Purgatorio (The Divine Comedy series Book 2)

by Dante

  82. The word velo (veil) reminds us that the climactic moment of an unveiling still lies before us. See the note to Purgatorio XXX.66. [return to English / Italian]

  85–90. The climax of Dante’s contrition is performed as a fainting fit. He is now ready to perform his act of satisfaction, forgetting all his divagations, canceling them from his memory. [return to English / Italian]

  91–102. Dante’s immersion in Lethe, supervised by Matelda, marks his final satisfaction of his confessor’s demands on him. As we will see (Purg. XXXIII.91–99), his forgetting that he ever transgressed against Beatrice’s instruction will be used by her as proof that he had indeed done so. Here we understand that his act of forgetting is an act of atonement, and is rewarded with absolution, indicated by the Latin song he hears as he completes his crossing of Lethe.

  As for Dante’s drinking of the waters, it has a Virgilian source, according to Pietro di Dante (1340) and, among the moderns, Mattalia (1960): in Lethe’s waters the souls “longa oblivia potant” (drink in long forgetfulness [Aen. VI.715]). As we shall see at Eunoe (Purg. XXXIII.138), the ingestion of the waters of these two rivers is essential to the accomplishment of (here) leaving one’s sins in oblivion and (there) securing in memory all the good things accomplished in one’s mortal life.

  Does Statius also drink of these waters? And does Matelda have oversight for his crossing of Lethe as well as Dante’s? See the note to Purg. XXXIII.128–135.

  The Ottimo (1333) identifies the phrase “Asperges me …” (Purge me [with hyssop, that I may be purified; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow]) as deriving from “the penitential Psalm” (50:9 [51:7]) and goes on to report that the phrase is repeated in the rite of absolution when the priest blesses the confessed sinner with holy water. We have less certain information about who it is that sings the words. Among those commentators who venture an opinion, most assume it is the angels who sing, but it could be the (still unnamed) Matelda (as Porena [1946] admits, even though he prefers the angels). Since the angels have served as singers before (Purg. XXX.19, XXX.21, XXX.83–84), the most reasonable hypothesis seems to be that it is they who sing now, as well. [return to English / Italian]

  103–108. The four nymphs represent the four cardinal virtues (Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude) in their primal form, i.e., as they were infused in Adam and Eve (and not acquired, as they have had to be ever after). God created the first humans, and no others, in this state. They are “nymphs” in that, like some classical nymphs, they inhabit a woodland landscape (Lombardi [1791]). The stars they are in heaven are probably (there is debate about this) identical with those we saw in Purgatorio I.23 (also referred to in I.37–39) and VIII.91, irradiating the face of Cato with their light. Dante thus seems to suggest that both Cato and Beatrice are of such special virtue that it seems that original sin did not affect them—a notion that could only be advanced in the sort of suggestive logic possible in poetry, for it is simply heretical. Dante never did say (or would have said) such a thing in prose.

  The exact sense in which they served as the handmaids of Beatrice before she lived on earth is less easily determined. For two similar views of the problem see Singleton (Sing.1958.1), pp. 159–83, and Mazzoni (Mazz.1965.2), pp. 82–86. Both link the infused cardinal virtues to Beatrice’s special role on earth, reflected in such passages as Inferno II.76–78, where she is addressed by Virgil as “donna di virtù” (lady of such virtue that by it alone / the human race surpasses all that lies / within the smallest compass of the heavens).

  Botticelli-like (as in his Primavera, surely shaped by this scene), the four dancing maidens make a composite sign of the cross with their upraised arms, which join over Dante’s head. All redeemed sinners leave the garden of Eden on their way to glory in the moral condition that marked the creation of the first humans, before the Fall: primal innocence. [return to English / Italian]

  109–111. The four cardinal virtues, representing the active life, insist that, while they are able to escort Dante to the eyes of Beatrice, their sister virtues, the theological three, at the right wheel of the chariot, are more appropriate presences to prepare Dante’s vision for that moment. [return to English / Italian]

  112–114. Beatrice has moved down from the chariot, from its left side, where she was looking at Dante across the stream (Purg. XXX.61 and 100), to, now that he has crossed it, a point in front of the chariot and of the griffin that draws it, so as to confront him. [return to English / Italian]

  115–117. The four virtues prepare Dante to do something that will become, very quickly, the standard way of learning for the protagonist in this new Beatricean realm of the poem: gaze into her mirroring eyes. [return to English / Italian]

  123. The word reggimenti (regiments, governments, regimes [in modern Italian]) would seem to give aid and comfort to those who have argued that this passage makes it difficult to argue for the traditional interpretation of the griffin as Christ. However, beginning with Venturi (1732), commentators have understood that here the word is synonymous with atteggiamento (in the sense of bearing, self-presentation). Daniello (1568 [118–123]) had previously understood the word as indicating that the griffin behaved “now as man, now as God.” [return to English / Italian]

