.'
Dante's sleep and awakening in the garden is verbally reminiscent of Ugolino's description of his awakening from his dreadful dream (Inf. XXXIII.27), the phrase 'squarciò il velame' (the veil was rent) remembered in 'squarciò il velo' (broke my veil of sleep [these are the only two occurrences of that verb in the poem]). It also reminds us that each of the three previous days on the mountain have ended in sleep and dream. On this fourth day, which will conclude his experience of the earthly paradise at noon, instead he has this mystic sleep after he has had a final visionary experience of the griffin and his Church.
Rather than a reference to the 'Surgite, et nolite timere' of Matthew 17:7, frequently cited in the commentaries (first by Jacopo della Lana [comm. to vv. 73-84]), Mario Aversano (“Il canto XXXII del Purgatorio,” in La quinta rota: Studi sulla “Commedia” [Turin: Tirrenia, 1988]), p. 168, prefers to believe that Matelda refers to Paul's words (Ephesians 5:14), 'Surge qui dormis' (Rise, you who are sleeping). And see his remarks on Paul's overall importance for Dante, pp. 185-88. Nonetheless, the passage in Matthew seems still closer to the context here, so much so that it is all but impossible not to see it as controlling this scene: 'And Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise [Surgite] and be not afraid.” And when they had lifted up their eyes they saw no man, save Jesus only.' See the note to Purgatorio XXXII.73-84.
In the scene of the transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17:1-8) the three apostles Peter, James, and John ascend a mountain with Jesus, see him transformed in visage (it shines with light) and raiment (his clothes become white), then see him in the company of Moses and Elijah (who, representing the law and the prophets, respectively, both promised his advent), and then hear the voice of God from a cloud proclaim that Jesus is his Son, and finally find Moses and Elijah vanished. Just so, this simile insists, Dante thinks he finds himself (in the role of an apostle) in the company of Matelda alone. For a study of discussions of the Transfiguration by various fathers of the Church, see Peter Chamberas (“The Transfiguration of Christ: A Study in the Patristic Exegesis of Scripture,” St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 14 [1970], pp. 48-65).
Verse 78 also clearly refers to Christ's resurrections of Jairus's daughter and of Lazarus (Luke 8:54 and John 11:43).
Dante's phrase, 'Where is Beatrice?' will be remembered when she leaves him for the final time at Paradiso XXXI.64 and he asks St. Bernard, 'Ov' è ella?' (Where is she?), as Poletto (comm. to vv. 85-87) noted.
Beatrice's pose is one of humility, seated on the ground on a root of the newly reflorescent tree. Thus she who, rather than Matelda, really corresponds to Christ in the biblical parallel is the one who is 'transfigured,' 'changed in raiment,' as we shall see in a moment.
Those who remain behind in the garden with Beatrice are her 'handmaids,' the seven virtues, and Matelda. And of course there is the chariot. Dante and Statius are the spectators of the show that is to follow.
We learn that the Church Triumphant has now returned to the Empyrean, just as it will do after it descends for Dante's sake a second time, in the sphere of the Fixed Stars (Par. XXIII.70-72). (For the logistics of the arrival and departure of the participants in this pageant, see the notes to Purg. XXX.16-18 and XXXI.77-78.) The Griffin's departure and return to the Empyrean foreshadow the similar departure and return of Jesus described in Paradiso XXIII.86-87.
That Beatrice is described as seated 'on the bare ground' associates her with humility in general and, perhaps more pointedly, with St. Francis, who raised humility to an art form. See the note to Purgatorio XI.135; and see the portrait of Francis in Paradiso XI. For a recent review of the relations between Dante and the Spiritual Franciscans see Nicolò Mineo (“Gli spirituali francescani e l'Apocalisse di Dante,” in Pour Dante: Dante et l'Apocalypse: Lectures humanistes de Dante, ed. Bruno Pinchard and Christian Trottmann [Paris: Champion, 2001], pp. 77-98).
No longer the triumphant figure who came into the garden by descending to her chariot, Beatrice is now here to witness its devastation and, once, to protect that chariot; she is no longer in the role of conqueror.
