Purgatorio (77 page)

100–105.
   Cato points Virgil (and Dante) toward a descent to the very shore of the island, its lowest point, truly a descent into humility, where the only vegetation is this most modest of plants, characterized by its plainness and its pliancy, and by its ability to grow in a landscape inhospitable to any other form of life.
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107–108.
   The guardian’s reference to the nascent sunrise reminds us that this scene, until now, has been played in the hour just before dawn.
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109.
   Dante has been kneeling all through this scene (see verse 51) and only now arises.
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115–117.
   The beginning of this dawn, Easter Sunday 1300, resonates, as Tommaseo (1837) was perhaps the first to notice, with a similar phrasing from Virgil, “splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus” (the sea gleams beneath her flickering light—
Aen
. VII.9). The scene is the departure of Aeneas as he resumes his voyage toward Latium, but the source of that light is the moon, not the sun. In both works the passage marks a boundary of importance, the beginning of the “Iliadic” second half of the
Aeneid
and the preparation for Dante’s journey upward toward God’s kingdom.
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118–120.
   The comparison equates the protagonist and his guide alike with a person who finds the necessary (and hitherto obscured) path; yet we surely reflect that it applies far more forcefully to Dante, who is reported as having lost the true way at the poem’s beginning (“ché la diritta via era smarrita”—
Inf.
I.3), and who now, and only now, is back on the path toward salvation.
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121–123.
   That is, once they had gotten closer to the sea, where the maritime breeze protects the dew from the heat of the sun more than it does higher up the slope.
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124–129.
   Virgil’s cleansing of Dante’s face removed the dark stain of the sins of hell from his visage and restored his white, or innocent (and faithful?), countenance. That we should think of the rite of baptism here may have been suggested by Benvenuto da Imola, whose gloss to vv. 121–125 refers to the
rugiada
(dew) as the “dew of divine grace, abundant when men humble their hearts before God and are cleansed of their habitual sinfulness.”

Pietro di Dante (1340) was the first (and remains one of the relative few) of the poem’s commentators to insist on the redoing here of Aeneas’s self-cleansing when he enters the Elysian fields (
Aen
. VI.635–636), a natural association for Dante to have had in mind. He too is entering a better precinct, having turned his attention away from “Tartarus,” the place of the wicked.
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130–132.
   The reminiscence of Ulysses here has had a recent surge of appreciation, but notice of it is as ancient as the commentary of Benvenuto da Imola (followed, as he often was, by John of Serravalle). Citing St. Augustine’s opinion (in
De civitate Dei,
Benvenuto [1380] says) that no one had ever lived at the antipodes who ever returned from there, Benvenuto goes on to suggest that this passage reflects the failed voyage of Ulysses. Some recent writers have also pointed out that the rhyme words in the passage
(diserto, esperto; acque, piacque, rinacque)
are also found in the Ulysses passage (
Inf.
XXVI.98f., XXVI.137f.).
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133–136.
   The triumphant wonder of the little miracle of the Christlike humble reed that renews itself concludes the canto with a proper Christian note. For Pasquazi (Pasq.1965.1), p. 537, the reed “expresses the beginning of an inner renewal, through which the poet, holding to the way of humility, opens himself to a new life.” This canto is thus a canto of two “suicides,” Cato and Jesus, each of whom voluntarily gave his life so that others might be free. For the way in which this scene counters the images of suicide found in
Inferno
XIII.31–32 see Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 129–31. In the earlier scene, Dante, under Virgil’s orders, breaks off a twig from the thornbush that is the damned soul of Pier della Vigna. Bits broken from some of the suicides do not grow back (see XIII.141–142), but strew the forest floor. Here the humble plant does indeed regrow. Wetherbee (Weth.1984.1), pp. 37–38, makes a similar observation. Pasquini (Pasq.1996.1), pp. 421–22, studies still other connections between Cato and Pier.

