Purgatorio (129 page)

121–129.
   This part of the allegory escapes no one: the three ladies represent the three theological virtues, charity (red), hope (green), and faith (white). They stand at the right wheel of the cart, its better side. Faith, necessary to a proper form of love, first leads their dance; then it is the turn of Charity, necessary to a proper form of Hope.
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130–132.
   At the left wheel we find the four cardinal virtues, associated with Roman virtue by their purple robes: temperance, justice, fortitude, and prudence (represented by the three-eyed lady, since she is knowledgeable about past, present, and future).
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133–141.
   We now come to the second Christian section of the pageant, those who came after Christ. We recognize Luke as the doctor he was, author of the Acts of the Apostles; Paul as the sword-bearer (see Ephesians 6:17, where Paul speaks of the sword of the spirit, that is, the word of God). And, as Singleton points out (1973), the sword also represents Paul’s martyrdom.

Here Dante uses the authors of New Testament texts to represent their works, and not vice versa, as he had done for the Old Testament. See the note to vv. 83–84.
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142–144
.  The writers of the lesser Epistles (James, Peter, John, and Jude) are followed by the Apocalypse, its author John depicted as sleeping the mystic sleep of vision.
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145–150.
   These seven authors or books all are typified not by the white of faith, as was the Old Testament, but by the red of love (for Christ come).

Pierotti (Pier.1981.1), p. 220, n. 12 has offered the following census of the pageant:

Total: 43

Canto XXX will add 100 angels and Beatrice to bring the number to 144, the mystical number (144,000) of the Church Triumphant. See Apocalypse 7:4, 14:1, 14:3.
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151–154.
   The canto ends with the thunderclap, arresting all, from the front to the back of the procession, as they await an obviously momentous event.
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1–7.
   This first simile in a canto that is heavily similetic seems deliberately difficult. Puzzled out, it compares the sevenfold spirit of the Church Triumphant, toward which all in the procession now turn for guidance as they do above in the Empyrean, to the Little Dipper, which locates the North Star for earthly navigators. The sevenfold Spirit of God [see the note to
Purg.
XXIX.64–66]) seems clearly to be identified with the Holy Spirit, one aspect of the triune God in the Empyrean. Porena (1946) points out that the stars of the constellation Ursa (whether Major or Minor) were construed as seven plowing oxen,
septem triones
, as is reflected in Dante’s word “settentrïon” (which may reflect Virgil’s “septem … trioni” at
Georgics
III.381). This higher sevenfold spirit, unlike Ursa Minor, never rises or sets but is constantly glowing with charity; it is also never hidden by a clouded sky, even though it is not visible to us because we exist in a “cloud” of our own sinfulness.
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8–9.
   The twenty-four elders, representing the Old Testament, turn toward the chariot as to the awaited messiah who, in His first coming, crowned their time of militance with peace and who now will come in Judgment. See Ephesians 2:14, “Ipse enim est pax nostra” [For He is our peace], a text cited by Singleton (1973). Since the procession in the garden represents the Church Triumphant, the Mystical Body of Christ
after
its progress through history, it seems advisable to realize that we deal here with a scene that is meant to reflect the final advent of Christ for the Day of Judgment. See Singleton (Sing.1958.1), pp. 72–85, citing St. Bernard on the three advents of Christ (
Patrologia Latina
183, col. 35ff.). See also Thomas Merton (Mert.1953.1), Mark Musa (Musa.1974.1), and the note to
Purgatorio
VIII.103–108.
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10–12.
   The elder who sings alone is clearly the Song of Songs, whether the book itself or its “author,” Solomon, his words repeating the phrasing “Veni…, veni…, veni” of the Canticle of Canticles 4:8 (“Come from Lebanon, my bride, come from Lebanon, come”). We would be forgiven if we believed we were about to witness a wedding ceremony of some kind, featuring Beatrice in the role of bride. A strange “wedding” it will turn out to be, characterized by tears more than by smiles. In fact, no canto in the poem displays more words for weeping than this one (
Inferno
XXXIII has exactly as many):
lagrime
(vv. 91, 145),
lagrimando
(54),
piangere
(56, 57, 107, 141).

Chiarini (Chia.1967.2), p. 1112, points out that these verses constitute the longest sentence (twelve lines) in the poem.
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13–15.
   The reference is to the trumpet blast that will summon the souls of the dead to judgment (I Corinthians 15:52).

The word “hallelujah” seems so familiar that it may be surprising to discover that it occurs (and occurs four times) only in a single biblical text, the nineteenth chapter of John’s Book of Revelation, where the saints (Apocalypse 19:1, 19:3), the elders and the four Gospel beasts (Apocalypse 19:4), and a great multitude (Apocalypse 19:6, reasonably understood as the souls of the blessed, to whom, in fact, Dante refers here) all cry out this word in welcome of the coming reign of the true God and of his Judgment.
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16–18.
   As will arise all those who will be saved at the Last Judgment, a hundred angels (“ministers and messengers of life eternal”) rise up upon the chariot itself to welcome Beatrice, who, in a moment, will come to it. Where do these angels come from? We are not told whether they suddenly manifest themselves upon the chariot now just as Beatrice comes, or descended from the Empyrean with her, or with the chariot when it came to show itself to Dante in Eden. See the notes to
Purgatorio
XXXI.77–78 and XXXII.89–90.

