Purgatorio (The Divine Comedy series Book 2)

by Dante

  Dante believes he hears the words of a hymn being sung (and we must imagine that, if there was actual singing to greet his coming [Dante only says that he seemed to hear voices], it was done by angels, since the penitents we eventually see in the next canto, the prideful, are bent under their weights and far from lyrical; however, this harmonious sound may issue from the gate itself). “Te Deum laudamus” has an interesting history in the commentaries. (For the text of the hymn in Latin and English see Singleton’s gloss to verse 140.) Benvenuto claims that St. Ambrose wrote this hymn after he had served as St. Augustine’s spiritual doctor and cured him of his terrible errors (in Milan shortly before Augustine’s conversion); it is thus, Benvenuto continues, a most fitting accompaniment to Dante’s—another great intellect’s—turning to penance. Other early commentators also associate the hymn with Augustine’s conversion, whether it was sung while he was being baptized or spoken by Ambrose in his sermon on that occasion or, indeed, according to Francesco da Buti, spontaneously spoken responsively by these two great men on that day. While in our time it is not believed to have been composed by Ambrose, in Dante’s it was. That Dante should have chosen to present himself, entering purgatory, as a new (and better) Julius Caesar and as the new Augustine is both altogether extraordinary and completely Dantean. (For the opinion that Dante presents himself as being like Augustine in the sins he must conquer, lust and bad philosophizing, see Hollander [Holl.1969.1], p. 165n.) [return to English / Italian]

  PURGATORIO X

  1–6. The opening verses of the canto tell us that Dante is obeying the angel’s warning (IX.132) not to look back (in this potentially resembling one of the disciples of Jesus even more than Lot’s wife or Orpheus—see note to Purg. IX.131–132) and that the gate of purgatory makes such noise because it is so infrequently opened, since most human beings prefer to pretend that their crooked way is straight and spend eternity in hell as a result. This last image will be reinforced immediately by the undulating path through the rock that the travelers must follow, reminiscent of the sinful life they have left behind, and eventually, as Singleton points out, by the misconception that what is in fact crooked is straight in Dante’s dream of the Siren (Purg. XIX.7–15).

  Poletto’s commentary (1894) to this passage reminds the reader of the total contrast between the solitary state of Dante and his guide, both when they approached the angelic warder and now, having proceeded farther up the mountain (see verse 21), and the vast crowds of damned sinners found both inside the gate of hell and before Minos in Inferno III.119–120 and V.12. [return to English / Italian]

  7–16. As opposed to the wide and easy entrance to hell (Inf. V.20), that to purgatory is narrow and difficult. For the reference to the “needle’s eye” [verse 16]), see Christ’s words to the disciples (Matthew 19:24): “And further I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

  Virgil insists on the need for arte, or skill in navigating a tight spot, apparently so as not to allow Dante to be wounded by the sharp edges of the rock’s outcroppings, and thus in not following the shortest path along this labyrinthine passageway, but the one that moves back and forth from the farther wall in order to avoid the protuberances on the nearer.

  His reference to the waning moon (see Inf. XX.127, where we learn the moon was full on Thursday night) portrays the dark crescent in that body as leading it toward the horizon as it sets. It is now Monday morning; the moon was full 3.5 days ago and set in the western sky exactly at sunrise. With four days of retardation, fifty minutes per day, it is now setting approximately three hours and twenty minutes after sunrise. Since Dante awoke before the gate just after 8 AM (Purg. IX.44), it is perhaps slightly more than an hour later. In that time he has been admitted by the warder and made his way with Virgil through the “eye of the needle.” [return to English / Italian]

  19. This verse distances Virgil from Dante by insisting on his freedom from the body’s weight and yet equates the two travelers as being equally uninformed as to their impending choices. We have known that Virgil is not proficient in the ways of purgatory from the outset (Purg. II.61–63); now that we are in true purgatory the point is underlined. [return to English / Italian]