However, the major reference here is, as the early commentators were quick to realize, to the golden bough in the
Aeneid
(VI.143–144): “Primo avulso non deficit alter / aureus” (when the first is plucked, a second, golden too, does not fail to take its place). That scene offers a fitting parallel to this one, but with a major and governing difference: the classical object is artificial and precious, while the Christian one is natural and of little worth. Thus does the humility that inspires the Christian sublime help it outdo its classical forebear.
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1–9.
   This elaborate way of telling time by the position of the sun and other stars in the heavens, inopportune in hell, where the sight of the sky is denied the travelers, will be a frequent feature of
Purgatorio
. The four main points of reference are, here (and on other occasions), Jerusalem, site of the Crucifixion and thus the most significant point on earth; the Ganges, 90 degrees to the east; the antipodes, 180 degrees to the south; and Cádiz, in Spain, 270 degrees around the circle of the meridian, a great-circle arc over Jerusalem. This makes a right angle in its intersection with the plane made by the equator, which extends into a similar great-circle arc known as the horizon. Each of the four equidistant points covered by the meridian is six hours from the other. Thus we are told that it was 6
PM
in Jerusalem, midnight over India, and dawn here at the antipodes. The location of noon is left unexpressed, but we can understand that it is in fact over Cádiz, and may choose to understand that the omission forces us to supply this last indication and perhaps consider that this is the place associated with Ulysses’ departure on his “mad flight” (
Inf
. XXVI.106–111), especially since the concluding verses of the last canto had so clearly reminded the reader of Ulysses’ voyage (see note to
Purg
. I.130–132 and Holl.1990.1, pp. 32–33).

The phrase at vv. 4–6 is complicated, but eventually comprehensible. In the northern hemisphere, when the nights grow longer than the day after the autumn solstice, the sun appears in Libra, as a result no longer a nighttime constellation, and thus the Scales “fall from her [night’s] hand.” However, in the northern hemisphere it is now just after the spring solstice and the night is found in Libra, while the sun is in Aries.
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10–12.
   The mood of the travelers, compared by many, perhaps beginning with Benvenuto da Imola (1380), to pilgrims on their way to earn indulgence for their sins, is not particularly eager. Rather, they seem to hesitate. Vittorio Russo (Russ.1969.1), p. 243, cites Hebrews 11:13–16, with its insistence on the nature of life as a pilgrimage, as relevant to this tercet. That passage is contained in one of the most significant texts in the New Testament giving credence to the idea that those who were born before Christ were nonetheless responsible for and capable of believing in Christ to come (all of Hebrews 11 insists on the faith found in the great figures of the Old Testament). But our pilgrims seem more at home with “Egypt” than they are eager for the New Jerusalem, as were the Hebrews themselves in the desert (see Exodus 14:11–12; 16:2–3; 17:3) because they lacked a full measure of zeal for their journey. For a discussion of the hesitance that suffuses this canto see Gorni (Gorn.1982.1). As Poletto (1894) was perhaps the first to note, the phrasing here reflects that of
Vita nuova
XII.6, where, in a simile, Dante is unsure about the path he should pursue.
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13–18.
   This is, perhaps surprisingly, the first simile of
Purgatorio
(there was a brief comparison at
Purg.
I.119–120; another at verse 11, just above). While the first canto (vv. 19–21) involved a special relationship to Venus, this canto turns instead to Mars, treated here, as was Venus there, as morning star. In his
Convivio
, where Dante associates the first seven heavens with the liberal arts, he says (II.xiii.20–24) that Mars may be compared to Music. He concludes (24): “Moreover, Music attracts to itself the human spirits, which are, as it were, principally vapors of the heart, so that they almost completely cease their activity; this happens likewise to the entire soul when it hears music, and the virtue of all of them, as it were, runs to the spirit of sense, which receives the sound” (tr. Lansing). We shall see that these notions will come into play when Casella sings Dante’s ode to the new pilgrims at the mountain’s shore later in the canto. Bernardino Daniello was perhaps the first commentator (1568) to bring that passage in
Convivio
to bear on this text. But the valence of the passage as it is reflected here puts the alluring red light of Mars (and, later, listening to music, which is what Mars signifies in the earlier text) into a negative correspondence with the alacrity and whiteness of the swiftly approaching angel. Looking west toward Mars implies turning one’s back on the sunrise to the east. Porena’s commentary (1946) observes that Dante, as a Tuscan, was acquainted with this view of the sea, one found on the western—and not the eastern—shore of the Italian peninsula.
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19–30.
   The gradual revelation of the approaching presence (more light, greater size, two elements of white that then resolve to three [two wings and the angel’s “body”]) culminates in Virgil’s recognition of the angelic nature of the steersman. For a brief account of the nature of and doctrinal problems inherent in Dante’s angelology see Alison Cornish (Corn.2000.1).

