Purgatorio (98 page)

49–51.
   The voices we hear now emanate from the penitents on the terrace, not from unknown sources overhead. As Bosco/Reggio suggest, they cry out only the invocations of litanies because the rest of their texts would not be appropriate here, since these passages regard earthly ills and temptations, no longer of potential harm to these souls.
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52–57.
   Perhaps no passage indicates more clearly the disparity of attitude required of an onlooker in hell and purgatory. There the growth in the protagonist was measured, in part, by his ability not to respond pityingly; here compassion is an essential part of his ceremonial purgation. See the introduction to
Inferno
, pp. xxix–xxxiii.
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58.
   Haircloth, according to Francesco da Buti’s gloss to this verse, both pricks the skin where it is knotted and leaves it chilled, because it has openings as does a net.
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59–60.
   The envious in life were not involved in supporting others; the contrary was their care. Now their communal attitude shows their penance—as does their mendicant pose, apparent in the following simile.
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61–66.
   Those who looked upon their fellows in unseeing ways (the sin
invidia
was etymologized in the Middle Ages as
in
+
videre
, i.e., more usually as “not seeing,” but sometimes also understood as “seeing against,” another being [see Bigongiari (Bigo.1964.1), pp. 90–91]) now hope for the opposite, to be looked upon with pity. Like Satan, the avatar of Envy, the envious soul is proud as well. And the proud cannot bear pity. These penitents show compassionate affection for one another as part of their purgation of Envy. The language of the simile reminds the reader of special occasions on which the Church offered indulgences to its flock on a given feast day or similar occasion; such “pardons” provided targets of opportunity to mendicants outside churches or other holy places. Dante’s language also allows us to see the theatricality implicit in the act of begging; we are now, however, asked to believe in the wholehearted sincerity of these posthumous penitents.
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67–72.
   The aesthetic abnegation of this terrace is eased somewhat by these two back-to-back similes. Fastening our attention on the closed eyes of the envious, Dante compares them to the sewn-up eyes of sparrow hawks, captured in their maturity and temporarily blinded in this manner so that they remain docile in the presence of their handlers. The penitents’ eyes are sewn, not with the thread used on hawks and falcons, but with iron wire.
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73–78.
   Dante, feeling sheepish about his position of privileged and unnoticed onlooker, is “read” by Virgil as he and Dante have been reading the feelings of the equally mute penitents. Virgil gives Dante permission to address them—and indeed withdraws from colloquy himself for the rest of this and nearly all the next canto (his next words will be heard only at
Purg
. XIV.143).
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85–93.
   The protagonist’s labored and heavily rhetoricized
captatio
(including periphrastic references to the twin rivers of purgatory, Lethe and Eunoe) is perhaps meant to contrast with Sapia’s far more immediate and direct response (vv. 94–96). He wants to find an Italian for his cast of characters and promises, in return, a prayer to speed the process of purgation. How ironically we are meant to take this speech is not clear, but Bosco/Reggio are derisive about Dante’s “overblown rhetoric” here.
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94–96.
   The response by the shade who, we will soon discover, is Sapia, is a polite but incisive correction of the question she answers. (1) Dante had set the penitent souls apart from others, even from himself; Sapia joins them all in fellowship with a single word,
frate
. (2) Dante had spoken of earthly territories; Sapia makes all those beloved of God citizens of His city alone. (3) Dante had spoken of Italianness as a present condition; Sapia insists that geographical/political identities on earth were only fleeting and are now irrelevant.
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102.
   This physical gesture is familiar to anyone who has spoken with people who are blind, since they, guided by their ears, position their faces squarely in line with the source of the voice of their interlocutor.
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105–108.
   The protagonist’s question receives its first answer, as nearly anonymous as it can be, with the exception of the identification of the speaker’s homeland, and thus responding to only one part of the protagonist’s request (“make yourself known by your city or your name”). Knowing only this much, our memories return to the last shade and, indeed, the last Sienese we encountered, Provenzan Salvani, his story recounted by Oderisi in
Purg
. XI.120–138. There we heard about his triumph in humility; here we will become aware, between the lines, of the horror of his death.

The word
rimendo
(verse 107), meaning “mending,” “stitching back together,” is Petrocchi’s replacement for the former reading,
rimondo
, “cleansing,” “purifying.” There are those who continue to take issue with Petrocchi’s emendation, e.g., Stephany (Step.1991.1), pp. 76–77.
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109–111.
   Punning on her name, she now identifies herself as Sapia if not
savia
(sapient) and speaks of her envious nature (see note to vv. 8–9).

For the history of the gradually more certain identification of Sapia, see Giorgio Varanini, “Sapia” (
ED
IV [1976], p. 26). Most now accept the work of nineteenth-century students of the problem, which demonstrated that she, born ca. 1210, was a noblewoman of Siena, an aunt of Provenzan Salvani (
Purg
. XI.121–142), and wife of one Ghinibaldo Saracini. After the battle of Colle Val d’Elsa in 1269 and before her death (sometime between 1275 and 1289) she gave much of her wealth to a hospital (S. Maria dei Pellegrini) that she and her husband (who had died before the great battle) had founded in 1265 in Siena.
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112–123.
   Sapia’s narrative falls into two parts, this first containing the evidence of her former sinfulness, exemplified most savagely in her admission of her joy in witnessing the death of her own people, most probably Provenzan Salvani, her nephew.

