Purgatorio (116 page)

74–75
.  The phrasing is self-conscious in the extreme. Dante, having invented a Christian Statius, now hints that it is a fabrication of his own by putting the language of portraiture (and not of history) into the mouth of his creation. See Hollander (Holl.1980.2), p. 206.
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76–81.
   Soon Virgil’s words seemed so to confirm the message of the preachers who followed Christ’s apostles that Statius began to frequent these Christians.
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82–87.
   Statius’s epic is dedicated (fulsomely) to the emperor. Thus Dante, believing that Domitian persecuted Christians and that Statius was a Christian, had to resolve that problem by imagining a conversion that only bloomed
after
he had begun writing the
Thebaid
. “Domitian (Titus Flavius Domitianus Augustus), Roman Emperor, younger son of Vespasian and successor of his brother, Titus; he was born at Rome
A
.
D
. 51, became Emperor in 81, and was murdered in 96. Among the many crimes traditionally imputed to him was a relentless persecution of the Christians, which is mentioned by Orosius (
Hist
. VII.x.1), who was doubtless Dante’s authority”
(T)
. Orosius, however, puts this persecution late in Domitian’s reign, while Dante would seem to have believed that it occurred earlier, i.e., at the very least before Statius had reached the seventh book of his epic. While later historians question either the severity or the very existence of Domitian’s persecution of Christians (and Jews [see the Ottimo (1333)]), Dante’s early commentators, who may reflect traditions known also to him, insist that Domitian was only the second emperor (after Nero) to persecute Christians. The Anonimo Fiorentino (1400) states that Domitian’s persecutions began in the fourth year of his reign (81–96) and that in 89, when they reached their height, they had made martyrs of such notable Christians as St. Clement. If Dante was aware of the traditional timetable for the composition of the
Thebaid
, 80–92, his life of Statius, supplied in these verses, would match well with those particulars.
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88–89.
   Baptism, we remember from the last time we heard the word in the poem (
Inf
. IV.35), was precisely what Virgil and his fellow pagans in Limbo lacked. Statius indicates that by the time he was writing the seventh book of his epic, when the exiled Theban forces, returning, prepared their assault on the city, he had been baptized.
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90.
   Dante’s secret-Christian topos has its roots in John’s gospel (John 19:38–39) in the figures of Joseph of Arimathea (Singleton [1973]) and Nicodemus (Benvenuto [1380]), both of whom come only secretly to Christ’s tomb.
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92–93.
   Statius’s four hundred years and more on the terrace of Sloth are the fitting result of his tardiness in making an open declaration of the faith to which he had,
mirabile dictu
, been led by Virgil’s
Eclogue
. For slothful behavior as being slowness to love correctly see
Purgatorio
XVII.130 and XVIII.8, and see Carroll’s remarks, quoted in the note to
Purgatorio
XVIII.103.
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94–95.
   Statius’s remark inevitably reminds Virgil that, even though he is surely the greater poet, he has lost the most important contest in life. Modesto (Mode.1995.1), p.11, compares his role to that of Brunetto in
Inferno
XV.123–124, who seems to be a winner but who has, in fact, lost everything.
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96.
   This “throwaway line,” insisting on the plethora of time available for Statian discourse, again reminds the reader of the unusual nature of the entire Statius episode, displacing “normal” events and procedures in order to give maximum importance to this remarkable invention on Dante’s part.
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97–108.
   Virgil now adds nine classical poets to the named population of Limbo (five poets and thirty-five others). Added to the “school” of Homer (“that Greek / the Muses suckled more than any other”) are five Latins: Terence, Caecilius Statius (of whom no texts survive), and Plautus (all wrote in the second century
B
.
C
.); Dante’s knowledge of their works was mainly nonexistent, with the barely possible exception of Terence (see notes to
Inf
. IV.88–90 and XVIII.133–135); Varro is either Publius Terentius Varro or Lucius Varius Rufus, both Roman poets of the first century
B
.
C
. Dante’s source for these names is debated, with Horace (
Ars poetica
54–55) the leading candidate. On the three Latin comic poets see Bara´nski (Bara.1993.1), who also suggests (p. 233) that Varro is associated with tragedy and Persius with satire, thus rounding out the three major Latin styles.

The names of the four Greeks whom Virgil goes on to mention, derived from the writings of Aristotle, St. Thomas, and perhaps still others, were nearly all that Dante knew of them, three tragedians of the fifth century
B
.
C
., Euripides, Antiphon, and Agathon, and one lyric poet, Simonides.

