Purgatorio (75 page)

               
Veramente oramai saranno nude   
→

               
le mie parole, quanto converrassi

102
         
quelle scovrire a la tua vista rude.”

               
E più corusco e con più lenti passi   
→

               
teneva il sole il cerchio di merigge,

105
         
che qua e là, come li aspetti, fassi,

               
quando s’affisser, sì come s’affigge

               
chi va dinanzi a gente per iscorta

108
         
se trova novitate o sue vestigge,

               
le sette donne al fin d’un’ombra smorta,

               
qual sotto foglie verdi e rami nigri

111
         
sovra suoi freddi rivi l’alpe porta.

               
Dinanzi ad esse Ëufratès e Tigri   
→

               
veder mi parve uscir d’una fontana,

114
         
e, quasi amici, dipartirsi pigri.

               
“O luce, o gloria de la gente umana,

               
che acqua è questa che qui si dispiega

117
         
da un principio e sé da sé lontana?”

               
Per cotal priego detto mi fu: “Priega

               
Matelda che ’l ti dica.” E qui rispuose,   
→

120
         
come fa chi da colpa si dislega,

               
la bella donna: “Questo e altre cose   
→

               
dette li son per me; e son sicura

123
         
che l’acqua di Letè non gliel nascose.”

               
E Bëatrice: “Forse maggior cura,

               
che spesse volte la memoria priva,

126
         
fatt’ ha la mente sua ne li occhi oscura.

               
Ma vedi Eünoè che là diriva:

               
menalo ad esso, e come tu se’ usa,   
→

129
         
la tramortita sua virtù ravviva.”

               
Come anima gentil, che non fa scusa,

               
ma fa sua voglia de la voglia altrui

132
         
tosto che è per segno fuor dischiusa;

               
così, poi che da essa preso fui,

               
la bella donna mossesi, e a Stazio

135
         
donnescamente disse: “Vien con lui.”

               
S’io avessi, lettor, più lungo spazio   
→

               
da scrivere, i’ pur cantere’ in parte

138
         
lo dolce ber che mai non m’avria sazio;

               
ma perché piene son tutte le carte

               
ordite a questa cantica seconda,

141
         
non mi lascia più ir lo fren de l’arte.

               
Io ritornai da la santissima onda   
→

               
rifatto sì come piante novelle

               
rinovellate di novella fronda,

145
         
puro e disposto a salire a le stelle.

1–3.
   The opening metaphor of the new
cantica
relies on a topos familiar from classical poetry and medieval reformulations (see Curt.1948.1, pp. 128–30) that tie the
ingenium
(genius) of the poet, treating his material, to the voyage of a ship over difficult waters. Dante’s ship, for now, is a small one (but cf.
Par
. II.1–3, where it is implicitly a much larger vessel), raising its sails over better (“smoother”) “water” than it traversed in hell. While this metaphor will be important in
Paradiso
(II.1–18; XXXIII.94–96), framing that
cantica
and representing the voyage as a whole, it was only implicit in
Inferno
(as at
Inf
. I.22–24). Once again we see Dante adding elements retroactively as the poem advances; we are now asked to understand that it has been, in metaphor, a ship all along, that hell is to be understood as a “sea” in retrospect.
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4–6.
   The second tercet encapsulates the entire
cantica
: purgatory is that place in which the human spirit becomes fit for Heaven. There is no longer a possibility, among the spirits whom we shall meet, of damnation. Thus two-thirds of the
Commedia
, its final two
cantiche
, are dedicated to the saved, first
in potentia
, then
in re
.

The words that reflect the presence of the poet derive generically from classical poetry and perhaps specifically from the opening line of the
Aeneid
, “Arma virumque
cano
” (Arms and the man I sing). Dante presents himself as a singer of a kingdom, as other classical and medieval poets identified themselves by the realms that they celebrated, the “matter of Troy,” or the “matter of France,” etc. But his “kingdom” is not of this world, and no one has, at least in Dante’s view, ever “sung”
this
kingdom before.
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7–12.
   The third invocation of the poem now adds the attribute “holy” to the Muses (who were unadorned “Muses” at
Inf
. II.7 and “those ladies” at
Inf
. XXXII.10), implying that the art of this part of the
Comedy
must keep a more religious sense to its poeticizing, since its subject from here on is salvation. Most commentators identify Calliope as the ninth and greatest (as representative of epic poetry) of the Muses. Dante surely was aware of her being summoned both by Virgil (
Aen.
IX.525) and by Ovid (
Metam
. V.338–340), the last as a part of the lengthy tale of the gods’ revenge on the nine daughters of Pierus, who, in their presumption, imagined themselves better singers than the Muses themselves and challenged them to a vocal contest. Unwisely, they chose to sing of the rebellion of the giants (see
Inf
. XXXI.91–96); the Muses sang of the goodness of goddesses (Ceres and Proserpina). In Ovid’s world of divine assertion and vengeance, it is not difficult to imagine who won. The nine girls were turned into raucous-sounding magpies. Identifying himself with the pious Calliope, Dante, fully aware of his potential presumption in singing the world of God’s justice, makes a gesture of humility. That precarious balance that a poet of divine revelation must manage is never far from his (or our) concern. It will return as an even more evident and central concern at
Purg
. XI.91–108. (For discussion of Dante’s invocations see note to
Inf
. II.7–9.)

Calliope is asked to rise up somewhat more than her eight sisters, perhaps indicating her slight superiority to them or the relative higher poetic level of
Purgatorio
to that of
Inferno
(yet not as high as that of the
cantica
still to come).

