by Dante
100–102. Forese has rounded the terrace and is now beyond the reach of Dante’s sight, just as his prophecy, obscure now in 1300 before the event of Corso’s death, has escaped Dante’s understanding. [return to English / Italian]
103–105. Moving along the terrace with his eyes fixed on Forese, Dante does not at first see the tree that his own movement forward has brought him to. The second tree of this terrace has caused less puzzlement than the first one (Purg. XXII.131–135); the succeeding verses (116–117) answer most questions that one might have (see note to vv. 115–117): this tree is an offshoot of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Jenni (Jenn.1972.1), pp. 12–13, argues that the sight of the water from above causing the leaves to shine makes the penitent gluttons even hungrier. As was the case with the first tree, this one is also apparently watered from above (see Purg. XXII. 137–138). [return to English / Italian]
106–111. This simile possibly reflects a passage from Convivio (Conv. IV.xii.16) in which Dante speaks of the natural love of human souls for God, their maker, which is easily drawn off course: “Thus we see little children setting their desire first of all on a fruit, and then, growing older, desiring to possess a little bird, and then still later desiring to possess fine clothes, then a horse, and then a woman, and then modest wealth, then greater riches, and then still more” (tr. Lansing). The central elements of this image (a man catching the hungry attention of a child by holding up a fruit) are deployed again in Purgatorio XXVII. 45. [return to English / Italian]
112–114. The penitents (as will be the poets) are urged to turn aside, apparently by the same voice from within the tree that will warn off the poets (and since the names of exemplary figures are recited by this voice, we probably correctly assume it speaks to all, triggered by its sense that someone is approaching, that is, not only in response to these special visitors). They are “enlightened” (in the sense that their first opinion, that the fruit of this tree is desirable, is changed) when they realize that this tree is a branch from that beneath which humankind first fell into sin, and thus willingly move away. [return to English / Italian]
115–117. Once again an unseen and unidentified divinely authorized voice speaks from within the foliage of a tree (see Purg. XXII.140–154). This is an offshoot of the tree of which Eve (and then Adam, who had also been warned not to [see note to Purg. XXII.140–141]) ate the fruit.
Porena (1946) is one of those who unaccountably believe that there must be still other trees upon this terrace. If, indeed, Dante is referring to the two most significant trees in the original garden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:8), it would seem unlikely that he would have wanted us to imagine there might be others scattered along the terrace. Porena denies that the first speaking tree (Purg. XXII.141) is an offshoot of the Tree of Life, but believes that it, too, is derived from the Tree of Knowledge, an opinion that may seem difficult to justify.
Bosco/Reggio raise a question in their commentary: Why was the first tree (Purg. XXII.139) approachable, while this one is not? Would it not seem reasonable that the fruit of the Tree of Life should be precisely what purgation is preparing penitents to receive? At the same time, it would also seem reasonable that they should prepare for their reward by ceremonially avoiding the site of humanity’s original sin. [return to English / Italian]
121–126. The voice reminds the travelers (and the penitents, we assume) first of the “Centaurs, mythical race, half horses and half men, said to have been offspring of Ixion, King of the Lapithae, and a cloud in the shape of Hera [Juno]” (T). The Centaurs fought against the Lapiths and Theseus at the wedding feast for Pirithoüs (the friend of Theseus and their half brother) and his bride Hippodamia. The Centaurs attempt to rape the bride and bridesmaids but are prevented by Theseus and others. The final three hundred lines of the scene, which served as Dante’s source, in Ovid (Metam. XII.210–535) represent a kind of tumultuous and comic redoing of the battle scenes in the Iliad (and in the Aeneid), with plenty of body parts and blood.
For the double nature of the Centaurs (beast and man at once), see Inferno XII.84.
