Purgatorio (131 page)
Authors: Dante
85.
The phrase “living beams” is Dante’s way of referring to trees as the eventual source of wooden beams that may be hewn from them.
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103–108.
The point of Beatrice’s gentle rebuke of the angels is that they, aware of Dante’s past sins and of his eventual salvation, are now seeing him primarily as a saved soul rather than as a formerly sinful one, as Beatrice now (and vehemently) does. In her view, they are celebrating his salvation prematurely because they are seeing it
sub specie eternitatis,
beyond the time that still holds him bound.
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103–105.
For the resonance of Ovid’s tale of Argus (
Metam
. I.625–721), with his vision that seems limited, for all its seeing, when compared with the total sight of these angels, see Levenstein (Leve.1996.1), pp. 194–95.
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109–114.
Pietrobono (1946) points out that in
Convivio
IV.xxi. 7–8, Dante had already revealed his theory of the relationship among the elements of the individual human soul: the fathering sower, the embryo, and the astral influences of the constellations of the zodiac that shape its human talents. In this passage we hear about God, who breathes in last the vital element, the intellectual, or rational, soul. The passage at
Purgatorio
XXV.68–75 explains that the generation of the rational soul is performed directly by God; here we learn that not even the saved in the Empyrean nor the angels can understand the love that moves God in the creation of that soul in each of his human creatures.
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115–117.
It seems obvious to most readers today that the phrase
vita nova
refers, if in its Latin form, to Dante’s first prosimetrum, the thirty-one poems collected with prose commentary known as
The New Life
. And it seemed so to at least one very early commentator, the Ottimo (1333). However, here is the commentary of Benvenuto da Imola to this passage (1380): “This man, i.e., Dante, was such in his new life, i.e., in his boyhood; others, however, refer to his treatise
De vita nova
, which he composed in his youth. But it is surely ridiculous to do so, seeing that the author was ashamed of it in his maturity.” Benvenuto’s enthusiastic prehumanist reading of the
Comedy
will only accept an allegorical, theologized Beatrice who bears no resemblance to the mortal girl of the early work.
One finds, even among recent commentators, a certain desire to avoid committing oneself to what seems completely obvious: the phrase
vita nova
cannot help but call to mind, in this context, the work that records Beatrice’s lasting impact on Dante, first in his “new life” (when they were both children, a time to which Dante refers in verse 42: “before I had outgrown my childhood”) and then later on, as recorded in the book called “The New Life.”
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118–138.
Moore’s essay, “The Reproaches of Beatrice” (Moor.1903.1), pp. 221–52, remains one of the most valuable attempts to deal with this convoluted expression of the single most important explanation Dante offers with regard to what he now conceives to have been his chief errors before he wrote the
Commedia
.
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118–123.
Beatrice offers an epitome of the main narrative of the
Vita nuova
, according to which for some sixteen years (1274–1290) she attempted to lead Dante to God, despite his natural sinful disposition. Unfortunately, even while she lived, the “rich soil” of his soul grew weeds.
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124–126.
Upon Beatrice’s death, and according to Dante’s own report in the
Vita nuova
(chapters XXXV–XXXIX), he did indeed give himself to at least one other (
altrui
can be either singular or plural in Dante). His probably most egregious dalliance was with the
donna gentile
(noble lady) who sympathized with his distress.
The lady is later allegorized, in Dante’s
Convivio,
as the Lady Philosophy. (For discussion, see the note to
Purg
. XXXIII.85–90.)
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134.
The sort of dream Beatrice prayed God to send Dante is probably well represented by the dream of the Siren in
Purgatorio
XIX. 7–32. That accounts for the first part of Beatrice’s formulation, i.e., Dante was given negative dreams about his disastrous love for the wrong lady. What about the second? What God-sent “inspirations” was she granted in order to call him back to loving her even after her death? Scartazzini (1900) offers a simple and compelling hypothesis (apparently silently acceded to by any number of later commentators, who make the same point without even a mention of his name). In
Vita nuova
XXXIX.1, Dante receives the image of the girlish Beatrice in his phantasy, the image-receiving part of his mind (one may compare the ecstatic visions vouchsafed him for the exemplary figures on the terrace of Wrath [and see the note to
Purg
. XV.85–114]). As he recounts (
VN
XXXIX.2–6), this vision of Beatrice had the necessary effect, and he resolved to love her yet again, turning away his affection from the
donna gentile
. And then, Scartazzini continues, he was allowed the final vision of Beatrice seated in the Empyrean (
VN
XLII.1). Thus, as seems clear, while Dante slept, God sent him dreams of what was unworthy in his love for the
donna gentile;
while he was awake, positive images of Beatrice. If this program is correctly perceived, it matches precisely the mode employed to teach penitents on the mountain, positive and negative examples teaching what to follow and what to flee. Unfortunately, even after such encouragement, Dante would fall again. See the note to
Purgatorio
XXXIII.85–90.
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139–141.
