Purgatorio (The Divine Comedy series Book 2)

by Dante

  112–114. Large-limbed (membruto) like Cassius (Inf. XXXIV.67), Pedro III, king of Aragon (1276–85), sings along with large-nosed Charles I of Anjou and Provence, king of Naples and Sicily (1266–85). Pedro had married Constance, daughter of Manfred (see Purg. III.115–116), in 1262, a relationship that gave him a claim to the crown of Sicily, which he assumed after the Sicilian Vespers (1282) and held until his death, despite the efforts of Charles, whom he had deposed and who died before Pedro, and thus without regaining his crown, in 1285. Once again we see enemies united in friendship. [return to English / Italian]

  115–117. Dante refers, among Pedro’s four sons, either to the firstborn, Alfonso III of Aragon, who reigned for six years (but not with happy result, according to the chroniclers) after his father’s death (1285–91) and died at twenty-seven, or the last, Pedro, who did indeed die in his boyhood and was never put on. However, the text would seem clearly to indicate a son who did not succeed his father on the throne. Torraca (1905) makes a strong case for the unlikelihood of Dante’s celebrating Alfonso, thus promoting the candidacy of Pedro (the “Marcellus” of Aragon, as it were). He has been followed by most commentators. [return to English / Italian]

  118–120. Unlike their worthy brother (Pedro?), the other two sons of Pedro III, James and Frederick, do not possess their father’s goodness, but only his territories. In fact, they went to war with one another over their claims to power in Sicily, with Frederick eventually winning out, leaving James to content himself with Aragon. [return to English / Italian]

  121–123. Dante’s sententious moralizing, issuing from the mouth of Sordello, has a precursor in his earlier words on the same subject in Convivio (IV.xx.5 and 7), as Poletto (1894) was perhaps first to point out. There Dante testified both that nobility does not descend into an entire family, but into individuals, and that it comes only and directly from God. [return to English / Italian]

  124–129. Charles and Pedro, themselves noble of spirit, share the disgrace of degenerate offspring, the former’s son, Charles II, king of Naples and count of Provence (1289–1309), singled out as being particularly vile. See Grandgent’s (1909) explanation of these lines: “Charles II is as much inferior to Charles I as Charles I is to Peter [i.e., Pedro] III. Beatrice of Provence and Margaret of Burgundy were the successive wives of Charles I, Constance (daughter of Manfred) was the wife of Peter; and Charles I was not a devoted husband. ‘The plant (the son) is inferior to the seed (the father) to the same extent that Constance boasts of her husband (Peter) more than Beatrice and Margaret boast of theirs (Charles).’ ” Dante, who has somewhat surprisingly treated Charles of Anjou with a certain dignity (see the harsh characterizations of him at Purg. XX.67–69 and Par. XIX.127), now takes some of that away, as Pedro and Charles are no longer treated with equal respect. Porena (1946) explains that Dante’s gesture here is meant to show his objectivity; having saved Manfred (Purg. III), he now also saves Manfred’s persecutor, Charles, despite his own political (and moral) disapproval. [return to English / Italian]

  130–132. Henry III of England (1216–72), disparaged by Sordello in his lament for Blacatz (as noted by Poletto [1894]), is here seen positively and, reversing the trend found in the last three “couples” of monarchs, his son (Edward I), known as “the English Justinian” for his compilation of English law, is seen as even more noble than he. [return to English / Italian]

  133–136. The final exemplar is, like Henry, seen alone, looking up in prayer (Bosco/Reggio). Marquis of Monferrato (1254–92), Guglielmo first welcomed Charles of Anjou when he descended into Italy, but then turned against him when he moved against Lombardy. Guglielmo’s physical position is lowest in order to match his rank, as Rudolph, the only emperor in the group, was seated highest. His successful career as Ghibelline military leader in Lombardy and in Piedmont came to a dramatic halt when he was captured in Alessandria in 1290 and exhibited in a cage for a year and a half until he died. When his son, Giovanni, set out on a war of revenge, the result was disastrous for Monferrato and Canavese, the two regions that constituted the holdings of the marquisate. [return to English / Italian]

  PURGATORIO VIII

  1–9. This pseudosimile (it has the effect but not the grammatical form of a simile) sets the protagonist apart from more usual mortal travelers. Using the two great metaphors for this journey and this poem, the voyage across a sea and the pilgrimage, the poet presents his earthbound counterparts as filled with all-too-human backward-looking sentiment. The protagonist pays attention to the event taking place before him, avoiding nostalgia, the sort of distraction we found him so attracted by in the second canto of Purgatorio when he encountered Casella and experienced associated memories of his former life.