  22–23. See Toscano (Tosc.1989.1), pp. 207–8, on two debates among the commentators: Does this wall make a right or an obtuse angle with the smooth pavement? Do the penitents observe what is sculpted on the wall or not? Toscano strongly supports the notion that the wall is set at an obtuse angle so that the penitents are able to see what is depicted on it. If this were not the case, he continues, God’s art would be wasted on them, unable to move their heads high enough to see the instructive decoration, which would, without their observation, be mere ornament. If the terraces are cut into the side of the mountain and if this verse, as many commentators believe, indicates that the inner bank of every terrace is part of the tapered shape of the mountain as a whole, then Toscano is correct. However, should we ever be forced to decide that, as Pietrobono (1946), Mattalia (1960), and Vazzana (Vazz.1970.1, pp. 65–67) believe, this terrace (and every other one?) has a perpendicular wall as its inner border, we would also probably deduce that, in God’s realm, even stiff-necked penitents will somehow be able to see all of the sculpting that is put there for their instruction. (Dante’s illustrators are not much help in this respect; if one examines the two illustrations of the purgatorial mount found in the Dante Encyclopedia [Lans.2000.1], pp. 725 and 729, one finds that one shows the first condition, the other, the second.) Since Dante never clarified this point and since the manuscript tradition of the line (verse 30) crucial to its interpretation itself has caused much uncertainty, we really cannot say what the meaning is. Bosco/Reggio (1979) contrive a compromise: the lower part of the wall is slanted, but the rest of it is perpendicular. This might solve certain problems, but cannot be supported by the text. [return to English / Italian]

  30. For some of the problems associated with this verse see note to vv. 22–23. [return to English / Italian]

  31–33. Art is clearly a major theme of this canto. We hear now of the aesthetic superiority of God’s intaglios over the work of the sculptor Polycletus or the creative genius of nature herself. At verse 97 we learn, not of Dante’s instruction, but of his delight in the intaglios. Near the canto’s close we are told in a simile of the genuine distress that can be caused by our looking at a sculpted figure of a crunched human shape in a corbel (131–134). All these aesthetic moments have at their root the experience of art as moving its audience by its mimetic capacity. The morality of the art found on this terrace is not to be doubted, but in this canto (as opposed to the next) we at first find art treasured for purely aesthetic reasons (but see note to vv. 97–99).

  The words that make their way through the three descriptions of intaglios in vv. 31–81 insist on the artistic nature of what the protagonist sees: forms of intaglio: 32, 38, 55; of imagine: 39, 41, 62; of storia: 52, 71, 73. This art of God, which some commentators have looked upon as uncannily predicting the eventual sculpture of Michelangelo, may be more advanced than that of mere mortals, and even of nature, but it somehow does not seem very far removed from that of Dante himself.

  Polycletus, Athenian sculptor of the fifth century B.C., for Dante represented the height of classical Greek art. Torraca (1905) points out that previous thirteenth-century Italian writers cited him in a similar way. Sources of information about him were found in Cicero, Quintilian, and Pliny. And Aristotle, mentioning him in the Nichomachean Ethics, brought him to the attention of St. Thomas. And so, even if Italian vernacular writers of this period had never seen his work, they could refer to it as Dante does here. [return to English / Italian]

  34–45. The first example of each virtue (here Humility), opposed to the capital vice purged on each of the seven terraces, is always Mary. These four tercets are spare and central in their presentation of the Annunciation: only Gabriel and Mary are seen, minus the “backgr
ound” expected by any medieval reader, familiar with the iconography of this moment: dove, ray of light, garden, etc. As the Ottimo (1333) has it, the “long-standing ban” had been in effect since the time recorded in Genesis 3 (the Fall) and was only rescinded when Christ harrowed hell.

  The sculpted forms are so vivid that they actually seem to speak. Thus does Dante recast the key spoken moments of Luke 1:26–38, Gabriel’s charge and Mary’s humble acceptance of it. [return to English / Italian]

  46–54. Bosco/Reggio make explicit what is almost said by many of those commentators who deal with the phrase in verse 53, “varcai Virgilio” (I went past Virgil): it is a fine, realistic detail with no further significance. Yet this entire passage, in which Virgil gets Dante to stop enjoying so deeply the representation of Gabriel and Mary and to make himself available to more of God’s art, has certain overtones that might cast a different light on the relationship between the two poets here. The Annunciation was nearly, we might reflect, the subject of Virgil’s fourth Eclogue, the child to be born to a virgin that, had he only known which child and which virgin, might have saved him. It is this scene from which Virgil, in all innocence, pulls Dante away. And, while what follows merely describes Dante’s moving past Virgil, who had been standing between him and the first intaglio, from left to right, so as better to inspect the next work, it also describes physically what has a moral status, that is, Dante surpasses Virgil as an artist because he is more available to the meaning of God’s art. (In this vein see Barolini [Baro.1984.1], p. 278.) [return to English / Italian]

