Paradiso (79 page)

13.
   It seems clear that, whatever the eventual identity we are meant to assign to Ovid’s amorous god, there is one that this personage cannot possibly have in its higher context, that of Apollo, pagan god of the Sun, music, and so on. Ovid’s Apollo (
Metam
. I.452–567), pursuing Daphne with immediate disastrous consequence for the girl, is, we are probably meant to understand, the “bad” Apollo. The later poet’s “sun God” is in antithetic relationship to him when Dante reconstructs the Ovidian tale into a sort of Christian riddle. Since the pagan Apollo was understood as the poet seeking immortality (Daphne is metamorphosed, of course, into the laurel tree), we are left to consider what the laurel becomes in this rarefied circumstance. The best understanding of it is perhaps that Dante is invoking the aid of the true God in his triune majesty (see the note to
Par
. II.7–9) to make his inspired poem so that he himself may achieve immortal glory, eternal life in the Empyrean. This understanding of the laurel should be set against that found earlier in the poem (see
Purg.
XI.91–93
and note), for unlike the green crown of mortal achievements, which adorns its winner’s brow only until someone is eventually adjudged better by the crowd, this one is the reward of true immortality for the writing of the poem “to which both heaven and earth have set their hand” (
Par
. XXV.2). The passage sounds exactly like the usual petition for aid in making a poem, but has this subtle and absolutely crucial difference. Apollo is a familiar Christian analogue for Christ (for later manifestations of this medieval tradition in Calderón, see Curtius [Curt.1948.1], pp. 245, 568), and here it is perhaps the Second Person of the Trinity that first shines through to the reader as the dominant Person present in these lines (see Giacalone’s comment on vv. 20–21: “Here Apollo is a figure of Christ”). As we shall see, the other two Persons are both referred to, clearly if obliquely.
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16–18.
   This tercet explains its predecessor (i.e., why the poet feels he must turn to “the Delphic god” [verse 32] now), although it is fair to say that elements in it have remained a puzzle through the centuries. If previously he has seemingly not needed to appeal directly to a higher authority for inspiration, relying only on the Muses, Dante now turns to the god himself. Whatever the meanings and references of the details put before us here, almost every commentator agrees that this is their basic significance.

Dante, however, is apparently confused about the configuration of the actual Mt. Parnassus in Greece. See Tozer’s explanation (1901) of this material (which Dante borrows, without perhaps recognizing the problem he inherits in doing so, from his Latin precursors): “That mountain rises to a single conspicuous summit; and when the Greek poets speak of its two summits (Soph.,
Ant
. 1126; Eurip.,
Bacch
. 307; cf.
Ion
. 86–8) they mean, not the real summit of the mountain, but the two peaks that rise above Delphi, which are several thousand feet lower. These expressions were misunderstood by the Roman poets, who regularly describe Parnassus as rising to two summits; for example, Ov.,
Met
. I.316–317, ‘Mons ibi verticibus petit arduus astra duobus, Nomine Parnassus’ (There Mount Parnassus lifts its two peaks skyward, high and steep—tr. F. J. Miller); Lucan,
Phars
. V.72, ‘Parnassus gemino petit aethera | colle’ (the twin peaks of Parnassus soar to heaven—tr. J. D. Duff). Dante followed them, and naturally fell into the same mistake.”

Nonetheless, if Dante knew what many of his commentators, from the earliest through those of the last century, report at verse 16 (e.g., the Ottimo, Pietro di Dante, the author of the
Chiose ambrosiane
, Benvenuto, the Anonimo Fiorentino, John of Serravalle, Lombardi,
Portirelli, Tommaseo, Scartazzini, Campi), namely, that Cyrrha was sacred to Apollo, Nissa to Bacchus, how could he have made the second “peak” of Parnassus sacred to the Muses? At
Purgatorio
XXIX.37–42, Dante’s second invocation of that
cantica
makes reference to the Heliconian residence of the Muses. However, two other passages in
Purgatorio
(XXII.65 and XXXI.141) make oblique reference to the Castalian spring on Mt. Parnassus as also being home to these ladies. It does seem possible that Dante has deliberately conflated two homes of the Muses, the spring on Parnassus with that on Helicon (which Dante may not have known as a mountain but as itself a spring).
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18.
   For the phrase “m’è uopo,” here translated “I need,” see Landino (comm. to vv. 16–18): “chome in latino diciamo ‘mihi est opus’ ” (as in Latin we say, “I have this to do”).