The Hebrews selected by Gideon to make war upon the Midianites were those who lifted water to their mouths in their cupped hands, as opposed to those who cast themselves down to a stream to drink directly with their mouths (see Judges 7:2–8). The ones remembered here are not the 300 whom he chose to fight, but the 9,700 who were sent back to their tents. These were “slack” in that they gave in totally to their desire to drink, while the 300 displayed a more controlled demeanor, more fitting to those who would require composure even in the heat of battle. [return to English / Italian]
133–134. This voice, we shortly come to understand, comes from the Angel of Temperance. [return to English / Italian]
137–138. Singleton (1973) points out that the description of this angel is indebted to John’s Revelation (Apocalypse 1:9–20). The passage, prologue to John’s vision, tells how the apostle was ordered to write it by Jesus, a scene described in terms that at times closely resemble these. [return to English / Italian]
145–150. The last of the similes in a canto rich with them compares the waft of air from the angel’s wing felt by Dante on his brow to the sweet-smelling breeze of May. Tommaseo (1837) suggested a source in Virgil’s fourth Georgic (IV.415): “Haec ait et liquidum ambrosiae diffundit odorem” (She spoke, giving off the flowing fragrance of ambrosia). Cyrene is encouraging her despondent son, Aristaeus, to learn his fate from Proteus. [return to English / Italian]
151–154. Dante now “finishes” the Beatitude (Matthew 5:6) begun in Purgatorio XXII. 4–6, “Beati qui esuriunt et sitiunt iustitiam, quoniam ipsi saturabuntur” (Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied). In the first context, applying to those who “thirst” for riches, only sitiunt was heard, while here we have the echo only of the word for hunger, esuriunt. [return to English / Italian]
PURGATORIO XXV
1–3. The constellations Taurus and Scorpio are 180 degrees apart. The sun at the antipodes has now moved roughly two hours, from shining down from in front of the constellation Capricorn, then Sagittarius, and now Taurus, or from noon to two o’clock (as, half the world away, in Jerusalem it is two in the morning). Since the travelers had entered this terrace at roughly ten in the morning (Purg. XXII.115–120), it results that they have spent roughly four hours among the penitents of Gluttony and will spend approximately the same amount of time from now until they leave the penitents of Lust (see Purg. XXVII.65–66), the first two hours traversing the distance between the two terraces (see Purg. XXVI.4–6). [return to English / Italian]
4–9. The simile stresses the renewed urgency of the climb, with the three poets, led by Virgil, mounting in single file. Statius is, as will eventually be made plain, in the middle position (see Purg. XXVII.48), from which he will shortly respond at length to Dante’s question about the aerial body. [return to English / Italian]
17–18. Virgil’s metaphor has Dante drawing the bowstring of his question so hard and far that the iron tip of his arrow is touching the shaft of his bow. These are the first words spoken by Virgil since Purgatorio XXIII.15 (see the note to Purg. XXIV.1–3). [return to English / Italian]
20–21. Dante’s question, which has been in the back of his mind since Purgatorio XXIII.37–39, addresses the apparent incongruity of the fact that the souls of the penitents of Gluttony seem to grow thin from not ingesting food. Such a phenomenon, he has wrongly assumed, should be associated only with the experience of starvation in a mortal body. [return to English / Italian]
22–24. The reference is to Ovid’s near-epic narrative of the hunt for the Calydonian boar with its unhappy outcome for Meleager (Metam. VIII.260–546). He, son of the king of Calydon and of Althaea, killed this rampaging animal and gave its skin to Atalanta, with whom he was in love. Althaea’s two brothers, Plexippus and Toxeus, take the remains of the beast ba
ck from her. Enraged at the insult to his honor, Meleager kills them. Seeing the corpses of her brothers brought into the temple where she was giving thanks for her son’s victory, and learning who had killed them, Althaea is moved to take vengeance, even upon her own son. When he was born, the three Fates had determined that he would live only so long as a firebrand remained unconsumed in a fire into which it had been cast. Hearing this, Althaea snatched the burning log-end from the fire and doused it in water. Now she took up again this piece of wood, which she had preserved, and cast it into a fire, thus causing the death of her own son. Virgil’s point is that if Dante had understood this principle, that there is a vital relationship between what seem unrelated phenomena (e.g., the burning of a log-end and the death of a man), he would have already understood the relationship between body and soul here in purgatory. [return to English / Italian]