  55–69. As Inferno has readied us to observe, Dante will now couple his subordinate exemplary figures as scriptural and classical, more specifically Old Testament and Roman. This passage consolidates key elements of the narrative concerning David’s bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem: his dancing before it, his wife Michal’s scorn, and her resultant barrenness (II Samuel 6:1–23). [return to English / Italian]

  56–57. Uzzah’s presumption in attempting to assist Him who requires no help of any kind is related in II Samuel 6:6–7: he tried to steady the Ark when the movement of the oxen seemed about to topple it; for this God strikes him down immediately, killing him for his prideful insistence on a mission not enjoined. For Dante’s complex and amusing acknowledgment, both here and, more specifically, in his eleventh Epistle that he is, in some ways, the “new Uzzah,” see Barolini (Baro.1992.1), p. 132, and Hollander (Holl.1999.2). [return to English / Italian]

  60–63. The protagonist’s ears assure him that the seven choirs in this panel are not singing, yet his eyes insist that they are. Just so his nose smells no perfume of incense, while his eyes can see that the smoke indeed has an aroma. [return to English / Italian]

  65. Perhaps no passage in a poem that refers to David more than to any other personage from the Old Testament (see Holl.1973.1) is more compelling in establishing the “figural relationship” between the two poets. Dante, too, is the “humble psalmist,” David’s modern counterpart. It seems just to say that no one has developed this observation as well as has Barolini (see especially Baro.1984.1, pp. 275–78). Tommaseo long ago (1837) dealt with this scene as a metaphor for great Dante’s low vernacular poetry performed beneath the scornful gaze of pedantry: “But Dante is more than poet in certain respects, because he does not fear to appear less than poet and dances with his robe hitched up; but princess Michal—I might call her ‘pedantry’—sniffs from the window.” [return to English / Italian]

  67–69. Where David, down among the common people and dancing without kingly dignity, reflects the low comedic world, Michal, high above the crowd and separate from it, scornful, seems to represent the lofty, “tragic,” or noble view. David here serves as a forerunner for Jesus, who will identify himself with humility, while Michal seems to be associated with all those who resist humility in the name of pride. [return to English / Italian]

  73–93. The longest of these three scenes concerns Trajan, emperor of Rome in the years 98–117. Of those whom Dante depicts as being saved, to whom all or most Christians would deny, or at least question, that status (Cato [Purg. I.75], Statius [Purg. XXII.73], Trajan [Par. XX.44], and Ripheus [Par. XX.68]), only for Trajan does there exist a tradition that considered him saved. This result of St. Gregory’s prayers is even allowed as possible by St. Thomas, in what seems an unusually latitudinarian gesture, recorded in the Summa theologica (as was perhaps first noted by Lombardi [1791]): ST III, Suppl., quaest. 71, art. 5, obj. 5 [for the text in English see Singleton’s note to verse 75]). That what seems to modern ears an unbelievable story should have had the support of so rigorous a thinker as Thomas still astounds readers. Yet, if one looks closely, one sees that Thomas does hedge his bet: Trajan’s salvation by Gregory’s intervention is “probable” (potest probabiliter aestimari); further, according to Thomas, “as others say” (secundum quosdam), Trajan may have only had his punishment put back until Judgment Day. Dante betrays no such hesitation: the salvation of Trajan is Gregory’s “great victory” (verse 75). Dante is in an enviable position, both possessing Thomas’s support and being able to outdo him in enthusiasm.