Their conversation, Virgil reports, is of Mt. Parnassus, home of the Muses, the mountain that Statius (verse 65) says Virgil first led him toward in making him desire to be a poet. They and Virgil learn too late about this better Christian mountain.
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109–114.
   Virgil adds eight more souls to Limbo, now not those of poets, but of virtuous women. All of them are to be found in Statius’s two epics (the last two in the
Achilleid
) and all are also to be understood, as they were by Giovanni Boccaccio, as exemplifying filial piety (see Hollander [Holl.1983.1], pp. 208–12). “She that revealed Langia” is Hypsipyle (see
Inf
. XVIII.92 and
Purg
. XXVI.95). “La figlia di Tiresia” is, almost all now agree, Manto, thus causing a terrible problem for Dante’s interpreters, the sole “bilocation” in his poem (for her first appearance see
Inf
. XX.52–102). Did he, like Homer, “nod”? Are we faced with an error of transcription? Or did he intentionally refer here to Statius’s Manto, while Virgil’s identical character is put in hell? For the second view, see the work of Kay and Hollander referred to in the note to
Inferno
XX.52–56.
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118–120.
   The personified hours of the day (see note to
Purg
. XII.81) are now between ten o’clock and eleven, with the fifth hour, presented as a chariot’s yoke, aimed upward in the sky toward the sun.
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121–123.
   Virgil’s remark reveals how much he (and we) are taken by the story of Statius, so much so that the continued penitential circling seems almost an afterthought. Statius has consented to keep the penitential Dante and his revered guide company. He is free, they are bound.
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127–129.
   The two poets (
poeti
, vv. 115, 139) are speaking of making poetry
(poetar)
while Dante listens; it is a scene reminiscent of that in
Inferno
IV.103–105, on which occasion Dante does more than only listen to the discussion.
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130–135.
   Many early commentators believed that this tree is upside down, with its roots in the air and its tip in or on the ground. It seems better to understand that its “branches” bend downward (rather than reaching upward, as do those of earthly trees) and are longer the higher they are found on the trunk, so as to prevent anyone from climbing. However that matter may be resolved (and the text would seem to support this second view, as Scartazzini [1900] argues), it seems clear that this tree is portrayed as being a shoot from the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9). While a good deal of debate surrounds this point, strong arguments for this identification are found in Scartazzini (1900).
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136–138.
   This tree is nourished from above, through its leaves, not from below, through its root system. Since it is an evergreen, and indeed a mystical representation of a supernatural tree, it does not require nourishment at all. The water that moistens its branches may thus be symbolic of the water of Life that came to fulfill the function of the Tree of Life in Jesus, who restored to humankind the immortality lost in Eden.
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140–141.
   Like the tree, the voice from within it is mysterious as well; it would rather seem to be the “voice” of the tree itself than anything else. What the voice says at first may seem to be a version of God’s prohibition of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to Adam (Genesis 2:17, a passage Mattalia [1960] believes is repeated at
Purg
. XXIV.115—but see the note to that passage). However, it seems far more likely that this voice speaks of the result of Original Sin, humankind’s loss of eternal life, symbolized here in the unavailability of the fruit (described in verse 132) of this tree, the Tree of Life.
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142–154.
   The rest of the canto is dedicated to the exemplars of Temperance, the virtue opposed to Gluttony, thirteen verses spoken by, as far as we can tell, the tree itself.
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142–144.
   Mary is presented as wanting to be sure others are fed properly at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee (the same biblical scene [John 2:1–7] that furnished, in
Purg
. XIII.29, her charitable answer to Envy); she was not herself interested in eating, and her mouth is rather presented as being preserved for her later task, as intercessor, of intervening for sinners with her prayers.
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145–147.
   Roman matrons of the old days, probably in Dante’s mind those associated with republican Rome, before the excesses that characterized the reign of the Caesars, are paired with Daniel who, in Daniel 1:8, is presented as being uninterested in the food of the king’s table or in wine. This is the first time that Dante uses a group as exemplary, a choice that he will make again in the next pairing.
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148–154.
   The inhabitants of the golden age of Saturn are described by Ovid (
Metam
. 1.103–106), in which men, before tillage, happily consumed berries and acorns. Once again a classical group is paired with a Hebrew individual, John the Baptist, similarly temperate. Shoaf (Shoa.1978.1), p. 197, refers to “the hunger of Temperance” in another context, but the phrase is apt here.

It is possible that Daniello (1568) was the first to cite, in support of John’s “greatness,” the apt passage in Matthew 11:11 (some others will later also cite the nearly identical one in Luke 7:28): “Among those who are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.” It is striking that no commentator gathered in the DDP who cites this passage ever goes on to cite its concluding sentence, which fits the context here so very well, where Virgil has served as prophet of Christ for Statius but not for himself (for Virgil’s role in the poem as reflecting that of John the Baptist, see the note to
Inf
. I.122): “But he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
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3.
   For
perdere la vita
as meaning simply “to spend one’s life,” and as not necessarily implying any negative moralizing judgment, see Jenni (Jenn.1972.1), p. 1n. The context here (Virgil’s gentle chiding), however, would seem to support the more usual interpretation, one that sees the phrase as negative (“waste one’s life”).
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4.
   The phrase that would make Virgil “more than father” to Dante, according to the early commentators, praises his instruction of Dante in virtue, here redirecting his attention to the immediate task (and back from mere curiosity, in Carroll’s view [1904]). It may also reflect the Roman poet’s extraordinary ability to bring a pagan—and perhaps even this backsliding Christian—to Christ, as Statius’s narrative has established (and see
Purg
. XXX.51, Dante’s ultimate gesture of farewell to his “father”: “Virgil, to whom I gave myself for my salvation”).
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5–6.
   Virgil has broken off his conversation with Statius in order to address Dante (with an Italian version of the Latin vocative case: “figliuole,” verse 4). As Singleton (1973) points out, all three of the similar warnings on the part of the protagonist’s guide that the journey must be completed within a definite period occur in the “next-to-last circle of each of the three realms” (see also Inf. XXIX. 10–12;
Par
. XXII. 124 [the eighth of the nine heavenly spheres]).
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