Since the nymphs are seven and since the 'candles' leading the procession (last referred to at verse 18) are seven, and since Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 97-99) lent the hypothesis his considerable authority, some commentators have believed that those candles are the lights held by the seven virtues. Both because the seven candles seem a part of the procession of the Church Triumphant and because they are extremely large, this hypothesis has not convinced every reader. On the other hand, other suggestions are all minority opinions. Francesco da Buti (comm. to vv. 94-108) believed they represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, but many find his argument overly subtle and unsupported by the text. Torraca (comm. to vv. 97-99) suggested the seven sacraments ordained by Christ. Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 97-99), uncomfortable with all earlier identifications, thought the reference was to the lamps of the wise virgins in the parable (Matthew 25:1-13) of the ten wise and foolish virgins; but the wise ones only number five. Pertile (La puttana e il gigante: Dal Cantico dei Cantici al Paradiso Terrestre di Dante [Ravenna: Longo, 1998]), p. 198n., points (via Alain de Lille) to the 'seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God' (Apoc. 4:5), thus giving support to Francesco da Buti's view, which does seem the most palatable. For the biblical and post-biblical understanding of the winds from north (Aquilo) and south (Auster) as being the most destructive, see Pertile, pp. 197-202.
Beatrice's words are clear in their promise. (Those who believe that she is speaking not of Dante's next stay in the garden but that left him on earth cannot rationalize the disjunction caused by the fact that when Dante returns to earth he will be without Beatrice, who speaks here only of being with him in Heaven.) Most commentators now also agree that Beatrice is not alluding to the few minutes he will now be with her in the garden, but to the short stay he will have in his second visit to the earthly paradise, after his death and ascent. She then looks past his first and upcoming visit to paradise in order to fasten his attention on his final destination, when he, too, will be, with her, a citizen of the City of God, the new Jerusalem in which Christ is 'Roman.' Denise Heilbronn (“Dante's Valley of the Princes,” Dante Studies 90 [1972], p. 57, n. 15), in another context, refers to the Augustinian notion of the 'pilgrim city' that finds a place in Dante's Epistola XI.11: 'pro tota civitate peregrinante in terris' (for the entire human city in its earthly pilgrimage). The 'city of man' that is our militancy on earth is to become the heavenly Rome presided over by Christ as emperor, at least it will be for all those who will find themselves saved.
Beatrice's charge to Dante is reminiscent of God's to John, author of the Revelation: 'What you see, write in a book, and send it to the seven churches...' (Apoc. 1:11).
The second pageant in the garden of Eden is both dramatically different from the first and exactly like it. In the first instance we were given a description of the Church Triumphant (which exists as an ideal out of time and can only be gathered once history is done) that comes in a temporal form, moving from Genesis to the Apocalypse before Dante's eyes. Now he sees real history, from just after the founding of the Church until the present, unfolding as a series of events performed in a sort of 'dumbshow' in a single place. However, both pageants are presented as allegories, reflecting history, to be sure, but experienced as though they were literally fictive (e.g., the books of the Bible, the griffin, the depredations of the Church), requiring the kind of critical procedure that we expect for what Dante himself referred to (Convivio II.i.4-5) as allegory as practiced by the poets. Most of the scenes in the Commedia are presented as 'historical' and are best analyzed (or so it seems to many) with the methods of the 'allegory of the theologians'; for some others, however, that are presented as fictive and thus call for the more usual allegorical procedures, see Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 239-54. For a recent study of the way in which the allegorizing tendencies of the early commentators were continued in the Renaissance see Bruno Porcelli (“Beatrice nei commenti danteschi del Landino e del Vellutello” [1994], in his Nuovi studi su Dante e Boccaccio con analisi della “Nencia” [Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1997], pp. 57-78).
The rest of the canto will present the history of the Church and of the empire as these two entities make their related voyages through history. However, for a new interpretation of this entire scene, reversing many long-held opinions about the valences of almost every element in this difficult allegorical passage, see the final paragraph of the note to Paradiso XII.55.
The first tribulation of the new Church was to be persecuted by the emperors of Rome, beginning with Nero (54-68) while Peter was its first pope (and was crucified in the emperor's persecution of Christians ca. A.D. 68), and extending to the reign of Diocletian (284-305).
While the eagle of Jove may signify variously, there is no doubt that here and through the rest of the pageant of the persecution of the Church Militant it represents the empire.
The phrase nave in fortuna (ship tossed in a tempest) will find its way to the final world prophecy in the poem (Par. XXVII.145).
Beatrice, acting as the embodiment of the Church's spirit (the chariot representing its physical being, as it were) is able to defeat the forces of heresy, the traditional interpretation of the fox. Portirelli (comm. to these verses) identified the fox with the 'vulpes insidiosos' (insidious foxes) of the Song of Solomon (Cant. 2:15). His adjective, however, is not found in the biblical text, where the foxes are only described as 'little,' and the phrase in fact comes from St. Augustine, who identifies heresy and exactly such foxes in his Enarrationes in Ps. LXXX, as was noted by Tommaseo (comm. to vv. 118-120). The temporal progression of these scenes would indicate that Dante is thinking of the early centuries of the Church's history, after the first persecutions and before the Donation of Constantine (see the note to Purg. XXXII.124-129).
