Purgatorio (The Divine Comedy series Book 2)

by Dante

  PURGATORIO XXIII

  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”). [return to English / Italian]

  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”). [return to English / Italian]

  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]). [return to English / Italian]

  8–9. Dante does not find that having to resume his difficult task is unpleasant for a single reason: because the subject under discussion is poetry (see Purg. XXII. 127–129). [return to English / Italian]

  10–12. “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.” The song of the penitents in Gluttony derives from the defining moment of David’s repentance, not for gluttonous behavior, but for lust (Psalm 50:17). For the admixture of delight and grief typical of expressions of penitence on this terrace, see Trone (Tron. 1995. 1).

  Beginning with Jacopo della Lana (1324), commentators have noted that this verse of the Psalm corrects the former sins of those who were gluttons because of its insistence on this better use of mouths—in songs of praise—than on the pleasures of the table. See the clear formulation of this idea in the presentation of Mary as exemplar of Temperance in the previous canto (Purg. XXII. 142–144). [return to English / Italian]

  13–15. Dante’s question and Virgil’s tentative answer are necessitated by the fact that, as the following simile will make plain, the penitents here are currently behind the travelers. On the previous terrace they had become accustomed to looking upon stationary souls, prostrate on the ground before them. Here, as on the terraces of Pride, Wrath, and Sloth (and Lust, still ahead of them), the penitents are in motion. (Only in Envy and Avarice are they not.) [return to English / Italian]

  22–24. The brief description of the gaunt visages of these penitents establishes the precise nature of the contrapasso here: starvation. [return to English / Italian]

  25–30. The first reference is to Ovid’s narrative concerning Erysichthon, who, having cut down trees in a sacred grove, was driven by its offended deity, Ceres, into boundless appetite that only ended when he engorged his own flesh (Metam. VIII. 738–878). The second, as was noted by several of the early commentators, is to an incident recorded in the sixth book of Josephus’s De bello judaico (Concerning the Jewish War) in which a young woman named Mary, during the general starvation brought about by Titus’s siege of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, killed, cooked, and ate her infant son. It is noteworthy that the poet explicitly adds exemplars to those “found” on the seven terraces. [return to English / Italian]

  32–33. In the faces of the penitents, hollow-eyed, pale, skeletal, an observer might read only the “m,” formed by the combination of cheekbones, eyebrows, and nose, but not the “o”s of the eyes, shrunken from view. Longfellow (1867), Scartazzini (1900), and others present a passage from one Berthold, a Franciscan of Regensburg (Germany), which describes the “letters” found in human faces, first the “omo” (latin homo) that is man’s name and then the “dei” (Latin genitive of deus, “of God”); our faces announce that each of us is a “man of God.” For the text of his remarks in English see the commentary of Longfellow or of Singleton to this passage. [return to English / Italian]

  34–36. For the fruit of the tree and the water flowing over its leaves that cause such appetite, see Purgatorio XXII.137–138; and see the later reference in this canto (vv. 62–63). That this desire is good but not yet realizable would seem again to point to the notion that this tree is descended from the Tree of Life. See note to Purgatorio XXII.130–135. [return to English / Italian]

  39. The “scaling skin” of these penitents, a sign of their advanced “starvation,” will again be insisted on at vv. 49 and 58. [return to English / Italian]

  42–48. The penitent’s quick and gentle recognition of Dante, whose visage is in its normal human condition, plays off the gradual recognition on the part of the protagonist of his interlocutor. This is his old friend, Forese Donati. He was the brother of two other personages referred to in his remarks: Piccarda (encountered by Dante in the heaven of the Moon in Par. III), praised generously (Purg. XXIV.13–15), and Corso, denounced savagely (Purg. XXIV.82–87). The interplay between these fellow Florentines develops as one of the most tender scenes in the entire poem.

  It is perhaps worth noting that the words that Forese and the others have been singing (verse 11) happen to come from the very fiftieth Psalm that opens with what serves as the protagonist’s first spoken word in the Comedy, Miserere (Inf. I.65). The stories of Forese and of Dante are certainly meant to show God’s great mercy. [return to English / Italian]

  61–71. Forese begins by glossing for us the meaning of the tree and water encountered on the previous terrace. Both of these are informed by divine power with the promise of eternal life—object of the true hunger of these penitents. As the expiation of their former gluttony leads to this better hunger, they have their pangs renewed at another tree as well. Many commentators have believed that the text here invites us to believe that there is a multitude of trees stationed along the rest of the terrace, an idea that probably must be discarded because we will in fact find only one more (in the next canto). Since the two that we do discover in the text are so dramatically emblematic of the two trees of Genesis, and since no other tree along this terrace is alluded to, it is almost certainly wise to reject that theory, as D’Ovidio (Dovi.1926.1), p. 206, insisted. [return to English / Italian]

  72–75. The text used by most of the early commentators apparently offered a form of albore, “tree” in the singular. Petrocchi’s note, however, shows a preponderance of plural forms and all modern editors agree. We have seen the offshoot of the Tree of Life (and if the early commentators should happen to be correct in believing that the reference here is to a single tree, it would be to that one [see note to Purg. XXII.130–135]). In the next canto (vv. 113–117) we shall come upon a second, clearly descended from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The most direct explanation of vv. 73–74, “the same desire leads us to the trees / that led Christ to utter Elì with such bliss,” is that the first sin of Adam and Eve, eating of the fruit of that tree, deprived them of the fruit of the other, eternal life. Thus Christ’s sacrifice is doubly restorative, redeeming the sin and restoring the reward.

