Purgatorio (130 page)

39.
   The line is clearly reminiscent (if the reminiscence was apparently only first noted by Torraca [1905]) of the opening of Dante’s lyric (
Rime
XCI), “Io sento sì d’Amor la gran possanza” (So much do I feel Love’s mighty power). Just as was the case with Matelda (see the note to
Purg
. XXVIII.43–48), Dante’s concupiscent memories and thoughts are at odds with the nature of Beatrice. Yes, she looks exactly like the woman with whom he fell in love in Florence; but now it is clear (as it should have been then) that she loves him only in Christ. This distinction will be insisted on at
Purgatorio
XXXII.7–9.
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40–42.
   For Dante’s earlier references to his first being smitten by Beatrice while he was still in his childhood, in fact in his ninth year (i.e., while he was still eight), see
Vita nuova
II.2 (Andreoli [1856]);
Vita nuova
XII.7 (Poletto [1894]); and
Rime
CXI.1–2 (Singleton [1973]).
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43–48.
   Again Virgil is thought of as a
mamma
, that strikingly “vernacular” word we have heard applied to him before (in company with the same rhyme words) in the salutation addressed to him by Statius (see
Purg
. XXI.95–99 and the note to
Purg
. XXI.97–99). See also
Inferno
XXXII.9 and the note to XXXII.1–9.

Virgil, it may seem, is strangely feminized in Dante’s gesture toward him. However, if we consider his nurturing role in the eyes of the protagonist, the term is less disturbing. And once we observe Dante’s attempt to deal with Beatrice’s asperity and her “masculine” demeanor, we can see that the dynamic of this scene is built upon the reversal of gender roles, Virgil now seeming gentle and mothering, while Beatrice, coming as Christ in judgment (see the note to vv. 16–18), like an admiral (see verse 58 and note), seems more like an unforgiving father.
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48.
   This verse is a translation of Dido’s climactic utterance admitting that she has fallen in love with Aeneas, thus breaking her vows of chastity to her dead husband, Sichaeus (
Aen
. IV.23): “Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae” (I recognize the traces of the ancient flame).
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49–51.
   Near the conclusion of Virgil’s tragic fourth
Georgic
(vv. 525–527), Orpheus’s severed head cries out to his lost Eurydice. It is a moment that could define the tragic spirit, a decapitated voice giving vent to Orpheus’s misery at the loss of his wife:

It seems more than clear that Dante’s three-verse farewell to Virgil is modeled on Orpheus’s three-verse farewell to Eurydice. While surprisingly few twentieth-century commentators have heard that echo in these lines, even they seem unaware that it had been heard a few centuries earlier by Bernardino Daniello (1568), as was pointed out by Hollander (Holl.1983.1), pp. 132–34. Now that we have a published text of the commentary of Trifon Gabriele (1525), we can see that he was the first to notice this clear citation.

Freccero (Frec.1986.1), pp. 207–8, has noted a program of “effacement” in Dante’s three citations of Virgil here. In verse 21 a Latin quotation; in verse 48 a literal Italian translation; in these lines, what he characterizes as “the merest allusion.” This last may seem a bit too “effacing.” See Hollander (Holl.1993.1), pp. 249, 317–18, who believes it is a full-fledged citation.
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52.
   The sense of this verse is that all that Eve lost and Dante has now regained could not ease his pain at the loss of Virgil.
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54.
   Dante’s tears have reminded a number of readers, beginning with Tommaseo (1837), of the tears of Boethius that were wiped away by Lady Philosophy in the
Consolation of Philosophy
I.ii(pr).
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55.
   This verse is perhaps the climax of the poem. Everything before it leads here. And once Dante is named, his new mission begins to take form, first as Beatrice has him cleanse himself of his past crimes and misdemeanors. (His “vacation” in the garden of Eden is over.) For the uniqueness of this self-nomination, see the note to v. 63, below.

