Authors: Dante
Purgatorio (114 page)
82–93.
Publius Papinius Statius (45–96) was born in Naples and not in Toulouse, birthplace of a different Statius, a rhetorician; Dante’s error was a common one (perhaps deriving from the glosses by Lactantius [ca. 300] to the poems of Statius) and he helped propagate it, since he is probably responsible for the mistaken birthplace found both in Boccaccio and in Chaucer. Statius’s
Thebaid
, an epic in twelve books, composed in the years between between 80 and 92, was the source of a good deal of Dante’s sense of what for us is the “Oedipus story,” in Statius seen as the civil war between the forces loyal to one or the other of Oedipus’s royal sons.
Dante’s reference to Statius’s laureation is problematic. Since it seems clear, despite an occasional argument to the contrary, that Dante did not know Statius’s collection of his “fugitive” poems, the
Silvae
(see the note to verse 90), he could not have read (in
Silvae
III.v.28–31) that, while the emperor (Domitian) had crowned Statius with gold at an “arts festival” at Alba, he had not done so at Rome, i.e., Statius did not get the laurel for his epic. And thus it remains possible but seems unlikely that he ever received the laurel; however, his dedication of the
Thebaid
to Domitian, coupled with the opening lines of the
Achilleid
(I.9–11), where he asks Apollo for laureation and intimates that he had been previously coronated, might have made Dante think he had been. This second epic, which he did not finish, getting only as far as into the second book, was the source of most of what Dante, Homerless, knew about Achilles.
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82–84.
Born around
A
.
D
. 45, Statius was thus about twenty-five when Titus, son of the emperor Vespasian, destroyed in
A
.
D
. 70 the Second Temple in Jerusalem as part of his attack upon the Jews, an event to which Dante will advert in
Paradiso
VI.92 (for Dante’s sense of the “just retribution” involved in this event, see the note to that passage). Titus succeeded Vespasian as emperor (79–81).
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85–87.
The “name” to which the speaker refers is that of poet. The surprising, even shocking, culmination of his statement of his debt to Virgil in the next canto (verse 73: “through you I was a poet, through you a Christian”) is adumbrated here, where Statius owns himself (at the age at which Dante suffered the loss of Beatrice, twenty-five) to have achieved fame as a poet but not yet faith in Christ.
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88.
Dante had already referred to Statius as “lo dolce poeta” (the sweet poet) at
Convivio
IV.xxv.6, as Tommaseo (1837) pointed out. Pietro di Dante (1340) was the first to suggest that the source for the phrase lay in Juvenal’s
Satires
(VII.82–87). For strong support of this notion, see Ronconi (Ronc.1965.1), pp. 568–69; see also Tandoi (Tand.1969.1). Ettore Paratore, “Giovenale,”
ED
III (1971), pp. 197–202, offers probably the most balanced and useful introduction to the problem of Dante’s knowledge of Juvenal.
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90.
There has been much confusion over the meaning of Statius’s reference to being crowned with myrtle leaves. The myrtle tree was sacred to Venus (see, e.g.,
Aen
. V.72). And, indeed, Statius himself, in his
Silvae
(IV.vii.10–11), asks to be crowned as a lyric poet (and not as a writer of epic) with myrtle leaves. However, as nearly all admit, or even insist, Dante could not have been acquainted with the
Silvae
. Then what does Dante mean us to understand by Statius’s insistence that he was crowned with myrtle? As Daniello (1568) notes, Virgil speaks of both laurel and myrtle (
Egl
. II.54): “You, too, o laurels
(lauri)
, I will pluck, and you, neighboring myrtle
(myrte)
”; Daniello believes that Statius is associated with myrtle because he was a poet of love. Disagreeing with him, Tommaseo (1837) thinks that the phrase, for Dante, meant that the myrtle wreath was secondary to the laurel, an opinion followed by Porena (1946) and developed by Mattalia (1960), who argues that, while Dante himself makes Statius one of the
poete regolati
(i.e., the classical Latin poets worthy of emulation [
Dve
II.vi.7]), it is Statius who speaks now, and he wants to show his awareness of his dependence upon Virgil, of his role as secondary poet following in the wake of a master. See verses two lines from the ending of the
Thebaid
(XII.816–817), which explicitly make a highly similar claim: “do not attempt to rival the divine
Aeneid
, but follow at a distance, always worshiping its footsteps.” Moore (Moor.1896.1), p. 243, was perhaps the first to suggest that this passage was being cited here in vv. 94–97. For its possible earlier relevance, see the note to
Inferno
XXIII.145–148.
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94–96.
For the relationship of Statius’s text to these lines, see the concluding remarks in the note to verse 90. The image of the
Aeneid
as being the divine torch that has set aflame many another poem, including this one, similarly “divine,” if surely in different ways, will be explored as this scene unfolds.
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97–99.
The appearance of the word
mamma
here is stunning, for we find it, a spectacular instantiation of the low vernacular (see the last item in the note to
Inf
. XXXII.1–9, the passage in which it has had its only previous appearance), used in the same verse with the word that may have represented for Dante the height of classical eloquence,
Eneïda
, the title of the greatest classical poem, here in its only use in the
Comedy
.
The passage applies to Statius, but increasingly students of this passage have been convinced that Statius’s fictive biography serves as a sort of stand-in for Dante’s genuine one, that is, in Statius’s words here about his dependence on Virgil we are also reading Dante’s confession of his own debt to the Roman poet. For this view see, among others, Paratore (Para.1968.1), pp. 72–73; Padoan (Pado.1970.1), p. 354; Hollander (Holl.1980.2), pp. 123–24, 205n.; Stephany (Step.1983.1), p. 151; Picone (Pico.1993.2), p. 330. In the next canto the extent of that debt will assume staggering proportions.