The words
morta poesì
in verse 7 continue to cause occasional puzzlement. Do they mean “dead poetry” (i.e., poetry that had died with the ancients and now is making a return under the pen of Dante)? Or does it mean “poetry of the dead” (i.e., poetry concerned with the souls of the damned)? The commentary tradition is enlightening. All the earliest commentators supported the second interpretation. It was only among “prehumanist” commentators and those who wrote in the Renaissance (e.g., Pietro di Dante, Benvenuto da Imola, Vellutello) that a “humanist” reading is found, one that selects the first alternative. From the eighteenth century on nearly every commentator prefers the reading found in our translation: Dante’s poetry will rise from the subject of damned souls to sing those of the saved. But for recent support of the “humanist” reading see Balducci (Bald.1999.3), p. 13.
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13.
   The exordium and invocation combined, what we would call the introduction to this
cantica
, occupy a mere twelve lines, where in
Paradiso
they require thirty-six. The narrative begins with two noun phrases (
dolce color
and
orïental zaffiro
[sweet color, oriental sapphire]) that we would not expect to find in a description of anything seen in hell. This part of God’s kingdom, for all the pain of penance put forward in it, is a brighter, happier place. Cioffi (Ciof.1985.1) argues for a biblical source of Dante’s gemstone (Exodus 24:10): the paved sapphire beneath the feet of God when Moses and the seventy elders look upon Him.

For the sapphire in medieval gemology, see Levavasseur (Leva.1954.1), pp. 57–59, indicating the stone’s usual association with the Virgin.
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14–18.
   The word
mezzo
here has caused some problems. It would seem to mean the air between the lunar sphere and earth, that is, the “middle zone” between the first (lunar) celestial sphere and the surface of the earth. For Dante’s own words to this effect see
Convivio
III.ix.12.
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19–21.
   The planet is Venus, whose astral influence “emboldens love.” The rest of the tercet makes clear what sort of love: her brightness is veiling, as the dawn nears, the constellation Pisces (the fish was one of early Christianity’s most frequent symbols for Christ, who asked his disciples to become “fishers of men” [Matthew 4:19]). Further, she is making the east seem to smile by her beauty, the east in which the sun is about to appear, a second reference to one of the constant images for Christ, the rising sun.

This tercet has caused consternation in some readers ever since scholars understood that in the spring of 1300 Venus was not the morning star, in conjunction with Pisces, but the evening star, in conjunction with Taurus. For one way to resolve this difficulty see Hollander (Holl.2001.1), p. 196: “Emmanuel Poulle’s article ‘Profacio’ (
ED
IV, p. 693) sketches out, with bibliographical indications, the central position of his study of the problem: Dante took his star charts from the
Almanach
of Prophacius Judaeus (ca. 1236–1304). The astronomical data found in the poem correspond only to the stars’ positions during the dates 25 March–2 April 1301. If Poulle is right, Dante has privileged those dates in the calendar. As for 1301, it is inconceivable that the reader is supposed to believe that the date within the poem is other than 1300. However, if Dante was using Profacius’s work, the star charts for 1300 fail to include data for the Sun and for Venus; Dante found March dates for them only in the charts for 1301. Since it took 700 years for someone to catch him out, we might surmise that, rather than calculate the missing data himself, he simply appropriated the charts for 1301 to his use.” For the countering view that we are to understand that the
actual
date of the voyage is 1301 see Ceri (Ceri.2000.1), restating and refining his various previous insistences on this redating.

Moore’s discussion of the problem (Moor.1917.1), pp. 276–79, is based on the possibility that Dante misread the data in the
Almanach
and actually believed that Venus had been in Pisces in 1300. Moore’s argument is somewhat weakened by his view that the action of the poem began on 8 April rather than 25 March (see note to
Inf
. I.1). Nonetheless, his conclusion, that the internal date of the vision is 1300, remains difficult to disprove (see Moor.1903.1, pp. 144–77).
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22–24.
   Turning to face the south, even though he is at the antipodes, whence every direction is up, Dante looks at the heavens over the southern hemisphere and sees four stars not seen before except by Adam and Eve. Various other explanations of the
prima gente
(those first on earth) have been offered, the main one being that they were the inhabitants of the classical Golden Age. However, if one has to be in this spot to see these four stars, the only people ever to see them were, in consequence, the first two human souls, for once they fell from grace, they (mysteriously—and Dante never confronts the issue) ended up somewhere around Mesopotamia, and there began populating the earth with humankind. Singleton (Sing.1958.1), pp. 146–55, argues well for this view, basing his sense of the passage in what he considers Dante’s understanding of the older Latin version of Genesis 3:24, in which Adam (as well as Eve) was sent “opposite Eden” right after he fell, i.e., into the antipodal hemisphere. And thus only Adam and Eve knew these stars.

That the four stars may represent the Southern Cross has long been considered a possibility. But how could Dante have known of them? Portirelli (in a lengthy, original, and fascinating passage in his commentary, ca. 1805, to vv. 22–30) speculates that Marco Polo, returned to Venice from his quarter century’s sojourn in the Far East in 1295, was Dante’s source. One can surely believe that Dante at least heard from others some of what the voyager reported. Nonetheless, neither Marco nor his book is ever mentioned by Dante. See Giuliano Bertuccioli, “Polo, Marco,”
ED
IV (1973), p. 589.

Whatever the literal significance of these stars, their symbolic valence seems plain, and has so from the time of the earliest commentators: they represent the four moral (or cardinal) virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. What is important to understand (and for a fine exposition of the point in one of the most helpful essays on Dante’s Cato ever written see Proto [Prot.1912.1]) is that these virtues were infused and not earned—which again points to Adam and Eve, the only humans born before Christ who had the virtues infused in their very making. In his commentary (1544), Vellutello both insists on Adam and Eve as the “first people” and nearly gives expression to the fact that, in them, these virtues were infused.
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