Purgatorio (105 page)
Authors: Dante
141–145.
Having walked through the smoke, they have now reached its “edge,” and so may soon regain the light of the sun. Thus we learn that Marco and his colleagues, in repenting Wrath, all must measure their pace so as not to walk either too slowly or too quickly in the smoke, which is moving clockwise along the terrace. The smoke does not come upon them, as it did Dante and Virgil; they inhabit it. Marco now retreats from the light, having walked too quickly in order to keep pace with his new companions.
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1–9.
This marks the first time that an address to the reader begins a canto, here just at the midpoint of the poem. (Two later cantos will, however, begin with such apostrophe:
Paradiso
II and XIII.) These opening lines are similetic in nature if not precisely so in form.
Dante is apparently countering certain contemporary views, which held that moles were completely sightless (see Brunetto Latini,
Tresor
I.197, cited by Scartazzini [1900]). Tozer (1901) cites Virgil,
Georgics
I.183: “oculis capti … talpae” (sightless moles). Benvenuto (1380), who says that he thought of this passage once, when he was caught in mountain mists between Florence and Bologna, understood that Dante meant that moles could see, if only weakly
(debiliter)
, through the skin that covers their eyes.
This entire section of the canto is dominated by words that often in Dante refer to a higher form of sight, in contrast with the darkness in which the scene begins. In the first forty-three verses we encounter words for seeing as follows: forms of
imagine (imagine, imaginativa, imaginar)
at vv. 7, 13, 21, 31, 43; of
vedere (vedessi, veder, vista, visïone)
at vv. 2, 8, 27, 34; the word
fantasia
at verse 25.
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10–12.
The poet returns briefly to the narrative mode in order to set the scene for what is about to follow: it is just after sunset at the shore of the mountain, with the sun’s rays still striking the higher reaches of its slopes.
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13–18.
This passage gave birth, in the early commentators, to the repetition of a charming story. Dante, having found a book he had never seen before in Siena, read it just where he found it, in a street stall, so that he might fix it in his mind, and did so for more than three hours one afternoon. When someone later asked him whether he had been disturbed by the wedding festivities that had occurred during his reading, he expressed no awareness that any such things had occurred. This “incident” derives from Boccaccio’s
Trattatello
and is also reported by Benvenuto (1380).
On these equivalent powers of the soul, the
phantasia
or
imaginatio
, see St. Thomas (
ST
I.lxxviii.4): “the phantasy or imagination is like a treasure house of images received by the senses” (cited by Mussetter, “Fantasy,” in Lans.2000.1). Thus both “imagination” and “phantasy” have a far different meaning in the works of Dante than in anything written after the Romantic era, where the imagination, given its “esemplastic power” in the unforgettable phrase of Coleridge, rather than merely receiving them,
produces
images. For discussions of the imaginative faculty see Bundy (Bund.1927.1), Wolfson (Wolf.1935.1), and Baldelli (Bald.1985.1). See also Dumol, “Imagination,” in Lans.2000.1.
As the Anonimo Fiorentino (1400) explains, what is experienced by the five senses is registered in the
senso comune
and then conserved, without its physical elements, in the imagination, which, in contrast to the
senso comune
, the recipient of sense impressions only so long as they are present, is able to preserve these impressions. To paraphrase Dante’s ruminative question, he turns to the imaginative faculty within himself to ask, “How do you so remove our attention from outer reality that we do not even notice the most intrusive events? And what informs you if not a sense impression? A light that takes form in Heaven either naturally (i.e., through the natural influence of the stars) or through the will of God.” It seems clear that the visions that follow, like those experienced by the protagonist two cantos earlier (see note to
Purg
. XV.85–86), are sent to him (and to the penitents on this terrace—but not to Virgil [see note to
Purg
. XV.130–132]) directly by God.
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19–39.
Is the division of the sin of violence in
Inferno
remembered here, with each of the three exemplary figures guilty of one of the sins of violence portrayed in
Inferno
: against others (Procne), against oneself (Amata), and against God (Haman)? For this possibility see notes to
Inferno
VII.109–114 and XII.16–21 (last paragraph), as well as Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 310–11. Wrath is defined, later on in this canto (vv. 121–123), as involving the hardened will in a desire for revenge
(vendetta)
. It is clear that the sort of anger repented on this terrace is not the same sin that we encountered in
Inferno
VII–VIII, where we saw those who had been overcome by intemperate anger. Here we observe the results of wrathful behavior formed with deliberation.
It seems clear both that Dante has once again been favored by God-sent ecstatic visions and that Virgil now knows better than to attempt to inject himself into the proceedings: he is utterly silent throughout the scene, although we may imagine that Dante is once again manifesting “drunken” behavior to anyone who observes him (see
Purg
. XV.121–123).
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19–21.
For Dante’s earlier advertence to Ovid’s story of Philomel and Procne, see
Purgatorio
IX.13–15 and note. There Philomel is dealt with as a sympathetic figure; here Procne, her sister, is made exemplary of the sin of Wrath for murdering her own son, Itys, in order to take vengeance upon Tereus for raping her sister. It may seem odd to today’s readers, but Dante thinks of Procne as the nightingale, Philomel as the swallow (see note to
Purg
. IX.13–15).
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25.
There can be little doubt: the notion of these visions as having “rained down” into the image-receiving faculty of his soul cements the claim made for them. Here is part of Singleton’s comment on this verse: “The phantasy, or
imaginativa
, is ‘lofty’ because of the experience of a vision coming from such a source. For this adjectival usage, cf. ‘la morta poesì,’
Purg
. I.7; ‘la scritta morta,’
Inf
. VIII.127; ‘alto ingegno,’
Inf
. II.7; and again ‘alta fantasia’ in
Par
. XXXIII.142.”