  For some of the many medieval texts that support the miraculous salvation of Trajan and for an array of possible sources for the dialogue between Trajan and the widow, including Trajan’s column in Rome, see Vickers (Vick.1983.1), pp. 70–72, 75–79. [return to English / Italian]

  73. For the term storïata see Singleton: “a depiction in art, even as stained-glass windows or initial letters in manuscripts or frescoed walls were said to be ‘historiated’ ” with historical or legendary material. [return to English / Italian]

  75. St. Gregory, known as Gregory the Great, was pope from 590 to 604. His lengthy commentary on the Book of Job (the Moralia), one of the most influential writings of the earlier Middle Ages, offers a different and happier understanding of Job’s story than is prevalent today, insisting that it has a truly “comic” resolution, rebinding Job to God and restoring his family. Dante mentions Gregory twice, here and in Paradiso XX.106–117, in connection with the salvation of Trajan, and he is referred to in the last sphere of the heavens as one of the saved (Par. XXVIII.133), despite the fact that he had made small errors in listing the orders of the angelic hierarchy (as had Dante himself in Conv. II.v.6) in the Moralia.

  For information about which popes are saved and which are damned according to the Commedia see note to Inferno VII.46–48. [return to English / Italian]

  76. Having been told of Gregory’s “great victory,” we are now told in what it consisted: the pope has saved a (dead) pagan emperor. The way the text is handled reminds us of Dante’s continuing hostility to the Church’s insistence on the hierocrat position, in which the emperor is seen as totally dependent upon the Church for his authority. Gregory’s intervention for a great Roman emperor has, in Dante’s eyes, a different style and sets a better standard. [return to English / Italian]

  77–81. The rapid strokes that fill in the details of this intaglio show that Dante is fully capable of producing the scene in pictures. But in the following dozen verses, pushing the limits of the art he attributes to God, but which he has invented, he reports only the “visible speech” wrought by what he saw, that is, the words induced by the carving rather than the carving itself. [return to English / Italian]

  82–93. The exchange between the widow and Trajan, a sort of polite tenzone, involves six speeches. The widow seeks, Trajan denies; she seeks again and is again denied; she appeals to Trajan’s moral character and he accedes, touched in those two treasured Roman inner qualities, respect for iustitia and pietas. [return to English / Italian]

  94–96. What is new to Dante is not so to God (but this does not reduce the novelty or the excitement of it for Dante [see verse 104] or for us).

  For the program in the intaglios see Austin (Aust.1932.2); for ekphrasis in this canto see Heffernan (Heff.1993.1). [return to English / Italian]

  97–99. These images of humility reflect
the pattern that we will find on each terrace: first exempla of the virtue that directly opposes the vice repented (here humility and pride), ultimately exempla of the vice itself (see Purg. XII.25–63). Thus the penitents are at first encouraged and finally warned lest they backslide. [return to English / Italian]

  100–102. Dante’s delectation has delayed the travelers long enough so that even this slow-moving band of penitents, coming along behind them, can become visible to Virgil (but not to the art-absorbed Dante), even though the path was totally bare when the two poets arrived on it (vv. 25–26). It is a curious fact of this art-filled canto that, of the two poets, Virgil has clearly the shorter attention span to give to art. He feels he has to urge Dante to take his eyes off Gabriel and Mary (verse 46) in order to examine David, and now interrupts Dante’s delectation in the images of Trajan and the widow in order to get him to look at real souls. (He is obviously himself not nearly so absorbed by God’s art.) It is a bit difficult to know what to make of these moments. Virgil resembles the less art-responsive member of a couple in a museum, waiting for his friend, totally absorbed, to finish looking so that their tour may continue. Further, the word used to describe Virgil’s distracting locution is mormorava (murmured). Dante uses it seven other times in the poem, and it usually denotes some form of less-than-clear speech, uttered in this way because the speaker is in pain or distracted (in the only preceding occurrence, Inf. XXVI.86, it is the riven, speaking flame of Ulysses that murmurs). For Dante to put together the very word that for him most stands for eloquence, poeta, with “murmured” is striking. No one has, with the exception of Vickers, paid attention to the curious and disturbing notion that Virgil, of all people, should murmur. Here is her formulation, in partial response to that word: “The placing of Virgil face to face with divine assurance of the salvation of Trajan, a man of no more faith than he, cannot but emphasize the enigma of Virgil’s situation” (Vick.1983.1, p. 72). She goes on to speculate that the salvation of Trajan by intervention of Gregory inevitably brings to mind another great medieval legend, that of St. Paul praying for the soul of Virgil at his tomb near Naples, a potential intervention on behalf of damned Virgil that, as far as everyone who has dealt with it is concerned, was obviously not successful. [return to English / Italian]