  See Matthew 27:46 for “Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani?” (My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?), Christ’s last words on the cross, uttered in Aramaic. (See also Mark 15:34, with the variant “Eloi.”) Many of the early commentators discuss the passage in light of Jesus’ request that the “cup” (of crucifixion) pass from him, but then accepting it joyfully in favor of the resultant redemption of humankind. The human in Him momentarily despairs, but then the God in Him rejoices.

  For the notion that the penitents, like Jesus on the cross, simultaneously wish and do not wish to suffer in order to achieve redemption, see Trone (Tron.1995.1). [return to English / Itali
an]

  76–84. The entire context of this intimate recollection invites us to believe that Forese (to leave to one side the question of Dante’s own behavior), in his life on earth, had behaved in ways that suggested to his friend that his salvation was not exactly to be expected. Dante’s question is amusing. Since Forese, dead for less than four years (he died in July 1296), had lived most of his life a sinner (and thus was late in his repentance), why did Dante not find him down on the lower slopes of the mountain in ante-purgatory? (This is possibly a sort of compromise, a far more polite question than “Why did I not find you in hell?”) [return to English / Italian]

  85–93. The prayerful tears of Forese’s wife, Nella, demonstrate emphatically that the efficacy of prayer is not limited to the benefit of the souls found in ante-purgatory, but extends to those involved in active purgation as well.

  In a famous exchange of sonnets in a tenzone, a sort of poetic contest in the form of a series of exchanged insults, Dante and Forese heaped calumnies upon one another for sexual and other inadequacies. While there is continuing dispute concerning the authenticity of these poems (see note to vv. 115–117), in which, among other things, poor Nella is presented as being cold at night because of the lack of sexual interest on the part of her impotent husband, this exchange between the two men would seem to be based on some personal reminiscence of a similar nature.

  Nella continues Dante’s “legends of good women” here in purgatory, tales of women who lived thoroughly virtuous lives. Such as these begin with Pia de’ Tolomei (Purg. V.130–136), continue with Gaia (if one reads her character positively) in Purgatorio XVI.140, and Alagia in Purgatorio XIX.142–145, include in the briefest of mentions virtuous pagan women (Purg. XXII.109–114, adding eight more to the earlier eight found in Limbo), possibly include the enigmatic reference to “Gentucca” in the next canto (Purg. XXIV.37), and conclude with Piccarda, Costanza, and St. Clare in the third canto of Paradiso. None of the other three prominent women who are seen in these realms of salvation, Sapia (Purg. XIII) and then both Cunizza and Rahab (Par. IX), quite fill the bill, since at least portions of their lives on earth were spectacularly sinful. As for Lucy (Purg. IX), Matelda (Purg. XXVIII), Beatrice, the Hebrew matriarchs seen seated in the heavenly Rose (Par. XXXII), and the Virgin Mary, they are all creatures of a still higher order of saintly virtue. For discussions of the women of the Commedia see Ferrante (Ferr.1975.1), Jacoff (Jaco.1988.1), and Kirkham (Kirk.1989.2). [return to English / Italian]

  94–96. Forese compares the sexually provocative women of Florence with the women of a wild region of Sardinia, renowned (according to some of the early commentators) for their crude behavior and indecent dress. [return to English / Italian]

  98–111. For the sumptuary laws (laws governing attire) reflected in Forese’s prediction and which were contained in the Constitutions of Florence drawn up by the new bishop of the city, Antonio d’Orso Biliotti, in 1310, see Cassell (Cass.1978.1), p. 79. Cassell argues that the exiled Dante, writing only a few years later, nevertheless had ample time to have gotten word of these. [return to English / Italian]

  115–119. What activities do Dante’s words indicate? The first commentators believed that he refers to, in the phrase of Benvenuto, their mutual pursuit of delectabilia non honesta (improper pleasures). No commentator before the Anonimo Fiorentino had apparently read or heard of their tenzone (one of the main reasons that those who deny its authenticity do so). And it was only in the late nineteenth century that some offered the opinion that this passage referred to the tenzone. Nearly all of the more recent discussants are firmly of the opinion, agreeing with the first commentators, that Dante is referring to the actual relationship he had with Forese and the sort of delectabilia non honesta that they shared in their companionship. It is not clear exactly what activities the poet has in mind, but it is clear that his own are seen as afflicting him when Virgil rescued him from sin and led him into the afterworld. This is the first time we have any indication that Dante’s sins on earth might be characterized as having involved moral turpitude.

