Purgatorio (132 page)

45.
   The reference to the Sirens draws us back to
Purgatorio
XIX.19–33, the dream of the Siren and (as at least a few interpreters agree) Beatrice’s intervention in Dante’s dream to have Virgil show him the ugliness of the object of his infatuation. See the note to
Purgatorio
XIX.31–33.

The Ottimo (1333) is one of the very few commentators to think of Boethius’s dismissal of the Sirens (who have so harmed him) in favor of the Muses of Lady Philosophy (
Cons.
I.i[pr]).
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46.
   Tommaseo (1837) was apparently the first to explain the strange phrase “to sow tears” by referring to the Bible, Psalm 125:5 (126:5), “those that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” Even so, Dante has made the Psalmist more difficult than he had in fact been: “sowing tears” is not quite the same thing as “sowing in tears” (i.e., planting seed while weeping).
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47–54.
   Beatrice’s phrasing offers a good example of the cause of the difficulty many have in interpreting her role in this poem. She tells Dante that her buried flesh should have led him elsewhere from where he elected to go (in this context, clearly to other women [
cosa mortale
, “mortal thing”]). This is not because she was more beautiful in her fleshly being than they, but because she offered him what they did and could not, “il sommo piacer” (the highest beauty). The verbal noun
piacer
is used only once in the first half of the poem (it describes Paolo’s physical attractiveness at
Inf.
V.104). When it is found again (at
Purg.
XVIII.21), it then occurs thirty-four times in the second half, twenty-one of these in
Paradiso
. It is often used to denote the highest beauty of all, that of God. The word is used three times in this canto (vv. 35, 50, 52), its densest presence in the
Comedy
. The false beauty of Beatrice’s rivals (verse 35) should have been countered by the highest beauty that he had found in her. The phrase “sommo piacer” was traditionally interpreted as referring to Beatrice as the most beautiful of all mortals. I.e., Dante’s failure was in chasing after women who were not as beautiful as she was. This disastrous interpretation, undermined by the very antithesis present in Beatrice’s formulations,
sommo piacer / cosa mortale
, which polarizes divine and human beauty, was intelligently dismissed in Mazzoni’s gloss (Mazz.1965.2), pp. 67–72. Mazzoni demonstrates that Dante is relying upon the Victorine tradition that discussed the beauty of God, even as it was manifest in individual human beings, the
summa pulchritudo
(highest beauty) in the phrase of Hugh of St. Victor (p. 68). (For a study of Dante’s ideas about beauty see John Took [Took.1984.1].)
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55–57.
   Beatrice’s next installment drives the point home, again separating the spiritual from the physical—if readers tend to fail to notice what she has done. The “deceitful” things of this world are distinguished from those of the next in that Beatrice tells Dante that, once she was no longer associated with this world, his affection should have followed her upward.
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58–60.
   We are given yet another (now the third) version of Dante’s sins after Beatrice’s death (see the note to vv. 25–30). Instead of flying up after dead Beatrice’s spirit, the wings of his affection drooped down to earth in search of a
pargoletta
(young girl)—the sexual note is struck again—or “other novelty of such brief use,” a phrasing that would again allow the understanding that Dante’s divagation also involved some sort of intellectual experiment that now seems without eventual value.
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62–63.
   See Proverbs 1:17, “Frustra autem iacitur rete ante oculos pennatorum” (In vain is the net cast forth before the eyes of full-fledged birds). (The citation was first observed by Pietro Alighieri [1340].) Dante, as grown up “bird,” should have been able to avoid capture by his huntress(es).
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64–67.
   Understandably, Dante is now compared, in simile, not to a mature man, who should have known better, but to a naughty boy.
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68.
   Continuing the motif introduced in the preceding simile, this verse has had the effect of convincing some readers that the usual portraits and busts of Dante are all incorrect in showing him as clean-shaven. However, all that is probably meant is that he was old enough to know better because he was old enough to shave. In the same vein, some have argued that Beatrice only indicates Dante’s chin (
mento
, referred to in verse 73). Even so, his chin is “bearded” if he has to shave it. For a brief and cogent review of the argument, see Mazzoni (Mazz.1965.2), pp. 73–74. And for a hypothetical meditation on the iconographic valence of Dante’s beardedness that essentially bypasses the issue that attracts most readers (and which involves an astonishingly large bibliography)—whether Dante meant us to understand that his face was bearded or not—see Shoaf (Shoa.1986.1).
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70–75.
   The formal “classical” simile is clear in its intent: Dante, for all the reticence of his contrition, is finally won over. Its resonance, however, is subtle and not observed in the commentary tradition. Shoaf (Shoa.1986.1), pp. 176–77, decodes the passage well. He points out that
Aeneid
IV.196–278 presents Iarbas’s appeal to Jupiter to intervene on his behalf in his suit for widow Dido’s hand, an appeal that results in Mercury’s coming to Aeneas to spur him to his Italian voyage. The simile that gives birth to this one is found, Shoaf continues, at
Aeneid
IV.441–449, when Aeneas is compared to a deeply rooted oak tree buffeted by north winds when Dido makes her last-ditch appeal to him to stay with her in Carthage. In the end, he remains strong enough in his new resolve to deny her request and set sail. Here, the “new Aeneas,” buffeted by the south wind, gives over his stubborn recalcitrance and accedes to the insistent demand of Beatrice, a new and better Dido, that he express his contrition. Where it was good for Aeneas to resist the entreaties of his woman, it is also good for Dante to yield to Beatrice’s.
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77–78.
   Since Beatrice’s hundred angels are not referred to directly again, we can only conclude that, after this last act of theirs, they disappear, either into thin air or else to fly back up to the Empyrean, along with the rest of the Church Triumphant (see
Purg
. XXXII.89–90). While the text guarantees no solution, the second hypothesis seems the better one, if only because we have no reason to exempt them from the general exodus that occurs at that point, even if their arrival is not clearly accounted for (see the notes to
Purg
. XXX.16–18 and XXXII.89–90).
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81.
   The phrasing “one person in two natures” makes it difficult to accept the arguments of those who believe the griffin is
not
a symbol of Christ.
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82.
   The word
velo
(veil) reminds us that the climactic moment of an unveiling still lies before us. See the note to
Purgatorio
XXX.66.
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85–90.
   The climax of Dante’s contrition is performed as a fainting fit. He is now ready to perform his act of satisfaction, forgetting all his divagations, canceling them from his memory.
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91–102.
   Dante’s immersion in Lethe, supervised by Matelda, marks his final satisfaction of his confessor’s demands on him. As we will see (
Purg
. XXXIII.91–99), his forgetting that he ever transgressed against Beatrice’s instruction will be used by her as proof that he had indeed done so. Here we understand that his act of forgetting is an act of atonement, and is rewarded with absolution, indicated by the Latin song he hears as he completes his crossing of Lethe.