That the poet here uses the very phrase “alta fantasia,” which will mark his final vision of the Trinity three lines from the end of the poem, underlines the importance of this “trial run” for his capacity as visionary protagonist (and eventually God-inspired poet).
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26–30.
Once again one must know the story in order to understand the meaning of the vision, which is presented elliptically, a technique Dante employs in all three examples in these lines (19–39). In none of these is the exemplary figure named. This passage is perhaps the most striking in this respect, since the three “supporting players” are all named, while we must supply the name of Haman. Like Procne, Haman is enraged against another (Mordecai, for not bowing down to him, when he had been promoted to being Ahasuerus’s prime minister: see Esther 3:5, where Haman is described as being “full of wrath”
[iratus est valde]
); like Procne, he tries to take revenge by killing others, deciding to put to death all the Jews in the kingdom of Ahasuerus. At Esther’s urging Ahasuerus rescinds the decree Haman had wrung from him, thus saving God’s people, the Jews in their Persian exile, and has Haman put to death on the gallows (
crux
in the Vulgate at Esther 5:14, thus accounting for Dante’s
crucifisso
at verse 26).
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31–33.
The “bubble” in Dante’s vision breaks as a bubble does when it rises above the water that contained it, only to give place to another, the final vision of this terrace.
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34–39.
Lavinia, anonymous at first but soon to name herself (verse 37), addresses her unnamed mother, Amata, the consort of Latinus, king of Latium, and reproaches her for her suicide. As Bosco/Reggio (1979) point out, Dante, in the spring of 1311, deals with this scene (
Aen
. XII.595–603) in his second epistle to Henry VII and refers correctly to the context of Amata’s suicide (
Epist
. VII.24), i.e., she kills herself because she believes that her opposition to her daughter’s marriage to Aeneas has resulted in a failed war and the death of Turnus (whom she wrongly assumes to have been killed when she sees the soldiers of Aeneas approaching the city without opposition). Following expressions of puzzlement with Dante’s treatment of this Virgilian text by Porena (1946), Bosco and Reggio too are puzzled that Dante here develops the situation differently, and suggest that perhaps Dante wants here to make Amata a more sympathetic character. But perhaps he had simpler plans.
In
Aeneid
VII.286–405, Virgil presents the results of Juno’s anger at Latinus’s promise of Lavinia in marriage to Aeneas (and not to Turnus, the suitor preferred by Amata, described in verse 345 as a woman on fire, stirred by angers
[irae]
). Juno’s wrath in turn stirs the Fury Alecto, who comes to earth and puts a venomous snake in Amata’s breast. Poisoned by its venom, Amata goes mad with angry grief and, in the guise of a Bacchante, takes Lavinia to the countryside in the attempt to stop the marriage. All of this insubordination will, of course, eventually fail. It is not clear that Dante is reading the text of Virgil’s twelfth book any differently now than he was when he wrote his second letter to Henry (whether that was written before or after this passage). At whom must Amata be angry, from the point of view of Lavinia? Aeneas, because he will now have Lavinia in marriage. In the epistle, Florence, rejecting her rightful ruler, Henry, is compared to suicidal Amata. There is no reason for such not to be Dante’s understanding here. It is perhaps coincidental that the description of Amata’s suicide is preceded in Virgil by a simile comparing the losing Latians to bees whose hive has been penetrated by the farmer’s emetic smoke; nonetheless, our scene is also preceded by the smoke of anger. Amata, in this respect similar to the two previous exemplary figures, kills someone else in order to harm the person whom she truly hates, Aeneas. That someone else is herself. Hers is the secret of the terrorist, dying to let her enemy know the depths of her envious hatred.
The “death of yet another” with which the passage ends refers to Turnus in such a way as to indicate that Lavinia understood that her mother had incorrectly assumed that Turnus was already dead, just as she does in Virgil’s poem.
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40–45.
The simile is not difficult or surprising. Just as a dreaming sleeper, awakened by a sunbeam, loses his hold on his dream in bits and pieces before it utterly disappears, so was Dante jarred from his visionary sleep by the sudden brightness of the Angel of Mercy. This angelic light outshines even that of the sun, explains Benvenuto (1380), “because an angel gives off light more splendid than any light found in the world.”
This simile should be remembered in the reading of the final simile of awakening in the poem (
Par
. XXXIII.58–63). Dante’s fascination with the state between dream and waking is a notable part of his program of investigating the mental state of humans (see note to
Inf
. XXX.136–141).
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55–60.
Perhaps a paraphrase of Virgil’s remarks will be helpful: “This divine spirit does what we wish without our asking, hiding itself in its own radiance (and thus allowing us to see); and it deals with us as we deal with ourselves, for he who sees a need, and yet waits to be asked, unkindly predisposes himself toward denying the request.” As Daniello (1568) noted, this is a restatement of a Senecan motto (
De beneficiis
II.i.3), concerning the grace of giving before one is asked, that Dante had already made his own in
Convivio
I.viii.16.
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62–63.
For the “rule” (apparently more consented to than insisted on) that governs nocturnal stasis on the mountain see Sordello’s explanation (
Purg
. VII.53–60).
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68–69.
The Angel of Mercy draws upon the Beatitude found in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” yet does so in such a way as to indicate tacitly the distinction between “good” anger (righteous indignation) and the “bad” form of wrath
(ira mala)
that is fueled by desire for personal revenge.
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