The word
aringo
(here translated loosely and, in reverse metonymy, as “struggle”) actually descends from a Gothic word referring to the space in which troops were gathered (and subsequently a contest took place)—see Giacalone (comm. to vv. 16–18). The English “ring” (definition 13 in the
OED
) offers, if not perhaps a true cognate, a useful analogue, as in the phrase “I would not get into the ring with him, if I were you.”
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19.
   In this second piece of his invocation proper (in the first, at verse 14, he had asked to be made God’s vessel), the poet asks to be, literally, inspired (“Enter my breast and breathe in me”). If the first petition seems to have been aimed in particular at the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ as Apollo, this one seems to be directed to the Holy Spirit, as has been the case in the
Comedy
when Dante has represented inspiration, reflecting the “spiration of the Holy Spirit” (e.g., see the notes to
Inf
. XXXIII.106–108;
Purg
. XXIV.52–54). And now see Picone (Pico.2005.1), pp. 10–11.
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20–21.
   If the reader has accepted the possibility (even the likelihood) that Dante’s guarded speech is to be unriddled as an invocation of Christian dimension and scope, these next two verses seem to undo such a formulation with a certain exigency, for the story of Marsyas does not seem to lend itself to such understandings (but see the similar treatment of Apollo discussed in the note to verse 13).

Dante probably did not have access to the fragmentary accounts knit together to make the story of Marsyas that modern readers can find in various compendia. The prehistory of Marsyas was, if known to him,
interesting. Minerva, having invented the wind instrument that we know as the flute, or panpipes, saw herself, playing it, reflected in water and noticed how ugly the exercise made her face. She hurled it away, only to have it picked up by Marsyas, who found that he quickly learned the skill to make his tunes. He became so convinced of his ability that he challenged Apollo to a musical contest (cf. those similar Ovidian challengers of the gods’ aesthetic abilities, the daughters of King Pierus [
Purg
. I.9–12] and Arachne [
Purg
. XII.43–45]). Naturally, Apollo and his lyre outdo Marsyas and his flute. Since each combatant was to have his will if victorious, Apollo flays Marsyas alive (presumptuous mortals are always taught their lesson by the Ovidian gods whom they offend, but never seem to learn it). Ovid’s account (in the sixth book of the
Metamorphoses
) of the early stages of the myth are brief (vv. 383–386 [he spends the core of his account, vv. 387–391, on the flaying in graphic detail and then, in the quieter conclusion, vv. 392–400, on the sadness of Marsyas’s fellow fauns and satyrs at his death and transformation into the clearest stream in Phrygia]). He is a satyr defeated in a contest by Apollo on Minerva’s rejected reed and punished by the god; but do we not catch a glimpse in him of a potentially failed Dante, his vernacular low instrument contrasted with the lofty Apollonian lyre? In the account of Marsyas’s punishment that Dante knew best (Ovid,
Metam
. VI.383–400), his musical instrument has evidently humble origins: It is a reed (
harundo
[verse 384]) such as a yokel might pluck to make a tuneful sound; it is also a flute (
tibia
[verse 386]). Thus, along with presenting in Marsyas a coded figure of the poet as
vas electionis
, Dante also would seem to encourage us to fashion a further understanding: As Marsyas, he is a proponent of the comic muse, of the low style, against the higher forms of artistry intrinsically represented by Apollo, the flute versus the lyre. We have learned to read Dante’s controversial self-identifications with a certain perspicuity. At one remove, he goes out of his way (and we readily follow him with great relief) to show that he is
not
at all like Uzzah (see the note to
Purg
. X.56–57) or, for that matter, Arachne (see the note to
Purg
. XII.43–45). On the other hand, we never rid ourselves of the suspicion that the poet is also confessing that he, secretly, for all his protestation by the use of contrary exemplars, acknowledges precisely his resemblance to these outlaws, these challengers to divine authority, these chafers at divine constraint upon human knowledge and capacity. Ovid’s Marsyas is the opposite of Dante’s, who has been turned inside out, as it were. (See Levenstein’s succinct remark [Leve.2003.1, p. 412]: “While Ovid portrays the god’s removal of the skin from the satyr, Dante describes the god’s removal of the satyr from the skin.”)
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22–24.
   