25–27. As a second instance of this principle, Virgil offers the example of a person’s movements being reflected in a mirror; once again, to an ignorant observer, the two phenomena might seem to have independent and unrelated causes if the observer did not understand the principle of reflection (e.g., two Marx brothers in sleeping garments facing each other in an open doorway and moving in harmony). [return to English / Italian]
28–30. It is as though Virgil himself understands that his explanations, relying on physical laws, do not explain the deeper principles involved in the fact that these souls respond with physical symptoms to a moral sensation. Dealing with this passage, Pietro di Dante (1340) allegorizes Virgil as “rational philosophy” and Statius, “a Christian poet,” as “moral philosophy.” It might seem more to the point to realize that Statius, as a saved Christian, simply knows by revelation some mysterious things that are not known by others, e.g., all ordinary mortals and all souls who are not saved. [return to English / Italian]
31–33. Statius excuses himself for revealing an essential Christian mystery in the presence of a pagan because of his love for this particular pagan. John of Serravalle (1415) speaks of Virgil’s belief (learned from Plato’s Timaeus, according to Benvenuto’s commentary on Inf. I. 10–12) that the souls of humans come from the stars and return to them. While we cannot be certain that Dante shared the first part of this view (and see Par. IV.22–24 for his denial of the second), the “eternal plan” is at significant variance from Plato, as Statius’s lecture will make plain. [return to English / Italian]
34–108. For a summary of the main points of Statius’s lecture on embryology, see the Outline of this canto, above. For extremely useful notes on Dante’s sources in these verses (37–88), Aristotle, Avicenna, Averroës, Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, along with reference to Bruno Nardi’s important contribution to our awareness of Dante’s schooling in such matters, see Singleton’s commentary to them. This “lecture” is put to the task of justifying Dante’s presentation of spiritual beings as still possessing, for the purposes of purgation, their bodily senses even though they have no bodies. Souls in Heaven, we will discover, have no such “aerial bodies,” but are present as pure spirit. [return to English / Italian]
37–42. The “perfect blood” is the end result of a series of four “digestions” within the body: in the stomach, the liver, the heart, the members. Sperm is what remains after the “fourth digestion” of the blood, which informs the various members of the body (e.g., heart, brain). [return to English / Italian]
48. “The perfect place from which it springs” is the heart, from which it flows to become sperm. [return to English / Italian]
52–54. The vegetative soul is the first one formed. Unlike the vegetative soul of things that have no higher nature, ours is only the beginning—our soul has not yet “come to shore,” its “voyage” has only begun. The vegetative soul enables the growth of the physical body. This capacity we share with animate matter (things that grow, e.g., plants, as opposed to inanimate matter, e.g., rocks) and the animals. [return to English / Italian]
56–57. Now, at first resembling the lowest form of animate life, the sea-sponge, the animal soul begins to take life. This second soul is known as the “sensitive soul,” and is the seat of human emotion, a capacity we share with the animals. [return to English / Italian]
61. What Dante has not yet heard (and thus cannot understand) is how this “animal” embryo can and does become a human being, i.e., how it receives its rational soul. The word “fante,” here translated “human,” strictly speaking means “one who speaks.” Thus an “infant” (in-fans) is a human who cannot yet speak. Here Dante, through Statius, is speaking precisely, but not technically. He means to indicate that the rational soul, once it is joined to the embryo, only then makes this new creature potentially fully human. And this third capacity of the soul we share with no other mortal beings (angels are nothing but rational soul, having no bodily form). For these three faculties as found in each single human soul, see the note to Purgatorio IV.1–15. [return to English / Italian]