Poor Virgil! He has done the Christians sixty-four cantos’ worth of service, guiding their great poet to his redemption and vision, and now the very lady who sought his help does not even mention his name; he is but “colui” (the one who). Where is Virgil now? On his way back to Limbo, we must assume. And thus, we may also assume, to another sad welcome from his fellow poets once he is again (less than a week after he had already returned once [see note to
Inf
. IV.80–81]) among them in his
etterno essilio
(eternal exile—
Purg
. XXI.18). We shall only hear his name twice more (
Par
. XVII.19 and XXVI.118) and never again from Beatrice, who uses it only once, in her first words, coupling it with Dante’s (verse 55), and then to shame Dante for his affection for Virgil when there are more important feelings he should feel.
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142–145.
As Beatrice wept in Virgil’s presence in hell for Dante’s sake (verse 141), so now it is Dante’s turn to weep for the sins that made her intervention necessary. The angels may want to celebrate the eventual triumph of this saved Christian; Beatrice is here to make sure that he observes the ritual of the completion of purgation correctly, even on this trial run.
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1.
Beatrice’s words, perhaps reminiscent of Virgil’s to the cowering, hiding Dante in
Inferno
XXI.88–90, call his (and our) attention to the fact that he has not yet crossed Lethe, i.e., he still has his sins in mind, as will be hammered home by vv. 11–12.
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2–3.
The metaphor of Beatrice’s speech as a “sword” picks up her earlier promise that Dante will weep for “another sword” beside that of Virgil’s departure (
Purg.
XXX.57). The lengthy speech that she had directed to the angels (
Purg
. XXX.103–145) was in fact aimed squarely at him, using the angels as her apparent primary auditors in such a way as to publicize his sins and thus shame the protagonist. In this sense, then, the point of her “sword” had seemed aimed at them, while she was wounding Dante (if painfully enough, as we have seen) with only the edge of the blade. Now he finds her sword pointing straight at his heart.
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5–6.
Beatrice calls for Dante’s confession with specific reference to the list of charges against him that she had leveled in the last canto (
Purg.
XXX.124–132).
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10–11.
Che pense?
(What are you thinking?): Tommaseo was apparently the first to hear the resonance of Virgil’s identical question to Francesca-dazzled Dante in
Inferno
V.111. Now see Pertile (Pert.1993.3), p. 389.
It is perhaps not coincidental that Dante’s first two guides, in scenes that are confessional in nature, both prod him to consider the conflicting natures of lust and charity with the same question.
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16–21.
Dante’s attempt to discharge the dart of his speech from the crossbow that collapses under the tension of his situation produces a more audible emission of tears and sighs than of true confessions, which he can barely whisper.
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22–24.
Perhaps nowhere before or after does the poet make the nature of the love the protagonist should have had for Beatrice clearer than here. His desire for her should have led him to God.
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25–30.
Beatrice, given Dante’s muteness, rehashes the charges we had heard in the last canto (
Purg
. XXX.124–132), now substituting a fresh set of metaphors for those we found there (see the note to
Purg
. XXX.118–138). There we heard that after Beatrice’s death (1) he gave himself to another (or “to others”; the Italian
altrui
is ambiguous and may be singular or plural); (2) he chose a wrong path, “pursuing false images of good.” Now he is presented first as warrior and then as lover. In the first tercet he is like a soldier (or an army) cut off from his pursuit of his goal by the defensive ditches or chains deployed by an enemy; in the second he is like a courting swain who parades before the house of the woman with whom he is infatuated. In the first case, once he loses his Beatrice he no longer advances toward God; in the second, he moves toward another and improper destination. He was turned by his love for the
donna gentile
, who, we may remember (
VN
XXXV.2), was seated at her window and looked pityingly at Dante, who then “parades” before her a pair of sonnets (
VN
XXXV.15–18; XXXVI.14–15). If, in the
Vita nuova
, he finally returns to his love for Beatrice and is rewarded with a vision of her in the Empyrean, in
Convivio
he is writing about the
donna gentile
again, now as having finally displaced Beatrice in his affections. He had looked for consolation from this lady, he says, but he had instead found gold (
Conv.
II.xii.5).
For this writer’s view of this complex matter see Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 159–69. And see, more recently, Picone (Pico.1992.1), pp. 205–12.
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31–33.
Here begins Dante’s confession. Mazzoni (Mazz.1965.2), p. 62, rightly observes (as, for instance, Singleton [1973] does not) that the confession will be followed by his contrition and then by his giving satisfaction. These three elements in the rite of confession, in that perhaps puzzling order, occupy the first 102 verses of this canto, with first confession and then contrition, occupying vv. 31–90 (for the traditional order, see the note to
Purg.
IX.94–102).
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34–36.
Finally Dante confesses, summarizing his transgressions as delight in false things set before him after Beatrice was dead. Exactly what these pleasures were is a question that greatly exercises Dante scholars. It does seem clear that they are presented in so vague and encompassing a way as to allow two primary interpretations, that is, both carnal and intellectual divagations from the love he owed God, awakened in him by Beatrice.
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