Dante's Divine Comedy

Canto XIII – Second Cornice – The Envious

• 1. Why are there probably no “graven signs”—sculptures—in the second cornice (ll. 7-9)?

The penitent envious, their eyelids sewn shut with iron wire, are effectively blind.

• 2. Virgil’s opening lines may be read either as an apostrophe to the sun or, more commonly, as a prayer for guidance. However, what, in fact, does guide him with Dante (lines 13-36)?

Disembodied voices fly by, indicating the direction they should go.

Virgil was seeking a visible guide. Why are he and Dante, instead, guided by voices?

Auditory guidance is more appropriate where the denizens of the cornice cannot see.

Some critics detect the influence of Proverbs 8:1—"Does not wisdom cry out,/And understanding lift up her voice?” in the disembodied voices flying past the pilgrim and his guide (lines 25-36). What do you think?

Interpretations vary.

To what story does Dante allude in line 29?

Dante quotes Mary’s words, “They have no wine” during the account of the wedding feast at Cana.

How does that story illustrate love, the virtue that is the opposite of envy?

Mary intercedes for others; her charity contrasts with envy’s desire for another’s harm. The medieval Roman Catholic Church regarded the miracle at Cana as Christ sanctifying marriage.

The wedding itself connects to the “marriage feast of the Lamb wherein Jesus is the bridegroom and the Church the bride.”

Finally, some also see in the miracle at the wedding feast at Cana as suggesting Christ’s transformation of the Old Testament prophecies (the water) into the fulfillment of the New Testament, thus summoning the possibility of the feast being connected to the Eucharist.

How does the allusion to Orestes also illustrate love (lines 32-34)?

Both Pylades and Orestes demonstrate self-sacrificial love.

The message of the final disembodied voice is a quotation from Jesus’ ministry (line 36). How does it directly address the envious?

The envious long for their neighbors’ harm, but Jesus’ command to “love your enemies” expresses the antidote to their envy. Envy wishes evil upon others; Christ commands love even toward enemies.

• 3. How is the penitential suffering of the envious an example of contrapasso (lines 43-72)?

The contrapasso becomes clearer when one considers the etymology: invidere, the Latin word for “to envy.” According to the Latin dictionary made by Uggucione of Pisa in the twelfth century, the combining of the prefix in-, which expresses a negation, and the infinitive videre gives the meaning “to see.” The envious do “not see” through the lens of love. On the second terrace of Mt. Purgatory, they cannot see at all.

Therefore, their penance reflects their sin. Uggucione’s dictionary includes this sentence (translated) by way of illustration: “I envy you, that is I do not see you, that is I cannot bear to see you doing well.”

One critic proposes a biblical source: “If thine eye be evil, the body is full of darkness.” (Matthew 6:23).

Further, regarding the contrapasso of the envious, their stone-colored garments result in their being invisible to Dante until Virgil points them out. Further, their drab color symbolizes envy’s joyless, ashen nature. In life their envy meant looking carefully at others and what they had. Now they can barely be seen themselves.

How do the two similes of lines 61-73 present the envious?

“Pardon days” were designated opportunities to grant or sell indulgences. On such days, beggars took up stations near church entrances to make themselves visible and thereby garner alms for themselves; so, the envious in Purgatory appear themselves. The simile emphasizes their posture and helplessness, not visibility.

In the second simile, the envious are compared to falcons being trained to accept food only from their handlers by having their eyelids sewn shut with gut thread. It is somewhat ironic that falcons were prized for their keen eyesight. The irony underscores how envy corrupts the faculty of sight.

• 4. What lesson has Sapia learned in this terrace (lines 94-96)?

She now regards her citizenship to be associated solely with the City of God. She rejects civic rivalry and factionalism—the root of her envy. In contrast, she now regards her life in Siena as a time of pilgrimage and, further, asserts that all the living are pilgrims.

How does Sapia’s confession (lines 109-123) clarify her presence on this terrace?

Though her name is derived from the Latin word for “wise,” she confesses that she was not. Instead of expressing compassion for her fellow Sienese as they were defeated, “another’s harm made [her] happier than/My own good fortune.” Indeed, she continues, “when I saw [my fellow citizens] hunted in the chase,/joy greater than all others ravished me.” In her unfeeling joy, she turns to God and cries, “Why should I fear you now!”

How was she saved from her envy in life (lines 124-139)?

At the end of her life, she desired to be at peace with God. Still, only the prayers of the poor man—Pete the Comb Man’s (as Esolen’s translation reads)—shorten her time in Purgatory.

• 5. What is Dante’s confession to Sapia (lines 136-138)?

He confesses that he knows he will have to spend time on the terrace of the proud. He says he already feels “the burden on my back.” This hearkens back to his encounter with Oderisi in Canto XI.

In his criticism of Dante in His New Chronicles, written in the early 14^th century, Giovanni Villani writes, “This Dante, because of his learning, was somewhat presumptuous, haughty, and disdainful, and being rude, as philosophers are, knew not how to speak with the unlearned.”

How does Sapia respond to Dante’s offer to do something for her when he returns to Earth (lines 142-150)?

She interprets Dante’s living presence as evidence of divine favor. She asks only that he pray for her and speak of her among the Tuscans.