  Grabher’s gloss (1934) to verse 5 runs as follows: “This is the bell for Compline, the last of the canonical hours of the day, when indeed the hymn Te lucis ante terminum [‘Before the Ending of the Light’] is sung in order to invoke divine assistance against the temptations of the night.” This hymn immediately follows the lesson in the service occurring after Vespers (the time between 3 PM and 6 PM), ideally accompanying the setting sun.

  Tommaseo (1837) was perhaps the first to note the closeness to Dante’s description of the pilgrims whom he observed in Florence, perhaps rapt in thoughts of the friends they had left behind at home (Vita nuova XL.2).

  Byron’s close translation of these much-admired verses in Don Juan III.108 is noted by Carroll (1904). [return to English / Italian]

  7–9. The opening passage is so beautiful and its readers so moved by it that most of them assume that the protagonist is being associated by the poet with the travelers it refers to. Yet it is clear that, unlike those travelers, he does not yield to the temptation of yearning for a past that is out of reach, even though this is his first evening in a distant, foreign place. Indeed, he may be drawing some of his attention from the hymn “Salve, Regina” in order to pay heed to the soul who calls for attention. Who this soul may be is a matter for which there are no grounds for discovery; we cannot even say whether it is male or female, although the entirely male cast of those identified in the Valley of the Princes makes the former possibility a more likely one. Commentators, including Scartazzini (1900), have been reminded of Acts 13:16: “Paul arose, motioning with his hand for silence” (Paul is addressing the Jews in the synagogue at Antioch; his main message is the Resurrection of Jesus). [return to English / Italian]

  10–12. The praying figure is facing east, not because the sun is there (it is setting in the west), but because the east is traditionally associated with Christ as “rising sun.” For the Virgilian provenance of his gesture see Tommaseo (1837): Dante’s “levò ambo le palme” is indeed close to Aeneid X.844–845: “et ambas / ad caelum tendit palmas.” However, Heilbronn (Heil.1972.1), pp. 56–57, points out that his action “imitates the words of Psalm 133:3: ‘In noctibus extollite manus vestras in sancta, et benedicite dominum’ [134:1–2: by night … lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord]. At Compline, this psalm immediately precedes the hymn, Te lucis, as the gesture does in Purg. VIII.” [return to English / Italian]

  13. “Te lucis ante,” an evening hymn, is sung in its entirety. As opposed to “Salve, Regina,” which looks back upon the sadness of sin and exile, hoping for Marian intercession, “Te lucis ante” looks ahead and requests the Father’s and the Son’s protection from the dangers of the Satanic forces of the night. Thus, while surely there is nothing “wrong” with singing “Salve, Regina,” in this context it is time to turn to the future, and this is what the protagonist does. [return to English / Italian]

  14–18. Dante’s reaction to this singing is reminiscent of his rapt response to the singing performed on his account by Casella in Purgatorio II (Poletto [1894] also notes this). The religious tone of this hymn and the “proper” behavior of this crowd gives us a very different perspective on this scene. There is no need of a Cato to come to reprimand these singers, whose eyes are fixed on heavenly thing
s. [return to English / Italian]

  19–21. This is the first of seven addresses to the reader in Purgatorio (see note to Inf. VIII.94–96). Most reminiscent, in its use of the language of allegory, of “veiled” truth, found in the second address in Inferno (IX.61–63), this passage also involves treating an action performed in the poem as though it were not “historical” but metaphoric (see note to Inf. IX.58–63). [return to English / Italian]

  25–30. Most of the early commentators, following their natural inclination, allegorize the meaning of the two swords (often as God’s justice and mercy), but Pietro di Dante (1340) turns to the Bible for their source, and presents a more interesting analysis. Yet it will only be with Lombardi (1791) that a later commentator turns to this most likely source. Genesis 3:24 records God’s placing (two?) Cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden along with a flaming sword to keep sinful humans from the tree of life. Dante’s redoing of the scene is careful and meaningful. The swords have no points because they do not need to do any harm, since the enemy has been defeated by Christ and need no longer be feared by those having faith in Christ; they are aflame with God’s love for humanity, which has reversed the exclusionary rule of law in Genesis and reopened the garden with its tree of eternal life; the angels are green of wing and vestment because they give expression to the hope for salvation brought by Christ. Güntert (Gunt.2001.1), p. 109, notes the pivotal reversals of the scene in Genesis here. [return to English / Italian]