As for Provenzan (a rough Sienese equivalent of the Florentine Farinata [
Inf
. X]), the man who led the Sienese Ghibellines in their triumph over the Guelphs of Florence at Montaperti in 1260 and the leading Ghibelline soldier of his city, he was captured in the battle of Colle Val d’Elsa, some ten miles northwest of Siena, and decapitated. According to Giovanni Villani (
Cronica
VII.31), his head, at the end of a pike, was then marched around the battlefield by his triumphant French and Florentine Guelph enemies. Since Sapia was also a Ghibelline it is difficult or impossible to know why she was so pleased by his death (most assume that Provenzan is among the “townsmen” whose death brought her so much pleasure). Since her sin was envy, it seems clear that Dante wants us to understand that she resented his and/or other townsmen’s position and fame, that her involvement was personal, not political.
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124–129.
   Before her death, Sapia’s change of heart brought her back to the love of God and her neighbor. As for Pier Pettinaio, whose second name is not a family name but an epithet denoting his profession, i.e., he sold combs to ladies (
pettine
means “comb”), it was his prayerful intervention after her death that reduced her time in ante-purgatory. Since she has been dead between twenty-five and eleven years, and since we would assume she would have spent at least a little time on the terrace of Pride, she has surely moved quickly up the mountain, sped by Pier’s prayers. A “native of Campi in the Chianti district NE. of Siena, he was a hermit of the Franciscan Order, and dwelt in Siena, where he was renowned for his piety and miracles. Ubertino da Casale (
Par
. XII.124) in the prologue to his
Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu
mentions that he had received spiritual instruction from him. Pier died on Dec. 5, 1289, and was buried at Siena, where he was long venerated as a saint, in a handsome tomb erected at the public expense”
(T)
.
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130–132.
   Sapia now, having satisfied Dante’s question in both its points, asks after his identity. Having heard him breathe, she divines that he is present in the flesh (but has no sense of Virgil’s presence as his guide, thus motivating the exchange that follows at vv. 139–142).
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133–138.
   Dante’s admission of his culpability in Pride is a brilliant stroke, taking that stick out of his reader’s hand and also, in some strange way, convincing us that this prideful poet has become, under the burden of this poem, humble—or something like that. It also serves to free him from the curse of every artist (as Oderisi knew): the emulous consideration of his or her competitors, from which he pronounces himself totally free.
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143–144.
   The protagonist fulfills the terms of the condition he had offered at verse 93: if an Italian will come forward, he will pray for that soul.
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145–150.
   Sapia’s acceptance of Dante’s offer of prayer, making him her second Pier Pettinaio, is accepted with a grace that is also morally telling: she may have envied Provenzan his prowess and his fame, but not Dante, who has won the greatest victory of anyone, coming to the afterworld in the flesh. She responds to his charity for her with charity.
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151–154.
   These four lines produce perhaps the most debated passage in this canto. Before approaching that controversy, it may be helpful to understand some of the rather recondite references in play here. In 1303, Siena purchased the seaport called Talamone, on the Mediterranean coast about fifteen miles away, in order to have better access to shipping routes; the problem was that the dredging necessary to keep the waters between Siena and the sea negotiable was an overwhelming problem. Consequently, the project had to be abandoned soon after the funds had been appropriated to support it. Similarly, another civic works project involved a search for an underground river (named Diana because the statue of the goddess had stood in the market square of the city); it too was a failure. The final
frecciata
, or gibe, of Sapia is to suggest that the biggest losers in the scheme to acquire a harbor on the sea will be the admirals. This word has been greatly debated: does Sapia refer to actual admirals? to investors in the scheme? to those who sold participation in the enterprise? It seems clear that Dante is making Sapia joke for him (Siena jokes being for Florentines what Harvard jokes are for Yalies). This writer’s view is that the playfully nasty phrase is precisely similar to one still in use today: “the Swiss navy.” The phrase requires that we recognize that the Swiss cannot have a navy because they do not have an ocean to put a navy on—exactly the same condition in which we find the Sienese. For a similar appreciation see Porena’s lengthy discussion (1946) of these verses.

Sapia, as we have seen, is a moving figure, convincingly grappling with her former sin and seemingly in control of it. It seems clear that every verse she speaks in this canto is stamped by that change in her character, including her shrewd understanding of exactly what she was like within herself, precisely what she sounded like to others. It is a remarkable exercise in self-awareness. On the other hand, some argue that these final lines show that she is still very much in the grip of her old failing. Here, for example, is Singleton’s analysis: “Thus, by this jibe at her fellow-townsmen, it is clear that Sapia can still be malicious and still has time to serve on this terrace, purging away such feelings.” This is a fairly typical reaction. It should be observed that, if these last remarks present a soul still sinful, her sin is
not
Envy. She may be insensitive, perhaps, but not envious. First of all, she is speaking only of a few Sienese here, the would-be big shots in whose company Dante may find her decent relatives. Second, her remarks are not intended to affect these thieves and fools, but only (perhaps) to aid her relatives in fending off their wiles—if they are intended to have any practical worldly effect at all. Both Cassell (Cass.1984.1) and Stephany (Step.1991.1), pp. 83–86, support the view of Musumarra (Musu.1967.1), pp. 461–67, that Sapia’s words are not to be read as evidence of her slipping back into the sin of Envy but rather as reflecting her desire to help her familiars and fellow citizens escape from the devastations that will befall them because of their misguided civic pride. In such readings, Sapia’s last moment in the poem (and she has been given more of its space, forty-nine verses [106–154], than anyone encountered on the mountain except for Oderisi [XI.79–142—much of whose speech is devoted to the discussion of others] after the extended meeting with Sordello [
Purg
. VI–VIII]) is not offered up as a kind of recantation. Rather, this sharp-tongued, witty, and self-understanding woman ends her words with charity for all who have chosen the true way, along with acerbic wit for those who are governed by foolishness and pride. If that sounds like a description of the poet who created her, so be it.
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