These Beatricean angels have a prehistory. In
Vita nuova
XXIII.7, Dante imagines Beatrice’s death and sees a band of angels who return with her to heaven, mounting after a little white cloud, and singing “Osanna in altissimis.” Charles Singleton (Sing.1954.1), p. 57, was perhaps the first to make the necessary connections between that scene and this one. This procession began with voices singing “Hosanna” (
Purg
. XXIX.51); Beatrice returns with her host of angels and again she is obscured by a cloud.

These verses draw Dante’s imagining of Beatrice’s departure from this life in
Vita nuova
into obvious relation to his presentation of her return to earth here in the garden of Eden. In both cases the word “Hosanna” associates her with Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem: in the
Vita nuova
, the New Jerusalem that is life eternal in the Empyrean; here, a triumphant descent to earth modeled on Christ’s return in judgment.
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16.
   The rare word
basterna
has caused difficulty. Benvenuto (1380) says that it is a vehicle made of soft skins, used to transport noblewomen; he suggests that it fits the context here because it is drawn by two animals (this chariot, he notes, is pulled by a two-natured beast) and because Beatrice is the most noble of women. According to Servius’s gloss of
Aeneid
VIII.666 (cited first by Lombardi [1791] and then by Trucchi [1936]), the
basterna
was a cart, festooned with veils, found in Gaul, where it was used to transport chaste matrons to sacred festivals.
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17.
   The Latin phrase
ad vocem tanti senis
(at the words of so great an elder) is Dante’s own, opening a series of three rhyming Latin endings of lines, the next two from Mark and Virgil respectively. The effect is to make three Latin “authors,” Dante, Mark, and Virgil, each contribute part of a Latin verse for the advent of Beatrice.
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19.
   Beatrice’s hundred angels cite the first of the two master texts for this poem found in this tercet, the Bible and the
Aeneid
. The clause “Blessèd are you who come” (with the adjective given a startling masculine ending, not the feminine that would seem a more fitting accompaniment to Beatrice) is derived from the account of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem found in Mark 11:9–10: “And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, ‘Hosanna; Blessèd is he that comes
(Benedictus qui venit)
in the name of the Lord. Blessèd be the kingdom of our father David, that comes in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest’
(Hosanna in excelsis)
.” While Matthew (31:9) and John (12:13) also report the “Hosanna” and the blessedness of him who comes in fulfillment of the prophecy in Zechariah 9:9, only Mark has the words almost exactly as Dante has them in this passage and in
Vita nuova
XXIII.7 (see the note to vv. 16–18 and Hollander [Holl.1973.1], p. 146).

Dante could just as easily have said “benedicta” as “benedictus”; neither rhyme nor meter forced his hand. We must therefore understand that the scandalous regendering of Beatrice caused by the correct citation of Mark’s Gospel is deliberate. It seems clear that the poet wants his reader to realize that her meaning, her eventual identity, is totally involved in Christ. And thus she comes as Christ, not as herself.
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20.
   The angelic strewing has reminded commentators, at least since the time of Daniello (1568), of the strewing of palm fronds in the path of Jesus on what became known as Palm Sunday.
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21.
   The Latin is Virgilian (
Aen
. VI.883): “Give lilies with full hands.” This is the climax of Anchises’ tearful and prophetic speech about the future of Rome and the dreadful loss of Marcellus, the adoptive son of Augustus who was to rule Rome after the emperor’s death, but who beat his “father” to the grave. In Virgil’s text the lilies are flowers of mourning; in Dante’s they seem rather to be associated with (according to Pietro di Dante [1340]) the Song of Songs (2:1), when the bride describes herself as the
lilium convallium
, “lily of the valley,” a wildflower, not a cultivated plant. Dante will later associate lilies with the apostles (
Par
. XXIII.74). Traditionally, a flowering bough in the form of a lily was borne by the angel Gabriel in depictions of the Annunciation, denoting the chastity of Mary (see Fallani’s comment [1965] to
Par
. XXXII.112]). It seems clear that here the lilies are relocated symbolically, losing their tragic tone for a “comic” and celebratory one; they have a positive and redemptive valence, not the funerary significance that they have in Virgil’s line. At the same time, for those of us who are thinking of Virgil as well as of Beatrice, they do underline our (and soon Dante’s) sadness at this “death” of Virgil in the poem. In that respect the verse functions in both a “Beatricean” and a “Virgilian” mode.

This is the closest Dante comes to giving a piece of Virgil’s Latin text an uninterrupted verbatim presence in his poem. His Italian “oh,” however, does interrupt the flow of the Virgilian line. It seems more than possible that the exclamation is spoken, since it is uttered by her angels, to mark the moment of Beatrice’s appearance on the chariot.
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31–33.
   Beatrice, described first by her apparel, is crowned with the olive branch, traditionally symbolic of peace but also associated with wisdom, since the olive was sacred to the goddess of wisdom, Minerva. The three colors that she wears associate her with faith (white), hope (green), and charity (red), the three theological virtues we have already seen in the procession (
Purg
. XXIX. 121–126).
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34–36.
   Beatrice died in June 1290; it is now either the end of March or early April 1300 (see note to
Inf
. I.1) and thus about two months fewer than ten years since she died.

Virgil had been overcome by
stupore
(amazement) a short while ago (see note to
Purg
. XXIX.55–57); now it is Dante’s turn. Not even the man who wrote of Beatrice can encompass the fact of her miraculous nature now that he finally experiences it directly and completely. It will take him another
cantica
adequately to understand what she means.
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