All commentators agree that this invasion of the chariot by the eagle of empire represents the Donation of Constantine in the first third of the fourth century (see note to Inf. XIX.115-117). The Church was meant to operate independently of the empire (this is the essential theme of Dante's Monarchia). Here, by being given the 'feathers' that belong to empire alone, it is adulterated from its pure form. In this formulation Dante reverses his usual view, which involves seeing the empire's rights and privileges as being curtailed by the Church. In a sense the point is even stronger expressed this way: the Church is harmed by exercising its authority in the civil realm.
Since the gloss of the Ottimo (comm. to vv. 127-129), the voice from heaven is generally taken to be that of St. Peter. From the time of the earliest commentators, however, there was an understanding that Dante's voice from heaven was a sort of calque on the story that, on the day of the Donation, a voice from heaven was heard calling out: 'Hodie diffusum est venenum in ecclesia Dei' (Today the church of God is suffused by poison).
While there is some debate about the nature of this particular calamity, most commentators believe it refers to the 'schism' in the Church brought about by Mohammed just after the middle years of the seventh century (see the note to Inf. XXVIII.22-31 for Dante's understanding of the relation of Islam to Christianity).
In a sort of replay of the second calamity (the Donation of Constantine) the chariot is once again covered in imperial feathers. The standard interpretation of these verses is that they refer to the grants of lands to the Church by two French kings, Pepin and Charlemagne, in the second half of the eighth century.
The 'plumage,' which the poet suggests was 'offered perhaps with kind and innocent intent,' represents once again that which belonged to the empire by God's intent, and legally, in Dante's view, could not be surrendered to ecclesiastical authority, even though kings had chosen to do so. See Paradiso XX.55-57, where a similar expression is used to indicate that Constantine had sinned grievously, if without meaning to do so.
The language and the imagery are clearly indebted to the Apocalypse (13:1) for the beast with seven heads and ten horns. Exactly what this symbolic transformation of the Church signifies is much discussed, with little resolution. In general, all can agree, we here see the corruption wrought by the clergy upon their own institution. In other words, in Dante's view, the Church had weathered all attacks upon it from within and without until the time of Charlemagne. In the next five centuries she would do such harm to herself as to make those earlier wounds mortal. This period is marked by corruption from the papacy down to the most modestly avaricious friar; Christianity has no enemies as implacable as its own ecclesiastical institutions or its own clergy.
Strictly speaking, this seventh and final calamity is a vision, since the Church only moved to Avignon in 1309 after the election to the papacy of Clement V in 1305. We have now surveyed, in 52 verses, nearly thirteen centuries of the history of the Church. For the importance of Avignon to Dante, despite the fact that the city is never mentioned by name in the poem, see Michelangelo Picone (“Avignone come tema letterario: Dante e Petrarca,” L'Alighieri 20 [2002], pp. 5-22), pp. 5-14.
The harlot and the giant, the whore of Babylon 'with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication' (Rev. 17:2) and Philip IV of France, bring the terrible history to its conclusion. The chariot no longer has to do with Beatrice, replaced by this wanton spirit that gives herself to all and any, and is now controlled by France. Dante's reaction to the 'Avignonian captivity' is proof, if any is needed, that he is not the Protestant avant la lettre that some have tried to find in him. Indeed, the last and only potentially (if fleeting) hopeful sign we find in the gradually darkening anti-triumph of the Church Militant is that the whore gazes on Dante, thus gaining for her a beating from her gigantic paramour. What does Dante represent now? Is he the embodiment of the truly faithful Christians who hope that their Church will be cleansed? of the Italian faithful left back on this side of the Alps? or is he Dante himself? This penultimate detail of a difficult and encompassing allegorical pageant has left many readers perplexed. Its final one is clear in its pessimism. The giant responds to his lover's wayward glance by releasing the chariot from its binding to the tree and dragging it deeper into the forest, which now looks less like Eden than it resembles France. Now see the revisionist and convincing arguments of Filippo Bognini, “Gli occhi di Ooliba: Una proposta per Purg. XXXII 148-60 e XXXIII 44-45,” Rivista di Studi Danteschi 7 (2007): 73-103 (referred to in the note to Par. XII.55): The whore is Ezechiel's Jerusalem and thus Dante's Florence, while the giant reflects Goliath as Robert of Anjou, the king of Naples and the Guelph leader in Italy, prime enemy of Henry VII.
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