Apollo now becomes God the Father, addressed by the first of his Trinitarian attributes, Power. His highest creation, the Empyrean, is referred to as the “kingdom,” of which Dante hopes to be allowed to retain a weak but true copy in his mind; he will bring that back and write it down for us. The phrase “l’ombra del beato regno” (the shadow of the blessèd kingdom—verse 23) reflects the Latin technical term
umbra
found in discussions of figure and fulfillment in biblical exegesis. See Ledda (Ledd.2002.1), pp. 302–3; Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 196–97; (Holl.1993.5), pp. 19–21; and Ledda (Ledd.1997.1), p. 137.
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25–27.
   The language here admits of two referential fields; in the Ovidian one, the tree is Apollo’s laurel, to which Dante comes to crown himself with its leaves, as his subject and the god himself shall make him worthy. However, poets are not usually portrayed as crowning themselves. Perhaps that is a clue to our necessary radical transformation of the pagan myth as it applies to Dante. In the Christian version of the myth, Apollo is Christ (see the note to vv. 13–15) whose “tree” (the cross) the Christian poet approaches to gather to himself the Christian version of the laurel wreath, the immortality won for humankind by Christ, which his poem and Christ’s love will make him worthy to receive. In this vein see Goffis (Goff.1964.1): “E così il ‘diletto legno,’ a cui si rivolgerà Dante, è certo l’alloro, ma è anche il
lignum crucis
, e le foglie d’alloro non saranno segno di gloria terrena soltanto” (And thus the “beloved tree,” to which Dante shall address himself, is, to be sure, the laurel, but it is also the wood of the Cross; and the laurel’s leaves shall not be a sign of earthly glory alone). In Dante’s world, however, as the next tercet will make clear, there are none or few who even long for such reward.

The word
legno
occurs in nineteen passages in the poem, nine times as metonymic for “ship,” seven times to mean “tree,” twice to mean “a piece of wood,” and once to refer to the cross, the “tree” to which Jesus was nailed (
Par
. XIX.105).
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28–33.
   Far from worrying about not having enough laurel leaves to accommodate all those worthy of them (intrinsically the condition in earlier times, i.e., classical ones), Dante’s Apollo must take joy whenever, in this leaden age,
anyone
, no matter how undeserving, desires to be crowned with the leaves of “the Peneian bough,” that is, those of the laurel (or bay tree), in Daphne’s transformed state; Daphne’s father, god of a Thessalian river, was named Peneus, and the river after him. See, as Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 31–33) suggests, Ovid (
Metam
. I.452): “Primus amor Phoebi Daphne Peneia” (Apollo’s first love, Peneus’s daughter, Daphne).
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29.
   
Dante abruptly broadens the subject area to include emperors alongside of poets. Since, up to now (vv. 9–27), the focus has been exclusively on poetry, it comes as something of a surprise to find the imperial crown beneath our gaze, no matter how usual the reference to both laureations may be in our minds. Dante’s sense of himself as political poet may account for this expansion; nothing else in the immediate context would seem to do so.
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34.
   Arianna Punzi (Punz.1999.1) sees this line as an example of “false modesty”; however, the line reads more ordinarily as modesty itself (“the smallest spark leaps from a great fire”), a reading that is ridiculous and thus never attempted (e.g., how could Dante say the
Commedia
was “a small spark”?). On the other hand, normal grammatical usage would point in that direction. This is not to suggest that Dante wanted us to read the verse that way, but that when we do (as he surely knew we would in our first reading of the verse, before we discard that reading as impossible), we excuse him from the potential sin of pride. Nonetheless, it is clear that his little spark is meant to kindle a vast flame in us. That, however, is not necessarily to be understood as a prideful thought, when we consider the matter in light of the given of this poem (namely, that it is derived directly from God in order to help us to pray better), rather the completion of a chosen poet’s duty.
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