  There has been a continuing effort to deny the authenticity of the tenzone. This began with Domenico Guerri’s debate with Michele Barbi in the early 1930s, which Guerri’s student, Antonio Lanza, reopened in the early 1970s. His opposition to authenticity is currently supported by his student, Mauro Cursietti (Curs.1995.1). (Their position is supported by Stefanini [Stef.1996.1].) For a recent overview of the current debate, with necessary bibliography and polemical insistence on inauthenticity, see Lanza (Lanz.1997.1); see also Cursietti (Curs.1997.1 and Curs.2000.1). But see Fabian Alfie’s (Alfi.1998.1) arguments for retention of the tenzone in the Dantean canon on the basis of the evidence of the manuscripts. The debate is probably far from over. [return to English / Italian]

  120–121. See Inferno XX.127–129 for the moon being full in the opening scene of Inferno. While there is discussion as to whether the particle vi (which may mean “there” or “you”) here refers to the dark wood of Inferno I or to the penitents on this mountain, our translation follows Daniello (1568) in accepting the first possibility. We are reminded that the action of the poem began on a Friday and that it is now Tuesday afternoon, the fifth day of the journey. [return to English / Italian]

  126. The phrasing here is reminiscent of that describing both Dante’s errant soul (Purg. XVIII.43) and its love for the “stammering woman” (Purg. XIX.8 and 13), language depending on the notion of making what is straight crooked, or the obverse. [return to English / Italian]

  128–133. Forese is the only penitent to whom Dante names Beatrice, thus perhaps indicating that he was aware, in the period of their shared improper behavior, that Dante was not being loyal to her. Similarly, Forese is, once again uniquely among all penitents (Statius has just gone beyond that state when Dante names Virgil for him [Purg. XXI.125]), allowed to hear the name of Virgil from Dante’s lips. That Dante does not here refer to Statius by name might seem to indicate (at least hypothetically) that, while the two men spoke of Virgil in their earthly conversations, they had not discussed Statius. [return to English / Italian]

  PURGATORIO XXIV

  1–3. The conversation between Forese and Dante continues. We have not heard Virgil’s voice since the fifteenth verse of the last canto. We will not hear it again until the next canto (XXV.17). This is his longest silence since he entered the poem in its first canto (see note to Inf. XXX.37–41). He would seem to have been moved aside in response to Dante’s interest in the encounter with Forese and concern with exploring the nature of his own most particular poetic practice, the subject at the core of this canto. [return to English / Italian]

  4. For the phrase “things dead twice over” see the Epistle of Jude. The context is worth noting. Jude is declaiming against those who have infiltrated the ranks of the true believers, those “ungodly men” (homines … impii—Iudae 4) who are compared to, in succession, the unbelieving Israelites, the fallen angels, the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as those great sinners Cain, Balaam (Numbers 22–25 and 31:16), and Korah (Numbers 16). The presence of these ungodly ones is then portrayed (Iudae 12) as a blemish upon the feasts of Christians gathered in charity. Interlopers, they are described as “feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about by the winds; trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead (bis mortuae), plucked out by the roots.” Several commentators refer to this passage, but only Poletto (1894) does so with some attention to the context, also graciously giving credit to the commentary of Antonio Cesari (Cesa.1824.1) for the earliest citation. The contrapasso here is thus more related to gluttony than at first may seem apparent, calling attention to an arid feasting that has no regard for the condition of the soul. These penitents thus purge themselves as though in memory of Jude’s gluttonous “ungodly men.” [return to English / Italian]

  8–9. Once again (see note to Purg. XXI.103–114) we see that Statius is portrayed as putting off his Christian zeal in order to give
himself to affectionate admiration of Virgil. [return to English / Italian]

  10. Dante asks after Forese’s sister, Piccarda, whom we shall meet as the first presence of Paradiso (see note to Par. III.46–49). The Donati family, like others in the poem, is variously dispersed in the afterworld. Later in this canto (verse 84) we will hear of Forese’s brother, Corso, who is destined for hell. In ante-purgatory we met a member of another similarly dispersed family, Buonconte da Montefeltro (Purg. V.88), son of the damned Guido (Inf. XXVII.67). [return to English / Italian]

  13–15. Forese’s touching words of praise for his sister, already joyous in the presence of God in the Empyrean (the Christian version of Mt. Olympus, home of the gods in classical mythology), brought the following misogynist comment from Benvenuto (1380): “And that is great praise, for it is a rare thing to find in the same woman harmony between comely form and chaste behavior.”