Dante's Divine Comedy

• 1. Consider the pseudo-simile of lines 1-9. Compare them to VI.76-77. What image do both passages share?

Both refer to sailors and ships. Here again we encounter nautical imagery as we did in the following instances:

• Inferno III.78 & 82 (related to Charon)
• VIII.13-14, 17-19, 28-30, 31-33, 45-46 (all related to Phlegyas)
• XVII.97-108 (comparing Geryon to a boat)
• XXI.9, 40-45, and 48-51 (the devils compared to a helmsman, sailor, and shipwrights)
• XXII.1-6 and 13-15, (the devils compared to sailors and ship caulking)
• XXVI: 85-90, 100-105, and 136-139 (Ulysses’s ship, voyage, and wreck)
• XXXIV.46-52 (Satan’s wings as sails and the cause of a storm at sea)
• Purgatorio I.1-14, II.1-45 (angel’s boat bringing souls to shore)

Sailors, in Dante’s time, often had to come to shore to pass the hours of darkness in the evening. What other group of travelers has to pause for the evening?

Pilgrims. Of course, Dante is a pilgrim.

What third image is associated with pilgrims (lines 4-6).

The bell (which is usually rung in the evening to call monastics to the service of Compline), another reminder that evening is falling in Purgatory.

What rhetorical device is evident in lines 19-21?

It is an apostrophe, the first of seven directed at the reader in this canticle.

Within this apostrophe, what is the “veil” as opposed to the “truth”?

The “veil” is the fictional narrative that is The Divine Comedy. The “truth” is, in fact, the deeper meaning of the poem. This view of literature is prevalent among medieval writers.

• 2. The appearance of two angels in lines 25-27 recalls Genesis 3:24 — “[God] placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way.” Of course, these angels protect souls; they do not seek to keep them out as do those in the Genesis account. Why are their swords blunted?

It is possible that the blunted swords represent God’s mercy. If they were sharp, they would more likely represent His justice. The two interpretations were somewhat standard during the period.

What do you make of the serpent the angels have come to fend off (lines 37-39)?

It surely represents Satan as it does in the account in Genesis of the tempting serpent in the Garden of Eden. Because Dante describes himself as “cold as ice” in line 41, the association with the serpent to Satan is reinforced in light of a similar description of Dante when he encounters Satan in Inferno.

• 3. Judge Nino in lines 46 and following is the grandson of Count Ugolino, the cannibalizing soul gnawing on Archbishop Ruggieri’s head in the Ninth Circle. What is his apparent relationship to Dante (lines 53-54)?

Dante clearly regards Nino as a friend or, at least, someone he respects. Of course, Nino recognizes him, too, making the former the more likely case.

This is the third instance of a soul in Ante-Purgatory being a son or grandson of someone damned in Hell.

What misconception regarding Dante does Nino seem to conclude in lines 56-57?

He seems to believe Dante is one of the souls coming to Purgatory to endure its purifying suffering.

• 4. What are the “three lamps” of line 90?

They are three stars that represent the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity (love). They have now replaced the four stars of Canto 1 that represented the cardinal virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice.