Purgatorio (103 page)

118–123.
   Virgil’s first response to Dante’s “awakening” back in the world of lesser truth is a bit brutal in its colloquial insistence on a less than noble cause for his condition. For Dante’s apparent drunkenness see Glending Olson (Olso.1999.1), pp. 25–26. Olson addresses the relationship between these and the seemingly “drunken” words of Boniface VIII, as described by Guido da Montefeltro in
Inferno
XXVII.99. The context of Acts 2:13 is clearly present here as well: witnessing the Apostles speaking in tongues after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them, the cynical pronounce them to be “drunk with new wine.” It is interesting to see that Virgil is associated, in his response to Dante, similarly filled with the Spirit, with those who denied the action of the Holy Spirit in the Apostles (see Seem [Seem.1991.1], p. 74). Here, Seem points out that Dante’s “drunken” condition, shortly after he has heard Beatrice’s name (XV.77), mirrors his being “come inebriato” (as though drunk) when he first saw Beatrice, as recorded in
Vita nuova
III.
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124–126.
   Dante’s response to Virgil intrinsically explains his physical condition as the result of his being in a state which granted him the ability to see that which, apparently, Virgil did not and could not see. If Virgil did not know this before he asked his question, he does know this much now—not what Dante saw, but the nature of his seeing: ecstatic vision. Dante here shares the iconography of another closed-eyed visionary, John the Divine; see
Purgatorio
XXIX.143–144, where John, represented as the last book of the New Testament, Revelation, is seen, like Dante here, walking in a visionary state with his eyes closed, “dormendo.”
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127–129.
   Virgil’s claim for knowledge of even the least particular of Dante’s mental awareness must be taken with skepticism (see discussion of Musa’s arguments in the note to vv. 134–135).
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130–132.
   What does Virgil know? We have some information with which to answer this question. On the terrace of Pride, Virgil and Dante found the two sets of opposing exemplars displayed in marble carvings. Having seen the first set of these, once they had seen the second they could infer something about the structure of purgation and about its symbolic landscape. As a result, once Virgil hears the voices flying overhead, representing Charity, the virtue contrasted with Envy, he immediately understands that there will be a second set of sounds before the travelers leave the terrace (see note to
Purg
. XIII.37–42). His situation here is more difficult, for he has seen nothing to indicate this terrace’s mode of exemplary instruction. According to him, he reads Dante’s mind. Perhaps we should view his claim with a certain dubiety. Dante speaks, announcing that he is seeing things that are not visible; as soon as Virgil connects that information with the physical signs that his “drunken” charge is exhibiting, he understands: the
exempla
on this terrace are delivered through ecstatic vision, an experience reserved for only the elect. He knows that these visions must present positive figures of the opposing virtue, precisely “to open your heart to the waters of peace,” as he tells Dante. No matter who may have been present in Dante’s visions to represent meekness (and even Virgil may have by now divined that Mary will be the first of these), the meaning of the exemplars here will always be the same: to pour the water of peace upon the fires of wrath in the heart.
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133–135.
   Bosco/Reggio (1979) are undoubtedly correct in suggesting that the debate in the commentaries over the literal sense of these verses is less than convincing and go on to plead that in these verses Dante uses “an imprecise expression.” Salsano (Sals.1967.1), pp. 568–70, reflects upon the debate as it came into his time. Cachey (Cach.1993.1), pp. 222–23, offers a more up-to-date review of various interpretations. The only interpretation, however, that seems to offer a clear understanding of the difficult passage is one based on a comprehension of the tensions that exist here between the protagonist and his guide. Such a reading has been put forward by Lauren Seem (Seem.1991.1), who argues that what is at stake is Virgil’s attempt to show that he has indeed known the nature of Dante’s vision, that he did not think Dante was merely “drunk.” And thus we can understand what he says as follows: “I did not ask what was wrong with you because you were having a vision—of course, I understood that—but only because it was now time to get you back on the track.” As Musa has pointed out (see notes to
Inf
. XVI.115 and XXIII.25), there is no evidence in the poem, despite Virgil’s claim in
Inferno
XXIII (repeated here), that he actually can read the protagonist’s mind—a capacity reserved for Beatrice and the other saved souls who interview Dante in the heavens. Our reading of the entire passage eventually depends on whether we accept Virgil’s protestations here or question them. For a step-by-step analysis of the difficult details that have so afflicted the commentators, see Seem (Seem.1991.1), pp. 75–80.
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139–145.
   The description of this terrace, postponed from its expected space (see note to vv. 82–84), begins now, as we first perceive the black smoke of anger that will cover the travelers and the penitents for the entirety of the following canto, the darkest part of
Purgatorio
.
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1–7.
   This fiftieth canto of the
Divina Commedia
is literally its darkest; light finally glimmers only two lines from its conclusion (in verse 143) and its action is played completely in the smoke of Wrath. Technically, the numerical midpoint of the poem occurs between Cantos XVI and XVII, the latter of which also happens to be the middle canto of
Purgatorio
. Thus, as the poet prepares the entire poem and the
cantica
to reach their centers, it seems fitting that he first indicates the
Comedy
’s origin in hell:
Buio d’inferno
(Gloom of hell).

The sky is “barren” (literally “poor,” or “impoverished”) in that it is “deprived of its precious jewels,” its stars (according to Benvenuto da Imola, mainly found in the eighth sphere but with one “planet” found in each of the first seven), are hidden behind layers of clouds.

The envious are made to repent by being denied their sight; the wrathful are being denied objects of sight because they were blinded by their anger for their enemies.
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8–9.
   It seems that here Virgil has the power of sight, while the protagonist, like the penitents soon to be present, is effectively blind in the smoke. Is this a deliberate recasting of the situation in
Purgatorio
XV.115–138, where Dante can behold the ecstatic visions apparently denied to Virgil? Once again, Virgil’s state would be marked off as different from that of saved souls.

The smoke that expresses the sin of Wrath on this terrace is referred to five times (XV.142; XVI.5, 25, 35, 142) and marks the last time in the poem that the noun
fummo
is used to describe a place. It clearly seems to be related to the smoke that marked the Circle of Anger in Inferno, where it is used three times, once (
Inf
. IX.75) with an adjective,
acerbo
(harsh), that seems to join it to the smoke we enter here. For the relationship between infernal anger and the purgation of Wrath see the note to
Purgatorio
XVII.19–39.
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10–15.
   The simile presents an image of Dante walking behind Virgil with his hand upon the shoulder of his guide, otherwise present to him only as a voice. The image prepares us for what will happen once Marco Lombardo is his interlocutor: all he (and we) will be aware of is a voice, close to an ideal situation for a poet to contrive in order to gain undeflected attention on behalf of a presentation of moral philosophy.
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19–21.
   We are presumably meant to understand that
all
the penitents pray on each of the previous terraces (see
Purg
. XI.1–24;
Purg
. XIII.49–51) and on this one as well. The pattern of communal liturgical prayer will be broken, for good reason, only by the slothful:
Purgatorio
XVIII.103–105.

Fallani (1965) discusses the prayer, instituted as part of the Mass by Pope Sergius I in the seventh century, comprised, once it became a part of the liturgy, of a single line that is then twice repeated: “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis” (Lamb of God who carry off the sins of the world, have mercy on us); in the third iteration the last phrase (“miserere nobis”) gives place to the words “dona nobis pacem” (grant us peace), a particularly apt phrase for these penitents of Wrath, beseeching the serenity to which Virgil referred in
Purgatorio
XV.131, “the waters of peace.”
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25–27.
   The speaker can sense that the visitor is moving the smoke that he walks through and thus must be present in the flesh; for this reason, as he correctly assumes, the new arrival is still timebound. The souls on the mountain have their own temporality, but one in which all of time is but a necessary prolegomenon to eternity, when real life begins for them. Thus for them the months of the calendar are real but meaningless.
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31–36.
   Dante’s
captatio
, his attempt to gain his listener’s goodwill (see note to
Inf
. II.58), celebrates the as yet unknown speaker’s freedom from the flesh; his (rational) soul will soon be as it was when God breathed it into him (see
Purg
. XXV.70–75). The protagonist goes on to offer, in good rhetorical fashion, a reward for his auditor’s collaboration. His insistence that this spirit follow him is predicated upon necessity: Dante’s eyes are closed because his mortal flesh cannot bear the harshness of the smoke, with the result that he cannot see his interlocutor. The spirit, unlike Virgil, evidently cannot see in the darkness and therefore is only able to follow Dante’s voice.
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37–38.
   The image of the flesh as swaddling clothes, the protective cloth in which infants are wrapped, places emphasis on the soul as being the precious part of us, our bodies merely the wrapping that should keep it until it is ready for its better life.
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41–42.
   This is the rather coy way that Dante refers to St. Paul’s ascent to Heaven (II Corinthians 12:4) as being the last before his own. For Dante, that somewhat strange word (“modern”) is not a positive one. (The
Grande Dizionario
[Batt.1961.1] indicates this as the first recorded use of the word in Italian.) For Dante, in the battle between ancients and moderns, at least when it is waged on moral grounds, ancients are better. For the three subsequent uses of the word see
Purgatorio
XXVI.113,
Paradiso
XVI.33,
Paradiso
XXI.131.
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46.
   Marco the Lombard: to the many previous attempts to identify Marco (see Singleton’s commentary) we must now add that of Giorgio Cracco (Crac.1984.1), who points out that a Venetian living in Lombardy wrote, ca. 1292, a (still unpublished) chronicle of the provinces of Venice. He names himself simply as “Marco” and his text contains a number of concerns and phrases that coincide with Dante’s. That Dante allows him as limited identification as he does may indicate that he felt Marco’s fame was great enough that his Christian name alone was sufficient to identify him.
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47–48.
   Marco’s words make him seem a perfect courtier: worldly, but a lover of the good, and a user of soldier’s language (that of bowmanship). Poletto (1894) also points out that his qualities would seem to mirror those of Ulysses—or at least those that Ulysses lends himself, his “fervor … to gain experience of the world and learn about man’s vices, and his worth” (
Inf
. XXVI.97–99).
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51.
   Strangely enough, some commentators have taken the adverbial preposition
sù
(“above”) to refer to the world at the antipodes (e.g., John of Serravalle [1416]) and one (Tommaseo [1837]), to the earthly paradise. However, it seems unmistakably clear that Marco, having learned of Dante’s destination (verse 41), is the first spirit to ask him to pray for him once he is in Heaven. This request might seem to imply either that he is of a particularly holy disposition or that he believes that no one on earth whom Dante might meet loves anything that transcends the earthly (verse 48). But see Guido Guinizzelli’s similar request (
Purg
. XXVI.127–130).
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53–63.
   Dante is bursting with a doubt, now made double by Marco’s words: if the world is so thoroughly evil, wherein lies the cause? Dante wants to be informed so that he may pass the knowledge on to others, some of whom believe the cause is found on earth, while others think it is situated in the heavens. Is his doubt now “double” because he has heard from Guido del Duca (XIV.37–42) that all in the valley of the Arno flee virtue? That is Benvenuto’s (1380) reasonable hypothesis, one that has many followers. Wanting to know the “cause” of evil (and his word,
malizia
[malice], is the word used in
Inf.
XI.22 to define the sins of the hardened will [see note to
Inf.
XI.22–27], those punished within the City of Dis), the protagonist triggers the heaviest use of this noun
(cagione)
in the poem; it occurs four times in forty-four lines, at vv. 61, 67, 83, and 104, thus underlining the centrality of this concern, to understand the root of human sinfulness, essential to the understanding of the concept of free will, as the next passage (Marco’s rejoinder) and the next canto, when Virgil discourses on the nature of love, will both make plain.
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