62–66. The question of the “possible intellect” was of considerable interest in Dante’s day and was variously addressed, even among “orthodox” Christian thinkers (Albertus Magnus and his pupil Thomas Aquinas had major disagreements about it), partly because its most visible champion was Averroës (see Inf. IV.144), the twelfth-century Islamic philosopher who had decided that the possible intellect, which is the potential capacity to perceive universal ideas, existed apart from any particular human agent. An eventual result of such a view was to question or deny the immortality of the individual human soul. Dante’s solution was to make the possible intellect coterminous with the rational soul, breathed into the embryo directly by God. It is not surprising that Dante, whose ways are often extremely freewheeling, simply appropriated the term to his own purpose and, in these few lines, makes the possible intellect “orthodox.” See Cesare Vasoli, “intelletto possibile,” ED III (1971). [return to English / Italian]
67–75. These three tercets mark the climax of the argument and nearly shimmer with affection as they describe God’s love for his human creatures, consummated in the breathing in of the rational soul, which immediately fuses with the vegetative and sensitive souls to form a single and immortal entity, capable of intellection and of will. [return to English / Italian]
76–78. God’s love for us creates a new entity, an immortal soul, out of the raw material of nature just as the sun creates a new entity, wine, out of the moisture drawn up from the earth by the grapevine (Jacopo della Lana [1324]). The emphasis is on the new entity’s relation to its formative cause: a human being is the residue of God’s spirit interacting with flesh; wine is a distillation of sunlight and matter. [return to English / Italian]
79–84. At the moment of death (for the role of Lachesis and her two sister Fates, see note to Purg. XXI.25–30) the lower faculties of the soul are once again in potential (rather than active) state. The higher faculties of the rational soul, on the other hand, are immediately said to be in atto (in action, i.e., fully existing), and more vigorously so than when they were inhibited by the lower souls.
There are three constitutive parts of the intellectual (or rational) soul according to St. Augustine, De Trinitate X.18, cited by Daniello (1568): “The memory, the intellect, and the will are the components of a single mind.” These seem to be the sources of Dante’s formulation here. [return to English / Italian]
85–99. The “afterlife” of a shade is compared to its taking the form of a rainbow when the soul “imprints” itself upon the surrounding air to make itself reassemble the memory of its former body out of thin air. It is as inseparable from the higher soul as a flame is from its fire. [return to English / Italian]
100–108. The conclusion of Statius’s demonstration of the nature of a shade’s aerial body relies, as readers since Pietro di Dante (1340) have realized, on Virgil’s description of the condition of the souls in his afterworld, Aeneid VI.730–751. Among the details found there are the smiles and tears of which Dante speaks here (see Aen. VI.733 and vv. 103–104).
[return to English / Italian]
109. The word tortura (translated as “circling”) here perhaps has two meanings: “turning” and “torture,” thus describing both the spatial and the punitive aspects of the terrace: one makes a tighter circle there as one burns. An interpreter is free to choose either alternative; a translator is forced to decide on one. [return to English / Italian]
112–117. Some readers have difficulty visualizing what Dante here describes. Flames shoot out from the wall of the cliff, at first horizontally, but then driven back and up by a wind moving sharply upward from below at the edge of the terrace, thus making the flames move up and past the face of the wall and freeing a narrow path that is flame-free at the outer edge of the terrace. [return to English / Italian]
121. The hymn sung by the penitents of Lust has caused some confusion in the modern age because the hymn “Summae Deus clementiae” (“God of supreme clemency”) does not seem appropriate to the recriminations of the lustful, while the hymn “Summae Parens clementiae” does. However, the early commentators knew this hymn by the same first line as we today know the former. Its text, in a form that is probably close to or identical with that known by Dante, is found in the commentary of Jacopo della Lana (1324). The third stanza hopes for God’s annealing fire to combat the passion of lust. [return to English / Italian]
