by Dante
Do these “transvaluations” of the more usual understandings of poetic inspiration and success entirely erase the traces of their original reference among poets and their audiences? We are, after all, reading a poem. And we should have no doubt but that its human agent was as interested in earthly success as any other poet (and perhaps more than most). However, the context makes a pagan understanding of these grand poetic gestures at the same time both impossible and desirable. We are almost forced to recognize the divine claims made by this very human agent, but we are allowed to understand them in completely human terms as well. We find ourselves in a usual dilemma: If we take the truth claims made by the poet on behalf of his poem seriously, we feel greatly troubled (mortal agents are not allowed such claims unless they are demonstrably chosen, as, to Christian believers, was Paul); on the other hand, if we insist that these claims are in fact not true, we sense that we have failed to deal with something that, if it makes us uncomfortable, nonetheless must be dealt with; other poets do not make such stringent demands upon our belief. In another way of phrasing this, we can only say No after we have said Yes, that is, by understanding Dante’s veiled claims, no matter what we eventually decide to think of them. [return to English / Italian]
13. It seems clear that, whatever the eventual identity we are meant to assign to Ovid’s amorous god, there is one that this personage cannot possibly have in its higher context, that of Apollo, pagan god of the Sun, music, and so on. Ovid’s Apollo (Metam. I.452–567), pursuing Daphne with immediate disastrous consequence for the girl, is, we are probably meant to understand, the “bad” Apollo. The later poet’s “sun God” is in antithetic relationship to him when Dante reconstructs the Ovidian tale into a sort of Christian riddle. Since the pagan Apollo was understood as the poet seeking immortality (Daphne is metamorphosed, of course, into the laurel tree), we are left to consider what the laurel becomes in this rarefied circumstance. The best understanding of it is perhaps that Dante is invoking the aid of the true God in his triune majesty (see the note to Par. II.7–9) to make his inspired poem so that he himself may achieve immortal glory, eternal life in the Empyrean. This understanding of the laurel should be set against that found earlier in the poem (see Purg. XI.91–93 and note), for unlike the green crown of mortal achievements, which adorns its winner’s brow only until someone is eventually adjudged better by the crowd, this one is the reward of true immortality for the writing of the poem “to which both heaven and earth have set their hand” (Par. XXV.2). The passage sounds exactly like the usual petition for aid in making a poem, but has this subtle and absolutely crucial difference. Apollo is a familiar Christian analogue for Christ (for later manifestations of this medieval tradition in Calderón, see Curtius [Curt.1948.1], pp. 245, 568), and here it is perhaps the Second Person of the Trinity that first shines through to the reader as the dominant Person present in these lines (see Giacalone’s comment on vv. 20–21: “Here Apollo is a figure of Christ”). As we shall see, the other two Persons are both referred to, clearly if obliquely. [return to English / Italian]
16–18. This tercet explains its predecessor (i.e., why the poet feels he must turn to “the Delphic god” [verse 32] now), although it is fair to say that elements in it have remained a puzzle through the centuries. If previously he has seemingly not needed to appeal directly to a higher authority for inspiration, relying only on the Muses, Dante now turns to the god himself. Whatever the meanings and references of the details put before us here, almost every commentator agrees that this is their basic significance.
Dante, however, is apparently confused about the configuration of the actual Mt. Parnassus in Greece. See Tozer’s explanation (1901) of this material (which Dante borrows, without perhaps recognizing the problem he inherits in doing so, from his Latin precursors): “That mountain rises to a single conspicuous summit; and when the Greek poets speak of its two summits (Soph., Ant. 1126; Eurip., Bacch. 307; cf. Ion. 86–8) they mean, not the real summit of the mountain, but the two peaks that rise above Delphi, which are several thousand feet lower. These expressions were misunderstood by the Roman poets, who regularly describe Parnassus as rising to two summits; for example, Ov., Met. I.316–317, ‘Mons ibi verticibus petit arduus astra duobus, Nomine Parnassus’ (There Mount Parnassus lifts its two peaks skyward, high and steep—tr. F. J. Miller); Lucan, Phars. V.72, ‘Parnassus gemino petit aethera | colle’ (the twin peaks of Parnassus soar to heaven—tr. J. D. Duff). Dante followed them, and naturally fell into the same mistake.”