The term
galeotto
(helmsman, steersman) has been used for Phlegyas, who carried Dante and Virgil across the Styx in his skiff (
Inf
. VIII.17—
galeoto
). It had previously been used by Francesca (
Inf.
V.137), as a proper noun, to cast blame upon the character Gallehault in the Arthurian romance that led, according to her, to her undoing. The present
galeotto
is surely to be understood as a better-intentioned guide. Dante has been cleansed by Virgil to be in the purified condition fitting for his presence before exactly such a being, “il primo ministro … di paradiso” (
Purg.
I.98–99). Hell had its guardian demons; purgatory has guardian angels.
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31–36.
   Virgil’s two balanced exclamations insist on the supernatural abilities of the angel. The first has the effect of reminding us of Ulysses. Where Ulysses made wings of oars (
Inf.
XXVI.135), this traveler over the same seas before the mount of purgatory requires neither oar nor sail. The word for “oar” was last heard in Ulysses’ speech (as was the phrase “suol marino” [ocean floor] of verse 15 at
Inf.
XXVI.129). The word for poop deck,
poppa
, introduced to the poem to describe Ulysses’ position as captain of his ship (XXVI.124, repeated at XXVI.140) now recurs to set this celestial steersman against his less worthy counterpart (verse 43). For this argument see Hollander (Holl.1990.1), pp. 34–35.

The second tercet, describing the heaven-directed wings of the angel, may remind us of Satan’s (
Inf.
XXXIV.46–52) huge wings, if only by antithesis.
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38.
   Lombardi (1791) pointed out that the “uccel divino” (heavenly bird) stands in opposition to the demon Farfarello, a “malvagio uccello” (filthy bird) at
Inferno
XXII.96.
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39.
   This is the first time in the poem that Dante is “blinded by the light.” Such scenes will recur for the rest of the final two
cantiche
.
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42.
   This detail almost necessarily reminds us of the contrary depiction of Charon’s skiff in
Aeneid
VI.413–414, sinking into the water of the swamp beneath Aeneas’s weight, as Daniello (1568) was perhaps the first to note explicitly. See also
Inferno
VIII.25–27, when Dante’s weight makes Phlegyas’s skiff sink in the muddy water of the Styx. And see the note to
Inferno
III.136.
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44.
   A much-debated text. The vast majority of codices and commentators prefer the variant not chosen by Petrocchi: “tal che parea beato per iscripto” (in such manner as to seem blessed by inscription). Petrocchi chooses the variant “tal che faria beato pur descripto” (in such a way as to render blessed anyone who reads or hears him described). While we strongly side with the majority view, we have followed Petrocchi here as always. Were we to depart from him, our translation would run as follows: “whose look made him seem inscribed in blessedness.” See this writer’s earlier opinion (Holl.1990.1, p. 42): “My own view is that the verse should be read in the spirit of Landino’s gloss, which holds that he seemed ‘inscribed, that is, confirmed in bliss,’ in the sense (also tentatively lent support by Portirelli) that he is written in the Book of Life” (see Apoc. 20:12 and discussion in Holl.1982.1).
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