It is in response to this verse that Dante’s son Pietro offered his celebrated “etymology” of his father’s Christian name (1340): “…  nominatus erat auctor Dantes, ita dabat, sive dedit se ad diversa; scilicet primo ad theologiam, secundo ad poetica” (the author was named Dante, as in “he was giving” or “he gave” himself to diverse things, first of all to theology and then to poetry).
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56–57.
   The thrice-repeated verb
piangere
(weep) offered by Beatrice in reproof to Dante echoes and rebukes the thrice-repeated plangent calling of Virgil’s name by Dante in vv. 49–51.
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58.
   This striking and unsettling similetic presentation of Beatrice as admiral has drawn a mixed press. It is all very well to argue, as Hollander has done (Holl.1969.1), pp. 122–23, 159, 190, that Dante has prepared for this moment by staging a significant series of voyages within the poem in which he calls attention to a commanding officer standing on a poop deck. (The word
poppa
appears at some highly charged moments:
Inf
. XXVI.124, when Ulysses turns his poop deck away from the east, and XXVI.140, when the poop of his sinking vessel rises from the swallowing sea before its final plunge;
Purg
. II.43, the afterdeck upon which the “heavenly pilot” stands as the saved souls come to shore; and now, in its penultimate appearance in the poem, the place where Beatrice seems to stand as she joins the pageant. The word will appear only once more, at
Par
. XXVII.146, in the last world-prophecy in the poem, when an eventually benevolent storm at sea will set our erring “fleet” right, turning our poops to where our prows had been in our misdirected quests.) “Admiral Beatrice” seems, nonetheless, a bit overdone to most of Dante’s readers, including Scott (Scot.1972.1), who, like Hollander, sees the necessary theological trappings of her role, but is not altogether happy with the resultant poetic image.

No other segment of the
Commedia
is as filled with similes as the first ninety-nine verses of this canto; there are seven in all. And they take up more than half of the text, fully fifty-five lines of it. This one (and we will not be confronted by another in this canto) is clearly meant to be read as climactic. If we are troubled by Dante’s “Admiral Beatrice,” we must also realize that the poet has chosen to disturb us in this way.
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63.
   Dante’s insistence that he names himself only from necessity echoes a passage in
Convivio
(I.ii.12–14), in which Dante says that there are two reasons that excuse an author’s speaking of himself: first, and as in the case of Boethius’s
Consolatio
, in order to defend oneself from harm or against infamy; second, as in the case of Augustine’s
Confessions
, in order to bring greatly useful instruction to others. Freccero (Frec.1986.1), in his article “Dante’s Prologue Scene” (1966), deals with the Augustinian confessional mode as modeling and justifying Dante’s own (pp. 1–3).

There was a tradition honored by many classical and medieval writers that one should only name oneself at the
incipit
and/or
explicit
of one’s work (i.e., “Here begins [or concludes] the such-and-such of so-and-so”). Years ago the present writer (Holl.1983.1, p. 133, n. 24) thought that he had discovered a notable fact. It is widely appreciated that Dante only named himself once in the body of any of his extended works, here in verse 55. What had not been noted was that his self-nomination echoed the only self-nomination found in the extended works of Virgil, indeed in the very
Georgic
(IV.563, “Vergilium”) that Dante had cited a few lines earlier (vv. 525–527 at
Purg
. XXX.49–51). With the publication of Trifon Gabriele’s commentary (Gabr.1993.1), it became apparent that at least one earlier commentator had made the same discovery in his comment to this verse, where he says that, in naming himself, Dante wished to imitate Virgil’s self-nomination (“volendo imitar Virgilio…
illo Vergilium me tempore
”).

For the resonance here of an earlier claim, that his book is a true record of events, recording only what had actually occurred, see the note to
Inferno
XXIX.54–57.
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65.
   The veil
(velo)
worn by Beatrice is insisted on fully three times (at vv. 31 and 67 as well), and the canto has also begun with this word (verse 3). (No other canto contains so many occurrences of the word.) The climax of this scene with Beatrice will occur when she, bridelike, unveils herself at the end of the next canto (
Purg
. XXXI.136–145).
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68.
   The second (and now overt) reference to Minerva in association with Beatrice (see the note to vv. 31–33) probably, in conjunction with other references that are still more direct, associates her with Christ, or Sapience, the Word made flesh, the second person of the Trinity.
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73–75.
   Verse 73 is problematic, as Singleton (1973) explains clearly: “
Guardaci
: Commentators differ in their interpretation of
ci
here. It could be the pronoun, in which case Beatrice, in her regal manner, would be using the plural of majesty, speaking as a monarch would, in the first person plural. This reading is often accompanied by “ben sem, ben sem” in the rest of the verse, continuing such a plural (
sem = siamo
). Or
ci
might be construed as the adverb
qui
, in which case the rest of the verse is usually given in the reading here adopted.”