Nonetheless, if Dante knew what many of his commentators, from the earliest through those of the last century, report at verse 16 (e.g., the Ottimo, Pietro di Dante, the author of the Chiose ambrosiane, Benvenuto, the Anonimo Fiorentino, John of Serravalle, Lombardi, Portirelli, Tommaseo, Scartazzini, Campi), namely, that Cyrrha was sacred to Apollo, Nissa to Bacchus, how could he have made the second “peak” of Parnassus sacred to the Muses? At Purgatorio XXIX.37–42, Dante’s second invocation of that cantica makes reference to the Heliconian residence of the Muses. However, two other passages in Purgatorio (XXII.65 and XXXI.141) make oblique reference to the Castalian spring on Mt. Parnassus as also being home to these ladies. It does seem possible that Dante has deliberately conflated two homes of the Muses, the spring on Parnassus with that on Helicon (which Dante may not have known as a mountain but as itself a spring). [return to English / Italian]
18. For the phrase “m’è uopo,” here translated “I need,” see Landino (comm. to vv. 16–18): “chome in latino diciamo ‘mihi est opus’ ” (as in Latin we say, “I have this to do”).
The word aringo (here translated loosely and, in reverse metonymy, as “struggle”) actually descends from a Gothic word referring to the space in which troops were gathered (and subsequently a contest took place)—see Giacalone (comm. to vv. 16–18). The English “ring” (definition 13 in the OED) offers, if not perhaps a true cognate, a useful analogue, as in the phrase “I would not get into the ring with him, if I were you.” [return to English / Italian]
19. In this second piece of his invocation proper (in the first, at verse 14, he had asked to be made God’s vessel), the poet asks to be, literally, inspired (“Enter my breast and breathe in me”). If the first petition seems to have been aimed in particular at the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ as Apollo, this one seems to be directed to the Holy Spirit, as has been the case in the Comedy when Dante has represented inspiration, reflecting the “spiration of the Holy Spirit” (e.g., see the notes to Inf. XXXIII.106–108; Purg. XXIV.52–54). And now see Picone (Pico.2005.1), pp. 10–11. [return to English / Italian]
20–21. If the reader has accepted the possibility (even the likelihood) that Dante’s guarded speech is to be unriddled as an invocation of Christian dimension and scope, these next two verses seem to undo such a formulation with a certain exigency, for the story of Marsyas does not seem to lend itself to such understandings (but see the similar treatment of Apollo discussed in the note to verse 13).
Dante probably did not have access to the fragmentary accounts knit together to make the story of Marsyas that modern readers can find in various compendia. The prehistory of Marsyas was, if known to him, interesting. Minerva, having invented the wind instrument that we know as the flute, or panpipes, saw herself, playing it, reflected in water and noticed how ugly the exercise made her face. She hurled it away, only to have it picked up by Marsyas, who found that he quickly learned the skill to make his tunes. He became so convinced of his ability that he challenged Apollo to a musical contest (cf. those similar Ovidian challengers of the gods’ aesthetic abilities, the daughters of King Pierus [Purg. I.9–12] and Arachne [Purg. XII.43–45]). Naturally, Apollo and his lyre outdo Marsyas and his flute. Since each combatant was to have his will if victorious, Apollo flays Marsyas alive (presumptuous mortals are always taught their lesson by the Ovidian gods whom they offend, but never seem to learn it). Ovid’s account (in the sixth book of the Metamorphoses) of the early stages of the myth are
brief (vv. 383–386 [he spends the core of his account, vv. 387–391, on the flaying in graphic detail and then, in the quieter conclusion, vv. 392–400, on the sadness of Marsyas’s fellow fauns and satyrs at his death and transformation into the clearest stream in Phrygia]). He is a satyr defeated in a contest by Apollo on Minerva’s rejected reed and punished by the god; but do we not catch a glimpse in him of a potentially failed Dante, his vernacular low instrument contrasted with the lofty Apollonian lyre? In the account of Marsyas’s punishment that Dante knew best (Ovid, Metam. VI.383–400), his musical instrument has evidently humble origins: It is a reed (harundo [verse 384]) such as a yokel might pluck to make a tuneful sound; it is also a flute (tibia [verse 386]). Thus, along with presenting in Marsyas a coded figure of the poet as vas electionis, Dante also would seem to encourage us to fashion a further understanding: As Marsyas, he is a proponent of the comic muse, of the low style, against the higher forms of artistry intrinsically represented by Apollo, the flute versus the