A dram is the equivalent of one-eighth of an ounce.
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100–102.
While some have understood that Statius’s gesture offers a single day of lingering (first, the Anonimus Lombardus [1322]) and others a solar cycle of twenty-eight years (first, Jacopo della Lana [1324]), most, after the Ottimo (1333), believe that he means one more year.
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103–114.
The first of these two adjacent and charming passages to return to earlier moments in the canto adverts to the discussion of the absolute and conditional wills in vv. 61–69. Here we see that Dante’s absolute will is conquered by his emotions. In the second, Dante’s smile is probably to be understood as exactly such a sign as Virgil gave to arriving Statius at vv. 14–15.
One does not want to read in too moralizing a light this extraordinary little scene. There is no serious consequence if Dante gives away Virgil’s little secret, or if Statius becomes overenthusiastic once it is known. The three poets share a moment of common freedom from the constraints of their missions. It is typical of this great and securely serious theological poet that he can indulge himself and his readers in moments of such moving happiness. This is perhaps as close to experiencing Christian fellowship as Virgil ever comes.
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125–126.
The protagonist’s understanding of Statius’s debt to Virgil is obviously not yet fully developed. In his formulation it was from the greater poet that Statius learned “to sing of men and of the gods,” an adequate description of the work of a pagan writer of epic. We will learn in the next canto that, behind the façade of pagan trappings, Statius was in fact a secret Christian. See note to
Purgatorio
XXII.67–73.
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130–136.
With regard to the supposed “failed embrace” between Statius and Virgil, Hollander has argued (Holl.1975.1), p.359, that Dante’s failed attempt to embrace Casella (
Purg
. II.76–81), pointing to a physical impossibility, is countered in the successful exchange of embraces between Sordello and Virgil, both shades (
Purg
. VII.2, 15). In both of those scenes there is a desire to embrace that is either frustrated or accomplished. Here Statius desires to embrace Virgil but, once advised against doing so by the author of the
Aeneid
, wills not to. Since we know from Sordello’s and Virgil’s shared embraces that in fact shades are capable of embracing, we may not properly say, as most who deal with the scene do, that Virgil and Statius, “being shades, cannot embrace,” or that they “are not capable of embracing” (Cecchetti [Cecc.1990.2], p. 107). They are perfectly capable of embracing; Virgil convinces Statius that it is not a fitting gesture in this higher realm. For another view of the supposedly problematic program of embraces see Iliescu (Ilie.1971.1). And see the note to
Purgatorio
XIX.134–135 for the probable biblical source of a similar scene: Pope Adrian’s refusal to accept Dante’s obeisance. In the end Statius won’t embrace Virgil because up here souls do not behave “that way,” just as Virgil did not want to have his identity revealed for a similar reason.
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1–6.
The scene with the angel, which we expect, having experienced such a scene at the end of the description of each terrace, is here done retrospectively and as briefly as possible. The giving of directions to the next terrace and the removal of Dante’s (fifth) P are referred to simply as having occurred. The remembered angelic recital of a Beatitude (here the fourth, Matthew 5:6, “Blessèd are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness [justice,
iustitiam
, in the Vulgate], for they shall be filled”) is given in truncated form. Responding to this economy, Benvenuto (1380) refers to Dante’s “novum modum scribendi” (new way of writing). What exactly was omitted from the Beatitude has been a subject of discussion, but it clearly seems to be “hunger and” (saved to be deployed, words more appropriate to Gluttony, at
Purg
. XXIV.154) and perhaps the ending as well (“for they shall be filled”), possibly omitted in both utterances.
It is as though the poet were clearing every inch of available space for the second scene with Statius, and indeed the arrival at the Terrace of Gluttony will be postponed for over a hundred lines (until verse 115), the longest such intermezzo we find among the seven terraces.
From verse 3 it seems inferentially clear that Statius does not have what would have been his final P removed. Dante describes his own letter being removed from his brow by the angel (“avendo
mi
dal viso un colpo raso” [having erased another swordstroke from my brow]). Had he wanted to include Statius as having the same experience, he would only have to have written “avendo
ci
” (from
our
brows). Thus, like all “regular” penitents, it seems most likely that Statius did not have his brow adorned by the writing of the warder at the gate of purgatory. See the note to
Purgatorio
XXI.22–24.
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7–9.
We are reminded of Dante’s increasing similarity to the unburdened souls of the disembodied. Traversing two more terraces will make him as light as they.
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10–18.
Dante’s charming fiction has it that Juvenal (for the reason behind the choice of him as praiser of Statius see the note to
Purg
. XXI.88), arriving in Limbo ca.
A
.
D
. 140, told Virgil of Statius’s great affection, which then caused a similar affection in Virgil for the unknown Statius. Benvenuto (1380) offers a sweet-tempered gloss to this passage: “Often we love a virtuous man, even if we have never met him—and in just this way do I love dead Dante.”
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19–24.
Virgil wraps his delicate yet intrusive question in pledges of friendship, and then asks Statius how such as he could have been stained by the sin of avarice. The phrase “tra cotanto senno” (amidst such wisdom) recalls the identical words found at
Inferno
IV.102, and thus reminds us of the five classical poets encountered there by Dante. It may also remind us that Limbo is precisely where anybody else would have assumed Statius would spend eternity.
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25–26.
As Benvenuto says, “Statius now smiles at Virgil’s mistake just as Dante had smiled, earlier [
Purg
. XXI.109], at Statius’s mistake.” Statius is also obviously allowed to be pleased to have been guilty of prodigality rather than avarice, no matter how seriously Dante took the latter sin.
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