  37–39. Genesis 3:14–15 is another text visible behind the scenes of this drama (as Christopher McElroy, Princeton ’72, suggested in a classroom many years ago), God’s curse upon the serpent and the conjoined prophecy of the woman’s seed who will bruise the serpent’s head and have his heel bruised as a result, taken by Christian exegetes—and surely by Dante among them—to refer to the Crucifixion. Both these Cherubs come from the bosom of Mary, that “anti-Eve,” to guard the valley, now safe from harm, as we shall see, against the serpent. This garden, foreshadowing the garden of Eden that lies above, has been reopened to humanity, as has been that higher place.

  For the palindromatic opposition Ave/Eva see Pietro di Dante (1340) to Paradiso XXXII.4–6 (the locus of most commentators’ discussion of this topos): “And the holy men say that, just as sickness was born from that most prideful one, that is, Eve, just so its cure springs from that most humble one, that is, Mary.” And thus, Pietro continues, the “Ave” of the “Hail, Mary” counters the effect of Eve, whose name it spells backward. [return to English / Italian]

  40–42. On the basis of Sordello’s description, the serpent sounds both real and threatening enough for Dante to be afraid, especially since he has not yet read the signs as well as he will eventually. There is only one other occasion in the poem in which Dante has been gelato (chilled): when he looks upon Satan (Inf. XXXIV.22). This serpent is indeed Satan in his “serpent suit” in the garden (Genesis 3:1 and passim). [return to English / Italian]

  43–45. Sordello’s maneuver puts the appointment with the serpent on hold and occupies Dante’s mind with other things. Now the Mantuan poet has Dante descend among the inhabitants of the valley—what he and Virgil specifically did not do in their first view of them (Purg. VII.88–90). The rest of the Edenic drama must wait until vv. 94–108. [return to English / Italian]

  46. These three steps, unlike those at Purgatorio XXVIII.70, are taken by almost all commentators at face value. But even they, understood by most as indicating that it was but a short distance down into the valley (see Purg. VII.72), have made allegorists stir with interpretive excitement (e.g., Vellutello, Scartazzini). Poletto (1894) waxes hot against such attempts. [return to English / Italian]

  48. Like the anonymous lethargic penitent at Purgatorio V.9, this penitent has eyes for Dante alone. On this occasion, however, it tells us more about him than it does about Dante. See note to vv. 109–111, below. [return to English / Italian]

  51. From the distance, this soul and Dante could not recognize one another, but the darkness of nightfall is not yet so great as to prevent their doing so now. [return to English / Italian]

  52. This “recognition scene” reestablishes Dante’s role as “star” of the poem. Virgil has his Sordello, for whom Dante does not exist; Dante has his Nino, for whom Virgil does not exist. [return to English / Italian]

  53. “Nino Visconti of Pisa, judge of the district of Gallura in Sardinia; he was grandson of Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, and in 1288 was chief of the Guelf party in Pisa; in that year he and the Guelfs were treacherously expelled from Pisa by Count Ugolino, whereupon he retired to Lucca, and in alliance with Genoa and the Lucchese and Florentine Guelfs made war upon Pisa, which he carried on at intervals for the next five years. In 1293, on the conclusion of peace between the Pisans and the Tuscan Guelfs, Nino betook himself to Genoa, and shortly after departed to his judgeship of Gallura.… Nino died in Sardinia in 1296” (T). Nino fought at the battle of Campaldino and probably spent some time in Florence in the time between his exile from Pisa and his removal to Sardinia; it is possible that Dante came to know him then, as the conversation is clearly meant to be taken as one between old friends. [return to English / Italian]

  54. Dante’s surprise at Nino’s salvation is not necessarily based on any specific knowledge of any particular sin; all are sinners and, if honest, are surprised to find themselves saved. [return to English / Italian]

  55–57. The meeting between Dante and Nino contrasts with that between Virgil and Sordello, this one untinged by tragic notes. Nino assumes, almost correctly, that Dante is one of the saved; Sordello, guided by Virgil’s admission that he has lost heaven, asks about Virgil’s location in hell (Purg. VII.21).