lyre. We have learned to read Dante’s controversial self-identifications with a certain perspicuity. At one remove, he goes out of his way (and we readily follow him with great relief) to show that he is not at all like Uzzah (see the note to Purg. X.56–57) or, for that matter, Arachne (see the note to Purg. XII.43–45). On the other hand, we never rid ourselves of the suspicion that the poet is also confessing that he, secretly, for all his protestation by the use of contrary exemplars, acknowledges precisely his resemblance to these outlaws, these challengers to divine authority, these chafers at divine constraint upon human knowledge and capacity. Ovid’s Marsyas is the opposite of Dante’s, who has been turned inside out, as it were. (See Levenstein’s succinct remark [Leve.2003.1, p. 412]: “While Ovid portrays the god’s removal of the skin from the satyr, Dante describes the god’s removal of the satyr from the skin.”) [return to English / Italian]
22–24. Apollo now becomes God the Father, addressed by the first of his Trinitarian attributes, Power. His highest creation, the Empyrean, is referred to as the “kingdom,” of which Dante hopes to be allowed to retain a weak but true copy in his mind; he will bring that back and write it down for us. The phrase “l’ombra del beato regno” (the shadow of the blessèd kingdom—verse 23) reflects the Latin technical term umbra found in discussions of figure and fulfillment in biblical exegesis. See Ledda (Ledd.2002.1), pp. 302–3; Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 196–97; (Holl.1993.5), pp. 19–21; and Ledda (Ledd.1997.1), p. 137. [return to English / Italian]
25–27. The language here admits of two referential fields; in the Ovidian one, the tree is Apollo’s laurel, to which Dante comes to crown himself with its leaves, as his subject and the god himself shall make him worthy. However, poets are not usually portrayed as crowning themselves. Perhaps that is a clue to our necessary radical transformation of the pagan myth as it applies to Dante. In the Christian version of the myth, Apollo is Christ (see the note to vv. 13–15) whose “tree” (the cross) the Christian poet approaches to gather to himself the Christian version of the laurel wreath, the immortality won for humankind by Christ, which his poem and Christ’s love will make him worthy to receive. In this vein see Goffis (Goff.1964.1): “E così il ‘diletto legno,’ a cui si rivolgerà Dante, è certo l’alloro, ma è anche il lignum crucis, e le foglie d’alloro non saranno segno di gloria terrena soltanto” (And thus the “beloved tree,” to which Dante shall address himself, is, to be sure, the laurel, but it is also the wood of the Cross; and the laurel’s leaves shall not be a sign of earthly glory alone). In Dante’s world, however, as the next tercet will make clear, there are none or few who even long for such reward.
The word legno occurs in nineteen passages in the poem, nine times as metonymic for “ship,” seven times to mean “tree,” twice to mean “a piece of wood,” and once to refer to the cross, the “tree” to which Jesus was nailed (Par. XIX.105). [return to English / Italian]
28–33. Far from worrying about not having enough laurel leaves to accommodate all those worthy of them (intrinsically the condition in earlier times, i.e., classical ones), Dante’s Apollo must take joy whenever, in this leaden age, anyone, no matter how undeserving, desires to be crowned with the leaves of “the Peneian bough,” that is, those of the laurel (or bay tree), in Daphne’s transformed state; Daphne’s father, god of a Thessalian river, was named Peneus, and the river after him. See, as Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 31–33) suggests, Ovid (Metam. I.452): “Primus amor Phoebi Daphne Peneia” (Apollo’s first love, Peneus’s daughter, Daphne). [return to English / Italian]
29. Dante abruptly broadens the subject area to include emperors alongside of poets. Since, up to now (vv. 9–27), the focus has been exclusively on poetry, it comes as something of a surprise to find the imperial crown beneath our gaze, no matter how usual the reference to both laureations may be in our minds. Dante’s sense of himself as political poet may account for this expansion; nothing else in the immediate context would seem to do so. [return to English / Italian]
34. Arianna Punzi (Punz.1999.1) sees this line as an example of “false modesty”; however, the line reads more ordinarily as modesty itself (“the smallest spark leaps from a great fire”), a reading that is ridiculous and thus never attempted (e.g., how could Dante say the Commedia was “a small spark”?). On the other hand, normal grammatical usage would point in that direction. This is not to suggest that Dante wanted us to read the verse that way, but that when we do (as he surely knew we would in our first reading of the verse, before we discard that reading as impossible), we excuse him from the potential sin of pride. Nonetheless, it is clear that his little spark is meant to kindle a vast flame in us. That, however, is not necessarily to be understood as a prideful thought, when we consider the matter in light of the given of this poem (namely, that it is derived directly from God in order to help us to pray better), rather the completion of a chosen poet’s duty. [return to English / Italian]