As for Dante’s drinking of the waters, it has a Virgilian source, according to Pietro di Dante (1340) and, among the moderns, Mattalia (1960): in Lethe’s waters the souls “longa oblivia potant” (drink in long forgetfulness [
Aen
. VI.715]). As we shall see at Eunoe (
Purg
. XXXIII.138), the ingestion of the waters of these two rivers is essential to the accomplishment of (here) leaving one’s sins in oblivion and (there) securing in memory all the good things accomplished in one’s mortal life.

Does Statius also drink of these waters? And does Matelda have oversight for his crossing of Lethe as well as Dante’s? See the note to
Purg
. XXXIII.128–135.

The Ottimo (1333) identifies the phrase “Asperges me …” (Purge me [with hyssop, that I may be purified; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow]) as deriving from “the penitential Psalm” (50:9 [51:7]) and goes on to report that the phrase is repeated in the rite of absolution when the priest blesses the confessed sinner with holy water. We have less certain information about who it is that sings the words. Among those commentators who venture an opinion, most assume it is the angels who sing, but it could be the (still unnamed) Matelda (as Porena [1946] admits, even though he prefers the angels). Since the angels have served as singers before (
Purg
. XXX.19, XXX.21, XXX.83–84), the most reasonable hypothesis seems to be that it is they who sing now, as well.
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103–108.
   The four nymphs represent the four cardinal virtues (Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude) in their primal form, i.e., as they were infused in Adam and Eve (and not acquired, as they have had to be ever after). God created the first humans, and no others, in this state. They are “nymphs” in that, like some classical nymphs, they inhabit a woodland landscape (Lombardi [1791]). The stars they are in heaven are probably (there is debate about this) identical with those we saw in
Purgatorio
I.23 (also referred to in I.37–39) and VIII.91, irradiating the face of Cato with their light. Dante thus seems to suggest that both Cato and Beatrice are of such special virtue that it seems that original sin did not affect them—a notion that could only be advanced in the sort of suggestive logic possible in poetry, for it is simply heretical. Dante never did say (or would have said) such a thing in prose.

The exact sense in which they served as the handmaids of Beatrice before she lived on earth is less easily determined. For two similar views of the problem see Singleton (Sing.1958.1), pp. 159–83, and Mazzoni (Mazz.1965.2), pp. 82–86. Both link the infused cardinal virtues to Beatrice’s special role on earth, reflected in such passages as
Inferno
II.76–78, where she is addressed by Virgil as “donna di
virtù
” (lady of such virtue that by it alone / the human race surpasses all that lies / within the smallest compass of the heavens).

Botticelli-like (as in his
Primavera
, surely shaped by this scene), the four dancing maidens make a composite sign of the cross with their upraised arms, which join over Dante’s head. All redeemed sinners leave the garden of Eden on their way to glory in the moral condition that marked the creation of the first humans, before the Fall: primal innocence.
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109–111.
   The four cardinal virtues, representing the active life, insist that, while they are able to escort Dante to the eyes of Beatrice, their sister virtues, the theological three, at the right wheel of the chariot, are more appropriate presences to prepare Dante’s vision for that moment.
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112–114.
   Beatrice has moved down from the chariot, from its left side, where she was looking at Dante across the stream (
Purg
. XXX.61 and 100), to, now that he has crossed it, a point in front of the chariot and of the griffin that draws it, so as to confront him.
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115–117.
   The four virtues prepare Dante to do something that will become, very quickly, the standard way of learning for the protagonist in this new Beatricean realm of the poem: gaze into her mirroring eyes.
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123.
   The word
reggimenti
(regiments, governments, regimes [in modern Italian]) would seem to give aid and comfort to those who have argued that this passage makes it difficult to argue for the traditional interpretation of the griffin as Christ. However, beginning with Venturi (1732), commentators have understood that here the word is synonymous with
atteggiamento
(in the sense of bearing, self-presentation). Daniello (1568 [118–123]) had previously understood the word as indicating that the griffin behaved “now as man, now as God.”
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