That Beatrice speaks the word
ben
(here meaning “really,” but also carrying its root sense, “good” or “well”) three times in order to echo the triple iteration of “Virgil” (vv. 49–51) and of “weep” (vv. 56–57) was first noted by Tommaseo (1837).

Beatrice’s anger at wayward Dante, saved by mercies in Heaven that seem hardly to have been predictable, given his behavior, is not difficult to fathom. But he has survived. Now, face to face with the beatified woman who has interceded for him, he weeps for Virgil, compounding his failing past behavior by now missing his pagan guide instead of rejoicing in the presence of Beatrice.
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76–78.
   This fairly obvious reference to Ovid’s Narcissus (
Metam
. III.339–510) was perhaps first discussed by Brownlee (Brow.1978.1). See the note to
Inferno
XXX.126–129 and that to vv. 85–99, below.
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82–84.
   For the commentators’ failure to recognize the problematic nature of this tercet, see Hollander (Holl.1973.1), p. 149, n. 2. As for the pointed reference to
pedes meos
(my feet), among the few who have believed that there is a “solution” to Dante’s riddle, there are two schools. What does it mean to say the angels “did not sing past ‘
pedes meos
’ ”? Freccero (Frec.1961.2) and Pézard (Peza.1965.1), p. 1335, both believe that the reference is limited to the end of the ninth verse (“You [God] have not given me over to my enemies, but have
set my feet in a spacious place
”) of Psalm 30 (31:8), the words
pedes meos
understood as reflecting Dante’s newly gained freedom of the will to move about the garden as he chooses. Mineo (Mine.1968.1) and Hollander, partly because Dante’s very way of expressing himself asks us to (if someone tells us he has not gone farther than nine we realize he is telling us that he did not reach ten), argue for the relevance of the next verse in Psalm 30, which is a citation of the opening verse of Psalm 50, “Have mercy on me, O Lord,” the
Miserere
of David’s penitential song that serves as source for Dante’s first spoken words in the
Commedia
(
Inf
. I.65). In this understanding, the angels, intervening on Dante’s behalf with stern Beatrice, deliberately stop short of the
Miserere
out of sympathy for poor Dante, so heavily chastised by Beatrice. (See the note to vv. 103–108, below.)
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85–99.
   For a history of the exegesis examining Dante’s tears, mainly given over to attack and counterattack over the issue of the contorted and artificial nature of the simile, see Mazzoni (Mazz.1988.1), pp. 180–89. Mazzoni goes on (pp. 189–90) to bring three sources to bear: first two similes in Ovid: the melting of Ovid’s Narcissus in his self-love (
Metam
. III.486–490, a passage discussed in this context in the nineteenth century by Luigi Venturi and Cesari, according to Trucchi [1936]; and see Brownlee [Brow.1978.1] and Shoaf [Shoa.1989.1]) and the liquefaction of Biblis when her brother, Caunus, rejects her incestuous love (
Metam
. IX.659–665, also previously noted by Trucchi [1936]). Mazzoni’s major interpretive novelty (pp. 207–12) lies in his seeing Dante’s tears as reflecting the liquefaction in Psalm 147:16–18 as commented on by St. Augustine (in
Ps. CXLVII Enarratio
[Patrologia Latina, XXXVIII, col. 1931]): “He gives snow like wool; he scatters the hoarfrost like ashes. / He casts forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold? / He sends out his word, and melts
[liquefacit]
them; he causes his wind to blow, and the waters flow.” Augustine’s gloss has it that a sinner, “frozen” in his sinfulness, may yet “liquefy” and be saved.
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