35–36. The translation is based on an interpretation that may strike those who know the commentary tradition as erroneous (but see Hollander [Holl.1993.7], pp. 20–21; [Holl.1993.2], p. 91). These verses are usually (nearly universally) interpreted to refer to other better poets who will be inspired to write by reading Dante (and who, because of his example, will have even more success in finding Apollo’s favor). Michelangelo Picone has in fact suggested (Pico.2002.4, p. 212n.) that Cino da Pistoia may be one such. And even the generally skeptical Scartazzini (1900, comm. to verse 35) falls victim to a probably unwise spirit of unanimity, although he is plainly uncomfortable with the portrait of the poet that results from this interpretation. “Troppa umiltà” (overabundant humility) is his muttered response. Indeed, the very notion that Dante might envision the possibility that a single other poet (much less a whole crowd) might outdo him in poetic accomplishment seems nothing less than preposterous. In the later twentieth century, several commentators tried another solution, one first reflected in the commentary tradition by Daniele Mattalia (1960), who cites Giuseppe Toffanin’s remarks (Toff.1947.1), pp. 80–82, even though he does not agree with them, that try to make the case for the saints in Heaven, including Beatrice, as being those whose prayers will be amended by Dante’s poem. That also seems a strained interpretation, since self-interested prayer is a necessary instrument only for those who are on earth, not yet experiencing their salvation. Nonetheless, the view impressed Rocco Montano (Mont.1963.1), p. 321, enough to make its way to print yet again and, through him, in 1968, to the commentator Giuseppe Giacalone (comm. to vv. 34–36). This minority position, however, does not hold up very well to scrutiny, either, though it is a welcome, if belated, response to the standard, if unlikely, gloss. There is a “third way,” fortunately, of solving the problem. (See Hollander [Holl.2005.2 and 2006.1].) Literally, the verses seem to express the (not immodest) hope that the Comedy will help those who will read it to pray more effectively (and thus put themselves in the way of salvation—that would seem to be the necessary conclusion). It is no wonder that for centuries most
of Dante’s readers avoided recognition of the barely hidden daring in such religious claims as this. But it seems to be the simplest explanation of these verses, one that is in harmony with the avowed aim of this poet, which is to move those living in the bondage of the sins of this life toward the liberty of eternal glory (see the Epistle to Cangrande, v. 21).
See the similar dispute that dogs a similar passage, Paradiso XXX.34. [return to English / Italian]
37–45. This long and difficult beginning of the narrative portion of the final cantica may be paraphrased as follows: The Sun (“the lamp of the world”) rises on us mortals from various points along the horizon, but from that point at which four circles intersect in such a way as to form three crosses (generally understood as the circles of the horizon, the equator, the zodiac, the colure of the equinoxes, the last three of which intersect the horizon in this way on the vernal equinox, March 21), it comes forth conjoined with a better constellation (Aries) and takes a better course, and it better tempers and imprints the material compound of the world with its informing power. And from that point on the horizon it had made morning there, where almost all was light (Purgatory), and evening here, where almost all was dark (i.e., in the Northern Hemisphere). As Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 37–42) point out, Dante has marked the beginnings of all three cantiche with references to the time (Inf. II.1–5; Purg. I.13–30, 115–117). Singleton refines the point (comm. to vv. 44–45): Where Inferno begins at evening (around 6 pm) and Purgatorio at dawn (shortly before 6 am), Paradiso begins, more propitiously, at noon, the most “noble” hour of the day (see Purg. XXXIII.104 and Conv. IV.xxiii.15). And see the note in Bosco/Reggio to the following tercet (vv. 43–45) for some of the elaborate exegesis attached to the astronomical problems here. For a detailed discussion in English, see Alison Cornish (Corn.2000.2), pp. 87–92. [return to English / Italian]