  Chiavacci Leonardi (Chia.1994.1), p. 241, cites Francesco D’Ovidio for the view that the phrase in verse 57, “over far waters,” reflects, once again, a scene in the Elysian fields, when Anchises welcomes Aeneas (Aen. VI.692), who had journeyed “over wide seas” to experience that reunion. [return to English / Italian]

  58–60. Dante finally is able to answer Sordello’s question (Purg. VI.70) with regard to his own condition. These are the first words he has spoken since VI.51, a fact that underlines the way in which Sordello and Virgil have taken over the stage in these scenes. Now Dante is once again the “star” of the drama. See note to Purgatorio VII.1–3. [return to English / Italian]

  61–66. Sordello and Nino are both surprised to learn that Dante is here in the flesh, is not yet dead, the one turning to his new companion, Virgil the Mantuan, the other, Nino, to his friend in God’s grace, Currado, perhaps known to him from his recent travels in Tuscany. It is likely that Dante considered both Virgil and Sordello, champions of empire, sympathetic to the Ghibelline cause, while Nino was a Guelph and Currado, though a Ghibelline, was a cousin of Moroello Malaspina, with whom Dante had good relations and who was a Guelph. In the next world such divisive distinctions begin to break down.

  Currado Malaspina was the grandson of Currado “l’antico” and son of Federigo of Villafranca. He died ca. 1294. His first cousin, Franceschino, was probably Dante’s host in Lunigiana in 1306 (see vv. 133–139). [return to English / Italian]

  67–69. Nino comments upon the unknown and unknowable purpose of God in bringing this living human soul into the immortal realm. He is content to accept the quia, the sheer fact of Dante’s having been chosen to be here. See Purgatorio III.37. [return to English / Italian]

  71–72. Nino hopes that Dante, returning to the world, will see his daughter, Giovanna, in Pisa and cause her, by recounting this meeting, to pray for his soul. Giovanna’s innocence is the result at least of her age, since she was born in 1291 or so. [return to English / Italian]

  73–75. Nino’s unnamed wife was Beatrice d’Este. Sometime after his death in 1296 she stopped wearing widow’s vestments, which featured white bands drawn around the head (her “wimple”), and eventually married, after a previous betrothal, a second husband, Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, in June 1300. The misery
that awaits her is to share the exile of her new husband because of the expulsion of the powerful Visconti family from Milan in 1302. [return to English / Italian]

  77. For early awareness of the citation of Virgil here, see the Anonimo Fiorentino (1400): Aeneid IV.569–570: “A woman is ever a fickle and a changeful thing.” [return to English / Italian]

  79–81. Nino’s heraldic language suggests that the device of the Milanese Visconti’s coat of arms, the viper, will not decorate her tomb as well as would have his family’s device, the rooster, had she remained a widow and eventually died in Pisa.

  Whether with a purpose or not, Dante plays off the situation that pertained in Vita nuova XXIV, when Guido Cavalcanti’s Giovanna preceded Dante’s Beatrice as John the Baptist preceded Christ. Here the innocent Giovanna is a foil to the unnamed but vicious Beatrice d’Este, her own mother. In the language of King Lear turned inside out, “bad wombs have borne good daughters.” [return to English / Italian]

  82–84. The poet underlines the fact, lest we fail to observe it, that Nino takes no pleasure in his former wife’s coming tribulations, but merely notes God’s justice in them. [return to English / Italian]

  85–93. These three tercets distance the reader from the intense family drama narrated by Nino, as though to put that drama into a cosmic context. The protagonist gazes at the pole in the southern sky where, as on a wheel, that which is closest to the axle moves more slowly than points farther from it. The four stars, representing the four cardinal virtues (as almost all agree), seen by the travelers in Purgatorio I.23 near the pole, are now setting on the other side of the mount of purgatory and are thus shielded from view. They are replaced in their former position by these three. Nearly all, primarily because of their allegorical reading of the four, also insist that these represent the three theological virtues—faith, hope, and charity. However, some commentators, following Portirelli (1804), argue for a strictly literal and astronomical reference here, the three stars being among the brightest of two southern constellations, Dorado and Achernar in Eridanus; Canopus in Carina. (For Portirelli’s notion that Dante knew about the southern heavens from Marco Polo, see note to Purgatorio I.22–24.) Beginning with Andreoli (1856), for half a century most commentators argue for a literal sense that indicates phenomena in the southern sky and an allegorical sense. But after Poletto (1894) most indicate only the allegorical meaning. [return to English / Italian]