  124–126. Dante’s sixth address to his readers in Purgatorio asks that we share his wonder (see the note to Inferno VIII.94–96). The griffin himself is constant in his appearance, while his reflection in Beatrice’s eyes, revealing his truer aspect, reflects, in turn, his divine and human natures. [return to English / Italian]

  127. Stupore (amazement, wonder) is again Dante’s condition, now for the marvelous nature of his simultaneous perception of God’s two natures. See the note to Purgatorio XXX.34–36. [return to English / Italian]

  128–129. Once again Scartazzini is the first commentator to find the likely citation behind Dante’s words and to be followed, always without acknowledgment, by any number of twentieth-century discussants of the passage: Wisdom speaks in Ecclesiasticus 24:29: “He who eats of me will hunger again, who drinks of me will thirst again.” That the speaker in this passage is Wisdom, the second person of the Trinity in Christian eyes, pleases Singleton (1973), who had argued earlier for the close relationship between Beatrice and Christ as Sapience (Sing.1958.1), pp. 122–34. [return to English / Italian]

  131. The “other three” are obviously the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, equally obviously of higher “rank” than the older classical cardinal virtues. [return to English / Italian]

  132. The word caribo has had extensive discussion among Dantists. Most currently agree that it indicates a particular dance, even if not an identifiable one. For extensive bibliography see Mazzoni (Mazz.1965.2), pp. 89–91. [return to English / Italian]

  133–138. The three theological virtues sing their appeal to Beatrice, requesting that she unveil her mouth. The moment recalls an experience recorded in Convivio. “Here it is necessary to know that the eyes of wisdom are her demonstrations, by which truth is seen with the greatest certainty, and her smiles are her persuasions, in which the inner light of wisdom [Sapienza] is revealed behind a kind of veil; and in each of them is felt the highest joy of blessedness, which is the greatest good of paradise. This joy cannot be found in anything here below except by looking into [her] eyes and upon her smile” (Conv. III.xv.2–3, trans. Lansing). It is important to know that these words are directed to another lady, also known as Wisdom, in the Convivio, namely the Lady Philosophy, the one who came as the replacement for the then supposedly less worthy Beatrice. [return to English / Italian]

  138. The seconda bellezza (second beauty) of Beatrice also may remind the reader of the “corollary” or extra gift that Matelda bestowed upon the three poets at the end of Purgatorio XXVIII (verse 136). [return to English / Italian]

  139–145. The luce etterna (eternal living light) that is God has its etterno piacer (eternal beauty) reflected in Beatrice, her loveliness the mirror of the beauty of God.r />
  This passage is reminiscent of that in Purgatorio XXVIII.139–148, the description of the smiles of recognition on the part of Virgil and of Statius when they discover that Eden represents the true Golden Age. No pagan poet, no matter how deeply inspired by drinking of the Castalian spring on Parnassus, could have written of the meaning of his vision of the Golden Age in a way that could come near to equaling what this Christian poet (by virtue of his faith, not of his talent), having now drunk of Lethe, can tell of God’s love in making His first human creature innocent and allowing His creature a chance to regain that lost innocence, which is what Dante has been allowed to accomplish here, while still in the flesh, and what he will finally accomplish after his death. [return to English / Italian]

  143. The pronoun te (the second person singular of “you”) is jarring, in that we have already learned that Beatrice is to be addressed by Dante with the honorific voi (at verse 36). It takes us a moment to realize that it is not Beatrice whom he apostrophizes here, but her smile. [return to English / Italian]

  PURGATORIO XXXII

  1–3. 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. [return to English / Italian]

  4–6. 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 (Tate.1961.1), p. 103, has suggested. [return to English / Italian]

  8. 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). [return to English / Italian]

  9. 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” (Mazz.1958.1, pp. 1–24). The virtues intercede because they sense that Dante is caught up in carnal appreciation of a spiritual entity. [return to English / Italian]

  13–15. 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 [1973] 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 (1416) 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 (1901) reminds the reader of the similar passage at Purgatorio XV.15, in which Dante’s sense of sight is overwhelmed. And Steiner (1921) 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. [return to English / Italian]

  16–18. 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. [return to English / Italian]

  19–24. 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. [return to English / Italian]

  27. Benvenuto’s gloss (1380) suggests that, while the mortal aspect of Christ may be mutable, His divine being (represented by his wings) is not. [return to English / Italian]

  28–30. 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. [return to English / Italian]

  31–37. 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. [return to English / Italian]

  38–42. 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 [1322], Jacopo della Lana [1324]), disregarding that context, think its withered condition indicates the Tree of Life after the origi
nal sin, when humankind lost eternal life, a perfectly sensible (if almost certainly erroneous) conclusion. Benvenuto (1380), 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. We probably should also assume that this tree, like those found on one of the terraces below (see Purg. XXII.131–135; XXIV.103–105), has its boughs pointed downward so as to prevent its being climbed. [return to English / Italian]

  43–48. 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 (1900) 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. [return to English / Italian]

  51. 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 (1380) 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.